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more to talk about ! For the most astonishing thing in all this " endless and pointless talk" is , not the flood of words , but the little that is really said . If IVtembers would leave off ringing the red clapper with less system than the parish ringers at their weekly practice , they would remember a thousand things that ought to be said , but which are now left beneath the surface of the flood—fish that we dream not of beneath the idle wave that chases and is chased in endless seesaw . For the measures that Members talk about are
few compared to the measures that roam under J ; hat monotonous flood—few as the ships above compared to the shoals below . Let the reader look any day through the royal assent list , and see what he has learned of the measures there mentioned . He recognises but a fraction , even by name ; and yet if Parliament did its duty , every M . P . would want to know what is this measure to which , by his vote or his sufferance , he is giving his assent . If it comes to Parliament at all , it must be for high sanction ; and how is that sanction abused if , in the majority of cases , it is conferred by default ! Yet such is the fact . Better that the measures should receive a lower
sanction , so that it were an intelligent and responsible one . And what are the bulk of those silent measures P " Local and private business "town improvements , alterations of roads , enlargement of harbours , exceptional associations for limited objects , and the like . In other words , all of them proceeding upon general principles , they are local and private applications of general laws —county and town applications of imperial rules How absurd , then , to crowd all these olbjects upon the over-crowded Parliament . How absurd that the merits of a plan for making' a canal and railway
from Builth to Glydn should be referred from the dignitaries and savans of those celebrated places , who know all about it , to the very busy Members of the Imperial Parliament , who know nothing about the scheme whatever—who cannot even tell the population of Glydn , or find their way from Builth to the nearest conventicle ! Recognise the principle that things to be done within the parish concerning only the parish , within the county concerning only the county , may be managed by authorities within either
boundary , under obedience to general laws furnished by the general authority , and you relieve Parliament by lightening its work—take away bodily a part of that for which the poor M . P . sits up o' nights in defiance of Brotherton , of health , and Of good repute for self or Senate . One evil which railways were expected to cure , but vainly , is the aggregation of vast tovrns , with all their moral and sanitary difficulties ; but the evil is not cured because the cause is not removed .
What collects people into towns but the necessity of going there to do what cannot be done at their own doors in the country P The grandees come to town , promoters of private bills come to town , and a traffic is permanently established to provide for these periodical visits m the metropolis . Let much of the business remain out of town , and so would many of the people , and country trade would benefit by the relief of tho metropolis . Thus local self-government is calculated to be a
great sanitary measure . But it would have no small political ellects . Every man is not calculated to be a statesman figuring on an imperial stage ; but every man knows something about tho business of his own immediate circle , and ought to take hia share in it . Remit all local business to its own place , and a proper activity would bo furnished for each man in his own sphere . Provided with ob . ioets
of action there—a true universal suffrage—men would bo incasing loss upon questions of central authority ; and whilo liberty would bo maintained at ita sources , agitation would be less wiclo and aimless in its movements . Lot a man bo tho Gracchus of his village , and ho would not bo eagerly earo to attempt tho duties of Gracchus for his country . The principle of local solfirovernmont has worked well for those out ; lym # " English counties" culled colonies . Our homo counties would like to have a taato of the , boon , and Lord Palmornton promises a seodlmg concession . .
