1848.] Individual Rights. 111 conscience, and higher sentiments of mankind," not only now, but "half a century hence"; it is undoubtedly the result of much thought and reflection, and contains many good specimens of logical acumen and manly reasoning; and how the author of such a work should be induced to introduce as evidence such stories as the "Two Neighbours and the Manure," "Two Neighbours and the Hens," and other anecdotes of the like character, is more than we can comprehend. We do not believe that a jury could be impanelled in the Commonwealth, that would render a verdict to the amount of one dime on such evidence as these anecdotes afford. In the first place, they are not authenticated; and we have no doubt that, if they were subjected to a judicial investigation, some of them would be found to be mere fabrications, and most of them to be greatly exaggerated. In the next place, were they all true to the letter, they would not exhibit the invariable rule. We presume an equal number of cases could be found, in which corporal chastisement and penal inflictions have humbled and subdued offenders. And in the last place, take them just as they are presented, and they fail utterly to prove the doctrine of non-resistance. As we have already said, we go for the full employment of moral means. We allow the power of kindness, and would have recourse to penal restraint only in cases where moral means have been found ineffectual. So that all this display of "cases from real life," with which our author appears to have been "ravished," yields no support to his favorite system. The advocates of non-resistance are very fond of attacking the doctrine of capital punishment. But why select the penalty of death any more than that of imprisonment? Mr. Ballou's theory is subversive of our penitentiary system; for no one will pretend that pirates and highwaymen would consent to be imprisoned for life or for a term of years. On his theory, the lowest penalty of the law, a fine, would be a mere nullity. Who believes that they who are determined to pursue an unlawful business for the sake of gain would pay a fine, when, by arming themselves, they could set the civil authority for ever at defiance ? The doctrine of entire non-resistance involves the abolition of all penal restraint, and, if carried out, would overthrow all civil government. We cannot subscribe to the estimate which non-resistants put upon individual rights. They seem to think that the claim of one individual is paramount to that of the public, and that no man can, by his crimes, forfeit any of his rights. With such sentiments we have no sympathy. We would, as far as possible, preserve the rights of each individual; but we must allow that the aggregate claim of the community is greater than that of one person; and we believe that an individual may, by his own acts of lawless violence, forfeit his own rights. When the hardened offender wages war upon society, and takes the lives of the innocent and defenceless, not only justice, but enlightened humanity, requires that he should be put out of society. The claims of the innocent many are paramount to the claim of the guilty individual. The command, “Thou shalt not kill," is virtually a command to preserve life; and we believe that penal inflictions, even where the penalty is death, do in fact prevent killing, and so preserve life. Penal statutes deter from crime; and in this way not only guard the innocent, but prevent many from becoming guilty; and thus they operate as a blessing to the whole community. If the heartless robber enters my dwelling at midnight, armed with the implements of death, and commences the murder of my wife and children, I have the right to take his life, to save my own and that of my family; and the knowledge that every man possesses this right guards thousands during the defenceless hours of sleep, and prevents hundreds from becoming burglars. We are no advocate for a sanguinary criminal code; on the contrary, we would have the penalties of the law as mild as the state of society will allow. We would show as much mercy to the violators of the law as is consistent with the peace and safety of the public; but we would not expend all our sympathy and compassion upon the wicked betrayer, so as to have none left for the innocent betrayed. The tendency of the age is to clemency; and when the Gospel shall have performed its perfect work, it will supersede resistance by doing away aggression. While we deprecate the necessity of penal inflictions, we would use all the means in our power to inculcate justice, good-will, and charity among men, as the surest mode of preventing violence. And we would submit to our non-resistant friends, whether they could not do something in this particular, by restraining a little of that vituperation which appears too frequently in their writings. Judging from their public addresses, we must confess that we know of no body of men who are more unsparing in their censures, more sweeping in their denunciation of entire classes, 1848.] Martineau's Discourses. 113 more bitter and pugnacious in words, at least, than these non-resistant Come-outers. So far as denunciation corrupts public sentiment and engenders ill-will, we are inclined to believe that they contribute their full share to keep up the spirit of violence in the community. We would commend this point to their special consideration, and would say to them and to others, in the language of the Apostle, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil-speaking be put away from among you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, in Christ, hath forgiven you." C. H. 17.76. Morison ART. VII. MARTINEAU'S DISCOURSES.* WE read Mr. Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Inquiry" soon after it came out, about ten years ago, but were not much interested in it. Afterwards, hearing it spoken of as one of the most remarkable works of the age, we supposed that we must have done it great injustice, and therefore took it up again, but with the same result as before. It did not fulfil the expectations to which the title naturally gave rise. It is not sufficiently comprehensive and complete for a philosophical treatise, and is altogether too loose in its style, arrangement, and definitions. It seemed to us the hasty work of a very able man, and, while the actual performance left us disappointed, it left us also with high expectations of what the author might still do. The public evidently do not agree with us, for a third edition has been called for in England; and there is perhaps no living Unitarian preacher, except Dr. Dewey, whose works are uniformly received with so much favor as Mr. Martineau's. The present volume is to us far more interesting and satisfactory than either the "Rationale" or the first of the series to which this belongs. The author has here taken what seems to us his true position. Standing on a high eminence of moral and religious truth, he, with earnest thought and vigorous pen, would make known to others what he himself sees. He seldom attempts any thing like an elaborate * Endeavours after the Christian Life. Discourses by JAMES MartiVol. II. London: J. Chapman. 1847. 12mo. pp. 350. NEAU. process of reasoning. He paints men to themselves as they are in the light of his truth. He holds up the prevailing objects of human ambition, and the motives to piety and virtue as they appear to him, to make such appeal as they may to the human heart. He is not a formal apologist for religion, but, having proved its reality by his own experience, and felt the entrancing sweetness of its hopes and affections, he would call others to taste these sublime enjoyments, and know how good they are. The best sermons he would regard, not as a passionate appeal even to the religious sensibilities of a congregation, but as a sort of soliloquy, in which the soul manifests its purest and best experience." Preaching," he tells us in his preface, "is essentially a lyric expression of the soul, an utterance of meditation in sorrow, hope, love, and joy, from a representative of the human heart in its divine relations." Again, he says, "The thoughts and aspirations which look direct to God, and the kindling of which among a fraternity of men constitutes social worship, are natives of solitude, and would not [before a congregation] spontaneously rise, till the presence of a multitude was forgotten, and by a rare effort of abstraction the loneliness of the spirit was restored." We shall not stop here to inquire whether this comes nearest to the true idea of preaching. As there are divers gifts among ministers, so, we suppose, there may be many best ways of exercising them in addressing religious assemblies. This one is Mr. Martineau's method. We learn from some who have heard him that he is a dull preacher, and from others that he is the most interesting preacher they have ever listened to. After reading the volume of sermons before us, we can understand this difference of judgment; for few sermons, in their immediate effect, must depend more on the state of mind in which they are heard. They could not, unless accompanied by remarkable powers of oratory, chain down and enforce attention; but rather, like a beautiful evening, if we are in the mood for them, and give ourselves passively up to them, they will steal over us and lift us up, and unfold to us rare visions of spiritual life and joy; while, at another time, we may read on for pages and be attracted by nothing that we find in them. The character of these discourses we have already intimated. They are not appeals either to our reason or to our passions; but rather, religious meditations on man and the 1848.] Characteristics. 115 world, in the midst of a beautiful universe and under the varied experience of actual life. As meditations, they are lofty, beautiful, and sometimes inspiring; but they do not remind us of the glow of devotion which we find in the writings of St. Paul, still less of the tender affection which breathes out from the words of Jesus. And here, we think, is their defect as a volume of Christian sermons. They are full of reverence, and yet do not lead us to fall on our knees and pray. They are pervaded everywhere by a true regard for the well-being of man, but they do not quicken our affections and bind us by stronger ties of sympathy and love to our fellow-men. They are too purely intellectual, recognizing the beauty of faith and worship and love, but not breathing them into us. They exhibit in terms of pungent severity the folly of our worldly schemes, they point out to us the better way, and show us magnificent prospects opening through an interminable extent of being; but they do not lovingly take us by the hand and lead us to our Father, or to Jesus, the compassionate Saviour. Indeed, while we find often enough in them the acknowledgment of God as our Father, and of Christ as the purest representative we can have of him, and while one prominent object of the volume is to show that God is not an antiquated being, but now, as much as in the days of Abraham and Moses and Paul, is everywhere present in the world, they do not give us the impression of a Father who is actually with his children, who hears their prayers and has compassion upon them and a near personal connection with them. He is rather an abstract being, an infinite law, a boundless presence, and heaven is shadowy and unreal, rather than a joyous union with God and the spirits of the blessed, such as the heart longs and prays for in its better moments. ..... - In speaking of St. Paul, Mr. Martineau says, "His ardent and generous soul had fastened itself on no one living object, but on an abstraction, a thing of his own mind, the truth. Christ and God, the objects of his most earnest love, were viewless and ideal here, and would become realities only when death had transferred him to the future." This seems to us characteristic of Mr. Martineau, as he appears in his writings; but not of St. Paul. God and Christ can hardly at this hour be to him, in his glorified estate, more dear and awful realities than at the time when he was writing his Epistles; and it is the warmth of |