society. But as both the Institution and the Association combined do not I think, exercise any educational influence over more than about 500, the sad fact remains, that nearly 1500 deaf and dumb persons are, at this moment, unprovided with suitable religious instruction. If time had been allowed, I would have entered somewhat into detail as to the work of those two societies-but the time being so limited, I will pass on to one or two circumstances which I trust will operate upon the deaf and dumb at a distance. I may just say, in passing, I fully admit the absolute need there is, that the deaf and dumb should have proper ministerial services adapted to their peculiar case. I am, however, strongly convinced that the deaf and dumb might do far more for themselves than they do. They ought to be encouraged to collect together their afflicted fellows, and to assist in doing Churchwork. By these means, the work which in the end may be done, no human intellect can conceive. If rightly guided, I am satisfied that they might do a great deal more Church-work than is generally done by them. To illustrate my meaning. In Leeds, some thirty years ago, a few deaf and dumb young men collected together for mutual improvement, and a deaf and dumb man, living in another town, ascertaining this, came a distance of sixteen miles weekly, in order to assist them in forming a society, and to conduct its infant operations. The consequence was this, his labours became effective. The spirit of self-help spread from one deaf and dumb man to another, and their united efforts greatly aided in the formation of an Association, which, after passing through a multitude of trying vicissitudes, has at length, in conjunction with the Leeds Institute for the Blind, culminated in the noble edifice gradually developing itself in that town for the blind and the deaf and dumb, and which will probably be opened in about eight months. It will supply a workshop for perhaps forty blind people, and afford ample accommodation for the religious services of the deaf and dumb, and I daresay for the blind also. Towards its erection, I believe, £10,000 have already been contributed, but by the time it is completed, very likely it will have cost £15,000. From this you will see, putting aside for the moment the reverend gentleman, the venerable founder, and who was in this room this afternoon, what has been done by the efforts, in great measure, of the deaf and dumb themselves. With regard to that poor creature of whose self-denying exertions I spoke of just now, in going a distance of sixteen miles, Sunday by Sunday, to do his best to instruct the few assembled deaf-mutes, I have a painful story to tell. Acting as the servant of the Association, I took him seven miles in a cab to a place where he would receive every comfort and care possible. His condition was most deplorable— for to his other deprivations were superadded the loss of sight and reason. Hence, he was deaf, dumb, blind, and insane. Can we picture to ourselves a more deplorable instance of human affliction? He had helped the Association in its early stage-and now it helps him. So that what he did for the society in its infancy, it repays him again-for it now comes to take charge of him in his helpless imbecility. He nursed it in its feebleness, it nursed him in his second childhood. He fostered it when he had the power, it tenderly took charge of him when he had not the power to take care of himself. What an instructive lesson to the deaf and dumb! Encourage them to work for themselves. Encourage them to help each other for good; and that is one kind of Church work that I should like to see them more engaged in, and much more done by them, and for their own sake chiefly.

R

WEDNESDAY EVENING, 6th OCTOBER.

The RIGHT REVEREND the PRESIDENT took the Chair
at Seven o'clock.

THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS OF UNBELIEF, AND HOW TO MEET THEM.

PAPERS.

The REV. V. H. STANTON, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College,

Cambridge.

THE subject for our discussion this evening embraces two great divisions. There is the unbelief, and still more the uncertainty and perplexity, which in the most recent years have become not uncommon among even ordinary members of the upper and middle classes, the result, chiefly, of the influence of some popular men of science and some of our leading reviews. And then, again, there is of older standing the unbelief which is to be found among our working-classes. In dealing with the former-the unbelief and doubt among the upper and middle classes—we have no difficulty in correctly apprehending the objections and perplexities to be met. They are such as are felt by persons with similar education, and similar social and political connections to our own; nay, they are very probably such as have at some time or other weighed on our own spirits. The question of dealing with them popularly resolves itself into the question, in what measure and in what form the really scientific arguments on the Christian side can best be put, so as to be suited to people of ordinary education and intelligence. The battle between faith and scepticism will, indeed, have to be fought out to its final issue by scholars and philosophers. But, meanwhile, since unbelievers now-a-days bring forward their views on every platform, and in every journal, it becomes our duty to do what we can to help the doubting, and to protect the defenceless among our people; and in doing so, we have to present evidences with a practical regard to what ordinary people are capable of comprehending and testing, and what ought chiefly to weigh with them in the determination of their belief.

