an unthinking substance. Hence, it is plain, that the very notion of what is called matter or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it.” And, whereas colour is allowed to exist only in the mind, but cannot be conceived of apart from extension, it would seem that extension also is an idea in the mind. Great and small are evidently comparative ideas, and depend not upon outward things, but upon the strength of our organs; for what is small to a man, is large to a mite: and what is small to the naked eye, is large to the view by the microscope: what is one to the naked eye, is many when more closely examined; indeed, number is plainly an idea, as one man or one regiment, in which the unity is a mental assemblage, and not a real thing.

"I do not argue," says Berkeley, "against any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or by reflection. That the things I see with my eyes, and touch with my hands, do really exist, I make no question. The only thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers call matter, or corporeal substance:"-" the matter philosophers contend for, is an incomprehensible somewhat which hath none of those particular qualities, whereby the bodies falling under our senses, are distinguished one from another." This is perhaps the happiest expression Berkeley has given of his views, and demonstrates that at least men know nothing of matter; but it is something which they suppose to exist under, and support what they see and feel. And which therefore has ever been hidden from their observation.

:

"For instance," observes this philosopher, "in this proposition a die is hard, extended and square; they will have it that the word die denotes a subject or substance, distinct from the hardness, extension, and figure, which are predicated of it, and in which they exist. This I cannot comprehend to me, a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things which are termed its modes or accidents. To say a die is hard, extended, and square, is not to attribute those qualities to a subject distinct from, and supporting them but only an explication of the meaning of the word die." This may still further be seen, for, take away the hardness, squareness, and extension, and where is your die?-it has no existence; neither has that matter or substratum of which persons speak with a confidence becoming their ignorance. As for hardness or solidity, that is plainly a sensation, or feeling of resistance; and hard or soft, is relative according to our susceptibility; whilst it is in every case a greater or less feeling of a certain kind, in our spirits; and this is all we know of the three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas: three degrees of pressure; or, if you please, the three degrees of comparison in our sensations.

REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS.

Tracts of the British Anti-State-Church Association. No. 8. The Trusteeship of the State Church. An Enquiry into the Management of the Episcopal and Capitular Estates.

Every one ought to possess and carefully examine this calm, clear, and judicial exposure of the unjust stewards. It should make Churchmen blush, and the nation indignant. One sentence may suffice as a sample, since the whole may be had for two-pence.

"Entrusted with public property, worth from £45,000,000 to £50,000,000 sterling, the dignitaries are defaulters to the amount of from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000— being able to pay on that part of the property which they have leased, only 4s. 114d. in the pound." Are not these "robbers of the churches?"

Tracts of the British Anti-State-Church Association, 4, Crescent, Bridge Street, Blackfriars. Our State Church. I. In England. II. In Ireland. III. In Scotland. IV. In Wales.

This shillings-worth is worth a shilling: it places us in possession of a clear account, (in four Tracts, bound together,) of the revenues and general condition of our State Churches. We should rejoice to see it become the handbook for the million.

The security of the Church, as a political institution, rests on the sand of the nations ignorance its renovation and efficiency can be obtained only resting it on the true basis of voluntary support and popular control.

The spiked Cannons.—

This is another of the new series issued by the Anti-State-Church Association, it contains a useful condensed account of the different persecuting Church Laws, which have been annulled by the advance of the age. It is calculated to make Dissenters in these days, grateful to Providence; whilst it should make the Church more modest than to cast stones at her persecuting mother.

Lectures to Young Men on Various important Subjects. By the Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER, America. With an introduction by Rev. O. T. DOBBIN, LL.D. London: Ward and Co.

This is the work of a young American Minister, and such has been its popularity in America, that sixteen thousand copies have been issued from the press in that country. And truly is the success deserved. Seldom have we read "Lectures to Young Men" so eminently adapted to gain their end.

The writer is a strong-minded earnest man, one fully alive to most of the dangers which beset the path in which the man of business walks, and one gifted above most with the powers of giving utterance to his faithful warnings. The Lectures are seven in number.

