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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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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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W Wb Foresee That Our Task Of Indicating...
W Wb foresee that our task of indicating in a general way the contents of the Periodical * this month will not be completed in this article ; indeed , the Whole space available for Literature in these column * would barely suffice to meeitle demands every quarter when the ' montbW are reinforced by the < thxee-monthlieS ;' anditi s precisely the latter which make the most demands . Take , for example , the Westminster Bevies , with its varied contents at once solid and interesting . It opens with a masterly survey of the principle and practice of « Christian Missions . " Sympathizing profoundly with that noble impulse which causes men to devote themselves to probable destruction and inevitable hardships for the sake of carrying the truth J ; o other human souls , the writer does not suffer himself to he led away , by his admiration for the motive , to blindly applaud the practice ; and in his survey of the history of missionary enterprize , he sums up with terrible force the damnatory evidence against missionary practice , palpable in the utter failure of all missions . The Catholic missions are described , and the results interrogated ; then the various Protestant missions are submitted to the same test Everywhere the result is failure , unless we are to count as success the mere fact of thousands being baptized . By violence and by persuasion the heathens have been made Christians to the extent of baptism ; but in no Other sense . The greater immorality which has followed these conversions helps in some degree to explain the uniform and startling depopulation which the Missionaries have seen to follow their set tlement among the heathens : — Tn 1777 , Captain Cook found 200 , 000 people inhabiting- Tahiti . He declared his estimate to be rather under than over the mark . Those were the days of wars , human sacrifices , infanticide , and that ordinary recklessness of life which the missionaries profess to have , generally speaking , cured . Aged natives at that time remember the high priest Teearmoar , who uttered the prophecy which the people caught up for its strangeness at first , and' repeat now for its dread pathos . It is at this day sung in the depths of retreat , where the missionaries cannot overhear" A harree ta fow , "The palm-tree shall grow , A toro ta farraro , The coral shall spread , A now ta tararta . " But man shall cease . " A census taken just before the American Exploring Expedition was there , showed the indigenous population to be 9000 . The missionaries called it 8000 . In the Sandwich Islands , the decline of the population is such as history can scarcely parallel , and as every hearer at an Exeter Hall May meeting should be informed of . We aretold , not only by native tradition , but by the early navigators of the Pacific , that there were once human abodes wherever there was good soil and water , and that the population : of this group was not less than 400 , 000 . Now it is under 65 , 000 . Twenty-five years ago—within the period of strenuous missionary effort—it was double this . We must refer to the article itself for details at once picturesque and conclusive wherewith the writer exemplifies his philosophical positions , and wi ll only quote some part of what he says respecting the rNBTTrtrrroN of exeter haul . Exeter Hall iB one of the institutions of our age , appropriate to a critical period of a Protestantism threatened by High Churchism or Romanism on the one hand , and science and philosophy on the other . When the Glapham Church began its ministrations , nobody had the least idea of such a result as the Exeter Hall institution and its staff . The Bible Society was formed , and the religions leaders of the Anti-slavery movement were its originators and officers . Some of us are old enough to remember the conflicts about the admission of the Nonconformists to the Bible Society , and the zeal of the orthodox Dissenters when admitted . All these parties , and the Quakers as a body , and the leaders of missionary enterprize , held periodical meetings in London , and most of them at the same time of year . When the menagerie was removed from Exeter Change , and the old edifice pulled down , the Low Church and NVmeonforrnist leaders of the philanthropy of the age proposed to build a place which might bo the head-quarters of their enterprises—and Exeter H * ll was opened in 1831 . Great boast has been made of the crowds assembled there , of the magnitude of their accommodation , and of the prodigious amount of the funds contributed for benevolent objectB ; but it does not appear that sufficient attention has been given to the bureaucratic interests created by such an organization . The expenditure of an annual million and a half in objects as various as the sects of the religious world , and reaching to tho ends of the earth , must require a largo and diverse agency ; and the agency , with the money in its hands , constitutes a power—a power abundantly able to sustain missions under any adverse influences whatever . The mere collecting of tho funds employs no small' number of poor clergymen , and laymen who make themselves as like clergymen as they can . Vain men , and men who think it a duty to lot their name and station bo used in a good cause , are on committees ; and the real business Of committees ia done by secretaries ; and tho secretary ships , -which confer enormous imrocognlzed power and prodigious patronage , are objects of ambition to the active and aspiring men of all sects that can get a footing in Exeter HalL Whatever their BtJCtarian differences may Le , these men have a strong interest in such concert as may keep up tho organization in vigour and authority . They are tlio paid staff of a rich social department ; and the zeal of a paid staff on behalf of the department by which it lives and enjoys life may always be depended on . That zeal clonks all deformities , conceals all delinquencies , gets rid of sinnors , and obtrudes its . saints ; denies failure , magnifies success , and dVirotcs some of Its professional benevolence to " making things pleasant" for