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AMONG THE SECULARISTS OF THE METROPOLIS.—II. INFIDELS do not like to be attacked. So long as we are content to remain within our entrenchments, and to defend ourselves in the best way we can, they are content, and will seldom retreat speedily. They will even meet us in open discussion on their own platform, or on another platform that is as much theirs as ours. But, if we initiate a movement, the object of which is to expose their hollowness of principle, and their unrighteousness of dealing, they will not often come out like men to defend themselves. It is but what we might expect from men who have been less busy in constructing a system of their own, than in inventing accusations against ours. During more than a hundred and fifty years their writers have been raking together all the foolish utterances of Christian authors, both heretical and orthodox, all the inconsistencies recorded of Christian professors, all the obscure and figurative expressions of Scripture, and all the absurd interpretations and applications which could be put down upon the Bible. These constitute their arsenal, and out of these they deal denunciations, and calumnies, and insults. A flock of sheep could not follow one another more regularly than these men do. They are slow, indeed, to abandon exploded fallacies, and not quick at inventing new ones. It is the old, old story from year's end to year's end; the same authors, volumes, pages, and editions, and the same books, chapters, and verses. The only changes which come about are in details of no great importance, and in certain forms of phraseology. But let any man read what was written in the last century, and he will see how little advance has been made by infidelity. It is far behind the literature and the science of the age, and on this account alone, if on no other, is disqualified to be the teacher of the present generation.

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I have delivered scores of lectures in refutation of infidelity, and almost never have had anything like an opponent; when an avowed champion of the cause has appeared, he has uniformly shrunk from the defence of infidelity, and sought to initiate an attack upon the Christian faith. A short time since I went to Kingston-upon-Thames to lecture upon Principles of Infidelity," in consequence of a sudden irruption of secularist advocates into that quiet locality. I endeavoured to set forth the leading principles of the different sects of infidels, and illustrated the literary and critical principles of the disciples by reading extracts from various publications of theirs, which I had taken for the purpose. Discussion was invited, and Mrs. Law, from London, ascended the platform; not to refute the lecture, but to accuse the lecturer of personality, and to inaugurate an assault upon the Bible and the Church. Among other things, I have said I pledged myself to find two hundred untrue statements in Robert Taylor's Diegesis " and "Syntagrua ;" two hundred untrue statements in Robert Cooper's "Bible and its Evidences;" and fifty untrue statements in Mr. Bradlaugh's speeches in a debate with the Rev. W. Woodman. I

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might have said, but did not, that I could find two hundred more untrue statements in Meredith's "Prophet of Nazareth." In speaking thus, I do not speak unadvisedly, but after many a weary day spent in testing the assertions of the books in question. Of course, such declarations are offensive to infidels, but if they are founded in fact, they ought to be made. Infidels proclaim that there are so many errors in Christian books, and that Christian people have so little regard for truth, that it becomes a duty to see how far the enemies walk by the rule which they condemn. Well, the Kingston audience won honour to themselves by the reception they gave me, and I was, therefore, not surprised to read in the National Reformer soon after that I had received "deserved discomfiture" at the hands of Mrs. Law. I gather from the same paper that the said lady, in a lecture at Cleveland Hall, Fitzroy Square, informed her hearers that I had spoken "the grossest falsehoods;" although she sadly misrepresented some things which she reported of me. More than this, the editor complained of my bad taste in personally attacking him. It is very apparent that the journey to Kingston produced an impression. I record it as an interesting incident, and as showing what myself and colleagues have to bear as well as to do. There was one little circumstance out of which capital might be made, but I learned long ago that we can afford to risk that. One circumstance was this: Mrs. Law declared that the Bible encouraged lying, and that, according to it, God Himself put a lying spirit into certain prophets. Having more pressing and relevant matters wherewith to occupy my ten minutes, I declined to deal with the allegation, which is an exceedingly common one. Such is the fact; but I will here say how I usually meet the assertion, and that is by a simple denial. There is no record of any such event as a real occurrence. In 1 Kings xxii. 19-22, we read that the prophet Micaiah related to Jehoshaphat a vision, the details of which are very striking, and among them occurs the supposed sending forth of a lying spirit. But surely it is a most unreasonable thing to insist upon the literal reality of the details of a vision. However, this is constantly done in the present case and in others, of which I will mention a common example. In Rev. xii. 7, &c., we have a prophetic vision of war in heaven, and, in my experience, I have many times heard this alleged as a real and literal history. Milton, with a poet's license, has used it I know; but that is no reason why we should be taunted with it as one of the historical events recorded in Scripture.

