public interest, and to the nation for whose welfare it is a trustee, that it should protect those members of the community who, by their character and influence, are the most valuable, in the secure and comfortable enjoyment of what they esteem their most precious rights and interests. If it be asked, Who are the most valuable members of the community, the best subjects, the most useful persons in advancing all the great objects of the public welfare, we reply, conscientious men, men who regulate themselves by the revealed will of GOD. Upon the grounds of justice, they should be upheld in the undisturbed opportunity of performing religious duties, according to their convictions, in private and in public. This is the class of people to which the State is the most indebted. It owes them much; and it is not discharging the debt, if it allows them to suffer, or to be in any way thrown into disadvantages, because they are conscientious and obey their Supreme Sovereign; the very qualities for which bare worldly wisdom, if it be rational and understand its own interest, will the more esteem them.

Now, perhaps, it will be said, Granting you all this, why should the government exercise this justice, or show this tender solicitude for Christians, sincere and practical Christians, rather than for Jews, Turks, or infidels of any kind? Why should the Christian be thus protected in the enjoyment of his Sunday, rather than the Jew in that of his Saturday?

1. In a country like ours, where the majority profess Christianity, it is but reasonable to maintain that, if any collision be unavoidable, if any sacrifice must be made, the minority ought to give way to the majority; for, in all questions involving an estimate of the respective amounts of evil and good, the preference ought to be given to the greater amount of good.

2. But I do not rest upon that consideration alone. I think it carries satisfaction to an upright mind, where the supposed condition exists. But that condition is precarious: and if it change, if the proportions should become reversed, could we still maintain the conclusion?

1. I do not believe that Jews, and the other classes of persons supposed, do complain, or would complain, of the state of things which I have been representing. The notions of the Jews do not require that other people should solemnize their Saturday; nor do the Turks require a cessation of work or trade on their Friday. On our Sunday those persons may pursue their own occupations; and, if they have any sense and prudent consideration, they will select those portions or kinds of their work which will the least interfere with the public quiet. Should they even think it right to travel, or work publicly, I would let them alone. Less evil would come from taking no notice at all of their doings, than from any attempt to restrain them. Such attempts would be nugatory, and would certainly inflame and aggravate the evil; unless they were carried to an extent which would amount to gross persecution, and would therefore array the general sense and feelings of mankind against the whole proceeding.

2. The method which I have proposed would be available in the only practical case that presents the semblance of difficulty; such a case as is that of our Indian Empire. There, I fear, one hundred non-Christians exist for one Christian: and there it would be unjust in itself, and dangerous to the peace of the country, that Hin

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doos, Buddhists, and Mahometans should be excluded from employments under the government, for which they were qualified. But, let the Governor-general and his Council be what I have laid down in this hypothesis; then they could say to the mass; "We are Christians and we will therefore take our first day of the week for our own sacred purposes. The public works are ours. We will not labour in them; and you have no right to require us to do so. We will take all measures that will not be injurious to you, in securing to our fellow-Christians throughout the land the safe and calm enjoyment of their day of rest and pious exercises. In all this, we do you no wrong. Breaches of the public peace, offences against reason and the feelings of our common nature, we will not allow on any day. On the behalf of human kind, and in the name of the Supreme God, whom all profess to acknowledge, we prohibit you from riot, pillage, torturing yourselves or each other, burning your wives, suffocating your parents, drowning your children, or perpetrating any other deeds of murder. But we compel you not to adopt our religious observances; and, if we could, we would not; because such compulsion would be both unavailing for any sincere good, and would be in perfect contradiction to the spirit of our religion, which accepts no homage but that of the heart."

V. The argument from physical and political reasons, though we do not lay it as a basis for a religious observance, yet has a most important weight for the preservation of a weekly day of rest inviolate from usurpations and intrusions. It is "the poor man's day." Were he to be deprived of it, his seven days' toil would bring him no more of his hard-earned recompence, than now he obtains by six days' labour. Those men are not only wicked, but they are miserably short-sighted, who imagine that commerce and national wealth would receive any solid advantage from the abrogation of the Sunday's rest. If they desire to know what the laws of physical existence determine upon the mode in which health and life are affected by the observance or the rejection of a weekly day of rest, let them read Dr. Farre's Evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, a few years ago. There they might find some strong hints to their selfishness and dread of an hereafter; which, though they "fear not God, nor regard man," except as a machine for money-getting, would be likely to alarm them by shewing the probability of premature death from their indefatigable pursuit of the world. Merchants, counting-house plodders, medical men, lawyers, and statesmen, would do well to muse upon those hints, for their own sakes. If they wish for some statistical information concerning the influence of the two modes of proceeding upon peasants and labouring animals, they may find the rudiments of the lesson in Michaelis "on the Laws of Moses," Articles 167, 194, 195. If they be ambitious of being thought political economists, and men of statesman-like qualities, let them study Necker" on the Importance of Religious Opinions," chap. ix.