On the other hand, unbelief among the working-classes is intimately bound up with their special circumstances and history; and it requires some effort on the part of those born and bred in another class really to understand it. Most of the difficulties felt by doubters and unbelievers of both classes, are, indeed, the same in kind, and the answers to be given also the same; but yet the proportion and relative importance of parts are different. And, as I believe it would be impossible to treat both at all effectively in the brief space of one paper, I am compelled to make a choice, and, for some special reasons, I shall take unbelief among the working-classes for my topic. Considered simply with regard to the danger of the spread of unbelief, the other division of the subject is quite as, if not more, important; for I think the fears entertained by Mr Greg

and some others, with regard to the working-classes, are entirely unfounded and do them great injustice. But, on the other hand, the subject of unbelief among them has an interest and importance of its own, from being connected with the general question of the influence of the Church upon working-men. We shall all, I think, sadly admit that in laying any hold of the thoughts and the affections of the intelligent artisans, is where we have failed most utterly. It is consequently one of the subjects which most demands our attention. Now, unbelief is at least so far common among workmen, that any one who specially addresses himself to the task of influencing them, must be prepared to meet it. And further, what is perhaps still more important, unbelief studied in the special form in which it is found among them, as in part an outcome of their peculiar circumstances, cannot fail to throw light upon their general condition as a class. My endeavour then in this paper will be, seizing upon what appear to me to be the most general and important features, briefly to describe working-class scepticism, and to throw out some hints as to the manner in which we should deal with it. Let us first turn our attention to the nost positive side of their opinions; for it is a grave mistake to imagine that working-class atheism consists in mere negation. Indeed, I question whether any opinions which have ever been earnestly maintained by men, have been altogether unconnected with some positive creed, which has been really their inspiration. And however completely we may reply to the merely destructive arguments of opponents, until we have got at and dealt with the really positive ground of their opposition to us, we have done little to any good purpose. We have left the root untouched from which fresh shoots will continually be sprouting. The positive creed of working-class atheists is expressed in the word "Secularism." The programme which is put forward by their leaders, is the secularist programme. The societies formed in our large towns, of men holding these opinions, are called secularist societies. Secularism affirms that the only good worth seeking after is confined to this visible world and this life-such as we obtain by the right use of natural laws apprehended and studied through our senses, and it aims at securing the good, thus understood, of society. It is akin both to Utilitarianism and to Positivism; but it differs from the former as having the practical aim more prominent, and as being less merely an ethical theory; while it is at once more free from vagaries, and narrower and less noble than the latter. But, further, the workingman secularist does not merely regard theology and religion as barren things. He has got ingrained in him the notion that Christianity is an actual hindrance to all true progress, -a weight upon liberty, a degrading cramping superstition, imposed upon the minds of men by priests,(by which he understands, mind, Low-Churchmen and dissenting ministers quite as much as High-Churchmen or Romans). Herein consists one of the most striking and sad differences between sceptics among working-men and those of other classes. In the upper classes the sceptic is generally eager to acknowledge the moral beauty of Christianity; he shows that he is still drawn to it by tender memories; he is disposed still to claim the name of Christian on the ground of adherence to its ethical precepts. And as for his opinion of the clergy, he may think us stupid and timid, but he knows us too well, through ties of friendship and kindred, to impute to us malign power or intentions. But the working-man, and

and

here I speak of vast numbers of working-men who are not atheists, looks upon the clergy with all the prejudice of an alien class of whom he knows very little. What is still worse, he has seen or felt very little, if any, influence of Christianity itself in refining and elevating himself or the class to which he belongs. Nay, religion has often seemed to him, not (I think) altogether unreasonably, in the person of the clergy and of the staunchest defenders of the Church, to side with the opponents of the common good, as in the case of the great Corn Law agitation, which entered so deeply into the hearts of the people. And again, because the views of the clergy, and of his district-visitors, and of his allies the squire or large employer, about the proper way of doing good to the labouringclasses, run generally in the groove of what J. S. Mill calls the "patriarchal theory," Christianity, or at least its chief representative, the Church, has seemed naturally antagonistic to the workman's just aspirations after knowledge and independence.