I ought to record here the zeal of several of my colleagues, who have repeatedly made journeys to Kingston on week evenings, both to deliver lectures on important topics, and to confront the infidel propagandists who have been sent thither to lecture. This work is one of real self-sacrifice, because it involves personal inconvenience and loss of valuable time; but, feeling as we do that we are called for the defence of the Gospel, and for the special task of protecting our weaker brethren, we do not shrink from trifles. We believe that we are doing the work of the Lord, even though

our duty is the humble, and often unpleasant one, of removing obstacles to its progress. Blessed results from time to time appear, and we regard these as the peculiar seals of our apostleship.

I was speaking above of the reckless assertions that are made by infidels, and I will mention two more. One, a very favourite one, is that Eusebius, the Church historian, was a liar on principle, and is utterly untrustworthy. The stock text to prove this is a chapter in the "Evangelical Separation" of that author, containing an extract from Plato in favour of certain forms of fiction. All Eusebius does is to refer to the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament, in which God is spoken of as jealous, angry, and the like ; and this is the ground of the thousand times repeated calumny that he justified lying on principle! So far from this, he utterly condemns it in the very book relied on by his foolhardy accusers, not one of whom probably ever saw the work. The other reckless statement which I am about to refer to is also common in one form or in another, and arises from the strange delusion that a future state of punishment is not recognised by any religions except Judaism and Christianity. With unrelenting bitterness the Scripture doctrine on this subject is assailed, and it is ridiculed and mocked at in the most approved infidel style. A few days since one of my sceptical friends denounced, in unmeasured terms, what he called the "Christian 'ell," contrasting the Gospel in that respect with Buddhism, Parseeism, and the like. I dare venture to say that all he knew of these religions was due to a singularly inaccurate gentleman, the soi-disant Dr. Perfitt, who lectures in the neighbourhood of Oxford Street. It is very well known that Greeks and Romans, Druids and Persians, Egyptians and Chinese, have all had their places of torment; and, as for the Buddhists in particular, they hold that there are no fewer than eight principal hells, and 128 others, or 136 in all. The principal hells are variously estimated as from 40,000 to 160,000 miles in length, breadth, and height, and flames of indescribable severity torture the hapless denizens without intermission. As for the Parsee system, it is based on the essential and eternal conflict between good and evil, as embodied in Ormazd and Ahriman, who divide the dominion of the universe. When men die, their souls pass to judgment; and, if good, they go to heavenly happiness; if bad, they fall into hell. Now, if infidels were either truthful or good, they would not scatter abroad continually statements which they either know to be false, or do not know to be true. The mischief they do themselves, and may do to others,

is very great:

"For not the silver Thames,

Nor Tiber, with his yellow streams,

In endless currents rolling to the main,

Can e'er dilute the poison, or wash out the stain."

B. H. COWPER.

MY FIRST FURNISHING.

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A FEW years ago, the agreeable duty devolved upon me, for the first time, of furnishing my home. Bachelordom and lodgings had been my lot: I was now, as Lord Palmerston was wont to say, upon my promotion." The means at my disposal were not large-only a very few hundred poundsand I had never bought an article of furniture in my life; so I was glad to put myself under the guidance of a friend, who was well up in all such matters, and who at once consented to give me his best assistance.

On the afternoon appointed for our first conference on this, to me, momentous matter, my friend was quietly smoking his pipe by the fire, rocking himself slowly backwards and forwards in his chair, and occasionally balancing his slipper on the tip of his toe. I told him my plans : how that I had thought of having my drawing-room furniture of walnutwood, the dining-room of mahogany, and the library of oak; how I intended to dispose of this article, and that, and the other, and to fill up the corners with such-and-such knick-knacks and addenda.

