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    « hd " claim to represent the majority of the clergy fZv the issue ; have no faith in their principles ; A we will not say what reflections such a fear d lack of faith must call forth in the public 111 perhaps the most astonishing result of the k s controversy is the portrait painted by the Journals of the Protestant clergymen . If we $ > sired to compass the destruction of the Church r destroy ing the character of her clergy , we hould not wish for surer means than those pmployed by the lav advocates of a stationary , divided , and a submissive Church . One says that the clergy cannot deal with "even the interests of the Church in a spirit of discretion , wisdom and decorum ; " that Convocation would

    , 8 erve no imaginable purpose but the " disgraceful exhibition of the dissensions" of its members , whom it respectfully alludes to as a " swarm of theological hornets . " Another at first mildly denies them the " good temper and common sense required to conduct the debates of Convocation , " and rising , as the polemic grows warmer , into a higher strain of invective , speaks of the " disgusting brawls at Plymouth , " parried on " with a defiance of ordinary

    restraints and decency , happily unknown among societies of laymen , " and conducted with a " personal bitterness and coarse vindictiveness " distinguishing the " whole batch of these Plymouth clergymen . " " Sound the whole horizon , " says the same writer , " there is not a single sign to show that divines are becoming more tractable to reason or more willing to think and act gently by their spiritual antagonists . " A third , after great profession of respect and

    anxiety for the welfare ot the Church , calls Convocation " an amphitheatre wherein to hold an ecclesiastical bull-fight . " Now , we must be understood as neither adopting nor rejecting these descriptions of the pastors ofthose who write them , —of the men from whom they receive the most awful sacraments , and at whose feet they are supposed to sit to hear the sacred and saving doctrines of religion . What is the value of this wholesale depreciation of the clergy P How can the writers believe and denounce ?

    Does it not make manifest the truth for which we are contending—namely , that profound and vital hostilities are at work in the Church of England , which , nevertheless , presents itself to us , officially , as one united , harmonious , divine institution . What a startling discrepancy , between the pretension and the facts ! What a tremendous deficit on the side of truth and conscience ! In point of fact , these are confessions , all the

    more valuable , because so spontaneously made , that the Church of England , composed not only of its lay myriads , but of ten thousand educated clergymen , in . the possession of enormous wealth , with the prestiqe of ages , cannot improve its present position . If persevered in , wo must accept this cry of the great journals as an indication that the Church of England is a gigantic wham , and if so , woo unto the people who tolerate it , and consent to be its dupes .

    Tt remains for the clergy and laity of the ^ liun-h to disprove the representations of their ' ¦ I'iunpiona ; to win freedom or dare- defeat ; to roako the Church what she professes to be , to •'• ' ri'y out her doctrines , to adhere to her dogmas , ' <> maist , on her rights ; to do this for conscience ' nake . ji . ml i / -v ., * .. „ ., i „ .. i ' ., ^^ ™ , 1 , ^ :...,. n < liJa ia + !>/> liiD ii \

    -, ' ** » ' * ' "I'fllltl KJi : lilll 111 UWlll ^ II ' , I' * r » ' «; ll ; ji"u hut noble task imposed on churchmen ; and wha tever may be its result , wo are , if they are , l ) rft par «> d to take the consequences , confident that 'j ' ' ' ( rue ' ' will bo also mightiest in tho end , ' . " lilt we shall never live to repent of having Ul"itten faithfully up to our creed of freedom of " ° "gnt , of speech , and of writing for all ranks llll ( l ne <; f . H , and races of men .

