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leave every thing else to His all-wise, all-loving disposal; and come what may-affliction, persecution, death-they can triumph amid it all, knowing that nothing can separate them from Christ; that in Him there is no condemnation; that in Him their salvation, which with them is the absorbing point, is rendered eternally secure. Let me, the Christian will say, enjoy one beam of light from my Saviour's glory, one word of consolation from His gracious lips, one smile from His radiant countenance, and then I can welcome every trial, all the world's frowns and hard speeches, and persecution even unto death. Every affliction, however painful to flesh and blood, is amply compensated by a sweet internal assurance of my Saviour's love.

Now in the application of this subject I would have my readers inquire in what spirit they meet their trials? Affliction in some form or other, and especially if we are the children of God, is sure to fall to our lot in this world, for "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." Are we then patient, prayerful, submissive, and rejoicing under tribulation? Have we learnt, in the school of Christ, to kiss the rod as the martyr did the stake? Do we bless God as much for our crosses as for our comforts? We must remember that the season of trials is one in which we are especially called upon to evidence the effects of our Christian principles to the world. We are to have a song in the night of adversity, and the darkness of the night is to solicit our rays from obscurity and make us shine out brightly as the stars of glory. O let us fix our eyes upon the end of this dispensation; let us think of the recompense of reward; let us contemplate the arrival of that glorious day when tears shall be wiped from off all faces destined never to weep again, and then we shall "choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Heb. xi. 25. Beloved friends, let us learn always to look at our earthly crosses in the light of our celestial crowns; and while enduring the great fight of afflictions on earth, let us regard them as all hastening us on to that happy home where we shall no longer experience the toils of a pilgrimage-state; where we shall rest from our labours; sit down with Christ on His throne, or repose in Abraham's

bosom.

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(From "A Believer's Manual by the Rev. James Marryat.”)

Review of Books.

REMEDIES suggested for some of the evils which constitute "THE PERILS OF THE NATION." Crown 8vo. pp. xx. and 472.-London, Seeleys.

1844.

A YEAR ago, the important work entitled the Perils of the Nation,' occupied a place in our reviewing department; and we are now glad to commend to the serious attention of our readers, the (if possible) still more important sequel to that work which now lies before us.

We do not mean to pledge ourselves to every position laid down by the excellent, clear-sighted, reflecting and faithful writer, who has so wisely and so opportunely undertaken the necessary, yet often thankless office, of a reprover of a nation's wrongs. We may find it necessary to object to some views propounded in his volumes. But we are assured that his main principles are right, his general censures too well founded, his object beyond all praise, and his suggestions by far the most valuable that have ever been submitted to the attention of the Statesman, the Employer, the Philanthropist, or the Patriot.

The volume opens with an Introduction containing two just complaints; one respecting the dishonest arguments which have been put forth against the attempt made in the former work, to plead for the correction of abuses which were proved to exist. The argument is of this kind; If you want to correct evils, why do you not assail others which you have not ventured to touch upon? Why proceed by partial legislation? Or, in short, Why attempt a remedy in one case, till you can effect one in every case.' The design of such objections is sufficiently obvious. The parties raising them know well enough that the proposition of so gigantic a reformation as they suggest, would never be carried. The evils are to be removed, not in the mass, but one by one. Success in each case, would prepare the way for further advance and in due time, it may be hoped, the whole giant-evil would be brought to the ground. It is therefore high time, as the writer intimates, that this disingenuous mode of warfare be put down, and that every case of proved grievance be dealt with on its individual merits.

His second complaint, in which also, we heartily concur with him, has reference to the want of moral courage among the statesmen of the present age, in carrying out the principles which they acknowledge to be right. Indeed, all principle seems to be sacrificed at the shrine of a temporizing expediency; and public men sport with their own character, for the sake of adopting some line of policy, which meets a present supposed emergency. Can we have a more affecting and humiliating example of such procedure, than that which is afforded by the conduct of a Conservative government, in their attempt to legalize the usurpation, by Socinian Teachers, of those Offices and Trusts, which were intended by their Authors for the perpetuation of sound evangelical doctrine in the land? Yet an influential Peer has to be rewarded for his services, and therefore principle gives way to present expediency!

