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October 18,1856.] THE LE13) -E I, 997
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DISSENTERS PAINTED BY THEMSELVES . We ha...
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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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Bishops, Foreign And Domestic. A Few New...
tions of those spirits . Of all classes that , in existence , we know anything about , they seem to he the most ignorant and the most stirpid . If such is the state of the soul , the Bishops are evidently right . It is a pity , however , that the Uight Ueverend Fathers should be found to harmonize so strictly "with spirit-rappers , and to he in such discord with the professional class ; because it appears to us highly improbable that
the spirit-rapping class will acquire any influence in the world ; and , upon the whole , the administrators of education are gaining ground . So , if the Bishop class identifies itself with ignorance , with the religious ideas as they are understood by the ignorant , and with mere place-hunting interests apart from the moral and spiritual development of the world , we really cannot help feeling some anxiety for the future of the poor Bishops .
October 18,1856.] The Le13) -E I, 997
October 18 , 1856 . ] THE LE 13 ) -E I , 997
Dissenters Painted By Themselves . We Ha...
DISSENTERS PAINTED BY THEMSELVES . We have in our hands a curious tale of congregational morality . Part of it has been told before , part of it comes out in a postscript to a pamphlet which recapitulates the whole . * 3 ? or some reason which we do not very clearly understand , the Rev . Ebenezer . Davies , Minister of the Caledonian-road Chapel , formerly missionary for the Congregational Dissenters in Demerara , had been subjected to a system of persecution at the hands of Messrs . Tidman and Pbout , two of his colleagues . It was in December , 1850 , Mr . Tidman first alluded to the subject of a letter which has since become famous , and which was said to have been written , in
1845 , : - ^ .. .. ¦ - ,: ¦ ¦¦¦ ,. - . - . . . - ¦ " . ¦; ¦ ., , .. ¦ : ' " After you had been preaching God ' s word , " said the reverend censor , " you wrote to your wife a letter— -such a one as 1 should have thought you could not hare written , nor she received ; she did receive it in this house [ the Mission House ] , and afterward carelessly dropped it on the waiting-room floor . It -was picked up by one of the subordinates , and restored to her , but not until it had been copied . "
This " subordinate" appears to have been a clerk , who subsequently produced the copy of the letter before the Committee of the Congregational Board , and who stated that he gave the origiual letter back to llrs . Davies . He had previously caused Hobley ; , a lad then ., not ' out of his teens , to attest the copy . He kept that copy for five years ; during that time he frequently met Mr . and Mrs . Davies when they came to the Mission House , and made no allusion to the subject . There were minor charges against Mr .
Davies , but this was the most important , and the most sustained by ' evidence . ' Some of the committee appeared gladly to believe the accusation ; others resisted the belief , on the ground that the conduct ascribed to Mr . Davies was inconsistent with his character , and therefore not to be accepted on such evidence sis had been adduced . The counterevidence was not unimportant . During the year in -which this letter was said to be written , Mr . Davies was not absent from his
wife for more than five days ; his residence has been accounted for in a manner which renders the transmission , of the letter exceedingly improbable . Moreover , the Kev . ItoBEitT Ainshe publicly states that he haB read " every letter Mr . Davies had written to Mrs . Davies—about a hundred and tenand not any one of them contains a word or a hint "but what is pure aud might be printed . ' But the original of the peccant letter has Bince been found ; Mr . Ainslie telia how : — * " The Mission House Letter ; or 7 A ~ Brief Kcvicw ' of Recent Proceedings in Relation to Myself and my Accusers . Second Thousand , with Numerous Additions . By Ebonezer Davies , Minister of the Caledonian-road Chapel , London . With an Introduction by tbo Rev . Joseph Kotloy , Independent Minister , for twonty-oight yeare a Missionary in Demcrnra .
" One evening , the end of December , 1855 , I was sitting at the late Rev . John Branch ' s fireside , witE Mr . Clajrk the bookseller , -whose knowledge of all kinds of books was extraordinary . He asked me to tell him -what the passage was in the ' Mission House Letter . ' I gave him some idea of it ; and he instantly said , / lenow where you can Jind the original !—it is either in —¦— , or , in . ' But how can I get it ? ' I said . ' If you will go to HoLTnvuLL Stkeet with my compliments " to Mr . — —— , he will get itfor you . ' I went , and found that Mr . — , Tvas in prison for selling such publications ! I went to his brother , but was repulsed . He evidently suspected I wanted to entrap him .
"At length I took the extract into a house ; and asked a man if he could inform me in what book I could find that passage ? He took me to another man , who distinctly remembered the passage , and promised me the book . I said , * Do you think it possible that an educated married man , a minister of religion , woiilil write such a passage to his wifb ? ' He replied , ' It's absurd , sir ! —it ' s one of our passages , / know it well ; he could not no it !'
