though it may on occasion be suddenly excited to outrages of the latter class, viz. those directly against property, but dangerous also to life, does nevertheless ordinarily, as a body, shrink from personal violence. During the frequent general strikes of late years, thousands have been known to starve for months on the wretched pittances doled out from the precarious funds of the unions, while the masters with whom they were at variance might walk the streets at all hours secure from either hurt or insult. The war was carried on not in the streets, but in the columns of newspapers. The masters formed an array of signatures, and kept up a fire of manifestos against the operatives, who, confining their hostility to the same weapons, suffered themselves at last to be beaten by the arguments, or starved out by the pa tience, of the enemy. We are not aware that it is now so much as pretended that any man's life is in danger. Whatever one or two Chartist leaders may say, or intend, whom, by the bye, a few months' reflection at the tread wheel would soon bring to their senses, we do not believe that the populace think of arms, except as means of securing from interruption their fancied liberty of public meetings. It appears then unwise and unchristian to use against them means of defence more dangerous and destructive than the occasion requires. We do not feel our lives to be really menaced, therefore we have no legitimate call to menace the lives of our assailants. Here is no public enemy, but a rabble of deluded men quarrelling with the existing arrangements of wealth and political privileges. They are, it is true, prepared to deal rather recklessly with "vested interests," as it is the fashion now to call our houses and our fields, in the pursuit of their wild schemes; and we admit, it is not unlikely that if they had their way one month, our lives would not be worth another month's purchase. Still they are not as yet seeking our lives, and are not now in the mind to take our lives even if they could; and by arming ourselves against them we only make the matter worse, we precipitate the quarrel, we ripen hostility, we change the subject from property to life, and hasten things onward to a stage in which we might wish our hearts out, and wish in vain, that we could retrace our steps to where we now stand, and had never touched a weapon of death. In the present state of the case, when our lives are not in real and imminent danger, but only our property, it does seem, according to the humane principles now admitted into our penal enactments, that any sacrifice of life by us will hardly be free from the guilt of murder. Protec tive means should be as little destructive as possible, for even in war it is the rule of civilized nations to hurt no more than is absolutely necessary. The "Armed Association for the Protec

tion of Life and Property," if it be brought into action, will seem at once to belie its name, like that horrid little instrument designated we suppose, quasi lucus, &c., a life-preserver, but which has really much more right to be called a life destroyer.

From what we have said, we shall readily be believed, when we say that we think the strong arm, or rather steel and bullet, the very worst way of extinguishing popular disorders, even at the best, i. e. when conducted in the most expert, merciful and palatable manner, by regular soldiery: like the amputation of a limb, though it be ever so unavoidable, that circumstance does not prevent it from being a grievous injury. It cannot but harden and embitter the hearts of men. It is dreadful to reflect on a general order being issued by the commander-in-chief with regard to our fellow townsmen, which one shudders to think of, even where Napoleon's legions are the subject of it,—the order to aim at the middle of the person. And yet that was really a merciful and necessary order. Blank cartridges only encourage the mob to further resistance, and make them incredulous of peril when the wolf is really come. Firing over the head is a deliberate murder of the innocent instead of the guilty. But in whatever way it comes to pass, the loss of life or limb has always been chiefly of this character: women with children in their arms, prentice lads, and unconcerned spectators have generally fallen instead of the actual ringleaders and workers of sedition, who know better what they are about and what turn things are taking, and so are better able to dodge the military. Folly and idle curiosity, or, at most, love of mischief has suffered instead of rebellion. When force however must be resorted to, there are many considerations in favour of the regular military over any civil force which could be devised. For example, it does its work well and clean in a mechanical point of view, by its perfect discipline. As the first, the most frequent and most obvious purpose of its existence is the protection of the realm from foreign foes, it seems diverted from its purpose, and used accidentally and irregularly in domestic troubles; it is not therefore, in the very sight of it, a memento and provocation of internal disunion. When it is used on such melancholy occasions it acts simply as preserver of the public peace, and cannot be viewed in the obnoxious aspect of a vindicator of private interest, a political or local partizan. The Home Secretary has indeed adduced many arguments against the use of the regulars for the suppression of popular menace and outrage, even in the case of their mere presence being likely to accomplish the desired effect; arguments chiefly founded on the danger of the soldiers falling into a bad state of discipline by being quartered out of barracks; as if they were a book in too handsome a binding to be

ever read, or a pair of scissors too highly polished to be trusted out of its case. He has also so far acted on these reasons, as to refuse for months repeated applications for a few soldiers, from places where the Chartists had all that time been making and distributing arms, and openly designing against the peace of the realm, where also the civil power was from circumstances manifestly and confessedly inadequate to their suppression. But as we have intimated above, we believe his lordship is determined to create an apparent necessity and a general call for a national guard.

