instead of being left to devote their lives to the training of an educated and pious ministry. This is a grievous evil; and we see the effect of it in the lamentable perversions over which the Church of England has so much reason to mourn.

The fact that two brothers, both eminently gifted, and both educated at the same seat of learning, have equally abandoned the Church of England, and gone over, the one to Popery and the other to Infidelity, is surely fitted to awaken some inquiry in regard to the method of education which prevails at that venerable seat of learning, and to suggest the necessity of some more effectual provision for a thorough course of apologetic and systematic theology. It is quite apparent from the recorded history of Mr. Francis Newman's creed, that he had not been thoroughly instructed in any one branch either of the evidences or of the doctrinal truths of revealed religion. He tells us himself, indeed, with amiable and somewhat amusing simplicity, of the occasion on which he opened in a gentleman's library a presentation copy of a Unitarian Treatise, and adds, "It was the first Unitarian book of which I had even seen the outside, and I handled it with timid curiosity as if by stealth." We submit, that this is not the way in which the Church can hope to rear a race of manly, vigorous theologians, adequate to the exigencies of the present critical times-that students of theology must be so trained as to acquire a competent knowledge, not only of the doctrines which they are afterwards to teach, but also of the systems to which these doctrines are opposed; and that, in any well-regulated and really effective course of theological education, they should not be required to take their information on these subjects on trust or at second-hand, but should be permitted and even encouraged to become acquainted with the best writers in support of heterodox opinions; with Bellarmine and Socinus, with Arminius and Episcopius, not less than with Melancthon and Calvin, or Witsius and Owen. Fas est etiam ab hoste doceri: and assuredly the Romish Church does not send forth her priests and missionaries unfurnished with that information which is necessary to fit them for meeting on the arena of controversy with the ablest opponents of their system, and which can only be gathered from a careful study of the principal works which have appeared in explanation or defence of the Protestant

cause.

In the present state of Europe a loud call is addressed to all the Churches of the Reformation for combined action and systematic effort in defence of the bulwarks of their common faith; and for such a course of thorough theological education as may serve, under the Divine blessing, to qualify their future ministers for the great and final struggle which seems to be so near

at hand. For the works which have recently emanated from the British press are not to be regarded merely as individual and isolated cases of infidelity, but as specimens of a style of thought, or rather as symptoms of a spirit of speculation, which pervades a large and growing class in the community, and which, unless it be speedily arrested, may issue in a wide-spread and desolating infidelity. In proof of this we need scarcely refer to any other evidence than that which is furnished so abundantly by the voluminous speculations of Auguste Comte. Of the high merits of this writer, considered simply as an expounder of physical science, we are disposed to speak with the utmost admiration and respect: for few have appeared in modern times who have exhibited such a profound knowledge of its various departments or of their mutual relations, and none who has an equal power of expressing his thoughts in clear, terse, and vigorous language. But M. Comte is not only a declared unbeliever in Christianity, and an avowed atheist; he is, or wishes to become the founder of an infidel Propaganda; and has constructed a scheme by which he hopes to unite the leading nations of Europe in opposition to the Christian Church, and in support of a new and hitherto unheard-of worship. In his ponderous work, entitled, "A Course of the Positive Philosophy," extending to six densely-printed volumes, and comprising a vast amount of scientific speculation, he had announced the great fundamental law of human development, by which, as he conceives, society must necessarily pass through several successive states, commencing with Fetichism, and reaching through the intermediate stages of Polytheism and Monotheism,-that critical era in which all theology must disappear under the powerful solvent of metaphysics, and at length be superseded entirely by Positivism, which, recognising neither efficient nor final causes as legitimate subjects of human inquiry, should confine itself to the observation of facts, and their co-ordination under general laws. And in a more recent tract, whose title we have prefixed to this article, he has announced the scheme of public commemoration, which he proposes as a substitute for Christian worship. The present state of the Positive philosophy may seem, indeed, to afford little ground for his confident hopes; for M. Comte makes the naïve confession, incidentally, but not the less truly, that hitherto "the Positive School" consists of himself alone(Ecole Positive jusq'ici essentiellement réduite à moi seul;) but the solitary thinker has sublime visions before him he proposes to found an atheistic community in the world, the true "Church of the Future," which shall be duly organized, and furnished with a hierarchy of suitable office-bearers. There must be the institution of a spiritual class or priesthood, distinct from and in

