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    2 feV ^ " £ ^ SsgrTX KsJ ^ StS SSrl ^ i ^^ SS i ? P b * s Kwsfe sSniifl ^ dnfintly religious . If some scientific men have been irreligious , have not many unscientific men been so Y " Men of science , as a class , do not war on the troths , the goodness , and tbp evil the which

    piety that are taug ht as relig ion , only on the errors , the impiety , £ ar its name . Science is the natural ally of Religion . Shall we try and separate whit God has joined ? We injure both by the attempt The philosophers of this age have a profound love of truth , and show great industry and bold ness m search thereof . In the name of truth they pluck down the strongholds of error , venerable and old . But what a cry has been raised against them ! It was pretended that they would root out religion from the hearts of mankind ! It seems to me it would be better for men who love religion to understand philosophy before they declaim against < the impiety of modern science / The study of nature of human history , or of human nature , might be a little more profitable than the habit of < hawking at geology and schism / A true philosophy is the only cure for

    a false philosophy /' The religious Intellect , therefore , will , above all things , seek and welcome Truth , believing all Truth to be harmonious . " We often estimate the value of a nation by the truths it brings to light . To take the physical census , and know how many shall vote , we count the heads , and tell men off by millions—so many square miles of Russians , Tartars , or Chinese . But to take the spiritual census , and see what will be voted , you count the thoughts , tell of the great men , enumerate the truths . The nations may perish , the barbarian sweep over Thebes , the lovely places of Jerusalem become a standing pool , and the favourite spot of Socrates and Aristotle be grown up to bramblesvet Egypt , Judea , Athens , do not die j their truths live on , refusing death ; and Btill these names are of a classic land . I do not think that God loves the men or the nations He visits with this lofty destiny better than He loves other ruder tribes or ruder men : but it is by this standard that we estimate the nations ; a few truths make them immortal . "

    Let us here turn back a few pages to quote a passage which may well follow the one you have just read" This is a remarkable law of Providence , but a law it is ; and cheering is it to know that all the good qualities you give example of , not only have _ a personal immortality in you beyond the grave , but a national , even a human , immortality on earth , and , while they bless you in heaven , are likewise safely invested m ypur brother man , and shall go down to the last posterity , blessing your nation and all mankind . So the great men of antiquity continue to help us-Moses , Confucius , Buddha , Zoroaster , Pythagoras , Socrates , Plato—not to dwell upon the name dearest of all . These men and their fellows , known to all or long since forot dates

    gotten of mankind—the aristocracy of heaven , whose patent nobility direct from God—they added to the spiritual power of mankind The wisdom they inherited or acquired was a personal fief , which at their death rovetfed to the human race Not a poor boy iu Christendom , not a mnn of genius , rejoicing in tbe p ^ itv ' de of power , but is greater and nobler for these great men ; not b Je y through his knowledge of their example , but because so to say , they raised the tern , Sure of the human world . For , as there is a physical temperature of the iXrstellar spaces , betwixt sun and sun , which may be called the temperat ure of the ^ univer " , ? o is there a spiritual temperature of the interpersonal spaces a certahi common temperature of spirit , not barely p ersonal , not national alone , but human and of the race , which may be called the temperature of mankind .

    What then is the primary commandment on the > Intellect P To follow Truth ' We must admit BcTfear but the fear of falsehood ; we must believe all truth to be divine , harmonious , victorious . Le me know a thing is true , " exclaims Parker ,- » I know it has the omnipotence of God ° Wo neod not repeat the arguments by which Justice ( or Truth in action ) own to be the law of Conscience , the religion of Morality . What £ said of Truth applies of course equally to Justice ; the law of Bight is 5 ? e only law recognisable by the Conscience . Yet who will