contributora who enjoy giving their money , but -would bo painfully disturbed by hearing that anything was going wrong . The Hubacxibing multitude asseirrWto to hear of widows rescued from the pile , children snatched from tho Ganges , savages nimging hymns , missionaries dying in the odour of sanctity , . Tews extolling tho cross , and infant converts from Romanism spitting out texts in the priests' faces ; and it would be a chilling disappointment to them to hear that widows still choose to burn ; that the heathen ar « perishing out of their lauds ; that a dying missionary now Mid then hopes that no more brethren will come out into tho wilderness , and . wasto their lives < w ho has done ; that some hypocrite has embezzled funds ; that a devoted member h « ro and there ba 9 turned scculur , and become dovotod to Maintnoq in ono form or nnother . Tho ruTo of conduct in such cases is , " least said , soonest mended ;" and tho glow of hopo and complacency is not to bo clouded over by bud' thlingn which
nobody will be * the better for hearing , while" sonib will' be the'worBe fb * tlie telling . Thus the servants dtf Exciter Hall become its masters ; While professing to render their account , they leaa the religious public WMthersoeveir tfcej > wilL Now and then some story comes outwnibh reveals the true quality of some df tie managers of missions and other enterprizes . Sucli a case as that of DavieS versus Pratt , which our readers may remember , and other disclosures occasionally made in the law and arbitration courts , justify any strength of expression that can bo used in warning the donors of the annual million and a half to look to the spending of their money , and to the character of the agents they employ to promote the spread of Christianity . We need not descend into the dirt of sectarian and philanthropic intrigue and scandal to bring up specimens ; The reports of the law-courte are doing that work for us . We need only point to facts open to general knowledge ,, and registered already as material for history . The next paper is on the " Natural History of German Life , " taking the admirable works of Riehl as text , and setting forth what is properly called the natural history' the German People as a basis for social and political philosophy . Had we space at disposal we would quote largely from the very quotable pages of this article ; the following onslaught on that strange misconception , the ' ideal peasant 5 is all we can venture on : — Oiuv a total absence of acquaintance and sympathy with our peasantry could give a moment ' s popularity to such a picture as " Cross Purposes , ' - *^ ™» J *™ peasant girl who looks as if she knew L . E . L . ' s poems by heart , and Engifflh rustics , whosl costume seems to indicate that they are meant for ploughmen , with exotic features that remind us of a handsome primo tenore . Bather than such Cockney sentimentality as this , as an education for the taste and sympathies , we prefer the most crapulous group of boors that Teniers ever painted . But even those among our painters who aim at giving the ruBtic type of featares , who are far above the effeminate feebleness of the » Keepsake" style , treat their subjects Tinder the influence of traditions and prepossessions rather than of direct observation . The notion that peasants are joyous , that the typical moment to represent a »« ™»^^ nSront when he is cracking a joke and showing a row of sound teeth , fl ^ £ ? lI £ SZ are usually buxom , and village children necessarily rosy and merry , are P ^ judwea difficult to dislodge f rom the artistic mind , which looks forAt *' subjects into literature fnstead of life . The painter is still under the influence of ^ idylhc ^ J- ^ J ^ fiJ has always expressed the imagination of the cultivated and t * wn-brea % rather than the truth of rustic life . Idyllic ploughmen are jocund when they driveL ^^ SS Sw' ^ t ^^^^ r ^^ r ^^^ li wo = rs « rr « Su 53 melancholy animal the camel , than of the sturdy countryman , with striped stodnngs , red waistcoat , and hat aside , who represents the traditional English peasant . Observe a companv of haymakers . When you see them at a distance , tossing up the forkfufc of ha 7 ^ he golS light , while trie waggon creeps slowly with , it a ™« J l £ SS over the meadow , and the bright green space which tells of wort done ^** *^ ^ larger , you pronounce the scene « smiling , " and you think these ~ ^^ J ^ J ^ J must be as bright and cheerful as the picture to which they fw *"""?***"; fSaUv nearer , and you will certainly find that haymatoagtime is a ™ ^^» g S ever ? miwMmmmmk " realm of fancy and imagination for the EngBsh crown exists at the bottom of the third ^ The ^ onventional countryman of the stage , who picks up P «^^ "Jj ^ jf wgssgms zm ^ "SKiSKSSSS ^ sggggfs - quisite than to turn them out to grass . We have next a severe but deserved casf . gation of Dr . William Smith for unscrupulous bookmaking , and the sin of " obtaining reputation under false pretences . " The writer is justly indignant that Dr S « rrrH , whose share in the « Classical Dictionaries" has been so trivial , should claim the reputation of them , should speak of « Classical Dictionaries , ' and ad . vertize them as the works of Dr . W , ixiam Smit * . There is indeed something too much of this" ; but Dr . Stars appears to have begun his literary ^ nTo ^ h ' stsTp ^ cations was an edition of part of the -jtjngs of TacUus the 3 ££ esS = rS ? K £ sK 3 sa = j completed the book , saving the title-page , which was tho genuine contribution of Dr . Smith himself . »¦ - ! . e T » r . Readers of book advertisements must have noticed the iteration of JJr William Smith ' s name , and set him down as a bootadlert hack of very rapid paces ; according to the statement of his reviewer thu , pace has been so surprising that except Albxa ^ ub Dumas who is s « udI to keep a company of " eminent hands" in employment , we know of no sucli ra mmwmmMM flfthlv he drow up , within tho same period , a second edition of tno ° ™""" . donary of AntlqultU , " , vith " alterations arid addition * bo nnmav * £ »«* £ regarded , " lie tells as , " to a considerable extent a * a new work ; fllxthJy , he 8 nper
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 12, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12071856/page/15/
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