ble of being brought into practice we need wholly uninstructive. That he is not more not now attempt to determine. It will be influential than we find him, is to be acsufficient, by this brief exposition, to direct counted for from the fact, that the religious the attention of our readers to them. We sentiment is necessary to give efficacy to his scarcely need say that with much that has teaching. He does not, and cannot work been written and said in favor of these the- through scepticism, neither can his voice ories we have no sort of sympathy. But even awaken an echo in the heart in which the in such exaggerations we see the not unna- religious sentiment has been extinguished. tural reaction of the mind against property, Somewhat like our own Milton, therefore, as brought about by that policy of nations he must be content to find fit audience, which has hitherto been so strongly in its though few; he panders to no mean passion; favor. Notions of this description would he addresses no immoral godless rabble; but not have taken so much root in Europe, had drawing his weapons from the armory of there not been some show of justice in them; reason, patriotism, and religion, he has laand we think we are doing the right thing in bored, through a long life, to elevate the placing them before our readers, not as they condition of his countrymen, and render are caricatured by adversaries, or as carried them worthy of the freedom which his writto extremes by bad men, but as they appearings, as a whole, are calculated to achieve to the more sober class of persons, who, for them. more or less, hold them. Socialism with some men no doubt means spoliation of everything evil; with others it is only another word for equitable reform-reforms of such a nature as are still needed in many things among ourselves. Weak, however, are those political speculators, who, in their humor to find intelligence and virtue wherever they find poverty and filth, expect to see the working classes really happier simply by reason of their being less obliged to work. The disease is more complex than such statedoctors suppose, and lies much deeper. Inoccupancy can be nothing but a curse to the majority of men, apart from the culture necessary to make a right use of it. From what has been said, the reader will, we trust, be able to form a tolerably fair estimate of Monsieur Lamennais' theories and character. Reports, we know, emanating from the French capital, have made the circuit of Europe, which represent him as a turbulent individual, ever intent upon inciting insurrection for the gratification of some private passion or ambition of his own. We will not pretend to say that he views the sufferings of the humbler classes with equanimity. On the contrary, we fear, it must be admitted, that his warm and well-meant sympathies often betray him into the use of exciting language, which, addressed to a highly susceptible people, may at times incline them to adopt unwise measures in the hope of abating their suffering. We are aware of much that may be said in defense of this part of his conduct, but we are not disposed to become in this respect his advocates. Our business with him is chiefly as a man in whom we see many of the contending agencies of our times at work, and in a manner not In a literary point of view, his works may be said to be possessed of very high excellence. If there be a fault, it is the want of repose. There is agitation, there is movement, there is warmth, depth, and vitality. But you are always urged along by excitement, until your nervous system becomes jaded, and you at length escape from him in search of tranquillity. This is to be lamented; and still greater matter of regret is it, that almost every other distinguished writer in France-nay, we might perhaps say in Europe, shares, in a greater or less degree, the same fault- -we live in a perpetual bustle, which allows us no time for profound meditation. As soon as a thought is born in our minds, we hasten to lay it before the public, even before we have examined of what spirit it is, and determined for ourselves whether good or evil is likely to result from its communication. This, in some measure, accounts for the differences observable in the successive writing of Lamennais. He has always felt strongly, and being conscious of possessing great powers of eloquence, has been easily tempted to believe that the doctrine, of the soundness of which he was for the time convinced, could not fail, on being divulged, to be productive of good to his species. But they who think and reason impetuously, must often be hurried into false conclusions. His style bears some resemblance to that of Jean Jaques Rousseau, though less sustained and severe. Like Burke, he permits himself to draw figures from physical sciences with which the public can never become familiar, and this cannot fail to circumscribe his popularity. For the most part, however, Lamennais' figures of speech are drawn ex medio, shall have sworn to die one for another." The following passage, published some years since, expresses his views as to the break-up awaiting the old institutions of Europe: in obedience to the precept of Cicero. But the foot of the cross, upon which Christ died, you whatever his figures may be, there is always a fervency in the language which fixes and amalgamates them with the other materials of his style. You feel, moreover, that he is always in earnest, eager to convince, and vehemently resolute to persuade. He does not treat the reader as if he were unworthy of his solicitude; but setting a high value on his suffrage, he seeks, by a frank and manly appeal, to obtain it. Take the following as a specimen of the style in which Lamennais could write while a Louis Philippe was on the throne of France: "Suffer yourselves not to be deceived by vain words. Many will seek to persuade you that you are truly free, because they have written the word liberty on a scrap of paper, and posted it up at all cross-roads! "Liberty is