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established church. This view did not afford him a fair opportunity to explain the nature of Christian charity; it was not his topic,-hẹ did not attempt a full exposition, and Christianity only plays a subordinate part in the system of Dr. Chalmers. Wayland, in his work on "Population," refers to revelation throughout, as offering the only true solution, but, though his book is in many respects well written, his exhibition of the bearing of Christianity on this subject is very feeble, and shows how slightly he felt its power, and how little he knew its scope. It is worth observing, in these various authors, their various modes of referring to the truths of Holy Writ as furnishing a curious and instructive exhibition of the human mind and human nature. But no one can fully understand the relations of Christianity to this subject, as fixed by the various writers, who has not fully mastered the spirit and details of the leading author, Malthus, whose "Essay on Population" has, ever since it appeared, ruled the faith of a large number of disciples. It would be difficult to point out a publication as thoroughly infidel in its spirit and tendencies. When taken up, out of the controversy about population, and regarded from the side of Christianity, the book cannot be read without an accumulating sense of contempt, horror, and indignation. Yet this is the standard book in English literature on this subject; its positions are regarded as impregnable by a very large body of the educated people of Great Britain; and its contents are the received doctrine of all the political economists, strictly so called, of Europe and America.

Yet Dr. Chalmers is found battling by the side of Malthus, both agreeing in the opposition to a compulsory legal provision for the poor; and we find him writing to his friend Morton

"Mr. Malthus's theory upon this subject would have carried me without examples. But it seldom happens that a speculation so apparently paradoxical, is so well supported by the most triumphant exemplifications."*

It is scarcely to be wondered that, when such a man can receive such theories and speculations so kindly, the world around him should do so likewise. But, whatever the number of Malthus's innocent disciples, there were not wanting many who detected the cloven foot. On the Continent, especially, many, who did not belong to the stricter school of political economists, denounced the work as atrocious and unchristian. It required an infidel to detect an infidel, according to the spirit of the old proverb: and thus was effected a complete exposure of the fallacies,

*Life of Chalmers, vol. ii. 386.

the inhumanity, and the infidelity of a work professedly friendly to Christianity, the production of one of its ministers. It was Wm. Godwin, who, writing "Of Population," gave the first effectual check to the spread of Malthusian doctrines. Without any reference to the argument and the facts of Godwin, in which unusual ability is evinced, as opposed to those of Malthus, we cannot but advert to the effectiveness of the excoriation which he applied to Malthus and his opinions: not content with this, he crushes him indignantly as a venomous reptile. The morbid exposure is frightful; such a literary smashing was rarely or never seen, and never more richly merited. If a butchery like this, were unbecoming a Christian, it is the only pretence upon which the shame of leaving its execution to an infidel can be justified.

Of course, such a punishment will neither bear transfer nor abridgment, but we must not let the occasion pass without giving a specimen of Mr. Godwin. The portentous evil which Mr. Malthus held up to frighten the world was, the fact asserted by him, that population tended to increase in a geometrical ratio, and subsistence in an arithmetical ratio :

Thus, Food,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Population, 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256.

"This, then, is the precise outline of Mr. Malthus's system. The evils against which he would guard are hunger and famine; the remedies for these evils are vice and misery."* Unimpeded increase would, "in less than two thousand years, people the whole visible universe, at the rate of four men to every yard square." It must, of course, have required a vast deal of vice and misery to counteract such a ratio of increase as that imports. Mr. Malthus, to remove some of the harshness of his conclusions in the earlier editions of his work, introduces another check to population, which he calls "moral restraint," but he constantly insinuates a caution against any reliance upon it. He finds that "in past ages it has operated with very inconsiderable force," and he is not visionary enough to entertain "any opinion respecting the future improvement of society, in which he is not borne out by the experience of the past." His main dependence, therefore, against the enormous calamity of an over-peopled world, is vice and misery. Mr. Malthus "sits remote, like a malignant providence dispensing from his magazine all the various iniquities and miseries of life, which, sooner or later," in

*Godwin on Population, chap. book vi. 516. Malthus, vol. ii. p. 344, note.

various degrees, contribute to shorten the natural duration of humar life. "That is the desideratum."*

He examines the population of all the countries of the world, and finds confirmation of his doctrine everywhere-vice and misery in abundance; he does not discriminate, and cares not for kind or degree, so it be inherent and effective. If inherent in the constitution of all societies, it must operate in every condition of the human family. He finds, therefore, that "human institutions, however they may appear to be the causes of much mischief to society, are in reality light and superficial, mere feathers that float on the surface, in comparison with those deeper causes of evil which result from the laws of nature and the passions of men." It is visionary to think that any improved form of government could overcome the vice and misery which prevail as checks to population, and if they could, they would become the cause of still greater evils. Mr. Malthus can descant pleasantly upon the benefits and beauties of Christianity, but these benefits and beauties are reserved for those only in the higher walks of life, and if it were otherwise, Christianity must of itself become a nuisance. A large portion of the pages of the "Essay on Population" are devoted to speculations on the diminution of mortality. This would seem, at first sight, against the spirit of the whole treatise. A closer examination reveals the harmony of his opinions.

