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THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING. There is a mo...
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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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The Priests' Crusade. The Priesthood, Th...
fyxuea itn - defiance of a . liberal constitution jstnd & niwt & nigenkpre & i , the ? Eoman > hi « rarohy -rejoin Be 3 ginm what it ! to lesfc msSatdiSa ~ V 3 n Spain , also , it flourishes amid -the cdrifiiaanfof ^ politics , it threatens the Government and seduces -the rpeople , and prospers twfcale the Government is degraded and the peaple ' -tieeeived . Perhaps-this -roar < of systems—the conflict of the civil and sacerdotal powers- —will be brought to a « decisive-issue in Italy . From all that ( appears in -the Roman Catholic ; press , and . from all that ^ akes place with reference to
the political / settlement of the peninsula * it is clear that the chief alarms of the hierarchy are connected with the idea of a free Italian Confederation . Accordingly , the galvanic energies of the Catholic powers are directed to the invention of a safe alternative to be adopted when the rule of the Neapolitan GfcAua » ius becomes impossible . The universal cry among statesmen is for a Catholic prince , a man Tvith dynastic pretensions , some one who may sanctify by the legitimacy of blood the principle of a revolution . The Prince of CAivAjBitiA— -the Bourbon Louis—the son
of the Eeince oie Capua—a Murat—a Syracusan—an American Buonaparte— -any one , 'save the choice of Italy , hostile to Austria . The Church moves steadily on ; at eveny crisis the dynasties are ready with their claims ; perhaps , however , the Italian nation—not to speak at present of the Hungarians , the Germans , or the Poles—will work out for itself the solution of its
destinies . The statesmen of the Holy Alliance , united 'by common interests , have no real enemies in the Cabinets of Erance or England ; but the Piedmontese have shown that a people which relies upon itself may hope to achieve , even under the shadow of military and papal thrones , the highest results of political progress .
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The National Thanksgiving. There Is A Mo...
THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING . There is a moral to be learned on the day of thanksgiving , and if we had any Ministers capable of founding that which has disappeared from our land—a National Churchthey . would preach that moral on the day when they are instructed to thank Almighty God for the signal and repeated successes of the Allied armies in the Crimea . "When a form is used that implies that the people of this country are invited nationally to express thanks to the Divine Power for successes , we are compelled to ask what it is we thank Heaven , for , who it is that conveys the thanks , and through whom are they conveyed )? VlThat are the signal and repeated successes specially calling for our thanks on Sunday next ? The capture of the town of Sebastopol . But by whom was it captured ? Not ' by the English troops—that fact stands too conspicuously in the record of the contest to be tdenied . The English troops were repulsed . The special reason for the thanks , therefore , ao far as they are to be rendered from this country , fails ; unless , indeed , we are to understand that the ' thanks , the special thanks , are to be rendered for the success of our Allies alone . The English failed , to obtain euccess on that occasion , because , properl y i speaking , ' there was no English - army on > the spot . _ The ; raw recruits and boys who are inveigled into a species of emigration by the recruiting sergeant , and who were led into the Redan battery on the 8 th of this month , do not represent the nation , but <> nly certain classes , and those the classes Jpyiwhom w . e should least like to be ; repre- ! aerated in . the presence of any foreign atatea . ' $ Uk iSosaLd that there were veterans there—^ ep ^ ajpaiieipj . aa i ald wheat is mixed , in . with , the vxm . We . did ; not attain the success , because
we did not take the means to attain it j and xvhen > vste renderithanks for that > which we- did n 6 t earn * we may be / giving latitude due to the Dispenser of Destiny , tout we amply a claim for a * share in the exploit which is not our own , , and which we ; forfeited by a national neglect . Wfi have no right to celebrate the iday as a thanksgivings If we had the right we had not the means . Whom is it that the Queen ' s most excellent Majesty in Council invites to join in this thanksgiving , ? The form is to be distributed for use in " all the * churches in -England and Wales , and in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed . " It is , therefore , only . part of the island of Great Britain that is thus favoured .
There is a separate Order in Council for Scotland ; but that is issued only for " the Established Church" and for the Episcopal communion " allowed" in " that part of Great Britain called Scotland . " There are , therefore , parts of the country specially favoured , and they are England and Wales , that part of Great Britain called Scotland , and the town of Berwiek-upon-Tweed . In fact , however , the Orders in Council negatively state a falsehood . The first of them says that " the form of prayer is to be used in factit
in all churches and chapels , " when , , is not meant for any but a minority of the chapels in England and Wales , the State ignoring all those chapels which do not belong to the Established Church . The excluded constitute something like half the religious part of the nation , to say nothing of a third half of the people , principally amongst the working classes , which has no connexion with any churches or ehapels whatsoever , Established or not Established . It is not the nation , therefore , which is invited to join in worship , but particular sects within the nation frequenting particular buildings in England , of Berwick
Wales , Scotland , and the town - upon-Tweed—for of even that distinguished town only part is really included . Some persons , then , are invited by the Queen to present themselves in the most solemn manner before the Supreme Being , and to pretend that they are the people of England . Is not this a mockery of the representative system in religion ? If we suppose that the living people of this country can obtain special attention for their worship , is there not something positively impious in the false pretences with which the ministers of two sects in the country , the Order of Council in their hand , will approach the Throne of Grace ?
