THE SOUTHCOTTIANS.

Incredible as it may seem, there are, in these days of penny newspapers and universal enlightenment, Southcottians in London. They may be met with in the neighbourhood of Kennington Common, and in one of the forlornest spots in Islington, Elder Walk, Essex Road. Thence they issue documents worthy of Bedlam. I have now before me their “Midnight Cry, Behold the Bridegroom cometh.” And this august warning and bruising and inviting announcement is “to and for whomsoever it may concern of Mammon-crushed Israel.” One extract I fancy will suffice—one at any rate I must give, otherwise such religious lunacy will be held incredible.

“Oh, dutifully observe now, O all Israel, (namely)O Judah and Ephraim, that this Universal Marriage overture unto you, together with these Proxy Marriage lines and record, are made and offered you entirely because ‘I am’ and Jesus Christ is Life, Love, and Light everlasting, and because of His power and right to give, and the Son of Man’s to receive, and the worthy Woman to bring Him forth, and Israel’s to inherit,—viz., the promises unto Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and all their seed, who were originally the void waters and dark-faced deep until God said, Let there be Light and there was Light. And from henceforth there shall be Light, and both Light and Love abundantly in Heaven, here below as in Heaven above, for in the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, and did, and is, and will finish on the sixth day the same and all the host of them.”

The main instrument in the above precious compilation is Whatmore, one of Joanna Southcott’s chosen apostles. The paper referred to is issued from No. 9, Elder Walk, Essex Road, Islington, London, of Britannia Zion. It states, as far as I can gather, that in August last year something of importance was to take place. “A month since and the gauntlet has been successfully run; therefore, Whatmore, now has Thy lowly instrument Watmore Whatmore, John, to submit of and by Thy worthiness, O Lord God. Oh,shall I submit a Song of Solomon, or a Lamentation of Thy Prophet Jeremiah, or a sermon of Thy immortalizing mount, unto Thy flock, O, O, O! Submit, love,” &c., &c. I gather that the mystery of God is to be finished speedily by unveiling His Bible word, and His codicil thereto by His spouse, “the wonderful Queen of prophets, Joanna Southcott, that thus sons and daughters by her womanhood may greatly replenish the earth, and that the poor now suffering from the murdering love of money in consequence of unjust stewardship may fare better in time to come.” This seems to be the only idea I can extract from the Southcottians. All mammon laws are to be abolished, money currency is to be destroyed, there is to be no more selling, martyring, and bartering of humanity and their requirements, “thus saith the Lord Jehovah, by J. Watmore Whatmore, and J. G. Grant, of Zion.”

As these prophets speak of the spouse of God, Eve the second, called Joanna Southcott, Queen of the prophets, who in 1802 opened her commission, and declared herself to be the woman spoken of in Revelation—“the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, and clothed with the sun”—let me briefly tell her story:—

Joanna was born at Gettisham, in Devonshire.Her parents were in the farming line, and members of the Established Church. She herself was in service or in industrious employment, “without,” writes her biographer, “any other symptom of a disordered intellect than that she was attached to the Methodists.” Nevertheless, it was Mr. Pomeroy, the clergyman whose church she attended at Exeter, who appears to have encouraged her to print her prophecies and to assume spiritual gifts. The books which she sent into the world were written partly in rhyme, all the verse and the greater part of the prose being delivered in the character of the Almighty. Her discourses were nothing else than a mere rhapsody of texts—vulgar dreams and vulgar interpretations. Her fame spread, and seven wise men from different parts of the country, the seven stars, came to believe in her. Among the early believers were three clergymen, one of them a man of fashion, fortune, and noble family. As her followers supplied her with money and treated her with great reverence, the more extravagant were her assertions and the loftier her claims. The scheme of redemption was completed in her. If the tree of knowledge was violated by Eve, the tree of life was reserved for Joanna. Her greatest triumph was a conflict withthe devil, which lasted a week. According to her own account the devil had the worst of it. She gave him ten words for one, and allowed him no time to speak. Very ungallantly, at the termination of the dispute he remarked no man could tame a woman’s tongue; he said the sands of an hour-glass did not run faster. It was better to dispute with a thousand men than one woman. After this dispute Joanna is said—and her followers believed it—to have fasted forty days.

Shortly after commencing her mission, she published the following declaration:—

“I, Joanna Southcott, am clearly convinced that my calling is of God, and my writings are indited by His Spirit, as it is impossible that any spirit but an all-wise God that is wondrous in working, wondrous in wisdom, wondrous in power, wondrous in truth, could have brought round such mysteries so full of truth as in my writings; so I am clear in whom I believed, that all my writings came from the Spirit of the Most High God.“Joanna Southcott.”

“Joanna Southcott.”

One of her means of making money and increasing her influence was the sealing of such as signed their names to a declaration intimating a desire for Christ’skingdom to be established upon earth, and the destruction of that of the devil. Whoever signed his or her name received a sealed letter containing these words:—“The sealed of the Lord the elect. Precious man’s redemption to inherit the tree of life, to be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.” To this document Joanna’s name was appended. In December, 1813, she declared her pregnancy, and prophesied that she should have a son that year by the power of the Most High. Her followers now increased rapidly, and chapels were opened for promulgating her doctrines. As the time drew nigh presents of all descriptions, it was said, came in unasked. There was a magnificent cot for the expected Messiah, manufactured by Seddons. All the articles used on such occasions—as laced caps, bibs, robes, papboats, caudle cups, &c.,—were lavishly supplied; and when it appeared that the poor woman had died, asking pardon for her late blasphemous doctrines and past sins, the delusion was still kept up, and her followers believed that she would reappear. It was only after apost-mortemexamination that the fiction of a miraculous conception was dispelled. Joanna was sixty years old at the time of her death, and wasburied privately in Marylebone Upper Burying-ground, near Kilburn.

The present leader is John Whatmore, formerly a smith, but who has been led in a marvellous way, according to his own confession, to believe in Joanna. He is an open-air preacher, and may be met with in London Fields, Somers Town, and elsewhere pursuing his calling, which apparently is not very lucrative. He has two boards joined together, on which some unintelligible jargon is printed, which he calls his two sticks. These he holds up to view, at the same time calling out, “Britannia! Ephraim! Judah!” Then he commences his oration, a strange medley of Scripture and nonsense. According to him the world is in the worst possible way; and the devil has a fine time of it. The present commercial system of society by no means meets with Whatmore’s approval. The poor are rotting off, and woe to them to whom such a catastrophe is due. There are many disciples, he tells us; but fear of this world and a false sense of shame prevent them from declaring themselves. There must be some, otherwise the man could not get a living. His library seems to consist chiefly, if not exclusively, of the New Testament and his own absurd hand-bills, which a printer supplies him withon the chance of his selling them. In answer to my inquiry as to where he attended when not preaching himself, his reply was that he sometimes went to the Agricultural Hall; but they were not advanced enough for him, and so he falls back on himself, and goes about to do what he thinks is—or at any rate what he says he thinks is—the Lord’s work. There is no bounce about him. He is apparently a muddle-headed, well-meaning mystic; about as mad or sane as others of his way of thinking. That he is wretchedly poor, that he is ignorant, that his language to ordinary folks seems simply unintelligible, perhaps in certain quarters may be accepted as signs of his Divine commission. At any rate, he is a representative man. If he is ignorant and talks nonsense, what must be the ignorance and the nonsense existing in those who listen to him? How dense must be the ignorance, how crass the nonsense cherished in his hearers! It may be asked, and this is a question I put to the religious public, is not the manifestation of such religious folly a reproach to our age? If the Church had done its duty, would such a folly have been possible?

