A SAD WARNING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 181, 15 September 1876, Page 14

A SAD WARNING.

Within the present year the decease was announced of Lord Amberley, the eldest son of Earl Russell, and the early death of this nobleman, following rapidly the lost of his young wife, caused great regret in many circles. Lord Amberley was a nobleman of considerable talents and great promise, and although ill-health had prevented him from making a figure in politics, he had won his spurs as a man of letters. Cultured, studious, and amiable, he was loved by a large number of friends, and his death was sincerely mourned. It was known during the lifetime of this young nobleman that his religious views were heterodox, but their exact character was not generally ascertained. However, Lord Amberley's friends, whether wisely or not our readers will judge, have removed all doubt on this point. The unfortunate young nobleman l«ft behind him a work entitled "An Analysis of Religious Belief." This book has now been published, with a glowing preface by one of Lord Amberley's friends, and the editor informs us that the work has a peculiar solemnity from the fact that the author had been engaged in revising it till death interrupted him at his task. What, then, was the Testament of Belief bequeathed to the world at a moment so solemn by this gifted young nobleman ? We say with horror and disgust it was a confession of blank, hopeless, and dreary infidelity — of utter unbelief. The tone of the book is simply disgusting. We have here no philosophic scepticism, no refined doubt. The tone is not the tone of Mill or Huxley — it is that of Tom Paine. We will not soil our pages with any extracts from this work. Suffice it to say that the sublime history of the Life of our Lord is criticised with a coarse virulence never equalled. We will, we repeat, make no quotations from this most unhappy volume, replete as it is with the most lamentable blasphemies. But we allude to the matter for an obvious reason. Lord Amberley's story is a too common one in England. He was educated at Harrow and Oxford, he died at 34, and he left behind him this dreadful confession of unbelief. He was a gifted and amiable man, and his admiring biographer bears testimony to the natural religiousness of his mind when he bids his readers remember that Lord Amberley " had not shrunk from pain and anguish to himself as one by one he parted with portions of that faith- which, in boyhood and early youth, had been the mainspring of his life." We have in the few words the story of a noble spirit driven on and wrecked among the shoals of Unbelief. And what were the forces that caused the fatal shipwreck? The all-pervading spirit of Material Infidelity, to-day rampant in the schools and colleges, the public and private life of England. If we are to prevent our youth following in the footsteps of the unhappy son of Earl Russell, the battle must be fought in the school and the College, and Ireland must stand firm to the glorious cause of Religious Education. — ' Weekly Freeman.'