    Untitled Article

    I'OIIIS NAPOIjKON , HM TUMOR . ' <>( iis Nai'oi . kon Iwh conquered . However ( i ^ 'Hparei . t his devices may have been at first , niili ' -- , " ' Pageant , however sullen tho t huMl " ° ' - '' ^ ixx ' tiilorH , there is no doubt II '" Pertinacious continuance of bin panulo . | ii ( 1 () » gli <) Ut France | ms | , i itH 4 , , MM , | ,,, a cfreol ,, Hilr ¦ '' ' 7 ' ' ° no lll ! l < l ° ' Iriumjihal ( y into . l » a , | . i Hj OI 1 { Saturday last , largo classes o ( . , " . Population had really fallen into the rniikH < 1 ((| J | H H "PP «> rterH . Whatever may bo tho uolliel , | ' ° " ' ° > Mn tf '" this or that district , '" <' Mio world proves that Iho (() lia 1 < ' l ' lly lH < m ¦ much too largo a scale Vo been got up by his menus only , by a

    single purse , or any surreptitious machinery Numbers of those who make spontaneous offerings to him must represent volunteers newly added to his adherents ; and there is a reason for this , not very deep below the surface , and yet often unrecognized by statesmen . When Louis Napoleon started for his tour in the South , met chiefly , perhaps only , by his friends , the multitude standing by in sullen silence , he was but beginning the process which he accomplished on Saturday . At that time the semblance of a popular movement was got up by his own instruments , and was aided only by those timeservers who are willing to speculate on the chances of any new success . The feelings , both of the

    middle and working classes , towards him are well known . The working classes were prepared to tolerate him so long as they should see under his regime a prospect of employment ; and they were the more impelled to that course by the rancour with which they remembered the grape-, shot of the " Moderate" Republic . " The Eepublic , " they said , " filled our bellies against our appetites ; and Louis Napoleon could not give us harder fare . " The trading classes , whom he treats with a marked contempt , whom he is grinding with taxation and with all the oppressions of hard rule , who form , in fact , the fulcrum by which he is moving other classes , sustain the whole weight , and are mere endurers of the chains . These classes he has well selected for

    the purpose . Their mam desire is to let trade go on . To that desire they will sacrifice everything ; and as the maintenance of quiet does let trade go on , they are content to suffer morally , while they prosper materially . He places the greatest pressure on the class whose spirit is most prone to endure that pressure . . The army he has diligently courted ; and the army , it may be remembered , although now much demoralized and alienated from the mass of the citizens ,

    especially in the capital , is drawn from the heart of the people , and is the very life-blood of the country . The army in France is a class , and that army at present sees its old prospects in the open career of the new Empire . It may , indeed , have an enterprise or two beyond that which he may calculate , but , of course , such ideas are vague and conditional . At present it is pleased through him , and it is prepared to elevate him on the shield of election . Add to these facts .

    that there is sprinkled about the provinces , and especially in the South , a large element of Bonapartism , and the raw material on which lie has worked is before us . The pageant which lie has created throughout his route has revealed to the uneducated mind the image of the old empire under the most vivid aspect of a theatrical representation . Moving amongst such elements , he has done something more , however , than simply perform a pageant . In the South he lias drawn out the population , by the aid of administrative machinery , and has induced it to stand before . France in presence with himself . He did so at Toulon , at Marseilles , at Bordeaux , and at ovovy place of any note in the intervals . In other words , for the day , he made FYanco to see herself , and paraded before society tho actual strength of the nation . Coming back to Paris , he prances into thai city , ever sensitive of ear and eye to the pomp of battle , at the head of an imposing * miu 1 devoted army . Ah troop after troop marched glistening through the streets , the fluttering casements had leisure to count the power which . Franco possesses , and which had been intrusted , whether by Providence , or by fortune , or by chance , into the hands of tho one man , who rode triumphant . . France saw there , in her quivering capital , concentrated at one survey , an engine capable of moving States , and with her own eyes saw tha . fi engine in the bands of tho bold unflinching fatalist , whose fixed tenacity of purpose ban raised him from being the idle lounger of" LoieeHtorsq uaro , to tho lord of tho imperial throne , and arbiter of the destinies of Furopo . Tenacity of purpone—converse fkoo to 1 ' a . co with Francedisplay of the strength of . France , and of her military power in one grasp—those are tho appeals by which Louis Napoleon has addressed himself to tlie mind , the fear , the pride of France . Tho nation ban calculated that her submission to that power for the nonce would be better than resistance . France Iuih trembled under the display of" her own power , held over her own bead . . Franco has fell jprido in the engine by which the luaji who Hiieaktf in . her name can make . nations .