not a proclamation which may be read at the corners of streets. It is a living power which men feel within and around themselves the protecting genius of the domestic hearth, the guaranty of social rights, among which it is itself the principal. "The oppressor, who shelters himself under its name, is the worst of oppressors. He unites falsehood with tyranny, and to injustice adds profanation; for the name of liberty is holy. "Beware, therefore, of those who cry, 'Liberty, liberty!' and yet ruin it by their works. "Is it you that make choice of those who rule over you, who command you to do this and abstain from that, who tax your property, your industry, your labor? "And if it be not you, how are you free? "Are you able to dispose of your children according to your own will, to contide to whom you please the task of instructing them, and forming their manner? And if you have not this power, how are you free? "Even the birds of the air, and the insects of the field, assemble together to accomplish in common what they are unable to do alone. Can you meet together to consult respecting your interests, to defend your rights, to obtain some mitigation of your misfortunes? And if not, how are you free? "Can you, when retiring at night to rest, be sure that persons will not come during your sleep, to pry into the most secret corners of your house, drag you from the bosom of your family, and cast you into a dungeon, because power, in its pusillanimous terror, has conceived suspicions of you? And if you cannot be sure of this, how are you free? "Liberty will shed its light upon you when, by dint of courage and perseverance, you have emancipated yourselves from these forms of servitude. "Liberty will shed its light upon you when you shall have said, in the depths of your soul, We are resolved to be free; and when, in order to become so, you are ready to sacrifice and suffer everything. Liberty will shed its light upon you when, at 66 "Such, over the whole earth, is the present condition of the human race. There is no religion which does not totter, no empire which is not mouldering to decay. Shaken, reduced to ruins, the institutions of past ages no longer offer anywhere to mankind a dwelling in which they may live. And if some nations, imagining they were building for eternity, have in haste constructed frail shelters for themselves, beneath which they might rest from their labors, it has perpetually been found necessary to prop up or rebuild these miserable hovels, which the smallest stream may undermine, or the first storm overthrow. "There prevails everywhere at present so painful a consciousness of the instability of human affairs, that it deprives of all real force those powers which, for their own interest, would prolong the existing order of things. Besides, this worn-out system, this vain shadow, maintains no longer any hold on the minds or consciences of men. It no longer represents right as conceived by the intellect, but, on the contrary, is its most flagrant violation. Now, the idea of duration being inseparable from the idea of right, or that which ought to exist-that is, from the idea of a whole, co-ordinated according to the essential laws of power-men discover in this merely fas tidious arrangement, contrary in all respects to those laws, signs certain and indubitable of approaching destruction. "The enfeebling of duty, an inevitable consequence of the weaknesses of faith, contributes also to strengthen the feeling now become general of the instability of things. For it is duty that unites; without it, every man stands apart; there is no longer a support for any one; the consciousness becomes universal of incurable debility--of an overwhelming incapacity for prolonged exist ence. "Nevertheless, in the very confusion and disorder which prevail, we discern signs of a dawning faith, which will reorganize the world, as well as of a tendency towards one vast union, in which the numerous portions of the human race, now distinct and divided, will naturally take their proper place. The old religions, together with the civilizations which spring from them, are rapidly dissolving, in as far as their elements were transitory. And thus are lowered those fatal barriers which divided nations; and the movement of the same nations, perpetually drawn together more and more by increasing facility of communication, by commerce, and even by war, gradually produce their amalgamation, and prepare their fusion at a future period, distant, no doubt, but every day becoming less problematical." Among ourselves, socialism has been asso ciated with every manifestation of absurdity, immorality, and irreligion. In France it has too much of the same fellowship. But the wisest, as well as the most honest course of dealing with it, we suspect is, not to confound the man of principle and humanity, though he should have erred somewhat from the right path, with the worthless and selfish, and then to proscribe the whole under one odious designation; but rather to look at socialism as it is, and to do what may be done towards leaving it without power, by leaving it without any reasonable cause. Wat-Tylerism, chartism, socialism, all have their meanings, and the men are not wise, as statesmen, patriots, or Christians, who are slow to believe thus much. From the People's Journal. GEORGE DAWSON. BY GOODWYN BARMBY. parted. Moreover, we like to know not only of the dead but of the living; and those whom space divides from an object have often no reluctance to see through the eyes of another. Thus, and to these, we offer a passing note of George Dawson. From its very slightness it may pass review, like Slender in Falstaff's muster. AMONG the new lights of the Christian | ultimate picture of the biographer of the deministry, a star has arisen in the spiritual firmament over Birmingham, which has much occupied, with speculations as to the nature and extent of its orbit, our mental astronomers. Mental astronomy, so to speak, has been a sort of science, critically