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1046 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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SCIENCE OF RELIGION IN" WINCHESTER. In h...
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THE GOVERNING- CLASSES. No. VIII. THE KA...
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Me. Cobden At Barnsley. We Have Been So ...
of life , in any position , in any emergency , where we may find ourselves . Mr . Cobden says , if we knew the sanitary laws we should be cleanly , and avoid cholera ; if we are intelligent we shall keep our franchises ; if masters and men were well up in the laws of political economy , tlier would not " strike ; " if we were as smart as the Americans , they would not beat us in manufactures ; if the masses were educated- —the " masses who really govern" the country , who are " always called on in the last resort' '—they would be safer to meet , in times of troublethan if they were immersed
, in ignorance and passion . It is the exclusive addiction to arguments like these—proper arguments enough for the slate , the ledger , and the till—arguments unrelieved by any appeals to higher and more spiritual motives—that deprives the teaching of Mr . Cobden of half its force and all its dignity ; and it is the very lack of those hipaer faculties that deprives England of a great statesman , capable of reconciling the jarring contrasts and harsh anomalies of our industrial epoch with the rights of humanity and the laws of God .
1046 The Leader. [Saturday,
1046 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Science Of Religion In" Winchester. In H...
SCIENCE OF RELIGION IN" WINCHESTER . In his abstract of Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences , Lewes gives an instance of barbaric theology still usurping the place of scientific observation . Astronomy , he says , is a positive science ; " but so far is meteorology from such a condition , that prayers for dry or rainy weather are still offered up in churches , whereas , if once the laws of these phenomena were traced , there would no more be prayers f or rain than for the sun to rise at midnight . " The same old notion of weather regulation still exists , as we find by the following extract , in a private letter from Valparaiso , written in August last : —
" The ignorance and superstition encouraged at Santiago exceed all belief . To give you an instance that has just occurred . The rainy season was passing over , yet the drought continued excessive , and cattle died by hundreds . Under these circumstances , the people requested tlie priests to have the processions that they usually resort to in such a case , but they
endeavoured to put t hem off till the rain was evidently near . However , the people became importunate , and would wait no longer . The procession was got up in due form , but the rain did not come , and the priests had recourse to the d esperate measure of putting their favourite St . Isidore into chains . Their usual way of compelling him to listen to their prayers is to put him head downwards into hot bran-and-water . This
alarmed most of the poor people , who kept burning lights before his image in all their houses . The weather , at this time , was close and oppressive , the thermometer standing at seventy-two in the shade ; and this in the depth of winter . A general dread of a great earthquake prevailed ; but it ended in a tremendous storm of thunder , lightning , and hail , such as cannot be remembered here . Of course this was construed into St . Isidore ' s angry answer , and as heavy rains succeeded , they are well satisfied . This is a fact in the nineteenth century . "
Positive science has not made moro unqualified progress even in parts of the moat civilized country in the world—meaning , of course , England . We never forget that , on the occasion of prayer and humiliation for the cholera , moro than one minister , even of the " Established Church of England , " was found to traco those "judgments " to their evident ; proximate causes—human disobedience to " the laws of Nature and of the God of Nature . " Some clergymen , however , havo not ; yet so far advanced in their knowledge of God \ s works , and in one diocese , lately , wo noticed that
prayers were offered up for tlie cessation of rain , the bishop of that dioccso apparently being muck better advised as to the expediency of turning on the waters of the sky , or turning them off , than a superior authority ih supposed to be . The parish clerk , by virtue , of his ' orthodoxy , is considered , ex ojficio , " clerk of the weather , ' and tho bishop puts himself forward as the grand turncock of tlio diocese . In tho same dioccso of Winchester , however ,
