remission of sins; and this shall never be taken away from the earth until the sons of Leir do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.' He said this Aaronic priesthood had not the power of laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that it should be conferred on us hereafter: and he comnianded us to go and be baptized; and gave us directions that I should baptize Oliver Cowdery, and afterwards, that he should baptize me. Accordingly, we went, and were baptized; Í baptized him first, and afterwards he baptized me. After which I laid my hands upon his head, and ordained him to the Aaronic priesthood: afterwards he laid his hands on me and ordained me to the same priesthood, for so we were commanded."

Here, surely, is something very wonderful, on reading of which one can scarcely suppress a smile, while at the same time, who can read it without noticing the daring character of Joseph? This would-be prophet of the Lord tells us, that an angel addressed him as his fellow servant, and ordained him to the Aaronic priesthood, then directly afterwards he informs us, that Oliver Cowdery's hands were laid on him, for the purpose of ordaining him for the priestly office. The man who did this was shortly afterwards spoken of as not fit to be trusted with "the moneys."

Joseph, the high-minded one, stands first throughout the whole of the farce; he had no sooner begun to attract the attention of a few individuals, then he at once perceived how advantageous it would be for the furtherance of his desired objects, if he could cause the people to believe that he had the power to work miracles. We find him palming this upon his hearers, so that many were led to think that he was sent from God, through being able to do such mighty works; at least they appeared to be such to those who were his dupes: yet by the candid enquirer they are found to be frauds and deceptions of the worst character.

In corroboration of these views, take the following circumstance recorded by the Mormons :-the cholera broke out in their camp, and Joseph endeavoured to cure it, by " laying on of his hands and prayer;" neither of which did any good. Joseph then stated, that "he quickly learned, by painful experience, that when the Great Jehovah decrees destruction, man must not atteinpt to stay his hand." Jesus when on earth did not act thus, he healed all who went to him, it was of no consequence what their disease might be, if the individual was blind, his eyes were opened; had he a stammering tongue, that was loosed; had he a withered hand, it was at the word of Christ made whole like the other: so the apostle Peter spoke, and the lame man stood up on his feet. Who then, that has an honest heart, can read the reasons which Joseph Smith gave for not being able to effect a cure amongst his people without at once perceiving him to be a deceiver? And such are all those who profess to have the power to work miracles. In the year 1849, "The Millennial Star," a Mormon publication, gave the following account respecting two young women, Mary and Elizabeth Murray, they were seized with the cholera while at work in a mill at Govan :-"Elizabeth was soon relieved of her wet clothes, and put into a warm bed in the house of a Mormon." "The elders were sent for, and they came and anointed her with oil in the name of the Lord Jesus; laid their hands upon her, and prayed the Lord to manifest his power in her behalf, and rescue her from the grasp of the destroyer. During the

night, Mary was also seized with the same disease, but was not laid in the same bed. They bore their sufferings patiently for a short time, but soon they became weary of suffering, and besought the elders to lay their hands upon them, and pray the Lord to take them to himself, for they had suffered enough. The brethren did so. They were eased from pain, and went off so calmly and quietly, that those around could hardly tell when the last breath left the body."

From their own statement of the case we learn, that neither the oil nor prayers of the elders alleviated their sufferings, or in any way arrested the progress of the disease. Seeing that they were deceived in their endeavours to effect a cure on the young women, and fully conscious that death was fast approaching, the would-be miracle workers laid their hands upon the two sisters, and prayed for their departure from this world of suffering but if the means which were used by the Mormon elders were ineffectual to restore health, is it not probable that the young women would have died if no hands had been laid on them? If they left this world under the impression that the oil and laying on of hands had done them any good, is it not evident that they were the dupes of an imposition or of the worst fanaticism?

Ask any of the advocates of the new revelation to give a proof of their mission by working a miracle, they will instantly turn on you, saying, "an evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it:" and in this way it is that so many weak minds are silenced in enquiries, till at length led astray by what appears to them plausible doctrines.

(To be Continued.)

IV.

SCEPTICS' RELIGION.

Under this department, sceptical objections, and systems or principles advocated as hostile to Christianity, are dispassionately considered.

"SOCIAL STATICS."*

"It is said of a certain personage that he wished he had been consulted when the world was being made, for that he could have given good advice; and not a little historical celebrity has attached to this personage in virtue of his so-thought unparalleled arrogance. Shallow, shallow!" This is our first quotation from the book before us. Our next extracts will enlighten the reader as to what sort of advice would have been given in the supposed case by another "certain personage"-the author. "Evidently the aboriginal man must have a constitution adapted to the work he has to perform, joined with the dormant capability of developing into the ultimate man where the conditions of existence permit. To the end that he may prepare the earth for its future inhabitants-his descendents, -he must possess a character fitting him to clear it of races endangering his life, and races occupying the space required by mankind. Hence he must have a desire to kill, for it is the universal law of life that to every needful act must attach a gratification, the desire for which may serve as a stimulus. He must further be devoid of sympathy, or must have but the germ of it, for he would otherwise be incapacitated for his destructive office. In other words, he must be what we call a savage, and must be left to acquire fitness for social life as fast as the conquest of the earth renders social life possible." pp. 410, 411.

And again:-"it is necessary that the primitive man should be one whose happiness is obtained at the expense of the happiness of other beings. It is necessary that the ultimate man should be one who can obtain perfect happiness without deducting from the happiness of others. After accomplishing its appointed purpose the first of these constitutions has to be moulded into the last." p. 413.

The great difference between the Spanish philosopher and Mr. Spencer is, that the latter thinks his "good advice" has been wisely forestalled. He has really grasped, as he believes, the true theory of the world, and from his point of view the two great problems,-how evil entered it, and, how it is to be got out,-are divested of all difficulty, save the purely

"Social Statics, or the Conditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed." By Herbert Spencer. London: John Chapman. 1851.

historical one, as to how they ever came to be regarded as mysteries at all. As in the case of all great discoveries, when this new Columbus sets the egg on end, we only marvel that we none of us thought of it ourselves.

The following passages make short work, not only of that "darkest of all enigmas," as Dr. Chalmers calls it, and at which Leibnitz tried his hand and failed, but of that other question also on which it has been too long thought the Christian revelation alone sheds any certain light, but which we here see solved without the aid of "old wives fables"-the evanescence of evil. The truth lies in a nutshell. If any think that after all it is not cracked, what must they think of the author?

"All evil, results from the non-adaptation of constitution to condition. This is the rule of every thing that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in a poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is because the harmony between its organization and its circumstances has been destroyed. Those experiences of the farm-yard and the menagerie, which show that pain, disease, and death are entailed upon animals by certain kinds of treatment, may all be generalised under the same law. Every suffering incident to the human body, from a headache up to a fatal illness from a burn or a sprain, to accidental loss of life, is similarly traceable to the having placed that body in a situation for which its powers did not fit it.

"Nor is the expression confined in its application to physical evil; it comprehends moral evil also. Is the kindhearted man distressed by the sight of misery? is the bachelor uneasy because his means will not permit him to marry? does the mother mourn over her lost child? does the emigrant lament leaving his fatherland? are some made uncomfortable in having to pass their lives in distasteful occupations? and others from having no occupation at all? the explanation is still the same. No matter what the special nature of the evil, it is invariably referable to the one generic cause—want of congruity between the faculties and their spheres of action." p. 59.

"But why is not man adapted to the social state? Simply because he yet partially retains the characteristics that adapted him for an antecedent state. The respects in which he is not fitted for society are the respects in which he is fitted for his original predatory life. His primitive circumstances require that he should sacrifice the welfare of other beings to his own; his present circumstances require that he should not do so; and in as far as his old attribute still clings to him, in so far is he unfit for the social state. All sins of men against each other, from the cannibalism of the Carrib, to the crimes and venalities that we see around us; the felonies that fill our prisons; the trickeries of trade, the quarrelings of nations with nations, and of class with class, the corruptness of institutions, the jealousies of caste, and the scandal of drawing-rooms, have their causes comprehended under this generalization.

