the aboriginal race to bondage. A successful general turns his arms against the state which he serves. A society, made brutal by oppression, rises madly on its masters, sweeps away all old laws and usages, and, when its first paroxysm of rage is over, sinks down passively under any form of polity which may spring out of the chaos. A chief of a party, as at Florence, becomes imperceptibly a sovereign, and the founder of a dynasty. A captain of mercenaries, as at Milan, seizes on a city, and by the sword makes himself its ruler. An elective senate, as at Venice, usurps permanent and hereditary power. It is in events such as these that governments have generally originated; and we can see nothing in such events to warrant us in believing that the governments thus called into existence will be peculiarly well fitted to distinguish between religious truth and heresy.

Papist. He was, as Davila hints, strongly suspected of having no religion at all in theory, and was certainly not much under religious restraints in his practice. Take the Czar Peter, the Empress Catharine, Frederic the Great. It will surely not be disputed that these sovereigns, with all their faults, were, if we consider them with reference merely to the temporal ends of government, above the average of merit. Considered as theological guides, Mr. Gladstone would probably put them below the most abject drivellers of the Spanish branch of the house of Bourbon. Again, when we pass from individuals to systems, we by no means find that the aptitude of governments for propagating religious truth is proportioned to their aptitude for secular functions. Without being blind admirers either of the French or of the American institutions, we think it clear that the persons and property of citizens are better protected in France When, again, we look at the constiand in New England than in almost tutions of governments which have any society that now exists, or that has become settled, we find no great seever existed; very much better, cer-curity for the orthodoxy of rulers. One tainly, than in the Roman empire magistrate holds power because his under the orthodox rule of Constantine name was drawn out of a purse; and Theodosius. But neither the another, because his father held it begovernment of France, nor that of fore him. There are representative sysNew England, is so organized as to be tems of all sorts, large constituent fit for the propagation of theological bodies, small constituent bodies, unidoctrines. Nor do we think it im-versal suffrage, high pecuniary qualiprobable that the most serious religious fications. We see that, for the temporal errors might prevail in a state which, ends of government, some of these considered merely with reference to tem- constitutions are very skilfully conporal objects, might approach far nearer structed, and that the very worst of than any that has ever been known to them is preferable to anarchy. We see the idea of what a state should be. some sort of connection between the very worst of them and the temporal well-being of society. But it passes our understanding to comprehend what connection any one of them has with theological truth.

But we shall leave this abstract question, and look at the world as we find it. Does, then, the way in which governments generally obtain their power make it at all probable that they will be more favourable to orthodoxy than And how stands the fact? Have to heterodoxy? A nation of barbarians not almost all the governments in the pours down on a rich and unwarlike world always been in the wrong on empire, enslaves the people, portions religious subjects? Mr. Gladstone, we out the land, and blends the institu- imagine, would say that, except in the tions which it finds in the cities with time of Constantine, of Jovian, and of those which it has brought from the a very few of their successors, and woods. A handful of daring adven- occasionally in England since the Returers from a civilised nation wander formation, no government has ever to some savage country, and reduce | been sincerely friendly to the pure and

truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew into Mahometanism as into Christianity.

apostolical Church of Christ. If, there- | certain worldly inconveniences with fore, it be true that every ruler is another set. It is of the very nature bound in conscience to use his power of argument to serve the interests of for the propagation of his own religion, it will follow that, for one ruler who has been bound in conscience to use his power for the propagation of truth, a thousand have been bound in conscience to use their power for the propagation of falsehood. Surely this is a conclusion from which common sense recoils. Surely, if experience shows that a certain machine, when used to produce a certain effect, does not produce that effect once in a thousand times, but produces, in the vast majority of cases, an effect directly contrary, we cannot be wrong in saying that it is not a machine of which the principal end is to be so used.

If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people, uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we, as will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate resort to means' which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments propagate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from all civil offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly advantages with one set of doctrines, and

From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons, the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think it his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly exempt from its operation.

