we have nothing to expect but opposition. It remains to be seen what working-men themselves will do.

I am convinced that were the labouring-classes in this country fully awakened to the importance of this question, they would not hesitate to devote a small portion of their scanty earnings to form a general fund for the promotion of this good work. A few communities, once established in this manner, would soon be enabled to render efficient assistance to their less fortunate brethren, and thus succeed in effecting in a peaceful manner that which the barricades of Paris failed to do for the French, namely, the realization of true Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ALEXANDER BELL.

OF WHAT USE IS ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL?-OF WHAT USE IT MIGHT BE.

WHEN you talk of Reforms, slow-going people are always ready with the interjection-Talk of something which is practicable! But why should we talk of nothing but what is now practicable? Do practicable Reforms, when suggested, meet with such ready acceptance? Who does not see that National Secular Education, Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledgeand of Sinecures and Pensions for doing nothing,-Extensive Sanitary regulations, and fifty other Reforms talked of daily—are all practicable? Yet they, each and all, meet with the most bigoted, self-interested, and determined opposition. A reform is not always best worth talking about because it is immediately practicable. To plead for a reform not likely to come about for a century or two, may be a laudable occupation of time, inasmuch as it may involve the exposure of scandalous inconsistencies, and contribute to elevate and purify the national mind, by teaching it to yearn after a better state of things.

There is a huge pile in London, which, doubtless, often raises in the minds of even the busiest money-getting citizens-a vague wonder as to why it stands there. Near at hand, it dwarfs all other objects of vision; seen from afar, it is the bulkiest and most striking form the eye can perceive amidst the maze of buildings that constitute London. Yet, ever and anon, the inward qustion arises of what use is it ?—and if the questioner is not too lazy or too prejudiced to think, he cannot fail to reflect of what use it might be:-to speak it out-is held to be useless, for that would be to talk about what is 'impracticable!'-nay more, the speaking out might be of such a character as to cause some people to open their eyes wider and cry 'shocking!' At the risk of provoking such signs and sounds of censure, I am inclined to have my say, however, on this matter. And first, to substantiate the fact of the present uselessness of the gigantic pile alluded to, let me quote a recent article of the Times-an authority which even the most slow-going people can scarcely object to.

The 'leading journal' of April 19, chose to comment on the speeches at a late Mansion-house banquet, and singled out for particular criticism the speech of the clergyman-poet, Milman, in his new character as an ecclesiastical dignitary. Thus it proceeds :--

"There was one functionary present who went a little out of his role, when, perhaps, he had most need to keep to it. The new Dean of St. Paul's had full employment for his cloquence and tact in answering for the clergy, on whom, of all people in the world, it is notoriously the most difficult to reckon. Not content with the refractory clients whom the toast had confided to his patronage, he brought in the material fabric over which he has been recently appointed. He felt as little anxiety,' he said, for the church as he did in similar

circumstances in the physical world (that is, in a thunder-storm) for that most magnificent of Protestant Cathedrals which arose in the midst of the great metropolis, and over which he had lately had the honour of being called to preside. If we are to trust the uniform testimony of architects, never were there better grounds for the confidence here displayed. St. Paul's is a fabric of wondrous construction and strength. Unless the hand of man accelerate the progress of decay, the New Zealand traveller who is to sit on the fragments of the new London-bridge to survey the ruins of our metropolis will see high above the rest, and aspiring to the clouds, a vast sugar loaf of brick resting on eight stupendous piers, and surmounted with the remains of a turret. A little to the west of this remarkable pile he will see two open campaniles of singular design, which will probably by that time be rendered still more picturesque by curtains of ivy, and hanging wood of alder and ash. In fact it would take many thousand years of natural causation to reduce St. Paul's to the level of vulgar decay. So far Dean Milman has the best possible reasons for the confidence he expresses in the stability of his cathedral.

