If the liberal members of the European community who desire to accomplish moral, religious, and political reforms, could be convinced of the reality of the moral government of the world, and take up this doctrine as the basis of their operations, no political tyranny, and no erroneous creed, could withstand their assaults. While they rely on guns and bayonets as their means of resisting misrule, they stand at a disadvantage, for these are equally available to defend error as to maintain truth; but when, abjuring these, they shall employ their higher faculties in discovering and demonstrating the combination of causes and effects, by means of which that moral government is actually carried into operation, they will become conscious of a strength before which error in every form will ultimately succumb.

Mr Holmes' blindness to the moral order of creation is evinced by another proposal which he advocates. While he admits that, during all the period of England's oppression, Irishmen were, in general, so destitute of moral principle, patriotism, and mutual confidence, that England, at all times, found among them willing tools to perpetrate her deeds of injustice, and Ireland never (except for a few months in 1782) found in her own population moral, intellectual, and physical resources sufficient to oppose or arrest them, he looks to repeal of the Union, and the delivery of Irish affairs into Irish hands, as the only panacea for her sufferings and her wrongs. But if the view which I am now expounding is not a dream, the wrongs of Ireland will never be righted until her destinies are swayed by a moral and enlightened legislature: and whether this shall hold its sittings on the one side of St George's Channel or the other, will matter little to either country; for, as God's providence embraces both, and has rendered beneficence and justice the only road to permanent happiness and prosperity for either, that legislature will first redress her wrongs which shall first bow before the power of God, and enforce His laws as superior in wisdom and efficacy to any which their own selfishness and prejudices can substitute in their place.*

Another striking example of a people professing Christianity being utter unbelievers in the Divine moral government of the world is afforded by the legal enactment of slavery as a "domestic institution" in the Southern States of the American Union. Every principle of natural humanity and justice condemns the gross selfishness of converting men into "chattels,"

*These observations were written and first published in 1847. England has since partially changed her course of action towards Ireland, and already blessed fruits are visible in Ireland's peace and prosperity, and England's tranquillity.

compelling them to labour for the profit of others, and buying and selling them, irrespectively of all ties of kindred, place, and custom; and if there be a moral Providence at all ruling in the world, this "Institution," being founded in iniquity, and a flagrant and presumptuous defiance of the Divine laws, can lead sooner or later to no result but terrible disaster to all who participate in it. Nevertheless, it is a melancholy spectacle to see ministers of the Christian religion, after being driven from every position of reason and morality in attempting to defend this institution, falling back on the authority of Scripture, as the last and strongest tower of strength by which to maintain its odious existence.

The advocates of the inherent moral disorder of the world, however, will probably point to history and to the actual condition of the human race in every country of the globe, as affording demonstrative evidence that this supposed moral government is a dream. The past and present sufferings of mankind cannot be disputed; but in what age, and in what nation, have the religious instructors of the people been believers in an actual practical moral government of the world by God? Where and when have they expounded the natural arrangements by means of which this government is accomplished? And when and where have they directed the religious sentiments of the people to reverence and obey the natural laws as the roads that lead to virtue and prosperity? Ever since the promulgation of Christianity, has any nation discovered, and practically fulfilled, the natural conditions by which the precepts of this religion may be supported and enforced? Not one example is known of such conduct:-need we, therefore, be surprised at the results being such as history discloses and we perceive? The evidence of past and present experience certainly demonstrates that mankind, by shutting their eyes to the order of Providence in the world, by trampling the dictates of morality and religion under foot, and by seeking prosperity and happiness under the guidance of unsound religious dogmas, and of their selfish animal propensities, have never realized the objects of their desires; but it does not prove that no scheme of moral government adapted to their nature exists. It shows that they have not discovered such a scheme; but neither had they discovered the steamengine, railroads, or the effects of chloroform, until a very recent date. They have been, and generally speaking continue to be, ignorant of their own nature; of the adaptations of the external world to its constitution; of the principles on which the order of nature is framed; and of their own capabilities of conforming to it; and hence many of their sufferings may be

