ardent half, from being the friends of our own Church into its foes. Another bastion of our Church he undermines in Ireland, and is already ringing the note of its fall; and thus isolated and bereft, he will in due time, should his power endure, leave the Church of England to grapple with divisions, which weaken her within, and suffer her to be crushed by her enemies, whom he refused her the means to reclaim. Meanwhile our numbers grow, and our trade spreads, and our factories rise, thousands jostle thousands, the old and the young sink under labour, the helpless are trod to the dust; and while foreign prospects threaten, the home atmosphere thickens; and, worst of all, in the din of our social pursuits, in the glitter of our brief enjoyments, suffering thousands are forgotten, and swelling murmurs are stifled. For these evils no redress is sought, and no remedy is offered; shrewd men of all ranks mark them, and the passions, which have, twice within ten years, brought us to the verge of a civil war, proclaim them. Meanwhile our minister notes our fortunes, and counts our ledgers, and spurs our traffic; while the heart of the country is blackening to the core, he is unmoved. Six millions disaffected in one island, with fiery passions, under skilful conduct, wait for the rising of millions here; calmly bide their time, and watch the moment of our weakness. The masses are heaving under us-untaught, unsoothed. The elements gather. Who shall say when the crisis will come? But let us lay this to heart, that when it comes, it is not our fate, but our fault, that has brought it; not the weight of our destiny, but the work of our misrule.

ART. VII.-General Statement of the National Club, 13, Cockspur

street.

THIS document has just been placed in our hands, and though our observations must be few, we are unwilling to let this Number of our Review appear without some remarks upon a publication which we regard as of importance.

We agree with those who have formed this Club, that the time is come for such a union. With them we think that great evils are at hand, and that they can only be met by prompt and vigorous exertion. We believe that the exertion ought not to be left to the scattered movements of individuals, but should be conducted with the deliberate care and the united concert of a party. So far we are at one with those who have established this Club, and so far we are inclined to approve of their move

ment.

But we must look further. What is it that we fear? What are the evils against which we would guard? We do not enter into the wide field of political questions. We must select those which appear to us prominent. In this respect we think the procedure of the National Club wise; as, without embarrassing itself with the multiplied questions which engage the attention of statesmen, it has selected those which may be regarded as the cords and sinews of our national life. We judge them right in fixing their thoughts upon the religious principles by which public character is formed, and the great circumstances by which social welfare is sustained. But in the present day men are apt to fall into a mistake. They think that the institutions of a country are safe, provided they are not openly attacked. If there is no attempt made to pull down the National Church, they look upon it as safe. If there is no design avowed by the administration of the day to introduce infidelity into our schools, or spread immorality among our people, they regard religious education and public morals as unassailed. Nothing can be more incorrect. This is not the way in which attacks come. National institutions are not torn down by batteries and bombardment. They fall by sapping. It is the mine which destroys them. The parade and defiance of the herald are not the arts of modern warfare.

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It was

not thus that the United States absorbed Texas, or that Napoleon conquered Spain. It is by another tactique that modern conquest is carried. It is uniformly thus in the contests of politics. Institutions that are weak, are indeed, at times, operated upon by open hostilities. But these are rarely used against the strong. Institutions seated deep in the national affections cannot thus be overthrown. The recoil would be more damaging than the blow. But this is the way in which they fall. Men profess elaborate respect for them, they would not touch them for the world. But they deprecate debate upon them; they protest against their being dragged into secular discussions; and so they leave them to themselves. If they are contracted, they refuse to extend them; if they are weak, or in decay, they refuse to strengthen them. They would leave them alone, apart, untouched, isolated; so they stand, but not entire. There is a work doing against them, a sure work,-the work of time which impairs them; the work of subtilty which undermines them, which spreads views and opinions in conflict with them; and all the more surely, that no man interferes with them. And so the mines run, and the galleries are cut deep in the public sentiment; and along them are laid trains of opinions unresisted, yet fatal to the constitution. If any one marks this work and is afraid, the defender on the walls reassures him, and shows him how strong are the defences. If still uneasy he sounds the alarm, he is put down as an alarmist the heavy tread of the regular watchman beats his daily rounds. At last comes the assault; the mines are sprung, the defences fall, and through the shattered breach the enemy pours. And then we rub our eyes, and wake and wonder to find that the bulwarks which we were told were impregnable are gone.