was recently hold a mooting of an archdeaconry , and the archdeacon delivered an important charge , tho drift of which , upon the wholo , was laudable . Clergymen , lie said , had meddlod too much in politics and mundane affairs . This is most trim : wo find tho ltovorond John Cox preaching " universal suffrage" at a mooting of amciont Protectionist agriculturists ; and we find no ( Mid of bishops andchurchdignifcarios managing that great charitable trust , tho property of the church , for tho benefit of " existing interests , " at tho
oxpense of successors , of the . public at present , and of the cure of souls for ail times . The cure of souls , indeed , like the cure of red herrings , seems to be carried oh only for the benefit of the dealers in the commodity ; and if we judge by the frequent effects in the upper ranks of the " jolly full bottle" establishment , the cure of souls is a species of " bloater . " If the advice of the Winchester archdeacon were observed , clergymen would absolve themselves from this reproach ; and by restricting themselves to -preach "the ¦ am-rd" s »/>/» r » wH-nor fr » -fcTiA Htnxirla . rrJ nt fTifi rHinTvVh
of England , they would strictly define themselves as members of a special sect . They would then be quit of equivocal connexions , and we should understand distinctly what the Church of England is . It is now , by a fiction of law , supposed to be the Church of the people of England ; whereas it is only the Church of some of the clergymen of England , and of that comparatively
small part of the population that follows the clergymen into the parish church . The Winchester archdeacon proposes to divorce the church from mistaken connextion with the people of England , and with the present state of opinion and feeling in this country , and to narrow its mission to a pure dogmatic sanction . This would complete the divorce of science and religion , in which dogmatists so wonderfully co-operate with materialists . It is in the same diocese of Winchester that
we discover a mediaeval instrument , singularly harmonizing with the notion of a pure dogmatic preaching and prayers to regulate the weather . It is an instrument of torture , not only preserved in Winchester jail as in a museum , put there applied for the cure of souls . It consists of an iron frame with leathern straps ; the frame is fastened to the hips of the prisoner , and iron crutches wMch pass up under the arms , and which may be lengthened at pleasure , stretch the arms to dislocation . Such appears to be a main
reliance for the correctional discipline in tlie diocese and jail . But why not appl y it to still higher purposes , —say , to a process hke that of Santiago . They want rain , and they torture St . Isidore ; we want no rain , but we have no St . Isidore to torture . Yet we have a saint , and a torture screw—we have a Bishop and the Winchester crutch . Why not refute Comte by combining those two infallible elements of day weather , and placing the Bishop in the crutch throughout the remainder of the present rain P
The Governing- Classes. No. Viii. The Ka...
THE GOVERNING- CLASSES . No . VIII . THE KARL OF DERBY . There is as little accounting for the special peculiarities of families as for the national peculiarities of peoples . But there is as little doubt of the idiosyncracies of tribes aa of tho distinctions of nations . A strong , odd man , turns up , jrfarries , grips land , and founds : and for hundreds and hundreds of years , his do-Bcendants retain , continuo , and intensify his characteristics . It is unnecessary to give instances of a notorious fact : in every man ' s society tho phraso is heard , "just like tho family . " Who of us , with a family tree , which wo all pretend to havo , does not excuse a failing or a vico in tho same way as Lucretia : 1 am a Borgia , and must havo blood ; my father sheds it" ? Wo do moro than excuse ourselves ; we pardon others from some such consideration ; for , aa Lady Shughborough said to Mrs . Norton , " Tho Shoridans wero always witty and vulgar , " to which Mrs . Norton replied , that '' tho Shughboroughs wore always vulgar without being witty . " And it is such a consideration which is forced upon tho notice in examining tho character and caroor of Edward Geoffrey Stanley , fourteenth Earl of "Derby . Looking to tho family , afl well aa to tho individual history , wo find
that for several centurion thoro has existed tho same man—occasionally , but not often , incarnated in a dinVont iiguro ; mid that tho present Lord Derby , accommodating himself to this century , in doing exactly what tho firwt Lord Derby did in his timotaking tho odds in history . For , as tho Napiors aro all (* aneons , « o tho Stanloyn aro all flportHinon . " Sans eftantjer" in truer of tho clan than most family mottooH ; true in tho hoiiho that every Stanley is whimsically vomitilo ; bo true , that tho very motives which lod tho fast Earl to divert his King , wore visible on tho thvoo diflorontoocanionH when the present Earl deserted throu different particB—Whigs , 1 ' oolitcs , and ProtcctionistM .
