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    aristocracy themselves , in protesting against that wretched , acrid , and essentially illiterate spirit of depreciation that delights in vilifying all that has been done by our nation in past times under the controlling grasp of a now defective mechanism , < r even by means of it ; and we would defend , as even scientifically just , that ardour of more than Roman patriotism with which every true British soul , whether peer or peasant , contemplates the long series of noble services , by which this so-called aristocratic England has made itself a name in history and earned its

    present place among the nations of the world . When , therefore , we read , as part and parcel of M . Ledru Rollin ' s explanations of the vices of the English constitution , incessant reiterations of the old French twaddle about la perfide Albion , and attempts to put ¦ down all the success of England , all her conquests in America , India , and other parts of the world , as the mere triumphs of brute strength and chicane , our simple reflection is , how mean and narrow mus t be that man ' s theory of the world that so expresses himself , if conscientiously , and how virulent must be his national rancour , if not . Let M . Ledru Rollin

    take our word for it , no nation , aristocratic or democratic , ancient or modern , ever achieved more than precisely what it deserved and worked for . And the re are countrymen of his who know this , and who , without the slightest tinge in their character of that Anglomania which he denounces , would have risen , by the sheer virtue of their intellectual breadth and generality , to something like a fair appreciation of that historical phenomenon , to give it its poorest and least sentimental name , the English Empire .

    As we have said , however , it is in M . Ledru Rollin ' s mode of inferring his tremendous conclusion from his paltry premises , that his defects as a thinker are made most conspicuous . Having established , by the aid of English newspapers , the existence of a mass of social iniquity and misery in the midst of us , and having stated his own theoretical explanation of this admitted fact , how , do our readers think , does he leap the wide cha-m that still separates him from his pet conclusion , that necessity of his title-page , the Decadence ? Here again , something may be

    reserved for the second volume ; but as the work now stands , we have literally nothing more than this—the analogy of the cases of Carthage and Rome . To define M . Ledru Rollin's work a >» a whole , we should ijay that it consists of certain valuable pieces of information transited from the Morning Chronicle , certain commonplace criticisms thereto appended ; and the conclusion of the Decadence de V Anglcterre clumsily stuck to these on the faith of the merest shadow of a possible analogy . To be pedantic for once , let us say that the work before us consists of two

    apparent syllogisms ; to wit ( 1 . ) Carthage and Rome fell ; both Carthage and Rome at the time of their fall , or shortly before , exhibited the social symptoms a , b , c , &c . : therefore the social symptoms a , b , o , &c . are premonitions of the fall of any state that exhibits them . ( 2 . ) The social symptoms a , b , c , &o . are premonitions of the fall of any state that exhibits them ; England exhibits these social symptoms : therefore

    England is about to fall . Now it is needless to point out to any one that knows what reasoning is , at which several points the logical knife could be inserted so as to rip this argument across . Fairly speaking , all that would remain of M . Ledru Rollin ' s work , if it were logically treated , would be the minor premise of the seoond syllogism , namely , " England exhibits such and such social symptoms . "

    The great fault of M . Ledru Rollin ' s book , we would say in conclusion , consists in its profound and , we four , in the majority of French minds , irremediable , ignorance of what , after all , constitutes the personality of England , her real and essential existence . M . Lcdru Rollin and his compatriots pronounce very just and useful criticisms on the mechanism of English political procedure . But that mechanism is not England . Not even an archangel could extract a conception of England from the construction of her Parliaments or her

    Universities . No ; England lies not in those , though those , too , are bits of her ; England lies abroad over our fields and in our towns , a huge amorphous entity , thousands of miles square , and ( loep an dumb integrity , without phrase and without formula . Hoar M . Ledru Uollin in his remarks l ) u Role de V Anglcterre dans Vordre des id ties : — 41 AH nations have had thoir star ; that is to say , their ideal . The star that shone in the heaven of Greece was callrd Venus , i . e ., Beauty ; that of Rome , Mars or