condemned by many, until its lustrous objects have set in the darkness of the grave. The stars of the stage form, undoubtedly, an exception to George Dawson was born in 1821, in St. this apparently paradoxical canon. They, at Pancras parish, London. His father was the least, are judged while living; and loud master of one of the largest and oldest priplaudits arise while even the feet of the vate academies in the metropolis. In this famous danseuse are twinkling upon the school he received his early education; and, boards of the theatre. Nor otherwise do as the son of a schoolmaster, he no doubt we deem it inappropriate, that the pit of the met with an attentive, if not a severe trainworld should form some judgment of the ing, as all schoolboys know who have ever actor in the pulpit or in the editorial chair, been educated with the son of their precepwhile yet they breathe and move and have tors. His father was a sincere Non-conformtheir being upon this theatre of the earth. ist of the Baptist persuasion-and therefore Post-mortem criticism may be more elabo- Glasgow, and not Cambridge or Oxford, had rate, more finished, more coldly correct, more the honor of completing his education. At complete in detail; and, of course, more the Glasgow college, which imposes no fully comprehensive of the life of man: but creed, and therefore requires no comprothe living sketch-the note of the moment-mise of principle from its students, he went although but the portrait of a certain age, assuredly gives the glow of the glance then; its fiery flash lighted up at that instant, the depth of its lustre, the bearing of its brow, such as can never be conceived from the complexion of a corpse; and, in fact, furnishes features more true for the time than would otherwise occur to the eye, in the through the regular courses of instruction, which ended by his obtaining his degree of master of arts. Intended for a preacher, he then waited for some while at home until a vacancy in the ministry for which he was designed should occur. Birmingham was the place destined for his labors. In 1844, George Dawson was first settled | in Birmingham, as the minister of the Mount Zion chapel, belonging to the Baptist denomination. A year and some months afterwards we were wandering with a friend through the streets of that town of iron, upon one Wednesday evening, when our attention was struck by an unwonted number of persons for a week-day evening hurrying into the gates of a chapel. We followed the crowd; and entered a large, dim, and, we believe, octagon edifice. The congregation already assembled was numerous and respectable. Presently appeared, in a little, low pulpit, a slim, dark, and rather Jewishlooking young man. It was Mount Zion chapel and George Dawson. A hymn was sung, a prayer offered, and some scripture read. During the time thus occupied, we could but scrutinize the appearance of the chief ministrant. There was a something in his personality very unlike that of the presentations offered by other ministers, in all the other pulpits we had visited. Although dark, his look was extremely youthful; he seemed to the sight, from the pew to the desk, to be certainly not more than twenty. His dark hair and features probably caused us to conceive that there was a considerable cast of the Hebrew lineaments, of D'Israeli's pure Caucasian, in his countenance. Moreover, his appearance was decidedly unministerial in the ordinary idea of such, in outward presentment. His dark hair was curly, and peculiarly parted-more poet than priest-like. He wore a black coat, it is true -unlike Coleridge, who in his erratic ministry determinedly sported one of blue, with bright, gilt buttons-but he had no white muslin around his throat, but a black neckerchief, with a shirt collar slightly turned over. Nor did these little things fail to indicate something of the character of him before us. Besides, there was his free glance -the mellowness of his manner-the natural air and ease with which he read, so different from the toned tone to which one becomes accustomed in the pulpit, all which marked to us a mind which was unconventional, unsophisticated, original. Nor were we mistaken in our man, youth as he appeared. The devotional portion of the service ended, the instructional commenced. Quietly and calmly our young minister arose from his seat, leaned over his desk, and at once, without text or other formality, began discoursing-not talking, but discoursing on high subjects-momentous to the mind and hallowed to the heart, as we hold converse with the best of our bosom friends, on the soul and on things spiritual, when the sky above us seems solemn, and a deep awe broods within each breast. He discoursed how Mary had waited for the promise of God; how that we also should wait. Commoving all the fibres of filial affection, he endeared her to us, not only as the mother of Jesus, but likewise as the mother of Christians. It was the music of the mind that he poured forth, but it was mellowed from the fountains of the heart. The strain was solemn as it was simple, calm as it was clear. It was no ebb and tide, but an even swell of soul. It was not now hush, and now storm; but an air soft and sweet as a breath of perfume, which was his inspiration. No chord of thunder, it is true, vibrated in tempest tones beneath a demiurgic hand; no lightning flash of Jove scorched the spirit of the sinner; but a harp of silver sound sung to the soul of salvation, clear in tune, equable in execution, and hallowed by harmonies to the heart. The speaker ceased as he had begun-fluently, easily, as if he had more to say, but deferred it for another time. There was no formal peroration, no winsome way of winding up; for all the discourse had point, from the first to the last sentence. We afterwards found that it was one of a course of lectures on the women of the Scriptures. We heard others. They were like this, each equally silvery, sweet and beautiful. His peculiarities of preaching, rather than any absolute