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November 6, 1852.] THE LEADER. 1065
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.SANITARY (1OVHKNMKNT. Ho vicious has be...
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A KCIUOW FOR WULlii IIKAI/1'H O1T1CKRS. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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A Olkimca.L Wjtnkss To Cuullcu Anak(!Hy\...
• ial sermon ; our names are then called over ; we vei ^ fore the communion rails , within which the TVshop sits ; he , from his chair , proceeds to read a long . v on church matters in general , his own views re-^ Tdin 0 " them , and the particular legal measures on ^ hurch ° matters which have been passed since the last % i tation , or which may be expected before the next . We receive his blessing , and disperse—until the hour of dinner . " .. . "
_ „ The dinner is pictured as a dull affair , which " poor curates" cannot , and " indifferent rectors " do not attend ; and whereat there is " small ecclesiastical talk at the episcopal end of the table , and some good stories from the secretary at his end . " The Bishop bows , and goes away for another three years . The Reverend Sidney Godolphin Osborne thus comments on the departure of his brethren : —
" The clergy get into their ' four-wheels , ' and go home . Rural Dean Rubricus tells Mrs . R ., ' The Charge was able , but evasive . He wants courage , my dear to speak all he feels about our need of Convocation . The sermon was a sad exposure ; a Dissenter might have preached it . ' The Kev . C . Lowvein , rector of G orhamville , tells Mrs . L ., with a sigh , < The Charge was able ; . his Lordship is very clever , but it was very
unsound . It is evident he leans towards Exeter . But , my dear , we cannot be too thankful ; Octavius Freeson preached the truth as boldly as if he was on the platform of a C . M . meeting : we have asked him to print it . ' Dr . Oldtime , the aged rector of Slowstir , tells his curate the next day , ' It was a slow , dull business ; the Bishop prosed , the preacher ranted , the Red Lion sherry has given me a headache . ' "
We need add nothing . But if this be true , what becomes of the awful pretensions of the Church of England ? What becomes of the arguments against Convocation ? and a proper setting of these things to rights ? Hapless the land whose children tolerate such spiritual pastors , and woe unto those who make them their guides unto salvation ! Here is another incidental sketch of a piece of Church service : —
" The next episcopal appearance among the clergy is at the confirmations . This is a hurried affair ; eleven o ' clock at Pumpford , three o ' clock at Market Minster , and so on for a week or two in each year ; travelling some twanty-five miles a-day , being so hurried that lie '" j "" - ™ tu aaimyress am i * iw ? 'ic \^ j ~ . i «» u . ui tof t , » r children at a time which he is ordered to say to each one : it is no wonder that his clergy see but little of him on these occasions . Some few may meet him at dinner , wherever he may stay to dine and sleep , but they find him fatigued , and he has to play the guest to ins
JUS host ' s fillllilv llr » smiil / 1 li . iwliir K ^ ^^ n ^^ xt- . ^ A 4- ^ A ^ host s family ; he could hardly be expected to do more . " Comment is superfluous . These arc sketches ?! " au , ordinary diocess , with an ordinary bishop . " There is something more behind : — "In an extraordinary diocess , with an ultra Anglotatholic ritualistic bishop , there would bo some alteration in th , j details . A communion at the church : a
wnnonon symbolical architecture or consubstantiation ; 'i dmrge full of invective against lutitndinarianism , i . e ., everything which is not Church first ; a deploring of '" £ i'niTacy of the day , and imploring the accession " 1 a tune when tho Church . should bo purged of un-J-nis tmg children , have ; her own convocation , and by ' '' aynodioal action repress . schism and advance her l'X' -e apostolic ,, ] Nysfcom , Ac . At the dinner the clergy would l , e dressed like Roman Catholic priests ; the Winters like orthodox . Protestant parsons . So far us '"' . V ical useful end lieing answered by the occasion , ¦ . '" ' iMvoiild bo littl ,, difference between the two visitations . "
¦ ¦ ' I hoth , we suppose , arc sanctioned by the II ll ( ' . J >« Hhop , ! t is admitted , is Loo worldly ; Iiiin ' V J " '' °° llllW 5 h of tho " spiritual peer" about M lY'J " ' " n ° t » it ea . se in hi . s presence ; ho man" p . 1 ! 101 " 0 «»<» l '«« l " were ho a less groat "in * ''slu" 8 Tor political servico have been „ , , \ V !) w < ' 1 > ril % acknowledged in tho appointh | , ' ol . I ) imI ' <> PH . " " The Bench , even of h ., to , has i » , . '" HO 1 U ( ' of I » t ; r members a deplorably I ' ( : < " * y . spirit . " "Nepotism haB at times hj H | , vn ' . y r ''<> - " And | , | , o remedy in—" -more ' l'li (> ^ | ' '' ** il Vcl'y different , worldly position . " pliK ¦ > » K Jr J ) ' ay " n >»'' i f 'S " out-of-the-way I ' ul " ' > " ' I '" -to of the Churches in
