"In the Poor-laws AmendmentBill a vast majority of the House of Commons are understood to concur: and the discussion which it is likely to excite is expected to refer, rather to the details of the enactment, and to the period at which it shall be carried into effect, than to the substance of the plan itself. As the details are confessedly of very great difficulty, Mr. Scarlett has been strongly urged to postpone the measure until the next session of Parliament, that the subject may be tho. roughly sifted, and a mature opinion formed. But in this view of the question we confess our inability to join. The subject has already undergone the most ample investigation, and the results of that investigation as they were laid before the public by the Committees of the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, are embodied in the present bill. We conceive therefore that Parliament never can be better prepared to legislate upon the subject, than it is at the present moment, and that the only effect of delay will be to prevent any alteration of the existing law. If the country is to wait until Mr. Scarlett shall be prepared with a plan which is open to no objection, and can require no future amendment, we had better make up our minds at once to remain where we are. But if this proposal be too alarming, and the necessity of a change be admitted, then let the change be what it may, it will at least effect

tem; and the gradual establishment of another will follow as a matter of course, Experience will enable us to distinguish between the sound and the defective parts of the new arrangements; and the evil may be obviated, and the good perfected as it appears. On this account we sincerely hope that some measure may be adopted before the close of the present session.

But it does not follow that we should approve of the whole of Mr. Scarlett's Bill. The clause which enacts that the yearly sum levied in any parish for the support of the poor shall never exceed the amount which was levied during the year 1820, will not be carried into execution without the greatest difficulty-and the entire abolition of the present law of settlement, though it must ultimately be adopted, is a measure for which we fear that the country is not yet prepared. The most important clause however is not liable to similar objections; and it will suffice to accomplish the purpose of the other parts of the Bill, and work an entire but gradual change in the state of the country. We allude to the section which enacts that no male person being single and unmarried at a given time after the passing of the Bill, shall ever receive relief for himself or any part of his family, unless such person by reason of age, sickness, or infirmity, shall be actually unable to obtain his livelihood and to support his family by work. This comes in effect to the original proposition of Mr. Malthus; and is the only remedy of which the case admits. The occasional distress of the labouring classes will thus be compelled to seek relief from charity, and while charity will provide a due supply for the deserving, it will leave the idle and the profligate to taste the natural consequences of their conduct. We trust that

this clause will be carried without delay.

The alteration in the criminal law proposed by Sir James Mackintosh, has been favourably received by the House of Commons; but public opinion is so much divided upon the subject, that the measure in all probability will not pass into a law. Sir James appears to us to have thrown away his own case-for he proposes that the crime of forging Bank of England notes, aud some other public and private securities, shall continue subject to capital punishment: but that all other forgeries shall cease to be capital offences. We have always understood that the great increase of forgeries was confined to Bank of England notes; and if they are to be excepted from the operation of the Bill, the most that can be said in its favour is, that it will have little or no effect. We believe also that the law, as it relates to the Bank of England, is more in need of alteration than in any other point of view. For the argument by which our criminal code has been most powerfully defended, maintains that by making so many offences capital, the law sweeps all offenders into its net, and then leaves it to the judges and the government to select the worst cases for punishment. This is Paley's reasoning; and to this reasoning the present laws owe the continuation of their existence. But in proceedings instituted by the Bank, this argument does not apply. For

here the selection is made not by the Judge but by the prosecutor, who allows such prisoners as he pleases to plead guilty to the minor offence, and thus, in fact, commutes capital punishment for transportation. This state of things is clearly at variance with the whole spirit of our laws; and we cannot imagine that it will be suffered to continue. The Bill however now before Parliament, will not insure its alteration.

With respect to the general question of the criminal code, the advocates for a change appear to us to have decidedly the best of the argument. They contend that the existing system has had a full and fair trial, and that at the expence of many human lives it has failed to check the increase of crime; it seems reasonable, therefore, to make an experiment of a different system; and it is not easy to believe that such a system will be more ineffectual than the one which it supersedes. The principal objection to the plan is made to rest upon the non-existence of any adequate punishment short of death; it being admitted, on all hands, that transportation is no punishment at all-and that the hulks and the penitentiaries are not yet adequate to their purposes. This is certainly a formidable obstacle to the proposed alterations; but it is one which the government of the country have it in their power to remove.

C. P. shall appear.

No. 31.]

REASON THE HANDMAID OF

FAITH.

It has been said, and too readily allowed, that reason and faith are so opposed to each other, that they cannot subsist together. But this assertion is alike dangerous and groundless. For faith, by which I would understand the great truths of the Gospel, and the whole substance of revelation is in reality the very perfecting of reason, as reason is the handmaid of faith.

