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tron age—an exhibition of what we can't do and won't ^ a ^ d no doubt House of Lord 3 Hous e of Commons , her Majesty ' s Government especially , and the Parliamentary Reformers , will be large Exhi bitors . \ Vhat ought to strike us with real alarm is , what will all this political and professional inaction end in ? Mild yet effective , moderate yet substantial and thoroug h reforms , ought to be the serious occupation of statesmen in times of peace , so that the current of men's lives may be always hopeful , and their destiny sensibly progressive , and no dread day of reaction looming in the prospective . Now , great crimes are
wmked at , lest the public mind should be agitated by redress . This is the stifling , corrupt , and pestilential air of peace , out of which volcanoes and plagues do surely come . If a gentleman—as Mr . Wells Brown , the fugitive slave , remarked , at the ant i-slavery meeting , in Freemasons ' -hall , two weeks ag 0 steal a suit of clothes , fastidious society hoots out at the petty larceny ; but if it turn out that there is a man in the clothes , it is altogether a different thing , and the matter is hushed up , lest vested interests be too rudely disturbed . So it is with the grievous iniquity of our present laws of capital in relation to the workman . If a
master break his labourer ' s head , he is fined for the assault , and accounted a brute ; but if lie suck the labourer ' s blood through the shuttle till he dies , the master is well received by society . If an employer filches a penny loaf f ; om his workman ' s table , the said filcher might be given in charge of a policeman ; but if the employer become the conventional instrument whereby no loaf at all ever gets on his labourer ' s table , he is held of unimpeachable honour in trade , and the rude mouth ot the" complaining toiler is promptly stopped . The wonder is that nobody thinks it worth while to be alarmed at this . Do
comfortablyto-do people think it will last for ever ? Do they think that the thorough contempt which the people are beginning to feel lor their do-nothing rulers will not some day be the inspiration of their despairwhich will surely set in ?¦ Who that suffers should have respect for anybody or anything around him , while all is made 10 cooperate to defer the day of r ' edress ? Could men look below at the madness , which runs like an aimless current among the poor , seeking a vent and as yet finding none—could they penetrate to the insanity begot by the hope deterred ( intentionally , under misconception ,
doubtless , yet systematically deferred by thoBe who govern ) , till the heart of the governed is sick—could the wise , who ought to know better , and the rich , who ought to do better , see the brink of contempt and misery on which law and oroer and peace and security stand , they would no longer be afraid of doing something : they would feel sharp and quick terror lest the sun should go down before they had done something ? A prudent man will hasten to wash his hands publicly of the old doctrine of the " Friends of Order , " as now translated in their acts . They maintain , as an eloquent poetess has recently
written , " a Peace which sits Beside the hearth , in self-commended mood , And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits Are howling out of tloors against the good Of the poor wanderer . While your Peace admits Of outside anguish while it sits at home , I loathe to take its name upon my tongue—It is no peace . 'Tis treason stiff with doom , — "Tis ( lagged despair , and inarticulate wrong . "
So , in self protection , many of us may exclaim ; for upoii such doctrinaires of moderation is the responsibility of justifying that eloquent menace , which can nevir be heurd without real alarm by any to whom humanity and progress are sacred teriah—a menace utteied by one who has once spoken the first words of a [ Revolution , " the morrow of the ltuler ' s fear is the day of the People ' s hope . " Ion .