1. Industry and Idleness. 2. Twelve causes of Dishonesty. 3. Six Warnings. 4. Portrait Gallery, in which are drawn to the very life, the Wit, the Humorist, the Cynic, the Libertine, the Demagogue, and the Party Man. 5. Gambler's and Gambling. 6. The Strange Woman. 7. Popular Amusements.

Some of the characters herein sketched, are no doubt thoroughly American, and are not often found on English soil, but the book is written by too close an observer of human nature not to be suited to the young men of England. The matter of the Lectures is emphatically good, and nothing is lost by the style in which it is expressed.

The writer's language is clear, vigorous, and beautiful, and his sketches of character are wonderfully graphic. There is something in the style and freshness of the thoughts

which makes the work totally unlike anything of the kind we ever read. We can most cordially commend it to the serious perusal of our young men, and could heartily wish that parents would place it in the hands of their sons. With regard to those who have young men in their employ, we have not the slightest doubt but that it would be much even to their worldly advantage, were they to present each one with a copy of this cheap, well got up, and valuable work.

The "Introduction," by the Rev. T. O. Dobbin, LL.D., is a sufficient pledge of the value of the work.

Christianity and its Evidences. By the Rev. J. G. ROGERS, B.A. London: B. L. Green. Newcastle-on-Tyne: T. B. Barkas.

Mr. Rogers has done a good work, in thus embodying the results of considerable reading and thought in this able and useful production. The author has fairly appreciated the strength and the weakness of the various forms of infidelity, advocated by certain writers and lecturers. The "Evidences" here argued, are not such as relate merely to historical questions; but include a much wider range, and more adapted to the difficulties which are in these days felt and urged by some respecting Christianity. The extent of subjects examined may be sufficiently understood by the table of contents, which constituted the topics of separate Lectures, delivered by the author, and here presented to the reading public.

"Lecture 1. The Ideal of Christianity. 2 The Oracles of Christianity-a Discourse on the Bible. 3. The Antecedents of Christianity :-the Old Testament. 4. The Records of Christianity :-the Gospels. 5. The Founder of Christianity;-the Life of Christ critically examined. 6. The Antagonists of Christianity.”

We cordially recommend this work to enquiring young men.

The Last Trial by Jury for Atheism, in England. By GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. London: James Watson.

We have read this book with feelings of painful interest: first, because of the unchristian method of punishing infidelity by law; secondly, because of the harsh and unchristian severity added to the law by officials; thirdly, because of the strange perversion of reason in the author of the book, (and the object of this persecution,) in deliberately charging all this upon Christianity.

Mr. Holyoake should know better than this; and whether he believe or reject the gospel, should at least do it justice.

We know it is a natural transference of feeling, to hate Christianity for what is done in its name: but though natural, it is neither logical nor just.

We shall however reserve these questions for a more extended examination: when we shall notice at length, the facts and arguments contained in this work, together with the lessons it conveys.

Meanwhile, we observe to Mr. Holyoake and his friends, that we should esteem it a favour if they would give us any proofs out of the Gospels or Epistles, that legal vengeance is a Christian method of defending Christianity: whilst we further congratulate the enforcers of law on their success in deepening men's hatred of the Gospel, by their own disgraceful violation of its spirit. They are the true Infidels, who, abandoning reliance on God's own truth, bring in policemen and gaolers to defend the ark.

An Essay on the Duty of Sabbath School Teachers, in preparing for their Class. Read before the Conference of Sabbath School Teachers, for Birmingham and the Midland Counties, April 1851. By JAMES LEWITT. Coventry: E. Goode. Leicester: J. F. Winks. Birmingham: J. Showell.

This useful practical address, deserves extensive circulation amongst Sabbath School Teachers. It is a forcible statement of an important and perhaps too-much neglected duty.

ERRATUM in our last, page 198, fourth paragraph, read-"the same mistake is made by a writer of another cast, who in opposing "the letter," and depreciating the word, seem to have read to little purpose."

I.

CHRIST'S RELIGION.

"PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD." 1 Thess. v. 21.

THE BASIS OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD; IN THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF "ONE GOD AND FATHER OF ALL."

