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December 15, 1855.1 THE LEADER. 1201
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THE UPHOLSTERY OF RELIGION. Lushington h...
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MUMMY WORSHIP. A few of the sectional ag...
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.
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Turkey Foundering. It Has Long Been The ...
revolution will commence throughout that enormous area , which must end in the supplanting of the Turks in Europe by the Christians . It is not a religious difference merely that is involved ; it is a difference of national character , habits , traditions . The Turks have never been an industrious or commercial race . They are naturally landowners , dictators , soldiers . The Janissaries were necessary to their system . Such a nationality will be impossible , as a governing power , when the social developments now proceeding with more or less activity throughout Europe have reached a higher stage .
The more immediate question is , when the Treaty of Peace has been signed between the belligerent powers , this winter , next autumn , or years hence , how long will Turkey be occupied by foreign armies ? Austria , probably , will not surrender the Principalities until France and England have retired from Constantinople . What will France and England do , and what will be the question that will arise between them ?
December 15, 1855.1 The Leader. 1201
December 15 , 1855 . 1 THE LEADER . 1201
The Upholstery Of Religion. Lushington H...
THE UPHOLSTERY OF RELIGION . Lushington has decreed , and the churches of St . Barnabas and St . Paul must be stripped of their ornaments . If Ljddell neglect obedience to the decree , Westerton is to carry it out : he is to bear off" the cloths that deck the altar in St . Barnabas , to throw away the ¦ flowers , to put out the lights ; and " the house of God" is to be the scene where , exulting , he will carry out that triumph over Liddell , and inflict pain and mortification on his brother worshippers .
On some points , indeed , the judgment failed to satisfy the protesters : the altar of St . Paul , although highly carved , is not stone , and may stand ; although very heavy and difficult to move , it can be moved , and so it does not break the law . This is bitterness to Beal ; but there is redemption in "VVesterton ; so taken together they are victorious . " Belo si celebri !"—honour to Belus , as well as to Westerton—for their worship is in the ascendant , their doctrine is accredited , their faith is admitted , their spirit prevails . Yet we are not
sure that it is the better—that more of the life of Christianity lies in the breast of Westerton or flows from the lips of Beal , than shines in the countenance of Liddkll . Rather the reverse . There may be weaknesses in St . Paul and St . Barbaras , but they are not weaknesses that disturb our love . The nature may be frail that finds its piety nourish best amid flowers , or cherished best under the many coloured cloths of the altar ; but what of that piety which rankles when the altar is arrayed in glory , which turns to bitterness at the sight malevolent in the
of lilies of the valley , and is presence of the cross ? Verily this is unchristian , barbarous , and altogether doubtful in its truth—doubtful whether it spring from above or rather below . If we were in tribulation , should we send for Lidde ll to comfort us , or Westerton ? if we were dying should we ask our solace from Belus , come he never so unadorned ? Assuredly not : there is no such sTistainmont in Westerton , no salvation in Beal : they can destroy , and pull down , and strip : they cannot build up or vivify .
It is an invasion—an oppression . The churches of St . Barnahas and St . Paul were established by Christians who cling to the flowers and to the colours of the creation , and do not feel their piety glow in a washhouse alone-, and they arranged their fanes accordingly . Why raeddlo with them ? If W esterton and Beal cannot march under the ensign of the cross , visibly , let them file off to another church ; there is the orthodox washhouse -open at Bxompton for Westerton , and Bklus
hath his fitting temple at hand . Why then conspire against St . Paul and St . Barnabas ? Why , instead of carrying the cross among the heathen , malignantly turn back to pull it down among the faithful ? Why appeal to the letter of the law , and set up a tyrant minority to disturb the majority at their devotions , and so kill the very spirit of Christianity ? As to the law , who can settle it ? Not Lushington . Unde derivata ? The
Protestant Elizabeth , the judge confesses , clung to cross and sacrifice ; and was she not the " head of the Church ? " She yielded to the remonstrances of her bishops ; but Butler himself felt the cross to be available in concentrating his wandering thoughts . And does it not ? Is there a Christian who can look upon the form of an upright beam crossed by another , whose memory is not touched ? Alas for him , if there is 1 Can a man give a keepsake
to his affianced , bequeath a lock of hair to his child , or feel his eyes glisten at reading that Charles Albert sent his worn-out , anxious heart back to his native land , and yet look coldly on that memorial ? Elizabeth and Butler were better Christians , we suspect , than Westertok or Beal ; although Butler wrote , and Elizabeth issued an Order in Council forbidding the " disorder" of eating meat in Lent .
