form of the Athanasian Creed, in which all traces of the theory of subordination had disappeared, could hardly fail to deprecate the influence of a work which now bore the impress of Arianism, and which, if not authoritatively rejected by them, would be likely to be regarded by many as having the sanction of the apostles.

Happily our situation is different, and we can use the work for historical and archæological purposes, without being led by it into heresy: for we know that it was a forgery in the outset; and that, from its history and from the nature of the case, it can have no authority to teach us articles of faith. Here what safeguard, more complete or more strong, can be needed?

The forgery is detected; and one of its leading objects, the giving of apostolic sanction to the claims of the hierarchy, is too obvious to be concealed. We have purposely abstained from bringing forward the considerations which the author of the Prize Essay respecting the Constitutions has presented in his clear and convincing chapter on their Plan and Object. We would specially commend to our readers an attentive perusal of that chapter. Our remarks we wish to have regarded as only an occasional addition to the full and regular discussion which may there be found.

Perhaps one of the best ways of diminishing some of the differences of opinion among good and learned men, would be to increase their personal acquaintance with the documents which have come down to us from the early ages of the church. Certainly it would tend to increase their sympathetic interest in the Christians of those ages, and their gratitude to God for the Holy Scriptures. The Word of the Lord endureth for ever.

Would that churches and individuals were reverently listening to his voice, and to the admonitions which sound forth from the history of those who have gone before us! "In such a world as this," it has well been said by an able reviewer of the Constitutions,* "nothing short of experience can restrain or recover the church from human inventions, and bring her to the stable practice of Christ's directions. Happy for us then, (if we will only profit by the result,) that so much of this experimenting is already done. But in order that we may profit by it, the history of every experiment should be preserved and carefully studied; if not, then all has been suffered in vain, and must be suffered over again. We must know not only the general result, but also the causes and the pro

* In the Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review, for May, 1848.

cess; in short, the beginning and the middle and the end. Then, and then only, shall we be prepared for a thorough reform; and then only, if already reformed, shall we be effectually guarded from all approaches to the like folly. It is in view of facts and principles like these, that we may venture to assign so high a rank in present and prospective usefulness, to a work once so pernicious as the stupendous forgery now before us. Though not the prime cause of Popery,for that is to be found in the depths of human nature,—it was among the earliest and most effective agencies in the organization of all the spiritual despotisms that have existed in the church. And now, like an arch-culprit in chains on the gibbet, it hangs an everlasting memento to the whole world."

But let us not forget that it was a pious fraud of which the culprit was guilty. In one point of view, there is in this fact an enormous aggravation of the offense; and in another, there are mitigating circumstances. It becomes us to be discriminating and candid in the sentence of condemnation which we must pronounce; and it will be well if we of modern times, after all that has occurred, are never betrayed into the act of snatching the sceptre from the hand of our Lord, or into the use of unchristian means for the attainment of an object which we may deem desirable, and for the greater glory of God.

ART. III.-SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

Ein Beitrag

1. Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs. zur Zeitsgeschichte. Von L. STEIN, Professor in Kiel. Leipzig. 1848. Socialism and Communism in France of the present day. A Contribution to the History of the Times. By L. STEIN, Professor in Kiel. Leipsic. 1848. Second revised and enlarged edition. In two volumes, with an Appendix. Pp. 592, 251. 2. Petites Traités Publiés par l'Académie des Sciences, Morales et Politiques.

Paris. 1848, 1849.

Small Tracts, published by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. Fourteen Numbers.

3. Moralism and Christianity; or Man's Experience and Destiny. In three Lectures. By HENRY JAMES. New-York. 1850. Pp. 184.

4, Hints Toward Reforms. By HORACE GREELEY. New-York. 1850. Pp. 400.

It is becoming every day more obvious, that Socialism is not merely a caprice of the theorist or a passion of the

revolutionist, and that it presents grave practical questions which claim the regard of earnest thinkers in all lands. In France the Socialist movement did not begin, as some seem to suppose, with the insurrection of workmen who overturned the French throne in the February of 1848, nor did it end under the bayonets of Cavaignac in the following June. It sprang from causes that have been at work for nearly a century; and now that, as we hope, its destructive agitations have ceased, its serious problems are committed to the most careful and conservative minds. In England, the word no longer stands identified with the communism of Owen and the atheism of Wright, but is used by political economists and even by Churchmen to designate the most sober measures for the improvement of the condition of the poor, the better ordering of their dwellings and their labor. In our own country, candid men have ceased making merry at the follies of social reformers, and are ready to confess that behind the most extravagant reform movements there is truth enough to justify their origin and demand the most serious thought. The questions that agitate our nation most deeply are connected with the relation between labor and capital. Slavery, protective duties, the currency, these are the staples of political discussion; whilst in some quarters even these engrossing topics are made to yield to others, and in great conventions and village coteries the rights of labor and the need of land reform are discussed more vehemently than our national politics.