uluurie" is not this a dainty dish To Htit before u king . " biHj ' ^ M' » oruo him a remedy ? of course—more ° 1 »« , ua wo have waid—in fact , " gig-bi « hopw . "
Don't think he means Gigmanity in lawn and mitre . Nothing of the kind . He proposes the appointment of a set of sensible hard-working gentlemen , at a salary of fifteen hundred a-year , who shall travel round and round their little dominions like spiritual poor-law inspectors , to advise , admonish , preach for , pray with , and dine with curate and rector—all to be done " witliout fuss . " Really a very sensible scheme
—if it would work . But how it would " get rid of the scandals which attach to the Bench , " also of" plotting Church unions , " and " useless archdeacons , " we cannot see . How the scandalous divisions in the Church would be cemented is a puzzle . Mr . Osborne , indeed , states the evil to he remedied by the simple establishment of a staff of " gig-bishops , " more forcibly than we can ; for he speaks from , within , we from without the clerical camp : —
" At present few clergymen really know or are known to their Bishop , except as mere acquaintances , ¦ unl ess , indeed , they are active agitators . The laity aro left to the mercy of endless , ever-changing forms , ceremonies , and rules for divine service . They see large sections of the clergy meeting at clerical societies , some to conspire to exalt the forms of the Church far above her spiritual teaching , others to throw contempt on all form and decent order by their neglect of it . They hear brother rail at brother—they know not which way to turn ; there is no quiet , no peace . They hear of a bishop ' s riches , and the fallacies of episcopal accounts ; but they seldom ever hear of or see a bishop acting as a friend among his clergy , treating all in a spirit of love , trying to reconcile their differences , and improve their practice . "
Does not that paragraph contain a pretty closely packed array of reasons , not for more bishops , to be drawn from the ranks of these unfraternal persons , but for a free assembly of the Church ? Strangely enough , the writer thinks not . Like Mr . Micawber , he lives on the hope that " something will turn up "—a " coup d ' etat " at Westminster , or the like , with the laity as the Lewis Bonaparte saving the Church . No doubt , a " spirit of love" dictated these words : —
" I am satisfied , Sir , that within these next two months the Church will shake off many a rotten branch . Home ' s priests will pick them up , —I would they had had them sooner ; but far worse will follow , nnlouc -on « o luomis aretalcen to snow tlie laity that unprotestantizing bishops cannot be borne in a Protestant church . We are saved from a convocation which would have made our sores yet more public ; let us now hope that the good sense of tho country may look for measures which shall heal , nob aggravate those sores . "
Mr . Osborne would make an excellent surgeon . When he had patients , he would cure their Bores by covering them up ; drive round in a " gig" to see that the wrappages were all right ; and to prevent a further spread of the disorder , call in , say a railway engineer to prescribe . The sores will exist , even if Convocation be instantaneously prorogued next week by " J . B . Cantuar ; " and the laity aro about as likely to heal them , as likely to eject iiuprotestantizing bishops , as the railway engineer or other inappropriate ; person to prevent tho spread of leprosy . "L et who will proceed to the work , Church reform must be worked by lay aid , and the less the Hench
have to do with it the better ; all mistrust them . We aro not directly concerned about the consequences which How from his dictum ; but does not Mr . Osborne nee thai- ho calls in question the utility—nay . the alleged divine origin of the episcopal and clerical orders , when he lulls back for Church legislation upon the laity , who , in the Legislature , winch would liavo to enact- the remedy , count , up no insignificant number having no belief in the Church , nor in her monopoly as
1 , 1 k ; national curer of souls . Hi . s proposition isthat- the laity are wiser than tho clorgy ; if so , whence tho necessity for the ex istence of the latter ; and chief among them , of the Reverend Sidney ( Jodolphin Osborne P H is he who has proposed the query—it in the nation who will rcHpond . However that may be , ' wo trust wo have planed Jboforo our readers what , we promised at the out-B ( . | , —" clerical witness to Church anarchy . "
November 6, 1852.] The Leader. 1065
November 6 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1065
.Sanitary (1ovhknmknt. Ho Vicious Has Be...