    deny that" We need a ffreat and conscious development of the moral element in man , and a corresponding expansion of justice in human affairs . ; an intentional "Pinion thereof to individual , domestic , social , ccclesiast . eul , and pohticu life . n the old miTitary civilization that wan not possible ; in the present nuluHtnal cvihialion it 8 not thought desirable by the mercantile chiefs of church and atutc . Hitl c to thelluS ft rocticm ,, of B ovennn «« t , *<> far « h it has boon control cd by tho will of t kh , 1 « h c-oirnnonly been this : To foster tho strong at the expciu * of the w £ * to Protect tho capitalist and tax the labourer . Tno powerful have sought a monopoly of development and ei . jny . ncit . loving to cat then- morae ! alone . Ac-3 little respect is paid to absolute justice by the contro ln . fr Htatomum of SLchrtatia ,. world . Not ' conscience ami tho » ht » appealed to , but prudence ami the expedient for to-day . Justice i » forgotten i" looking at mterost und polltioul IX neglected for political e , on nny ; insti l of national orgammtion of the ideal right , wo have only national housekeeping . Parker complaint , that our culture of morality baa not kept pace with

    our culture of the intellect . - " Do the churches , accomplish this educational purpose for the moral bmiho P Tho popular clergy think miracles bettor than morality ; and have cv < ni loss juhIico tl an n They justify the popular »»» in the name of Uoil ; are tho nil ™ of desn , L n " n all i t * torn ., military or industrial . Oppn ^ on by the svronl and om ^ u . by capital successively find favour with then , In America then , an , Z , cli . «» c , H 5 L . « tical defences of Afriau , riarcry : th « n ^ oes a , e the dmrcudai . U of limn , who laughed at bis father Noah -overtaken with drink-anl m > it is ru ; ut that Hum ' s children ., four thousand yean . Inter , should ho hIuvm to the i <» t of the world ; Slavery teacl . cH tho black men ' our hlcs-eil rehg . on . huch w erclomasticnl juHtice ; und honco j udtfe tho vulue of the church . * to educate the conscience of mankind . It is Htnui e how littlo the clergy of Christendom , for fifteen hundred yearn , have done for the morality of the world ; much lor decorum , little for Vito : a doul fox ocvlciUwtipal economy , but what for cccleBiiuitical righteousness i

    They put worship with the knee "before the natural piety of the conscience ' Trusting in good works' is an offence to the Christian church , as well Protestant as Catholic . " It seems a simple thing to say that Religion is love of Truth in the Intellect , and of Justice in the Conscience ! What sect ever said otherwise ? No sect perhaps ever said otherwise , but what sect ever allowed contradiction of its dogmas P What sect will admit a man to be truly religious , who having rejected the Code offered to him by men—rejected it because his Intellect declared it not true , and his Conscience as unjust —nevertheless lived a sincere life according to the truth and justice clear to his own soul ? If Religion be the belief in , and practice of Truth , and not the belief in a Book , and the practice of what that Book dictates , Spinoza was a religious man : where is the sect which will canonize himr but it tne

    You will answer that the Book is Truth . It may be so ; Intellect cannot recognise it to be so—if the devout mind be absolutely repelled by it , what then must be the issue ? Must the devout mind sham a belief , forego its own sincerity , doubt the plain language ^ of its own convictions , and obey in act what it rebels against in thought P That were atheism .

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    MAGAZINE WEEK . Instead of noticing the Magazines in our summary as usual , we groupe the few remarks needful to be made into a brief article here . The British Quarterly Review opens with an . important article on Bunseris Hippolytus , wherein , as we note with pleasure , the writer makes a good stand against the initial vice of all metaphysical ( and let us add ot most theological ) reasoning—viz ., the fallacy of taking the subjective viewas tantamount to the objective reality—of supposing that our ideas must be equivalent to realities—or , as this writer puts it , " Because the thjng is it must be true to Because xod

    true to the Divine reason , our reason . < knows the matter , man must be capable of knowing it . Whatever is dissonant must admit of solution , therefore man must be able to . give us tjie solution . " In the article on Giusti , the English reader will make acquaintance with a very remarkable Italian poet , whose name is not familiar except to Italian ears , and whose writings unhappily—at least such as we have seen—require a very peculiar local and political knowledge to make them thoroughly intelligible . MacTcay ' s Progress of the Intellect forms the subject of a shallow article written in the very worst taste . The Anatomy of Despotism is well-written and well-timed . . Let us also note that the reviews of books occupy a larger space in this quarterly .

