Secularist faith in Nature. Material conditions reliable conditions.

IF your enemy does you an injury, it is not worth while being angry about it. First, because anger is a waste of time: Second, because it gives your enemy opportunity to which he is not entitled, which is bad taste and bad strategy. But Thomas Cooper is not an enemy of the truth, and therefore we need not be angry with him in any sense.

Three years ago Mr. Thomas Cooper avowed himself on the side of Secularism, in a manner that implied that he understood it. Secularism being that which takes the affirmative ground of nature, and bases duty on considerations purely human, without denying the right of those who think differently to base duty on what they term 'higher considerations.' Mr. Cooper (on the occasion alluded to) professed to accord' with myself very nearly on what is called theology."* In the course of

lectures which he has since delivered, it is clear that his views have undergone considerable change. He now declares himself not only a Theist, but as one who thinks himself under obligations of conscience to preach the truth and consolations of Theism, as the sole ground of duty. A man who thinks so is no longer a Secularist. Secularism, if not the discovery, is the assertion of another ground of duty and consolation, besides that of Theology. The Theist believes that man can only be guided and sustained by Spiritualism. The Secularist holds that he may be guided and sustained by Naturalism. He believes in 'human duties commencing from Man,' and believes them to be sufficient for life, for progress, and for conscience-sufficient for this world if there be no other-and a safe preparation for another if there be one.

Man has to learn that material conditions are the only conditions of progress of which he can be sure, and to conquer this certainty in his security for himself and his duty to others. Deliverance, and not Consolation, is the true mercy. Creeds have all the force of guidance for millions, but Naturalism also has its place for others, with whom it

*At the Freemason's Tavern in May, 1853, addressing Mr. Thornton Hunt, the chairman, (who had distinguished between his friendship for the present writer and agreement with his theological opinion). Mr. Cooper said-'I ought, indeed, to be the very last man to object to the term "Secular," for you must own I am extremely Secular as a teachermore so than any of your teachers, if you will allow me to say so. I seldom trouble you with my notions on theology; but choose history, or some "Secular" theme, some everyday story, some belonging-to-this world subject for the staple of my plain talk I will be consistent then, and join the Seculars. And while on this subject I may say that I am in a different case to yourself, sir (Mr Thornton Hunt). You expressed your divergence from the views of my friend Mr. Holyoake on religious matters. I must make a contrary avowal. My friend Mr. Holyoake and myself accord very nearly on what is called theology. I make this avowal openly, for I do not know why I should conceal it; and I am sure, sir, it you felt the same convictions you would make the avowal as openly and unreservedly as I do.'

Thomas Cooper, Chartist and Theist. Publicist integrity.

satisfies the demands of nature, of reason, of conscience. Such is Secularism, and if any man, once accepting it, tells us he no longer abides by it, we listen readily to his reasons. If we cannot accept them, he shall find that we reject them without bigotry, and regard him without intolerance. When Mr. Thomas Cooper says his views are really changed, he is to be believed as one incapable of deliberate insincerity. He is impulsive-he is irritable*—he is sometimes unjust, but he is always earnest Who among us has given greater proof of dauntless honesty than he ? In the evil days,' when the Government hunted insurrectionary poverty and despair to penal lands, Thomas Cooper was true to his order. In the Stafford Court he stood ten days at bay, and defended himself as a working-man never did before or since. He behaved with as much courage as Hone, and held out six days longer. Two years of imprisonment did not subdue him, and the moment he was at liberty he wrote on the title-page of his memorable Poem, The Purgatory of Suicides, by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist; and the words went forth, the seal of his manliness into the cottage of the poor, and his gage of defiance into the halls of the rich.t

Not only is Thomas Cooper to be believed, but whatever his opinions may be now, he is to be respected. The working-class have to be proud of Thomas Cooper. He has done more than any other contemporary working-man to win respect for his order. The shoemaker of Lincoln has won himself a place in the Republic of literature, where distinction is only awarded to genius. As poet, as novelist, as orator, as political writer, he has placed his name where it will not soon die out. Had he had a hireling tongue, or a saleable conscience, he might now be a wealthy man. A poor man with his talents can have his choice in this world-he may keep a conscience or may keep a carriage. Thomas Cooper has preferred to keep a conscience. He has always eaten precarious bread, and looks back with proud satisfaction on an incorruptible life. The author may look back from the platform through his chequered career, and find more than the world knows of to love and reverence. The working-class can point to Thomas Cooper, and saywhat cannot be said of all-' Hear him-read his works-follow him home. He is one of us. He has nothing to conceal; we have nothing to fear.' The man whose career exalts the people, should be respected by the people-and as one of the people, I am proud of Thomas Cooper, of his genius, and his reputation.