And so the more fierce-spirited among them rejects the God, who seems to him the God of his foes in society. Nay, the very notion that there should be a God, who would, he thinks, be responsible for the misery there is in the world-misery of which he himself has such intimate knowledgehe brands as immoral. On the other hand, to win for himself and for his class, against an adverse society, and may be even an adverse nature, a few more of the things of this life, seems to him the one great end. Suffering and seeing his neighbours suffer as he does, from all the fluctua-* tions of trade, from the effects of wars, and of rash speculations, and of the greed of those already rich; requiring, as he does, constant effort to keep himself and his family above the pinch of actual want; shall we not acknowledge that his temptations to hold such views as I have described are great?

It is this positive aim, strengthened by the hatred of whatever seems to them to oppose it, which stimulates the crusade of the atheists against the prevailing beliefs. They attack natural theology, and sometimes show some skill in seizing upon ambiguities and imperfections in the best known expositions of it; as, for instance, Mr G. J. Holyoake* does; a man for whom, on account of his efforts in promoting Co-operative Societies and his honesty and ability, one cannot but feel sincere respect. But they find a still more powerful obstacle in the deep-rooted reverence of the English people for the Bible. And consequently their more active propagandists make the Bible their chief object of attack, assailing it not only with every argument, but with every jest, and every means of moving the emotions and passions, at their command. You can only get the work done," says Mr Bradlaugh (he means the political and social work) "when we have knocked the Bible leaves off the eyes of the people." +

Now, though, as I have said, these objections are not the primary causes of their atheism, yet they undoubtedly need to be answered; and I will try to throw out briefly, by the way, a few hints about doing so. First, in taking up natural theology we must be careful not to press its arguments for more than they are worth; we must regard them only as raising in our minds a strong probability that there is a righteous Creator and Governor of the world and a future life, and as predisposing us to accept revelation, but not as, in themselves, giving complete satisfaction. Especially, before * Especially in The Last Trial of Theism."

↑ See "Secularism, Scepticism, and Atheism,” p. 32.

we engage in controversy on the basis of natural theology, we must have made up our minds how we will deal with the theory of Dualism, with the problem of evil and the hypothesis that the power of God is limited.

6

But, next, as to the wider and more important controversy about revealed religion. The objections which I have found urged by atheist lecturers may be classed as follows. I will mention, first, That they fasten upon the immoral actions recorded of Abraham, Jacob, David, and others whom the Bible holds up as heroes and saints, exclaiming, These are the men whom the Bible honours.' But it is not difficult for us, on the other hand, to show that in these narratives we have exhibitions of God's truth and grace gaining the victory over individual sin, and gradually, but surely, raising human character and building up the Church. We can show also that of the men themselves they form a most unjust estimate. Carlyle's eloquent answer with respect to David covers other cases also:

"David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough; blackest crimes;— there was no want of sins. And thereupon the unbelievers sneer and ask, Is this your man according to God's own heart? The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward details of a life; if the inner secret of it be forgotten? David's life and history, as written for us in those psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often 'baffled, sore baffled, down as into an entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose begun

anew."

Secondly, They try to draw out self-contradictions in the doctrines and narratives of the Bible. Now, many of their alleged contradictions are extremely foolish and quibbling and unreasonable. But they have some justification, and at least they have a footing for such objections, in the view of the Bible which we have suffered to be far too common. Instead of the substance, the broad meaning, of passages being taken, and different parts being regarded as completing one another, the Bible has been treated as if every verse of every chapter could by itself be made oracular, as if every phrase, in itself alone, contained complete, absolutely expressed truth. So much has this verbal view prevailed, that the atheist lecturers even seem to find the ambiguities of various readings and the imperfections of the authorised English version, telling difficulties to raise about the Bible in popular audiences. All such objections vanish, when we hold sound principles of interpretation of Scripture; and in opposition to them we may draw attention to the marks of genuineness and simple truthfulness in the writers.

Thirdly, There are the objections based on contradictions between the Bible and science. This is in some respects a more serious class than the last, for that had merely to do with principles of interpretation. Yet let us frankly admit that the Bible was not intended to reveal science; and let us consistently proceed to acknowledge-many people who say that it was not intended to reveal science are not consistent with their principles -let us then, I say, proceed consistently to acknowledge that if it was not intended to reveal science, the writers unavoidably employed the language and ideas about the physical world of the time when they wrote; and then