very practical especially in money matters, and I trust their judgment in such affairs with full confidence.

As for the 'capital' question, you refer me to Mr. Lamennais, who has handled me so roughly in the Reformé, and I readily take your hint. Mr. Lamennais, whose character, notwithstanding his mistake, I continue to declare to be a most respectable one, has made my answer very easy. If he can find no occupation for me except in Bedlam, 'or in the pay of the monarchs of Europe,' I ascribe this to the fact that Mr. Lameunais (who very likely knows not a word of German) has judged me according to the incoherent communications of 'Anti-Socialist,' which have been altogether disfigured by the French reactionary press. The Germans, who know me better than the French, will smile, as I smiled, at the alternative of Mr. Lamennais. I would become immediately an agent of the monarchs of Europe, and even without pay,' if I could serve them according to my wishes. But the best means to bring me to Bedlam, would be to convince me that all revolutionaries and Socialists do agree upon the following phrases, by which Mr. Lamenais tries to save the innocence of Socialism: 'Socialism tries to procure for all the world the means to live; killing would be the wrong way to attain this aim.' Mr. Lamennais wishes, out of love for Socialism, that all those may live whose lives make Socialism impossible. Out of love for Socialism he wishes the reactionary wolf to remain safe, in order that he may devour the Socialist flock. Out of love for Socialism he wishes to spare Haynau and the other monsters, in order that they may henceforward, as hitherto, slaughter or imprison thousands, trample on and exhaust millions. These are the consequences to which Mr. Lamennais's phrases lead. Moreover, Mr. Lamennais has not considered that my pamphlet has been calculated expressly for Germany, while he, according to French fashion, had only France in view. But even this cannot change the matter. He thinks that the peaceful and gradual realisation of Socialism is likely guaranteed by the French constitution and universal suffrage. If, however, this deficient guarantee remained unviolated, I would not contradict Mr. Lamennais. But the existing powers have already openly broken the constitution, and made very evident preparations for putting it aside altogether. What would Mr. Lamennais say if Louis Napoleon, with the assistance of anti-Socialist bayonets, should grasp at the crown, supersede the constitution, and annihilate the liberty of the press so far as that nothing could be printed but hail to the emperor! Yet Socialism tries to procure, for all the world, the means to live; killing would be the wrong way to attain this aim! Would Mr. Lamennais, would the other Socialists be satisfied with that phrase? But if Mr. Lamennais believes not universal suffrage would live to see a new election of a president, if it were probable that this suffrage should be likely to favour a Socialist candidate, and not the system which is contained in the name of Napoleon'-then the author of the Words of a Believer' is also, in political things, more believing than I. An egotistical power, which does not remain a completely dependent organ of the powerful will of the nation, and which has a standing army at its disposition, suffers the guarantees of liberty only as long as they do not threaten seriously its egotism. But then appeal is made to the 'reactionary' bayonets and the 'Socialist' pavement stones, and that Socialism which wishes that all the world may live' has an end.

Mr. Lamennais, who looks upon me as a raving madman, may be convinced that my head is as cold as my heart is socialistic. My conviction, probably also his own, is that it would be a crime against reason and human dignity to appeal to bodily force wherever there is real liberty, wherever there are the means to

realise peacefully the dictates of humanity. For this purpose there is required not only universal suffrage, guaranteed against abuses, full and unlimited liberty of agitation by word and writing, opportunities given to every one to develop his mental faculties; but moreover there must be no torcible impediment opposed to the realisation of the will of the majority, whatever may be its decrees. If such a society should exist in Bedlam, I should be ready immediately to increase its members by my presence; but as long as it is proved to me that such a society can be constituted in Prussia, Austria, Russia, and even in France, without the means I advocated, and on account of which I have been attacked so cruelly by Mr. Lamennais, I have the right to think that other persons may be better subjects for the abode destined for me.

You will not allow me, sir, very likely, to make a more special application of my principles upon Germany. But if I communicate to you, sir, that we feed in Germany more than a thousand princely persons, of whom the greater part are stained with the blood of their people-who, directly or indirectly, put the nation every year to the expense of about 100,000,000 pounds sterling-who, with their numerous and well-organised tail of aristocrats, bureaucrats, and soldiers, do not give one penny of their extorted superfluities to the enslaved people, and who do not allow them willingly one iota of their rights-I need no farther justification that I am no adherent either of the anti-Socialism of your first correspondent, or of the Socialism of Mr. Lamennais.

