Mr. Beecher's lecture at Exeter Hall on Monday, on "The
Reign of the Common People," seems to have had a good deal more in it of the democrat than of the Christian preacher. He did not, he said, approve the conduct of the Nihilists of Russia, but " he could not help feeling that if he were surrounded by their cir- cumstances, and goaded into rebellion by unjustly administered laws, he should certainly be a member of that community, for he was perfectly certain that the material he was made of was not suited to the composition of an abject slave." It may be a very fair apology for a Nihilist who does not profess much of Christianity, to say that he has been goaded into Nihilism by unjustly administered laws. But were not the laws of the Roman Empire unjustly administered in St. Paul's time, and yet did he dream of vaunting that because he could not be a slave he must take part in conspiracies striking at the very source of all order? We must say that we have not any very strong appreciation of the Christianity which sits so lightly on the political conscience as Mr. Beecher's appears to sit upon his. Christianity sowed a kind of Liberalism far deeper and more potent in its spiritual principle, than any which would temporise with Nihilism, ander a despotism even as cruel as the Czar's.
Previous page
