general; and while they cost but little either in expense or in labour of reading, will afford great assistance to the proper understanding of the Holy Scriptures. The Unitarian Fund, which has now been established more than twelve years, and holds its meetings annually in London, also deserves the support of our friends in all parts of the country; because we may consider it as the great spring which guides many of the motions of the body at large. Its object is the general interests of our societies. It assists congregations which lie under difficulties in conducting their worship; it provides for the more general spread of Unitarian principles in the United Kingdoms, by sending out Missionary preachers, to assist places which have a regular service, and to open worship in places where it has not before been opened. Many societies are now seen, some large and flourishing, which first heard the gospel preached by the Missionaries of the Unitarian Fund, and numerous also are those which are rising into notice through their planting and fostering care. We are also called upon from time to time, to afford assistance to rising societies of our professing brethren in carrying on their worship, or in building places in which their worship may be conducted. It is reasonable that brothers should help each other. In the Church of Christ, it is natural for those who hold the same creed, to consider themselves in the relation of brothers to each other; and if but a slender assistance be obtained from many, it will make their demands burdensome to none. It becomes me also to mention the imperious duty of Protestant Dissenters in general, and therefore of Unitarians, as forming a branch of Protestant Dissenters, to give a liberal support to the institutions to which we look for a supply of ministers, to fill hereafter the places of those who are now labouring in our churches. It is not possible that institutions of this kind can be supported without a regular and a considerable exertion on the part of our congregations: nor can they, on any pretence, hold themselves freed from the duty of supporting these institutions, while they profess to expect that their ministers shall be men of education, and shall be qualified to support a respectable appearance and character in the posts they are to fill. We see that gentlemen of fortune will not educate their children to the Christian ministry amongst us. They do not find a sufficient inducement to it, either in the dignity of the character or in the emoluments which the station affords; and they who are not men of fortune, cannot support the expenses of a liberal education. The case, therefore, is reduced to this simple alternative: either the Dissenters at large must defray the expenses of educating their young ministers, or they must be satisfied with allowing their pulpits to be filled by men of indifferent education. To provide for these exigencies, and for others that may arise, it is necessary that our congregations be applied to from time to time. But it often occurs that an appeal is made to us for cases in which a little help should be afforded, and yet for which it would not be right to apply to the congregation at large; nor should the burden of contribution lie on a few to the exclusion of all the rest. Allow me, then, to state to you a plan, which will be offered to your acceptance in order to obviate the necessity of direct application on all occasions that may occur, and still to secure a means of giving pecuniary aid in all cases that may be deemed proper. It is to establish what shall be called, The Unitarian Fund; to which, subscriptions, both monthly and quarterly, shall be received, even down to the smallest sum. If this be approved, and the subscriptions be regularly paid, it will enable us, through the medium of a committee, who shall be invested with power to distribute the money, to meet all cases that may occur, and they may enlarge or limit their liberality, according as the stock shall allow. I do feel disposed strongly to urge the adopting of this plan; because it will remove altogether the painful necessity of applying to you by collections at the door, and will enable even the poorest to afford some regular assistance in the support of the cause to which he is attached. It will, furthermore, enable this society to do a great deal of good, without the supply of the resources we shall obtain lying heavy upon any one; because, it may be hoped, that each one will give according to his ability: while those of our friends who are in easy circumstances will take a pleasure in giving liberally, they, upon whom the burdens of life impose the obligation of doing less than they would wish to do, will consult those obligations, and give accordingly. And they will not forget, that the widow's mite was seen to fall into the treasury of the temple with satisfaction, and with the promise of a reward from him who is appointed to judge the living and the dead. I must be allowed to add one thought more. What can give credit to your cause; what can raise its dignity in the scale of human estimation; what can call down a divine blessing upon all you do, and prove that you are indeed taught of God, so effectually as your own virtuous, upright, honest