With the end of following out Judge Lane's suggestions of reform in our prisons, a meeting was held on the evening of Wednesday, the 23d ult., when it was determined to form a society to be called the HowARD SOCIETY OF CINCINNATI, with the "twofold object of improving the condition of prisons and the establishment of a house of Reform." The need of this latter institution in our city, (and we suppose the need is equally great in Louisville, St. Louis, &c.,) may be understood from the appalling statement, made by the Mayor, that out of two hundred boys, found once guilty of petty larcenies, he did not know of one solitary instance of reformation. The cause of this is very simple. If a boy is convicted, and sent to the common prison, he graduates a confirmed villain, disgraced in his own eyes, suspected by the community; and by a necessity, hardly to be resisted, he herds with the vicious, and commits yet more aggravated crimes. If, on the contrary, through the kindness of his prosecutor or the magistrate he is pardoned, he learns to flatter himself that he can sin with impunity, seeks indulgence without fear, and grows utterly lawless in iniquity. This can be prevented but in one way, and that is by having an institution, where under wise and kind management, the juvenile criminal may be reclaimed. That this can be done has been most satisfactorily proved by the experience of Boston, New-York and Philadelphia. The houses of Reform in those cities have saved thousands of boys and girls from ruin, and kept those communities safe from the countless moral and economical evils of training up within their own borders bands of educated rogues. Again, houses of Reform are of incalculable benefit as a means of prevention as well as of reformation. Parents, for instance a poor widow, or one of the hundreds of deserted wives, whose so named husbands have gone down the river, might apply to these authorit.es to put a disobedient profligate boy, who had outgrown all reverence, into this school of moral discipline. Or, again, a master who found an apprentice wilfully plunging into a career of vice, might seclude him for a while from his vicious acquaintances. Many a poor boy, who now becomes a curse to himself, a disgrace to his friends, a pest to society, might, in a house of Reform, grow up in self-respect, habits of usefulness, integrity and honor. In all our great cities this growing evil of a vicious juvenile population should be at once effectually stopped by the establishment of houses of Reform.

In a former number I examined the nature and tendency of Mr. Brownson's first essay on the laboring classes. Since then I have met with his second essay on the same subject, in which he attempts to explain and to vindicate the subject matter of the first. This second essay it is my purpose now to review.

Mr. B. complains that he is not fairly dealt with, because persons criticise his late essay, who have not read all which he had previously written. If this is a good plea, I too am guilty; for I have not read much of what Mr. B. has lately written. But is this a good plea? Mr. B. writes an article on a particular subject. It is written in a very clear, lucid manner, and the propositions contained in it are expressed with great perspicuity. In it there is no reference to any thing which he has formerly said or written. He publishes it, not only in his periodical, but, as I am informed, in a pamphlet form, to give it a greater circulation. And now, does it become him to complain that others have judged of his essay as he has published it, namely, by itself?

The article now under consideration is written in a less offensive manner than the preceding one. It is free from that VOL. VIII.-55.

gross abuse of the clergy which disgraced the latter; and the general tone of it is somewhat less intemperate. For the rest, however, it is still the same arrogant, authoritative spirit. Mr. B. will not that there shall be any class of men set apart or authorized, either by law or fashion, to speak to us in the name of God;* and yet we find him constantly speaking in the name of God, and making himself the interpreter of Heaven. It is true, he allows that those may speak in the name of God, who feel themselves moved by his spirit; but I think Mr. B. will hardly attempt to justify his own language under this plea. Whatever diversity of opinion there may be as to his motives in writing the essays under consideration, I am sure that no one who reads these bitter productions, can mistake them for the effusions of a holy spirit.

But let us proceed to examine Mr. B's explanation, vindication or apology, (I know not precisely what to call it,) for his last article partakes strongly of all these characters. Mr. B. has, for the sake of perspicuity, divided his subject under several distinct heads, and I shall consider these in the order in which they occur, commencing with the second, the first relating to party politics.

OPPOSITION TO CHRISTIANITY.