"But the sentiment suggests a painful reflection. What is the use of this enormous stability? When an ordinary citizen of London, or a schoolboy from St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', or King's College, passes under the shadow of that stupendous dome under the circumstances poetically described by the Dean, as the thunder rolls round it, and the electric clouds seem to threaten it, and when the big drops begin to fall in rapid succession, it is very small comfort to him to be relieved of all anxiety for the permanence of the structure. Cui boni?* He sees before him a mountain of Portland stone, as little likely to fall, perhaps, as Blackheath or Highgate-hill, but also as impenetrable. Even if he can afford to pay twopence for admission, it will only purchase for him the range of a dozen or two monuments under the dome. So, at least, we believe, for we will confess to not entering the Cathedral except when the door is thrown open for service, and when the visitor is jealously confined to one narrow path from the door to the entrance of the choir. But there are very few moments in the day, and those certainly not in the hours of service, Sunday or week-day, when a soul is seen in that magnificent nave, sacred to the Dean and half-a-dozen red faced vergers. Rowland Hill said that the only place in London where a regiment of soldiers could practise at ball-cartridge with perfect safety to the public at all times and seasons was the nave of St. Paul's. The place is still as well adapted for this exercise as the marshes at Woolwich. The area under the dome and the nave are used once a-year for the anniversary of the charity schools, but at all other times that vast space is absolutely useless. We could compromise almost for any degree of use. It would be something even if we were permitted to pace up and down the nave for half an hour a-day, or were permitted to enter at the west end. But nothing is allowed. The whole area is 'tabooed,' except just the aforesaid path betw en two rows of church hurdles from the north and south doors to the choir.

"Under such an abuse the Cathedral is nothing more or less than a pompous sham. It might almost as well be a monntain carved into the outward semblance of a temple, like the rock temples of Arabia and the Nile. Grant that you can occasionally cross the threshold and see a piece of architectural perspective; so long as you have not the free range of it, you might just as weil see it from the turnabout in the Diorama, or through a lens at the Cosmorama-rooms, or any other respectable peep show. How is one to be sure it is real? Perhaps the nave of St. Paul's, after all, is a spectacle of the same class as the Swiss mountains at the Colosseum, the arbitrary routes marked out for the spectators being strikingly similar at the two exhibitions. The actual service of the Cathedral might be performed much more comfortably, effectively, and with more room for the congregation, in a parish church of moderate size. The dome, nave, and aisles, therefore, are wholly unnecessary to that purpose. Then what is their use, if the public is wholly excluded from them?

"The Cathedral is grand enough outside, but its uses would be far better expressed if it were called the National Mausoleum or the Pantheon than a Cathedral. The words under the organ, Si quæris monumentum, circumspice† express the character of the edifice only too truly. Call it a tomb,--the tomb, for example, of the English Church, or the Naval and Military Mausoleum,-and all curiosity will be extinguished. It will never be a whited sepulchre, thanks to our eternal canopy of smoke; nor will its interior be very unclean, but we shall accommodate ourselves to the idea of a tomb at once, and be content for the future to treat it with a cold respect. But the Dean mocks our curiosity and interest when he talks of the place as a Cathedral, and puts it on a par with York and Canterbury. 'The most magnificent of Protestant Cathedrals!' What is that to the public if they cannot enter it? It might as well be the Pyramid of Cheops covering six acres, and rising to the clouds, and containing, or rather no longer containing, the mouldering remains of a man. If the Dean wishes the public to enter with real enthusiasm into his wishes for the stability of the pile, he must let some Belzoni force an entrance into it. This is an age of adventure What is it good for?

If thou seekest his tomb-look around thee! Alluding to Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of the building.

We are excavating the site of Nineveh, trying to cut the Isthmus of Panama, to discover a north-west passage, and to remove every other obstruction that presumes to interfere with the freedom of our movements. We recommend St. Paul's to the Geographical Society, or Sir John Ross, or Sir F. Fellowes. But, perhaps, Lord Ellenborough will take pity on the public, and carry off the great west door as a new trophy of his prowess. At all events, if we are to boast of our Cathedral, let it not be a sham one."

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This is all excellent, so far as the wit goes, and the exposure of the sent uselessness of the building. But if the critic in the Times were asked what reforms he would propose to effect in order that our Cathedral' might no longer be a sham one'-would he be likely to answer in such a way as to lead us to conclude that if his reforms were carried out, we should no longer have the old question to ask? What if the great west door were opened, what if the man or woman with 'tup-pence' on their lips disappeared from the entrance, and we were all free to walk in, and even to walk up and down the nave and under the magnificent dome, gratis, and at all seasonable hours? Cui bono? The question must return. Except the grand blank building, and the statues of Howard, Dr. Johnson, Sir William Jones, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, under the dome-what is there worth looking at, for any man of taste or reflection? Of statues of great murderers-generals and admirals, majors and captains, there is a crowd. What is there to hear? Now and then, the grand peal of the organ, and the voices of Lockey and a few others, charming enough as to the melody; but as to the part they, or the drowsy clergymen, are taking in the worship, you are convinced by their demeanour (so characteristic of all cathedral performers) that their worship-like the Cathedral-is a sham.

