198 MONT1IL1 REVIEW OF LITER ATI/UK." 



sin of the world, but had also become the prevailing sin of the Christian 

 church the malady that attacks the vitals of that church, and develops* 

 itself in various ways, selfishness of the sect, of creed, of pulpit, of purse &c. 

 In the second part, 'which in many instances is treated with great metaphysi- 

 cal acuteness the author enters into a minute investigation of the principal 

 forms assumed by selfishness, its disguises, its tests, and its excuses ; and in 

 the third part he contrasts with it in a very admirable manner Christian 

 liberality, which he explains and enforces as the closing moral of the essay. 

 We extract a portion of the section entitled ' the Present Predominance 

 of Covetousness in Britain,'' as most nearly connected with the moral interests 

 of Englishmen. The rebuke is far from being severe. 



" This is a subject in which the Christians of Britain have more than an 

 ordinary interest. For, though no part of the world is exempt from the in- 

 fluence of covetousness, a commercial nation, like Britain, is more liable to 

 its debasements than any other. Were it not indigenous to the human 

 heart, here it would surely have been born ; for here are assembled all the 

 fermenting elements favourable to its spontaneous generation, or, were it to 

 be driven from every other land, here it would find sanctuary in a thousand 

 places open to receive it. Not only does it exist among us; it is honoured, 

 worshipped, deified. Alas ! it has without a figure its priests, its appropriate 

 temples, earthly ' hells/ its ceremonial, its ever-burning fires, fed with pre- 

 cious things which ought to be offered as incense to God ; and, for its sa- 

 crrifices, immortal souls. 



" Every nation has its idol : in some countries that idol is pleasure ; in 

 others glory, in others liberty ; but the name of our idol is mammon. The 

 shrines of the others, indeed, are not neglected, but it must be conceded that 

 money is the mightiest of all our idol-gods. And not only does this fact dis- 

 tinguish us from most other nations, it distinguishes our present from our 

 former selves it is the brand-mark of the present age. For, if it be true 

 that each successive age has its representative, that beholds itself reflected 

 in some leading school, and impresses its image on the philosophy of the day, 

 where shall we look for the image of the existing age, but in our systems of 

 political economy ? Men who would formerly have devoted their lives to 

 metaphysical and moral research, are now given up to a more material study, 

 to the theory of rents, and the philosophy of the mart. Morality itself is 

 allowed to employ no standard but that of utility, to enforce her requirements 

 by no plea but expediency, a consideration of profit and loss. And even the 

 science of metaphysics is wavering, if it has not actually pronounced, in 

 favour of a materialism which would subject the great mysteries of humanity 

 to mathematical admeasurement and chemical analysis. Mammon is march- 

 ing through the land in triumph, and it is to be feared that a large majority 

 of all classes have devoted and degraded themselves to the office of his train- 

 bearers. Statements like these may startle the reader who now reflects on the 

 subject for the first time. But let him be assured that, as the first impression 

 which the foreigner receives on entering England is that of the evidence of 

 wealth, so the first thing which strikes an enquirer into our social system is 

 the absorbing respect in which wealth is held. The root of all our laws is to 

 be found in the sentiment of property, and this sentiment, right in itself, has 

 by excess infected with an all-pervading taint our politics, our systems of 

 education, the distribution of honours, the popular notions nay, it has pene- 

 trated our language, and even intruded into the sacred enclosures of religion, 

 This is a truth obvious, not merely to the foreigner to whom it is a compa- 

 rative novelty, the taint is acknowledged and deplored even by those who 

 have become acclimated and inured to it. Not merely does the divine protest 

 against it, the man of the world joins him ; for it is felt to be a common cause. 

 The legislator complains that governments are getting to be little better than 

 political establishments to furnish facilities for the accumulation of wealth. 

 The philanthropist complains that generous motives are lost sight of in the 