Somehow or other the Spiritualists are under a cloud in this country, and their leader—Mr. Home—has been compelled, in consequence of the decision of a highly-prejudiced and extremely ignorant jury, to hand over to Mrs. Lyon a very handsome sum of money which she had conveyed to him in consequence of representations made by him to her that such was the desire of her deceased lord and master. Up to that time Spiritualism was making great way, and Mr. Home, as its high priest and apostle, was in request with the nobility, and was the friend of kings and emperors. He had married a Russian Countess; he wore a diamond ring on one hand, given by the Czar, and on the other hand another, the present of the Emperor of France. His speaking eye and melodramatic manner made him in society a really charming man; literary ladies were enthusiastic in his favour. A spiritual Athenæum was opened in Sloane Street, Chelsea, at which a very eminent man gave the inaugural discourse, and at which there were spirit drawings displayed, and spirit poems read—all suggestive of the fact that the spirits were very ordinary people, after all. But it was not so much there as at the houses of his friends thatMr. Home tried best to display his powers. At such times there was a wonderful parade of religion. Previous to his attending aséance, a friend of the author was asked whether he believed in the doctrine of the Trinity; “because,” said the fair questioner, “we find that the spirits do not like to appear before sceptics;” and the Bible was read, and prayer offered up in apparently the most reverent, and earnest, and occasionally the most tiresome manner. Then came a few childish tricks, such as a handkerchief conveyed by spiritsunderthe table, the accordion played by spiritsunderthe table, and other intimations of what was said to be spiritual agency, but all equally out of sight. A few marvellous things were said by Home—secrets occasionally—which the hearer thought no one knew but himself, but secrets of the most uninteresting and unimportant character. And then the unbeliever passed out, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or weep; whether he had assisted at a religious meeting or a farce; whether he had been in the company of a mortal fitted for a solemn mission to an idle and adulterous generation seeking after a sign, or whether all he had seen and heard was but the clever manœuvring of a clever professor of legerhaveto take his stand with the Brothers Davenport and other doubtful mediums who have had their day.

The Spiritualists in this country set great store by Home. They have never been able in our cold climate to raise mediums worth talking about. The latter have been chiefly American importations. Mr. Harris came as a preacher of Spiritualism, and, after a few Sundays at Store Street, vanished like a spirit, and was heard of no more. ASpiritual Magazinewas started. Mrs. Marshall and her niece, of 22, Red Lion Street, Holborn, were declared by that—we presume official authority—to be “Media.” Then came the solid testimony of a learned American judge, declaring “the first thing demonstrated to us is that we can commune with the spirits of the departed; that such communication is through the instrumentality of persons yet living; that the fact of mediumship is the result of physical organization; that the kind of communion is effected by moral causes; and that the power, like our other faculties, is possessed in different degrees, and is capable of improvement by cultivation.” But the sect did not prosper. Then came grotesque indications of spiritual presence. Not content with table-rapping, the spiritshad recourse to all kinds of antics, and the subject of Spiritualism became more and more distasteful to the intelligent, and more and more popular with that large class of idle wealthy men and women who have no healthy occupation, and are always in search of excitement. The climax was reached when theCornhilltold how Mr. Home floated in the air, how heavy tables would leap from one end of the room to the other, how music was produced on accordions, “grand at times, at others pathetical, at others distant and long-drawn,” when those accordions were held by no mortal hands. “I can state,” wrote Dr. Gulley, of Malvern, “that the record made in the article ‘Stranger than Fiction’ is in every particular correct; that the phenomena therein related actually took place, and moreover that no trick-machinery, sleight of hand, or other artistic contrivance, produced what we heard and beheld. I am quite as convinced of this last as I am of the facts themselves.” Well might the Spiritualists crow; had not Robert Owen and Lord Lyndhurst also believed? Was it not uncharitable to say that they were in their dotage? The testimony of such men settled everything.

In America, Spiritualism is more prosperous than in England. In the “Plain Guide to Spiritualism”Mr. Clarke tells us there are in that country 500 public mediums who receive visitors; more than 50,000 private ones; 500 books and pamphlets on the subject have been published, and many of them immensely circulated; there are 500 public speakers and lecturers on it, and more than 1000 occasional ones. There are nearly 2000 places for public circles, conferences, or lectures, and in many places flourishing public schools. The decided believers are 2,000,000, the nominal ones nearly 5,000,000; on the globe itself it is calculated there are 20,000,000 supposed to recognise the fact of spiritual intercourse. In Paris and the different parts of France the manifestations have been almost of every kind, and of the most decisive and distinguished character. “Great numbers of persons have been cured by therapeutic mediums,” writes William Howitt, “of diseases and injuries incurable by all ordinary means. Some of these persons are well known to me, and are every day bearing their testimony in aristocratic society.” Writing thus, Mr. Howitt defines Spiritualism “as the great theologic and philosophic reformer of the age; the great requickener of religious life; the great consoler and establisher of hearts; the great herald to the wanderers of earth starved upon thehusks of mere college dogmas.” “I believe,” says Mr. C. Hall, “that as it now exists, Spiritualism has mainly but one purpose—to confute and destroy Materialism, by supplying sure, and certain, andpalpableevidence that to every human being God gives a soul, which He ordains shall not perish when the body dies.” This, as good old Isaak Walton says, in narrating Dr. Donne’s Vision, “this is a relation that will beget some wonder; and it well may, for most of our world are at present possessed with an opinion that miracles and visions are ceased.”

What is Spiritualism? Ask its opponents. They regard it as necromancy, a practice not only forbidden under the Old Testament, but which even in the New we find classed by St. Paul under the general denomination of witchcraft, with such works of the flesh as idolatry, murder, adultery, and drunkenness, concerning all of which the Apostle Paul adds the solemn declaration (Gal. v. 19–21), “That they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Such undoubtedly is the feeling entertained with regard to Spiritualism by the great majority of orthodox Christians, who are quite satisfied by Scripture testimony, who accept what they think God has revealed to them in His Book, and who seek or requirenothing more. In a weak but well-meaning work just put into my hands (“Spiritualism and other Signs”) I read: “The whole system is essentially opposed to faith in, and walking with, Jesus Christ, and the Spiritualist knows it.” The writer quotes the well-known text: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” At the same time there are many in the Christian Church of undoubted piety and intelligence who are believers in Spiritualism. After all, however, they are the exception rather than the rule. Amongst all sects there is a condemnation of Spiritualism of a very sweeping character. In this one thing Wesleyans, Low Churchmen, and Congregationalists are agreed. The outer world, the Secularists and the Positivists, of course regard Spiritualism with the same scorn and unbelief with which they regard all religion, whether true or false, whether old as the hills or but yesterday’s creation.