THE terms "LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, EQUALITY," sacred symbols of great and beneficial principles, have been desecrated by the foul touch of Atheism, superstition, spoliation, and bloodshed: until the words as thus associated together, have become the symbol of irreligion, rapine, and murder: and the principles for which they stand, have become the objects of odium and calumny, enabling the lovers of despotism by a deceivableness worthy of their cause, to cry out against all freedom-in the name of God and his religion!

Thus do infidelity and licentiousness play into the hands of civil and spiritual tyranny, as they desecrate the name of freedom, till priests and despots may with a convenient cloak, insult our common Father, by employing his name to put down and retard, if not extinguish its reality. This love of misrepresentation, this unwillingness to learn the truth, by which men shut their own eyes or those of others to the reality which may easily be known, is the ancient and natural defence of the supporters of existing evils. Thus our blessed Lord himself was charged with destroying the temple; and with blasphemy against his Father, whose will he accomplished: his first martyr was declared to have uttered "blasphemous words against Moses and against God;" his followers were long stigmatized as Atheists; thus was their name first altered and then cast out as evil. The most difficult thing in the world, is to get men to understand the real character of that which they oppose. To awake righteously—honestly to employ their faculties in discerning the truth which is presented to them.

Hence words of truth, become watchwords of hatred, and marks of calumny. So "liberty, fraternity, equality," are brought into disrepute -crucified between two thieves-by the conduct of those who have pretended to them, and the cunning of those who are hostile. In the mouths of some, it meant liberty from God; fraternity in robbery and bloodshed; equality in degradation.

And because these have debased the name, others have taken occasion to slander the reality, and reproach all who love it. The advocates of fraternity, are aspersed with the horrors of the French Revolution: they are accused of infidelity, and thus religion is slandered, as if freedom and infidelity belonged together.

VOL. I.

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Nor are the opponents of Christianity slow to take advantage of this aspersion on the gospel; as they seek to found the rights of man, on a denial of the word of God, in which human rights and duties are enforced by the highest obligations.

It is therefore necessary not so much to vindicate, as to explain, the Scriptures, for they will vindicate themselves to those who understand the nature of their truths, and the extent of their beneficial application. And when all men know "the mystery, of God even the Father, and of Christ," his representative or personal manifestation, they will discover that the truest sanctuary of freedom, is "the shadow of his wings;" the protection of "one. God and Father of all."

This doctrine of one God, is the fundamental truth of the Bible, on which all other truths rest, or to which everything else in the Scriptures, is intimately related.

And the existence of this truth in that word, is a manifest proof of its inspiration; for all other books or religions which recognize this doctrine, have obtained it from the Scriptures. The Deist is indebted to the Bible for his opinions.

Deism is not to be discovered from nature, by man's unaided reason: because there have been no Deists, where there has been no revelation. The doctrine of one God, of only one God, was held by the Patriarchs and the Jews; but not by the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. Yet all these nations were superior in civilization and philosophy to the Jews.

Mohammed's Deism was borrowed: so is that of all sceptics in a Christian country.

Nature will help to confirm the idea of God; but has never yet imparted it to any: or, if so, to what people?

The first verse in the Bible contains more wisdom than all the philosophy of Greece. Yet the Hebrews were not naturally wiser than the Grecians; WHENCE then, had they that wisdom?

If it cannot be accounted for naturally, it must be accounted for supernaturally. Some indeed assume that what is supernatural, is incapable of proof: but here is a dilemma for all such reasoners :-no other nation (indeed no individual) ever attained to the knowledge of one God; therefore such attainment is itself supernatural, being out of the ordinary course. But it is not reasonable to rest in this conclusion, that a strange anomaly has occurred, that weakness has done more than strength could effect; and therefore we are in reason bound to adopt the other hypothesis, which, though equally supernatural, is not equally anomalous; since it introduces a sufficient cause, namely, God himself, making known what none have found out.

We are shut up then to a miraculous contradiction, that the Patriarchs and Jews discovered what has baffled the wisest nations in their maturity; or else to a consistent miracle that the weaker have received help; and that what was hidden from the wise and prudent, was revealed unto babes.

Greece in the height of its wisdom, maintained in Athens (the centre of natural enlightenment) an altar, with this inscription, "To THE UNKNOWABLE GOD;" the God whom we cannot discover: the Bible began