On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (6)
-
tihtaiuxt.
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
Tihtaiuxt.
tihtaiuxt .
Untitled Article
There is one " sign of the times" very significant to those who notice it , we mean the admission made in so many orthodox quarters that the Church is not adequate to its office in this age . A spirit of discontent has entered the very sanctuary . Not only do we , who disavow the dogmas on which the Church is founded , disavow the Church , as incompetent to its task ; hut even among those who accept the dogmas there are unmistakeable signs
of a revolutionary spirit . What a phrase is that now becoming current , » the Church of the Future I" It has been said , and with pardonable exaggeration , that the title of the celebrated pamphlet , by Sieves ( given to him , let us add , by Cham fort ) Qu ' est ce que le Tiers fiat ? Tout Qu ' a-t-il ? Men *—was a revolution in itself ; and undoubtedly it expressed in an epigram the whole meaning of that struggle . In like manner we may say the phrase " The Church of the Future" indicates that the Church of the Present is drawing towards its end .
Among the most vigilant of those who ask , " Watchman , how goes the night ? " is the British Quarterly Review , the last number of which opens with an article on " The Christian Ministry to Come , " wherein hope is held out that by dexterous management the Church may once more escape the threatening perils . The writer draws an ingenious parallel between the scepticism of our day and the Julianism of early history . He thus states , and fairly states , the main positions of the enemy : — " With a large class of writers and their admirers , just now , the received
doctrine is , that the Christian ministry is about to be superseded altogether by the teachers of philosophy . These parties differ somewhat in their notion as to the place which should be assigned to the Christian religion , as compared with other religions ; but they are agreed in their judgment that no religion is to be accounted as having more of a divine origin than another , except as it is found to include , and that purely as a matter of natural history , more of divine truth than another . This is in substance the judgment of some who still linger within the pale of modern Unitarianism , and is the avowed and settled doctrine of many who , with more consistency and honour , have ceased to desire a place among professed
Christian sects of any description . " As we have intimated , one of the characteristics of this school is , that it anus to put an end to the special claims of Christianity by superseding it . The days of this ancient religion must be numbered , because these new teachers are not prepared to g ive us something better in its stead . They profess themselves competent to derive all the relig ious knowledge necessary f .. r jnari , and all the religious knowledge to be reasonably expected by man , from the primal laws of man ' s nature , and from the relations of his nature to his fellows , and to the universe . Their mission is not simply to destroy , but to fill up the void they would create with something more worthy . In their theosophy , there is , as they conceive , a positive grandeur , to which it behoves them to do worship—a refinement and a beauty , with , which they profess to be much enamoured . They sometimes rise , accordingly , into strains of eloquence and poetry in the exposition and defence of their conceptions . "
It is not new , he says ; it is only the revival of an old quarrel which the Church managed to silence ; and his argument is both ingenious and ingeniously argued . If he has omitted one consideration , and that the most important of all , we who venture to remind him of it , can well understand how to him its real significance is disguised by the belief that Science and Scripture can be " reconciled . " The difference , however , between the conflict of the Church with Philosophy in Julian ' s age and our own , is almost infinite , owing to the fact that in those days it was , so to speak , the conflict of Opinion with Opinion—in our days it is the conflict of Opinion with Science . It is truly said in another part of this Review : —
" The infidel publications of the present day are not so offensive as were those of forty or fifty years since ; but it is beyond doubt that publications of that dcficription are more numerous , and of a much more influential description now , than they liavo over been in our history . " But the danger to the Church does not lie in the improved tone of its assailants ; because in that case tl > e Church y -defenders would only need to improve their tone to restore equality . Apropos to the change of tone , how different is that of periodical criticism from what it was some years ago ! In an article on " Lord Jeffrey " in this British Quarterly there is an excellent survey of the history of Periodicals , especially with reference to the Edinburgh Review , well wortli
rending , the more so as it rectifies some popular errors about the " influence " of that Review . In the article on " Pre-llaphaelitism , " the purport of the new school is ingeniously shown to be very analogous to that of the Lake School of Poetry . The writer is , however , bent on illustrating only the excellencies both of WoHUSwoiiTii and the P . It . l $ . ' s ; probably because adverse critics have been equally one-sided . Of the various analogies noted in this article , we can find room only for the following : —
"It is another point of minilurity hotwecii WordnwoH . li and tho Pro-Raphaeliton , Umfc this loiuliuiss for detail ' ban manifo . stod itself especially in thoir cane , aw in hiH , in extreme accuracy and iniiiuteneKH in all mutters pertaining to vegetation . Tlio very cnkciico of tho . Woivlmvorthiiin innovation in literature , considered in one of its oMpcctH , consisted in this , that it tore inen that were going to write poetry out of rooms and cities , and cunt thorn on the green lap of Nature , forcing them to inhale the breath of the ploughed earth , and to know the leafage of the different forest treoH , and to ^ a / . e in dank cool placed at the pipy ntalktJ , and into the coloured ( jupH of weeds and wild jflowerH . JtichnoHH in botuiiieal allusion in perhaps the ono peculiarity that pre-eminently distinguishes tho Eugliuh ppotn after , from