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The Executive Committee of the National Charter Association met on Wednesday , at the National Hull , Holborn , but no business wus transacted . The committee udjourned to Wednesday evening , July 2 , and a dotailed balance-sheet for the quarter ending June 25 will be published next week . —John Arnott , General Secretaiy . On iucsduy evening , at the meeting of the Jolm-Btreot Locality , the adjourned discussion on " The relative merits of Freo Trade and Protection" was resumed in the coffee-room of the institution ; Mr . John Milne in the chair . Mr . Brinsmeud commenced by Btuting that tho gist of the question was , which
ot tho measures would confer the greatest good on the greatest number of the people ; and , having at considerable length stilted his ideas on tho _ subject under . discussion , guve it ns his decided opinion that Free Trade was calculated to insure to the people the greatest amount of happiness . Mr . Be / . er , on the contrary , contended that Free Trade , as at present curried out , hud und would cuuse u grout amount ot misery . Mr . Samu « I Kydd , in a long und very eloquent address , explained his viown on thin important question , und resumed his neat uinid great app lause . Other friends having brieily addressed the meeting , Mr . Isaac Wilaon moved tho adjournment of tho
discussion until Tuesday evening next . A numerous audience attended , and the meeting separated highly satisfied with the instruction which had been given . Circular to the Chartists . —Mr . Arnott has forwarded letters to various parties , saying : — " I am instructed by the Executive Committee to solicit from you , on or before the third Monday in each month , the number of new members enrolled in your locality , and an account of the general progress of the movement in your neighbourhood , together with matters affecting the interests of the working classes : such report being required in
order that it may appear m the circular to be issued by the Executive on the first of every month , a copy of which will be presented gratuitously to those members who have regularly paid their contributions to the funds of the Association . I am also instructed to call your attention to the necessity which exists of supplying the Executive with the necessary funds to enable them to print and circulate tracts , appoint lecturers , and otherwise fulfil the duties imposed on them by the recent Convention , which , if adequately supported , they are resolved energetically to perform . "
The Newcastle-on-Tyne newspapers have lately contained reports of well-addressed public meetings on behalf of the Polish and Hungarian Refugees . Twelve are now in that town ; and the secretary and treasurer of the committee for their support—Joseph Cowen , jun . — has issued an energetic address in furtherance of their generous work . A colony on the Fourier system has been established in Texas by General John D . Wilkins , a philanthropic and wealthy planter of Louisiana . The establishment is under the superintendence of a German , who is said to be a man of education and intelligence . 'Every member contributes 400 dollars on his admission to the colony , and participates in the receipts of the general industry in proportion to his labour and services .
Socialism in America . —Let us call each thing by its own name , and we shall be led to conclude that there is no difference betwee-. i the doctrine of the American , English , or French Reformers . It is everywhere the same fundamental principle , consequently the same results . Relieve the poor from their sufferings , the labourer from the slavery of capital ; restitute to Christianity its true sense , grant to each according to his wants , and receive from each according to his capacities : such is the platform upon which stand , for the
present , all the Reformers of the day . The only difference between American or European Socialism do not exist in the principle but in the name , manifestation , and mode of application . Landreform , Sewardism , homestead exemption , Greeleyism , cooperative association , &c , are as many branches of Socialism , as much , if not more , radical than any Socialism exposed and propounded in European countries . Further on , we say that all the principles represented under the above denomination , which sooner or later shall have the support of the
majority of the American people , are more promissory in good results , more easily attained , more practicable , tlian the same measures proposed on the European continent , because they may be more freely , and consequently more readily obtained—with less struggle , contention , and reaction—because the institutions of this country bear in germ the seed of Socialism—because the habits of independence , the political freedom , the physical position of this country , have a natural tendency to rear , foster , and establish Socialism , more so than any other country upon earth . —E . F . —Cabet ' s Popular Tribune , No . 18 .
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There ib no learned man but will confess ho . hath much prollted by reading oontrovcruiea . hia aeiiHca uwakened , and lua judgment sharpened . Jf , then , it be profitable Or him to renS , why should it not , at leust , be tolerable lor his adveraury to write . — Mii . ton . THE AUTHOR OF "YKAST" AND THE
INCUMBJiNT OF ST . JOHN'S . Kditli-ROttnge , Norlli-eiul . 1 ' tilhiun , June 26 , 1 H !> 1 . Dhah Slit ,- —Returning homewards on Sunday last , after tho disgraceful Hcene in St . John ' H , after having successfully resisted i > n intenso impulse to iling a loud cry of " shame ! " at the incumbent , I resolved to write ( it once to you , and tell Mr . Drew , through your cohnniiH , what I thought of him and of hit ) protest . Second thoughts , however , led me to do otherwisein the hope that that and exhibition would
, escape the lynx-eyes of iho penny-ii-liners . Such has not been the cuhc . Accounts of it have appeared in severul papers ; and as they are all false in Hpirit , I trust you will allow mo to give a perfectly veridical statement of tho affair , and to append a few remarks