    and are more carefully done than heretofore . The North British opens with a wordy article on the Prospects of France , filled with opinions and details which have been paraded in tne newspapers till they have grown wearisome . Scottish f' » lo * ° PW *» treated by a competent and enthusiastic writer , apropos of Sir William Hamilton . The author of Friends in Council , incomparably our best essayist , is selected as the text for a paper on the Progressive Aspects of Literature ; but bv ^ ar the most curious article is that on The Sabbath in the Nineteenth CenMry , which we commend to every lover of ingenuity as a perfect debauch of analogy - The writer begins by showing how everything is dual , that day is only day by the juxtaposition of night , every positive has its negative . He then unfolds the trinity of all things—Day , Night , and their relation . " Three in one is the deepest lying cypher ol the universe . " After this incursion into Schilling ' s domain , he proceeds to show the significance of number Five . As a display of arithmetical

    pyrotechnics this is very amusing . One must not scrutinize the examples too closely . Strange work is made of transcendental anatomy , for instance in this passage , " Then the higher animal trunk ( even such as occurs in the cetaceous sea-brutes or great whales of the fifth day ) itself containing five well-marked compartments , sends out five limbs , two hind legs , two fore-legs , or arms , or wings , and one neck . —for the innocent reader must understand that these new anatomists consider the animal head as nothing more than the last vertebra or end bone of the neck developed to extravagance " The innocent reader must understand nothing ol tho land I He must understand in tho first place that whales have only one pair not limb at and

    two pair of limbs ; in the second , that the neck is not a all ; that although Dumeril , who was among the first to suspect the vertebral structure of the skull , called it an expansion of the end bone of the neck , the other " new anatomists "—viz ., Goethe , Oken , Spix , Carus , Geoffroy St Hilaire , and Owen , considoredit as made up ot several vertebrae ; three , four six and seven have by turns been insisted on , and now finally Owen has settled tho question by resolving the skull into fiuur vertebrae . But our author , rising with his subject , next arrives at tho mystic jmmber Seven and discoursea in his quaint style on the " Scvensomcneaa ot Man . It is hero wo begin to see tho drift of all this Py thagorean respect for numbers ; the Seventh Day comes with oxtni sanctity from tins discussion . We must however , send the reader to the article to judge for himself of

    its ingenuity and philosophical frivolity . Pausing to JJlackwood , we find a charming article on the Garden ; and an elaborate and curious paper on the Mlcusinian Mysteries . In Fraser a searching and striking paper on Louin Napoleon and his panegyrists , written by one evidently fall master of all tho details ; and a deserved but torrible exposure of the huge bookmaker , Thomas Kerchever Arnold , whoso want of scholarship and ability are unsparingly dragged to light . Great aood i . s done by the execution of literary malefactors , imdFmser hna onceor twice lately deserved all thanks for its vigour in that unpleasant office . Bentleys Miscellany , besides its customary light articles , contains an Cobra do in which meet with fact

    amusing paper on the capello , we a now lo 1 IH \\ z ,, that , the cobra , like the common viper , is excited to rage by tho colour red , and thai if you shake a red handkerchief before the en go in which the cobras are , they will fly at it . Thus ifc appears that an irrational haired to scarlet , is not monopolised by bulls and Protestants ! Tho monthly part of Diogenes , a rival to Punch , w before us , although rivalry is repudiated by the editor . The illustrations are very unequal , but some of them are aumirii ^ io . Tho same may be said of tho literature Uiero is fun and sarcasm in it , but it is unequal . Louis Napoleon , Charles Koan , Albert Smith , and Vivian are made the " laughing stogs "

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    140 THE R EADER . [ Satpbp 4 V , _

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 5, 1853, page 140, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1972/page/20/