those animals, or man himself upon like terms, may be induced to act, whilst the will is neither gained, nor the inclination wrought upon, but awe alone prevails and forces obedience; the obedience is servile, and all which is done through it merely servile. The greater degree of such a submission or obedience, is only the greater servility, whatever may be the object. For whether such a creature has a good master, or a bad one, he is neither more or less servile in his own nature. Be the master or superior ever so perfect, or excellent, yet the greater submission caused in this case, through this sole principle or motive, is only the lower and more abject servitude, and implies the greater, wretchedness and meanness in the creature who has those passions of self-love so predominant, and is in his temper so vicious and defective, as has been explained.

P. 57. If the habit be such as to occasion, in every particular, a stricter attention to self-good, and private interest; it must insensibly diminish the affections towards public good, or the interest of society, and introduce a certain narrowness of spirit, which (as some pretend) is peculiarly observable in the devout persons and zealots of almost every religious persuasion.

This, too, must be confessed; that if it be true piety, to love God for his own sake; the over solicitous regard to private good expected from him, must of necessity prove a diminution of piety. For whilst God is beloved only as the cause of private good, he is no otherwise beloved than as any other instrument or means of pleasure by any vicious creature. Now the more there is of this violent affection towards private good, the less room is there for the other sort towards goodness itself, or any good and deserving object, worthy of love and admiration for its own sake.

It is in this respect that the strong desire and love of life may also prove an obstacle to piety, as well as to virtue and public love. For if that which he calls resignation depends only on the expectation of infinite retribution or reward, he discovers no more worth or virtue here, than in any other bargain of interest, the meaning of this resignation being only this, "That he resigns his present life and pleasures, conditionally for that which he himself confesses to be beyond an equivalent; eternal living, in a state of highest pleasure and enjoyment."

P. 67. Whoever, by any strong persuasion or settled judg ment, thinks in the main, that virtue causes happiness, and vice, misery, carries with him that security and assistance to virtue which is required.

(To be continued.)

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post paid, or free of expence, are requested to be left.

The Lion.

No. 4. VOL. 4.] LONDON, Friday, July 24, 1829. [PRICE 6d.

Ashton-under-Line, July 17, 1829.

AN interval of three days elapsed, between our Sunday evening's exertion in Stockport, and coming in contact with another congregation in Ashton-under-Line. An appointment was made for Staley Bridge, on the Tuesday evening, but it turned out a disappointment, through misapprehension. We took chaise from Stockport on that day and returned again in the evening. We were entertained in Stockport, in a spirit of generous hospitality, by a surgeon, and derived much useful knowledge from his intimate acquaintance with the character and condition of the people of that town. A public man may sit down in London and read all the provincial papers, but he can gather but little of what is really passing. He must come in more immediate contact with the mass of the people, must see them, hear them, converse with them, and with those who know them, to judge well of the necessary points for reformation. Every thing is discoloured through our public prints. All my experience establishes in me the conviction as to the two necessary primary points of reform in the people of this country-they must be jointly weaned from the gin-shop and the gospel-shop, from every kind of spiritual intoxication, whether by liquors or by words. I do seriously maintain, and will go on to maintain, that, without this necessary change in their characters, they are not fit and proper persons to give their voice to a representation in the legislation of the country. The distressed people of the West Riding of Yorkshire and of some parts of Lancashire, are beginning to talk and resolve about abstaining from butter and

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street. No. 4.-Vol. 4.

H

milk, and to fix maximum prices for food. They are arrant fools, fools to the back-bone, to be thus bamboozled, to be thus trifled with, to be thus wasting their time and exertions about a paltry, shuffling kind of politics that cannot possibly lead to an amendment of their condition. Let them abstain from gin and the ginshop, from ale and the ale-house, from gospel and the gospelshop, from sin and silly salvation. I see Cobbett and Hunt are beginning to try to play over again the tricks and game of 1816, 17, 18 and 19. I promised immediately after that period, that I would do my utmost to frustrate such a game, that I would never again stand quietly by and see the mass of the people so cheated, and I now begin to perform that promise. I know the secret history of that period. I know the inmost thoughts of such men as Cobbett and Hunt, of Foster the "Patriot" man, and Mann, the bookseller of Leeds, of Archy Prentice, and his "radical" compeers of Manchester; and I know that they are utterly despicable as politicians, and as to any thing thought of or propounded by them, conducive to the general improvement and lasting welfare of the people of this country. Their day is gone by: they shall not again play over the game of the radical era. I will join them in any thing they have to propose really useful, even as a promise in the way of reform; but the cry of parliamentary reform in the House of Commons, as a preliminary proceeding, is so shallow a calculation, in respect to the state of things in this country, as necessarily to lead to the questioning of the sanity or the honesty of the man who propounds it. I object not to parliamentary reform, as an ultimate, nor would I object to the proposition as a preliminary, if it were practicable or prudent to be advocated as a preliminary; but I object to that stupid and absorbing cry among the people, which will lead to no good, and detract from all other application or means of good. I object to the advocacy of any point of reform, that is not immediately available, before the point that is immediately available. The cry for parliamentary reform, as a beginning, is a century old it has for that period embodied both the talent and the honesty of the country; but it has not so much promise of accomplishment at this moment, as at any moment of its existence before the year 1820. This then must be a wrong beginning.