And who are those ministers to be ? Who can say of the ten thousand gentlemen clothed in black and white , with sometimes a little red , that they possess any unity of character , or even of " persuasions ? " The Church of England is not even a sect , but it is a series of sects , resembling those outside it . It has not even a sectarian unity , and at this very moment some of its leading men are in contumacy against the head of the Church . It
has been the custom for the Queen , who is now issuing these orders , to address a letter to the Church , recommending collections of money to aid the Incorporated Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and the Education of the Sons of the Clergy ; but this year the Queen has not been advised to . issue that letter . The reason is not stated ; we have only the negative fact that JSHdei JDefensor does not this year advance as the canvasser-in-chief on behalf of
those particular sooieties . We can well imagine the reasons . The people of this country ; are not ill off , but they are rather pressed r by the collectors of the State for incomer tax and other demands . At such times collectors for charitable trusts usually ; find & , great , decline in the success of their canvassing , Any v collector for hospitals would
tell as mueh . It would not be" very . agreeable if * the appeal made by I £ eb ; Majesty to the congregations 1 of tihV tJnited-Itiajgdom wereto be . signally unsuccessful . W-e-do not believe , however , that the . Quben abstains from any principle of egotistical pride : it is more tprobable that Heb Majesty raeesithe impropriety of being canvasser-rinr-chief for one sect and its charitable institutions , when other sefcts are not equall y favoured . Since the repeal of the Corporation Acts the Disin Parliament
senters may be represented , but so far as the State can represent , they must nob be represented before Heaven . On the field of battle , indeed , and at the Great Redan itself , other persuasions were represented , yet the Queen can only invite sects to join in thanks for the victories of our armies ; and the Papists , the Wesleyans , the Baptists , the Unitarians , or any other ' arians , are not fit to ask thanks for the victory which their communicants have shared in obtaining !
The members of the Church of England itself are discontented with this equivocal state of things , and at Exeter the Bishop of Exeter roundly rates the Ministers for withholding the Queen ' s letter . This is one of the prelates whose duty it will be to administer the thanksgiving of a sect in the name of the nation . The nation itself is not without blame in this matter : it cannot make up its mind on its own religious position . We are torn
by divisions , fierce in proportion as they relate to the wow-essentials of a true religion . The Legislature of the Empire was divided lately on the question whether or not beer should be sold during certain hours on Sunday ; and through the inertness of the Legislature , the serious party were allowed to prescribe the hours of beer-buying for the community at large . This week the Licensed Victuallers have celebrated the victory which their representative , Mr . Henry Berkeley , lias obtained by reversing the Act of the Legislature . This week , too , the members of a
committee comprising Sir John SHEMiEir , Sir Joshua Wai / mesley , Mr . W . J . Fox , Mr . George Dawson , and other well-known religious free-traders , have put forth an address inviting support for a movement to open the British Museum and other national institutions , and to throw open collections of an instructive character during every Sunday . This week , too , we have seen the antirGhurchrate men presenting Mr . Vei . y with a testimonial , while the church-rate men are trying to get up a testimonial and paying the expenses of Mr . CoRTAUi-p , gentlemen whose names are immortalised in that case of Ybw
versus Cortauld , which settled an important question of church-rates in a court of law . As easy as the step from the sublime to the ridiculous , is the step from the parish church to the law court . The country cannot make up its mind how to maintain the fabric of the church , or how to spend the Sunday in it . It begins to doubt the honesty of paying for the church of one sect out of the pockets of other sects . A few years back it had definite opinions on the subject of prevonient or subvenient grace ; in 1854 it was by its representatives distinctly opposed to beer as
an element on Sunday ; in 1855 , it sees nothing incompatible between piety and the national beverage ,. But whatever its opinions are , whether for church-rates or against them , for beer or against i % for a rational recreation on the Sunday , or an exclusion oi rationality and recreation , it must give exprossion to its opinions in the . form of organised agitations ; , and ono sect would Rather boat the other on the subject of rates or boor , than heartily unite to . render thanks for ; a national success where thanks ore due . How , then ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 29, 1855, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29091855/page/14/
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