things shall have been put out of the way. That is not a Christian state of society, which, for some millions of the people, renders the culture of the home virtues and affections little better than a physical impossibility. The taint of anti-christianity is on all social arrangements that hinder or abridge the spiritual growth of human beings.

God, having his own life to live, his own character to form, his own individuality to develop, his own soul to save. How deep this doctrine goes! It is the most revolutionary thing we have. It implies the radical falsity and wickedness of all social arrangements which demand the sacrifice of individual intellect, morality, and spiritual health, to the abstraction called Society. Under the Christian A still more delicate inquiry opens on us, in this charter of human rights and code of human duties, connexion. Is Royalty, thus tested, a Christian man-every man-has a destiny of his own to work institution? Looking at the manifold and sore out, a nature of his own to develop, up to its temptations to pride, sloth, self-indulgence, selfhighest possibility of health and strength; and willedness, and hard-heartedness, incident to a whatever obstructs him in this, Christianity im- status which hedges round, as with a sort of plicitly condemns. "Let my people go, saith the divinity, a fallible, imperfect (perhaps vicious and Lord, that they may serve ME," is the plea of worthless) mortal; places him in artificial and the Hebrew liberator for the emancipation of his false relations to his fellow-men; blunts his human race; and never were the rights of man advocated sympathies by excluding from his ken the realities on a broader ground. The words are Jewish, but of human action and suffering; raises him above the spirit is Christian. Political enfranchisement, the possibility of any thing like a free and equal as the condition preliminary of a true and entire friendship, removes him out of the hearing of disservice of God; civil rights, as needful to intellec- agreeable truths, softens down his vices into venial tual and moral health; social justice, as the foibles, and exaggerates the most common-place atmosphere in which the virtues and charities best amiabilities of temper or manner into extraordinary grow, there is a principle here wide enough to virtues,-it seems fairly open to a question whether cover the whole field of political reform. The aim the monarchical institution is one that could exist of Christianity is the perfecting of the individual in a thoroughly Christianized community. Has in whatsoever things are true, honest, just, vir- society a right, for the sake of any mere temporal tuous, and lovely; and whatever, in social custom and political convenience (real or supposed), to or legislative enactment, hinders the accomplish- subject a human creature to such tremendous ment of this aim, is unchristian and anti-christian. moral disadvantages? The query may strike Here is the condemnation of slavery and of some readers as a rather unorthodox one, but we some other things beside. The question, "Can a have good episcopal authority for it. In a sermon dependent elector be, in mental honesty and self- by the present Bishop of London, we find the sad respect, a perfect Christian man?" contains the case of sovereigns stated in a way that cannot but core of the Ballot controversy. The question, awaken the keenest sympathies, and seems calcu"Can a clergyman, with his bread, and his chil-lated even to alarm the conscience of society. After dren's bread, contingent on his unfaltering profes- a feeling exhibition of the all-but unbearable load sion of belief in a particular set of theological of political anxieties and responsibilities that presses opinions, faithfully discharge the Christian duty upon crowned heads, the Bishop proceeds: of proving all things?" is decisive as to the all these disadvantages, and difficulties, and cares, morality of enforced subscription to creeds and are of little moment, compared with the dangers articles. The question, "Can a soldier, whose which surround the wearer of a crown, considered trade is homicide by word of command, whose as a servant of God, a steward of his household, a profession is the abnegation of moral responsibility member of Christ's church, and an inheritor of for the most responsible act a human creature the kingdom of heaven. How difficult to them, can commit, be a living example of the Christian above all other persons, must it be to realize the virtues of benevolence and justice?" settles the precept, Love not the world, neither the things anti-christianity of standing armies. The question, that are in the world,' when the world so assidu"Can a grossly ignorant man be, at all points, a ously spreads all its most seductive temptations thorough Christian man?" is a short argument before them, and courts their enjoyment of its for National Education. And the question, "Can pleasures. With every wish anticipated, or graa man, woman, or child, that is over-worked, tified as soon as expressed, with an unrestricted under-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clad, enjoy intellec- command of all the resources of luxury and art, tual and moral health, realize the spiritual devel- living within a fence of ceremony and observance opment contemplated by the Christian gospel?" which the voice of truth can hardly penetrate, and brings religion into the whole of our social econo- even when heard at distant intervals, perhaps may mics. The right of the individual to the means of shock by its unwonted and unwelcome sound, how spiritual life and growth, to leisure, rest, recrea- is it possible for them not to become 'lovers of tion, physical and domestic comfort, as the condi- pleasure more than lovers of God?' How can tions of his soul's health,—if this be not instantly they be brought to learn the peculiar lessons which decisive of the question of the Ten-hours' Bill, it is must be learned by all the disciples of that Master only because some other and nearer questions who said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn stand, for the present, between us and that: and of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart'?" * because there would be no Christianity in legislating to make bad worse. But there the question "The Duty of Prayer and Intercession for our Rulers," is, waiting for us, to be settled when those other a Sermon, by Charles James, Lord Bishop of London. 1838.