. SANITARY ( 1 OVHKNMKNT . Ho vicious has been the old system of " purifying" our towns , that the path of the working reformer ' s cutting now drains is one of danger . This week wo have reports of two men killed by excavating too near an , old Hcwcr . Thua tho
means intended for preserving life become mortal , through neglect of a science positive enough in all conscience , and clear enough to the understanding . But while insidious poisqn is tolerated , medicine , which is too obvious , irritates the fastidious sense . "A Sufferer" recentl y complained to the Times that "Mr . Mechi is pumping a solution of dead animals , from
a horse to a pig , with animal and vegetable manure , and every kind of decayed vegetable and offal , " over his fields , and the writer seemed to imagine that the process is a direct diffusion of cholera . The Sufferer only represents the intelligence of the public at large , which tolerates condensation of decayed vegetable and animal matter in towns where it cannot
be reconverted into living organism ; and he is terrified at it in the fields , where it becomes more obvious , but is immediately converted from death-bearing poison to life-giving nutriment . " Dirt is only matter in the wrong place . " Under the microscope of science , the most revolting substance becomes an object of wonder and admiration , for the working of those vast laws to which it is subjected , in common with other substances which human wisdom calls " higher . "
The most revolting of substances , no longer placed where it impedes the operation of those laws , stored to poison the atmosphere of towns , or intruded upon the presence of life , but , conveyed to the place where it is w anted , totally changes its character , and falls in with the general circle of convertibilities , — the true poetical metamorphoses of nature , —and re-appears as grass or as vegetables , the food of beast and man . It is not in perceiving the natural odour of such substances that the mischief arises .
The mischief is not in the scent , but m the permanent proportion of gases not available for respiration ; and , where the conversion is rapid , as it is amongst the vegetation that requires nutriment , that poisoning of the air does not take place ; As Mr . Mechi replied in the Times , " A Sufferer does not reflect . Horses , pigs , and other animals toill die : what becomes of them now ?" Farmers make dung heaps , and spread them over the country , strewing abroad unpleasant substances , which less manifestly scent the air , but
which remain much longer to give forth then ? noxious gases . In fact , exa-ctly tlie same process as that to which , the Sufferer so strongly objects , is employed at present , only that the conversion is much less rapid and much less complete . Seeing is believing . Smelling is the raw material of faith ; and the uneducated man , like " A Sufferer , " believes in proportion to his powers of
smelling . The deadened sense of towns is content to feed the lungs with the diffused matter of refuse and corpses , but a transient breeze from a recently manured field causes a nervous faintness . This want of real intelligence is the grand obstacle to sanitary reform ; it makes the public indifferent ; it makes the o / licial executive really inclined to defeat that which it pretends to further .
By degrees , however , a progress is made , and the multiplication of experiments will gradually make- the English public ; understand , by tho only process intelligible to tho TCnglish public , that of tangible proof , how the circle of conversion is to be kept up . In several new towns , Tottenham being the nearest to the metropolis , plans have been adopted , under the Public Health Act , for establishing a nystem of house drainage with tubular drains , and a constant suppl y of water , by which the refuse is sluiced rapidly away , or
converted into liquified manure , available at once . About fifty towns have ; undertaken an expenditure amounting , in the aggregate , to nearly 400 , 000 / ., in order to establish this system of drainage on a greater or smaller scale . These towns will become models for other places ; and , if the agriculturists in the neighbourhood were to aid in the work , they would derive a
considerable profit ; to themselves , while they would be performing a service to their country . As usual , in this , too , human wisdom consists in following as closely and diligently as possible the divine laws that- regulate the life of the Universe : those who expedite tho conversion of refuse into living and life-giving organisms , aro practical " ministers" of tho Divine dJovernnumt .
A Kciuow For Wullii Iikai/1'H O1t1ckrs. ...
A KCIUOW FOR WULlii IIKAI / 1 'H O 1 T 1 CKRS . The Chinese have a practice of engaging a medical man to kcop a certain numbor of human
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 6, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06111852/page/13/
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