7, Hereford Road, Westbourne Grove, London,

December 4th, 1849.

CHARLES HEINZEN.

MATERIALITY OF THE SOUL.

DR. CHALMERS relates that many years ago, in the West of Scotland, a preacher, on receiving a presentation to a country parish, preached his first and customary sermon previous to the moderation of the call. The people were not, even from the first, very much prepossessed in his favour; and he unfortunately did not make ground amongst them by this earliest exhibition of his gifts, he having selected for the topic of his pulpit demonstration the immateriality of the soul. This had the effect of ripening and confirming their disinclination into a violent antipathy, which carried them so far, that they lodged with the Presbytery a formal complaint against him, containing a series of heavy charges; where, among other articles of their indictment, they alleged that he told them the soul was immaterial-which, according to their version of it, was tantamount to telling them it was not material whether they had souls or no.

South Place, Moorfields.-Feb. 3rd [11 a.m.], W. J. Fox, M.P., will Lecture.

Temperance Hall, Broadway, Westminster.

Feb. 4th [8], Mr. G. J. Holyoake, 'Wrongs of COALS. JOHN CRAMP, of the firm of NEAL England.' and Co., Coal Merchants, Old Jamaica Wharf, Eclectic Institute, 72, Newman Street, Ox-Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, informs his Social ford Street.-Feb. 3rd (7), J. B. O'Brien, B.A.; tage of the wholesale market, by supplying Coal of friends that he is desirous of giving them the advan'Principles of Political, Moral, and Social Science.' the best quality at the lowest price for ready money; PURR'S TEMPERANCE COFFEE HOUSE the rate of charges being always only four shillings advance on Liverpool. Five Minutes' walk from the Railways

from the Coal Exchange. Present Price, 248.

On the 1st of February will appear, Price 6d., in a Coloured Wrapper, No. 1 of

The PEOPLE'S REVIEW will be upon the plan of the Six-Shilling Quarterly, but at a price within the compass of the many; and it is intended that the PEOPLE'S REVIEW shall contain articles expository of the popular interests, which are daily attracting more and more the notice of the statesman and the thinker-articles which shall be recognised as well-advised and dispassionate expressions of that portion of the people who believe in reason as the true agent, and in kindness as a power for progress, CONTENTS OF No. 1.

Art. I.-Popular Doctrines repressive of the Revolutionary Tendency.

II.-History of the Taxes on Knowledge. III.-Strafford, the Despot from Principle. IV.-Fox, Newman, and Froude.

V.-Infinity of Beauty.

VI.-An Illustrated Alphabet for Little Politicians who have not yet learned their

Letters.

Mazzinis's History of the Defence of Rome.-Parallels between England and Hungary.-Scratchley on Benefit Building Societies.-The Looker-on.-Cure of Cataract. More Verse and Prose, by the Corn-Law Rhymer.-The Correspondent.

That elongated genius

BOB THIN

will make his obeisance in the first number, intending to have TWENTY-SIX CUTS AT THE TIMES.

LONDON: C. MITCHELL, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. London: Printed by Holyoake Brothers, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row; and Published by J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. Wednesday, Jan. 30, 1850.

THE REASONER

AND

THEOLOGICAL REGISTER.

They who believe that they have Truth ask no favour, save that of being heard: they dare the judgment of Mankind: refused Co-operation, they invoke Opposition, for Opposition is their Opportunity.-EDITOR.

THE LOGIC OF DEATH.

WHEN the cholera lately prevailed here, many were carried away without opportunity or power to testify to the stability of those conclusions which had been arrived at when life was calm, and the understanding healthy. The slightest summary of opinions, conscientiously prepared, would have been sufficient to prevent misrepresentation after death, provided the person who had drawn up such statements, had strength to revert to them, and to make some sign that a conviction of their correctness remained. Hetherington and myself drew up brief statements of tenets which appeared to us to be true. He, as we all know, sealed his in death. In several lectures on Death which I delivered, with a view to the assurance of our friends, at the time when no man could calculate on life an hour, I recited the grounds on which my own understanding reposed, and requests were made for their publication. As these views were known to those who might be designated constant readers, I feared the repetition would be monotonous, and I withheld it; but since we have commenced a course in which something said for strangers, shall generously be considered as something said for ourselves, I have less hesitation in printing what follows. The book, of which a second volume has recently appeared, entitled the 'Closing Scenes' (in which the old clap-traps about infidel death-beds are revived, lauded by the Times, and patronised by the upper classes), is proof that there are priests going up and down like roaring lions, seeking consciences which they may devour.]