But perhaps the churchwardens are right . The Church " of England , " according to these " wardens , " is not the Church of Christendom , and it is Avell that the unsectarian faithful should not stray into it to be vexed by the discordant spirit of Belus . It is not the Church of the people of England . It is only one of our sects—a sect with a monopoly of parish grounds and the privilege of levying rates from other sects . Let us know it for what it is . It is the fane of the spirit of Belus , and the votaries worship at the wooden
altar of Westerton . Christians , as such , it excludes . Those whose thoughts sympathise with other Christians , or linger among the lilies of the valley , are to be shut out , or driven forth with intolerable bickerings . Be it so . When the people of this country know that the Parish temple is not open to them , but shuts them out with forms and brawls , — when they have perfectly caiight the full bAlbert
spirit of the broad faith preached y , Prince Consort , they Avill know that the Church " England" at Pimlico , and some other places , is no more the Eternal Catholic Church than " the Champion of England" is all the flower of her manhood ; and then they will erect fanes to admit all the children of God in this land of England , united not divided . Much doubt we whether Bel us will be the architect of that temple , or Westerton its keeper .
Mummy Worship. A Few Of The Sectional Ag...
MUMMY WORSHIP . A few of the sectional agitators among the working-classes are offering a new remedy for the abuses of the State . They arc tired of progress , disgusted with reform . Self-government , in their sight , is u failure . Accordingly , instead of the franchise , the ballot , more complete control over Parliament , the extirpathe
tion of the ari & tucracy , they propose restoration of Prerogative , and trace all our ills to the disuetudo of the Privy Council . This fantastic theory would scarcely deserve analysis were it not that some really useful men arc led by it away from their proper avocation , which is that of keeping alive , in the working-classes , a sound political energy , and of aiding them in the work of self-organisation . With the best feeling towards all earnest friends of the industrious ordern , we would point out the absurdity of the notions
that are now in some places paraded before the public mind . The worst effect of such an agitation , supposing it successful to that extent , would be to produce a division of opinion in the unrepresented class —the class that is to come in , when peace restores its opportunity . This class has been taught , by its own studies , and
by the counsels of its friends , to look for social elevation , and increased independence , to the possession an unfettered franchise . Whatever section takes up the new ideas is led away from this , which should be the invariable object of popular policy . Thus , new dissensions arc introduced into the camp , and while the main body presses on to Reform , a division goes in search of Prerogative .
This idea , which would be too contemptible to notice , were not some of the working-classes still unenlightened , has its source in another , equally a fallacy—viz ., that the one object of an Englishman , in his mortal state , is to fight Russia . War , among 'its other results , good and bad , has a tendency to derange the public mind . Disgust is a low form of despair , and the remedy proposed is the device of men who have abandoned their faith . With their constancy has gone the clearness of sight which enabled them in the midst of
disappointments to keep their hope in vieAV , and to struggle for their purpose , without scepticism as to the result . This courage has vanished from the recalcitrant body of the working classes , from the men who condemn their old programme , not because it had faults , but because it failed , and who now lay bare the foundations of English history and discover that to be a superficial antiquary is to be a politician . iShiremotes and privy-councils , the abolition of responsible government , and the arming of Prerogative : have the workingclasses come to this ?
Ihey have not ; but a few false friends , who have entered the service of a crazy zealot , would persuade them that their creed is extinct . Let us recal to them what has been their own position , during the successive epochs of English history , that they may judge whether the reorganisation of any dissolved power of the realm would be likely
to improve it . It seems ridiculous to ask a working-man , at this hour of the day , whether he would choose to be what the working-man was in the age of Wittcnagemotes , under the Saxon , Kentish , and Mercian kings ; yet such are among contemporary pliantsisma ; and it is not superfluous to remind the people that they were as cattle , sold nnd scourged , in thoso
" good old tunes . What was the valuo of the great councils and parliaments of our early history ? Not that they governed the land wisely or humanely , but that they left room in their laws for the developments we now enjoy . The adherents of Tyler and Cade—whose histories have yet to be written—rose , not against suspicious acts on the part of a minister , but against bitter grievances . The grandeur of our foreign policy , after the fall of Charlks the First , was not due to tlio vigour of the
any old institution or council , but to revived vitality of the nation , and to the genius of a dictator , who could not »» w reign unless England lind been itwuhvd by being subjected to a coup d ' etat , and dobuHed by being reconciled to it . To what subsequent period shall we be referred for . <» " »» Pjg » ° * our national greatness and prosperity i What was the condition of the peop le under the Restora tion-. widortlioKing « l the Revolution , under the Gjjojujks V They wore never irco ; they improved their position by hIow degrees ; several acts of public justice faciihtatcd their progress to independence ; the Keionn ill
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 15, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15121855/page/13/
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