It is true that this argument, taken alone, would apply to the Jew's Saturday, or to the Turk's Friday, as well as to the Christian's Sunday. Still, as an argument to men of the world, it ought not to be forgotten and it ought not to be overlooked by serious Christians. It is one, among other evidences, of the harmonious relation between the arrangements of Providence, and the workings of religion. It even appears not improbable that there are recondite principles in CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 15.

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the animal constitution, which render one day after six more favourable for the refocillation of the physical machine, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," than every tenth day, or any other proportion, would be.

These thoughts I respectfully submit to the Editor and the readers of the Christian Observer, for the purpose of shewing, that there are means by which civil governments might promote, in a very happy degree, the OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY; without chaining the CHURCH OF CHRIST to the wheels of the State; and so conceding to that State, whatever may be its moral character, to decree articles of faith, to prescribe modes, and even words, of devotion, to command rites and ceremonies, and to appoint pastors and teachers. I also request it to be seriously considered, whether this plan would not be applicable upon a much larger scale, with less of objection, and more efficaciously in practice, than any commanding by Government authority and penal sanctions, for the keeping holy the Day of the Lord.

It is not my business to take up any of the numerous topics opened in the copious commentaries which the Editor has subjoined to my former letters. He will allow me respectfully to say, that no one had a right to require of me, more than of any other Dissenter, an answer to this question upon the great duty and blessing of the Lord's-day; but I am thankful for having been thus called upon, though I did not think it just or kind to be pointed at by name. Upon the other subjects mentioned in those commentaries, I only say, that the whole substance and sum of what Dissenters desire, is contained in the precept of our Divine Lord, "All things, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." More than the application of this they do not ask; with less they will not be contented.

Homerton, February 12, 1839.

J. PYE SMITH.

Dr. Smith's paper is so calm, didactic, and for the most part asserts doctrines so true and scriptural, that it would require little note or comment, were it not for its negatives more than its positives. If a man says he will meet us at Edmonton, on the road to York, it may not seem to matter much whether he arrived there by the same road as ourselves; but if he resolves to stop there, and we consider that the object of the journey cannot be effected without going on to York, it would be only deception to say that we are in the main of one mind as to the expedition, merely because we both agree to go a little way to gether, though even this distance we accomplished by different routes.

We have an important object in view in these discussions. We wish to get at principles; let us be Churchmen upon principle, or Dissenters upon principle; let us see whither our principles lead us, and let us fairly work them out to their conclusions. Sir Isaac Newton begins his Principia of Natural Philosophy with the doctrine of prime and ultimate ratios; and the doctrine is equally useful in moral philosophy. The ultimate ratio of a principle is but the consummation of its legitimate and necessary tendency. Before Milo pledges himself to carry the calf as long as it lives, he should consider what will be its size and weight when it becomes a bull. Mr. Binney did this very honestly; he saw that his principle led to the conclusion that the Church of England destroys more souls than it saves, and that therefore it ought to be eradicated. The same premises would quite as well prove (that is, not at all,) that legislation en

joining abstinence from secular business on the Lord's-day, causes more Sabbath violation than it prevents; and if the doctrines of the "religious equality" Dissenters are carried to their legitimate results, there will be nothing left, so far as legislation is concerned, to distinguish a nation of Christians from a nation of heathens. Subjects or rulers may be religious in their individual character, but in" their corporate capacity" they must know no distinction between the Bible and the Koran; for to exclude "a good moral man" even from the throne itself, because he happened to be a Jew, would, according to what are called religious equality doctrines, be persecution.

Dr. Smith ought not to have taken up the glove which we threw down, because he is not willing to accept the amicable challenge according to its conditions. He defends his own views; but he does not defend the principle which we were denouncing, even so far as it is held by many of his brethren, and much less as it is advocated by non-evangelical pseudo-liberalists. He is right just so far as he is inconsistent. He in fact, as to the real elements of the question, is virtually advocating an established church; and this any Jew, or Socinian, or consistent member of the Central Education committee will tell him; only it is an established church after his own model. His legislature is to recognize and uphold the Lord's-day, but it is not to build churches; it is to encourage, nay enforce, the reading of the Bible rather than the Koran, in schools aided by the national purse; only it is not to provide spiritual teachers. But the large portion of the community who happen to be liberalists, without being either Churchmen or Dissenters, will exclain against this plan, as being in the germ quite as sectarian as the Church of England is alleged to be in the development; the only difference being, that the latter is consistent, whereas the other is not.