thereon . Mr . Kingsley preached the noblest sermon I ever heard in any place of worship , from Luke iv . 16 to 21 . His delivery was that of an impassioned and earnest priest , convinced that every word he was saying was God ' s truth , imperative on him to speak , and good for all to hear . There was nothing in his sermon beyond what he has abundantly asserted in Cheap Clothes and Nasty , Yeast , Alton Locke , and the Christian Socialist , except that he riveted his assertions by quotations from the Bible , so firmly as to render it impossible for any man , believing the Bible , to get rid of them by any quibbling and temporising doublings and shufflings whatsoever . After he
had concluded , and the congregation duly gone through that conventional form of putting their faces in their hats , or flattening their noses against the book-shelf , the Reverend Mr . Drew , the incumbent , having waved his hand to stop the organ striking up a voluntary , arose , and spoke pretty much these words . I will be responsible for the accurate sense , and believe them to be verbatim : — " Christian friends ! " ( Somehow or other , when a man begins a speech so , he always has got something essentially unchristian to say . ) "Christian friends !—I have a duty to perform—one of the most painful that has ever devolved upon me ; but , being placed over this
congregation by the Bishop of London , I feel compelled to say , that while much that the preacher has advanced has given me great satisfaction , I must and do protest against much that he has said as extremely imprudent (!) and untrue . I may say , also , it is altogether different to what I had been led to expect . " Now , what in the name of common sense did Mr . Drew expect to hear ? The subject was , " The Church ' s message to the labouring class ; " and did he expect such an one as Charles Kingsley to repeat the fusty and abominable message the Church has been continually addressing to that class—that they should lie still with the heel of Mammon on their neck , and
remain passive under the competitive system—under denial of their just rights- -under wholesale plunder of their earnings by buccaneering capitalists ? lam a Churchman ; and , though I have been led to look doubtfully on the Church as an embodiment of Bible principles , the fact of there being such men as Mr . Kingsley in it , had lately led me to back it , in the hope that society would gain more by its existence than its death . I will not bow to Mr . D * ew in knowledge of Church principles , in knowledge of Bible
principles ; and it is my deliberate opinion that Mr . Kingjjley uttered no sentence hostile to one or tho other—no opinion that any honest Churchman can consistently disavow—no sentiment which he should not rejoice to affirm . I have heard many solutions of Mr . Drew ' s conduct—that he was suffering under temporary insanity , among the rest " . But I think we get the solution from four words — " imprudent" and " the Bishop of London . " There is no doubt that the sermon was imprudent . So was Christ ' s denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees . Faithful
deliverers of God's messages have generally been so imprudent as to get crucified , burnt , boiled , beheaded , hanged , in past times ; and in our own , to array against them all the respectabilities . It is imprudent to tell fat , flabby millionnaires that unless they repent and do good with their plunder , they will assuredly be damned , but it is , perhaps , not wholly false on Church-and-Bible principles . I have no doubt Mr . Drew thought that a few pews might be given upa few less guineas subscribed to hia various church adjuncts—a few less shot-silk dresses and " best Went of England" covered paunches to preach to ; and therelore made this hysterical and ill--judged clutch
at the flesh-pots of Egypt , which Mr . Ivingsley was so righteously denouncing and oilending . Again : mark that pleasing reference to the " Bishop of London . " Slippery , inconsistent , Fulham palace-inhabiting ( J . J . London whocan remove Bonnets fomoreason—would not bo likely , by any means , to approve the true message of God being delivered in his diocese , as he only possesses his casli and power by a general substitution of the devil ' s message for God ' s , lie might express his disapproval of a true Priest of God being introduced into St . John ' s ; and Mr . Diow , perhaps , hus a wholesome dread of tho disfavour of his diocesan . In conclusion , allow me to state that I consider Mr . Drew ' s conduct grossly impertinent , very unkind , und altogether unchristian . It is
an if a man were to invite Thackeray to his home , and get together a good company especially to meet him , and then , because he thoug ht it probable that Mr . Jones , the rich pig-feeder , and Mr . Green , the wealthy tailor , might be oilended at his jeux d ' espritw , should ( suddenly Hpit in the face of the author of I ' auicnnis , and kick him out of doors . I do trust that Mr . Kingbley will speedily publish that Hcrmon . If it be heterodox , hia diocesan will certainly notice it . If Iuh diocesan do not notice it , Mr . Drew will be clearly convicted of a piece of purely gratuitous in-Holenee to a better man than KiuiHolf ; if bin diocesan do proclaim it to be hostile to Church pi inciplcH , I shake o / f the dust from my feet as a testimony ugiiinHt him and hia Church , and walk straightway into New Bridge-street , and pay a subscription to tho Anti-State-Church Association . 1 am , dear sir , yours sincerely , J . Storks 3 mitu ,
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June 28 , 1851 . ] j pfle 3 L ( after . 615
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, TIN THIS nUPAKTMIlNT , AH ALL O 1 INIONH , HOWUVER KXTIIEMK , ARE 1 ALLOWKD AN KX 1 MIKSSH ) N , T 1 IK KDlTOtt NKOKHHAUILV HOLDS HIMSBI . P HKSPONSIBLIC FOR NONU . ]
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Leader (1850-1860), June 28, 1851, page 615, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1889/page/19/
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