    Jupiter , i . e ., force or domination ; and that which for fifty years has climbed the sky of France , is called justice , eternal right , Equality . The Englishman alone has grown great in his island , and developed his fortune without any ascendant light , -without a progressive and general philosophy , without ideal ; and , despite his Puritan hypocrisies , he has never raised his looks or his heart above his masts and cargoes ; he has no star to follow , no mission to fulfil , as have all the

    servantpeoples of humanity . Athens , that imperceptible point , has marked its place by an undying light in the route of thought ; what traces will the Englishman leave , this possessor of the world ? He is his own god , his own beginning and end ; success is his morality , interest his logic ; he has no other principles , no other philosophy , no other rules of duty , than the advantages or necessities of hi * fortune . The English , are , par excellence , the people of fact and unchangeable traditions . "

    If this be so , then must there not , we would suggest , be , if indeed God rules the course of events at all , some tremendous virtue , pleasing to Him , in this very fact of starlessness ? What if the very theory of the just greatness of Englsnd . should consist in this fact , that she has chosen no . star ; that ( to drop a confusing metaphor ) she moves forward not by prescribing toherself , by the help of intellectual theorems ,

    this or that point in the horizon , and then tugging herself towards it , but by committing herself faithfully and boldly to the interior and structural wheelwork of all her thousand impulses . Among these impulses , we will assert against M . Ledru Rollin , are , in the intellectual region , those of a grand Teutonic ideality—an ideality that , by virtue of its vastness , prevents the formation of the things called ideals . Hence it is that England ' s deepest

    philosophy has not been " progressive' ; and that , as M . Ledru Rollin , so ludicrously to English ears , complains , though she has produced a Shakespeare , he has not left *• a school" behind him . Among these impulses also , we assert , are , in the moral region ,, those of rectitude , of reverence for law , right , and justice . England , with all her faults ( may God amend them , and Donald help Him !) , has as much of this virtue of integrity as any nation now on the face of the earth . How is it , we might ask , were we dispo ed to retaliate , how is it that , as even friends and lovers of France admit , her highest

    statesmen , even of the same party , have no confidence in each other , but assail each other in private wherever they go ? How is it that , as the same persons say , there is no depth of chicane to which her able men in power or out of power would not descend , so that what no English statesman would dare to do is done in France daily ; and how is it that the proverb has become current that , while a committee of Frenchmen will always frame a good law , and always ruin it by their individual action ,

    Englishmen are always able to make the bad laws do that they have framed in committee ? Exaggerating these hints and assertions regarding the morale of France , might we not construct an argument for the Decadence of that country at least , as powerful as that which M . Ledru Rollin , with his eye only for the ? necanique , has constructed for the Decadence of England ? But , in his sense , we believe in the Decadence of neither . Yet , in a deeper sense , we believe in the D 6 caden . ce of both . We believe in

    evolution . We believe that kingdoms rise and fall , come and go , according to grand laws of birth , growth , and decay . We believe that both France and England are but temporary and provisional aggregations of human force helping on a great consummation , in the gradual progress towards which both will discharge themselves in some splendid middle term , embracing at least all Western Europe .

    And whatever this consummation shall be , nay , whatever may be the destiny of humanity , whether at a certain period it is to end in an abrupt close , or whether something higher than humanity itself is to bo at length evolved , England , we believe , will have done her part in the progress well rather than ill . Meanwhile let us try to improve her constitution , and be thankful for French aid .

