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lyle has no fault to find; a landed aristocracy is the only true one, and should be truly venerable. feudal progenitor of the present lord (law-ward) took a portion of the realm of the king, together with the population, to take care of-to see that the land was well tilled, the people well guided and provided for. His business was to see that good laws were faithfully obeyed; that justice was equitably administered. This was his business, and he did it; the people loyally obeyed him, and cheerfully paid him for the use of the land, and for doing so noble a work for their good. But how do the lords of England now discharge those duties which they as really inherit as they do the land? Not at all! They have retired from business altogether, and are intent only upon preserving the game;' idling, hunting, and clamoring for higher rents, when by their cornlaws and similar legislation they have rendered it impossible for the millions to pay any rent. They have ceased to care for the people; they can see them actually starve and their tough leather bowels not move. By their legislation they strangle the working capitalist, for bid him to buy and sell where he can do it to the best advantage, and thereby millions of operatives are thrown out of work, and out of wages and victuals, except they find them in poor-house bastiles. They no longer look upon the poorer classes as their brethren, to govern and provide for whom in a righteous manner is their noble work. "Is not," they ask, "this England ours? and have not we a right to do what we will with our own? Can we not sell its grain at what price we please, or even burn it? Are we your keepers?" The lank, starving populace, in the streets of Manchester, in a state of insurrection, ask-"What are you going to do with us?" They are answered with grape shot, and retire to their dens.

Carlyle sets no bounds to his indignation against those whom he represents as reasoning and acting in this manner. He tells them the land of England is not theirs in any such sense; that every born subjecte of the kingdom has a right, founded on Heaven's parchment, to a living in it if he is willing to be industrious and frugal; and by way of warning he repeatedly points them to the pikes of Paris and the tanneries of Mendon.* This question of rights will soon be a question of mights, (words most significant with him ;) it seems even now only waiting for a standard, some rallying sign which, as nature is true, some Oliver will be sent to raise. Things have come well nigh to the insupportable pitch; old garments galling to a degree which can not be borne;. the universal brain of the nation set to agitating first principles; and let the thin rind of habit be once broken and seen to be thin, and then-look to France now gone fifty years! What will all parchments, laws, constitutions, royalty, manors and manorhouses avail you then? You, first of all, will rue the day. But for all England it will be woful work, for what know chartism and radicalism about governing! Let the example of France suffice. Repent! Instantly repeal those hated and hateful corn-laws, that the agitation about first principles may be allay ed. Let them not continue for a hundred thousand pounds an hour!

When Carlyle comes to the church, and with one eye on the gospel of Christ, which it pretends to follow, and the other upon the whole life and preaching of those whom he calls soul-overseers, he thinks it best to keep silence. But

"At Mendon," says Montgaillard, as quoted by Carlyle, (French Revolution, p. 399,) there was a tannery of human skins-such of the guillotined as seemed worth flaying; of which perfectly good wash-leather was made, for breeches and other uses."

silence is the last thing he can keep upon this subject, as almost every chapter of his book testifies. He is the last man, he tells us, who will complain of the thirty nine articles of the church; it is of the eternal round of forms which have become forms only; mere semblances, which, if the fruit of the life be any test of the real belief of the heart, those who go over them do not believe. The spiritual lord, moist with the sweat of Melton Mowbry, claiming connection with Peter and Paul by a continuous spiritual chain, into whose head the idea of doing the real work of Peter and Paul never entered, is what he calls a spectacle for God and man. Their Sabbath worship always reminds him of that scene of the apes by the Dead Sea.

"But the remedy?" "A return to reality and fact; to truth, justice, right. Loose at once the strangling band of the corn-laws from the throats of some five millions: England has ability of property and of every other kind. Let the people see that she is determined to use this ability at whatever sacrifice of personal ease, pleasure, or profit, to remedy the actual suffering of the land. Once determine to do, actually begin doing, and right things' enough will be found practicable. It is a question of life and death. Better die in attempt ing, than die, as you surely must, by neglecting. Abbot Sampson, and every other hero will die, if need be, in doing their work, but they will not sit still and see injustice triumph."

