:
towards their true good in this life, the portal of infinite good in a
life to come? To guide men in such way, and ourselves in such way, as
the Maker of men, whose eye is upon us, will sanction at the Great
Day?--Or alas, perhaps at bottom _is_ there no Great Day, no sure
outlook of any life to come; but only this poor life, and what of
taxes, felicities, Nell-Gwyns and entertainments we can manage to
muster here? In that case, the end of Government will be, To suppress
all noise and disturbance, whether of Puritan preaching, Cameronian
psalm-singing, thieves'-riot, murder, arson, or what noise soever,
and--be careful that supplies do not fail! A very notable conclusion,
if we will think of it, and not without an abundance of fruits for us.
Oliver Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn gallows, as the type of
Puritanism found futile, inexecutable, execrable,--yes, that
gallows-tree has been a fingerpost into very strange country indeed.
Let earnest Puritanism die; let decent Formalism, whatsoever cant it
be or grow to, live! We have had a pleasant journey in that direction;
and are--arriving at our inn?

To support the Four Pleas of the Crown, and keep Taxes coming in: in
very sad seriousness, has not this been, ever since, even in the best
times, almost the one admitted end and aim of Government? Religion,
Christian Church, Moral Duty; the fact that man had a soul at all;
that in man's life there was any eternal truth or justice at all,--has
been as good as left quietly out of sight. Church indeed,--alas, the
endless talk and struggle we have had of High-Church, Low-Church,
Church-Extension, Church-in-Danger: we invite the Christian reader to
think whether it has not been a too miserable screech-owl phantasm of
talk and struggle, as for a 'Church,'--which one had rather not define
at present!

But now in these godless two centuries, looking at England and her
efforts and doings, if we ask, What of England's doings the Law of
Nature had accepted, Nature's King had actually furthered and
pronounced to have truth in them,--where is our answer? Neither the
'Church' of Hurd and Warburton, nor the Anti-Church of Hume and
Paine; not in any shape the Spiritualism of England: all this is
already seen, or beginning to be seen, for what it is; a thing that
Nature does _not_ own. On the one side is dreary Cant, with a
_reminiscence_ of things noble and divine; on the other is but acrid
Candour, with a _prophecy_ of things brutal