We do not feel obliged to give an exact definition of Socialism. It would not be easy to define a thing so vague and general-comprehending the wildest follies and also the gravest social science of our time. It is enough for us to indicate the generic principle to which all its various tendencies may be traced. Regarded as a practical movement, Socialism is the effort to secure to labor its due share of the goods which it produces, and to bring the laborer into juster relations with the capitalist. Regarded as a science, Socialism is the philosophy of the right adjustment of labor and capital, and however far it may go into the regions of theology or metaphysics, it always comes back to this point as the practical issue.

Professor Stein's definition is more specific than this, and represents Socialism as being "the systematic science of the equality to be realized by the supremacy of labor in property, the state, and society." Our present purpose does, not require us to enter into any nice scientific distinctions, for we aim only to lay before our readers in a very general way the socialist tendencies at work in our own country. We cannot of course

do this without some reference to movements in Europe, and have therefore placed at the head of this article the books that have seemed to us most suggestive or important regarding the European and American field. Professor Stein, in volumes whose careful research is fitly honored by their rare typographical beauty, aims rather to be the historian than the philosopher of Socialism. He describes its origin in the very nature of society, and its developments in France, the country destined to exhibit its workings alike for the instruction and the warning of other nations. He presents without reserve the frightful discords in modern society, agrees with the Socialists in the importance which they attach to the issue between labor and capital, whilst he criticises them without mercy, and finds in none of their nostrums a remedy for the disease to be healed. He is too wary to presume to legislate for society, and from his position as a philosophic monarchist, he seems to wait for time and Providence to develop the measures that baffle human invention. In a better harmonizing of human labors and interests he has full faith, and his work, so full of acuteness and caution, is not without generous hope and incentive. His first volume is given to the general philosophy of the subject, and describes the various developments of the idea of equality in the history of France. The second volume treats in detail of the Socialist leaders, St. Simon and Fourier,characterizes the various social tendencies, the religious in De la Mennais, the abstract in Leroux, the critical in Proudhon, and the publicist in Louis Blanc,-then treats of Communism and its leaders, and ends with appendices, the last of which contains the bibliography of Socialist literature in some fifteen double columns. A brochure of 250 pages, printed as an appendix to the whole work, deserves to be called a separate volume, and carries the history of opinions and movements in France through all the agitations of 1848. As a manual of reference upon the whole subject, this work seems to be the most full and scholarly that has been published.

The Tracts published by the French Academy are just what might be expected from their authors, such men as Thiers, Cousin, Mignet, Dupin, Blanqui, &c., writing under the influence of the reaction following the last Revolution in France. They are full of valuable information, especially in regard to the history of labor and property, pervaded by the peculiar philosophy of their school, utterly hostile to the new Socialism, and disposed to rest in the ideas of 1789 and 1830, or of the first Revolution and the third. They give

many important facts as to the practical working of industrial associations, and might be translated to the profit of the more extravagant Associationists in this country. Their publication will not be useless to the French, if it be merely for the sake of the excellent Life of Franklin, whom Mignet sets before the countrymen of Rousseau as the true type of the workman who would raise himself and companions from ignorance and want. Of the American publications named above, we will speak in the appropriate place.

It is obvious that America would not for many years have been troubled by Socialist agitation, had we been left to the working of our own institutions, apart from the influence of foreigners. But our connection with the Old World is now so close, that we must in some measure share all its tendencies, and burden our young national life with the weight of European decrepitude. Our task is thus not merely the prevention, but the removal of dangerous social inequalities. Our cities are fast filling up with the proletaries of the Old World, and by their growing number and the competition between them and our own workmen, we find ourselves heirs to the relics of European feudalism, and before our time grieved by the wants of a class of people which in the last century hardly existed in our land, the class of laborers without any capital. Their pedigree under the feudal system it is not difficult to trace. We can very readily see, that the developments of modern society have given them at once a new freedom and a new servitude, removing the old political bondage and establishing in its place a closer dependence upon capital. The French ouvrier found himself at once visited by the vote distributor and by starvation. The English operative learned almost at the same time from Adam Smith that labor is the source of all wealth, and from his employers that the laborer cannot have wages constant and large enough to live upon. The introduction of machinery and the consequent minute division of labor, in connection with the want of sufficient industrial and general education, have tended to swell the multitude of men dependent upon simple labor, and reduce vast numbers, once able to carry on a tolerable business by themselves, into mere operatives depending upon the owners of machinery. It is an indisputable fact, as Sismondi with others has so emphatically developed, that in Europe, the tendency is constantly to depress and diminish the middle class, and divide society into the extremes of the rich and poor. In property the attraction is in the ratio of the mass, and the large fortunes are absorbing more of the land and other capi