“It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the Creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing afterdeath. All argument is against it, but all belief is for it.” Such is a sentence I borrow from Dr. Johnson. It is as applicable to the present time as to that in which he lived.

In conclusion, let me add, as a distinct organization, hitherto Spiritualism has failed in this country. I hear nothing of theSpiritual Athenæumnow, nothing of Mr. Harris, either as preacher or poet, very little even of Mr. Home. Strange that a man who could not write an ordinary note decently should have been a favourite medium of the spirits. I am aware, however, the Spiritualists will extract an argument out of that last remark of mine in favour of Spiritualism. A young Jewish convert it is said would go to Rome. His teacher, a priest, feared, knowing Rome too well. On his return he questioned his pupil as to what he saw in Rome. “Ah!” said he, “I am persuaded now your religion is of God, otherwise it would have perished of the wickedness of its professors.”

In America of late years there has been an enormous increase of what are called the Campbellites. They now number in that country 500,000, have fifteen colleges, and a large university with 800 students;they have 2000 churches, and 1000 regular ministers. They are also well represented as regards literature. They have one quarterly, six or seven weeklies, two ladies’ magazines, and several Sunday-school papers. In London they are not a numerous class. They have places of worship in the Milton Hall, Camden Town, and in College Street, Chelsea. The truth is, as regards chapels and churches, public worship is as much a social as a religious institution. Fashion has a great deal to do with the attendance. It is the fashion to go to church. It is not the fashion to run after new sects or preachers of new doctrines. In a flourishing church there are societies which bring people into contact with one another—these promote in their turn, like the far-famed ale of Trinity, “brotherly neighbourhood.” The old ladies get a habit of gossiping—Jones, Brown, and Robinson take tea together—and then young people form alliances in consequence often of a serious and matrimonial character. It is uphill work, then, in London for a little isolated cause. The odds against its permanent success are infinite. Still the Campbellites are making way. They have a fine base of operations in America, and they are spreading over England,—if they are not doing much in the Metropolis.They are good, pious people, and earnest in the conviction that they alone understand and maintain apostolical charity; and deeply deploring the present divided and unhappy state of the Christian Church, and with a view to unity, they increase the number of divisions by withdrawing from all other religious bodies, and forming a fresh one of their own.

Who are the Campbellites? I will endeavour to answer the question. Their creed, as they tell us, is simply the Messiahship. According to them, the Christian creed thus presents for individual and immediate acceptance the one living, personal, loving, Divine, all-wise and omnipotent Saviour from ignorance, sin, and rebellion. Humanly devised and written creeds demand faith in abstract metaphysical, theological, ecclesiastical, and political propositions, and have so effectually supplanted the good confession, that though admitted as a doctrine, few churches or professors of the present day would consider themselves safe in depending solely on its saving faith or belief in God’s testimony as contained in His Word, as delivered by apostles and prophets, and as corroborated by signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Campbellismdistinguishes the Gospel not only from the words of men, but from Scripture generally—that Jesus is its subject. It apprehends him not only as Jesus of Nazareth, but as God manifest in the flesh—the Son and Christ of the Father consecrated to the high offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. It recognises the applicability and reference of the Saviour’s mission and work to the individual himself as clearly as if he were the only sinner for whom Christ has died; nor is it a mere intellectual assent, but a willing, heartfelt reception of the truth and surrender of the whole man, body, soul, and spirit. Now, as I imagine most orthodox Christians would say as much, and would state their belief in similar terms, with the exception of the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, who have the advantage or disadvantage, whatever it may be, of having to repeat a creed of more scholastic character, the question still remains, why cannot the Campbellites worship with other Christians? I must frankly confess there is in their services nothing more fitted to make an impression upon the world than there is in the services of other denominations; neither at Chelsea nor in Camden Town do you get from their preachers an idea that they are men of greater power, higher spiritual life, deeper experience, or more usefulnessthan are others. Clearly this definition of Christian belief is no warrant for another schism, even though the aim be Christian unity, and the putting a stop to the endless differences which are the grief of the Christian and the laugh of the worldling. Their form of worship is eminently simple and dissenting—a revival, it may be, of that of apostolic times—that I cannot say as, according to some, there are remains of a liturgy in the Pauline epistles. It is not clear how the ancients worshipped, but it is clear the Campbellites simply sing and pray, and read the Scriptures and deliver an address. They are Baptists, and they believe that Baptism is essential to salvation. Baptist churches are numerous in London. No Baptist need hire room, or chapel, or barn, or hall, and meet there to edify himself and his friends apart from the great and active community who feel as he does in that matter. The Campbellites maintain that many things are wrong which are done in other churches. They assume that there was a greater purity in apostolic times than now, and they aim to revive it. For this purpose they exalt the power of the Church, and depreciate that of the ministry. I don’t learn that they have all things in common, though that was certainlyone of the most prominent features in apostolic times; but they draw a sharp line between the Church and the world, and in their Sunday services almost ignore the latter. They have little of that charity which hopeth all things, which thinketh no evil, which is long-suffering. If they are building a chapel they would not take the money of an unconverted man. If they were collecting subscriptions for the sending out Evangelists, for the printing of religious books and tracts, for the support of a Christian ministry, they would refuse those of worldly men. More logical or more consistent in small matters, they make no provision in their books of praise for the unconverted man. I find in their hymn-book no one verse in the whole volume is designed to be sung simply by the unconverted. Their hymns are for those who, having the spirit of adoption, cry, Abba Father! It is proper, says the writer of the preface to the volume to which I refer, it is proper for convicted sinners, who do not know the way, to seek salvation, but they are not called to sing their sorrow, much less are Christians called to unite with them. Again, he tells us the unconverted have no need to sing prayers for pardon. What then, I may ask, are they to do? The answer is that, theymay stand and listen and be sung at, as well as preached at. Mr. King, the writer already quoted, says, “Though there are not hymns for the unconverted to sing, there are appeals to the unconverted to be sung by the church.” Practically, however, the arrangement differs little from that of other churches. A book is put into your hands, and the chances are, people who are in the habit of singing sing. As only immersed adults are Christians, it is not clear what the young people who attend their service are; that they sing I can, however, testify. It is to be feared that the Campbellites are not exempt from the faults of all religious worship, as manifested in strength of expression. If men and women believed what they say or sing in all our churches and chapels, little would remain for us but the Millennium.

The Campbellites do seek to guard against this danger. It is the Church that sings. It is the Church that worships. All Christian worship is in Scripture confined to Christians, and necessarily so, for worship offered by any one else is not Christian. Thus it is only on the faithful in Christ Jesus that the various items of Christian worship are enjoined: they are profaned and prostituted when applied toany others. In the morning of the Sabbath the Church meets by itself to break bread and sing and pray; on such occasions the members exhort and edify one another. In the evening the service is of a more general character; appeals are made to the unconverted, and they are invited to attend.

“All you that are weary and sad come,And you that are cheerful and glad come,In robes of humility clad come,Away from the waters of strife.Let youth in the freshness of bloom come,Let man in the pride of his noon come,Let age on the verge of the tomb come,Let none in their pride stay away.”