"Let England generally cease the base struggle to undersell all the world in her manufactures. Where is the honor or real greatness, in becoming drawers of water and hewers of wood, mere drudges and gnomes, your lungs filled with cotton-fuzz, your hearts with copperas-fumes, that you may sell cotton a farthing cheaper per yard

than other men? Does England's glory consist in working harder than any other nation? Give the poor workers healthy, ceiled rooms; a spot of green earth where they may daily take a breath of fresh air; and some little instruction, and knowledge, to the extent at least of the alphabet; and in numerous such ways, strive to attach them to you by cords of affection, and not as you in vain have tried to do, by paying them the stipulated amount of wages-the scantiest possible, and then telling them to depart. Cease to calculate so closely the greatest amount of work that can be done upon the fewest ounces of food and the fewest hours of rest. You disgrace English humanity worse than the Americans do African humanity. Quashee over the water has victuals and clothing; while your Lancashire weavers, in whom there is more thought and heart, a greater amount of misery, than in a whole gang of Quashees, are dying of hunger. If you can not live by selling cotton equally with other nations, you can do something else; your genius is not a beaver's or an ant's, that you must eternally do the same thing in the same way. Let the captains of industry become, what the age, what England now demands them to be, the chivalry of labor, leading on cheerily and with good heart the workingmen to noble conquests, not of 'arms' but of work.* Give them,

* "Prudence keeps one thousand workmen; has striven in all ways to attach them to him; has provided conversational soirees; play grounds, bands of music for the young ones; went even the length of buying them a drum:' all which

turned out to be an excellent investment. For a certain person whom we shall name Blank, living over the wayhe also keeps somewhere about one thousand men; but has done none of these things for them, nor any other thing, except due payment of the wages by supply-and-demand. Blank's workers are

where you can, some personal stake in the contest for their encouragement. A dynasty of labor has commenced its reign, and you may make it more glorious than all former dynasties. Let the governing powers understand this, and direct their politics accordingly.

Ye voters of England too have a reformation to work in your selves. Your representatives declare in open Parliament, that bribery in elections can not be stop ped; that you are so bribable, that any scoundrel can get himself elected, if he will give you more money than another scoundrel. This is too shocking to be told. And has it come to this, that you will leave the man, the clear-sighted, truehearted man at home, and send some mere sham of a man to gov. ern you and this great and suffering nation? And can you there in the "National Palaver" proclaim it to the universe, that the collective wisdom and authority of this king. dom will not interfere to prevent bribery? Then go to Beelzebub, electors and elected, for you are verily his beyond all rescue! An armed Cromwell will not long be wanting to apprise such Parliament: "Ye are no Parliament. In the

name of God-go!" Brother franchiser, let us have no hand any longer in electing such men to govern this nation! "Come out of her, O my people !"

And you, blaring hatter, and all others of like craft, stop trundling that seven feet lath-and-plaster hat

perpetually getting into mutiny, into broils and coils; every six months, we suppose, Blank has a strike; every one month, every day and every hour, they are fretting and obstructing the shortsighted Blank; pilfering from him. 'I would not, says Friend Prudence, exchange my workers for his, with seven thousand pounds to boot." Book IV, Chap. V. This is a real case, and helps us to the meaning of our author, when from the nature of the case he can speak only in general terms.

in these streets! Be content to make good hats at fair price, and let your brother craftsmen do the same, and all of you can live comfortably and happily together. Of how much in our day is this mammoth hat emblematic? Did puffery ever reach such height in any European, Mohammedan, Pagan, or devil's kingdom whatever? At this rate you will soon reach the-end !

Ye landed aristocracy, gird up your loins for the hard, almost impossible work of saving this England you call yours. Your idleness will prove the death of you and of us. How inexpressibly happy might we be were you the true godlike aristocracy of this realm. Dukes, earls, lords all, see in the example of a late duke of Weimar, what can be done, and in right earnest set about the doing of it, and this and other generations shall call you blessed.* tridges and foxes go, and attend to these millions of English men. Let them go, or you can not stay. Nature's patience is near exhausted, laws of gravitation have not ceased, there is huge strength in those bare backs and empty stomachs! God gave this land to nourish this people; you, if you would continue its stewards, must let it be cultivated for this purpose, and no longer keep it for your pleasures.

Let the par

Clergy! Do you know a book

"A modern duke of Weimar, not a

god he either, but a human duke, levied, as I reckon, in rents and taxes and all incomings whatsoever, less than several of our English dukes do in rent alone. The duke of Weimar, with these incomings, had to govern, judge, defend, every way administer his dukedom. He does all this as few others did; and he improves lands besides all this, makes river embankments, maintains not soldiers only but universities and institutions;

I reckon that this one duke of Weimar did more for the culture of his nation, than all the English dukes and duces now extant, or that were extant since Henry the eighth gave them the church lands to eat, have done for theirs!" Book IV, Chap. VI.

