to exclude Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, so unlearned that it is incompetent to fine a Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pilgrimage to Juggernaut.

"To solicit and persuade one another," says Mr. Gladstone, "are privileges which belong to us all; and the wiser and better man is bound to advise the less wise and good: but he is not only not bound, he is not allowed, speaking generally, to coerce him. It is untrue, then, that the same considerations which bind a government to submit a religion to the free choice of the forcing its adoption." people would therefore justify their en

of the governor, or none. It is for the Governor to decide between Papists and Protestants, Jansenists and Molinists, Arminians and Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Sabellians and Tritheists, Homoousians and Homoiousians, Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Pædobaptists and Anabaptists. It is for him to rejudge the Acts of Nice and Rimini, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, of Constantinople and St. John Lateran, of Trent and Dort. It is for him to arbitrate between the Greek and the Latin procession, and to determine whether that mysterious filioque shall Granted. But it is true that all the or shall not have a place in the national same considerations which would justify creed. When he has made up his a government in propagating a relimind, he is to tax the whole com-gion by means of civil disabilities would munity in order to pay people to teach justify the propagating of that religion his opinion, whatever it may be. He by penal laws. To solicit! Is it soliis to rely on his own judgment, though citation to tell a Catholic Duke, that he it may be opposed to that of nine-tenths must abjure his religion or walk out of of the society. He is to act on his own the House of Lords? To persuade ! judgment, at the risk of exciting the Is it persuasion to tell a barrister of most formidable discontents. He is to distinguished eloquence and learning inflict, perhaps on a great majority of that he shall grow old in his stuff gown, the population, what, whether we choose while his pupils are seated above him to call it persecution or not, will always in ermine, because he cannot digest the be felt as persecution by those who damnatory clauses of the Athanasian suffer it. He is, on account of differ- creed? Would Mr. Gladstone think ences often too slight for vulgar com- that a religious system which he conprehension, to deprive the state of the siders as false, Socinianism for example, services of the ablest men. He is to was submitted to his free choice, if it debase and enfeeble the community were submitted in these terms?" If which he governs, from a nation into a you obstinately adhere to the faith of sect. In our own country, for example, the Nicene fathers, you shall not be millions of Catholics, millions of Pro- burned in Smithfield; you shall not be testant Dissenters, are to be excluded sent to Dorchester gaol; you shall not from all power and honours. A great even pay double land-tax. hostile fleet is on the sea; but Nelson shall be shut out from all situations in is not to command in the Channel if which you might exercise your talents in the mystery of the Trinity he con- with honour to yourself and advantage founds the persons. An invading army to the country. The House of Comhas landed in Kent; but the Duke of mons, the bench of magistracy, are Wellington is not to be at the head of not for such as you. You shall see our forces if he divides the substance. younger men, your inferiors in station And after all this, Mr. Gladstone tells and talents, rise to the highest dignities that it would be wrong to imprison and attract the gaze of nations, while a Jew, a Mussulman, or a Budhist, for you are doomed to neglect and obscua day; because really a government rity. If you have a son of the highest cannot understand these matters, and promise, a son such as other fathers ought not to meddle with questions would contemplate with delight, the which belong to the Church. A sin- development of his fine talents and of gular theologian, indeed, this govern- his generous ambition shall be a torment! So learned that it is competent | ture to you. You shall look on him VOL. II.

us,

F

But you

as a being doomed to lead, as you | neighbours. Mr. Gladstone's book is, have led, the abject life of a Roman or in this respect, a very gratifying pera Neapolitan in the midst of the great formance. It is the measure of what English people. All those high honours, a man can do to be left behind by the so much more precious than the most world. It is the strenuous effort of a costly gifts of despots, with which a free very vigorous mind to keep as far in country decorates its illustrious citizens, the rear of the general progress as posshall be to him, as they have been to sible. And yet, with the most intense you, objects not of hope and virtuous exertion, Mr. Gladstone cannot help emulation, but of hopeless, envious being, on some important points, greatly pining. Educate him, if you wish him in advance of Locke himself; and, to feel his degradation. Educate him, with whatever admiration he may reif you wish to stimulate his craving for gard Laud, it is well for him, we can what he never must enjoy. Educate tell him, that he did not write in the him, if you would imitate the barbarity days of that zealous primate, who would of that Celtic tyrant who fed his pri- certainly have refuted the expositions soners on salted food till they called of Scripture which we have quoted, by eagerly for drink, and then let down one of the keenest arguments that can an empty cup into the dungeon and left be addressed to human ears. them to die of thirst." Is this to solicit, This is not the only instance in which to persuade, to submit religion to the Mr. Gladstone has shrunk in a very free choice of man? Would a fine of remarkable manner from the consea thousand pounds, would imprison-quences of his own theory. If there ment in Newgate for six months, under be in the whole world a state to which circumstances not disgraceful, give Mr. this theory is applicable, that state is Gladstone the pain which he would feel, the British Empire in India. Even if he were to be told that he was to be we, who detest paternal governments dealt with in the way in which he would in general, shall admit that the duties himself deal with more than one half of the government of India are, to a of his countrymen? considerable extent, paternal. There, the superiority of the governors to the governed in moral science is unquestionable. The conversion of the whole people to the worst form that Christianity ever wore in the darkest ages would be a most happy event. It is not necessary that a man should be a Christian to wish for the propagation of Christianity in India. It is sufficient that he should be an European not much below the ordinary European level of good sense and humanity. Compared with the importance of the interests at stake, all those Scotch and Irish questions which occupy so large a portion of Mr. Gladstone's book, sink into insignificance. In no part of the world since the days of Theodosius has so large a heathen population been subject to a Christian government. In no part of the world is heathenism more cruel, more licentious, more fruitful of absurd rites and pernicious laws. Surely, if it be the duty of government to use its power and its revenue in order to bring seven millions of Irish