As a matter of fact, the unconverted do not avail themselves of the offer. It is a small place of meeting, the Milton Hall, but it is quite large enough, and more than large enough for the church and congregation. One brother prays and reads the Scriptures and gives out a hymn, another brother delivers an address, another brother concludes with prayer, and then there is a prayer-meeting after. The advantage of the Campbellites seems to me that they are only a little duller than their neighbours. The little ones around me, when I attended, found it hard to keep awake, and yet the service is short.It commences at seven and closes a little after eight. As they have no paid ministry, as their elders and deacons take the chief parts in the service, even after supporting an evangelist their expenses are not heavy, and in this they find a plausible plea. If, say they, half a dozen churches are built where one would be enough, and half a dozen ministers are kept where only one is required, clearly in consequence of these divisions amongst brethren, there is a lamentable waste of money and power and spiritual influence. Unfortunately, as regards London there is no force in the plea, and will not be till the time comes when the various sections of the Christian Church shall have made all necessary provision for the spiritual wants of the metropolis.

Thirty years ago, writes Hepworth Dixon, in that glowing account of Mormonism which, next to “Spiritual Wives,” he seems to consider as the crowning glory of his life,—“thirty years ago there were six Mormons in America, none in England, none in the rest of Europe, and to-day (1866) they have twenty thousand saints in Salt Lake City; four thousand each in Ogden, Prono, and Logan; in the whole oftheir stations in these valleys (one hundred and six settlements properly organized by them and ruled by bishops and elders) a hundred and fifty thousand souls; in other parts of the United States about eight or ten thousand; in England and its dependencies about fifteen thousand; in the rest of Europe ten thousand; in Asia and the South Sea Islands about twenty thousand; in all not less, perhaps, than two hundred thousand followers of the gospel preached by Joseph Smith. All these converts have been gathered into the temple in thirty years.”

The other day the Mormons of the London district met at the Music Hall, Store Street, and held a conference. Mr. Franklin Richards, the President, delivered an address. From his speech it appeared that in the metropolis there were nine branches, one hundred and seven elders of conference, fifty-three priests, twenty-four teachers, thirty deacons. During the six months preceding 132 persons had been baptized, sixteen cut off or had died; the total number in the London district, including officers, was 1172. I imagine the Mormonites flourish better in districts less enlightened. Around Birmingham they are very sanguine, and I have seen the miners in MerthyrTydfil by thousands listening to the gospel according to Joe Smith and Brigham Young.

The principal place of worship of the Mormons or Latter-day Saints is in the Commercial Road, but there are others; one of them is in George Street, Gower Street. In that locality there is a very shabby dancing saloon, from which the graces seem long since to have departed. At three o’clock every Sunday afternoon the Mormons assemble there. On a raised platform may be seen seated some seven or eight men, apparently decent workmen. Below them is a table, around which are a few lads, who set the tunes and take round the sacrament, which is administered every Sunday to all, including any strangers and children who may feel disposed to partake of it. Benches fill up the rest of the room, which are occupied chiefly by females with their families—including, of course, the baby, the inevitable feature in all gatherings of the lower orders. All seem enthusiastic and very friendly, and wretchedly poor. Their idea of Mormonism seems to be chiefly that of a successful emigration scheme, only mixed up with a little of the religious phraseology, which is most fluently uttered unfortunately by the unthinking masses to whom words do not represent ideas. You might fancy asyou enter that you had made a mistake, and got amongst the Primitive Methodists. The hymns are very much the same, and so is frequently the style of prayer. Sermon there is none, but instead you have addresses, the burden of which is generally of one kind. The speaker is thankful that at last he has known the Lord, and wishes he had done more for Him, and hopes, if health and strength be spared, to do more. There is also generally an address of a wider character. The Lord is calling them out of this country, where the Gentiles have the rule over them, and they are to hasten, old and young, to the City of the Saints. They are to pay their debts, mend their old clothes, save all they can, and then those that cannot pay for their voyage will be helped to join the settlement in Utah. Apart from the prayers and hymns, these meetings seem secular rather than spiritual,—to have reference more to this world, than the next. If, as it seems to me, the Mormonites in this country have had a Methodist training, they have managed to eliminate pretty completely the Methodist theology; but, perhaps, they treat it as they do the Bible. The Mormons profess to believe in it, at the same time they omit its spiritual teachingaltogether. Their theology may be best explained in one of their own hymns:—

“The God that others worship is not the God for me,He has neither part nor body, and cannot hear and see;But I’ve a God that lives above,A God of power and love,A God of Revelation,—Oh, that’s the God for me!Oh! that’s the God for me; oh! that’s the God for me.“A church without apostles is not the church for me,It’s like a ship dismasted, afloat upon the sea,But I’ve a church that’s always ledBy the twelve stars around its head,A church with good foundations—oh! that’s the church for me!Oh! that’s the church for me! oh! that’s the church for me!* * * * *“The heaven of sectarians is not the heaven for me,So doubtful its location, neither on land nor sea,But I’ve a heaven on the earth,The land that gave me birth,A heaven of light and knowledge—oh! that’s the heaven for me!Oh! that’s the heaven for me! oh! that’s the heaven for me!”

“A church without apostles is not the church for me,It’s like a ship dismasted, afloat upon the sea,But I’ve a church that’s always ledBy the twelve stars around its head,A church with good foundations—oh! that’s the church for me!Oh! that’s the church for me! oh! that’s the church for me!

* * * * *

“The heaven of sectarians is not the heaven for me,So doubtful its location, neither on land nor sea,But I’ve a heaven on the earth,The land that gave me birth,A heaven of light and knowledge—oh! that’s the heaven for me!Oh! that’s the heaven for me! oh! that’s the heaven for me!”

Such are the songs sung, with a fervour unknown in better attended and genteeler places of worship.

The Mormons speak of us as Gentiles, yet in reality they take our creed and add to it polygamy and communism. Their belief as regards Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is almost orthodox, and if they claim to be divinely ruled and to have the power of workingmiracles, do not other sects the same? Like the Quakers, they can dispense with religious forms. Like the ancient Israelites, they are a peculiar people, but what is peculiar to them, and that which constitutes the secret of their success, is this—that they preach to the poor, and wretched, and starving, that the kingdom of God has been founded upon earth, that it belongs to the saints, and that they are the saints. Man, they say, is part of the substance of God, and he will become God. He was not created by God, but existed from all eternity. He was not born in sin, and is only accountable for his own misdeeds. Angels, it seems, from what Young told Hepworth Dixon, “are the souls of bachelors and monogamists, being incapable of issue, unblessed with female companions, unfitted to reign and rule in the celestial spheres. They have failed,” said Young, “in not living the patriarchal life—in not marrying many wives. An unmarried Mormon fills but a low scale in the order of things.” Man being of the race of God becomes eligible for a celestial throne: his household of wives and children being his kingdom, not on earth only, but in heaven, polygamy is thus his highest duty, and most glorious privilege. In the East, polygamy does not answer. The raceswith one wife there breed faster than the Turks. In the city of the Mormons, under polygamy, births are very numerous. The actual wives of Young are twelve! the twelve apostles own from three to four each. Young has forty-eight children, and all have their quivers full. The women, according to Mr. Dixon, dislike polygamy nevertheless.