To return to the volume before us. The first four chapters are mainly preliminary, and furnish a kind of recapitulation of the former work. Here, if any where, we shall find room for a word or two of 1844.

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qualified objection. The picture of the State of the Country given in the first chapter, is we believe as just as it is appalling. It confirms all that had been before asserted, by new evidence which cannot be gainsaid. The second chapter justly traces the root of the evil to the neglect of God's word. And here, as well as in the two following chapters, we cannot but wish the writer had been more discriminating, and more definite, in some of his statements. We could have wished to see more stress laid upon the great principles inculcated in the New Testament, and less upon the particular case of the people of Israel. We do not for a moment doubt the importance of a most attentive consideration, on the part of christian statesmen, and christian philanthropists in general, of the peculiar constitution and frame of government under which God's favoured people were placed. The merciful provisions made for the poor, the peculiar laws of inheritance which acted as a perpetual entail, to prevent any family from sinking finally into hopeless poverty; the prohibition of usury and other measures of a restrictive kind, though seen by God to be the best for Israel, might not be (and we believe were not) intended as models for general imitation among christian people. They were, from their commencement, a strictly agricultural community; and God might give them such laws as would tend to keep them so; without thereby meaning to assert, for instance, that agriculture was better for all nations than commerce or manufactures. We are ourselves disposed to concur in the sentiment, that the labours of the field are, upon the whole, more conducive to human happiness and to good morals, than the labours of the factory: and, on this ground, would rather see the one encouraged than the other. But we should not fetch our arguments from the Book of Leviticus. We think the only firm ground to be taken, is, that all the several kinds of employment to which we refer, may be profitably and harmoniously carried on together; but that some general principles of the New Testament should be carefully applied to each such as "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Had this simpler ground been rested upon with greater firmness, and all questionable applications of Jewish Polity to the state of nations very differently constituted, been made more cautiously; we believe many readers of the volume before us, would have received more cordially and with more full conviction than they now do, the very valuable instructions which fill by far the greatest number of its pages.

Nothing is more certain, than that, in utter disregard of the authority of Scripture, the selfish and avaricious principle in human nature has been, and still is cherished to a most awful extent. The evil, once begun, has grown by what it feeds upon, and money which ought only to be regarded as the means of procuring other things, is made itself the one great end of universal pursuit. Some very instructive remarks on this subject are contained in the fourth chapter; yet we must say that we wish the writer had been content with his own clear, calm, but earnest way of putting things, instead of borrowing the inflated and declamatory language of Mammon.' There is a force in moderation of which Authors of this class seem to have no conception.

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To trace the evil-working of this principle to its fruits, is, we are sorry to say, no difficult task. Every class of society is now feeling the

effects of a bad system, which for years has been growing to muturity, and which, at the present moment, bears a most alarming aspect on the future condition of the country. All evidence goes to prove, that the agriculturist, who might be supposed most remotely affected by changes which commerce and manufactures have mainly produced, is still in the most wretched state of depression. Wages have sunk far below the amount necessary for the most frugal maintenance of honest and industrious families; cottages have gone to ruin; and while the population of a given district has increased, the number of these miserable dwellings has diminished. Bed-rooms are crowded with persons of all ages and sexes; the greatest temptations to immorality abound; principles are corrupted in the earliest age; cleanliness and decency have almost forsaken large districts of the rural population; and men who can no longer live by the honest labour of their hands, are induced to become poachers, and sheep-stealers, and rick-burners. How, then, are all these evils to be remedied? The Author justly tells us; It must be by a 6 RETURN TO SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES.' us hear the writer's own words,

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'We claim entire and absolute authority for the whole of God's word; and that not merely in affairs between the individual man and his future Judge, but in the government of families and states; in short, in the regulation of every matter which bears upon the condition of man. Hence we maintain, and that in the most unqualified manner, and as the first step to any amendment, that where a plain and distinct principle is enunciated in that one only book which we know to have been written by inspiration of God,there all speculation and reasoning should at once be laid aside, and the dictate of infallible truth be admitted without hesitation, as a principle established and placed beyond appeal.'-p 112.

