On this page
- Departments (2)
-
Text (7)
-
September 30, 1854.] THE LEADER. m& ^ M,...
-
•o ff* ^KfHJV (& l1#f> /5b^ ^^ %s- dj'^P ^f | j^ *%^ r**> /^ r^r¥ ^ £v-"V fy fy 4 C/^ \^ ) $ -
-
it SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER, 30, 1854.
-
" ~ TZ 7TZ -* ~ ? J^ltultt 2itl lltt5* I *
-
There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
-
AFTER SEBASTOPOL—WHAT? A cobbespond-ent ...
-
TE1E THANKSGIVING—AND HOW IT SHOULD BE. ...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
September 30, 1854.] The Leader. M& ^ M,...
September 30 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . m & ^ M , ^ _______^__^_ _________ ^___ . — - ' ¦¦ ¦¦ ii — ¦ , i - ¦ - — ~ i . - ' ¦ „ ¦ ¦ , ,
•O Ff* ^Kfhjv (& L1#F≫ /5b^ ^^ %S- Dj'^P ^F | J^ *%^ R**≫ /^ R^R¥ ^ £V-"V Fy Fy 4 C/^ \^ ) $ -
rJmt & Xtt .
It Saturday, September, 30, 1854.
it SATURDAY , SEPTEMBER , 30 , 1854 .
" ~ Tz 7tz -* ~ ? J^Ltultt 2itl Lltt5* I *
^ it WMair # -
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , aa the strain to keep things fixed when all the world ia by the -very law of at 3 creation in eternal progress . —Da . Aknoid .
After Sebastopol—What? A Cobbespond-Ent ...
AFTER SEBASTOPOL—WHAT ? A cobbespond-ent writes to us , commenting on our counsel of a liberal movement on the war , to ask , ' " Can you carry , on war by public meetings ? " "We venture % o answer —Yes . Because the war against Russia ¦ will fail if it is to be merely a military war . Because the war with Russia must be a political
war . Sebastopol being taken , the Russian armies in the Crimea annihilated , and the Russian naval .-force in the Black Sea destroyed , peace may l ) e gazetted . The independence and integrity of Turkey are asserted and secured . An allied army , or a Turkish army , could occupy the Crimea permanently—our cruisers in the Black Sea would render that army safe . The Austrians blocking out Russia in the Principalities guarantee us against acasus " belli on that side . But what then ? The :
Emperor J ^ icholas will , never sign a peace which the public opinion of England would accept . He will sign no abject peace merely because he loses the Crimea , because his army of the Danube falters even in Bessarabia , because his army of Asia gives way before Schamyl . The Crimea , then , for us , is a cul-de-sac : Sebastopol leads nowhere . Nicholas , the Emperor , is humiliated ; but Russia , the Empire , remains . We can keep Russia down ( supposing , the alliance between England and France to be permanent ) on the
Danube , in the Black Sea , and in the Crimea . But ( and the Principalities would probably object to an eternity of military occupation by an . alien and abhorred race ) we are scarcely equal to an enormous enduring organisation to sustain by armed peace the independence and integrity of Turkey . The slightest retreat—and Russia advances . That is not only Russian policy but Russian necessity . Russia is really conquered , for a long : time to come : but Europe would bo on the watch .
We muat then think of Cronstadfc and St . Petersburg . " Dictate a peace in St . Petersburg' ^—that is understood to bo the cry of our wiseat generals and our most gallant statesmen . In singular contradiction to the cry ia the homeward move of the allied fleets of tbe Baltic . Tlio censure so universally inflicted on Sir Charles Napier is curiously illogical . Ho has- done nothing in tho Baltic . True ; but dowe forgot that Admiral Dundaa did nothing ; in tho Black Soa ? Odessa balances
Bomarsund : precisely , tho reasons which provonted Duudas bombarding Sebastopol , prevented Na pier taking Cronstadt . war must bo carried on by armies , not by fleets . Dundas got an army — Napier got none . Duudas ia popular—Napier ia ridiculed . Can England and France produco a land force equal to taking St . Petersburg ? In tho Cnmoa they do not muster 100 , 000 men . St . Petersburg would require not only an army , but nrmios . Wo have done our utmost m tho supply of troops . Louis -Napoleon would not empty Franco of troops , iio la popular , bub a loafc buttle might ruin h \ m . And Prussian neutrality is nob guaranteed . J b
But supposing a victorious French and English army marching on St . Petersburg Paris ia France — St . Petersburg is not Russia . Nicholas would retire to , Moscowcould retire to . Novgorod . He is inaasailable in the recesses of bis empire . Do we contemplate a permanent occupation simultaneously of titie Crimea and of St . Petersburg ?
These are the contingencies of a military war —• a war extending , necessarily , over several years—in those years Nicholas having a variety of chances : a commercial panic in England ; a revolution in Erance ; a quarrel between France and England . A political war would be more abrupt and more effectual . A political war would be implied in the restoration of Poland- —i , e . in bhe sacrifice of the Austrian alliance . To
get peace—the permanent peace that comes from legitimate concessions to nationalitieswe must fight for human freedom . Russia is to be conquered by the destruction of Austria . The whole controversy converts itself in the end into that fact ; and we assume that the English nation is resolute on conquering Russia—once for all . The Austrian alliance was not to be rejected while England was feeling her -way : and is even now to be cultivated—if necessary .