    tremble . Many a class , therefore , which had looked upon him as an adventurer , an alien , is now prepared to fall into the ranks of the veritable Emperor of France . Louis Napoleon has stolen a march upon ^ the statesmen who have been before him . Factions speak to particular convictions , but mostly they address interests which are sectional , or convictions that can only be entertained by particular classes of minds . The Legitimists entertain peculiar notions of a very abstract kind , as to the duty of subjects , the rights of sovereigns , and the particular merits of a gentleman with a feeble constitution , who writes abstract letters to his

    personal friends m the metropolis . But the especial crotchet which that party entertain is one which can have no sort of interest for the people at large . The Socialists entertain notions which . to us appear based upon a very sound principle , respecting the future development of political economy in any mate ; but they have shaped their conclusions in forms so remote from any immediate practicability , that they have never yet enabled the people to handle any specimen , or result of the promised fruits . Louis Blanc might have done so ; but his colleagues suffered Marie to outwit him . The association of

    workmen remains , and it may prove to be quite as possible under the Empire as under any " more strictly Socialistic regime . The Republicans also put forth abstract theories , but lost themselves in conflict , and perpetrated the hideous mistake of firing grape-shot into tlie stomachs of the people , in whose right they professed to speak ! They immolated the citizens , as a sacrifice to the name of the Republic , —immolated

    more especially the most republican of those citizens . But all these parties had neglected to make a direct appeal to the passions of France , as France ; had neglected to set forth that appeal in forms that particularly strike the collective mind of any community ; and thus they left that appeal to a man much their inferior in many respects , but instinctively appreciating the particular art . He has used his art .

    He has elevated France into being a very dangerous neighbour to this country . We mistrusted France in 1840 , under the citizen-king , tho Napoleon of Peace , and his Minister , Thiers , historian of tho Revolution . We mistrusted France again in 1818 , when Paris was the scene of conflict . We have regarded France with , an increasing mistrust , and now , although amongst us there are many disposed to consider her a guardian of tranquillity , simply because her Government is to be called royal , she lias acquired a power and a posture more hazardous to this country than she ever before possessed , even .

    under Napoleon himself , who met the power of England al Waterloo . France Avas far Jess able then than she is now to > damage England : she is not yet in conflict with all the world ; she possesses a power of naval transport which she never before possessed , certainly not in the days of tho Boulogne flotilla . Her enormous army is for tho most part at home ; she ha . s had the recruiting interval of a long ponce , yet with warlike practice in Algeria ; and she lias lent herself for all purposes to the inscrutable Adventurer . Never wan France before so able to injure England , ho little diverted by other occupations , or so removed from the calculations of political science .

    But these facts do not really constitute- the greatest danger which France lias for our own country . That danger lies precisely in tho neglect of our statesmen who copy the defeated statesmen of France rather than Louis Napoleon . The middle class , whom Lou ' Napoleon has made tho fulcrum , but not I ho ruler , of bis course , in the dominant / class in this country , and is giving to our statesmanship its purely negative and pash " ivo elm racier . Tho wholo conduct of England as u Stalo is a pra . ct . ical tiinc-Hcrving ' , ready for submission to any event , but unprepared for

    action . The concentration ivhicb France has acquired through tho elevation of the Fnijperoris wholly wanting in this country . We doubt whether there has ever before heen in tho history of the world a great State so totally broken up into small fractional parties as England is al . this moment . Wo have , it is truo , an army ; but tho largest , proportion of it i « spread abroad , to tlie most remote parts of the empire ; which it is tho practice of our central government to keep in a slate of dissatisfaction if not disalleotion , as if purposely to provide thai our HoMirry may havo work at ' tho most distant frontiers . Some nor-

    Untitled Article

    Ootobjsb 23 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . W 15 _

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1852, page 1015, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1957/page/11/