our times be swept away, he would no more think of supplying a new one than the people who had just interred the cholera would think of raising a plague' ?"

"There is nothing to be grateful for in that, neither need he have said as much, for it must be known to all men, and simply because he knows nothing of religion. As I was just now observing, he confounds religion with its antipodes, and cannot distinguish between a religion resting upon the soul's emotions and one which is founded upon the creed of the intellect. I should as soon expect a Bosjesman to supply us with a new theory of the polarisation of light, as that Willow should give mankind a new religion. It is not at all in his way, and, in fact, he must abandon his dogmatisn, and become a little more attentive to logical rules, as a speculator, before he will be able to comprehend and define the first principles of true religion. He has neither tears nor reverence, and without these he cannot make headway."

"But he professed to be particularly humble-he would not even undertake to say that there is no God, but only that there is not sufficient evidence to prove that a God exists. Was not that a proof of his great moderation ?"

He

"Not to my mind; neither, Barrington, is it to yours. But, banter apart, I think there is not in all Europe a more dogmatic or arrogant man. professes humility, but does not exhibit it. Certainly he confesses that he does not know the truth regarding many of the most important points he touched upon, but then, having made this confession, he practically discarded it, for he proceeded to argue just as if he knew all about them; never a Methodist local preacher in the land more absolute and dogmatical than he. For instance, did you not notice his saying that it is perfectly useless for men to spend their time trying to find out God? He boasted of always having held that the existence of Deity is past finding out,' and that he had equally held it to be a truth that the time employed upon the investigation might be more profitably employed in studying humanity. But, then, again, he said, "The Non-Theist takes this ground, He affirms that natural reason has not yet attained to Supernatural Being; he does not deny that it may do so, because the capacity of natural reason in the pursuit of evidence of Supernatural Being is not yet fixed.' And shortly after he declared that, 'as the whole subject is beyond human comprehension, no imaginable order of things would serve to prove the existence of a Deity.' Now I cannot understand how any intelligent man, accustomed to speak upon a subject so interesting and solemn, could be thus guilty of dogmatising in the contrary directions. If there may be a God,' does it not also follow that He may be found out.' If He has not been, does that prove that He will not be? There were men who reviled the earliest 'star-gazers,' men who argued that they had better attend to their wool and corn, had better mind the affairs of the city, for the stars and their nature could not be found out. Even in the days of Copernicus and Galileo, the same was urged by many very eminent and learned men; and when they spoke there was far less reason for believing that such advances would be made in Astronomy as those with which we are now acquainted, than there now is for supposing that we shall find out God. May it not be that some man is now in the world who will be able to accomplisli that feat? Who of us, without arrogance, can define the limits beyond which human discoveries cannot be made? When men undertake to declare that no imaginable order of things can furnish the proof, or to teach that time spent in the search could be better employed, they impertinently assume them=

selves to be wise in relation to a point upon which the best of us know nothing. For my own part, I cherish the hope that the day will arrive when in this, as in many other matters, there will be no longer a mere conviction, resting upon Hope and Faith, but a certainty, resting upon demonstrated foundations; and that will come through the labours of men who are content to inquire under the hope that they may enrich the world with a new truth." "I do not share your hopes, Lester."

"Well, perhaps not, Barrington, but," continued Lester, "I believe you will fully coincide with my feeling against his declaration, that the existence of misery in the world tends powerfully to prove that there is no God. Thousands make that statement with whom we do not feel angry, but it is impossible to listen to it coming from the lips of a man who professes to be a Reformer without feeling deep indignation."

"Well, I don't know about that, Lester, for the fact is that, as he put it in speaking of The Amazon,' I felt inclined to agree with him. When he asked, 'What is the use of a Deity, when He does not interfere to prevent such appalling catastrophes?' although annoyed by the flippancy of his manner, I felt disposed to endorse his matter.'

"You did! Why, Barrington, surely you have gone through the alphabet of the Divine Government; how, then, could you fall into such an error? "Make me to see that it is one, and I'll confess it."