"But

The right reverend preacher is, it must be con-
fessed, less happy in his solution of the problem
than in the statement of it. He tells us plainly,
it is a case for omnipotence:-"Our Saviour's an-
swer to his disciples, when they inquired how any
rich man could be saved, must be ours. With
men it is impossible, but not with God; for with
God all things are possible.'
He can
endow the mightiest monarch with the graces of
the lowliest saint. This is indeed one of the noblest
triumphs of his almighty power."

theory-which sacrifices the individual to the interests of the community-is less exclusively insisted on, than it was: we modify it with a large admixture of the "reformatory" theory, in which the individual is paramount. The feeling gains ground in society every year, and from time to time expresses itself in legislation, that whatever rights the criminal may have forfeited, he cannot forfeit his right to the means of moral improvement; and that any punishment, however welldeserved and exemplary, is essentially defective if it be not adapted to promote (otherwise than in the ecclesiastical-courts' fashion,) the soul's health of the offender. That punishment which dismisses the culprit from the world as an incurable-cuts him off from all opportunity and possibility of restoration, with the miserable mockery of a judicial prayer that "the Lord may have mercy on his soul"-is gradually dropping into desuetude : and society seems less and less willing to despair of the moral amendment of those who have most deeply sinned against it.

The Christian doctrine of human brotherhood, so nobly enunciated by St. Paul at Athens—“God hath made of one blood all nations of men”—this doctrine of the unity of the human race, in nature, in rights, and in destination, is a distinct condemnation of another point in the politics of heathenism: if, indeed, it be fair to charge on the poor heathen, vices which have been faithfully copied, with additions and improvements, by every Christian nation under the sun. We speak of that exaggerated and exclusive patriotism, which treads down, without a scruple, the rights of weaker rivals, and counts all things fair in war. On the hackneyed objection to Christianity, that it does not inculcate patriotism, we need not waste a word:

From all which, the Bishop makes out a strong argument for "the duty of prayer and intercession for our rulers." The conclusion strikes us, however, as being much narrower than the premises warrant and require. Have we any right, as a Christian community, to place our rulers in such a predicament that their salvation becomes (humanly speaking) an impossibility, a subject for the noblest triumphs of almighty power?-is an inquiry which the episcopal reasoning irresistibly suggests. The moral and religious grievances of the sovereign class seem, like the physical and social grievances of the negro-slave class, or the factory-child class, to call for some more tangible and mundane mode of redress than " prayer and intercession." Our preacher takes too desponding a tone. He treats the royal soul as though it were already in extremis, rejects all ordinary medical appliances as unavailing, and has nothing to recommend for his spiritual patient but the administration of the last rites of the church. The writer of the above-quoted condemnation of the monarchical institution ought, in consistency, to be, if not a downright republican, at least a most strenuous advocate of whatever tends to the relaxation or abandonment of an etiquette adverse to Christian sincerity, the curtailment of prero-to this sort of patriotism-whether it take the gatives perilous to Christian humility, and the retrenchment of a splendour incompatible with Christian simplicity and spirituality. Yet after all, why talk of royalty, when there is episcoрасу? The Bishop's own case is one of the hardest. Twenty thousand pounds sterling per annum for life, with palaces, patronage, and perquisites-surely there is matter here for the exercise of "the duty of prayer and intercession." What spiritual dangers can be compared with those which "surround the wearer of a" mitre, "considered as a servant of God, a steward of his household, a member of Christ's church, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven? How difficult to them, above all persons, must it be, to realise the pre-ing the heathen, does not hold, even in the abstract, cept," &c.

