maintains are essential to its success, I in the new scheme of society. From an should pronounce him to be an amiable enthusiast, whose imagination, darkened by the evils of the social state, and perpetually brooding over them, can devise no remedy but a perfectibility incompatible with the nature of that state, and which can never be even approached without the agency, which he not only disregards, but utterly contemns-I mean that of true religion. We admit, with the new theorists, that the face of society is deformed by a thousand blemishes, and that its fitful and irregular pulsation indicates that the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. With them we feel that effectual, political, and moral remedies must be applied, or that a convulsive dissolution of the whole frame of civilized life cannot be long averted. But we fearlessly tell them that we have no confidence in their empirical nostrums-we dare not intrust a nation's weal in the crisis of its fate to those who leave out of their calculations the inherent evils of human nature, who would remove from those evils the most effectual restraints that ever have been imposed upon them under the considerations furnished by piety, and the hopes and fears inspired by the consciousness of accountableness and the sublime realities of a future world. My brethren, if we could imagine so preposterous an idea as a company of atheists inflamed with a generous ardour for the public good, their bosoms overflowing with philanthropy, and that philanthropy assuming the form of the most devoted patriotism, could we with safety appoint them to be the restorers or the guardians of our social happiness? Men who entertain principles at variance with those which mankind in general regard as sacred and fundamental, take great delight in their propagation. If atheists, therefore, had the formation of the public mind, or if the political and civil institutions of their country were under their direction or subject to their control, we may be perfectly certain that the negation of a Deity would stand pre-eminently forth in all their works and distinguish all their policy. This happens precisely attentive perusal of one of its most elaborate expositions, we learn that it renounces as far as it regards recognition and worship, every religion, true or false, that has ever obtained in the world; proscribing all reference to God, both as the Creator and the Supreme Ruler of the universe. That it ridicules every idea of rewards and punishments-that as character is formed for the individual and not by him, he has no responsibility, is neither the object of praise nor of blame—that communities as well as individuals are the mere creatures of a circumstantial necessity controlling them in spite of themselves-and that the only hope of improving their condition and emancipating them from the calamities which degrade and oppress them, must arise from the operation of a new and totally opposite class of circumstances: and this mighty revolution they are to achieve for themselves. That is, those, who from their very nature, must be the passive victims of whatever circumstances surround them, and which it is affirmed, they have no moral power to resist, are suddenly to assume a supernatural and independent energy, and instead of being carried along as heretofore, with the stream of destiny, they are to roll back the tide which had threatened to ingulf them, and this not for the purpose of securing their moral liberty, but simply that they may become as passive as before, the creatures of a necessity which, though it affords them a greater sum of present enjoyment, still degrades them below the level of intelligent and accountable beings. Now, allowing for the sake of argument, that the co-operative system is fraught with all the advantages which the most generous enthusiasm might hope to derive from it, we maintain that it is utterly impracticable on the principles of atheism which its author assumes; but that these and still greater advantages may be more than realized on the principles of that religion which he impiously rejects, and which is founded on the being and perfections of God, as partially displayed in the works of nature, and more extensively revealed in the Holy Scriptures. In illustrating these positions, I am per-cause. If his body be not a cause, and suaded I shall ensure your candid attention. your eyes another, you cannot see him; -if his voice and your ear be not causes, you cannot hear him;-if his mind and yours be not causes, you cannot understand him. In a word, without admit The very assumption of atheism by an individual who seeks to be distinguished as the benefactor of society, and who proclaims himself the enemy of its existing instituting the connexion between cause and tions, ought to awaken distrust of his mental capacity, as well as excite disgust at his moral depravation. effect, you can never know that he is arguing with you, or you with him. But the sophistry which leads to atheism Atheism, wherever it exists, is the re- denies this first principle of all reasonsult of some peculiar conjunction of dis-ing, and betrays a mental perversion, astrous influences. An atheist is the which utterly disqualifies for sober and unhappy victim of a mental obliquity, of rational investigation. But the source a strange perversion of the understanding, of atheism is the heart rather than the which renders him incapable of compre-head ;-and it is a moral phenomenon of hending the laws of evidence and the a most portentous and appalling characprinciples of right reason. ter. It is the child of depravity, bearing all the worst features of its parent. A tree is known by its fruits. Reason never produced such a monster as atheism ;-it is to be traced to the indisposition of the heart to acknowledge the existence of the Creator. He that hates the control and dreads the inspecting judgment and retribution of his Maker, finds no refuge from anxiety and alarm so safe as the belief that there is no God. To me there is something fearful and even terrific in the state of mind which can delight in the renunciation of the Deity, which can derive satisfaction from the feeling, that the infinite Spirit is gone, that the only solid foundation of virtue is wanting-which can enjoy pleasure in renouncing that system of doctrine of which a God is the great subject, and that train of affections and conduct of which he is the supreme object. The idea of a God seems essential to every pleasurable and sublime emotion;-without it we can conceive of nothing glorious, and nothing delightful. And could it once be exploded, in my view, it would dimin There are certain principia on which, with a few exceptions, all men