HIS RELIGION. 



" In which frankness on these sub- 

 jects would either risk the loss of means 

 of subsistence, or would amount to ex- 

 clusion from some sphere of usefulness 

 peculiarly suitable to the capacities of 

 the individual " (p. 45). 



It was after finally breaking with 

 the Church, perhaps in consequence 

 of disappointment of a benefice, 

 and of the restraint on his godless 

 opinions, that he gave vent to all 

 his spitefulness against religion of 

 every kind, natural as well as re- 

 vealed ; although all his intellectual 

 training was received, as a gift, under 

 its auspices, with the view of mak- 

 ing him a servant at its altar ; and 

 but for which training he might have 

 passed through life an atheistical 

 master-baker, a heartless West India 

 slave-driver, or something of that 

 kind. It sounds odd to hear it said 

 that he was once " among the pro- 

 phets." Like a certain personage, 

 he " went out from them because he 

 was not of them." It would have 

 been interesting had his son publish- 

 ed, among his writings, the written 

 trial discourses which he preached 

 before the Presbytery when it 

 licensed him, and solemnly set him 

 apart, to defend that Christianity 

 which he spent his life in attempt- 

 ing to destroy, and perhaps swore 

 his son to do it after him. Here 

 was verily a " wolf in sheep's cloth- 

 ing." As it was, the Church nar- 

 rowly escaped receiving into its fold, 

 not by climbing over the wall, but 

 boldly entering it by the door, like 

 a shepherd, one who was in reality 

 " a thief and a robber." * And yet 

 he is described by his son as 



" Being not only a man whom noth- 

 ing would have induced to write against 



* The following remarks, made by Dr. 

 Thomas Guthrie in his Autobiography, 

 on the subject of ministers being ap- 

 pointed by patrons, are interesting as 

 bearing on the case of James Mill : 



"This system, so far as students were 

 concerned, had but one redeeming fea- 

 ture. Through it, boorish cubs were 

 licked into shape, and vulgarly-bred lads 

 acquired the manners of gentlemen ; for 



his convictions [excepting in the case of 

 India], but one who invariably threw 

 into everything he wrote as much of his 

 convictions as he thought the circum- 

 stances would in any way permit " (p. 

 4) ; and than whom " no one prized 

 conscientiousness and rectitude of inten- 

 tion more highly, or was more incapa- 

 ble of valuing- any person in whom he 

 did not feel assurance of it " (p. 50). 



Shortly after his arrival in Lon- 

 don, he began to write his " History 

 of India," a work which has been 

 described as " an elaborate inculpa- 

 tion of the entire policy pursued by 

 the East India Company. He be- 

 lieved that the ruling motives of the 

 body, from almost the first hour of 

 its existence, were commercial cu- 

 pidity, and a desire of territorial 

 aggrandizement" {Athcnaum). "A 

 constant attempt to underrate the 

 services and conceal the great 

 achievements of the East India 

 Company " (Bfackwood}. Offen- 

 sive as John Stuart Mill described 

 this work to be, as calculated, in 

 short, to raise up against him noth- 



most of those who had the ministry 

 in view could obtain the favour of a 

 patron in no other way than by becoming 

 tutors in gentlemen's and noblemen's 

 families. Few had the political influence 

 which made it unnecessary for me to seek 

 access to the Church in that way. The 

 consequence was, that almost all divinity 

 students were eager to get tutorships. In 

 this capacity entering the houses of 

 landed gentlemen, associating there with 

 people of cultivated habits, and becom- 

 ing in a sense members of the family 

 they, however humble their origin, ac- 

 quired those courteous and genteel man- 

 ners which were more the characteristic 

 of the ministers of my early days than 

 they are of their successors " (p. 56). 



Did Mill become, " for a few years," a 

 " private tutor in various families in 

 Scotland, among others that of the Mar- 

 quis of Tweeddale," for the purpose of 

 getting a church through their influence, 

 as Dr. Guthrie says that " most of those 

 who had the ministry in view" did ? And 

 then the question would arise, when did 

 he "satisfy himself that he could not be- 

 lieve the doctrines of that or any other 

 Church"? View the subject in anyway 

 we may, little regard can be had for his 

 judgment or character under the circum- 

 stances. 