form of military aggression, or of diplomatic lying and chicane-Christianity stands, without a ques tion, in strong antagonism. Of the politics of the New Testament, a great first principle is international justice, sincerity, and magnanimity-the subordination of all mere national interests, or supposed and seeming interests, to the one eternal, impartial law of right. Will it be said that this is a truism, scarcely needing a special and formal statement? Unfortunately, the truism is not yet allowed by our rulers to pass as a truth-not even in the abstract. The present Prime Minister of this Christian empire, which has its missionaries and its Bibles out at the ends of the earth, convert

that barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, are one in the eye of God and God's law. He does not hold that the moral law of nations is an equal and impartial law. He believes not in the Christian faith that, as God has made all nations of one blood, so he has subjected all to one rule of right. He believes rather, in the heathen faith that there is

In virtue of this principle of the sacredness of the individual, the Christian gospel is a vast regenerative, revolutionizing force, permeating the whole structure of society and its institutions. We are learning to feel that even the criminal is within the scope of its operation. The "vindic-" some great uncontrollable principle at work” in tive" theory of punishment-which sacrifices the individual to the passions of the community-is now pretty well exploded; and the "exemplary"

the intercourses of civilisation with barbarism,* which "demands a different course of conduct to be pursued" from that which the principle of Chris

* In recalling attention to the following piece of unblushing Machiavelism, recently uttered by the most decorous and guarded of our public men, we do not mean to cast any special blame on Sir Robert Peel. He is not, that we know, a worse

tian equity demands. He believes, in short, that, and teasing, a frivolous and vexatious Christhe political morality of the New Testament, though tianity. It stops the people from being educated. all very well in its way and place-among gentle- In the present state of opinion and feeling on this men and gentlemanlike nations-will not do at the subject, there is positively nothing in the way of antipodes: the rule of doing to others as we would a large and effectual measure of national educathat others should do to us, is inapplicable to the tion, except our ecclesiastical and sectarian Chrispeculiar and complicated circumstances of our In- tianity: the thing might be done to-morrow, but dian empire. A more heathenish doctrine than that the Jews of the established church will have this of the "great uncontrollable principle" for no dealings with the Samaritans of dissent. It is dispensing with principle when and where con- a Christianity that makes a conscience of keeping venient, could not be devised; it is worthy of some Ireland, year after year, at the boiling point of old robbing and murdering Roman general or pro- peaceable and constitutional insurrection, rather consul. And the thing passed in our Christian than relinquish its uppermost room at the feast of House of Commons, with only an honest word or fat things, and its chief seat in courts and parliatwo of protest from one or two voices, went quietly ments. It is a Christianity that cannot live withthrough the press along with the rest of the day's out its orthodox hands in heretical pockets. Church news, and circulated over the Christian country surplices must be washed and mangled, church orwithout a syllable of objection from the Christian gans tuned, church clocks wound up, and church bishops, priests, and deacons. There was no cleri- roofs new slated, at the cost and charge of the people cal agitation got up against the great uncontrol- who do not go to church :—and they call that paylable principle, as there was against the Whig ing a peppercorn rent to God. It is a meddling, Church-rate and Education schemes-nothing said busy-bodied Christianity, about trifles or things about converting Sir Robert Peel and his majority indifferent, and politely dumb in view of evils to the Christian religion. Our ecclesiastical Chris- which it ought to denounce with voice of thunder. tianity has other work on hand, of a more interest- The church has not a word to say against the iniing kind-mounting guard on Irish tithes, and quity of taxing the poor man's bread, to swell the barricading the Universities against Dissenters. rich man's rent. Our political Christianity lifts Its solicitude for the soul's health of the people is up its voice, not against fraud, hypocrisy, oppresall expended on recusant rate-payers. sion, class-legislation, and the spirit of wickedness in high places-but against heresy, schism, unbelief, and misbelief; forgetting that the "Woe, woe unto you" of the Founder of the Christian church was pointed, not at the Samaritan schismatics or the Sadducee infidels, but at the orthodox, dulyconsecrated, and legitimately-ordained "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."