Yet I am no adulator. I who speak thus have reason to complain of his injustice. It is not pretended that Thomas Cooper is faultless; but it is our duty not to judge a public man solely from the points of per

* If however a man is disqualified for regard because of irritability, the world will have to give up many noble affections of long standing. There seems good proof that Socrates was by natural temper violently irascible-a defect which he generally kept under severe contro', but which occas onally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and demeanour.'-Gote: Vol. iii. Hist. Greece.

The principles of the Charter' are not necessarily a gage of defiance to the rich, but at that time they were so, because Mr. Cooper had been imprisoned as one who sought spoi ation through politics. It was false, but the Government believed it then of nearly all Chartists.

Vide his 'Alderman Ralph,' 'Family Feud,' etc.

The estimation of publicists not to be partial. Requital of service.

sonal annoyance, or even injury to ourselves.

:

We are bound to judge of his whole character and his whole services. One does not like the metaphysical dreaminess of Gladstone but where have we another statesman of whom we are so sure that he has a conscience? On some points Mr, Cobden is as impracticable as a Communist of the old schools, but there is a quality of stubborn honesty in him we are all sorry to miss from Parliament. Mr. Bright's doctrine of Peace-at-any-price (which he has not, like Mr. Cobden, repudiated) is altogether to be deplored; but who in the House of Commons exceeded him in the will, the courage, or the power to rebuke an aristocracy in its fit of insolence ? It is not the thing a practical politician admires to see Mr. Roebuck so prompt to punish official incompetence, so careful to avoid himself official responsibility. Yet where have the people a tribune of the same knowledge, spirit, and vigilance? In judging Thomas Cooper yon have, as in these cases, to take into consideration genius, services, and character, as well as special conduct. He who insists upon perfection in others, is very far from perfection himself in judgment, or experience. He who has no generous appreciation except for him who is a monotonous echo of his own ideal virtues, will all always be (and deserves to be) in a party of one.

But whatever personal respect we may entertain for Mr. Cooper, it is no less a duty to examine strictly the grounds of his new opinions. From the manner in which he speaks of them, and from the nature of them, it appears to me that he arrives at them more through his feelings than his reason. There have occurred several conversions that appear to me to resemble his. When a man of highly sensitive and poetic nature has during the ardour of youth and the prime of manhood struggled with the world and found no resting place, he grows sad, and sometimes reacts. The life of an honest publicist is a perpetual hazard. He is a kind of moral gamester, who plays against the world, and finds himself opposed to a very unscrupulous antagonist. Assailed by the press, and poorly supported by those whom he served, Mr. Cooper gave the morning of his life to Chartism. Care and duty, and a scant table, were his daily lot. Then came that unfriended struggle at his trial, and the dreary years of prison life. Since those days the 'battle of life' has gone on with him in the old way. Bound himself by honour and conscience, his chances have been few. In the narrow way of duty you meet oftener with Care than with a friend. Those who stand aloof and criticise, are more looked up to than those who do the work. He who follows the beaten road of trade and fortune, and gives £5 a-year from his gains, attains to honour without responsibility, and wins more distinction than he who dies at the outpost of public duty. The people hold you responsible to them to stand by your professions, and maintain consistency to your principles, but never hold themselves responsible to you that your family shall have shelter and your table shall be spread. If you seem anxious about these things you appear selfish, and if you are not anxious you die; or, what is worse, you incur pecuniary obligations you know you cannot meet. For long years you are too proud to own it. Perhaps few would believe it, and few heed it, if you told it. At last a sensitive spirit gives way. It turns to the idea of God, who is said to

Disappointment leading to Theism. Truth for her own sake.

watch the silent struggle, and at last reward the solitary devotee of duty. To such a one it becomes a consolation to repose on the consciousness of God, and to believe that the struggles the world will never know, are not hidden from His eyes. The poetic nature, which is at once tender and true, must have sympathy. Men like Ebenezer Elliott, who had a spirit like the iron in which he dealt, at last exclaimed :

He does well who does his best;
Is he weary? let him rest:
Brothers! I have done my best,
I am weary-let me rest.
After toiling oft in vain,
Baffled, yet to struggle fain;
After toiling long, to gain
Little good with mickle pain;
Let me rest..