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accounted for: but the requisite discoveries may be made, and indeed have been partially made, and all experience shews that human happiness has increased in proportion to obedience to the natural laws. The most intelligent, moral, and industrious nations are the most prosperous and happy; the most ignorant, idle, self-seeking, turbulent, and aggressive, are the most miserable and poor. These undeniable facts afford strong indications that a moral government of the world by natural laws exists; and if it does so, is not the discovery of its scheme an important study claiming the serious attention of man? I cannot too often repeat that unless the Christian morality be sustained and enforced by the order of nature, it is in vain to teach it as a rule of conduct in secular affairs. And how can this study be commenced and prosecuted, how can new truths be turned to practical account, except by reverencing Nature and her adaptations as Divine institutions-teaching them to the young and enforcing them by the authority of the moral and religious sentiments? If man is a moral and intellectual being, it appears not to be inconsistent with this character to have constituted his mind and body and external nature in harmony with each other, and to have left him, in the exercise of his discretion, to work out, to a considerable extent, his own weal or woe. The fact that he, through ignorance and the misapplication of his powers, has hitherto experienced much misery, affords no conclusive evidence that by more extensive knowledge, and stricter obedience to the laws of his nature, he may not greatly improve his condition.

CHAPTER VIII.

IS THIS WORLD, SUCH AS IT NOW EXISTS, AN INSTITUTION ?—OR IS IT THE WRECK OF A BETTER SYSTEM ?

SECTION I. -IS THIS WORLD AN INSTITUTION?

By an Institution, I mean an object formed apparently according to a plan, and designed for a purpose. By the wreck of a better system is meant a state of things in which order and design may be inferred to have once existed, but no longer appear. In it dislocation of parts has destroyed consistency of plan, and abortive results indicate defeated design. To which category does this world, such as it now exists, belong?

In attempting to answer this question we may begin with the Planetary System. Apparently it is an Institution; for, so far as has yet been discovered, its parts are systematically arranged, and design is discernible in its objects. Our Earth is a member of this system; and the place it holds in it is therefore systematic and designed. One feature of its position, is the inclination of its axis at an angle of 23 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic; and among its phenomena is its annual revolution round the sun. These, therefore, are portions of the plan of the solar system, and the effects which they produce must be regarded as designed.

One of these effects is the production of Summer and Winter, with arctic, temperate, and torrid zones; and all the enjoyments and sufferings arising from them. Surveying these regions, we discover men and animals constituted with qualities adapted to each of them: the reindeer and the walrus are adapted to regions of ice and snow, and could not live within the tropics; while the camel and the dolphin flourish in heat, but would perish in the arctic zone. The Hindoo and Negro would become extinct in Lapland, and the Laplander on the plains of Bengal, or in the interior of Africa.

Pursuing our observations, we might at first imagine the vast expanse of ocean, in which none of the higher forms of vegetable or animal life can exist, to be the result of some hideous catastrophe which has befallen our planet, and defaced its.

originally fairer features. But if we investigated the constitution and relations of the ocean more closely, we should probably be led to view it in a different light. Experience, for example, shews that the soil requires water to render it fertile, and that the higher forms of animal and vegetable life are absolutely dependent on its fertility for their existence. Although man has discovered that water can be produced by combining oxygen and hydrogen gases, no process has yet been observed in active operation in nature for providing a constant supply of water by this method. Indeed, such a process could not be permanently continued in operation without sooner or later producing a deluge, unless a counteracting process for resolving the water back into its elements were also provided; and such processes, continued on the gigantic scale necessary to irrigate the whole earth, would have produced continual changes in the proportions of the gases which constitute our atmosphere, and on the permanence of whose proportions animal and vegetable life absolutely depends.

The actual order of Nature has been to form water sufficient for supplying moisture for the land, to collect it in huge basins, and to endow the air with sponge-like properties for absorbing it, carrying it to great distances, and depositing it in the form of dew and rain where it is wanted. In process of time, after having fertilized the ground, and helped to nourish animal and vegetable life, it finds its way back by rivers into its original ocean bed, whence it is again absorbed, again travels on the wings of the wind, again fertilizes the plains, the valleys, and the mountains, and thus continues to perform an endless series of beneficent revolutions, without increasing or decreasing in quantity, and without deranging any other part or process of nature.

Moreover, we find the ocean replete with animal life, and the forms in which it exists adapted not only to the watery element itself, but to the temperature which pervades the ocean in the different zones.

Viewed in this light, then, does the ocean present itself to our minds as the result of a catastrophe, or as an Institution formed on a plan, and designed for a purpose ?-To me the latter appears the rational inference: yet, while these arrangements are the sources of innumerable enjoyments, it is undeniable that they are also accompanied by contingent evils.

Natural History also shews that unity of plan is discernible in the formation of the organisms of man and the lower animals. Göthe, in his theories on the morphology of plants, Oken, a German physiologist, and Geoffroy St Hilaire, a celebrated French writer on the same science, are considered to