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28 centlessthan atsmaller the the will h...
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MAPmrmvr a wn nnun jsa.vul»Li\jjx a.sxaj xtllu ivi-H*
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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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Christmas And Charity. The Sovorc Cold C...
and distinctly apart from one another—intellectually tind morally we are all united . ' We all row in , the same boat ; " , as a lugubrious and classical authority says , are " all like slaves chained to . same galley . " The intellectual communication , of ideas by which knowledge is imparted from man to man , and all that has ever been acquired , or ever will be acquired , may be made common to all , is not , however , more wonderful than that * ymr > athv . which makes the kindly heart ' ^ leap
back to kindness , " and makes the beheld , or even imagined , sufferings of others suffering to ourselves . We cannot—such is the law of naturehear the screams of agony without being alarmed or terrified ; we cannot witness distress without being , at least , so much pained by it as to wish there were no distress in the world ; and we cannot know of woe without desiring to have power , like the fabled owner of the four-leaved shamrock , to put an end to it . We may all help to bring about , as we all wish for the
time" "When not a tear , nor aching heart , Shall in the world be found . " This moral sympathy , like intellectual communication , binds us altogether , and in " one fate , our ^ hearts , our fortunes , and our being blends . " How it shall operate depends on times and circumstances . In the desert it stores up the gushing stream , and guides the wayfarer to the source rwhence alone he can draw the means of living . In scantily-peopled countries it opens the door of hospitality to the stranger , and bids him , though
an enemy , to eat and live . In our old and longpeopled , and generally well provided land , where , however , unfortunately , there are yet many poor and destitute , it induces those who are well-off to provide at one time employment and education for the neglected , young ; at . another to distribute food and clothing , or build houses for the sick and aged . There never can be , we presume , any want of sympathy for suffering—it is natural to us all ; and there never is , we know , any real necessity to excite our well-to-do-classes to administer to the
wants of their brethren . Our land teems with charities , and our nation is renowned for its system of beneficence , founded on the grand principle , that in the midst of plenty no man shall be suffered to perish of want . JN " ever does an occasion arise for contributing to relieve distress but subscription lists are filled to overflowing . That there is much destitution and much suffering every one is aware ; and he must be equally aware that there is much opulence and much sympathy , much good-will , ever ready to open its stores and give both comfort and consolation to the woe-stricken and the needy . The
sufferings of the poor and the charities of the rich are parts of the same system , and if they did not exist together , and there were no sympathies between them , human nature would be shorn of some of its noblest attributes , and denuded of some of its greatest enjoyments . The patience to bear suffering , the fortitude to stand up unflinchingly to the stroke of calamity , and . the delight of lessening or relieving them would have no existence . Not merely are the classes bound together by their moral sympathies , human nature is elevated by them , and made by the delight of giving delight like the Divinity . We need not now recommend , nor can it bo any
22 , 625 fewer , or nearly 28 per cent , less , than at the close of 1856 . The patrons of Field-lane refuges , the lords bishops arid * the curates who solicit alms for others , and all the usual staff of high-bred philanthropy ' , are as active in their calling now as when the people were really suffering , as we know froin unanswerable facts * much more than at present . It is perfectly plain , therefore , that their exertions are not now , and probably never are , actually in conformity to the wants and needs to their de
of the people , but in conformity own - sire for notice . It must be equally plain that their exertions being dictated and regulated by this desire , extraneous to actual sufferings , are misdirected , and are very likely to misdirect the exertions dictated by the noblest sympathies of our nature . We are alarmed at noticing that these demands increase year by year , though the actual suffering decreases , and we can only apprehend a continual factitious and wrongful excitement of sympathy if such exertions be continued .
It is quite unavailing now for any man to pretend to hide from himself , or others , the great fact that at all times the noblest sympathies of our nature have been traded on b y those who aspired by such means to gain wealth or distinction . ^ It is a matter of notoriety that charitable institutions are founded in the metropolis for the benefit of governors and secretaries—that a considerable number of men live in opulence by undertaking , as Le Sage described one of their predecessors , to provide for the poor ; and their calling , their emoluments , their secretaryships , would be at an end
were there no poor to provide for . They must necessarily keep the poor in existence , and must as necessarily continually alarm the public by accounts of their numbers and their destitution . They know , instinctively , if not from observation and science , that the number of claimants on the public bounty will be always very closely in proportion to the funds they can raise ; and in their own interest ; following their calling only with due diligence , they do continually harrow the public with tales of destitution , and continually augment
the fund which they thus raise and devote to keeping alive distress . While a diligent and somewhat improved administration of the national funds devoted to relieving the poor , and very much improved fiscal regulations , have , in fact , diminished the number of paupers in England and Wal < f t by 29 , 199 , or 3 ' 60 per cent ., since last year , in a rapidly increasing population , the exertions of the so-called philanthropists tend continually to counteract this beneficial progress and increase the number of p ersons dependent on charity .
The same classes , it may bo noticed , and nearly the same individuals , always take the lead in getting up these periodical impulses to public charity . They do not originate with the sufferors ; the philanthropists are always collecting funds for some special purposes , and always aiming , therefore , at keeping in strength and power some individuals or some institutions which nature and the course of society are against preserving . They appeal perpetually to the public and always succeed in hxing its attention , through the indigent or suffering classes , on themselves . There are demagogues in charity as well as in politics
who excite public feeling by exaggerated representations . There arc traders on the public sympathies as well as on the public alarms . If the noblemen and gentlemen who are so forward in writing to the TTimeQ and appealing to the public for contributions , were content to allow their warm sympathies to melt their own purse-clasps we should Thayo a bettor opinion of them than wo have , and believe that the public alms-giving they promote would be more eflicaoious in diminishing tho number of the poor than in enlarging their reputation and influence . They should work more in privato and loss in public . " Who bullda n ohuroh to God and not to ftuno , Will novor murk tho mnrblo with hib unmo . "
part of the duty of the press to enforce the charity which all at this particular season are ever ready to manifest . If any counsel be required it should rather , perhaps , take the direction of recommending discrimination in the exercise of charity ., The emotion is at all times and places so powerful that it ja always more necessary to direct it carefully and properly than increase the impulse . Admiring much tho sympathy wluoh connects unseen intangible mind with mind , and wondering still . more at the many blessings it confers on us , . our few additional remarks will be directed rather to the regulation of it , than to encourage the beliefderived from its attributes approximating us to Divinity—that it oannot lead us astray .