The Sheffield meeting , on Monday , may not have been very sagacious or very logical . But statesmen should study it , ;—at betrayed the instincts of the nation—an instinctive conviction of the unreality and irnpracticality of a war against Russia which is not likewise a war against Austria . It is apity the meeting was not unanimous—it would ha ve better that Sheffield , rather than a certain crowd hi Sheffield , should have spoken . But it is observable that the resolutions of the promoters of the meeting were
carried by large majorities . There was an opposition solely because these promoters of the meeting , insisted on the meeting being Anti-Ministerial . This was a blunder . Our present Ministry is a cabinet without a policyquite ready to do the nation ' s bidding ; and public meetings should dictate to it without opposing it . " We want nationality , not Anti-Ministerialism ; and , assuredly , Anti-Ministerialism is mctl a promos in the Sebastopol week . Austrian diplomacy has won the game against our Cabinet , —but if England speaks , that game may soon be played out .
Te1e Thanksgiving—And How It Should Be. ...
TE 1 E THANKSGIVING—AND HOW IT SHOULD BE . Could preachers and people rise to tho grandeur of tho great subject to which tomorrow is consecrated , infinite might be tho good extracted from tho sermons and reflections . If the people could be fully and universally awakened to the idea , that the sole
path for attaining fulness of life is to obey tho laws by which God works in this universe whoro oiu . " lot is cast , a greater obedience to those laws might bring us to a greater fulnoss of life , a trusting and a happier reliance ontbo end and sequel of life . If mon would repont thoir sins—that is their proved transgression of ascertained laws of Clod—manifest in hia
own works—then we also should be helping more to work out tho divine government , and more identifying oursolvoa with tho movement of universal lifo ; whereas , forgetting , wo suffer nxildovv to fall on tho root wo oat , on tho vine , ' on man lrimsolf , and perish . If tho farmer , most especially , who ia tho instrument for working out certain of tho natural laws in our behalf , could lift himself to a broader view of hia high duty , ho would sco how hia class has repeatedly fallon short of its allotted taskhow ho lias blindly persisted in neglecting or even in thwarting tho very rules by which the grain , our chief sustenance , is niado to grow ,
to thrive ,, and to augment our life . He has in former days fallen short of his task , h © has prevented others from doing better , and even , from teaching him . When those assistant priests—the students of nature—have explained to him the laws of the Q-od he worships , be has scoffed ; when he has been told that if he will consult the welfare of the labourers who help him , by rendering their lives happier , their limbs stronger , then * intellects clearer , and their hearts more willing , he has turned a deaf , sulky earand has
re-, ferred the labourer from < Brod to " the parish " But the farmer , indeed , is not worse than , his fellow men . Human pride , pecking its way into the mere crust of knowledge , discovers-a crumb , and , glorified at the prize , proclaims that it has discovered the truth , the bread of life , the all ; that to seek for more ia profane , and that those who still search for truth and trust in that which they believe themselves to have found , are wicked , malignant , to be destroyed , ruined , and put out of social life . There is not a great truth which has been
discovered for the benefit of man , which has not at the first been denounced as an impiety , an immorality , or a folly there always has been a time when the majority conformed to the disbelief in a transatlantic continent , in the Cape route , in the compass , in steam , in the electric powers with which we are now familiar . Christianity and morality were brought against these , as well as the social discoveries that human industry works most productively when free ,, state order best in freedom . And as we have denied these truths until they were forced upon us , so even to this day we are denying freedom of thought" moral inare denying freedom of thought " moral
in-, quiry , independent con viction , and are labouring to thwart , destroy , drive back into utter ruin those who are working out the truth of the future . We know them not , it is true ; but we adopt the rule to prohibit and suppress all thought and act that does not accord with that already established . As the farmer of the past has forbidden the corn to grow , the beast to be fatted , the sa p to rise in the vine , declaring that he had finally , sufficiently , and exclusively discovered the truth in agriculture , so it is all round ; and as Corn has been withered , so has life . These are the "judgments" of God : cholera , scarcity , and war are the scourges that lash the disobedient .
" Wo might , indeed , render thanks to-morrow , for having to some extent awakened to our case ; and as even a Charles Knightley can declare that God ' s land lias been miiaused by tho farmer , —who tried to grow corn where he might have fodbeasts , —beasts where he might have fed them for their milk , —so some amongst us are slowly , doubtfully , and timidly awaking to the idea that perhaps we havo not done oxir best for our fellow-creatures
—havo withhold them from knowledge , denied their freedom in other ways than political , set tip tho narrow-closed truth of tho past against tlio ever expanding truth of the future . For this happy reason , as surely aa tho farmer ' s better spirit will enable him better to work out the laws of God , and bring us more corn , so surely will a less presumptuous spirit lead us to deal more humbly with tho divino laws , and to receive to ourselves more life . For that indeed , as well aa the golden earnest of a great harvest , wo might give thanks , and fortify ourselves by tho « cfc of thanksgiving .
But alas ! wo arc in poor oaso to render thanlcs for so great bounty . How can a community divided among themselves- — parcelled into conformists , dissenters , disbelievers , sects innumerable , and cathohcists unclnsaifinblo —raiso tho harmonious voice ot conscious gmtitiulo P Tho day will bo spent in polilo obsorvanco by the church ot tho minor classes , in more or less of gratitude , inoro or leas of malignant praying at other
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 30, 1854, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30091854/page/11/
-