" At length , after great difficulty ( through fear of my infoiming ) I got the book ; not from this man , but from one he brought in , whom I had not seen before ; and who delivered it to me in the absence of the other man . " After satisfying myself that the extract from ' the Mission House Letter' was the same as the letter in the book , I had to give two pounds for it . tlr After many years knowledge of London , and its iniquities ; and itsimmoral publications—the latter often brought to me by the Missionaries of the XoNiXMr City Mission , I confess that I had no idea that such a book
could have been in existence . The inconceivably obscene coloured prints , six in number ; and the filth contained in the twenty-four Letters in the hook , would at once , if seen by Mr . Davies' greatest enemies , compel them to say that the idea of his carrying such a book about with him , going from house to house , and town to town , is as yoa say , perfectly monstrous ! I discovered the book when Mr . Davies was apparently , in the opinion of his medical attendant , a dying man . And in these circumstances Mr . Davies signed the document which accompanies this letter . "
This document contained Mr . D avies' s solemn declaration , made before the Hev / W . T . Wixd , Yicar of Westow , that he had never in his life seen that book , nor the passage extracted from it . In mosb cases this evidence would settle the . matter , and it would be supposed that the Directors of . ' the' Missionary Societywould at once meet Mr . Davies's challenge , acknowledge that they had been misled , and manfully withdraw the charge . But it appears there is still some reason why the Directors of the Missionary Society do not avail themselves of their opportunity- of doing
justice . The rules of honour ami of charity must be different in that society from the rules that prevail out of doors , aud of course there must be a reason for the difference . What was the charge against Mr . Davies ? It was that of having composed , in a letter to his wife , a passage of immoral tendency . They are so pure , these missionaries , that they will not tolerate a man among them who writes to his wife anything that is not " lit for publication . " We can imagine letters written from husbands to their wives , very fit to be thus written , but not suitable for the public eye . The missionaries , however , insist that a husband shall write to his wife
as he will to any other woman , otherwise he must he subjected to censure , if not expelled from their body . In order to ascertain that their colleagues are in this moral frame of mind , they will encourage practices of espionage . Among gentlemen of this school , a letter from a man to his wife is with tliem not a " privileged communication / ' but the opening a letter of a man to his Avife by the clerk of the society is a privileged act , conducive to the moral tone of tho
association ! It came out that the clerk professed to employ , for the purpose of attesting the copy which he made , a young lad wlio was made to compare the text and the copy of a letter , of which Mr . Ainslie says , " Nothing but tho impossibility of producing the book or the letter publicly prevents the universal conviction of Mr . Davjes's innocence . " So that to exercise an inquisition in tho correspondence of a man with his wife , to make
copies of private correspondence for the piu'poses of public accusation , and to employ lads into collation of the most immoral literature of Holy well-street , are acts of which the society approves ; although it blushes at any epistolary ardour in its own members . Yet we have still not got to the worst . Mr . Robert AinsiiIe stood out manfully in defence of his friend , and it is a notorious fact that Mr . Ainseie suffered in consequence of that advocacy . The missionaries are sharp
fellows ; they are not to be caught with evidence that would convince most people ; and they do not yet acquit Mr . Davos . Some suspicion lurks amongst the reverend gentlemen , whom the discovery of the original does not satisfy ; for it is logically possible that the copy may not have been made from the book by the accuser , hut by Davies himself I It is , in fact , insinuated that Mr . Davies , in order to throw some kind of force into his private correspondence , may
have resorted to that kind of literary piracy t Mr . Clark , the bookseller , disbelieved Davies ' s capacity in that line . " It is absvird , sir , he could hot do it . " 33 ut the Congregational Dissenters , " or the reverend gentlemen who preside over the missionary business of Dissent , are not so incredulous . They think ib more probable that a missionary should be guilty of literary piracy , for the purposes of
correspondence with his own wife in that particular strain , than that a paid cleric in their employ should manufacture a charge against a minister ! O ut of doors ^ the charge against Mr . Davies will be regarded as amply refuted , but missionary gentlemen it appears find no difficulty in believing such stories of each other ; and at least missionary gentlemen ought to know themselves .
Alas ! nowhere amongst tlie whole of the gentlemen concerned , with the one exception of Mr . AinsIjIE , can we find a complete standard of Christianity or of gentlemanly feeling . The martyr himself does not come into court with clean hands . According to his own account , he began well . " . I was the soii of pious parents , who , amidsfc the mountains of Wales , brought me up in the fear of God . From my childhood I was a member of a Christian Church , and at twelve years of age I became a Sabbath-school teacher . " This
was beginning early ; and so strong was Mr . Davies ' s desire to propagate the Christian spirit , that he more than once sought a deadly climate for the scene of his labours . He found the Directors , however , very jealous of their authority . The suspicion that a clergyman settled in a distant station was becoming independent of them , induced them to interfere for his unsettlement . Thus , according to Mr . Davies , when the congregation of Mr . KetIjEY had erected for him a
new chapel at the Fearn-station , in Berbice , the society ' s agent set up an opposition place of worship within a few minutes' walk of the former ; and Mr . Davies gave great offence by expressing strong disapproval of the proceeding , lleceiving a ' rap' for his conduct in a similar case , ho appealed to Mr . Tidman , the foreign secretary , with a protest against the conduct of tho Board . " Ifc is too
bad , " he said , " that in churches raised and supported by the resources of Independents , the dearest and distinguishing principles of those Independents should bo reviled and misrepresented as aU that is ungrateful aud hostile to the parent society . " And then , being threatened with the appointment of a successor , ho speaks of that gentleman in these eloquent terms , tlxe italics being big
own : — "I liopo my successor , whether temporary or pormanont , will bo an entire abstainer from all intoxicating drinks . If he takes liis wino , tho people will take their rum , and then adieu to all piety and liberality . Tho town station , in that case , will soon sink down to tho
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 18, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18101856/page/13/
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