66 That is not difficult. God must either rule the world by general or special laws. If by the latter, then He must be constantly interfering; and, in that case, humanity would never achieve progress, for it would have no freedom. They who have everything done for them soon lose the power of doing for themselves. The petted son of a London tradesman perishes miserably in the backwoods of America, where every man has to assist himself. He succeeds who has the fewest wants, and who has learnt how to depend upon his own resources. Thus inaction breeds weakness; the support readily given by others, renders us less careful in ourselves. And so it is upon a large scale. The Irish and English nations were equally cursed with bad governments. The people in the former country are constantly crying out about what they have endured under the government of oppressors, but they ignore the fact that the working millions in England were equally oppressed. Every wrong inflicted upon Irishmen has been equally inflicted upon the Saxon labourers. Why the difference between them at the present time? Simply because the Irishman has been waiting to have done for him what the Englishman has done for himself. The former sat in expectation; while the latter worked, fought, and conquered. Now suppose that some good spirit were to give Irishmen all they want, what would be their condition ten years hence? They would be worse than they are at present, for they would care even less to provide for the future. This Willow would probably have prevented the Irish Famine, which, viewed in all its horrors was most appalling. Yet it saved Ireland, and will prove to be the foundation-stone of Irish prosperity. It was an evil which, like bitter medicine, is fraught with good. Had some man left for every Irishman a little fortune, he would not have proved so great a benefactor to Erin as that famine was. And so it is with all the evils which afflict our race. They are consequences of our ignorance, our foolhardiness, or our neglect. Why should God be called upon to provide for the consequences of these? If we are ignorant, why do we remain so? Why should we dare danger in a foolhardy style? And why neglect those precautions which are known to be essential to our safety? Let us use the resources

already at our disposal, and the measure of human misery will sink to an inappreciable point."

"That is to say, Lester, that evil, and pain, and these great catastrophes, are nothing else than efficient means employed, in accordance with definite laws, for the purpose of punishing us for neglect of duty, and rousing us to the necessity of providing against their repetition."

"Precisely so. And in this I hold that God acts paternally. No good father will remove every cause of difficulty from the path of his child; for, knowing that strength comes with victory, he will rather place them in his way, and incite him bravely to meet and conquer them."

"I grant the force of your argument; still, in presence of the fearful catastrophe, it seems to be impossible to avoid feeling that whoso hath the power should preserve the unhappy victims."

"I will agree with you when you can shew me that it would be wise for the richest merchants in the city to interfere and save those who are on the verge of bankruptcy. We know that such interference would ruin thousands, for they would be rendered reckless by the sense of a saviour in the hour of need. Depend upon it, Barrington, when we look at the facts connected with the moral government of the world, we shall find plenty of evidence to prove His existence, His wisdom, and His goodness; but Willow, I fear, has never ventured upon going below the mere surface."

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REFORMATION.-L.

CONCLUSIONAL.

THE Reformation became possible only by the assertion of the principle of Free Inquiry; but Protestantism, which was the practical outcome of the Reformation, was false to this very principle, out of which itself was born. Thus, in the Protestant Church, the same old foes to human progress appeared with new faces; again did priestly authority assert itself—again was human reason outraged, and a spiritual despotism set up. Protestantism, instead of admitting itself to be but a means to an end, sought to establish itself as the end; the doctrine of finality was taught with reference to the work done by the Reformers, and the impossibility of further progress asserted. And, when we remember that this was the position taken with reference to that which, on its theological side, was but a reproduction of old errors, we see the explanation of the fact that Protestantism, instead of being a means of progress, has been an incumbrance in the way of human advancement; and we find, also, in this, the reason why the New Reformation is necessarily a work of destruction, as well as of construction.

Theologically, Protestantism must be looked upon as a retrogression. The old Church, at least, allowed for some virtue in human nature, and taught that man's salvation was, in a measure, dependant on himself. But the theology established by the Reformation taught that man was thoroughly and incurably depraved, and that salvation came from God alone-the grace of God, and not the deserts of man, ensured salvation. Whence, as a natural result, came the dogmas of justification by faith, election, and reprobation; thence the Antinomianisms and Calvinisms, and the other theological spectres which still squeak and gibber among us, to the sorrow and indignation of all thoughtful religious souls. The degradation of the human was, in fact, the fundamental principle of the Reformation Creed, and the idea still pervades

the teachings of our Churches, with what evil results we have, on more than one occasion, pointed out. Needless is it to repeat here what we have so often impressed upon our readers. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to a few general considerations connected with this characteristic of the Reformation theology.