. It is at onoe remarkable and discouraging to observe that the appeals made to stimulate almsgiving into activity are as numerous and , a » vurgent novjr . when wages are on * tho average 20 iPW ? pent . Higher , than thoy were before tho Corn ahwva were repealed , while the price of almost all -Weoesflaries has fallen in an equal degree , as when i »© . major part of the people were almost famishr * Bg » * hoy are as urgent now , when the paupers In the metropolitan workhouses are in number
28 Centlessthan Atsmaller The The Will H...
139 * THE LEADEK , pSTo . 509 . X > ec . 24 , 1859 .
Mapmrmvr A Wn Nnun Jsa.Vul»Li\Jjx A.Sxaj Xtllu Ivi-H*
smaller the territory the greater will he the sovereign , " the new pamphlet thus blandl y shows whv the Papal dominions should not be large . "j [ great State implies certain requirements which it is Impossible for the Pope to satisfy . A gr eat State would like to follow up the politics of the day . perfect its institutions , participate in the general movement of ideas , take advantage of the transformations of the age , of the conquests of science , of the progress of the human mind . He cannot do it . The laws will be shackled by dogmas . His authority -will be paralysed" by traditions . His patriotism will be condemned by faith .
* * * * jke woru will advance and leave him behind . " With the poor old Papacy thus afflicted by forces of life and motion ; neither able to move itself nor to stop the progress of humanity what is to be done ? The difficulty is great , and the solution clever , ^ f not profoun d . Rome is to be made the very opposite to the oasis in the desert . It is t 0 be a little field of barreness , which no rude ploughshare of improvement shall venture to till— -a small dark corner , where the owls and bats of superstition may have refuge from a world of light — an elysium turned topsy .
turvy , where tradition may usurp authority , science be shut out , and patriotism become the target for the shafts of faith . We can figure the Pope enjoying his paradise , oscillating in his apostolic chair like Foucault ' s pendulum , in one unchanging plane , and making conspicuous the movement which he does not share . While so many doubt—in practice , at least—the progress of humanity , we can have no objection to a Foucault-pendulum Pope , which will tend to popularise the joyful fact , and when by this subtle invention in mental mechanics , and other more
positive aids , the universal conviction is m favour of going diligently ahead , why , some fine morning , the apparatus being no longer wanted , will not be woundup , and the pendulum -will stop ! Rome may be necessary as the future capital of a regenerated Italy , but it is not worth quarrelling about now , and if the Papal dominions are to be limited within narrow bounds , and municipal institutions are to replace Cardinal Antonelli and the abomination of sacerdotal rule , Young Italy should be contented to wait the operation of opinion , and not compromise much valuable liberty by a premature employment of force . As for the
Komagna , it is satisfactory to learn from M . de La Guerronith * e , that France cannot restore the Papal authority , and will not permit Austria ^ to neutralise Magenta and Soli crino by undertaking the task . In the words of the pamphlet which , we trust are true , prophetically it' not actually , " the dominion of Austria in Italy is at an end . " Thus deprived of his best friend , the Pope must permit his ense to be decided in Congress , and fortunately the " eldest sun of the of the Church " considers that ; 'it is permitted to pious , but independent minds , to discuss the extent of its territory , " which " territory history has proved to be divisible . " It does ndt matter that the majority of the great Powers are schematic , for if theygave territory to the Pope in 1815 , tho
they may take it away in 1860 . So runs argument , and if England joins in no guarantee for maintaining the Pope at Home , she may usefully recognise as part of the public law ' ol ' Kuropo the sovcrance of any portion of his obininiong , hi accordance with the wishes ami interests of tho people concerned . This pamphlet confirms tho view expressed some time back in thetio columns , that Napoleon III . was anxious to oiunnoipato himself from priestly control , and would need the alliance of Englund to ensure his success . 11 '» without compromising oursolvos , wo aid him wll in this useful endeavour , wo shall greatly diminish tuc chances of war , which will be Toasencd in proportion ns tho French Government is Jilliotl with the intellect of its subjects , and divorced lVom the craft and malignity of tho Jesuit Propaganda . Tho goufsq that thorn-oat statesmen of Elizabeth ' s
NAPOLEON AND THE POPE . Napoleon III . is Emperor of Pamphlets , aa well as of tho French ; and , through his scribe , disciple , ' or amanuensis , M . do La Guorroniero , he has just favoured tho world with . an Eeway on the Papaoy that is calculated to delight the descendants of Galileo ,, and make the evangelical bricks of Exeter Hull skip for joy . In order to fi « d reasons for supporting the ingenious proposition , that " tho
time would havo taken is clear enough , but wo are not confident it will bo boldly followed by our present rulers . If France adopts q . inoro Protes " tant polioy , Austria , under her ignorant , incurabio young Emperor , is likely to be moro slavishly Popiali , and it would bo tho part of wisdom entirely to give up tho idea of maintaining her as a great European power , and to look to tho rise of united Germany as the natural and rational way of fto * justing its balance that is being disturbed by nor decay .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1859, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121859/page/14/
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