This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop here? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings on which this theory rests evidently lead to sanguinary persecution. If the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as government; if it be the duty of a government to employ for that end its constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he plays truant at church-time a task is.

the Windward Station, is small indeed, when compared with the number of souls which have been caught in the snares of one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can give a reason, a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort against which it is the

set him. If he should display the precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the educacation of their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are in-end of government to guard. But capable of judging for themselves, to how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the receive religious instruction and to at- evil which the heresiarch produces as tend religious worship. Why, then, is evil of the sort against which it is the this prerogative of punishment, so emi- end of government to guard, can esnently paternal, to be withheld from a cape from the obvious consequence of paternal government? It seems to us, his doctrine, we do not understand. also, to be the height of absurdity to The world is full of parallel cases. An employ civil disabilities for the propa- orange-woman stops up the pavement gation of an opinion, and then to shrink with her wheelbarrow; and a policefrom employing other punishments for man takes her into custody. A miser the same purpose. For nothing can be who has amassed a million suffers an clearer than that, if you punish at all, old friend and benefactor to die in a you ought to punish enough. The pain workhouse, and cannot be questioned caused by punishment is pure unmixed before any tribunal for his baseness evil, and never ought to be inflicted, and ingratitude. Is this because legisexcept for the sake of some good. It lators think the orange-woman's conis mere foolish cruelty to provide pe- duct worse than the miser's? Not at nalties which torment the criminal all. It is because the stopping up of without preventing the crime. Now it the pathway is one of the evils against is possible, by sanguinary persecution which it is the business of the public unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opin-authorities to protect society, and ions. In this way the Albigenses were heartlessness is not one of those evils. put down. In this way the Lollards It would be the height of folly to say were put down. In this way the fair that the miser ought, indeed, to be promise of the Reformation was blighted punished, but that he ought to be puin Italy and Spain. But we may safely nished less severely than the orangedefy Mr. Gladstone to point out a sin-woman. gle instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded.

And why should he be so tenderhearted? What reason can he give for hanging a murderer, and suffering an heresiarch to escape without even a pecuniary mulct? Is the heresiarch a less pernicious member of society than the murderer? Is not the loss of one soul a greater evil than the extinction of many lives? And the number of murders committed by the most profligate bravo that ever let out his poniard to hire in Italy, or by the most savage buccaneer that ever prowled on

The heretical Constantius persecutes Athanasius; and why not? Shall Cæsar punish the robber who has taken one purse, and spare the wretch who has taught millions to rob the Creator of His honour, and to bestow it on the creature? The orthodox Theodosius persecutes the Arians, and with equal reason. Shall an insult offered to the Cæsarean majesty be expiated by death; and shall there be no penalty for him who degrades to the rank of a creature the almighty, the infinite Creator? We have a short answer for both: "To Cæsar the things

which are Cæsar's. Cæsar is appointed We should be sorry to think that for the punishment of robbers and the security of our lives and property rebels. He is not appointed for the from persecution rested on no better purpose of either propagating or ex- ground than this. Is not a teacher of terminating the doctrine of the con- heresy an evil-doer? Has not heresy substantiality of the Father and the been condemned in many countries, Son." "Not so," says Mr. Gladstone. and in our own among them, by the "Cæsar is bound in conscience to pro- laws of the land, which, as Mr. Gladpagate whatever he thinks to be the stone says, it is justifiable to enforce truth as to this question. Constantius by penal sanctions? If a heretic is not is bound to establish the Arian worship specially mentioned in the text to throughout the empire, and to displace which Mr. Gladstone refers, neither is the bravest captains of his legions, and an assassin, a kidnapper, or a highthe ablest ministers of his treasury, if wayman: and if the silence of the New they hold the Nicene faith. Theodo- Testament as to all interference of sius is equally bound to turn out every governments to stop the progress of public servant whom his Arian pre- heresy be a reason for not fining or imdecessors have put in. But if Constan- prisoning heretics, it is surely just as tius lays on Athanasius a fine of a good a reason for not excluding them single aureus, if Theodosius imprisons from office. an Arian presbyter for a week, this is most unjustifiable oppression." Our readers will be curious to know how this distinction is made out.

The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives against persecution affecting life, limb, and property, may be divided into two classes; first, reasons, which can be called reasons only by extreme courtesy, and which nothing but the most deplorable necessity would ever have induced a man of his abilities to use; and, secondly, reasons which are really reasons, and which have so much force that they not only completely prove his exception, but completely upset his general rule. His artillery on this occasion is composed of two sorts of pieces, pieces which will not go off at all, and pieces which go off with a vengeance, and recoil with most crushing effect upon himself.

