The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-21 00:00:00

INFIDEL LITERATURE.

The Pall Mall Gazette of Tuesday published
some rather severe comments on Archdeacon
Sinclair, who has recently delivered a charge
on the state of religion among the working
classes, and on the fearful increase of infidelity
during the last half century. The Pall Mall
Gazette objects, first., to the archdeacon's facts ;
and, secondly, to his method of applying a re-
medy to the evil. We will not stop at present
to consider the objection raised against the
remedy, beyond remarking that the Pall Mall
Gazette openly avows that it is impossible for
men to be intelligible on such a subject as
theology as now understood, or to make use of
" homely and masculine" language, unless they
hold homely and masculine doctrines. But
this cannot be, urges the Pall Mall Gazette,
until the fundamental problems of theology
have been solved, until its foundations have
been as securely laid as the foundation of
astronomy. "In so far as the want of religion
amongst the poor," it continues, " can be con-
nected in any way at all with the shortcomings
of the clergy of the Church of England, it is
due not to any fault on the part of the men,
but to the difficulties of their position, diffi-
culties which can never be overcome except
by a descent into fanaticism or an elevation to
a new sphere, of which at present we can catch
only occasional and doubtful glimpses." What
that new sphere may be of which the Pall
Mall Gazette itself " can only catch occasional
and doubtul glimpses," we cannot even under-
take to guess ; it is, however, self-evident that
is not Christianity with its homely and mas-
culine doctrines and its supernatural faith. But
this negation of the supernatural character of
religion among the intellectual classes, though
unaccompanied, as the Pall Mall Gazette justly
remarks, by " the coarseness and levity of anti-
Christian writers of the eighteenth century,"
reacts unfavourably on the working classes.
We are surprised to find the Pall Mall Gazette
in doubt as to the existence, not only of prac-
tical heathenism, but of a widely circulated
infidel literature in the great cities of England.
It seems not to be in the least aware of the
extent and character of the writings which,
as Archdeacon Sinclair declares, are " issued
daily, monthly, and yearly from the press by
millions." The Pall Mall Gazette wishes, at
least, that " the archdeacon would mention
names." " There used some years ago," it
adds, "to be a small Secularist paper called
the Reasoner, but it has been given up for
several years, and its circulation was exceed-
ingly small." Has the Pall Mall Gazette, how-
ever, never heard of the National Reformer,
which, in spite of the objections of respectable
newsvendors to keep it on their counters, and
of the absolute refusal of many booksellers to
supply it, enjoys, nevertheless, a large circula-
tion? We wish we had space to quote at length
some passages from the Rev. Dr. Vaughan's
thoughtful pamphlet on " Popular Education
in England," for we might then adduce evi-
dence in abundance, both as to the character
and wide circulation of cheap publications, not
only, as the Pall Mall Gazette imagines, inde-
cent, and pandering to a vulgar taste for hor-
rors, but aimed directly against Christian faith.
We will, however, " mention the names"—
as the Pall Mall Gazette doubts the existence
of this kind of popular literature—of some of
these atheistical and secularist tracts. One is
entitled " A Plea for Atheism." It says :
" God is an abstract word coined to designate
the hidden force of nature, or rather, it is a
mathematical point, having neither length,
breadth, nor thickness." Another tract, "Is
there a God?" has sold at the rate of a thousand
a month. Other tracts are : "Has Man a Soul?"
which has already gone through nine editions.
"Who was. Jesus Christ ?" " Jesus, Shelley,
and Malthus." " The Bible; what it is: being
a Freethinker's Commentary." " God, Man,
and the Bible ; three nights' discussion with
the Rev. Dr. Baylee." " Christianity and Secu-
larism contrasted ; two nights' debate with
W. Hutchings, Esq., at Wigan." " Why do
Men starve ?" The " Baylee debate" has had
an extraordinarily large circulation ; and Mr.
Holyoake has sold nearly 50,000 of the "Logic
of Death "—a horrible work. " The sale of
such literature among the masses," says Dr.
Vaughan, "is rapidly increasing ; and the
mischief it works, like a poison in the soul, is
not to be estimated. We learn, not only from
abundant public evidence, but also from a
reliable private source—from a person who,
unfortunately for himself, has had for years
the best means of forming an accurate judg-
ment—that 'Atheism proper is certainly and
most decidedly rapidly increasing. I judge
this,' he says, ' especially from the applause
of the largest audiences, and my general cor-
respondence with English atheists,' &c. These
samples may suffice to give an idea of the food
which is being served out with untiring zeal
to tens and hundreds of thousands all over the
country."
If, as the Pall Mall Gazette observes, Mr.
Bradlaugh had, on account of his atheistical
views meeting with so little favour, to leave
the committee of the Reform Association, he,
nevertheless, finds such favour with the work-
ing men as to attract crowded audiences at
the secular halls. These lecture halls abound
in London and the more populous cities of
the country. lii face of advertisements such
as the following few will agree with the Pall
Mall Gazette that, however bad cheap lectures
and publications may be, " they do not touch
upon religious subjects at all" :—" The Secu-
lar View of the Future," " The Lies of Reli-
gion," " The Prophet of Nazareth : an In-
quiry into the Character of Jesus Christ,"
" The Religion of Action," " Crimes of the
Bible God," " Secular Education for the
People," " Secularism and the Soul," " The
Festival of the Dead, or what we owe our
Ancestors."

