preached over the whole extent of the habitable globe. The Prophet also leads us to expect that some professing Christian ministers would be influenced by a tyrannical spirit. "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people. Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase. And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. Behold the days come saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby he shall be called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord that they shall no more say, the Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but the Lord liveth which brought up, and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land." * We may judge from this chapter that the land the Lord's people are to occupy when the promise is fulfilled, is land which is to be either purchased by them or given to them for ever: not land let to them on leases, as in Great Britain, subject to the caprice of tyrannical landlords, but land which, when once possessed they can feel * Jeremiah, xxiii. 1—8. they are kings over. Victor Considérant concluded a series of lectures which he delivered on Social Destiny at Dijon, in February 1844, with the following words : "Gentlemen, all the sacred books agree in proclaiming that man is the king of the creation. Such is his destiny. But I ask you does man merit in the present day to bear this glorious title? Who is this king covered with rags, devoured by hunger and sickness, who comes to display his sores and his misery in the public streets? I do not here recognize the king of the creation! The prophecies are not accomplished. Let all nations form societies, let all people agree and organize themselves into the unity of the great family; let man employ his hands and his intelligence in the general cultivation of the globe instead of devastating it; let him take complete possession of his domain, and let him apply to the happiness of all the wealth produced, then he may call himself king of the creation! But in the present day, the condition of inferior animals is often better than his." In several of Victor Considérant's valuable works, he gives plans for the formation of societies for universal association: but it appears impossible to begin any new system in a country like France, which is suffering from centuries of misrule; therefore the prophecies cannot be fulfilled until the movement from north to south begins, which Jeremiah again alludes to in the following words, and leads us to expect that it will be continued for some time by people from northern latitudes moving to the south. "Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together, a great company shall return thither. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains H of Samaria: the planters shall plant and shall eat them as common things.” * This can only be the case when the vine can be cultivated without glass, where land is cheap, and where industrious people will find health and longevity promoted, by agricultural and horticultural pursuits; where every man can have his own vine and his own fig-tree. In the last chapter of the Revelation, where the tree of life is represented as bearing "twelve manner of fruits," may it not be a method given us to identify the vine as described by Sir Thomas Mitchell? And although it produces fruit but at one season of the year, wine may be drank, and raisins may be eaten all through the year, which is nearly as good as if it really did, "yield fruit every month." Let us inquire the meaning of the fullowing portion of this remarkable text. "And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." The leaf of a tree is all the shelter that the fruit requires to bring it to perfection, if it is cultivated in a suitable climate. Therefore the cultivation of the vine in a country like England, is unnatural, because it requires the shelter of green-houses, and hot-houses. Now, glass is a manufacture which is so injurious to the health of those engaged in making it, that glass blowers are generally sickly and shortlived. But although England has the name of being a free country, and Englishmen of all ranks sing with enthusiasm— Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, Britons never will be slaves! the working classes in England, and indeed all over Europe, are in as great a state of slavery, as the children of Israel were in the land of Egypt, at the time when * Jeremiah, xxxi. 8, 5. they were brought out of it by Moses, to travel for forty years through a wilderness, living in tents, until they reached the land of Canaan, and there cultivated gardens and vineyards. The vine in England is brought to very great perfection in the green-houses of the wealthy, but it is only those who can afford to build green-houses, that can enjoy this luxury. The gardeners who have the trouble of cultivating the vines rarely taste the fruit. The noblemen and gentlemen to whom those green-houses belong, are probably spending their time at the chase, the race-course, or the gaming-table; while the poor gardeners are " oppressed in their wages," and can hardly obtain a sufficiency of food and clothing for their families, to say nothing of the impossibility, out of a salary of 40 or 50 pounds per annum, of their being able to devote any portion of it to the development of their intellectual faculties. Victor Considérant asserts very justly, that, "As long as the immense majority of occupations are disagreeable, the majority of labourers will not devote themselves to them by pleasure and free will, but by necessity of position, by constraint. Is it not clear that the individuals, or the classes which possess nothing; which have neither capital, nor instruments of labour, nor means to exist; are necessarily, in whatever political system it may be, reduced, by the fact of their destitution, to a state of dependance, and social isolation, which takes, sometimes the name of slavery, sometimes the name of servitude? That is undeniable. Under whatever government it there is no social liberty, and there can be no political liberty, serious and lasting, for classes, of which all the members, under pain of death, themselves and their families, are forced every day, to find a master in another class. Away with all the folly said and written on liberty! The first condition that a being be independent, may be, is, that he hold, in his own hands, the means of his existence; and that he have within his reach, clothing, food, lodging, and the means of improving his intellectual faculties." * When industrious Europeans come to Australia, where they may cultivate the vine, without wasting industry, by giving it any protection, but its own leaves, they will find it an occupation so much more agreeable than that of cutting each others throats, that the army will cease to be considered such an honorable profession as it now is; the command love one another, will be found a delightful one to obey; and the profession of Adam, which was to dress and keep a garden, will be the most honorable of all. And if families come out, well supplied with books by the Bible and Tract Societies; the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge; the cheap works published by Messrs. Chambers; Histories of all countries, &c., &c., the prophecy of Jeremiah will be fulfilled when he says in the same chapter I have above quoted from, relative to the movement from north to south, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict: so will I watch over them to build, and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with * Problémes sur la Destinée sociale par V. Considérant. |