In this country and among the Mormons the doctrine of polygamy is not that on which much stress is laid. Here the Mormon preaches temperance, sobriety, honesty, industry, the need of saving up money, and the advantages of emigration to Utah. In theMillennial Star, the organ of the community, one brother writes from Wales:—

“The Word of Wisdom is quite a text with us of late, and is producing very good effects. We see its fruits manifested among the Saints, several of the brethren leaving off tobacco and other things that are injurious to the constitution.The tea is a matter that bothers the sisters considerably, but in the face of this difficulty many are leaving it off, and pronouncing it of no beneficial effect in any way whatever. I think that much will be done by abstaining from those things towards clothing those children that are very thinly clad.”

It is in this way that Mormonism has spread. Ithas come to the poorest of the poor, and used their own language. Its phraseology is that dear to the natural heart. We are all too prone to throw our responsibility on others: It is the Lord who saves me. It is the devil who makes me bad; and it is a great help to the ignorant and uneducated, not merely to have spiritual states shadowed forth in earthly language, but to feel that, after all, heaven is here in the shape of comfortable dwellings, wives and children, raiment to wear, and a bellyfull. “This is great encouragement to the saints in their pilgrimages here in old Babylon, and stimulates them to more diligence in building up the kingdom of God, and delivering themselves from the yoke of tyranny and oppression, to enjoy the liberty of the people of God in the valleys of the mountains.” Thus writes one of the elders with reference to certain manifestations of the gift of tongues; but I quote the passage here as applicable in an eminent degree, and as illustrating the religious phraseology, affected no doubt for certain ends by the Mormons. The kingdom of God, for instance, of the theologians may be difficult of apprehension to the illiterate and the rude; but if it means to me a good house and good living in Utah, it at once assumes an attractive form. If to live inEngland is to live in Babylon, of course it is my duty to emigrate; and if Brigham Young is the Lord’s deputy on earth, then to disobey his call is an act of sin. So degraded are many of our brethren and sisters in this Christian land, where we have one parson at the least in every parish, that they are utterly unable to contemplate anything apart from its accidental forms. Their God is a God of parts and passions; their religion is one of sensation; their heaven a loss of physical pains and the presence of physical delights; they become at once an easy prey to the Mormonite preacher when for ten pounds he offers them the realization of their hopes, not at the end of life, but now, and tells them that in the Land of the Saints they shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more.

At length, if I am to believe what I hear and see, the religious problem of the age has been solved, and I am presented with a form of worship which is in accordance with the discoveries of science and the dignity of man. In St. George’s Hall, Langham Place, this new association meets; its president is Baxter Langley, Esq. It dispenses with prayer, and with the reading of the Bible, but instead there is a performance of sacred music by a choir of a hundred voices, with solos sung by professional ladies and gentlemen specially engaged, and then the President himself, smiling and buoyant as if it were an election meeting, as chairman, performs many solos on his own account. In short, as a paper lying before me says, “Everything will be done to make the service delightful, whilst instruction will be secured by a popular lecture eachevening from some gentleman eminent in science, literature, or art.”

It seems to be a speciality of this Church of Progress that it disappears in summer altogether. It is only in the winter time that its doors are thrown open—not at all to the poor and needy, but to those who can pay. Is not this a little hard? Life is short, and the disciple of progress may well mourn that for him half the year exists in vain. Then, again, this Church of Progress, as much as the oldest and most-abused Churches of Christendom, makes very rigorous requirements on the pocket. Sixpence is the minimum paid. If you would hear comfortably you must pay a shilling. If you would have a seat where you can see and hear still more comfortably you must shell out half-a-crown. Now, if a man goes with his wife and family, it is obvious that the sum he will have to pay will be, if he have but a scanty income, no small consideration. It is true that a reduction is made if you take tickets for the course, but what I find fault with is that the casual poor have no chance of being benefited by this new gospel—that it does not appeal to them—that it ignores them altogether. I may hear the greatest of Dissenting preachers, I may sit under deans and bishops—nay, I may listento the finished accents of an archbishop—without putting my hand in my pocket, but for the lecture at St. George’s Hall, and the sacred minstrelsy there, I must at the least pay sixpence. The sum is a small one, but it has a tendency to narrow the Church and to limit its influence—it must keep outside many who otherwise would worship there. Why should the Church of Progress only appeal to the man with sixpence in his pocket? Is it only the capitalist whose soul is worth looking after? For common people will any old-wife’s fable do?

A more serious fault may be found with the Church of Progress. “We are not animated by any spirit of antagonism,” they say; “and as we propose to occupy a new field of utility, we see no reason why our assemblies should be regarded with hostility by other bodies.” “Our religion is positive and constructive, not negative and aggressive.” “Our Church is founded upon the recognition of the primary importance of human welfare; and its purpose will be to develop the power of philanthropy by education in the truths of science and philosophy, and by the elevating influence of the highest and purest art.” What Protestant Church cannot say the same? Asto art, whence does the Church of Progress get its music, which perhaps is its chief attraction, but from the Churches which it tells us are losing their hold upon the minds of the people? It rears philanthropy: what was Peabody? It talks of philosophy: what were such philosophers as Sir David Brewster or Professor Faraday? Equally delusive is its denial of antagonism. It is founded for those “whose religious ideas find no suitable exponent in any of the existing Churches.” The existing Churches more or less appeal to the Bible, and to Christ as Master, and place before the mind as consolation, or warning, or allurement, the splendours and the terrors of a world to come. In the new Church all this is set on one side. Science, not dogma, is to be the teacher, and they sing—

“Reason and love! thy kingdom come,Oh, Church of endless ages rise!Till fairer shines our mortal homeThan heavens we sought beyond the skies.”

Is it true to say that between this new light and the old there is no antagonism? Is it honest to say, as they do in the address already referred to, “we ask no one to adopt or deny any of the creeds of the Churches. We shall endeavour to promulgate truth,and truth is always Divine”? Is it not clear that no one can join the Church of Progress unless he has ceased to believe in the creeds of the Churches? that it is impossible to believe in Christ and Baxter Langley as well? When Pilate said unto the Jews, “Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?” none but an idiot would have said there was no antagonism between the two. Again, it may be asked, by what right do these “earnest, conscientious men and women” in Langham Place call themselves a Church? Is it for the sake of deceiving the public? To teach art, or science, or literature, is not religion. Why, then, define as a Church people who meet on a Sunday to hear lectures on science, literature, and art? Undoubtedly, people may do worse on a Sunday night, but in listening to such lectures they have no right to say they are at church.