'Call it the tomb of the English Church-or the Naval and Military Mausoleum'-the Times may well propose that reform of speech, as the matter now stands; but the Times says nothing of the great reforms that ought to take place, if 'some Belzoni' could 'force an entrance into' this giant tomb -or Lord Ellenborough were to carry off the great west door,' as he carried away the gates of the temple of Sumnauth from the Afghans.

St. Paul's Cathedral cost the nation 150 years ago, the enormous sum of £1,200,000.

It is national property. An enlightened government would provide for its being used to enlighten and elevate the people. Christianity-not the Christianity either of Dr. Pusey or the Evangelicals-teaches that men should be enlightened and elevated. Christianity, as I for one understand it, hails Science, and Art, and Literature, as its great co-workers for rendering mankind wiser and better. And its established teachers have made a partial and blundering admission to that effect, by their acceptance of such a pile as St. Paul's to teach' in, professedly; and by the admission of statuary, and the scanty performance of music, withia its walls. But an enlightened government would correct the blunder. It would sweep out the monuments of great murderers, and fill not only the transepts and the space around the pillars of the dome, but the sides of that now desolate nave, with such productions of Art as could not be beheld without the purest and best emotions. 'We have no national sculpture gallery,' is the perpetual cry of artists and lovers of art. —'We cannot afford to build one,' say statesmen. What need? Why not render St. Paul's the most magnificent sculpture-gallery in the world? If the things you now permit to hold it in idleness, and whom you now pay for being idle there,-pretend alarm, and talk about 'desecration,'-ask them if they are not ashamed of such talk, when they look at the butcher-monuments

:

they have already admitted there. Again if you thirst after the grand harmonies of Handel, the delicious melodies of Haydn, or Mozart's richest combinations of all that is soul-stirring and humanizing in Music,-where must you seek gratification in London ? At Exeter Hall, only; for the lover of the old masters finds no food at the Opera-houses, and mere concert-rooms are too dwarfish for the performance of the loftiest music, with the masses of voice and instruments necessary to embody it worthily. And what is Exeter Hall? A huge warehouse-like room. The new hall at the Euston Square Railway Station is regal-compared with such a tasteless interior of a building. 'We have no Music Hall worth the name,' say musicians and lovers of music ' and we despair of raising the vast sum that would be necessary to raise one." But why raise one, while St. Paul's is already the most appropriate national hall for the performance of sacred music? And who ought to object to its being used for that, among its other right purposes? They do perform the music of Handel and Haydn there, now all that is wanted is more of it. Remuneration to the performers, you might secure by very small entrance monies for the immense numbers it would hold. To admit the People gratuitously—or, rather, at the national expense, one dare not dream of (even while thus dreaming) in England. We are not in glorious Athens, in the days of Pericles. And Lecture halls, what poor pitiful rooms we have in London! Twenty towns, at least, in the provinces, have lecture rooms that will hold thrice the numbers that any of our accessible lecture rooms will hold in London-for your Exeter Hall is only for the religious, or the well-able-to-pay. If a Government deserved its name and delighted in the intelligence of the People, instead of dreading it-the eloquence and philosophy of Fox, the wit, the good sense, and liberality of Dawson, the brilliant declamation of Vincent, would attract its fostering care; and it would take measures for throwing open the grandest lecture-room in the metropolis to these ornaments of their age, and inviting the People to crowd around them for instruction. That room is St. Paul's cathedral. But its funereal silence must not be broken, as yet, by soul-moving and heart-bettering descants on the godlike philanthropy of Howard-the genius and patriotism of Milton-the wisdom and goodness of Newton. The old, dull, mechanical lip-service must go on, as yet; and no real instruction be given there. The time will come when Christ's own Christianity will be understood and felt, and every theme that can raise the mind and improve the heart will be conjoined with his own pure lessons— and within the walls of that noble masterpiece of Wren such themes will receive eloquent treatment while enraptured crowds listen. Some of us feel that we are toiling for that day-though we shall not live to see it. With the spread of science and intelligence around us, we cannot doubt-though others think we dream. THOMAS COOPER.