• Sans changer , " properly translated , means , "Every Stanley hedges . " The Earl of Derby is a magnificent , hearty , clever man , and he has enemies only in those who are too solemn to comprehend him . It is absurd to censure with gravity a man for the shape of whose cerebellum as for the shape of whose legs , thirteen queer Earls are accountable ; arid whatever the jerk * of his career and the mischief of his capers , there is neither frowning nor laughing at a man who looks upon politics as a scrimmage , and history as a spree . Your laws , in
establishing a senate of hereditary legislators , took the chances of temperaments ; and if Lord Derby looks upon life as a joke , and chooses to poke fun at posterity , who is to blame—you or he ? If you don ' t take the joke of his career , you are very dull . But even if you prefer to talk unreal twaddle about the " character of public men , "—talk utterly out « f place in an age of Coalition , which means an age of no opinions , and to refer to the inconsistencies of Lord Derby , his admirers of whom lam one , have no difficulty in his defence . For if he has passed his life in deserting his colleagues ,
yet this is true—that he always left a winning for a losing side ; or that , as in the last case , if he gave up a hopeless party , it was to take to a principle still more impracticable , —to be the Mrs . Partington of the ocean of Democracy ! History ( Mr . Maeaulay ' s ) intensely admires Lord Halifax , who , though a trimmer , had a fine prejudice in favour of impossible causes ; and similarly chivalrous has Lord Derby always been ; his political book has always been so made up , that under no possible circumstances could he ever win . A Vicar of Bray , who changes to keep his living , is
contemptible ; but heroic is the inconsistency of him who goes forth into the political world as knight errant of dead principles and damned projects . We may consider the career of this remarkable man with the impartiality of posterity ; for , as a politician , he is defunct . He had his opportunity when he was allowed to be Premier , and he threw away the opportunity ; and no man ever got two chances . Reviewing his career without partisan passion we see much to excuse and much to respect . And whatever has to be said of his character , the distinction is not to be denied him , that he is the only clever eldest son produced by the British Peerage for a hundred and fifty years ;
Lord John Russell being the only clever younger son of the British Peerage during the same period . Smart , clever , dashing , daring , he always was ; and there is no use in saying he was not more , for he never pretended to be more ; and if his order and the Conservative classes plunged at him and mad e him Premier , greedy to got hold of the only clever born Earl known in the memory of living man , why he was the person in the realm the most astonished : and if he made a
meBS of it , as he knew he would , who was to blameyou or he ? Ho must have been immensely delig hted at tho joko of sending him , a breezy young fellow of thirty , to govern Ireland , tho most ungovernable of countries ; but if Parliament and nation did not seo the mdeconcy of it , why should ho not enjoy tho joke—and go ? Ho did go , and passed a very jolly timo ; and it lie set north and south by tho ears , and drove 0 Council into chronic insurrection , why that was Parliiimont's buHineBs—not his . When Lord John asked
him to govern tho Colonial Empire , a year or two aitor , he accepted tho office with a chuckle ; it was a joko lor a man who had never boon out of England , except to Ireland , and who had never road a book , except blu" - spcare's historic plays and tho Racvng Calendar , to >« asked to organifjo tho most complicated Colonial « y" ° in tho world ; and if ho very nearly dontroyod tho Colonial Empire , why how absurd to impoach him T ^ , j asked him ? Doos ' nt know w hore ' fnmboff i » I vvo ^ , did ho ovor pretend to know whoro Tamboft 1 Did ho ovor sot up in tho Colonial Office to know my i . i- » i \ :. i i ^ .. ; ., „ ,, » . « iy \ l » n wiser tJi < ' tiling ? Did ho to bo wiser m *
over presume ^ dorks ? Did ho ovor contradict King fc > tovonu in life ? Of couroo ho novor did . There was novor ft ^ concealment or sham about him . lCo foU , , jH born into a fioat in tho Commons and thori into tho . * j just as bo waw born into Knownloy and a « i Liverpool ; and ho always said ho did not wo w y ^ should not aimiHo hinwolf in governing—»* ww » b ^ fun aa racing—and besides , ho could do Dot i , ^ _ ^ always has dono , at tho Hamo timo -runni » ff . lumusn in both . Ho hated work , m hu told ovo y ^ he'd fight in tho House an loiigiiHthoy lik «< i , «• , they liked—it wrh all tho yamo to him—but mu a
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29101853/page/14/
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