are agreed. The foundation of all reasoning, concerning being and events, for instance, is a supposed or acknowledged connexion between cause and effect. By cause is meant that something, be it what it may, which produces existence, or any change of existence, and without which the existence or the change could not have been. It is universally admitted that we have no knowledge of any existence, or any change which has taken place without a cause. The human mind, under whatever circumstances of culture or neglect, has acknowledged in the clearest manner, and in every way of which the subject is susceptible, the inseparable nature of this connexion. We learn it from experience, and in two ways-by the testimony of our senses, and by the inspection of our own minds. We cannot realize the fact, that existence or change can take place without a cause. The man who begins by denying what is so self-evident, discovers an incapacity to reason. He holds nothing in common with the rest of man-ish to insignificance the range of thought, kind, and no absurdity can be greater and the circle of enjoyment. The abthan to attempt to argue with him. In- sence of God would cover the face of deed he cannot pursue an argument on nature with funereal gloom;—and he that the subject without a practical refutation should first make the fatal discovery, of the principle he assumes. In speaking, according to my apprehension, would be he exhibits himself as a cause of all the at once and for ever the most miserable words uttered by him, and of the opin- being in the universe. He would evince ions he would communicate, and, in the no eagerness to communicate the dismal act of arguing, admits you to be a similar | fact;-on the contrary, he would envy his fellow-creatures the pleasant delusion | existence, and that he is formed for this which sustained their virtue and encouraged their hope. world and no other. He is the creature of death-but he has no inheritance beyond the grave-and as he is to acquire no property, to rise to no distinction on earth, hopes and fears are to have no influence in restraining his passions or vices narrow limits of threescore years and ten—and the character which he acquires in his passage to the tomb is not his own. It belongs to other influences for which he is irresponsible, and over which he has no control. Now we ask with confidence whether an individual who cannot discern that God exists, or that he requires and deserves any homage from his creatures, who knows not how to reason on the-his destiny is comprised within the plainest facts, ought to be regarded as an oracle, when he approaches the terra incognita of a new order of things conjured out of his own imagination, the principles of which have never been submitted to the process of induction; which experience cannot explore, nor science illumine. What judgment are we to form of his understanding, who renounces faith to become the dupe of the most absolute credulity? For we fearlessly maintain that there is no absurdity which the human mind in the very spirit of extravagance has been capable of inventing, which the denier of a God has not made an article of his creed. Now, my brethren, what estimate can we possibly form of a man who undertakes to govern the moral world without a God, who would form a moral character without motives, who would limit the existence of the human being to the present state, and who proposes to construct the whole fabric of society on the principle of such exclusion and limitation? With whatever professions he may ap proach us, must we not instantly shrink from him as the worst enemy of his species? If he could even banish all the evils from the world, which he ascribes to its tyrannical governments and antisocial institutions, if at the same time he annihilated the fear and the love of God, the dread of retribution, and the expectation of enjoying the divine favour after death, mankind would be infinite losers by the change, and might justly curse their benefactor, for procuring for them the temporal advantages of a perishing world, during a few fleeting years, at the expense of all that is ennobling to their intellectual, their moral and immortal nature. But this inversion of the order of Providence is impossible; you might as well expect the seasons to revolve, and the earth to bring forth all its wondrous and useful productions without the We have already intimated that the light and heat of the great luminary of co-operative system excludes all conside-day, as that man either in his individual rations of a Deity, as forming the human or social capacity should possess happicharacter-that it utterly abrogates all ness without piety—or piety without that religion, and we may add, that while it sense of accountableness which springs degrades man from his high rank as a from the conviction, that the principles, responsible being in the universe, it at motives, and volitions which form his the same time teaches him to believe that character are essentially his own, irrethere is nothing greater than himself in |spective of all outward circumstances, The dogmas of atheism are the most melancholy exhibition of weakness which has ever degraded the human understanding. Its eternal series—its spontaneous universe of worlds and beings, the result of motion and matter-and all produced and continued as they are by a physical necessity, to the utter exclusion of intelligence, and the moral perfections which infinite intelligence implies, have been unanswerably proved, not only to be false, but to be impossible. What then can we think of the mental capacity of him who goes quietly on with his faith in these hypotheses, and resolves to believe in defiance of demonstration and impossibility. But it is in his character of a philanthropist and a remodeller of the whole frame-work of society, that his principles necessarily operate to the destruction of his hopes. which can no further control his destiny than as he voluntarily yields himself up to their influence. In support of this very unqualified assertion, and we make it as broadly as the strength of human language will admit-we proceed to show that The legitimate consequences of atheism are appalling and demoralizing impieties, and that the co-operative system, assuming atheism for its basis, is utterly opposed to the nature of man, and the very existence of society. Mr. Burke has profoundly remarked, "that man is by his nature and constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against not only our reason but our instincts, and cannot last long." This was written during the fury of the French revolution-when, as in one day, a whole nation threw off the restraints of religion, and avowed in the face of