they do entertain of religion, than they would mix up hexameter verse and hyperbolic figure with the working of a mathematical problem. Cui bono is the touchstone applied to everything. The one party looks with sovereign contempt on the formality and frippery of the other; while the friend and the abettor of antiquated and ornamental forms, trembles before the sacrilegious hand that would strip even the fringes of the tabernacle. And collision between these two hosts must come.

The great question for the philanthropist and the moral and religious statesman is, how shall that collision be controlled so as to subserve the true interests of mankind?

It is needful to look at the constituent elements of each party. The difference is very marked and characteristic.

The opponents of change, the friends of the olden time, are the aristocratic classes, who are falling rather behind, both in wealth, knowledge, and influence; but who are as yet sustained in this struggle by an indiscriminate crowd of adepts in the fine arts-who live on the luxurious indulgences of the wealthy, and are marshalled for the contest by a rising spirit of activity and external improvement in the clergy of the Established Church. Even the most careless of the hunting and shooting clergy now turns with an anxiety almost astounding to himself, to the decoration of his neglected parish church, and the restoration of its architecture, and "hunts the country" for subscriptions.

The other party is the million, who are coming under the influence of more general education, but education chiefly for this present world. Once the mere herd of brute passion, the multitude cared little what were the habits of the higher orders, and on what principles they governed. If they had bread, they cared little whether it was given at the castle or the convent door, whether it came by rude tillage, by war, or by marauding and poaching plunder. The serf of a lord who could not sign his own name to a Magna Charta, was little likely to trouble himself with the abstract principles of a government, which even his owner did not pretend to

understand. It was the reign of ignorant servility, and ignorant domination. But with the invention of printing, the cloud began to break-the darkness has been long and slowly passing away; and light, at least for this present world, has been pouring in at a rapidly increasing ratio. Millions now read and think for themselves-rightly or not may be the question-but read and think they will; and though for a time, as far as education is imperfect, the multitude may be in a measure under the bad influence of selfish and designing agitators, yet this evil is gradually righting itself. Improving education clears the bleared and prejudiced sight, and improves the judgment, till at length it will become vain for the advocate of any selfish and unfair object to seek a larger influence than the real merit of his object warrants. Now, it is out of this mighty mass of millions uneducated, halfeducated, or well educated, having the advantage of cheap and extensive reading, and of unfettered discussion, having the views of enlightened statesmen placed before them daily in the public prints, that a party of thinking laity arises. It is not the original land-holding gentry. It is the crowd that has been called to wealthy independence in all its various grades by the energies of commerce-the merchant, the manufacturer, the retailer, the mechanic, the artizan, each in his calling diligent, able, and wellremunerated, attending to the cultivation of his own mind, occupying his position in life respectably, educating his children to a grade higher than his own, and giving a portion of his time and thoughts to consider seriously the political relations in which he stands, and the constitutional rights to which he is, as a Briton, born. This is an increasing class: light is being infused lower and lower along the line of rational existence. The boozing pot-house brute is diminishing in numbers; and the keeneyed, close-thinking, fluent-speaking, hard-headed constituent of a representative legislature, is multiplying on every side, and will multiply under the growing facilities for education, till he whose distinction once con

sisted as much in the superiority of his knowledge as of his wealth, will find himself only on a par in respect to his knowledge, and not quite at ease as to the permanent superiority of his patrician abundance.

Now this latter party will take nothing for granted, simply because it has been before. As they had little or no standing in the antiquated and the obsolete, they would rather forget it, or avoid it, than not. It tells of an inequality which they have no desire to remember, and in which they see no necessary good. It speaks of graduated distinctions of rank elevation, for which they see no absolute characteristic lines in human nature; and to the need for which, the superior and unbending strength of their own sharpened intellect bears no witness. They would be rather prepared to accept a tabula rasa for the platform of society, and to erect a new system on it upon the pattern of their own experience and example-a progressive and simple movement which, blinking all the past, shall give to every man just the degree of elevation to which mental power, strenuous effort, industry, and consistency can raise him.

In such a crowd of eager aspirants for influence, wealth, and distinction, there will be many of rude, ill-formed, and extravagant notions, calculated rather to break up the whole social compact rashly, than to eliminate the long tolerated and yet remaining evils, and to consolidate and improve that which is good.

But in addition to these, there is also the gradual formation of a different class; men who, under the influence of experience, and of revealed truth, acquire the "spirit of power, and love, and of a sound mind," and, little biassed by ruling prejudices, learn to look at everything around them with a calm and sound judgment, and deliberately to consider every institution, and every admitted principle and practice, in its real merits, desirous" to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good." That eclectic party is growing and

consolidating. In many individual instances, local prejudices and attachments still retain a measure of special bias; but there is a wide range of men of fair and honourable mind, and good understanding, who are rising superior to their once dominant peculiarities, and are drawing nearer and nearer to each other, satisfied that essential truth is at once simple and all-important, and that if its influence is effectively secured, the adventitious accompaniments may be one way or other, as the case may be; and that all bitterness and bickering about them, is criminal and injurious. They see daily with deeper and more substantial reverence the overpowering loveliness of revealed truth, and earnestly wishing it unimpeded dominion over the human mind for holiness and happiness, they become more and more prepared to modify or annihilaté those obstacles, which have their origin in peculiar and one-sided views of subordinate matters.