Delightful residence will England be, should that fair vision of a national guard be ever realized! Most secure keeping, most shady protection, most delicious pasture, and refreshing waters will the Church enjoy under the wise controul and delicate attention of a commonalty in arms! With citizen soldiers for her guardian angels what new and untried paths of blessedness may she not essay! Once in the year throughout the land the enlightened ten pound householders will hold their solemn comitia, in many a sacred field of Mars; and summoned by turns to the mystic box will tender there, with a wise secrecy and silent gravity, their well weighed and unbiassed suffrages. There will they fill up alike the ranks of the national assemblies, the municipal councils, the civic guard;-perhaps also the congregations of the saints. Little need then will there be of that old jealousy which banishes the soldiers from the very sight and sound of a free election, for the people then, like the barons of Runnymede, will frequent the national assemblies, themselves in armed array. They will elect at once their representatives, their mayor and the military commandant; unless indeed to procure a perfect unison between the will and the power of the people, these two last shall be one. For surely the man of liberal views, the object of a free city's choice, must needs, like the sapiens of our ancient sect, be not only philosopher, and king, and wise, and brave, but a good general also. At one time he will impartially poise the balance of equity, at another, like the virtuous Camillus, he will throw the sword into the scale. For a year he will reign the firm and cautious Eolus of the popular breezes which have buoyed him up to his brief elevation. Justice and freedom will then be unfettered, for they will be identical with power. All will then be harmony, for when there are not two wills, there are no grievances, no collisions. If any remnants of obsolete prejudice still remain, and jar with envious discord freedom's ear, a mild yet vigorous magistracy will know when to tolerate and when to suppress; when with condescending grace to hold the ægis of the state between the malig. nant traitors to the people's sovereignty, and the justly offended

citizens, and when to leave to their deserved fate and to a people's fury, men, who by ostentatiously obtruding their exploded follies, dare to insult the understanding, and to outrage the feelings of an enlightened age.

If that portion of the community, whose virtue and the rent of their houses are not sufficient to admit them to the rank of citizens, should still continue to harass the legislature, as they do now, with tumultuous assemblage and words of complaint, the civic guards throughout the kingdom happily uniting in their ranks both the political wisdom and the arms, both the moral and the physical force, of cities, will lend an attentive ear to the voice of remonstrance, and deliberately decide with judgments that cannot be contravened, whether it shall be their's to fraternize with a constitutional ruler or the unconstitutionally oppressed. Such a power will be the best security to the people against official corruption or violence; and in cases of undoubted delinquency it will know when it is advisable to expedite the tardy course of national justice, and anticipate the precarious results of formal tribunals, by opening the prison doors and delivering up to the hands of the public avenger such wretched men, as may either have tyrannized over the weakness, or abused the confidence, of the people.

Ample return will that people render for the power entrusted to them, and amply will it fructify in their hands! They will learn to regard their rulers with a filial affection untainted with slavish fear; they will no longer watch with anxious jealousy the progress of legislation which they will be able at their pleasure to controul or undo; they will no longer occupy the ears of statesmen with importunate petitions for what they can take without asking. Every city and borough in the realm will then become an assembly of statesmen, a school of arms, a deposit of power, wherein the citizen may learn to advise, to govern, and to defend his country; and from which, in the hour of national weakness or error, the needful supplies of strength and wisdom will be generously offered, and, doubtless, promptly received.

ART. VI.-1. Ancient Christianity, and the Doctrines of the Oxford Tracts. By the Author of "Spiritual Despotism." Part I. London. Jackson & Walford. 1889.

2. Brief Memoirs of Nicolas Ferrar, M.A., Founder of a Protestant Religious Establishment; chiefly collected from a Narrative by the Right Rev. Dr. Turner, formerly Lord Bishop of Ely, and now edited with Additions. By the Rev. T. A. Macdonogh, Vicar of Bovingdon. Second Edition. London Nisbet. 1837.

We do not intend here to make any formal examination of Mr. Taylor's work, though the first part of it figures in the heading of the article. It is not yet finished; and we are not sure where it will end, and what turns and windings it will pursue meanwhile. We see many marks of inconsistency in him already, as might be expected in one who is rather writing against something which he dislikes than possessed of any particular liking for any thing very definite instead of it. His second fasciculus has in some points contradicted his first; and his first contradicts itself. He may be considered then at present under a course of self-refutation; and perhaps like some wonderful performers in a less dignified line, he may finish his exhibition by eating up himself, and save us the trouble of undertaking him. At first we had proposed to leave him for the present to his own tender mercies, and wished him no worse enemy than himself. We consider we understand his position in the controversy perfectly well; he has come to the light of day in his own time, as leaves in the spring; and in his own time he will become sear, crumple up and drift, as other great theologians, who for a while have been in request during the pending controversy. We had intended then to reserve him; but being not quite sure he will keep, we shall say just a very little now upon his first part, and that because it was our intention otherwise to notice a composition, the subject of which is closely connected with what he has selected for his special animadversion in the writings of the Fathers.

The life of Nicolas Ferrar attracts us, by all the eloquence of facts, to certain saintly principles and practices, from which Mr. Taylor would fain frighten us, by all the eloquence of words. The latter gentleman indeed is an alarmist of the first water; nor does he diminish his claims to be considered so, because he writes in a professedly candid tone, and with sufficient freedom from the alarm he seeks to inspire to be able to cultivate the graces of style. He does, undoubtedly, evidence considerable talent all through his work; what, indeed, but a consciousness of power, and a desire, like Milo, of showing it, could have induced him