civilized Europe that they were a community of atheists. The prediction in the latter clause of the sentence was soon fulfilled. It is possible that some of the advocates of the scheme we are reprobating may endeavour to shield its author from the imputation of atheism-but to do this successfully is impossible-the grand pre-requisite to the application of his principles, is that the communities formed by him shall have no religion, no God. The French atheists have fully expressed what is necessarily implied in this preliminary stipulation. During the reign of Robespierre, the convention, in one of its most popular and authentic papers, makes the following announcement. "Provided the idea of a Supreme Being be nothing more than a philosophical abstraction, a guide to the imagination in the pursuit of causes and effects, a resting-place for the curiosity of inquiring minds, a notion merely speculative, and from which no practical consequences are to be applied to human life, there can be no great danger in such an idea; but if it is to be made the foundation of morality, if it is to be accompasied by the supposition that there exists a God, who presides over the affairs of the world, and rewards and punishes men for their actions on earth, according to some principle of speculative justice, there can be no opinion more prejudicial to society." In these sentiments the sup- The only character under which man either is, or can be placed before us, according to this system, is that of a mere automaton, with a principle of what is called life superadded, which life however confers no moral power, but leaves its subject to be as necessarily impelled to action by the circumstances in which he is placed, as the puppet is moved by the springs and wires that compose its actuating machinery. This is an essential fundamental doctrine of atheistical materialism, and is inseparably connected with all its forms. This doctrine, Mirabaud, the atheistical oracle of the present day, has publicly avowed and defended. He unhesitatingly says, that “ Every thing is necessary that it cannot be otherwise, than it is—that all the beings we behold, as well as those which escape our sight, act by certain and invariable laws. In those terrible convulsions that sometimes agitate political societies, shake their foundations, and frequently produce the overthrow of an empire, there is not a single action, a single word, a single thought, a single will, a single 66 passion in the agents, whether they act | remotest apprehension of law or governas destroyers or victims, that is not the ment, merit or reward, can such a doc. necessary result of the causes operating trine dignify him with personal worth, -that does not act as of necessity it must inspire him with the love of rectitude, act, from the peculiar essence of the be- delight him with pleasurable emotions ings who give the impulse, and that of derived from the present, or the future, the agents who receive it, according to or the past, or produce in him any desire the situation these agents occupy in the to promote the common good, the general moral whirlwind." And he further adds, happiness? Assuredly not. "Men do "Man's life is a line that nature com- not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of mands him to describe upon the surface | thistles-the same fountain cannot send of the earth, without his ever being able forth bitter waters and sweet." Allow to swerve from it even for an instant. me to strengthen the position I have thus He is born without his own consent; his assumed by a quotation from one of our organization does in no way depend upon ablest writers on Christian theology:himself; his ideas come to him involun- Personal worth is all dependent on the tarily; his habits are in the power of existence of laws and government formed those who cause him to contract them; by one who has a right to enact the forhe is unceasingly modified by causes, mer and administer the latter:-a right whether visible or concealed, over which | founded on the relations which he sustains he has no control, which necessarily re-to those who are under his government. gulate his mode of existence, give the To these relations also must the laws hue to his way of thinking, and determine and the government be conformed in his manner of acting! He is good or such a manner as that, and that only, bad-happy or miserable-wise or fool-shall be enacted which requires the conish-reasonable or irrational, without his will going for any thing in these various states." This is the doctrine which Mr. Owen has adopted and moulded into his system. The principle which he acknowledges has wrought all the evils and miseries which prevail in the present order of things, in his hands is to erect a new machinery productive only of virtue and felicity. But how is this to be achieved -whence is the intellectual and moral power to be derived, which is to battle with a blind and inexorable necessity, which acts without intelligence, and in defiance of every thing like moral government in the universe? Can the principle which degrades man to the humblest possible level of intellectual existence at the same time illumine and expand his mind-can that which renders him unsusceptible of moral obligation elevate him to the dignity of virtue -can the doctrine which tells him that he is insulated in all his interests, and these the interests of a mere animal, that he is united to his fellow men only by time and chance, that he is born merely to breathe, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to propagate his kind and to die, without the duct suited to these relations, and pro motive of general and individual happiness. In the same manner must be directed the rewards, punishments, and administrations. But on the scheme which disavows the being, or that proscribes the recognition of a God, there is no such ruler and no such right to rule; there are no such relations, and no such duties. Rectitude, the sum of personal worth, consists in rendering voluntarily that which others have a right to claim; but on this scheme no claim can be founded and none exists. There is, therefore, nothing due; of course no duty can be performed and no rectitude experi enced; hence that high, unceasing, and refined enjoyment which attends the sense of rectitude can never be found by the atheist." Where rectitude or moral principle is discarded, nothing remains as the impelling principle and the guiding rule of human conduct but appetite and passion. And what must be the result?-Disorder, crime, and misery!If this scheme be true, all men ought undoubtedly to be governed by it. What would become of such a world and of the atheist himself in the midst of such a |