It is evident that from a portion of that party, "The Lay Churchman"

has arisen. It comes from intelligent and attached members of the Church of England; who cordially prefer its essential and distinctive characteristics, but are ready to make some surrender of subordinate specialties for the sake of the great cause of union and evangelical religion. They have started well. Whether their progress shall be equally calm and judicious remains to be proved; but the move will take place, under the guidance of wise men, or of rash and innovating men, as the case may be. A wise and cordial fostering of the true Church of England spirit, as a reforming spirit, would give it a right and profitable direction.

It is, however, well worthy of observation, that this movement is manifestly portentous of a spirit which will demand attention in one way or other, either for good or evil to the Episcopal Establishment; and it would be well if those who are in authority would give to it fair consideration before it be too late.

LATIMER.

THAT the study of science, judiciously conducted, may tend to the advancement of true religion, will be now generally allowed: for, even if some modern discoveries seem at first sight to give rise to difficulties in the interpretation of the sacred Canon, this very circumstance become a trial may of faith by which its solidity and stedfastness will be increased. The bold assumptions and extravagant theories of a few scientific enquirers, show that a too eager and exclusive application to the most legitimate studies may become mischievous; while, on the other hand, the noble manner in which many modern men of science have hastened to lay the produce of their toil at the shrine of revealed truth, and to shew how the long chain of truths whose links they had been combining, though it reached to an abyss which human thought could not fathom, might yet be perceived by faith to be held by the hand of Him who "sitteth on the circle of the earth," gives a palpable proof that science may be an useful ally of Christianity. We believe that the works of nature and the sacred Scriptures are productions of the same Almighty wisdom; can, then, the most scrutinizing inspection of the one reveal anything irreconcileable with the truth of the other? No; if it should ever seem to be so, let us be certain that the apparent discrepancy has its origin in our own haste, impatience, and ignorance.

We purpose, in the following observations, to mention some of the ways in which science and religion join in the education of the soul.

1. The numerous works on Natural Theology now before the public, have familiarized nearly every reader with the proofs of design to be found in creation. The use of science, then, in demonstrating the existence and wisdom of God, by expounding the laws of nature, is obvious. To minds of a certain class, mere abstract statements of the wisdom of the Creator, of the harmony manifested in the universe, of the fitness and beauty of this majestic world, would not have half the

effect which would be produced by the manual dissection of a flower or shell, by which its structure and nice adaptations are displayed. Most useful is it, then, that when we walk amid the many departments and galleries of nature's stupendous museum, we should have in science an interpreter at hand, to direct attention to the most important objects, to open recesses into which we should otherwise not have thought of prying, to lift curtains which our indolence or preoccupation would not have cared to raise, and to combine the whole marvellous exhibition into a system which shall at once charm by its gracefulness, and instruct by its truth. Every object, thus explained, reminds us of God: we see His harmonious workmanship as well in the plumage of the eagle, who

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-Stood at pleasure 'neath heaven's zenith, like

A lamp suspended from its azure dome,''* as in those exquisitely-shaped feathers which the microscope shews us in the powder brushed from the butterfly's wing-in the sublime motions of those orbs, which come forth amid the nightly firmament like a choir of angels from some hidden pavilion of the Most High, as well as in the fall of the particles of dust which a gust of wind has tossed into the air. Even, when we are for a while shut out from communion with the outward world, the analysis of our own minds may yield abundant testimony of Almighty skill. And the more diligently the study of nature is pursued, the more surprising and numerous become the proofs of design. the discovery of the general laws of nature,' says Professor Whewell, we are led into a scene of wider design, of deeper contrivance, of more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they appear driven further from us by such an extension of our views, embrace us only with a vaster and more majestic circuit: instead of a few threads connecting some detached objects, they become a stu

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وو

* Campbell.

"By

pendous network which is wound round and round the universal frame of things."*

That the wisdom of the Creator thus manifest in his works, is omnipresent in its operations, appears in a striking manner from the care which science shews us is bestowed on the minutest, as well as on the loftiest of created things. He who spake as never man spake, declared that a sparrow should not fall on the ground without the Father;" and modern discoverers give many new proofs of this care of God for creatures far smaller than sparrows.

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"More

surprising than all," says a scientific writer, "is the microcosm of organized nature in the Infusoria, for a more exact acquaintance with which we are indebted to the unwearied researches of Ehrenberg. Of these creatures, which for the most part we can see only by the aid of the microscope, there exist many species so small that millions piled on each other would not equal a single grain of sand, and thousands might swim at once through the eye of the finest needle. The coats-of-mail and shells of these animalcules exist in such prodigious quantities on our earth, that, according to Ehrenberg's investigations, pretty extensive strata of rocks, as, for instance, the smooth slate near Bilin, in Bohemia, consist almost entirely of them. Conceive further that each of these animalcules, as microscopic investigations have proved, has his limbs, entrails, &c.; the possibility vanishes of our forming the most remote conception of the dimensions of these organic forms."