"Concerning the present position of the human race, we must, therefore, say that man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; that he needs another to fit him for his present state, and that he has been, is, and will long continue to be, in process of adaptation. By the term civilization we signify the adaptation that has already taken place. The changes that constitute progress are the successive steps of the transition. And the belief in human perfectibility, merely amounts to the belief, that, in virtue of this process, man will eventually become suited to his mode of life. "Such a faith is well founded. As commonly supported by evidence drawn from history, it cannot be considered indisputable. The inference that as advancement has been hitherto the rule, it will be the rule henceforth, may be called a plausible speculation. But when it is shown that this advancement, is due to the working of a universal law, and that in virtue of that law it must continue until the state, we call perfection, is reached, then the advent of such a state is removed out of the regions of probability to that of certainty. If any one demurs to this let him point out the error. Here are the several steps of the argument.

"All imperfection is unfitness to the conditions of existence.

"This unfitness must consist in either having a faculty or faculties in excess; or having a faculty or faculties deficient; or in both.

"A faculty in excess is one which the condition of existence do not afford full exercise

to; and a faculty that is deficient, is one from which the conditions of existence demand more than it can perform.

"But it is an essential principle of life, that a faculty, to which circunmstances do not allow full exercise, diminishes; and that a faculty on which circumstance make excessive demands, increases.

"And so long as this excess and this deficiency continue, there must continue decrease on the one hand and growth on the other.

"Finally, all excess and all deficiency must disappear, this is, all unfitness must disappear; that is, all imperfection must disappear.

"Thus the ultimate development of the ideal man is logically certain—as certain as any conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith: for instance, that all men will die. For why do we infer that all men will die? Simply because in an immense number of past experiences, death has uniformly occurred. Similarly then as the experiences of all people in all times, experiences that are embodied in maxims, proverbs, and moral precepts, and that are illustrated in biographies and histories, go to prove that organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them, grow by use, and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if the inference is unquestionable, then is the one above deduced from it, that humanity must in the end become completely adapted to its condition, unquestionable also." pp. 63-65.

Thus the advent of the golden age is an article of scientific faith—“ as certain as that all men will die"-which latter slight circumstance ought by no means to be regarded by a right-minded man as sullying its brightness, since he cannot reasonably desire more than "to maintain life to old age-to complete the cycle of his existence; that is, to fill out the limits of his individuality to the full."

To determine for us the conditions of elysian state at which mankind are one day to arrive is, according to our author, the province of Social Statics, the science which treats of the equilibrium of a perfect society.† The term, we may observe, is used by Mr. Mill after M. Comte in a somewhat wider sense. He employs it to designate that branch of Sociology which ascertain the conditions of stability in the social union. It is the theory of the consensus, a suggestive word borrowed from physiology, existing among the different parts of the social organism.‡

We do not demur, however, to Mr. Spencer's definition, and indeed should prefer it to the other. Though to treat of an ideal society, is necessarily to make our speculations more abstract than if we have to do only with an actual body social, yet this is certainly an advantage rather than an objection in a scientific point of view. Since, moreover, the ideal and fixed must ever underlie the phenomenal and variable, the laws of the latter will always be more or less determinable from those of the former, if these can be discovered. At the same time we are quite sure that none, but a thoroughly Christian thinker, has a chance of reaching any adequate notion of a perfected humanity. Only from a profound and reverential contemplation of its archetype, the Son of Man, could the initiative idea proceed.

We perfectly agree with Mr. Spencer, that "a true conception of what human life is, is possible only to the ideal man." And when he adds, that "as yet the world contains none such," we would fain hope that he does not mean to call in question the fact, that one has actually appeared upon earth who was a perfect embodiment of the ideal of our race, and that his history remains on record for the perpetual instruction of mankind. * Page 440. + Page 409. Mill's Logic. Vol. ii., p. 549.