deportment in those relations of life in which you are allied to your fellow-citizens and fellow-men? But observe, I am not pleading for what in the world is often admired under the name of devotion and sanctity. External devotion and sanctity serve, upon some schemes, as an apology for tricking, for lying, for sensuality and for infamy. And you have known, as well as myself, noisy professors, who have actually thought lightly of palpable vice in those who are believed to be the elect of God. Away with such flimsy pretexts from our ranks! Our principles warrant no such measures. Our creed refuses to hear any apology whatever for a breach of the laws of integrity and of virtue. Let him carry before him the dark lanthorn of hypocrisy who is afraid that the sun should shine on his actions. Be yours the safer course of spreading forth the scenes of your lives before the midday sun. Since there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, let no part of your conduct need a concealment. Do that which is right between man and man: check the violence of passion: put a restraint upon self-love: mind every man not only his own things, but every man also the things of others. Let it not be said that, while you are professing to serve God you do injury to man. For he serves and honours God the best, who respects and instructs and benefits most the creatures who bear his image upon earth. Finally, if in these ways which have been pointed out, and in others which will suggest themselves to your own minds, you endeavour to teach the way of truth to those who lie in error, can you doubt that your labours will be acceptable to him who came into the world for this purpose, “that he might bear witness to the truth;" who so often directed, "he that hath ears to hear let him hear;" and who gave it in charge to his apostle, "strengthen thy brethren"? If it be his command, feed the hungry, clothe the naked; would he not have you feed the hungry mind, clothe the naked understanding, and furnish food and the means of animation and vigour to the intellectual principle, which is given to adorn human society here, and to enjoy the high gratifications of the heavenly banquet in eternity? Small indeed is the value of corruptible food, compared with that which endureth unto everlasting life; and great will be the solace, and rich the reward of those who are the instruments of making their fellows true worshipers of the one living God, and enlightened heirs of everlasting glory. I am happy to add, that these thoughts, with others it may be better to suppress, delivered to a congregation of my friends, have been instrumental to the forming of a society on the plan proposed, whose subscriptions are even more liberal than I had hoped for; which will enable us not only to embrace the four objects I have referred to, but also to give a steady help upon any other proper demand being made on us. The same plan has been pursued in several places in the West of England, and I hope it will be generally adopted. A FRIEND TO THE SPREAD Facts and Observations with regard to the satisfaction with which I have read the reflections of your most elegant and accomplished Correspondent T. N. T. (pp. 471, 532, 660,] on the principle of Malthus. I hope this principle is false in FACT, as it is the most horrible that the human imagination can rest upon. To aid the reflexions of your Correspondents, I have drawn up the following facts and observations. They look both ways, for in every important question the pro and con must occur. Malthus's Book has become the text-book of government, and is circulated with an incredible industry. Surely that is worthy of examination, which makes human life a lingering curse. 1. The earth is so far from being yet cultivated, that it may be safely affirmed that one half of it has not yet been touched, and that the other half is very imperfectly cultivated. 2. That of life and death we can give very little account; so much mystery hangs over them, that they can, very generally, only be resolved into a Divine dispensation. markable, that if the multiplication supposed by Mr. Malthus of the human species be true, that so little progress should be yet made in tillage. 7. Notwithstanding all these facts, it does appear, that some strong permanent cause exists for the constant production and continuance of general poverty, which appears to have been always the state of human existence, and to so great a degree as to make it evident, that human life, in an immense plurality of instances, is an enormous evil, instead of being a blessing in this world; and there is certainly no one principle to which this general poverty is so clearly ascribable, as the principle of population. 8. It is certainly a most weighty consideration, in estimating the intention of Providence, if it be discovered that one of the strongest passions of human nature is given chiefl to torment mankind, or to involve them in 3. That the great mortality expe- the extremes of want and wretchedrienced in all countries, amongst in-ness; for, according to this principle, fants and very young persons, may be traced, in a great plurality of instances, to diseases of specific contagion, of the origin of which no account whatever can be given. The hooping-cough, the measles, the small-pox, the scarlet fever, are discases of this description; and it seems necessary that we should be able to prove that to a great extent, and to what extent, death is mediately or immediately produced by want, in order to ascertain what population is excessive. 