It must be allowed that the Christianity of this country rarely appears to much advantage in our politics. On nearly every one of the public questions which politicians make religious questions, the Christianity of our legislators-those of them who are most given to talk about their Christianity-will be found on the wrong side. The Christian religion is seldom brought into politics except to do mischief, to stop the way of rational and beneficent legislation. Our political and parliamentary Christianity is a Christianity that wages fierce war against poor men's hot Sunday dinners, and Sunday walks in green fields, and Sunday excursions by steam-boat and railway, and Sunday visits to museums, picture-galleries, and zoological gardens-against every thing that can refine the tastes, stimulate the intellect, refresh the heart, and do good to the health and spirits of the pallid week-day dwellers in city lanes and alleys. It is fond of extending the list of the theological mala prohibita. It is never so well pleased as when it is restricting somebody from doing or enjoying something: there are men who would not, if they could help it, let poor people do the very thing that Jesus Christ himself did-walk through the fields on the Sabbath-day. It is an obstructive

The political ideas and principles of the New Testament, like all other great moral truths, tend ever-with an inherent, resistless, though slowlyworking force-to their own realisation. It says nothing against this, that we have had Christianity in the world these eighteen hundred years, without having yet properly learned one of its lessons. We have had the sun and moon these six thousand years, day unto day uttering speech, and night unto night showing knowledge-and we have not yet learned their religion. The Christian gospel of brotherhood and spiritual equality, in the laborious slowness of its progress, the limitation of its influence, and the extent and seeming inveteracy of its corruptions, only shares the fate of other moral truths. Meanwhile, it furnishes us with abundant encouragement, under the tardy and imperfect character of its own suc

man in his theory, than the average of our diplomatists and politicians; and, in some points, he is a better man in his practice than many who talk more about their Christianity. The real evil is, not that one man should be found to enunciate such a doctrine as that which we proceed to quote, but that only one or two men should be found, in the whole House of Commons, to protest against it as it deserves; and that the shameless vindication of a flagitious public crime should have been attended by no perceptible loss of character to the statesman who gave utterance to it :

"We may lay down what positions we please with respect to the propriety of observing in our Indian policy the same rules and principles which are observed between European states-we may pass acts of Parliament interdicting the GovernorGeneral from extending his territories by conquest; but I am afraid there is some great principle at work where civilization and refinement come in contact with barbarism, which makes it impossible to apply the rules observed towards more advanced nations ; more especially when civilization and refinement come in contact with barbarism in an immensely extended country. Whatever may be the principle which may regulate the conduct of civilized nations when coming in contact with each other, I am afraid that when civilization and barbarism come in contact there is some uncontrollable principle of a very different description, which demands a different course of conduct to be pursued."-SIR ROBERT PEEL'S Speech on the Ameers of Scinde, February 8, 1844.

A BRIDAL. "Tis but Fancy's sketch."

THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN."