THE

CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER.

DECEMBER, 1834.

ART. I.-1.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Illustrations of Taxation. No. I. The Park and the Paddock: a Tale By HARRIET MARTINEAU. London: Fox. Pp. 140. 1834.

2. Illustrations of Political Economy. No. XXI. A Tale of the Tyne. Pp. 135. No. XXII. Briery Creek. Pp. 155. By HARRIET MARTINEAU. London: Fox. 1834.

DOBRIZOFFER, in his history of the Abipones, gives an account of a most noxious animal, called a "skunk," which infested the regions of Paraguay, and combined, in its own proper self, all the worst features of the vilest of the animal and reptile world. The very atmosphere, indeed, in which it moved was rendered pestilent, and all creation appeared to shun its path. In England we have a moral pest, equally offensive to all good men, equally obnoxious to the senses, but, alas! not equally shunned by all classes of the community-we allude to the Christ-denying Harriet Martineau.

On a former occasion we felt compelled to call the attention of the public to the shameless effrontery, and total disregard of even an appearance of truth, which characterised her "Demerara," which in twelve short chapters contained twelve-times-twelve falsehoods! But this is called by her admirers "a fearless courage, a patient industry in collecting information"-"strong, but not intense sensibility." We, on the contrary, pronounce it to be what the late John Philpott Curran defined, Hibernicè, as a "doldrum," a confusion of the head, arising from corruption at the heart. We regret that we are compelled to speak thus strongly of a woman; but Miss Martineau has shown, on all occasions, such a thorough contempt for the commonly-felt delicacies of sex and station-such a total disregard of even common decency in her attacks upon the divinity of Christ, and the members of the Established Church; that we look only to the necessity of crushing the evil, as we

would to the destruction of a mad dog, without reference to his former value, ere afflicted with hydrophobia.

Had this woman, in her disgusting writings, confined her prurient fancy to political economy alone; had she not, in the spirit of a demon, spit forth her venom on all that is held sacred by the believers in the doctrine of salvation through the sacrifice of the Son of God; we should have left her to perish by her own scorpion sting. The contempt of those wholesome restraints which, in respectable society, place a preventive check upon the discussion of certain subjects by females, would have precluded us from obtruding a refutation of her abominable trash upon our readers ;-but Harriet Martineau, under the guise of politics, has entered upon polemics, and whilst openly attacking the constitution of the State, strives, by an insidious coup de main, to carry the citadel of the Church!

The creed, or rather no-creed! of the sect to which this writer belongs, is called Unitarian; a title assumed for the purpose of throwing upon Christians the stigma of worshipping a plurality of Gods, but which, in reality, combines a degradation of God the Father, a negation of God the Son, and a contempt of God the Holy Ghost. We should not, however, quarrel with Miss Martineau for her infidelity, any more than we should condemn the more respectable Mohammedan for advocating the Koran, provided her opinions were maintained by open and fair means. But we must deprecate and expose the charlatanry which for bread would give us a stone, for fish, a serpent, and convert even the sacramental cup into a poisoned chalice.

We feel assured that long before the readers of the CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER have arrived at the end of this article, they will have ceased to wonder at the strong feelings we display in entering upon the question, especially when we conscientiously express our belief, that Miss Martineau is merely the talented (for such she certainly is) scapegoat of a party, whose aim is to exasperate the suffering poor, and lead them not only to envy, but to hate those whom Providence has placed in a more prosperous situation than themselves.

In the "Illustrations of Political Economy" our authoress was accustomed, at the conclusion of each part, to favour her readers with a "Summary of principles illustrated" therein; but in the "Park and Paddock," this is omitted. Perhaps she was conscious there was no principle in the case !!

It has, of course, a primary reference to taxation; and the house and window, as well as the assessed taxes generally, are shown to be injurious to the happiness and prosperity of the middling and lower classes. But if any one supposes that Miss Martineau cares one single grain of mustard-seed about any body but herself, or that she would not sacrifice truth, or any thing else, for filthy lucre, we recommend

them to study the idiosyncrasy of any Unitarian they may have the misfortune to know, and then re-peruse these illustrations.

We are not, however, left to mere conjecture; seven out of the eight chapters of which the book consists, are charged, like the Infernal Machine, with combustible matter for the destruction of the Established Church, and the race of " fine old English gentlemen."

"If," observes a contemporary, "the instances were fairly chosen, or if they were described to be exceptions, selected merely to show that such things do exist, that where they exist they are productive of infinite mischief, and that they ought not to be suffered to exist, there could be no objection." But even, as exceptions, we contend that there is no shadow of proof that such disgraceful outrages on decency and propriety ever polluted, in a single instance, the sanctuary of our Church. But to the tale.

The mansion in "the Park," the property of the lord of the manor, had been deserted by his father for many years before his death, and remained uninhabited till the period at which our history opens. On the accession of the heir, he resolves to take possession, and reside on the spot, and for that purpose proceeds to A-, accompanied by his two brothers and a sister. He is described as an indolent, careless, do-nothing being, principally interested in his own ease and comfort; rather fond of reading. His second brother is in orders, the rector of a family living at some distance, on which he purposes erecting a new and commodious parsonage; the third is a gay, thoughtless youth, addicted, "like the clergyman," to field sports. The sister is a passable young lady enough, with a spice of romance to give piquancy to the outline. The listlessness and studious habits of the heir render it incumbent on the by-no-means-unwilling younger brothers, to manage the estate, which, in Miss Martineau's amiable delineation consists, in warring against unoffending poachers, and innocent robbers of hen-roosts; and an attempt to gain the affections of a horse-dealer's daughter, at "the Paddock," by the Clergyman! The Church, of course, receives no quarter; and to that portion of the work we intend to apply the scourge, leaving the by-play of anonymous letters and false insinuations, to the kindred minds of the author's friends.