"God," says Mr. Gladstone," has seen fit to authorise the employment of force in the one case and not in the other; for it was with regard to chastisement inflicted by the sword for an insult offered to himself that the Redeemer declared his kingdom not to be of this world;-meaning, apparently in an especial manner, that it should be otherwise than after this world's fashion, in reshould be maintained." spect to the sanctions by which its laws

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Now here Mr. Gladstone, quoting from memory, has fallen into an error. The very remarkable words which he cites do not appear to have had any reference to the wound inflicted by Peter on Malchus. They were addressed to Pilate, in answer to the question, " Art thou the King of the Jews?" We cannot help saying that we are surprised that Mr. Gladstone should not have more accurately verified a quotation on which, according to "We, as fallible creatures," says Mr. Glad-him, principally depends the right of stone, "have no right, from any bare specu- a hundred millions of his fellow-sublations of our own, to administer pains and jects, idolaters, Musselmans, Catholics, penalties to our fellow-creatures, whether on social or religious grounds. We have the and dissenters, to their property, their right to enforce the laws of the land by such liberty, and their lives. pains and penalties, because it is expressly given by Him who has declared that the

civil rulers are to bear the sword for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the encouragement of them that do well. And so, in things spiritual, had it pleased God to give to the Church or the State this power, to be permanently exercised over their members, or mankind at large, we should have the right to use it; but it does not appear to have been so received, and consequently, it should not be exercised."

Mr. Gladstone's humane interpretations of Scripture are lamentably destitute of one recommendation, which he considers as of the highest value: they are by no means in accordance with the general precepts or practice of the Church, from the time when the Christians became strong enough to persecute down to a very recent period.

A dogma favourable to toleration is competent to exercise minute and concertainly not a dogma quod semper, stant supervision over religious opiquod ubique, quod omnibus. Bossuet nion." And hence he infers, that “a was able to say, we fear with too much government exceeds its province when truth, that on one point all Christians it comes to adapt a scale of punishhad long been unanimous, the right of ments to variations in religious opinion, the civil magistrate to propagate truth according to their respective degrees of by the sword; that even heretics had variation from the established creed. been orthodox as to this right, and that To decline affording countenance to the Anabaptists and Socinians were sects is a single and simple rule. To the first who called it in question. We punish their professors, according to will not pretend to say what is the their several errors, even were there no best explanation of the text under other objection, is one for which the consideration; but we are sure that state must assume functions wholly Mr. Gladstone's is the worst. Accord- ecclesiastical, and for which it is not ing to him, government ought to ex- intrinsically fitted." clude dissenters from office, but not to This is, in our opinion, quite true. fine them, because Christ's kingdom is But how does it agree with Mr. Gladnot of this world. We do not see why stone's theory? What! the governthe line may not be drawn at a hun- ment incompetent to exercise even dred other places as well as that which such a degree of supervision over relihe has chosen. We do not see why gious opinion as is implied by the Lord Clarendon, in recommending the punishment of the most deadly heresy! act of 1664 against conventicles, might The government incompetent to meanot have said, "It hath been thought sure even the grossest deviations from by some that this classis of men might the standard of truth! The governwith advantage be not only imprisoned ment not intrinsically qualified to judge but pilloried. But methinks, my Lords, of the comparative enormity of any we are inhibited from the punishment theological errors! The government of the pillory by that Scripture, My so ignorant on these subjects that it is kingdom is not of this world." Arch- compelled to leave, not merely subtle bishop Laud, when he sate on Burton heresies, discernible only by the eye of in the Star-Chamber, might have said, a Cyril or a Bucer, but Socinianism, "I pronounce for the pillory; and, in- Deism, Mahometanism, Idolatry, deed, I could wish that all such Atheism, unpunished! To whom does wretches were delivered to the fire, but Mr. Gladstone assign the office of that our Lord hath said that His king- selecting a religion for the state, from dom is not of this world." And Gar- among hundreds of religions, every diner might have written to the Sheriff one of which lays claim to truth? of Oxfordshire: "See that execution Even to this same government, which be done without fail on Master Ridley is now pronounced to be so unfit for and Master Latimer, as you will theological investigations that it cannot answer the same to the Queen's grace venture to punish a man for worshipat your peril. But if they shall desire ping a lump of stone with a score of to have some gunpowder for the short-heads and hands. We do not rememening of their torment, I see not but you may grant it, as it is written, Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo; that is to say, My kingdom is not of this world."

ber ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary instance of inconsistency. When Mr. Gladstone wishes to prove that the government ought to establish and endow a religion, and to fence it with a Test Act, government is тò πâv in the moral world. Those who would confine it to secular ends take a low view of its nature. A religion must be attached to its agency; and this religion must be that of the conscience