Lectures, in London, for the ensuing Week. SUNDAY, May 5, at half-past 7, Literary Institution, John Street, Fitzroy Square. "Life and Genius of Rousseau"-Thomas Cooper. At half-past 7, Hall of Science, (near Finsbury Square,) City Road. " Life, Patriotism, and Writings of Algernon Sydney"-S. M. Kydd.

MONDAY, May 6, at half-past 8, Mechanics' Institute, Gould Square, Crutched Friars. Elocutionary Entertainment, by the members of the Elocution Class. At halfpast 8, Pentonville Athenæum, 23, Henry Street. "Objects and Tendencies of Physical Science"-J. S. Hibberd. At half-past 8, Finsbury Hall, Bunhill Row. "Life and Character of Napoleon."-Ambrose M. Hurst. At 8, Soho Mnatul Instruction Society, 2, Little Dean-street. "Character and Poetry of Robert Nicol."-Walter Cooper.

WEDNES., May 8, at 8, Hackney Literary and Scientific Institution. "Poetry-Past and Present."-Rev. 7. A. Baynes, M.A., of Nottingham,

THINKINGS, FROM JOHN LOCKE.

NOVELTY AND TRUTH.-The imputation of novelty is a terrible charge against those who judge of men's heads, as they do of their perukes, by the fashion; and can allow none to be right, but the received doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason, but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination that must give it price, and not any antique fashion: and though it be not yet current by the public stamp, yet it may for all that, be as old as nature, and is certainly not the less genuine.

LOVE OF TRUTH.-He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it: for he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it, nor be much concerned when he misses it. There is nobody in the commonwealth of learning, who does not profess himself a lover of truth and there is not a rational creature that would not take it amiss to be

thought otherwise of. And yet for all this one may truly say, that there are very few lovers of truth for truth's sake, even amongst those who persuade themselves that they are so. How a man may know whether he is so in earnest, is worth enquiry and I think there is one unerring mark of it, viz., the not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance, than the proofs it is built upon will

warrant.

MISUSE OF LANGUAGE.-Language being the great conduit whereby men convey their discoveries, reasonings, and knowledge, from one to another, he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the fountains of knowledge, which are in things themselves, yet he does, as much as in him lies, break or stop the pipes whereby it is distributed to the public use and advantage of mankind. He that uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he but lead himself and others into errors? And he that designedly does it, ought to be looked upon as an enemy to truth and knowledge.

DIFFERENCE OF MENTAL TESTS.-The mind has a different relish, as well as the palate; and you will as fruitlessly endeavour to delight all men with riches or glory (which yet some men place their happiness in) as you would to satisfy all men's hunger with cheese or lobsters; which though very agreeable and delicious fare to some, are to others extremely nauseous and offensive; and many people would, with reason, prefer the griping of an hungry belly, to those dishes which are a feast to others. Hence it was, I think, that the philosophers of old did in vain inquire, whether summum bonum consisted in riches or bodily delights, or virtue or contemplation? And they might have as reasonably disputed whether the best relish was to be found in apples, plums, or nuts; and have divided themselves into sects upon it.

ETERNITY OF SOMETHING.-There is no truth more evident, than that something must be from eternity. I never yet heard of any one so unreasonable, or that could suppose so manifest a contradiction, as a time wherein there was perfectly nothing. This being of all absurdities the greatest, to imagine that pure nothing, the perfect negation and absence of all beings, should ever produce real existence.

REASON AND REVELATION.-If anything shall be thought revelation, which is contrary to the plain principles of reason, and the evident knowledge the mind has of its own clear and distinct ideas, there reason must be hearkened to, as a matter within its province. Since a man can never have so certain a knowledge, that a proposition, which contradicts the clear principles and evidence of his own knowledge, was divinely revealed, or that he understands the words rightly wherein it is delivered, as he has that the contrary is true; and so is bound to consider and judge of it as a matter of reason, and not swallow it, without examination, as a matter of form.

HOPE.-Hope is that pleasure in the mind which every one finds in himself, upon the thought of a profitable future enjoyment of a thing which is apt to delight him.