Mr. George Jacob Holyoake is also one of their lecturers; and if he be not antagonistic, what is he? Of all irrepressible men Mr. Holyoake is undoubtedly the most so. You meet him everywhere. Not a social science meeting, nor a political gathering, nor a philosophical discussion exists within reach of London but he is present at it, to take part in its discussionsas the exponent of the views, and feelings, and desires of the British working man. If London is demonstrative, as when a Garibaldi appears upon the stage, foremost of those who meet to do him honour is Mr. Holyoake. In the House of Commons he is similarly prominent. In the Speaker’s gallery or in the lobby you may see him all night long, here speaking to a member, there listening to one as if the care of all the country rested on his shoulders. I don’t fancy Mr. Holyoake is the great man he takes himself to be. I deny his right to be the exponent of the class of whom he condescends to be the ornament and shield. I admit his boundless activity, his wonderful talent for intrusion, the cleverness of his talk. I admit, too, the energy with which in the course of a now extended career he has travelled the land, with a view to convince his fellow-men that there is no future, that he who says there is but repeats the old worn-out fiction of the priests, and that it is for this world rather than the next that we must labour and strive. Undoubtedly for Mr. Holyoake some extenuation must be made. A man may well doubt the Christianity which instead of removing his religious doubts throws him into gaol for the crime of expressing them. Nevertheless, I may doubt, if not the sincerity,—for aboutthat there can be no question—at any rate the truth and wisdom of his creed; and may, after all, prefer the light of the Gospel to that which he asks me to admire. I may admit that there have been quacks, and impostors, and charlatans in the religious world—that the Church has fearfully failed in its mission—that, armed with the sword of the State, it has been often a curse and a blight—but it does not follow that the truth, of which the Church should be the living organization, has no existence, that it has no mission in this world, that the Bible is to be trampled under foot, that the Saviour is to be abolished, and that for man, instead of the narrow path and the heavenly crown, nothing is left but that he should eat, and drink, and die. Such, however, I believe, is Mr. Holyoake’s Gospel. As to his utterances on Sunday when I heard him, they were of the poorest character possible. The subject was the common people; and after describing three or four classes of them, he finished with the inculcation of the by no means original idea—that they were not so bad as they seem, that we had to respect in them the humanity which, under favourable circumstances, might be developed into something better. I never heard Mr. Holyoake preach before, and I shall take care never to hear himagain. As a speaker, one of Mr. Spurgeon’s rawest students would beat him hollow.

The Theists in London are, we are told, very numerous, and yet, till about ten years since, no steps had been taken by them to provide public buildings in which to assemble for instruction and conversation, and no church had been opened in which they could invite their friends to hear the principles of Theism explained and defended. In order to supply that want, Dr. Perfitt, a layman, resolved upon renting South Place Chapel, Finsbury Square, for the purpose of delivering lectures and discourses upon various religious topics. In 1858 the Society of Independent Religious Reformers was organized out of the hearers he had thus gathered around him. A committee was elected, rules were passed, and the following were declared to be the objects of the Society:—

1. To secure the association and co-operation of all persons who are desirous of cultivating the religious sentiment in a manner essentially free from the evil spirit of creed, from the intolerance of sectarianism, and the leaven of priestcraft; of thosepersons who respect the authority of reason, and reverentially accept the decrees of conscience.

2. To discover and methodize truths connected either with the laws of nature, the progress of thought, or the lives of good men in all ages and countries, so that they may be rendered of practical value as guides to a healthy, moral, and manly life.

3. To assist, as in the performance of a religious duty, in the regeneration of society by co-operating with every organized body whose aim is to abolish superstition, ignorance, drunkenness, political injustice, or any other of the numerous evils which now afflict the community.

To carry out these ideas the noble painting gallery, built by the late Sir Benjamin West, in Newman Street, Oxford Street, was procured and fitted up. This large hall seats 1500 persons. A good organ was erected, and schools and a library were talked of. At this place, on Sunday mornings, the public are treated to what is called a free religious service, based upon the great facts and principles of intellectual Theism. In the evenings popular lectures are delivered bearing upon science, history, or religious free thought. In both cases Dr. Perfitt is the orator. On many occasions the Doctor has appeared in public. Under not very pleasant circumstances—for he hadlittle support—he appealed to Finsbury, but in vain, to send him into Parliament. It is clear, then, what of success the man has accomplished, or of good the man has done, has been chiefly in connexion with the Society of Independent Reformers. We were told in 1863 “the church in Newman Street is but the forerunner of hundreds which will rest upon the same foundation.” Dr. Perfitt has been more than seven years in Newman Street, and quite twenty at his work. A man can do a great deal in such a space of time if he has a fluent tongue, as is abundantly illustrated, not to go beyond our age, in the careers of Father Mathew, Father Ignatius, John B. Gough, or Mr. Spurgeon. Irving did not last so long, yet, metaphorically speaking, he managed to set the Thames on fire. It is clear Dr. Perfitt has peculiarly advantageous conditions under which to work. In the first place, as his aim is—

“To serve the truth where’er ’tis found,On Christian or on heathen ground”—

he has a wide field over which his oratory may range. It cannot all be barren from Dan to Beersheba. In the second place, according to the Independent Religious Reformers, the great want of our times is such as they are. “It is well known,” they tell us, “thatalthough the orthodox religious establishments are earnestly supported, they cannot gain the hearts of the people. The intelligence of England has outgrown the old creeds and formulas. Theism is secretly approved by thousands.” The time, then, is ripe for such a mission as Dr. Perfitt proposes. The hour has come, and he is the man. It is not in his negative and critical aspect that he is to be judged. In the position in that respect he has assumed there is no novelty. Unfortunately, the Church of England, like all established churches, more or less lays itself open to the most irreverent criticism. The new wine cannot be put in the old bottles. We can quite agree with him that “the majority of the clergy have no just conception of what, according to the nature of things, they are called upon to do;” that St. Paul would find himself sadly out of place were he called upon to preach to the congregation of a fashionable suburban church; and that there would indeed be a flutter and commotion raised were “the Archbishop of Canterbury, cutting himself adrift from the level of Belgravia, to stand out before men denouncing woe upon the butterflies of fashion and the Dundrearies of Parliament as Jesus denounced the Scribes and Pharisees of old.” But the saying these thingsdoes not constitute a man the founder of a new and better sect. Mr. Froude tells us “the clergyman of the nineteenth century subscribes the Thirty-nine Articles with a smile as might have been worn by Samson when his Philistine mistress bound his arms with the cords and withs.” It is scarcely possible to write a bitterer thing of the clergy, yet Mr. Froude is not, so far as we are aware, an Independent Religious Reformer. Even of the Church of which such hard things may be said, and justly said, we may argue that its theory of the identity of Church and State is a noble one, and that the dream of such men as “the judicious Hooker,” of Coleridge, of Dr. Arnold, is that of all who, in stately cathedral or humble conventicle, pray Sunday after Sunday to the common Father, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven.” Man is a religious animal; the heart is true to its old instincts. There is no peace for his soul, no rest for the sole of the foot, no shelter for him in the storm, no brightness in the cloud, no glory in the sun, no hope in life, no life in death, unless he can believe, adore, and love. But we have forgotten Dr. Perfitt. Well, we need be in no hurry. If you go to Newman Street you will find very few peoplethere by eleven. The exclusively religious service, as one of the hearers informed us it was, generally commences at a quarter past, where in the large hall about a hundred may be collected together, the majority, of course, males, chiefly of the lower section, I should imagine, of the middle class. There is music; then the Doctor reads a chapter of the Bible, and takes it to pieces; then there is more music; then a prayer, and a half-hour’s sermon, from a regular text, according to the fashion of the orthodox, but generally coming to a very unorthodox conclusion. Indeed, the former come off hardly at the Doctor’s hands. He demolished them as easily as if they were so many men of straw; President Edwards, Richard Baxter, Mr. Spurgeon, the apostles, and their great Teacher, all look very small by the side of the clear, logical, learned, fluent, sarcastic, infallible Doctor, who is the heir of all the ages under the sun; who talks of Zoroaster, and Vedas, and Shasters; who is as familiar with Brahma and Buddha as if he had assisted at their birth, and who knows what’s o’clock in Sanscrit better than you or I, my good sir, in ordinary English. After the sermon comes the collection, and the congregational dinner-hour, for the sale of the beer for which, the neighbouring publics open just as the IndependentReligious Reformers, exhausted by the Doctor’s omniscience, require the refreshing fluid.