To assert the falsity of this doctrine of the innate depravity of human nature, is but to express a truth supported alike by the facts of history and of daily experience. Do we find men willingly and wilfully disobeying the laws of God, and misusing or abusing the faculties He has bestowed on them, except through ignorance, or from the force of false teaching? We do not; when men know the Will of God they are ever ready to obey it. Is not this proved by the progress of Civilisation? No sooner has science unlocked the mysteries, removed the film from the eyes of men, and shown them how to obey, than they have made its lessons practical. One hundred years ago men did many things which every one would hesitate to do now, and so, as we go farther back into the centuries, we find the same truth ever exemplified. There was a time when good men supported the slave trade, looked upon the keeping of slaves as perfectly justifiable; but a Clarkson and a Wilberforce, and other good men, found an ever-increasing audience when they appealed to the moral sense of men, and placed this matter in its proper light. There was a time when good men believed that it was improper to educate the “lower classes," but no sooner was the falsity of this view disclosed than the opposite belief grew ever more and more widely prevalent. The history of man, in all its bearings, therefore, teaches us this, that the doctrine of the innate depravity of man is as gross a libel upon human nature as it is upon the character and moral government of God. To the thinking man nothing can be more fearful than that week after week thousands of men assisted by organised bodies, should be spreading abroad false views of man and man's duty. For when men are taught to forget their self-respect, and to look upon themselves as beings degraded past redemption, except by the grace of God, what can be expected in the shape of noble aspiration or worthy action? That, in spite of such teaching through the past three hundred years, the world should contain so much of goodness and purity as it does, is itself a strong argument in favour of the innate goodness of mankind.

But intellectually as well as morally man is libelled and degraded by our Church theories. At present, except so far as it is exercised by the miserable scholastic subtilties of theology, the intellect of man is left by our religious teachers entirely unfed. And with what result? This that the Age is becoming more and more an Age of doubt and disbelief, the religious systems existent among us no longer satisfy the growing intelligence of the people, intellect and intellectual pursuits are divorced from religion, or the connection is kept up only by a refined hypocrisy. Is this as it should be? We, as Religious Reformers, think not, and part of the New Reformation we seek to accomplish is to show that the cultivation of the intellectual powers is part of every man's religious duty—a duty he owes to God, no less than to himself, inasmuch as the Reason of man was given to him by the Creator in order that he might use it.

Science and history, art and literature, all the departments of intellectual exertion, we would therefore have men pursue, feeling certain that the result, however it may clash with existing beliefs and systems, must necessarily be good. 'Tis true that the God of Science, the God discerned by the Reason

of man, the God who made this Universe, and impressed those laws upon it which excite our wonder no less than our gratitude, is a very different Being to the God of theology, the God of our Churches and Chapels; but no man who compares the ideas of the Deity derived from Science with those which theologians inculcate, can for a moment doubt which tend most to exalt our conceptions of Divinity. With respect to man, and man's duties, also, the Reason of man creates a standard far above that of the pulpit. Having regard, then, to the theological aspects of the 16th century Reformation, and the evil consequences arising from the creeds it established, we feel that something nobler and better is required. We can no longer remain satisfied with systems which ignore the intellect and moral nature of man, or with religious teaching which supplies nothing for their development and education. We would make peace between Theology and Science, Reason and Religion, now at war, and establish a Free Church, where men, while learning to respect themselves, may also learn to love and reverence God, and obey His Will-where God shall not be libelled, and humanity not degraded.

Our aim in the series of Articles of which this is the last, has been to trace the several sources of the Reformation, and thereby to indicate what were the characteristics of a movement which, with all its failings and shortcomings, was nevertheless the beginning of a new era in the history of humanity, and set free forces yet operant among us for good. The historical aspects of the Age of the Reformation itself, and the chief actors therein, have been as yet unnoticed by us, but will receive our attention hereafter, as opportunity serves. Our object then will be, as it has been, to point a practical moral, and learn the lessons which the men and events of which we treat, from time to time, have for us in this present; feeling that the study of the past is only useful when it enables us, as men, to understand our own powers and opportunities better than we otherwise should do, and creates in us the desire to put them to a proper and efficient use. While admiring the greatness of the Past behind us, it behoves us never to forget the claims of the Future before us-never to forget that there is yet work for us to do, and that our duty is to find that work and do it.

JAS. L. GOODING.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE SIKHS.
BY THE LATE CAPTAIN W. MURRAY.

(Concluded from page 362.)

THE Mussulman classes have their peerzadas, who make their rounds amongst their mooreeds, or disciples, and receive from them such neeaz, or offerings, as they can afford, or may choose to present. Since the decline of the Mahometan, and the rise and establishment of the Sikh power, the peerzadas have to lament the loss, in many instances, and the diminution, in others, of their village endowments. They still retain, however, a portion of the lands they held during the reigns of the emperors of Delhi, attached to their principal rozas, tombs, or seminaries; but the rents from them, and the trifle given in neeaż, are barely sufficient to maintain themselves and families in respectable circumstances, and to support the khadims, or servitors, in constant attendance at the tombs of their saints.

Every village, independent of the fixed dues to the blacksmith, carpenter,