ion,--a religion that
wilfully shuts its eyes, and will not look upon life as it is; and,
immediately he goes into the world, away vanish all the pasteboard
defences with which you childishly sought to guard him; and yet you will
not confess that in inculcating religious creeds,--that in teaching
children catechisms,--that in vaguely telling them to be good,--that in
leading them to believe in forms rather than truths, you are only damming
up for a while the passionate impulses of young blood, that they may
ultimately exert a more tumultuous and irresistible sway. You take the
little Arab of the streets, and, for acts of levity and wantonness which
all boys commit, you send him to prison, at an age when you confess he is
not a responsible creature, and then idiotically wonder that he turns out
a criminal, and that he wars with society till he is hanged. You are
surprised that woman, fond of praise, of dress, and pleasure, should
prefer to walk the street in silk and satin, to have a short life and a
merry one, rather than slave and drudge, and end her days after all in a
workhouse. You tone down your fashionably educated daughters into
automatons, and then wonder that hot youth finds domestic life tame and
dull. Above all, do not go away with the idea that we have reached the
utmost height of civilization,--that we are a model people,--that it is
our mission to set up as teachers of religion to all mankind. Let us
remember that the increase of crime and dissipation are facts; that there
can be no corrupter city than London, and that it must be so, so long as
we make professions our practice so scandalously denies. I have heard
Her Majesty's proclamation against vice and immorality read at
quarter-sessions by men in whose reading it became a farce which the most
ignorant bumpkin in court could relish. Now we are going to do wonders,
the policeman is to supplement the parson, the wicked are to be hunted
down. Is this the way seriously to set about moral reform? Routine and
officialism in church and state have made the outside of the sepulchre
white enough; do we not need a little cleansing within? How long will
men look for grapes from thorns?

SEEING A MAN HANGED.

I am not about to give an opinion as to the propriety or impropriety of
capital punishments. On this point good men have differed, and will
differ, I dare say, for some time to come. What I wish to impress upon
the philanthropic or Christi