We are not at all surprised to find such inconsistency even in a man of Mr. Gladstone's talents. The truth is, that every man is, to a great extent, the creature of the age. It is to no purpose that he resists the influence which the vast mass, in which he is but an atom, must exercise on him. He may try to be a man of the tenth century: but he cannot. Whether he will or not, he must be a man of the nineteenth century. He shares in the motion of the moral as well as in that of the physical world. He can no more be as intolerant as he would have been in the days of the Tudors than he can stand in the evening exactly where he stood in the morning. The globe goes round from west to east; and he must go round with it. When he says that he is where he was, he means only that he has moved at the same rate with all around him. When he says that he has gone a good way to the westward, he means only that he has not gone to the eastward quite so rapidly as his

nal authority from that one government which is fitter to exercise paternal authority than any government that ever existed in the world? We will give the reason in his own words.

number of persons advanced to a higher "In British India," he says, "a small grade of civilisation, exercise the powers of government over an immensely greater number of less cultivated persons, not by coercion, but under free stipulation with the governed. Now, the rights of a government, in circumstances thus peculiar, obviously depend neither upon the unrestricted theory of paternal principles, nor upon any primordial or fictitious contract of indefinite powers, but upon an express and known treaty, matter of positive agreement,

not of natural ordinance."

Catholics over to the Protestant Church, | pay most respect to the opinion of the it is a fortiori the duty of the govern- least enlightened people? Why does ment to use its power and its revenue he withhold the right to exercise paterin order to make seventy millions of idolaters Christians. If it be a sin to suffer John Howard or William Penn to hold any office in England because they are not in communion with the Established Church, it must be a crying sin indeed to admit to high situations men who bow down, in temples covered with emblems of vice, to the hideous images of sensual or malevolent gods. But no. Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shocked by the priests of Rome than by the priests of Kalee. The plain red brick building, the Cave of Adullam, or Ebenezer Chapel, where uneducated men hear a half-educated man talk of the Christian law of love and the Christian hope of glory, is unworthy of the indulgence which is reserved for the shrine where the Thug suspends a portion of the spoils of murdered travellers, and for the car which grinds its way through the bones of self-immolated pilgrims. "It would be," says Mr. Gladstone, "an absurd exaggeration to maintain it as the part of such a government as that of the British in India to bring home to the door of every subject at once the ministrations of a new and totally unknown religion." The government ought indeed to desire to propagate Christianity. But the extent to which they must do so must be "limited by the degree in which the people are found willing to receive it." He proposes no such limitation in the case of Ireland. He would give the Irish a Protestant Church whether they like it or not. "We believe," says he, "that that which we place before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial to them; and that, if they know it not now, they will know it when it is presented to them fairly. Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the expense of their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests ?"

And why does Mr. Gladstone allow to the Hindoo a privilege which he denies to the Irishman? Why does he reserve his greatest liberality for the most monstrous errors? Why does he

Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty we cannot guess; for, though he calls it a "known treaty," we will stake our credit that it is quite unknown both at Calcutta and Madras, both in Leadenhall Street and Cannon Row, that it is not to be found in any of the enormous folios of papers relating to India which fill the bookcases of members of Parliament, that it has utterly escaped the researches of all the historians of our Eastern empire, that, in the long and interesting debates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries to India, debates of which the most valuable part has been excellently preserved by the care of the speakers, no allusion to this important instrument is to be found. The truth is that this treaty is a nonentity. It is by coercion, it is by the sword, and not by free stipulation with the governed, that England rules India; nor is England bound by any contract whatever not to deal with Bengal as she deals with Ireland. She may set up a Bishop of Patna, and a Dean of Hoogley; she may grant away the public revenue for the maintenance of prebendaries of Benares and canons of Moorshedabad; she may divide the country into parishes, and place a rector with a stipend in every one of them; and all this without infringing any positive agreement. If there be such a treaty, Mr. Gladstone can have no. difficulty in

making known its date, its terms, and, | ments the duty of undertaking an enabove all, the precise extent of the ter- terprise just as rational as the Cruritory within which we have sinfully sades, and then dispenses them from bound ourselves to be guilty of prac-it on the ground of a treaty which is tical atheism. The last point is of great just as authentic as the donation of importance. For, as the provinces of Constantine to Pope Sylvester. His our Indian empire were acquired at dif- system resembles nothing so much as ferent times, and in very different ways, a forged bond with a forged release no single treaty, indeed no ten treaties, indorsed on the back of it. will justify the system pursued by our government there.