4. Many countries have declined in population, notwithstanding the force of the principle; and if late marriages were in any country to become universal, and death continue its ravages, în nearly an equal ratio to its present, can any one say, that population would not sink below the power of producing food? 5. Wars and other accidental means of destroying mankind, have existed to an equal extent, in countries very thinly peopled, in countries which have afterwards supported many times the thin population, and it is therefore probable, that wars will continue in every stage of population in all countries. 6. I think from the history of all countries we learn, that early marriages were more common formerly than they are now, and it is truly re nothing but celibcy can protect against wretchedness: all care, industry, sobriety and every other human virtue, are as dust in the balance, and weigh nothing against evils at which humanity shudders. 9. If there be a question, therefore, that presses upon the attention of the moralist, before all others, and in comparison with which all others are as nothing, it is this. And surely your correspondents will give it their most anxious consideration. 10. Mr. Sumner, in his Records of the Creation, after admitting this principle in its full extent, as illustrated by Mr. Malthus, calculates that it only demands an abstinence from marriage until the age of twenty-five, to relieve from its pressure; but this is evidently gratuitous, for he has no data ou which to ground his calculation, and it, therefore, falls to the ground. 11. The history of Mr. Malthus's Essay is curious. It was published to shew, that Mr. Godwin's System of Equality, in his Political Justice, was impracticable; and as it was admitted that Mr. Godwin had shewn, that all the other passions of our nature, which confer happiness, or stimulate to exertion, might be gratified in a state of equality, Mr. Malthus shewed, that the affections which unite the sexes could not, without issuing in universal famine; and stated, that vice and misery, and nothing but vice and misery could check population, and keep it within the level of subsistence. This is the substance of the first edition of his work, in which moral restraint had no place at all. Nor could it indeed have any, for Mr. Godwin had proposed moral restraint, to obviate the objection to population. This, therefore, Mr. Malthus wholly rejected. Now, since Mr. Maltlrus has taken up moral restraint, (which, no doubt, is one species of misery,) and urges that as the only effectual check to population, his book is no longer an answer to Mr. Godwin. For if moral restraint is necessary, under every system, the system of equality is not impeached; unless it could be proved, that complete moral and intellectual cultivation tends to inflame the passion which unites the sexes. As Mr. Malthus says, that early marriages ought never to be contracted, is it not probable that they might be easier prevented in a system of universal cultivation and equality, than under the present debasing systems? But we have nothing to do with Mr. Malthus or any other individual; the principle, the principle only is a serious object. 12. It is seldom that one can obtain the history of all the branches of even one family for many generations; but the industry and care of one individual, Mr. Hutton, of Birmingham, (see his invaluable Life,) have furnished us with such a document. He has traced his family through six generations. It was, in many of its branches, a poor and religious family, and appears to have been neither prevented from contracting marriage, nor peculiarly the seat of vice and misery. These six generations occupy a period of two hundred and twenty-eight years. Into this family, most of whom were married who came to maturity, there had been incorporated eighteen men and women by marriage. And with out reckoning any multiplication of these eighteen persons, which would have immensely increased the number, this family according to Mr. Malthus's ratio, would have been one thousand and twenty-four. Now look at the fact. In two hundred and twenty-eight years, there remained of this family twenty-eight souls when the account was taken, and of these, twenty-two were children or minors: from these deduct the eighteen persons brought into this family by marriage, and the real increase is from one pair to eight individuals, of whom only six were men and women! 13. Agriculture is a very ancient science. We know, from very au thentic sources, (see the evidence collected with great care in his Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, by Dr. Wallace,) that Egypt, for example, in the earliest ages of the Roman Republic, was minutely divided, exquisitely cultivated, and teemed with a population much more uumerous than ever has existed since, either in that or perhaps in any other country; and it is certainly very difficult to account for the fact, that marriage should neither be discouraged, nor infanticide allowed, and yet that the population and the tillage should both waste away, and never yet be replaced. 