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"The dust," says Baron Humboldt,+ which makes the air misty over a great area, and falls about the Cape de Verd Islands, to which Darwin has so properly directed attention, is found from Ehrenberg's observations to contain an infinity of silicious

* "Indications of the Creator," p. 95. A similar illustration has been used in another work. "Endeavour to discover traces of the arrangement exhibited by nature in her productions, which are rather scattered in the form of a network, than placed in that of a chain."-"The First Day in Heaven," p. 51.

† Peschel's Physics, by West. Vol. i. p. 5. Cosmos.

shelled infusory animalcules." Yet each of these is the object of Almighty

care.

He willed them all into being. He regulates their habits. He orders their uses. He determines their end.

And if, from considering this animated" part of the dust of the world," we turn our eyes to the inaccessible heavens, science shews us in the celestial host, not, as ancient observers dreamed, the stern arbiters of fate, but bodies subject to known laws which the divine Ruler has made so uniform in their operation, that the astronomer, bending over his calculations, can point out the exact place where a planet, hitherto unperceived, ought to be, and where it is accordingly found!

Most glorious, then, is the affirmation which the diligent inquirer into God's works can bring from beneath and from above, to the question which He solemnly proposes in His revealed Word: "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord."

But though science shews many marvellous things, the aspiring soul asks for information which she cannot give. Man wishes to know something of his Maker, and science presents him only with an abstract idea which eludes the grasp of his understanding, and mocks, as it were, the affection of his heart. For, when we have, in thought, gazed eagerly on the universe expanding all around us into infinity-when the adventurous intellect, following the deductions of astronomy has striven to press through the stratum of stars into the farthest depths of space, scaling by its aid. heights where the imagination alone, bold as are its soarings, would not have dared to trust itself,§-or when, led by geology, it has intruded into the dark chambers beneath the earth's surface, where have long lain locked up the secrets of other times-the long-clasped registers of the world's age-huge bones and skeletons of anomalous forms, preserved, as it were, in subterraneous cabinets for us, on whom the ends of the world

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§ It has been well said, "that the reason of Newton and Galileo took a sublimer flight than the fancy of Milton and Ariosto."

are come," when, we say, having gazed on all these wonders, the astonished spirit turns to experimental science by whose aid she had been thus far conducted, and asks, “Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is his Son's name, if thou can'st tell?" she is silent. Boldly as she has penetrated into the recesses of nature's temple-many as are the proofs she has found that it is the building of some being "who is worthy to be praised" by every one permitted to enter it yet she seeks in vain for the visible form of the presiding Deity; like Pompey, in the temple at Jerusalem, she finds no tangible image of adoration, nothing but an empty shrine, a vacant sanctuary. While, then, Science thus interrogated stands mute and confused, Faith brings the reply from the Book of Revelation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." "Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." "By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens."

Here, then, revealed truth comes in to crown the discoveries of experiment. Science has shewn those marks of design which tell of a designer; and Revelation informs us who that designer is. And many an important communication has the latter to make to us concerning him, telling us of his love for man, and his hatred of sin, his mercy and his justice-assuring us not only that He is, but also "that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ;" and declaring, moreover, that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

2. Science teaches us to trace effects to their causes, to combine phenomena

under general laws, to reduce substances to their primitive elements. She is not content with merely certifying that such and such a thing has been observed; but she carries on her enquiries as to how it was produced, pressing on to unity. The chemist seeks for the component particles of matter, and the astronomer, examining the populous districts of heaven, asks eagerly for a central

sun.

So religion teaches us the folly of those who rest in second causes→→ who, while examining the work, cast no thought upon the Maker-who, while contemplating the arrangements of providence, ask not whose hand has so disposed them. "I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things." When the Great King comes forth among his creatures, (we are adopting the illustration of an ancient philosopher,*) the servants of his power advance before him in orderly array; but at the last, the Supreme Monarch himself appears, and those who have waited his approach, fall down and worship; while others, who had retired, satisfied with the glory of his inferior ministers, see not the magnificence of the king.

3. Science is often of great use in interpreting doubtful passages, or bringing out latent beauties, in the Book of Revelation.

"A grand and immutable law of definite weight," (says Mr. Griffiths, in his interesting " Chemistry of the Four Seasons," "presides over every analytical and synthetical operation." Chemistry thus tending to the discovery of the elements of things, and of the laws by which they are controlled, presents its votary with powerful illustrations of the truth, that “ just weight and measure are the Lord's ;" ;" that " a just weight is His delight;" that "He comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance."

a

What a fine illustration will a treatise on human anatomy and physiology furnish of the text, "I am fearfully

*Plotin, Ennead. v. lib. 5, c. 3.