With more show of reason he rests the claims of the Scotch Church on a contract. He considers that contract, however, as most unjustifiable, and speaks of the setting up of the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the reign of William the Third. Surely it would

The plain state of the case is this. No man in his senses would dream of applying Mr. Gladstone's theory to India; because, if so applied, it would inevitably destroy our empire, and, with our empire, the best chance of spread-be amusing, if it were not melancholy, ing Christianity among the natives. to see a man of virtue and abilities unThis Mr. Gladstone felt. In some way satisfied with the calamities which one or other his theory was to be saved, and Church, constituted on false principles, the monstrous consequences avoided. has brought upon the empire, and reOf intentional misrepresentation we are pining that Scotland is not in the same quite sure that he is incapable. But state with Ireland, that no Scottish we cannot acquit him of that uncon- agitator is raising rent and putting scious disingenuousness from which the county members in and out, that no most upright man, when strongly at- Presbyterian association is dividing tached to an opinion, is seldom wholly supreme power with the government, free. We believe that he recoiled from that no meetings of precursors and rethe ruinous consequences which his pealers are covering the side of the system would produce, if tried in Calton Hill, that twenty-five thousand India; but that he did not like to say troops are not required to maintain so, lest he should lay himself open to order on the north of the Tweed, that the charge of sacrificing principle to the anniversary of the Battle of Bothexpediency, a word which is held in well Bridge is not regularly celebrated the utmost abhorrence by all his school. by insult, riot, and murder. We could Accordingly, he caught at the notion hardly find a stronger argument against of a treaty, a notion which must, we Mr. Gladstone's system than that which think, have originated in some rhetor- Scotland furnishes. The policy which ical expression which he has imper- has been followed in that country has fectly understood. There is one ex- been directly opposed to the policy cellent way of avoiding the drawing of which he recommends. And the cona false conclusion from a false major; sequence is that Scotland, having been and that is by having a false minor. one of the rudest, one of the poorest, Inaccurate history is an admirable cor- one of the most turbulent countries in rective of unreasonable theory. And Europe, has become one of the most thus it is in the present case. A bad highly civilised, one of the most flougeneral rule is laid down, and obsti- rishing, one of the most tranquil. The nately maintained, wherever the con- atrocities which were of common ocsequences are not too monstrous for currence while an unpopular church human bigotry. But when they be- was dominant are unknown. In spite come so horrible that even Christ of a mutual aversion as bitter as ever Church shrinks, that even Oriel stands separated one people from another, the aghast, the rule is evaded by means of two kingdoms which compose our a fictitious contract. One imaginary island have been indissolubly joined obligation is set up against another. together. Of the ancient national feelMr. Gladstone first preaches to govern- ing there remains just enough to be

ornamental and useful; just enough | ment ought to prefer; and he decides o inspire the poet, and to kindle a this question in favour of the form of generous and friendly emulation in Christianity established in England. the bosom of the soldier. But for all The Church of England is, according the ends of government the nations are to him, the pure Catholic Church of one. And why are they so? The Christ, which possesses the apostolical answer is simple. The nations are succession of ministers, and within whose one for all the ends of government, pale is to be found that unity which is because in their union the true ends of essential to truth. For her decisions government alone were kept in sight. he claims a degree of reverence far The nations are one because the beyond what she has ever, in any of Churches are two. her formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of Bossuet demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of Scripture is sinful presumption.

Such is the union of England with Scotland, an union which resembles the union of the limbs of one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by one will, all co-operating for common ends. The system of Mr. Gladstone would have produced an union which can be compared only to that which is the subject of a wild Persian fable. King Zohak—we tell one story as Mr. Southey tells it to us- gave the devil leave to kiss his shoulders. Instantly two serpents sprang out, who, in the fury of hunger, attacked his head, and attempted to get at his brain. Zohak pulled them away, and tore them with his nails. But he found that they were inseparable parts of himself, and that what he was lacerating was his own flesh. Perhaps we might be able to find, if we looked round the world, some political union like this, some hideous monster of a state, cursed with one principle of sensation and two principles of volition, self-loathing and self-torturing, made up of parts which are driven by a frantic impulse to inflict mutual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they inflict, which are divided by an irreconcileable hatred, yet are blended in an indissoluble identity. Mr. Gladstone, from his tender concern for Zohak, is unsatisfied because the devil has as yet kissed only one shoulder, because there is not a snake mangling and mangled on the left to keep in countenance his brother on the right.

Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound, but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary, he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, except that every body who vigorously and freely exercises his understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them.

But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he conceives, proved that it is the duty of" The activity of private judgment," every government to profess some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, he then comes to the question what religion a govern

he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this unquestionable fact he constructs

a