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dissensions. They had tried both parties, and, Peachum or Lockit, there was not a fico to choose between them. On the advent of the new king, who was to put a stop to it all, they went wild with joy. They made huge bonfires, and tossed their caps to the sky. Being certain that Oliver was dead, they took him up and hanged him. The new king was certainly not a model in the eyes of any party, (his best friends never said it of him,) but, nevertheless, from the beginning to the end of his long reign, his subjects were more than content; they were thankful. Hurrah for Nell Gwin! The presence of living Nelly was sweeter to them than the memory of dead Hampden. Like old Grimaldi, during the riots, they were willing not only to chalk up No Popery, but no religion at all. Their next king was one who hanged and burned them, but they took it mute as sheep. When he got out of his throne, it was because another king came over and got into it. The people spake not.

eases.

About this time was born Joseph Butler, late L. L. D., and Lord Bishop of Durham: or, as the English have it, L. L. D., and late Lord Bishop of Durham. No wonder that we find, in the writers of his day, much complaint of the spirit of infidelity and atheism, then so fashionable. The whole fabric of English society was like the whited sepulchre-fair enough without. The generation to which Joseph Butler belonged, was not answerable for the rottenness it endured. That rottenness had been begotten with it by the generation which it succeeded, as a debauched father transmits his disDuring all the time we speak of, namely, the lifetime of Bishop Butler, the kings and queens of England were openly and notoriously usurpers. Their divine right was reverently prayed over every Sunday, and to every proclamation was signed King, by the grace of God; when it could not be concealed, from the meanest peasant, that the rightful heirs to the throne were then in France. Corrupt peers, and a venal House of Commons, was that of which Parliament was composed. It is very true, that the people, properly speaking, do not get their religion from either king or parliament, but the Church, which all know to be the Tabernacle; neither more nor less. The Tabernacle, however, had

suffered even more than its share in the earthquakes. The wise, who wisely held their peace, thought that never was more needed the presence of one, as having authority, to overturn the tables of the money changers, and especially to expel them that sold doves. The union of church and state was even more abominable then than now, because it better answered the purpose of a bushel under which to hide the light. To do them justice, we believe that the makers of it did not, in the first instance, intend it to act as a bushel, but as a splendid lantern, which was to let the light shine in-but one direction. Why not so? Is the stately pride of an ancient kingdom to be sacrificed altogether to religion? No, no; a proper and judicious compromise must always be expected and desired by reasonable men. It was enough that this religion should have emanated from a stable; and, doubtless, so thought the wise and great men who, in the beginning, sired the holy, catholic, apostolic Church of England. True, the people, in all directions, had a vulgar desire to see the light; to divert them from which idea, they made the lantern a very fine sight, surely. They continued to plaster it over with so much silver and gold and precious stones, that, at last, there was hardly left a crevice for the light to shine through. As Joseph Butler grew towards man's estate, he heard different accounts of the after history of this light and lantern. The Dissenters thought, for want of a better explanation, that when the Roundheads, led on by Oliver, smote to pieces king and lantern, the light dazzled them, (they being unprepared for aught so brilliant,) and that therefore, they continued to strike out like one in the dark, who is not altogether, though in some measure, responsible for the damage he doeth. The Dissenters, however, were not many; moreover, they were sadly under the weather, and were bullied accordingly. Their lame account of things

was always received with such derision as made it appear very mean. All good subjects swore, with loud oaths, that, in Oliver's time, it was established and made manifest, that if the lantern is taken away, the light goes with it. And the writer avers that, in his opinion, it is better for men to think so, than to show, by their works, as the Roundheads

did, that they secretly disapprove of Christ having only said to the woman, "Go, and sin no more."

Mr. Butler, as we have seen, while yet very young, became dissatisfied with the tenets of the dissenters, in whose doctrines he had been educated, and determined to conform to the established church. It is no injustice to his memory to say that such would most probably have been his determination had the established church been the Roman Catholic, the Greek, or the Arminian. At the same time, it is but justice to his memory to say, that, if ever there shall be a church, of which all the members will be such Christian men as Joseph Butler, then that church, whatever may be its creed, will be not like a bushel that covers the light, but like a hill, from whose top the light shall shine and cannot be hid.