Mr. B. says, that he is charged with proposing to abolish Christianity. This charge he declares to rest on a perversion of his language. Now, in this case, I believe that the perversion is on Mr. B's. side. The charge brought was not that he proposed to abolish Christianity; but that he proposed plans that would naturally tend to injure or destroy it. Mr. B. tells us, that ten years ago he announced his conversion to Christianity,-that since then he has neither had or expressed any doubt as to its truth, and that, during that period, no one in the community has preached or written more in its defence. How severely might Mr. B.'s own language be retorted: "The word of God never drops from the priest's lips;" but I do not wish to judge him as he has judged others. If I am rightly informed he began with being a believer. He afterwards became enveloped in the clouds of doubt and unbelief. About ten years ago he returned to the faith of his earlier days; and now, if I am to judge from appearances, his dark hour is again coming over him. But suppose Mr. B. to be as firm a believer as ever laid down his life for the faith, this would not in the least tend to do away the charge brought

*B. Q. R., p. 386. + B. Q. R. See particularly 433, 434.

against him. That charge, as I have observed before, lies not against his intention, but against the tendency of his measures. This, I beg the reader to bear constantly in mind. The former may be perfectly pure, and yet the latter be in the highest degree injurious.

Besides, although Mr. B. did not, in so many words, propose to abolish Christianity, yet he proposed something very much like it, in regard to what he calls the Christianity of the Church; and I suppose that most people like myself, are so simple as to be acquainted with only one Christianity, namely, that which is taught in the scriptures. Now these scriptures are read every Sabbath day in all the Churches. They form the ground-work of all the teaching there. The minister may sometimes mistake their import; he may mix with their pure and simple doctrines, matters drawn from a Jewish or heathen philosophy; but still the simple essential truths of Christianity are there. We are there told of a God; of a Saviour; of a life to come, and of the means of attaining to it; and hence the doctrine taught us in our churches has appeared to us to be the doctrines of Jesus; and when it is proposed to do away the Christianity of the church, it sounds to us very much like a proposal to rob us of our religion. As to the distinction between a Christianity of the Church, and a Christianity of Christ, that is a piece of cant of too recent. origin, to enter properly into the vocabulary of a popular

writer.

Mr. B. avows his determination to do all in his power to abolish the church as it is now; and he justifies this determination by the declaration that Jesus never contemplated such. an institution; and that it is the grave of freedom and independence, and the hot-bed of servility and hypocrisy. As to the first of these points I shall add nothing to what I said in regard to it in my former number. Mr. B. understands the scriptures differently from what I do. If the church is the grave of freedom and independence, it is rather surprising that the New Englanders, who are emphatically a churchgoing people, should have always been distinguished as the sturdy champions of civil liberty. And as to the assertion, that the church is the hot-bed of servility and hypocrisy, I think that while its sacred desks are occupied by such men as a Channing, a Ware, a Greenwood, a Gannet, the Peabodys, and others like them, a man might well have saved himself the dishonor of bringing a charge like this.

The charge of attempting to destroy the religion of the community, was founded on the avowed purpose of doing

away our present religious institutions. The consideration of this point belongs therefore naturally to the present head.

Mr. B., however, with a tact which would do credit to one of the politicians of the day, has transferred the consideration of it to the head of hostility to the clergy. 1 shall not follow him in this, but consider this point under the present head.

In Mr. B.'s first article, he proposed to abolish all religious organization. There must be no outward, visible church.* If any man felt himself moved by the spirit, he was to preach the word "in the stable, the marketplace, the street, in the grove, under the open canopy of heaven, in the lowly cottage or the lordly hall." Mr. B. now denies that he proposed abolishing public worship, and in proof of his not having done so, he refers to what he had said. This denial does no credit to his candor. When a man, who expresses his ideas with as much clearness as Mr. B. does, says, "We object not to the gathering together of the people on one day in seven, to sing and pray, and listen to a discourse from a religious teacher; but we object to everything like an outward visible church;" the plain obvious meaning is, that such gathering together does not enter into his plans, but that he does not think it of sufficient consequence expressly to prohibit it. Since Mr. B. wrote this first article, he has however, entirely changed his ideas on this head. He now proposes to substitute, for the present organization, another equally outward and visible; and, as I freely concede to Mr. B. the right of altering and amending his plans, I shall consider what this new scheme is, and what would be its results.

Mr. B. proposes to constitute every parish a church; that at the public expense, a convenient meeting house be erected in each parish; that all should repair there twice a week for religious edification; and that all should sit in silent meditation, unless some one was moved by the spirit of God to speak. Such is Mr. B's. scheme. Let us now enquire how it will work. He would have us believe that these meetings would be essentially similar to those of the Quakers; but I think we shall find, that they have nothing in common with these, except that both are held in buildings similarly shaped.

Good men have thought that they did a good service to the cause of religion by dissolving the connexion between church and state. Mr. B. thinks differently, and proposes not only to unite them in the closest manner, but to render them absolutely identical; so that every member of the com+Ibid, p p. 458, 459.

Bost. Quar. Review, p. 385. Ibid 387.