14. To say that human beings tend to increase, is only to say that women produce more than two children each; and to say that this increase is only checked by moral restraint, vice and misery, is certainly most true, if mortality, in general, be included under the head of misery. But this proposition, thus understood, is a mere vulgar truism, which admits of no debate, and another proposition might be thus formed with equal certainty and triumph. It might be equally affirmed, that men would live for ever in this world, if vice and misery were excluded, 15. Hume had conjectured that the human kind might double in twenty years, Wallace supposed thirty years; Malthus founds his ratio upon what he states as a fact from Dr. Franklin, in the back settlements of America. This fact is very questionable. Franklin gives us no information how he had ascertained it, and it is delivered amongst other of his amusing speculations about vegetation, &c. How this was ascertained should have been stated with great precision. Every one knows that few parts of America, in Franklin's time, contained a stationary population. Men were continually moving backwards, and add ing to the numbers of those already settled. Every thing was in incessant motion, so that, upon a scale of any extent, to ascertain such a fuct seems impossible. It could have been no more than merely a rough estimate, unworthy of being the basis of any system. Franklin was full of fancy and a great speculator. The father of Franklin had seventeen children, thirteen of whom were married; how many of the descendants of the elder Franklin are now living? I suspect not any great number; few are named in Dr. Franklin's will. 16. It may be fairly questioned, whether a small population, in any given country, can exclude the occurrence of famine. According to Humboldt, famine frequently and very fatally occurs in South America, where millions of fertile acres invite the industry of the inhabitants, but remain untouched, and where the population bears no proportion to the means of subsistence, if we measure that by the productive power of the land. We will suppose, at this moment, a population in England of only one million, and that only a quarter of the soil was in a state of cultivation, should the crops fail, famine would certainly ensue. Grain is a perishing commodity, and will never be raised greatly beyond the demand of each current year, for no man will dig the earth, in order to lay up the corn to waste: it will follow then, that famine will be as likely to occur where there is a small, as a large population, provided that in productive seasons the population can be fed. The result of this observation seems to be, that the land will never be tilled, except there be mouths to consume the produce, and that deaths, by famine, cannot be excluded, upon the occurrence of years of scarcity, by the smallest population; and that, therefore, a population cannot be attended with any inconvenience, from its multitude, until it exceed the supply from the soil, in years of an average good produce, the land being cultivated to its utmost limit. I wish this remark to be seriously weighed. 17. In the cities of Mexico there are between twenty and thirty thousand beggars on the streets, (who, like the Lazaroni, in Italy, live without employment,) a state which is four times as large as was all France when under Napoleon, and which contains not one seventh part of the population. This shews what governments may effect in the promotion of human misery, when the principle of population bears not upon it. New Spain has enjoyed a peace of three hundred years, and in some of its provinces, there are not three people for a square mile! HOMO. I Ignotus on the Ignoti and the Contro- My learned kinsman has now come forward, seemingly in self-defence, on a subject, if not of the highest, yet certainly of considerable importance. No Christian, in any degree worthy of the name, can find himself in domestic life, without desiring to perform, and not to misunderstand, his peculiar duties. He ought, I think, to be especially cautious, when invited to comply with a custom which claims to be a positive institution of revealed religion, and to hesitate till he can answer, at least to his own satisfaction, the serious questions, What mean you by this service? And, Who hath required this at your hands? Were these questions to be answered on the authority of human judgment, I know not whose to which I should more readily defer, than to that of your Correspondent who dates from Essex House. I cannot agree with my kinsman to regard, for a moment, his able opponent, as reduced to the necessity of handling a weapon like the telum imbelle of the unfortunate Priam, or of wielding it with the powerless effort of that royal senior. I rather contemplate the author of the "Plea," not thinking of himself more highly than he ought to think, but justified by his well-earned and often-felt polemic reputation as entitled, even if unsuccessful in the present contest, to say of his alleged reasons for complying with the custom of babe-sprinkling, |