“Hae, sirs!” said an elderly female in a remote part of Scotland, as for the first time she saw a black man; “hae, sirs, what canna be done for the penny!” Assuredly some such feeling must be entertained by the listener who for the first time hears Dr. Perfitt in his rostrum in Cambridge Hall. For a pound a year you may have this pleasure every Sunday, and become one of the Independent Reformers. What more can man desire?

The religion of humanity has been for a time dominant in South Place, Finsbury Square. Its oldest and original teacher in connexion with the place was the late W. Johnson Fox, M.P., a popular writer and eloquent orator, who did much in his day and generation on behalf of freedom in trade, in politics, and religion, and did it well. Nor did he labour in vain as regards himself. Born in an humble position, he became a student at Homerton College and an orthodox Dissenter. In a little while he joined the Unitarians, and then left them for a freer and fuller religious creed and form of worship. He had many friends.His letters, signed “Publicola,” in theWeekly Dispatch, were the delight of the working classes; and his Anti-Corn-law orations charmed all, and there were tens of thousands who had the privilege of listening to them. He was returned to Parliament by the electors of Oldham, and a monument erected to his memory there still perpetuates his name. He died at a ripe old age, ever having preserved the character of an independent and honourable man. As a religious teacher he was no extraordinary success. It was rarely indeed that South Place was very full. Of course, the hearers were the veryéliteof the human race. Wherever you go—especially among sects not particularly orthodox or popular—the men and women with whom you come in contact are no ordinary men and women. By a happy dispensation of Providence they fail to see themselves as others see them, and are as firmly convinced of their own intellectual superiority over a benighted British public as they are of the truth of their principles and of their ultimate success.

“There is a religion of humanity,” said Mr. Fox, “though not enshrined in articles and creeds, though it is not to be read merely in sacred books, and yet it may be read in all wherever they have anything inthem of truth and moral beauty,—a religion of humanity which goes deeper than all because it belongs to the essentials of our moral and intellectual constitution, and not to mere external accidents, the proof of which is not in historical agreement or metaphysical deduction, but in our own conscience and consciousness,—a religion of humanity which unites and blends all other religions, and makes one the men whose hearts are sincere, and whose characters are true, and good, and harmonious, whatever may be the deductions of their minds or their external profession,—a religion of humanity which cannot perish in the overthrow of altars or the fall of temples, which survives them all, and which, were every derived form of religion obliterated from the face of the earth, would recreate religion as the spring recreates the fruits and flowers of the soul, bidding it bloom again in beauty, bear again its rich fruits of utility, and fashion for itself such forms and modes of expression as may best agree with the progressive condition of mankind.”

It was in accordance with these ideas that the Sunday morning services in South Place were carried on.

After Mr. Fox came Mr. Ierson, and a nearer approximation to regular Unitarianism. But the place did not prosper; there were far too many empty benches. He was succeeded by a gentleman formerlya Baptist minister, but who had outgrown his sect, and for a little while there was harmony and progress. Again there was an interregnum. “Seekers are,” said old Oliver Cromwell, “next best to finders.” In London, especially in these unsettled days of free inquiry, are many such, and to such the pulpit of South Place was freely offered. I do not fancy as a rule seekers are good preachers. To say anything effectually you must have something to say. To make others weep you must weep yourself. With mere negations you can never sway the minds or influence the lives of men. In orthodox places of worship there is often much of dreariness. The clergyman whose heart is not in his work is a miserable spectacle for gods and men, but the dreariness of heterodoxy is infinitely greater; and of all things under the sun the most miserable in the clerical way is the sight of a would-be philosopher feebly diluting or expanding, as the case may be, windy platitudes or transcendental moonshine. Under such an infliction, as it may well be imagined, South Place did not flourish greatly. At length, in due course, a man appeared to continue the work which Mr. Fox had originated. His name is Mr. M. D. Conway. I believe he is of American origin, andevidently under him the cause is in a prosperous state. When I say prosperous, the term is not to be understood as it would be in orthodox circles. The latter class of religionists, when they say that a place is prosperous imply by the use of such language that a place of worship is well filled; that men are turned from sin to holiness, from serving the devil to serving God, that the place is a centre of religious life and activity, and that all, young and old, rich and poor, are to the best of their power and means co-operating in Christian work. Prosperity in this sense cannot be predicated of South Place. Its doors are only opened once a week. There is no religious, or educational, or philanthropical agency connected with the chapel; but there are more attendants than there were, and that encourages Mr. Conway and his friends. Indeed, there is a talk amongst them of establishing a Sunday-school. At the same time it seems to me that the class of people who go to South Place are not socially or intellectually what they were in Mr. Fox’s time—when the Cortaulds would come up all the way from Braintree to hear Mr. Fox, when City lawyers like the late Mr. Ashurst, and City magnates like the late Mr. Dillon, were amongst the audience; when on a Sunday morning might be seenthere such men as Sir J. Bowring, or Macready, or Charles Dickens, and others equally well known to fame. They left when Mr. Fox left. I believe Mr. P. Taylor, M.P., still keeps up a connexion, more or less fitful and uncertain, with the place. Sir Sydney Waterlow also still retains a couple of sittings, but he is rarely there. Nevertheless, the congregation has greatly increased; the chapel is quite three parts full. Still they use the little book of hymns and anthems selected by Mr. Fox; and the musical part of the service, always a great matter at South Place, is as well conducted and as attractive as ever.

Mr. Conway is a very advanced thinker. The character of his preaching and praying is purely theistic. He wars with dogmas in every form. It may be a wing to-day, a fetter to-morrow. For him there are no sacred books, or rather he places them all on an equality. For his motto he goes to India, and quotes the Brahma Somaj. In this respect he is a true follower of the late Mr. Fox, whose fascinating oratory owed very little of its charm to that which orthodox Unitarians or orthodox Christians hold highest and holiest; whose aim was more to pull down than to build up, and who had a greater faculty for the exposition of Christian fallacies than for theenunciating of truths and principles needful to humanity in its hour of temptation, distress, danger, or death. Few have his exquisite humour, his power of sarcasm, his acquaintance with modern literature, his copious command of polished language, his expressive yet calm delivery, his gentleness almost as touching as that of woman; but that which was lacking in him often made men his inferiors in intellect, his superiors in the art of arousing the spiritually dead, or in giving to the moral wastes in our midst the vigour, the beauty, the fertility of life.