Since my trial before Mr. Justice Erskine, in 1842, I have in some measure represented a party of Perfect Dissenters, and many ask the opinions of such on death. If the world ask in respect, or curiosity, or scorn, I answer for myself alike courteously and distinctly. I love the world in spite of its frowning moods. For years I have felt neither anger nor hate of any living being, and I will not advisedly resuscitate those distorting passions through which we see the errors of each other as crimes.

In my youth I was in such rude contact with the stern realities of life, that the visions with which theology surrounded my childhood were eventually dispelled, and now (so far as I can penetrate to it) I look at destiny face to face. Cradled in suffering and dependence, I was emboldened to think, and I took out of the hands of the churches, where I was taught to repose them, the great problems of Life and Time and Death, and attempted the solution for myself. It was not long hidden from me that if I followed the monitions of the pulpit, the responsibility was all my own: that at the 'bar of God,' before which I was instructed all men must one

[No. 193].

[ONE PENNY.]

[No. 5, Vol. VIII.]

day stand, I found that no preacher would take my place if through bowing to his authority I adopted error. As I, therefore, must be responsible for myself, I resolved to think for myself—and since no man would answer for me, I resolved that no man should dictate to me the opinion I should hold: for he is impotent indeed, and deserves his fate, who has not the courage to act where he is destined to suffer. My resolution was therefore taken, and I can say with Burke, 'my errors, if any, are my own: I have [and will have] no man's proxy.'

In the dark shade of this old society my lot was cast, and there I have struggled for more light for myself and brethren. For years I toiled, with thousands of others, who were never remunerated by the means of paltriest comfort, and whose lives were never enlivened by pleasure. In turning from this I had nothing to hope, nor fear, nor lose. Since then my days have been chequered and uncertain, but they have never been criminal, nor servile, nor sad. For the luxury of woe and the superfluous refinement of despair, may be indulged in, if by any, by those who live in drawing-rooms-sorrow is too expensive an article to be consumed by the cottager or garreteer. The right-minded in the lowest station may be rich in the wise sense of Carlyle :—' Sweep away utterly all frothiness and falsehood from your heart; struggle unweariedly to acquire what is possible for every man-a free, open, humble soul; speak not all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply, and with undivided mind, for the truth of your speaking: then be placed in what section of Space and of Time soever, do but open your eyes, and they shall actually see, and bring you real knowledge, wondrous worthy of belief.' Thus have I endeavoured to see life; and it is from this point of view that I explain my conceptions of death.

The gates of heaven are considered open only to those who believe as the priest believes. The world acts as if we did not come here to use our understanding. The garments of our opinions were cut out for us by certain apostolical tailors some 2,000 or more years ago; and we are practically instructed that we must wear the old clothes of faith, on pain of forfeiting the fraternity of men, and the favour of God. I know the risks I run,but 'I am in that place,' to use an expression of brave old Knox, in which it is demanded of me to speak the truth; and the truth I will speak,impugn it whoso lists.' And, after all,the world is not so bad as antagonism has painted it. It will forgive a man for speaking plainly, provided he takes care to speak justly. To give anybody pain causes me regret; but, while I respect the feelings of others, I, as conscience and duty admonish me, respect the truth more -and by this course I am society's friend, for he who will never shock men may often deceive them.

It becomes me therefore to say that I am not a Christian, If I could find a consistent and distinctive code of morality emanating from Jesus I would accept it, and in that sense consent to be called Christian. But I cannot do it. Nor am I a believer in the Inspiration of the Bible. That which so often falls below the language of men, I cannot, without disrespect, suppose to be the language of God. To me it is an axiom that there is nothing higher than morality: there. fore, whatever I find in the Bible below morality (and I find much), I reject—what I find above it, I suspect what I find coincident with morality (whether in the Old Testament or the New), I retain. I make Morality my standard. It is therefore that I call myself a Moralist rather than a Christian. It seems to me that there is nothing in Christianity which will bear the test of discussion or the face of day, nothing whereby it can lay hold of the world and move it, which is not coincident with morality. Therefore morality has all the strength of Christianity, without the mystery and bigotry of the Bible.