called the New Testament? Did you ever read that book? And is it the God-man, with a crown of thorns there whom you preach, worship, and profess to follow? Is it as under His eye that you would be about the greatest work ever given to man to do? How, where, O tell me where! you are leading this nation? To what heaven, or to what hell, shall we go if we follow you? It has become evident to men of other nations as well as to some of us, that the greatest terror, the only hell of the English, is-" not making money!" And "making money," or succeeding, is our corresponding heaven. Has your preaching, has your example led to such a doctrine? How with thy mass-chantings, litanyings, Calmuck praying by machinery, rubrics, webs of lawn, has the Holiest become hidden into all but invisibility! Pause I beseech thee,

and preach and act the gospel of Christ and no other, or take thyself and thy trumpery from our sight! You have well nigh quenched the empyrean fire, and lighted mere magic lanterns to guide this people on their blind way to eternity. Lift up your voice like a trumpet, sound aloud once more the true Gospel-man's duties and destinies, nature's eternal facts-and your calling shall be glorious.

"Stars silent rest o'er us, Graves under us silent.

But heard are the voices,
Voice of the Sages,

The World's and the Ages:
Choose well, your choice is
Brief and yet endless;

Here eyes do regard you,
In Eternity's stillness;
Here is all fullness,
Ye brave, to reward you;
Work and despair not."

POLITY OF THE BAPTIST CHURCHES IN AMERICA.

THE Baptists are perhaps the most numerous class of Christian professors in this country, numbering nearly a million of communicants. It has always been a favorite theory with this denomination, that the Savior is the only legislator of the churches, and his will, as revealed in the New Testament, is their sole and supreme law. They have regarded the principle of church independency as one of the safeguards of their religious liberty, their bulwark against the encroachments of civil and ecclesiastical power. In this respect they differ but slightly from the Congregational churches of New England, and the Independents of Europe. Indeed, the only material difference between Baptists and Congregationalists, relates to the design, subjects, and mode of baptism.

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church, and in effect, 'little more than a compact between the priest and the magistrate to betray the liberties of mankind, both civil and religious." "

They have no authoritative "creed," "confession of faith," or book of discipline."* Each church agrees upon its own summary of Bible doctrines, and adopts its own covenant. The New Testament is regarded as being the best "confession of faith," which any church can adopt; and this is made the supreme arbiter in all cases of disputation or doubt. But still there is a general agreement of opinion among the churches, as to the doctrines which the Bible inculcates, especially in relation to cardinal tenets, and a departure from the known views of the denomination on any of these points, would render a church liable to a withdrawal of the fellowship of neighboring churches.

This outline of the general features of the ecclesiastical polity of this branch of the Christian church, prepares us to examine more in detail, the views which the Baptists entertain respecting the origin of the Christian church; the character of its members; the object for which it is founded; the principle of its independence; its officers; its sacraments; its discipline; the method of receiving and dismissing ministers; the relation of churches to each other; the holding of associa tions; the powers and duties of ecclesiastical councils; the method of licensing and ordaining ministers; the method of transacting

* A confession of faith was adopted in England, in 1689, by a convention of one hundred and fifty Baptist ministers and lay delegates, representing more than one hundred churches in "London and the country." This confession does not differ essentially from that of the Westminster Assembly, except on the subject of baptism. See also a summary of the doctrinal views of the Baptists in the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

church business; and the forms of public worship.

1. The origin of the Christian church. The Baptists maintain, that the Christian church derives its origin directly and solely from Jesus Christ, its supreme Head and Legislator; and that the nature, design, order, government, and discipline of the church, can only, with sufficient accuracy, and with any degree of certainty, be ascertained by a careful and candid study of the instructions and practice of Christ and his apostles. "In regard to the constitution of the Christian church, while they believe in the existence of a universal or catholic church, composed of the whole body of believers in Christ in all nations and ages, they think that the Christian church, properly so called, was not visibly organized in the family of Abraham, nor in the wilderness of inai; but by the ministry of Christ himself and of his apostles." Hence the method of gathering and organizing a church, according to apostolic order, is, in their view: first, to preach the gospel to sinners, and call upon them to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ their only Savior. Secondly, to baptize as many as gladly receive the word, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance. Thirdly, to recognize such penitent baptized believers, voluntarily united in covenant relation, as a church of Christ, capable of enjoying all the rights, powers, and immunities invested in them by the Sovereign Head.

2. The character of its members. The Baptists hold that the church, organized according to the instructions of the New Testament, is a community composed of persons capable of acting for themselves, and of one specific character, namely, penitent believers, who are able to give a reason of the hope that is in them with meekness and fear; and who, on becoming connected

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