It is a sign of the times when Infidelity visits the workshop or the factory, and challenges the admiration of the men in fustian—the men whose hard labours and horny hands have helped to make England what it is, and who in an increasing ratio are making their influence felt on the Exchange where capital seeks investment, in the ancient halls where the teachers of the next generation are training, in the study of the political philosopher, in Parliaments where practical people assemble to legislate after their necessarily imperfect fashion for the general weal. It is said of Sir Godfrey Kneller that hewas deeply shocked at hearing a common labourer invoking imprecations on his own head. Some such feeling must be entertained by the old-fashioned, scholarly sceptics at all times met with in highly intellectual communities. Religion was a good thing for the poor; it taught them to know their place, to be humble, industrious, and not to murmur when deprived by human agency of the rights to which all are born, or when by the same agency they were made to bear innumerable wrongs. For such religion was intended; and for such considerations it was right and proper that it should be accepted by society—sanctioned by the law—its ministers rewarded and salaried by the State. It was under the influence of some such feeling that Napoleon the Great is reported to have said, if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one; and in a proportionate manner do the philosophers feel alarm and indignation when the working man, for whom such trouble has been taken,—for whom religion has, as it were, been discovered,—for whom an Establishment, the most richly endowed with this world’s goods in Christendom, rejoices to call itself the poor man’s Church,—turns round, and, in his coarse, rough way, says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am much obliged to you.I see your little game. Pray don’t take any trouble on my account. Please to leave me to go to the bad in my own way. Give me the right to the free inquiry you claim for yourselves, and don’t quarrel with me on account of its results.” Really it seems to me the Secularist has the best of it. I may regret his conclusions. I cannot blame his independent spirit.

Of the men who talk in this way it may be said, at any rate as regards the metropolis, Robert Dale Owen was the teacher and apostle. Owen was the first to proclaim to the masses that there was no such thing as moral responsibility; that a man’s character was formed for him partly by nature at his birth, and partly by the external influences to which he was exposed. As man, there was for him no choice of right or wrong. Any religion, and emphatically that of Christ, which proceeds upon the supposition that man can lay hold of eternal life, can accept the offer of God’s mercy, can believe and live, is false and to be rejected with disdain. Owen was a man of blameless life—a man who made great sacrifices of wealth, and time, and labour, on account of his ideas. As his last apologist has well stated, “his condemnation of religion was not the result oflibertine excesses, nor of a philosophical conceit, but followed honestly from the shallow theory he had adopted.” Amongst the poor, ignorant, superficial denizens of our crowded cities he was hailed as the regenerator of manhood, and made many converts. Nor are they to be blamed. Owen met with an attentive hearing from such as Brougham and Bentham, Earls Liverpool and Aberdeen, Jefferson and Van Buren, the Duke of Kent and the King of Prussia; actually, we believe, he was presented at Court. It is true in his old age he became a believer in spirits, after all, and was buried in the little churchyard of Newton, Montgomeryshire, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection to eternal life; but by that time the truth or falsehood he had proclaimed had sunk into many minds, had been re-uttered by many tongues, had been commended to the working classes by no less a master of language and argument than George Jacob Holyoake. Certainly, in the hands of the latter, Owenism, under its new name of Secularism, lost none of its power. The master was apt to be egotistic—dogmatic—much given to repetition—very diffuse. Mr. Holyoake’s enemies cannot conscientiously say he is that. His friends, many of them thecleverest of London men, claim for him talents of no common order. A shop in Fleet Street was opened—theReasonerwas established—and Mr. Holyoake went all over the land to emancipate the human mind, spell-bound by priestcraft, and to roll back the double night of ages and of ignorance. In a little while he retired from business, the shop in Fleet Street was shut up, theReasonerreasoned no more—Mr. Holyoake ceased perambulating. Still we have a genuine Apostolical succession: Mr. Bradlaugh takes up the wondrous tale, and theNational Reformerrecords the triumphs of his cause. According to him, all is prosperous. Hope paints a glorious future—when man’s

“Regenerate soul from crimeShall yet be drawn,And Reason on this mortal climeImmortal dawn.”

Yet what is the fact? TheNational Reformercosts 10l.a week, and it does not pay. Its readers tell us their name is legion; yet it does not pay. At any rate, it is constantly appealing to its public for support. In every workshop or factory, in all our great hives of intelligence and life, the Secularists boast their thousands. All the intelligent operativemanhood of England is, according to their own account, theirs; yet their organ—the child of a giant—is very weak on its legs, and very short of wind.

The headquarters of the Secularists is Cleveland Street, a street lying in that mass of pauperism at the rear of Tottenham Court Road Chapel. In that street there is a hall, originally erected, I believe, by Owen himself. At any rate, it is the resort of the illuminated to whom his philosophy has opened up a new moral world,—which, as regards appearances, is little better than the benighted Egypt out of which they have departed. Here you will find no free Gospel. The Secularists are determined to make the best of this world. If you wish to enter, you must pay; if you wish to show your gentility and sit near the lecturer, you must pay twopence more. Previous to the lecturer commencing, a boy goes up and down the room selling copies of theNational Reformer, and a table at one end is devoted to the sale of publications of a similar character.

Cleveland Hall, every Sunday evening, then, is devoted to what are called Popular Free-thought Lectures. The doors open at seven, the lectures commence at half-past. The programme for themonth of August, which I have now before me, will give the reader an idea of what is meant by free thought:—

“On Sunday evening, August 2, Mr. Charles Watts—An Impartial Estimate of the Life and Teachings of the Founder of Christianity; on Sunday evening, August 9, Iconoclast (Mr. Bradlaugh)—Capital and Labour, and Trades’ Unions; on Sunday evening, August 16, Mrs. Harriet Law—The Teachings and Philosophy of J. S. Mill, Esq.; on Sunday evening, August 23, Mrs. Harriet Law—The Late Robert Owen: a Tribute to His Memory, Drawn from a Comparison of Present Institutions and their Effects, with those Advocated by that Eminent Philanthropist; on Sunday evening, August 30, Mrs. Harriet Law, an Appeal to Women to Consider their Interests in Connexion with the Social, Political, and Theological Aspects of the Times.”

Let me add, discussions are invited at the close of each lecture, and that, as may be anticipated, after a discussion the combatants remain of the same opinion. Nevertheless, the Secularists enjoy these discussions immensely—and no wonder, as on all such occasions they form not a majority merely, but almost the entire assembly. It is not often they find their match. Men who can meet them on a common platform are rare. A sincere Christian is shockedand pained, and loses his temper. Every cock can crow on his own dunghill; and at Cleveland Hall the Secularists have it all their own way, and are merry at the expense of their opponents. Nor is this all; they often indulge in a style of abuse which sounds even to tolerant ears uncommonly like blasphemy. In fact, they are often needlessly antagonistic, and vulgar, and coarse.

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