How greatly the principles and practices of the community are at variance with those inculcated in Holy Scripture, is made apparent by an appeal to facts which every where present themselves to view. Could those who are in affluent circumstances be induced to look the question fully in the face, and to put forth their strength to meet it, there is every reason to believe that the whole state of society would, in due time, present the most cheering and encouraging appearance.

'Were the possessors of wealth throughout the land to do their duty, the subject of the present discussion would wholly vanish. And we are inclined to believe that the deficiency in right motives and in right practice, in regard to the poor, is perceptible less among those who are wealthy by descent, than among those who are eagerly pursuing the acquisition. The love of money is stronger, and the eager pursuit after it more absorbing, in those who are only rising to its possession, than in those who have already been wealthy, and who scarcely seek or contemplate any addition to their possessions.'p. 119.

Let testimony such as this be duly pondered by all who are rising from small beginnings towards competency and wealth and may they be taught to guard, in their own case, against a danger to which they are pre-eminently exposed.

Some keen yet just remarks follow, on the comparative attention paid by the Legislature, to the claims of the rich and of the poor. While a Bill for a Rail-road will occupy close attention day after day, in a Committee of the House of Commons, and the House will be crowded

to vote on such a bill, yet when another is introduced affecting the interests of 300,000 labourers and their families, it has been found difficult to keep forty members together to constitute a House!

Supposing the principle to be established, that the Scriptures must have paramount authority in the regulation of all affairs social and political, we may then descend to practical detail. A system of organization should be originated, which would, without perpetual recourse to new enactments, accommodate itself to the ever varying circumstances of different parts of the nation. A machinery both for religious instruction, and the education of children, has been, perhaps centuries ago, properly adapted to the population of a rural district; suddenly this district has become a manufacturing one, or a mining one, and the population has expanded twenty fold; while there has been no selfadapting power in the system of instruction to enable it to grow with this growing multitude of inhabitants. Surely provision should be made against the future recurrence of such a disproportion between the wants of the people and the supply.

In the mean time, much lost ground has to be recovered. Parishes must be subdivided, churches must be built, and care must be taken to fill them with ministers who shall not shun to declare "the whole counsel of God." Still further; the education of the Poor, notwithstanding the praiseworthy efforts which have been made, yet remains very defective both in quantity and quality. The whole of this chapter is well deserving of the most serious and attentive consideration. Our readers may take the summing up of it, in the writer's own words—

'The general results, then, which may be deduced from the foregoing rapid and necessarily imperfect consideration of this branch of the subject are these :

"That for the safety and well-being of the whole community it is absolutely necessary that its parochial organization be frequently reviewed; and placed from time to time, in a correct and efficient condition:

'That if, by such re-organization, districts are brought to light which are destitute of the means of instruction, mental, moral, or religious,—it is the duty of the Legislature and executive to take immediate measures for the supply of such deficiency:

That a mere learning to read is not education; but is only conferring a power more likely to be used for evil purposes than for good:

That a bare passage through certain scripture lessons, or through the Church Catechism, is not a religious education; nor can such teaching be expected to exert any beneficial influence on the bulk of the children submitted to it:

'That it should be the endeavour of the government, by calling in the counsel of the best teachers of youth that the kingdom can furnish, to devise some system, thoroughly christian, by which the children of the poor may be efficiently educated, in the true sense of the word; and thus fitted to become useful members of society:

'And, lastly, that such a system, when devised, should be made, as soon and as extensively as possible, an institution of the state; in such sort, as that all parishes, willing to avail themselves of it, might do so, by a vote of public vestry, with all the efficiency derived from an authorized local assessment.'-p. 168.

Such is the first remedy, or class of remedies proposed for the perils of the nation; the next is 'the Lightening of the labour-market.' But how is this to be accomplished? Political economists, regardless of the effect of their schemes on the morals of the people, would put every imaginable restraint upon the marriage of the poor; some would

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