the English poets before , Wordsworth , There is , indeed , a closer attention throughout to all the appearances of Nature—the shapes and motions of the clouds , the forms of the hills and rocks , and the sounds and mystery of the seas and rivers ; but , on the whole , one sees very clearly that Wordsworth ' s advice to be true to nature has been interpreted , for the most part , as an advice to study vegetation And so it is , in a great measure , with the Pre-Raphaelites . With them , also , vegetation seems to have become thus far synonymous with Nature , that it is chiefly by the extreme accuracy of their painting of trees , and grass , and waterlilies , and jonquils , and weeds , and mosses , that they have signalized their superior
attentiveness to Nature ' s actual appearances . Not , by any means , that they deceive the public into a belief of their attention to Nature by a trick of extreme care in botanical objects alone ; for the same accuracy that distinguishes the Pre-Raphaelite studies of vegetation , will be found to distinguish their representations of all physical objects whatever that are introduced into their pictures ; but that necessarily , when a man resolves to observe accurately , he confirms the habit by peering with exaggerated interest into the secrets of such sweet little things as violets , and ferns , and bluebells , and that it is in the representation of these pets of vegetation that attention to Nature ' s finer minutiae is most easily discernible . "
Untitled Article
Pboudhon ' s new book , La Revolution Sociale , is the weakest he has yet written ; but it is not so deficient in purpose as shallow critics have complacently proclaimed ; and those who think Louis Napoleon was wise in permitting its publication do not see beyond their noses , for a more complete nullification of that pretended saviour of society has not been written . It is true that Proudhon shows how the coup-d ' etat was inevitably successful , owing to the condition of France ; but has not the fact demonstrated that ? It is true that Proudhon deduces from the success of the coup-d'etat his favourite conclusion of the incompetence of Government ; but whoever reads his book with attention will read the most biting and profound scorn for Louis Napoleon and his party , not
bursting forth in declamation , but settling down into the minds of men , there to operate as no declamation can . Among the noticeable things in the volume is what may be called the philosophy of the history of 1848—51 . While bestowing earnest and deserved approbation upon the men and motives of the Provisional Government he shows their governmental incompetence ; and particularly insists upon their mistake in forming an alliance with the Church , summing up with this phrase— " Without a revolution in the Church there can be no republic in the State . " The dominant idea of this volume is one we wholly accept , That the Revolution of the Nineteenth Century is a Social not a Political Revolution , and that no change of dynasty or form of government can solve the pressing problem .
Very different in form , in purpose , and in style is Victor Hugo s p assionate diatribe , Napoleon le Petit , seven thousand copies of which have already been sold , many of them furtively circulating in France , where the effect must be tremendous . It is very eloquent , very incisive , very declamatory , very passionate . Images , epigrams , rhetoric , facts , history , morality , all are brought forward to increase our hatred and contempt if that be possible—for the most unmitigated scoundrel who , since the Roman emperors , has played a great part in public life—a scoundrel who has not only every vice , but not a single redeeming trait , moral or intellectual .
But in reading this book , as in thinking of France since December , we are more saddened by the complicity of France than by anything that can be said of this miserable adventurer . It is quite clear that he is no Coriolanus , to say , " Alone I did it . " The Army that gave him the mater ial force ; the Church that blessed his crimes , and gave him moral force ; the Monied Classes , the Magistrates , and Functionaries , who welcomed his despotism , and called it Order—the utter abnegation of all moral Conscience in the thousands who servilely applauded—there lies the
grief . Loathe this bad man—bad intellect , bad heart , as utterly as you may ; he is but a specimen of individual immorality ; there is something far more saddening in the widespread immorality of a nation !
Untitled Article
THE Oli'D AND NEW" THEOLOGY . Lectures and Miscellanies . Uy Henry James . Itcdfiold : New York . ( second article . ) The most marked phenomenon in tho development of religious thought , as that subject disposes itself in broad masses before the historic eye , is , wo conceive , tho gradual and progressive tendency from outwards inwards , or as tho Germans say , from tho objective to the subjective . The bond oi sympathy was slight between Man and the antique Gods ; it is the distmctivo characteristic of Christianity to make that bond intimate , immediate , and vital . Tho Gods lived apart from man . Christ was the living identification of God and man .
Marked as this distinction is between the Kthnic and tho Christian Religions wo may trace one liLllo less decisive between the Catholic and tho Protestant forms of Christianity , and again between the Protestant and the Spiritualist ( or by whatever name you choosy to designate the New . Reformation now working the destruction of dogmatic Christianity ; the orthodox name it Infidelity . ) We are not , writing a treatise ; we are onl ^ r indicating certain points of view from which the reader may survey Mum question at loisuro ; brevity is therefore imperative . in it
Catholicism was not only objective in its ritual , bul , eminently so s spirit . It personified Religion in the Church . It made grace vicarious . Christ , was the vicar of God to man—the Mediator ; the Priest was tho vicar of Christ—tho Modiutqr also . Man was to believe , not to think ; to obey , not to participate . T " ho Protest against thin proceeded from tho dogma thai , Christ lived in Man ; that man ' vHmimmediatvlyconnwlud with God ; that he was bound to think and to participate ; his * soul was the tabernacle . Wo have repeatedly illustrated this contrast in our columns , and have
Untitled Article
/ v-n-a are not the legislators , but the iudges and police of literature . They do not Critics a ^ £ e D 1 u aw 3 __ tiey interpret and try to enforcetliem . —Edinburgh Review .
Untitled Article
Aimpsg 21 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 805
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 21, 1852, page 805, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1948/page/17/
-