On the other side, or on my side of reform, may be seen real progress, real improvement. Within the last ten years, the liberty of the press has been completely established, by the mere willing it on the part of a few individuals, and by the backing of the will by the acts necessary to produce its accomplishment. For ten years past, I have been perfectly a free man, as a writer, printer and publisher, and that freedom has now the acquiescence, if not the sanction, of the government, If I feel any kind of shackle, it is from the ignorance and stupidity and bad character

of the people. The people themselves are my only tyrants. They will not receive, they are not in a condition to receive, the great truths which I have to offer them as congregated or socialized animals. I fear not the government; but I fear the ignorance and bad passions of the people; and my firm opinion is, that the ministers of this country, or the Duke of Wellington in particular, is much more disposed to grant all the reforms that can be useful, than the majority of the people is to receive them. We have had proofs of this in the two last sessions of parliament, in the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, and in the Catholic Relief Bill. I have not only accomplished freedom, as far as the press is in question; I have not only freed myself and all others from the ex officio informations of the Attorney General, and the indictments of the Vice Society, for what have been called seditious and blasphemous libels; but I have achieved a complete toleration for Infidelity. I see and feel that I am, with my brother missionary, every where welcomed by one part of the people of a town to preach against the Christian religion or religion generally, in the boldest strains, and unopposed, as far as open conflict is considered, by the religious preachers and people themselves. Our missionary progress is really triumphant, and will be the brightest story to be recorded in England's history. There is not only a toleration for Infidelity, but Infidelity is every where triumphant in its conflict with the religion of the country. Miss Frances Wright and her immediate friends, Mr. Dale Owen and Mr. Jennings, are doing in America nearly the same thing that we are doing here, so that the end promises to be speedy and great, while the progressive improvement in the character and condition of the people acted upon, is immediate and instant. Judge ye, then, people of England, which is the best way, to begin to work the generally admitted to be necessary reform in the condition and character of the people of this country?

The abstaining from butter and milk is but an emanation of the old bad system of making war upon farmers, butchers, and bakers, when there was dearness or scarcity of provisions. It is a silly, bad passion, as a political project. To abstain from that which a man cannot afford is an idea of prudence; but to war with the producers of milk and butter, because trade is bad and taxes too heavy, is worse than if another man were to say, I will not wear your dirty cotton for a shirt, nor your Yorkshire cloths for a coat, until we get parliamentary reform. The cotton and woollen cloths may be more conveniently and more reasonably dispensed with than milk and butter.

At a project of this kind, in Leeds, Mr. Mann, the bookseller, called upon the people to raise a cry against the placemen and pensioners, and complained of the parliament for not doing some thing to relieve the distresses of the people in its past session.

Silly man, it is not within the scope or power of the present parliament to relieve the distresses of the people. The people must begin with relieving themselves from the burthens which oppress them. Your placemen and pensioners too, your old radical cry, for want of thought and sense, who are they? Do not you see, that a less sum of money pays the expences of the court, its pensioners, its ministers, its army, its navy, its placemen generally, the whole government expenses at home and abroad, the interest of the debt excepted, than pays for the religion of the country? The costs of government, with all your placemen and pensioners are but fifteen millions, while the costs of religion are full twenty millions annually! Who then are the placemen and the pensioners that injure and oppress the people? Who, but the priests ?

I am not the advocate of any lavish expenditure in government, more particularly in such a time of distress as the present; but I like to see every thing well and respectably done, every necessary post well and respectably filled, and the salary commensurate with the sustenance of the character. No man can show but what some expences are necessary to the purposes of government and legislation; but I can show, that none are necessary or usefully applied to the cause of religion. I can show, that religion is altogether a cheat on one side, and an error on the other. Hell! where is it? Heaven where is it? God! what is it? Future state! what does it mean? Let any man give or receive correct answers to such questions as these, and he will find that religion is a cheat, that all expenditure upon it is real waste, that it impoverishes and degrades its followers, and that it is the great first principle of human misery. I can strow fully, either historically or physically, that it is altogether a

cheat.

The man who now pretends to be a reforming politician, and is not an avowed Infidel as to religion, is a most serious humbug, a mischievous meddler, and a pest to the state. The hypocrite, who conceals his Infidelity, like Cobbett, and some of the minor fry of radicals whom I know, are men who have never done, and, without change, will never do any good in the country, as political reformers. We want honest men, in all public characters.

The dispute at this moment about triennial or annual parliaments, is of just as much importance to the community, as the dispute about trinity or unity in deity. It does not at present concern the condition of the people of this country. There are evils, that of the cheat and insanity of religion, for instance, as one, that of our modes of dwelling and application of wages as another, that of excessive number in family as a third, which we can individually remove, but which the parliament cannot remove for us, whether it be reformed or unreformed.

I am now in the very centre of that which has been hitherto