Many of the young well-educated laymen among the Dissenters are beginning to see this; and one of our objects in the present controversy, is to keep the subject prominently before them, as well as before the members of our own church, and we are therefore glad that their own journals are right zealously abusing us; seeing that some useful lesson may remain after the smoke and fire of the abuse have passed away. We know, and we suspect that Dr. Smith is not ignorant, that intelligent young men among the Dissenters are warmly canvassing these matters; that not a few of them, seeing the gulf before them, are coming over to the Church of England; and, though it may be silently, gradually, and unostentatiously, so much the better; while others, pressing the principles which have been taught them to their genuine results, are arguing to the following effect: "I lived in Dr. Pye Smith's half-way house, till it became too strait for me. The foundation is a quicksand; the walls are without cement; the thatch is decayed; and the wind and rain penetrate on every side; to keep out which it is necessary to exclude the light. The National Education question exemplifies this. I was told by evangelical teachers, that though we may not have a national church, or a national body of religious instructors, or creeds, or catechisins, or prayer, we might, without any infringement of civil or religious liberty and equality, make all men pay for Bible Schools. This seemed plausible; but almost the whole body of the clergy and members of the Church of England would consider their liberty of conscience infringed by being obliged to contribute to schools which they disapprove; not because they are scriptural, but for other reasons; while the Roman Catholics still more strongly object to them because they are scriptural. Then I found Mr. Crossley, the master of the Borough Road school, stating before parliament, that Jewish children are not expected to read the word CHRIST; and I heard Unitarians complain that the translation of the Bible which is used violates their conscience; in short, the

scheme which we boasted of as wholly neutral, appears to be only the scheme of our own particular sect of Evangelical Dissenters; and the moment we step out of doors the difficulties are as great as if we went to parliament to build twenty new cathedrals, or a thousand churches. The Sabbath question led to the same result. I was told by Mr. Conder and Dr. Smith that we might do something, without compromising our abstract principles; but I found it impossible; if my neighbours choose to buy or sell, or to run stage-coaches or steam-boats, or to open museums or theatres, or to go to them on Sunday, why am I, because I believe the Bible, to prevent them; unless I am prepared to follow out the doctrine to the conclusion, that a nation is bound to honour God in its corporate capacity, and a legislature to make public provision for his worship, and the religious instruction of the people? Every argument for national Bible-schools for children leads to the duty of instituting national pastoral ministrations for adults; I must therefore go further, or go back; I must either drop the Dissenting principle, as some of my friends have done, and go over to the Established Church; or I must allow it to advance to its fair issue; for what is right as respects orthodox Dissenters, is right as respects Unitarians, Jews, Churchmen, or Romanists."

It cannot be denied that some of the younger men among the Dissenters, who have not personal religion to make them try to shut their eyes to the effect of the doctrines urged on them, and who plainly discern the inequality of the pretended equality principle, are verging to this infidel extreme; while others, the sons of what the Religious Equality committee call "The Dissenting gentlemen in the provinces," (why do the religico-political Dissenters constantly affect French revolutionary slang? we have no "provinces" in England ;) are seeking repose from these commotions in the bosom of the Established Church, and are allying themselves to the conservative institutions of their respective vicinities. Dissent is rapidly losing whatever hold it had upon the more respectable, influential, and solidly-educated classes of society. It was respected when popularly regarded as suffering for conscience sake; but it is execrated in its new political career of clubs, and delegates, and agitation, and pulling down churches, and reducing national legislation (we see no reason to retract the words) " to the bareness of atheism."

But why urge these matters in connexion with Dr. Smith's letter, when he does not go to this extreme; and even thinks that a legislature may protect the Christian sabbath? We rejoice if he does think so; and severe indeed must be the struggle that would make so devout a man relinquish godly legislation, even at the sacrifice of some essential parts of the system upon which the present political agitations of Dissent are grounded. But this is an especial reason for taking the discussion in a locality so favourable to Dissenters, rather than in some exceptionable quarter. We could defile our pages with reams of the most profligate extracts, the modern revivifications, with enlargements, of the railings of such miscreants as Paine, against religious legislation and national ecclesiastical establishments; but we should be ashamed of the injustice of proffering such passages, as if there were anything in common between religious Dissenters and the haters and opposers of godliness. And yet there is this in common, that diametrically as their motives differ, their votes would often be found on the same side. The Evangelical Dissenters do not wish to build up either Socinianism or Popery; and yet Socinians and Papists hail their efforts, and count upon their votes. Mr. W. J. Fox, the well-known Unitarian writer and preacher, in a lecture upon 66 religious equality," delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, in which he stigmatizes the society so designated as being a hypocritical,