Tired and thankful, let me rest
Like a child, that sleepeth best
On its gentle mother's breast.

Men like the poet Thom, of Inverury, will, as he did, suffer the heart to break and make no sign; but other men act like a human ostrich, bury their heads in the clouds of the Church, without the courage to look on the storm they have no longer the strength to breast. This is the kind of experience which I take it accounts for Thomas Cooper's conversion; and I own I have no words of scorn for such an experience. I can commisserate over the struggle which has bowed so true a spirit. But though I sympathise with, I do not share the conclusions to which Mr. Cooper has come. Truth is a contest, and unless the combatants enter into it in the spirit described by a modern poet, they can never be relied upon :

Reckless of danger, loss, and shame,
In the free, fearless faith of youth,
I hope through good and evil fame
To battle in the cause of Truth.

I hope to bear, through toil and pain,
Her standard on to victory,
And from the very strife to gain
Strength to dispense with sympathy.'

Truth must prevail. Meanwhile endure.
Of worldly peace let worldlings boast.
Amid the storms of life, be sure,

The loftiest spirits suffer most.†

* As the author has elsewhere written these lines.
+ Vide Shadows of the Past,' by Lionel H. Holdreth.

Recent instance of Hindoo renunciation of Christianity.

CHAPTER III.

THE PALEYAN SCHOO L.

THE Theist who was the subject of the last chapter rested, in the Discourses to which the writer listened, his Theism upon the Argument of Design. As this is the great resource of the popular thinker, Paley, the great type of this school, is a proper subject of examination. As this argument is universal, and references to Thomas Cooper personally will seldom be necessary, this is the proper place to remark that since the observations contained in the preceding chapter were first made (now a year ago), Thomas Cooper has receded into far-gone Evangelical views, judging from letters in circulation among his friends. This implies a greater deflection from the views he previously avowed than the present writer expected; but it in no way alters the estimate he has made of Thomas Cooper's personal character.* As this sheet is passing through the press, a letter reaches me from Captain Mackenzie, of India, enclosing a communication here printed verbatim from the Hindoo Patriot of April the 2nd, 1857, in which it appears. It is pertinent to the subject of 'conversions ':

'A RENUNCIATION.-To the Editor of the Hindoo Patriot. Sir,Hitherto I was a follower of the religion of Jesus Christ. My conversion into this faith did take place on the 25th of March, 1855, when I was about sixteen years of age. But deep and candid inquiry leads me to the belief of its utter worthlessness to satisfy the religious cravings of mankind. I have also been convinced, that its fundamental doctrines are not reconcileable with the rational dictates of reason and of moral justice. Consequently, I have come to the conclusion that such a religion, containing, as it does, a great many absurd theories, such as the Trinity, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, could not have come from God-the immaterial and common Father of the Universe. I therefore publicly renounce Christianity through the medium of your journal. beg you will be good enough to insert the above declaration in your to-morrow's issue, and oblige yours truly, SHAMAPROSAD CHATTERJEE. Bhowanipore, April 1st, 1857.'

This frankness is not unusual with 'Young India :'-But this detains us from the Paleyan reasoners.

'It is evident on reflection,' says a competent writer, 'that there can be no more than two ways of proving the Being of a God, if it be possible to establish his existence at all.

'I. It is impossible to prove either merely that he is;

'II. Or, that besides being, he must be.'†

* In technical strictness, the reference to Lincoln' (page 6), should have been to Gainsbro'; and morning' (page 7) should have been noon. All' before 'always' (same page) is an obvious interpolation.

† Vide The Necessary Existence of God. By W. Gillespie. Chap. I.