doctrinal difference, at length, however, induced a portion of the proprietary of Mount Zion chapel to moot a separation between themselves and their minister. These peculiarities are no others than we have named, if we except a certain literary tendency of style and subject, wider scope of illustration, and a further field of information than is usual to the pulpit, with the exception of the instance of the member for Oldham, the Fox of Finsbury chapel; of Theodore Parker of America, and of a few others. The subject of disagreement was not as to difference of doctrine, but was a question as to tendency of taste. Notwithstanding his large audiences, and the increasing popularity of George Dawson, not only as a preacher, but also as a public man in Birmingham, a separation was agreed upon. The majority of the congregation, however, sympathized and seceded with their minister. A subscription, amply sufficient, was raised for building him a new chapel; and on the 8th of August, 1847, "The Church of the Saviour," as the new edifice is designated, was opened by Mr. Dawson. It is capable . of accommodating upwards of fifteen hun- | congregation, retain their previous doctrinal dred persons, is usually full, and often opinions. The order of worship observed in crowded. A document has been published the Church of the Saviour is similar to that by the congregation, embodying their views; usually adopted by Dissenters, with the adfrom which the following extracts may be dition of chanting. The communion-table of interesting to the reader. It says: the Lord's Supper is free to all; "a man's own conscience being regarded as the arbiter of his unfitness or fitness for participation therein." "The members of this congregation admit that there exists among them a considerable diversity of opinion upon several important doctrines in theology, but they do not regard that difference as a bar to Christian union. "They unite for the study of Christian truth, under the instruction of a teacher, whom they do not regard as the retained advocate of certain doctrines, and therefore bound to publish and support them, but as one whose duty it is to aid them in their studies, by giving them the benefit of his earnest inquiry into the truth of God. "They unite in the bonds of charity as students, with a feeling that each has much to learn, and perchance, much to unlearn; their bond is prospective rather than retrospective-a common spirit, end and aim, rather than a common belief and creed. "They unite to do good to others, to obey the Lord's commandments, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to instruct the ignorant. "They hold that to each individual his theological belief is of high importance: they seek, therefore, to promote belief in what to them appears the best mode; not by requiring it authoritatively, but by searching for evidence in the freest spirit of inquiry. On controverted points, they would examine both sides of the controversy, and then, having, proved all things, hold fast that which is good.' They hold that, lacking the power to search the hearts of men, they must be content with the confession of the mouth, and the still stronger evidence afforded by Christ's rule, by their fruits ye shall know them;' they therefore regard the Christian character, as displayed in life, as their rule by which to know the Christian." With views so wide as these, we see that no absolute difference of doctrine separates the congregation of the Church of the Saviour from the better portion of the religious world. The congregation itself has been collected out of almost all sects, including the Established Church; and also from among those who either were not in the habit of attending public worship at all, or had never connected themselves with any Christian denomination. It is likewise a striking fact, that a large proportion of the members who have joined this George Dawson, however, must not be regarded simply as a preacher, and as the founder of a congregation. He is also a literary lecturer of eminence. His lectures at the Birmingham Town-hall, at the Manchester Athenæum, at the London Whittington Club, and other similar public institutions of respectability, upon Milton, upon Thomas Carlyle, upon the German writings, upon numerous subjects, from Proverbs to Things Invisible, have been heard and appreciated by thousands. George Dawson is as popular a lecturer as he is a preacher. His lectures, in fact, partake of the moral tone of the sermon, as his discourses from the pulpit participate in the character of the literary lecture. There is, moreover, a quaint humor in them, which comes fresh in these didactic days. Full of points as a row of pins, they make a pin-cushion of the memory. In sharp, short sentences, sometimes they have all the nature of aphorisms. Mystic as the expressions in them often are, they have otherwise a point and quaintness which gives them purpose. There is besides, occasionally, the same lyric sweetness, the same simple beauty, flowing, as it were, unconsciously from his mouth, while lecturing at the Mechanics' Institution, as we have heard it also flow while discoursing at the chapel. At such time the Athenæum is elevated to a temple, the lecturer to a priest, and we feel uncovered, and know it is holy ground. In Tait's Magazine, some while since, there appeared a criticism upon George Dawson, by George Gilfillan. A writer of power, with an awful mastery of words, easily writing metaphors, and arranging them ever admirably for picturesque effect, Gilfillan falls foul of Dawson with a thunder-storm of tropes, and, to his own satisfaction, utterly annihilates him with an army of analogies. To such sacred slaughter we humbly enter our peace-protest. According to Gilfillan, Dawson is entirely unoriginal. He is a copyist of Carlyle. He epitomizes Emerson. He serves up Strauss at second-hand. He pours forth doubly-diluted Germanism. Does any one who has been in the habit of hearing George Dawson preach, really think |