When he took orders in the church, we fear that he stood there "like a good deed in a naughty world." The church was, as much as the parliament, but a part of the political economy of the English government, and every whit as corrupt as any other part. Men were preferred in it for political services, just as they were preferred for the same in the corps diplomatique. And so, with less justice, for the church dignitary, who could spare fifteen pounds a year to a curate, was in the possession of a sinecure; although, in the army, a colonel is not allowed to put the business of his office in the hands of a sergeant. Had Mr. Butler turned the weight of his talents against these enormous abuses in the church, he would have done far more good; albeit, it is more than probable that he would never have been elevated to the high places it was his destiny to fill. It is of record, that, in the year 1764, which was twelve years after the death of Bishop Butler, the Rev. Mr. Bate fought two duels, and was subsequently made a Baronet and a Dean, after fighting another; that the Rev. Mr. Allen killed a Mr. Delany in a duel in Hyde Park, and received no ecclesiastical censure therefor, though Mr. Justice Buller strongly charged his guilt to the jury. The writer of this was born, educated, and still lives in a community in which the law of honour, properly so called, has always been in force and observance. A heathenish

layman, he has always held himself amenable to it; but when he thinks of these reverend men, he wants to climb to some high place and spit down his contempt on such a church. A church married and made one with a corrupt earthly govA church, the livings in which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, are owned by families, and by them given, like any other property, to portionless younger sons. But, chaque a son gout; in the eyes of Joseph Butler, this church was the fold, of which Christ was the shepherd.

ernment.

He looked out upon the world and saw it filled with erring wanderers. The nobles and leaders of society were fine gentlemen, too well bred to make a blowing horn of heterodox opinions, but many of them were notoriously deists and atheists. Ever since the Restoration, religion had been at a discount. On the stage it was treated as a bagatelle. In short, the reputation of it was to be avoided by any who aspired to the character of wit and fine gentleman. The first thing that strikes us, even in the introduction to the Analogy, is the erroneous idea its author entertained of that atheism on which he was about to make war. Guileless and full of simplicity, he had himself been a Christian from childhood. He had become a believer, as the sparks fly upward, without a struggle or thought to the contrary. Retired and studious, a man of books and not of the world, he seems strangely to have thought that the wits and fops about the court and the coffee-houses, owed to reason what was generally, of course, the effect of ignorance, of fashion, and the desire to make a cheap display of spirit. Full of zeal for the side on which he was enlisted, Mr. Butler determined it should be a battle of reason alone. Of necessity, then, his first chapter is devoted to the earthly proof in favour of a future life. It is only this chapter we propose now to discuss. In it he says nothing of Faith, or divine interposition to help us see; but boldly declares that, from facts known to all, he will make it manifest, by logical deduction, that, after our bodies are buried, our souls continue to exist. In any other man this would seem the sublimity of arrogance. With infinite simplicity he proposed to himself a task, to attempt the accomplishment of which would have

And yet our author not

made the capacity of Shakspeare or Lord Bacon seem futile and meagre to the last degree. only attempts it, but seems to have little patience with any who may be inclined to doubt that success has crowned his undertaking.

To do him justice, one is at a loss whether most to admire his talents, or to regret the unwise service in which he consumed them. As for the course and constitution of that small part of nature seen by mortal eyes, there is no phase or feature in it that is not a hackneyed emblem of mortality. The drop that sinks into the earth, the brook hastening to the river, and the river swallowed in the sea, have told but one story since the beginning of time. The ocean itself, dread, trackless, unfathomable, seems forever sadly murmuring of that other ocean in which every thing earthly is buried at last. The breeze that smells of sweetest hay, smells also of the mould. The stateliest tree and the humblest flower, are monuments of trees and flowers which are gone, and the place thereof shall know them no more. The Eternal City

is choked with the ruins of that eternal Rome which has passed away; and Carthage, that should laugh at its desolation, is herself desolate. As for Egypt and the East, their temples and palaces shelter the hooting owl, and at their altars the hated jackall finds safety. In the densest forests of this, which poor man has called the New World, they who hew down trees see the sunlight fall through on mighty ruins of cities that have no name; whose marble walls are sculptured over with a history, told in letters none can read. In God's name, let us not, with every thing crumbling around us, look to aught that we see, for proof of our immortality. If we take for granted no promise made to us, then, so far as we know, the story is already told and proven. In this fair climate, little flowers smile on the grave of him who has been buried a week. It is a sad lesson, easily learned; and if from it the great man could gather comfort, then so much the more was his luck than ours.

His first argument, in favour of the separate and independent existence of soul and body, is the very conclusive evidence we have that that part of us which is conscious, is

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