" The greatest extension of secularist views,"
says the writer to whom we have already
alluded, " appears to be in Lancashire and
Yorkshire, where large numbers may be found
in every town ; next, probably, in London ;
then in Newcastle and its neighbourhood ;
then in Glasgow; next in Northampton, where
the great popularity of extreme free-thinking
views is of recent date. To listen to such
lectures, audiences of 700 persons will meet in
the London halls, which are small. In North-
ampton the theatre, when hired for the pur-
pose, holds about 600. The attendances at
Huddersfield average 1,000; at Bradford, 600;
at Leeds rather less ; at Halifax, 800 ; at New-

castle, 800. At Liverpool, Birkenhead, Bir-
mingham, and other places the largest halls
obtainable for the purpose are filled."
Of course it is very unfair, as the Pall Mall
Gazette observes, to make a dead set against
the working classes, and to leave unnoticed
the state of religion among the rich. It is
abundantly evident that the State Church,
with all its appliances, its riches, power, and
influence, with its educated clergy, who, as the
Bishop of Oxford curiously remarked—backed
by the voice of the nation maintaining the
establishment—may, as they otherwise could
not, boldly proclaim the Gospel in the face of
their betters, has utterly failed in attracting
the working classes ; but is it less evident that
Protestantism has failed to uphold Christian
faith in the intellectual classes ?
The Times, indeed, commenting on Arch-
deacon Sinclair's account of the irreligion of
the working classes and their absence from the
public services of religion, suggests that the
difference between them and the middle and
upper classes is more apparent than real ;
" for," says the Times, " attendance at church
is in a great degree a mere matter of social
custom. It is as much a fashion among certain
classes to go to church as to wear a particular
cwfliehetii-oonfgs
tcaalyost
ahtwehsae,
yamnhedanvmeo afj nu
tysht of fams the working men
classes who go." In other words,idmdulec h
andmreligious
who
go to church in obedience to social custom only
have just as little religious feeling as those
who stay away. Social custom is a great
' power in England, and its influence still tends
to keep up an appearance of respect for religion.
It is stronger in the country than in* town, and

this explains why so many men who never go
to church in London never fail to put in an
appearance at church in the country. But,
after all, strong as social custom is, it is but
a slender thread on which the religion of the
country has to depend. Old customs are
giving way before our eyes ; habits social, poli-
tical, and religious are changing with a rapidity
which the last generation never dreamt of. If
the Church of England, which has enjoyed
almost every earthly advantage for the last
two hundred years, is powerless to teach Chris-
tianity to the working classes, and depends
only on social custom for the attendance of
the men of the middle and upper classes at
its public worship, then surely are its days
numbered. Not only is its disestablishment
near at hand, but the failure of Protestantism
as a system of religion for the educated as well
as for the poor, will on that day, when social
custom yields to newer impulses and wider
sympathies, be manifest to the nation.—West-
minster Gazette.