"Less furniture you have," he interposed sententiously, "the better." "Indeed!" I replied, with surprise.

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Yes," he said, "the less to clean, and to mend, and to pay for."

'But," I rejoined, " don't you think there should be a certain amount of the ornamental as well as the useful?"

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"Ah!" he returned, "ornament is all very well, but use first; and remember," he added slowly, between the puffs of his pipe, "ornament gives unlevel surfaces, and gathers dust, and wants dusting—more dusting than servants give now-a-days, and you'd better have things plain and clean, than ornamental and dirty. There, the backs of those chairs can be dusted in a second, and that's the reason why I chose the pattern. And I should advise you to buy something of the same kind."

I confess I was somewhat taken aback. Such views of the matter, I certainly had never had, and had never heard. But I listened with interest, while my friend slowly but surely worked away at his theme and his pipe.

"Now, there is another little matter," he said, "I would mention. You're going to buy a dinner and tea service; I'll tell you how people generally go to work, and what comes of it. They say to themselves, 'We must have one handsome set for company, something for highdays and holidays, something that will make people see, when they come to dinner, how genteel we are. Then, of course, we must have another set to save that; a common set that will do for every day, and when we haven't company.' So they buy the two. And what is the consequence? The husband some day proposes to invite a few friends to dinner. What a fuss there is to make ready for them! The common dishes and plates, and the rest of the things, are all put aside, and the grand set of greenand-gold is brought out, to be dusted and washed and dried-mistress and

VOL. V.-NEW SERIES.

D D

maids full of terror lest something should be broken; and then the best tea service is brought forth and dusted and washed and dried. No doubt, when Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Jones sit down to dinner they are deeply impressed, by our gentility in general, and by the green-and-gold in particular; a sentiment which, however, is perhaps somewhat chastened by an inkling of what a bother we must have had to get up all this show, and how many private shabbinesses there will be to compensate for all the expense. At length our guests take their departure; and host and hostess sit down in their several arm-chairs, glad of a little quiet, to congratulate each other that the affair is over; and then after many cross looks and perhaps some cross words, all the grandeur is washed again, and dried again, and put away, and the tired mistress and maids get to their beds, to rest their limbs and to sweeten their tempers.

"Now to avoid all this, take my advice. One of the great shams of the present day is, that people have not the manliness to confess to being really what they are; but will try to ape those who have more money than themselves. You are going to-morrow morning to get your crockery, glass, and cutlery. My advice is, go in for what is straight-forward, simple, and honest. Buy a good, wholesome, respectable article; not more costly than you can afford, and not so shabby that you will be ashamed to set it before your friends. Then, when you want to exercise your hospitality, you will have only to put a few more plates and glasses and knives and forks, upon your table; you will make all your friends, whose opinion is worth twopence, all the happier because they see that you are not afraid to be real, and you will enjoy their company all the more because their visit is unalloyed by a sense that the trouble they have given is any more than you and your household could reasonably and cheerfully undergo."

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I am not ashamed to confess that that conversation not only modified my plans in regard to my first furnishing, but has influenced my views and actions in other matters. I have gradually come to feel that there should be a quiet simple sincerity, not only-which all will allow-in the words of a Christian gentleman, but in the smaller matters of our home life. I have got to fancy that our personal truthfulness may be compromised by the pretences of a dinner-table, by the unrealities of an evening entertainment, by any effort in the daily transactions of life to seem to be what we are not. I do think it is possible to build shams into brick walls, to cast iron into falsehood, and that in the very act of doing this the actors may fritter away the purity of their own integrity. I think, too, this lesson especially needs to be learned in the present day. Listen to the soft words under which men now-a-days often cloke the grossest sins. A man who is steeped in vice is simply "gay." "Not at home," is a courteous untruth. To be in "full dress," is to be genteelly naked. What miserable shifts and falsity are involved in that expression, which to many is the first law of their life, that they must "keep up appearances!" Then does our tongue become, as the Apostle James says "the ornament of

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