dependent of the temporal power; there must be a vast society, not national, but cosmopolitan, framed as nearly as possible after the model of Catholicism, which is regarded as the noblest product of the wisdom and policy of the past. This society, abjuring all theology, and cultivating only the various branches of science, is destined ultimately to regenerate the world. It may have, like the Romish hierarchy, a Pope or elective chief; perhaps also an order of celibacy, and a set of monastic institutions, but will differ from it in the total negation of the theological element, while it will aim at the same universal ascendency, and retain all its most powerful engines of public influence. It must be limited, in the first instance, to the élite or advanced guard of humanity, and will be satisfied with Europe as the present field of its operations, while it cherishes the hope of ultimately embracing the whole world. In the meantime France is best prepared for the reception of its lessons, and next to France, Italy; then Germany, England, and Spain. These five nations, therefore, are to be represented in a Central Committee, (Comité Positif occidental,) consisting of thirty members, each nation having a number of representatives proportioned to its aptitude for the task: France eight, England seven, Italy six, Germany five, and Spain four; this committee to sit at first, but not invariably, in Paris, and to constitute "the Permanent Council of the Church Positive for the re-organization of Europe!"

We might have been disposed to smile at this project as the visionary day-dream of a man very learned but not very wise, had we not heard that a Society has actually been instituted at Paris with a view to its realization, and that, under their auspices, M. Comte has recently issued the astounding programme which we now proceed to lay before our readers. The "Positive Calendar," or Almanac, is designed to regulate "the systematic worship of Humanity, which has love for its principle, order for its base, and progress for its end." It exhibits a general system of public commemoration similar to that of the festivals and saints' days of the Catholic Church, but destined to supersede them, and to guide the final transition of the great Western Republic on its inevitable passage from theology to Atheism. M. Comte adopts a new division of the year, and makes it to consist of thirteen months, each of four weeks. The division of time into weeks is preserved, as also the distinctive character of the Sabbath, that, in superseding Catholicism, Positivism may still afford the means of sanctifying active life by a suitable periodic culture of the popular mind and of social sentiment. The systematic worship of humanity, which is declared to be the final and definitive form of religion, is described as being either

Comte's Calendar of Infidel Worship.

55

concrete or abstract: the former celebrates the past, the latter represents the future; this being the higher and the ultimate landing-place, but that the best adapted to the present circumstances of society. It is a system of hero-worship, in which all the benefactors of mankind are commemorated, in whatever age or clime they may have been born, and whatever creed or worship they may have followed. It is designed to celebrate the series of ancestors, intellectual and social, of the grand western family of man. They are divided into three classes, corresponding to gods, heroes, and saints; and one of the first class is made to preside over a month, another, of the second class, over a week, and another, of the third class, over a day. With these explanations we proceed to exhibit a specimen of the Calendar of Infidel Worship, as drawn up for a year by M. Comte:

But jam satis. It is remarkable, that while the names of Moses, Solomon, Paul, John the Baptist, and John the Evangelist, Justin, Clement, and Origen, are all commemorated in conjunction with those of Bouddha, Confucius, and Mahomet, no mention is made of JESUS CHRIST,-a singular omission in any view which can be taken of it, whether it arise from a latent consciousness of His unparalleled character,--or from a feeling of scepticism, such as is indicated in the only allusion which is made to Him as the real or imaginary founder of Christianity" le fondateur réel ou idéal." It is also remarkable that he omits those who are conceived to have been mere destructives, such as Luther, Calvin, and Rousseau, while Voltaire is admitted, but only as a tragic poet; and further, that the additional day in leap-year is devoted, at least for half an age to come, to the solemn public reprobation of the three great obstructives to human progress, Julian, Philip II., and NAPOLEON!

Such is the Positive Pantheon, and such its Calendar of Saints. Infidelity would fain become world-wide, like Popery; and it seeks to assimilate its organization and its rites to that masterpiece of Satan's policy.