That is the way in which one Church of our empire, torn to its centre, has been left to fall, and in which one of the Churches of the continent has just sunk without a struggle. That is the process now at work among ourselves, under which our national system of education, undermined by false theories, sinks, by which our Universities destroyed by the work of last session nod to their fall. Under that process the Church of Ireland reels, and by that, sure as time, the Church of England will be enveloped. This system of attack is not promoted by open concert with the enemy; quite the contrary, such a compact would sound the alarm. It is carried by the silence of the friend. It is false friends who destroy us. The mode is this. False principles creep through society and steal into the minds of men. You may abet them by adopting them. That is one way, that the

liberal party do. But you may abet them much more effectually by refusing to confront them. That is what the present premier is doing. This is the sure blow. The rude assault may be met; the hoarse war-cry will be returned. The clarion of the patriot meets the cry of the foe. But the desertion of the leader, his flight when he should head the charge, the forsaken post, the naked flank, these damp the bravest army. Wait a few years, we doubt if you need wait so long, and our prophecy will be realized. The principle of the liberal school is, that in politics religion has no place, and that national education is the concern of the State. Admit these two positions; your camp is gone, it is in the hands of the enemy. You marvel, but it is the fact. The case is clear; an infidel education is set up, national religion must go down; these follow as certainly, as they have followed in France, as they are following in Ireland. Only grant the positions of the liberal. You may grant them, as Sir Robert Peel has done, by admitting them in argument. You may grant them, as he has just succeeded in doing, by introducing them in acts. You may grant them, as he always does, first by silence, and then by concession. Only bear this in mind, that you are not to turn upon us by and bye, and when the public schools of our people are infidel, and the Church of the people is gone, look up in stupid wonder, and say, Who would have thought it? We think it, and we tell it to you. We leave you without a plea. If it befalls you, you shall not plead that it came on you unwarned, that no man could have expected it. We tell you, we sound it in your ears, we offer it to your eyes; there runs the mine, there works the foe, listen to the sound of his implements, hear the hollow murmur of his approach. There is time to stop him if you will, you have time to do so and the power; only you must get rid of a treacherous leader. Under his conduct your ruin is sure; defence is vain. But do not tell us by and bye, that your schools fell and your Church by the strength of your enemies. This is not the fact, they are falling by the treachery of their friends. Again, remember that political victories are not won by dust and detonating powder. There are no Moscows in the warfare of politics. They are carried, as we see the sea make its way on the coast of Norfolk, or the Severn eat with quiet flow the neighbouring banks. Mordet aquâ taciturnus amnis. It is the silent infiltration of false principles that eats out the public sentiment. The man who in the station of a public leader refuses to confront and expose them is the man really to be feared. Your coast may be safe by casting up the breakwater of a firm defence. It is gone if this is not applied. The traitor need not support the enemy. He has only to fold his

arms, and be silent. The work will be done to his hand. If he will sit still the consequence must follow, as sure in the political as in the natural world.

Unless an effort is made promptly and made powerfully, we believe that the National Church and schools of England are doomed. They survived the attacks of Lord Melbourne, they will sink under the hands of Sir Robert Peel. Are we wrong? listen. Under the one our system of education was attacked by battery, our Church was assailed; with what issue? a shout, a cry through the breadth of England, a muster, and a triumph. We saved our heritage, we kept our jewels; we left them, as we thought safe, in the house of our friends. Where are they? what has become of them? of our schools, our system of National education? Ask Sir Robert Peel. He has adopted every principle which we loathed; he has dropped every principle which we regard. Mr. Wyse and the Central Society had a project of collegiate and popular education: they pressed it on us, we repelled it, the Whigs were forced to abandon it: Where is it now? Ask Sir Robert Peel; he has introduced the academic portion already; there it stands stereotyped in an act of parliament; he will introduce the other. He has hinted it, he is ready, he waits, he hardly waits, a gentle pressure. In a word, the very system of government education which we loathed and defeated in opposition, which both Houses refused, is admitted by him to be sound, and will soon be in practice. Only give him time, and let him move by steps; that course is the most sure. It is the course of mining, blow by blow; eating out as you advance your position into the heart of our citadel. In a few years we shall marvel to find that our national system is gone, and that another has taken its place. It is just that liberals should prefer him; in their place we should do the same. The man who on guard gives up the citadel, is a better friend than the clumsy enemy with his cumbrous batteries. So fare our schools. How will fare our Universities? there is a majority of votes against Mr. Christie. There was a thundering majority against the Corn Laws. Where are they, if Sir Robert Peel shall remain in power? Where soon the other will be. Will be, do we say? Our Universities are gone, doomed, given up in the arguments of last session, on the question of the Irish colleges; soon to be registered as defunct. Our counsel has gone over to the plaintiff: all we want is the verdict against us. It will soon come.

But after we have lost our Universities and schools, how long will the Church stand? let that question be answered. The Church of Ireland is already doomed. The premier in one emphatic sentence tells us that he waits to abandon it. Without