is more diffused at present among the literary classes of this country than among the labouring classes; but no doubt it is far too prevalent among the latter also-so prevalent that piety and patriotism both demand that every wise effort be made energetically to counteract it.

Secularism is the most prevalent form of unbelief amongst the manual workers of this country; it is almost confined to them; and the chief causes of its spread, and of the character which it bears, must be sought for in their history. It has always been closely associated with political dissatisfaction, and no candid and well-informed person will deny that the political dissatisfaction has been to a considerable extent reasonable and just. The French Revolution caused even in this country not merely a temporary reaction from the kind of unbelief which prevailed before it, but a sort of general anti-revolutionary terror, largely characterised by blindness, bigotry, and violence. The terror gradually died away; and the blindness, bigotry, and violence discredited even what was true in the principles with which they had been associated. The long war with France and a selfish and unjust commercial legislation spread wide and terrible suffering among the poor; and the blind opposition of the governing classes to political progress, and of the clergy to religious freedom, naturally produced a dangerous irritation which gave rise at once to

demands for the most radical political changes, and to the most sweeping rejection of the hitherto accepted religious beliefs.

Mr Owen, whose socialistic views found for a time a multitude of believers sufficiently sincere to endeavour to realise them in practice, severely denounced all the religions of the world, but he never ceased to be a theist, and latterly became a spiritualist. Jeremy Bentham and several of the group of thinkers who gathered around him were atheists; but, although far from timid men, they had not courage enough to avow publicly their real sentiments on the subject of religion, lest by doing so they should lessen their influence as political and juridical reformers. It was only from the ranks of the working classes that there came forth men with the full courage of their convictionsmen who not merely dared openly to avow atheism, as well as republicanism and socialism, but to defend their atheism before the courts of law, and to endure for it imprisonment and other penalties. Such men were Charles Southwell, Thomas Cooper, George Jacob Holyoake, Thomas Paterson, &c.; and these men are to be regarded as the founders and first propagators of Secularism. It would be unjust to refuse them the honour due to their courage and honesty; and there can be no doubt that by their brave and self-sacrificing conduct they merited well of their fellow-countrymen, no

matter how erroneous may have been the convictions for which they suffered. Those who prosecuted them supposed, of course, that they were defending Christianity, but Christianity can be defended in no such way. It forbids all prosecution-all persecution-for the sake of religion. Force cannot possibly propagate the truth, or produce the faith, or promote the love in which the Gospel consists. The Gospel is intolerant, indeed, with the intolerance which is inherent in the very nature of truth. Truth can only be neglected by a man at his peril. No man is morally free to believe a lie of any kind. All truth carries with it the right to be believed, and moral truth carries with it, in addition, the right to be obeyed. The Gospel as truth, moral and spiritual truth, the highest truth, yea, the truth, does demand of us accordingly that we both believe and obey it-that we submit ourselves to it in mind, heart, and life. It holds us guilty if we do not. It warns us that either unbelief or disobedience is a most grievous sin, and will have most grievous consequences. But this intolerance, if it be intolerance, has nothing to do with coercion. Truth cannot be furthered by force. It must rest its claims to allegiance solely on evidence submitted to the scrutiny of reason and conscience; and if its evidence be rejected, however perversely, there is no help for that in compulsion,

which can only add to what sin already exists the sin of hypocrisy. Persecution can never arise from zeal for the Gospel as truth-from zeal for the Gospel properly understood. If ever due to zeal in any measure, and not to pride, selfishness, anger, ambition, and other hateful lusts which war against the soul, and set men at strife and war with one another, it must be to a zeal which is in alliance with error. Zeal for the Gospel and erroneous views of its nature may lead to persecution, but never zeal and true views of its nature. If the kingdom of God be thought of as a kingdom of truth,—if to receive, love, and obey the truth as it is in Jesus be felt to be the only means of belonging to it, the utmost intensity of zeal cannot incline or tempt us to the use of force, since force can have no tendency to promote the interests of such a kingdom. The men, therefore, who by their courage and endurance were specially instrumental in convincing their countrymen that persecution for the avowal and advocacy even of atheism is a folly and a crime, have really rendered a service to the cause of Christian truth, and their names will not be recorded without honour when the history of our century is impartially written.

The person to whom Secularism owes its name, and who has done most to make it what it is in England, is George Jacob Holyoake, and it is chiefly as presented by him that I shall consider it

for a little. In doing so, we must determine first how secularism is related to religion. As I have already indicated, there is on this point a fundamental difference of opinion among secularists. Mr Holyoake and those who agree with him hold that secularism ought to start with the study of nature as manifested to us, and ignore religion. Mr Bradlaugh and those who agree with him hold that secularism can only be founded in the disproof and rejection of religion. Mr Holyoake is an atheist in the same sense and to the same extent as Mr Bradlaugh. He objects, however, to the name, while Mr Bradlaugh does not. The ground of his objection is that atheist is understood to mean "one who is not only without God, but without morality." But surely it can only be in very bad dictionaries and by very uncandid persons that the word atheist is so defined and employed. It properly means merely a man who thinks that there is reason for disbelieving that there is a God, or a man who thinks that there is no reason for believing that there is a God. It is in the latter sense that both Mr Holyoake and Mr Bradlaugh are atheists, and the former is so as much as the latter, and he fully acknowledges this, although he would prefer to be called a cosmist to being called an atheist. It is not because he does not accept and advocate atheism in the only sense in which it is accepted and advocated by Mr Bradlaugh that he