It will be found, that all the plans of reducing mortality involve the previous processes of thinning the ranks from which death can pluck his victims. If vice and misery can be made to reduce the numbers of the present generation below the average, then there must be fewer deaths hereafter, because fewer men to die. As the world will go on to double its population every twenty-five years, unless something is done to prevent it, and as Mr. Malthus feels it to be rather awkward to rely entirely for remedy upon vice and misery, without, at least, mentioning other remedies, he discusses divers modes of reducing the numbers of mankind. As men are coming into the world faster than they can be provided for, it becomes a question what is to be done with the new-comers. Mr. Malthus discovers the law which must, of necessity, govern the case. They come into a world already possessed and fully occupied. There is not room for all,-who must give way, the possessors or the interlopers? It is perfectly clear that those who have the ground and the property, "have a right to do what

*Godwin on Population, chap. i. book vi. 520.

they please with their own."

It follows, that "we are bound in

justice and honour, formally, to disclaim the right of the poor to support." This includes all the poor, the maimed, the blind, the sick, and suffering of every description. The poor-laws of England are, in his estimation, "an evil, in comparison of which, the national debt, with all its magnitude of terror, is of little moment."* The law of Mr. Malthus, then, is, that men who came into the world must support themselves, or those who bring them in must support them: if they fail or die in the attempt, they but execute the laws of nature upon themselves; they have no right to obtrude themselves upon the notice of those who are comfortably enjoying the banquet of life, much less any right to claim any portion from a feast to which they were not invited.

Mr. Godwin quotes freely from the New Testament the law of love as set forth in the precepts of Christ-the command to the young man who alleged he had kept all the commandments from his youth up, "Go sell that thou hast and give to the poor." On this, Godwin remarks:

"There is a kind of oriental boldness in this, at least, considered as a general exposition of the moral law; for it would be reasonable to answer, If it is my duty to render the greatest benefit to my fellow-creatures, and if my mind is well prepared to discharge this duty, it will, probably, be better done by my devoting my income to this purpose, than by at once divesting myself of the principal."

"But nothing can be more clear than the general tenor of revelation on this question. By it we are instructed that we are stewards, not proprietors of the good things of this life, we are forbidden to pamper our appetites or our vanity, we are commanded to be fellow-workers with and impartial ministers of the bountiful principle of nature, and we are told that, when we have done all, we have done nothing of which we have any right to boast."

"Such are the dictates of Christian revelation, and such is the answer to Mr. Malthus's position that 'every man has a right to do what he will with his own.'"-Godwin, Of Population, chap. iii. book vi. p. 544.

"Thus stood the principles of morality," remarks Mr. Godwin, after making these quotations from the teaching of Christ, "before Mr. Malthus wrote his Essay on Population." The rich man believed in them, though he constantly violated them by wantonly expending on his appetites and vanity, sums for which his conscience as con

Malthus, Vol. II. 307. The public debt was then £850,000,000, and the interest £47,000,000. The poor-rates were £3,000,000.

stantly reproached him. This was some check. The poor man believed in them, though he saw how little they prevailed in the world. He believed that the unfortunate, the disabled, and deserving poor had a right to support, "a belief in which he was borne out by the light of nature and by the gospel. Neither the evangelists, nor apostles, nor the Holy Spirit that inspired them, were aware that all these maxims were subverted by the principle of population." Mr. Malthus has changed the situation of the rich and poor. To the poor he has taught that, if they receive any relief, they owe it not to any right, but to what he calls the spontaneous charity and pure benevolence of the rich; his opinion being that "private charity almost invariably leads to pernicious consequences," and public charity he condemns without any reservation.

"To the rich he has read an important lesson. A great portion of this class of society are sufficiently indisposed to acts of charity, and eminently disposed to the indulgence of their appetites and their vanity. But hitherto they had secretly reproached themselves with this as an offence against God and man. Mr. Malthus has been the first man to perform the grateful task of reconciling their conduct and their consciences, and to show them that when they thought they were indulging themselves in vice, they were in reality conferring a most eminent and praiseworthy benefit upon the community."-Godwin, p. 548.

THE PUSEYITES.-ANOTHER PHASE OF THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT POPULATION AND PAUPERISM.

We have seen that Chalmers and Malthus were found side by side in their opposition to a compulsory provision for the poor, but, with what different ultimate objects! Chalmers, to secure a kinder administration, and a more effectual maintenance; Malthus, to let their own improvidence and misery bring them to a rapid end, that, by thinning the ranks of men now, the mortality hereafter might be diminished. We now bring forward another collaborator, from a different school, having his point of agreement, also, with these anti-champions of the poor-laws. A class of religionists has become conspicuous in Great Britain since Malthus and Chalmers wrote, who, as is generally the case with new sects, are divisible into two camps. The Puseyites may be divided into the sincere, but deluded and mistaken; and the designing and unprincipled, who are always ready to lead any squadrons of the ignorant or superstitious. No drifting mob of humanity can go long without a leader. It may be well feared that, as we find many good and sincere people among the Puseyites, they were made so by

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