of existence shall be better understood and more extensively attainable those aims which at present enter so little into the thought of the great majority of the most advanced nations. A very large proportion of every civilized people is occupied in preparing the tools by which the animal necessities are to be provided for; another large proportion is employed in raising food, and circulating and preparing it for consumption. This is a very proper business for them, if it were pursued as a means of subsistence merely, and if the subsistence were a certain reward of a moderate quantity of labor. But it is not so. Men think it the purpose of their life to saw, to carry bricks, or to sow and reap; and no wonder they think so, when their utmost labor will do no more than support life. When all this is done, and the body is actually nourished with this food, we have only fulfilled the necessary conditions, and not attained the ends of our life. All that is yet done is only preliminary; not only to some highly-favored classes, but to every individual. Bodily strength and ease, and the pleasures which result from moderate labor, are the means by which the mind is to be formed and nourished; and though, among the laboring classes, the process does go on insensibly to the individual, he does not receive what is due to him from society till this progress is proposed to him as an aim, and till he is allowed opportunity to attain it. When, by the conscious employment of his means, the individual feels himself fulfilling the purposes of his being, his progress is continually accelerated; for the power of exertion and the pleasure arising from it act reciprocally as cause and effect. Their action is compatible with the humblest occupations, and through it will the laborer realize what our author describes when he says, "he vests a certain portion of ingenuity in the work he turns out. He incorporates his mind with the labor of his hands."

When the time arrives which is reasonably anticipated by philanthropists whose sobriety of judgment is unquestionable, when every man shall have that labor appointed him which he is best fitted to perform, and when that labor shall be pursued in reference to an ulterior and unseen object, human virtue (on which our author writes eloquently) will be widely different from what it is now, while the grounds of moral obligation remain the same. In the present state of society, and consequent position of every individual in it, it is all that the most enlightened piety can do to keep the spirit free to be acted upon by the holy influences which, being essentially fitted for universality, shall, at length, operate upon all minds. The struggle with very gross temptations is now long and severe to the wisest and best of us; while thousands occasionally fall, and myriads have little power to resist. Almost all these grosser temptations, whether of prosperity or of adversity, spring out of the social system by which one man's loss is another man's gain, and the natural consequences of actions are delayed or averted. Penal enactments present a very insufficient opposition to such temptations; as the awful amount of social crime testifies every day. When the ends of individual life are duly regarded, the aims of society (which are themselves but means) will be certainly fulfilled. If labor were more equally distributed, individual capacities would be more easily distinguishable; and as a consequence of this, the rewards of labor would be more appropriate and secure. Then the temptations of self-interest would be weakened, as there would be less want, and men could not covet or grasp with impunity. The pressure of necessity being removed, men would have leisure for the pursuit of high and higher objects; and the absence of the grosser temptations would leave them free to be wrought upon by the fine influences created for them, and ever awaiting their

reception while the state of society should itself generate these impulses perpetually, especially those which proceed from the reciprocal communion of minds at ease, and earnest in the pursuit of things unseen and eternal.

Here we must stop; not because we have transgressed the bounds to which sound reason warrants our advancing; but because the prospect is already as extensive as we can take in at one survey. It is no region in the clouds that we are contemplating; it is a land of promise stretched out before. our eyes, in all its distinct reality. The prophetic voice of philanthropy has long announced to us a state of society in which every individual shall be employed according to his capacity, and rewarded according to his works: and in the meanwhile we are ready to hail the appearance of any 'Thoughts on Man," which shall not only supply desultory facts and observations, but suggest means for securing to him all his rights, and cultivating all his capabilities.

66

ROMANISM AND EPISCOPACY.*

THE idea of this work is excellent. We were struck with it on first seeing the advertisement; but it was not till we had read the book itself that we became fully aware how comprehensive is its plan, and how admirable a clew it furnishes to the intricacies of all established religions, not excepting that of which the author is an honored minister. This work is, in fact, an exposure of the evils of establishments; and all that is necessary for a logical overthrow of the church of England is a fair extension of the

* The Errors of Romanism traced to their Origin in Human Nature. By Richard Whately, D.D. London: Fellowes. 1830.

principles of this book to the one other case of which it does not treat. If Dr. Whately would take his own volume for a text-book, and practise upon it the rules of his other volume, on logic, the result must be, to a spirit so candid and liberal as his, that he would resign his archbishopric into other hands, and preach the gospel in a plain coat, black or blue as it might beseem. The candor and liberality of our author being granted, and who questions either? - let us proceed to establish the other half of our position.

We hope that none turn away from this book because the word Romanism is conspicuous in the title-page. Many are weary of hearing of whatever bears any relation to the Pope. The Catholic question being settled, they think all connected with Romanism is over and gone. They do not want to be convinced that there is folly in holy-water, and wax-lights, and Latin prayers, and incense, and have decided long ago that there is neither profit nor pleasure in monachism. They think that if O'Connel would but agitate himself into his grave, the matter of his faith might drop; or that if it must be still brought before our eyes occasionally, it is only helping to keep it alive to write about it. All this is suggested to some persons by the word Romanism: but if they will have patience just to look at the table of contents, they will find that Judaism, Mahometism, Paganism are nearly convertible terms with Romanism as regards the matter of this book. Human nature as acted upon by religion, and acting upon relig ion, under whatever aspect,—is our author's subject: and we find the brazen serpent and the cross, the sword of the Prophet and the crosier of the Pope, the dark rites of Paganism and the mysteries of Romanism, all brought to bear on the dangers and abuses of Protestantism, and made to serve as an elucidation of the intricacies of the heart of man.

Our author stands on firm ground when he contends that human nature has the same tendencies every where and at all times, those tendencies being only modified, and not radically changed, by the various influences to which men are subjected. "As face answereth to face in water, so is the heart of man: " and Eve would have known her own likeness, whether she looked at it in cisterns fouled with earthly intermixtures, or in the mountain lake freshened with streams from heaven. From his main position our author cannot be dislodged: the question is, whether he has not left an opening through which an adversary may reach him, and whether he can be secure till he has extended his lines one post farther.

His six chapters treat of Superstition, of Vicarious Religion, of Pious Frauds, of undue Reliance on Human Authority, of Persecution, and of Trust in Names and Privileges.

He begins well by adverting to the popular difficulty,the difficulty which the schoolboy puts, and at which his wise father shakes his head, - how the Israelites could be so ineffably stupid, so absolutely infatuated, as to be idolatrous in so gross a manner as they were, while they had Jehovah's visible presence for their guide, his audible presence for their oracle, and his sensible and immediate chastisements and rewards for their government. The golden calves, and the groves and altars and invocations of Baal are equally an astonishment to the baptized child and his Christian parent; for want, as Dr. Whately tells us, of that philosophy which enables the student of human nature to discern the same principles in their different manifestations. The same vices and absurdities may have existed in every age under different forms; taking their proportions, of course, from the various kinds and degrees of restraint which circumstances impose. The Israelites had not our ad