Reason accompanies us in our search after the truth, as far as it can go; and affords us abundant helps in separating the true from the false; and it is only when reason has reached its utmost limits, that we are handed over to faith, which stands by the gracious appointment of God ready to receive us, and carry us on to perfection. We may not however forget our obligations to our first companion. It is reason, that has been implanted within us to distinguish the man from the brute, and be our guide in the common concerns of life. It is by the aid of reason, that we detect errors, and, ordinarily speaking come at the knowledge of divine truth. It is by the aid of reason that we prove the Bible to be an authentic revelation from God, that we examine the credentials of our Lord, and perceive, that they bear the seal and impress of heaven, that we establish the credibility of his miracles, the fulfilment of prophecy, the fitness and fulness of his precepts, the perfection of his REMEMBRANCER, No. 31.

[VOL. III.

example, the sufficiency of his spiritual provisions, and the richness and certainty of his rewards; and finally arrive, though by a different road, at the same conclusion with the good centurion, that "truly this is the Son of God." Far be it from me to disparage the use of reason in our religious conduct. It is our only safeguard under the divine blessing against the seducing inroads of enthusiasm on the one hand, and the bold and groundless assertions of infidelity on the other. St. Paul expressly calls our most holy religion "C a reasonable service" and wills "with the

us to " pray" not only spirit," "but with the understanding also." Nay, on one occasion, he appeals directly to our reason, "I speak" says he, "as to wise men-judge ye what I say. say."-My only object is to set down the boun daries of reason, to shew where reason stops, and where faith begins, and takes up what reason has left unfinished. I would take away nothing, that is really within the sphere of reason, and only warn my readers not to fancy that all things are within that sphere, "even the hidden things of God." "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven," answers the wise man, "what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?"

Shall we then be still doomed to hear the worn-out plea of the infidel, that what I cannot understand, I will not believe?

3 D

We are assured, that we livebut how we live, we know not. Shall we then disbelieve our very existence, because we cannot comprehend by what means that existence is supported? All nature is but one vast mystery-and yet who ever doubted, that there was a world peopled with its countless tribes of inhabitants, and cloathed with its varied herbage, because he was unable to explain, how the former "live and move and have their being," or the latter sprang from the ground? Were we taken to view a work, that was said to combine all the power and ingenuity of the wisest of men, should we not look for much in it above the comprehension of common minds? And if this would be the case in the work of a person superior to ourselves, how much more in His work, who is all perfect, before whom "the wisdom of the wisest is as foolishness, and nations are counted but as the dust of the balance?"

Let me carry the argument somewhat farther. If we are forced to confess-nay, and to act on this confession, that there are many things in the natural world, that we cannot comprehend, and yet must believe, is it any ways extraordinary that there should be things mysterious, things above our comprehension in the spiritual? And is it not an argument in favour of a revelation purporting to come from above, that in speaking of spiritual things, it delivers much, that is above our reason, and matter only for the exercise of faith? It would be well if this consideration were allowed to have its just weight on our minds. It is the master-key, as it were, to the knowledge of divine truth. It preserves the man in the full and legitimate exercise of his reason, whilst it points out the necessity and reasonableness of faith. Under its saving influence the man ceases to be the philosopher only by his being raised unto the Christian. In things within his reach he still trusts to the de

ductions of his own reason. In things beyond, he strengthens the weakness of his reason by the more full discoveries of faith. To the natural, if the term may be allowed, he thankfully adds the doctrines of revealed religion. To the contem. plation of these he approaches in all the humility of a child, conscious of his own present insufficiency for things so far above him, ready to be taught of God, and fully prepared to believe implicitly all that is contained in his most holy word. His reason leads him to the door of the temple which is opened by faith; and he enters in, and beholds the glory of the Lord.

But if pursuing a different course he deems his reason to be a judge not only of the authenticity of holy Scripture, which it is; but of its truth, which it is not, and in its very nature can never be-if he is previously resolved to believe nothing which he cannot bring down to the comprehension of his limited faculties, even though it be found in what he allows to be the word of God-I will not hesitate to say that such a person can never become a Christian in the full and legitimate sense of the term. He may strip the Gospel of all its distinctive doctrines, and call what remains, and he is pleased to accept, Christianity--but such was not the religion of which our Lord spake when he said, "I thank thee, Ô Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes," for it is among "the wise and prudent," among men possessed of worldly wisdom, and a high conceit of their own proficiency, and not among the "babes," the humble, and the diffident, that this finds its chief support. Neither was this the religion of which the Apostle declares, "we speak not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery," for this rejecteth all mystery, and