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    newman ' s phases of faith . Phases of Faith , or , Passages from the History of my own Creed , By Francis William Nt-wninn . John Chapman . ( Second Notice , ) PisitHArs no sincerely-religious mind has for the last few conturies been undisturbed by hankerings after some more primitivo Christianity than that which the Church of the day sanctioned and proclaimed . The irrepressible impulse which causes us all to aspire to the Better takes either a forward or a backward looking glance , and sees the age of Gold in the distant future or the distant past . Hence the

    attempted " revivals " ; hence the desire to restor e primitive Christianity . Men overlook the fact that change itself implies imperfection in the thing changed . Had " primitive Christianity" been of enduring substance , it would have endured ; but the fact of its developing into something so essentially opposed to it , proves that it was incompetent to the

    function of embracing all humanity—incompetent to be stable . As Auguste Comte remarks of the retrograde politicians who "would replace Europe in the condition of the Middle Ages , " they are only desirous of bringing about precisely that state of things which necessitated a revolution—they wish society to recommence the slow process of destruction . " This is true of all retrograde tendencies .

    Mr . Newman was naturally beset with the longing after a more primitive Christianity . Unable to enter the Church of England , he thought of becoming a missionary ; and falling in with the tract on Christian Devotedness " by Mr . Groves , he at once determined to follow him to Persia : accordingly in September , 1830 , he set out with some Irish friends for Bagdad . Meanwhile certain doubts of a minor character had occupied his mind . The doctrine of the Lord ' s immediate return , with its consequen t slight of this world and this world ' s prospects , seemed to him conclusive as to the folly of our studying or working for the future : —

    " Nothing can be clearer than that the New Testament is entirely pervaded by the doctrine , —sometimes explicited stated , sometimes unceremoniously assumed , — that earthly things are very speedily to come to an end , and , therefore , are not worthy of our high affi ctions and deep interest . Hence , when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion , I looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on any distant aim of this earth . For a statesman to , talk about providing for future generations , sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of unbelief . To devote good talents to write history , or investigate nature , was simple waste : for at the Lord ' s coming history and' science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours . "

    The subject of the Evidences had also occupied him . Moreover , " I had become distinctly aware that the modern Churches in general by no means hold the truth as conceived of by the apostles . In the matter of the Sabbath and of the Mosaic Law , of Infant Baptism , of Episcopacy , of the doctrine of the Lord ' s return , I had successively found the prevalent Protestantism to be unapostolic . Hence arose in me a conscious and continuous effort to read the New Testament with fresh eyes and without bias , and so to take up the real doctrines of the heavenly and everlasting Gospel . "

    But in this fresh study he found the doctrine of the Trinity quite unapostolic . " It really teaches polytheism , but saves orthodoxy by forbidding any one to call it by its true name . " " It teaches three Divine persons and denies three Gods ; and leaves us to guess what else is a Divine person but a God , or a God but a Divine person . Who then can deny that this intolerant creed is a malignant riddle ? " Two years after he left England , a hope was conceived that more friends might be induced to join them , and he returned home from Bagdad on this mission . Arrived here he was at once met with the

    petty persecutions which disgrace our religious bodies . We must refer to the volume itself for the narrative of these : — " My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown up in the most sudden and heartbreaking way ; overpowering m

    to be opposed , and I could not evade the difficulty by the doctrine of Development and Progress , I inferred that there was some mode of conciliation unknown to me ; and that , perhaps , the depth of truth in divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language , But from the man who dared to interpose a human comment on the Scripture I most rigidly demanded a cl ' sir , single , self-consistent sense . If he did not know what he meant , why did he not hold his peace ? If he au \ know , why did he so speak as to puzzle us ? It was for this uniform refusal to allow of self-contradiction that it was more than once sadly predicted of me at Oxford that I should become a Soclnian : ' yet I did not apply i » w logical measure to any compositions but those which were avowedly ' uninspired' and human . "

    And this closes his Second Period . The Third Period is the examination and final abandonment of Calvinism . He reviewed his former experiences : — ' First , I had found that the class of Christians with whom I had been joined , had exploded the old Creeds in favour of another of their own , which was never given me upon authority , and yet was constantly slipping out , in the words , Jesus is Jehovah . It appeared to me cer .

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    232 &t ) $ ULtaTtt t * [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 1, 1850, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1841/page/14/