The minister of the gospel, who is here intended as a sample of the Clergy of the Established Church, which it is the object of this "lying oracle" to degrade, is pictured as absolutely destitute of principle, entering the sanctuary in the hope of sharing the plunder of the altar, alike deficient in moral and intellectual faculties,- —an embodied idea of evil. In the way to a funeral he encounters two girls from "the Paddock," engaged in the honest employment of collecting poached game, under pretence of buying fowls. The girls are by Miss Martineau pictured in most amiable colours, and notwithstanding their

exercise of the gentle craft, considered quite fit to match with the rector; who is represented as winning the affections of one sister, and destroying her happiness, for the very gratifying purpose of marrying her to his game-keeper's son, who, however, being killed in an affray with poachers, the lady-poacher is transferred to the game-keeper himself.

Such is the denouement of this preposterous, but artfully wrought and mischievous tale. We have some reluctance to pollute our pages with an extract, but fear lest it might be suggested, that our animadversions were not borne out by fact, and that we had been actuated by the "odium theologicum" in reviewing the writings of a Unitarian, and not by that singleness of purpose which we hope has always characterised our pages.

The marriage ceremony, with which the volume concludes, will fully answer our purpose; and we venture to say the loathing and disgust with which we have perused the envenomed slanders will be shared by every man entitled to the character of humanity.

James put as little sanctity into the service as could be desired by the strongest foe to hypocrisy, or lamented by his astonished curate. Why Morse should be so proud as he was of being married by any body who could marry him in such a manner as this, was more than a stranger could comprehend. In the midst the cry of hounds was heard. The Clergyman stopped a minute, and went on uneasily. Another cry followed, and he halted again. Morse made bold to step forward and whisper:

"If there had been no other Clergyman here, I don't know that I should have offered such a thing as to put our affair off till to-morrow; but perhaps that gentleman-I think it is a pity, Sir, you should lose the hunt, Sir, on our account; that's all. But you are the best judge, Sir."

In another minute, James had leaped upon his horse at the church-door, and his curate had taken his place at the altar, so discomposed, as to find it difficult to proceed as if nothing had happened. When all was done, Sarah was still pale with the sense of insult, while her husband was congratulating himself on his own good breeding in not standing in the way of his young master's pleasure.-Pp. 139, 140.

In a previous page, Miss Martineau speaks of the "countless multitude, who will rise up in judgment against Mother Church for having made an elaborate provision for, not only desecrating the gospel, but generating infidelity towards both God and man ;" and strives to excite, what she terms, the "impatience of the long betrayed people,"-to "unroof the sanctuary!!"

Have we not amply redeemed our pledge, of convicting the writer of this tale, of gross, deliberate, and unprovoked slander? The heart that could conceive such atrocities must be black as the ink in which they are recorded.

But some one may say, this is an isolated offence, the lady may have been misled; her very connexion with the Unitarians must have been adverse to her acquiring a correct knowledge of the state of the Church;

and the bias of education may have been increased by prejudice. We wish it were so, for the sake of woman: but the cloven foot of malice prepense is visible whenever the Church can be even remotely or indirectly assailed.

One might have supposed, that, in the "Tale of the Tyne," which principally relates to the hardships of impressment, the Established Church would have been spared. But no; Miss Martineau would not have performed the dirty work of her task-masters satisfactorily unless an assassin's blow had been aimed at the Clergy; and, consequently, to effect this, a poor surgeon is thrown from his horse at the door of a reforming patient, with whom the Curate is at the moment conversing. Here was a golden opportunity for a hit at "Mother Church," as the venerable Establishment is designated, with the writer's usual good taste and delicate propriety of feeling; and accordingly the following brochure greets us. Speaking of the Rector, the Surgeon observes :—

"When he was a lad at school,—and none of the brightest, Sir,—how little any body thought what a great man he would be in the Church! It was his father being ruined that destined him to the Church: nobody would have thought of it else."

"Indeed!" observes the patient, "I should have supposed the long and expensive education necessary to a learned profession would have been the last a ruined man would have thought of for his son."

"If he had to pay the expense himself, certainly, Sir. But so much is provided already for a church education, that, if a gentleman has interest, it is one of the cheapest ways that he can dispose of his sons. But for this, they would * never have thought of making Master Miles a Clergyman, to judge by what I used to see of him as a boy. He did not then look much like a youth thinking of giving himself up to holy things."

"Nor many another school-boy, who has yet turned out a very good Clergyman," observed the Curate, gravely. "I have often thought that much harm is done by expecting ministers of the gospel to be different from others when they are men; but I never before heard that they must be a separate race as boys."

"Nor I, Sir: I only mean that one would not expect a stupid boy, with a bad temper, to choose the Church, if left to himself; and its being all settled just when his father fell into difficulties, makes one doubt the more whether it was pure choice."

"Certainly," observed the surgeon, "there are helps to a clerical education which we, in other learned professions, would be very glad of;-a great many pensions, and exhibitions, and bursaries, and such things, which we poor surgeons never hear of."-Pp. 32, 33.

Much more of the same common-place verbiage occurs; but enough has been extracted to show the "malus animus," and the jaundiced eye with which every thing is regarded, that relates to the religion of that Christ, whom Miss M. and her compeers, though they profess and call themselves after his name, in effect deny. Can the hostility engendered in the minds of these unbelievers be attributed to the fact, that in the Church as established by law, they recognize the great barrier which checks the advance of the Unitarian heresy? Can they be actuated by