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THE SIMONY BILL THROWN OUT . Simony , like bribery at elections , is one of our cherished institutions . Attack Simony and you aim a blow at the rights of property , and shake the foundations of tho throne . The Bench is pre served from corrupt appointments ; tfco sale
of official posts is forbidden under heavy penalties ; even commerce will not suffer the purchase of clerkships ; but that office which assumes to be instituted for the saving of souls is to be had for hard cash . Corruption denounced by Law , and scouted by Commerce , takes refuge in the Church— - " the most sacred of our institutions . " How shall we account for this anomalous state of things P When Nonconformity puts forth its strength ; when Rome threatens our ecclesiastical institutions : when Inquiry challenges Belief to
produce its credentials ; who are the loudest to shriek in the Parliament , on the hustings , and at the open meeting , that " the Church is in danger ? " Certainly not the Clergy , but the Laity of the Church . These gentlemen profess to believe in the Scriptures , and to stake that salvation in which they parade their belief on the doctrines and ceremonies of the Church of England . Now , they know that simony is considered as a heinous crime by that Church ; yet Ikeyave the great upholders of that crime . They
fill the papers with advertisements of livings to be sold •'; they provide work for the auctioneer ; they take money for the right of selecting the future guides to salvation . This conduct is a scandal not only to the Church , but to the nation ; and we can only account for it on one of three suppositions . Either the lay patrons who sell advowsons and next presentations are hypocrites , not believing in the creed they profess , or they believe and sin nevertheless , or their perceptions of right and wrong are so blunted that discern the sinProbabl
they have ceased to . y there are instances of each class among the lay patrons ; to whom in the majority of cases the Church of England is a political and social convenience , and to the minority only an essential institution . The preservation of lay patronage , and its almost inseparable attendant simony , provides an outlet for younger sons , incapables , and scapegraces . When Henry the Eighth seized the property of the Church and parcelled it out among his creatures , he not only robbed , the Church but the poor and the nation ; and he laid
the foundation for one of the worst evils of our Erastian establishment . No amount of sophistry can explain away the fact that professing lay members of the Church do an enormous and lucrative business in the sale and purchase of the cure of souls . Taken with the other proofs we have so repeatedly offered , and which when occasion serves we shall offer again and again , this crying and disgraceful evil of simony affords incontestable evidence of the rottenness and anarchv of our ecclesiastical system .
Mr . Phillimore , ably sustained by Lord Croderich , has vainly attempted to obtain the consent of Parliament to a very partial removal of this evil . That his bill should not pass this session cannot bo made a matter of complaint against anybody . We are now in the middle of July ; Ministers did not place ecclesiastical reform in their programme , and therefore they break no pledges . Independent Members cannot carry bills through at this season of the year . AH those are conclusive reasons against attempting
to force the measure forward ; and Lord Croderich acted discreetly in withdrawing the bill . There is no special reason why it should pass now ; there is only the standing reason—the scandal , tho sin , of long years . But this does not exonerate tho laity ot tlie Church of England ; this does not exonerate the bishops and clergy of the Church of England , many of whom have accepted and will continuo to accept livings obtained for them b y the com of tho realm . Tho Church tacitly permits simony ,
and her clergy are accomplices in its perpetration . This does not exonerate offote Whiggism — the gospel of tho great Revolution familios and their hangers on . This does not exonerate Young Toryism , which champions tho cause of tho bucolic followers of Magus , and cries out in their bolialf in this respectable twang . :-r" In tlioao dnya every invasion of tho right of property ( especially of Church property ) ia attended with diuiffor ; and tho provisions of thin bill seom to us most obicctionnblo in prinoiplo , us being nothing more than rt stop toward * tho prohibition of tho side of an advow-Him and the subversion of our whole system of Churoh putronngo . " Who proposos to invade church proporty Y It is tho property shamelessly claimed and enjoyed bv the lay patrons that would bo •' invaded . ' And . after all , so slight a step is propoped by the
bill , that it is not even the property of the patron in the presentation , that it is proposed to invade , but his simoniacal conversion of the right of presentation into a property , transferable like stock , for filthy lucre . It is not proposed to interfere with the right to present ; it is only proposed that the law should prohibit the right to sell the presentation—should step in between the patron and his propensity , and prevent him from committing—what his religious conscientiousness is not strong enough to prevent him from coramitting--a sin , according to the gospel in which he thinks he believes . . .
Verily , the Church of England is , in the eyes of impartial men , as well those who accept as those who reject her doctrines / in a degraded plight . Her lay members perpetrate , her officiating ministers connive at acts which are condemned by the letter , and still more by the spirit of the Gospel on which both profess to found their faith . She is debarred from self-guidance , even in matters of discipline , still less of doctrine . Her property is so abused and unequally shared as to be a source of unseemly contention and
perpetual and venomous warfare . ! No man knows her doctrine ; and her ordained ministers cry "lo ! here , and lo ! there , " and hotly quarrel over the most essential points of her doctrines , her creeds , and her ceremonies ; yet under the guise of one formal profession , « ZZ this discordant mass holds its temporal and spiritual possessions . And so we arrive at the saddening conclusion that the bond , the religio , of the powerful , the
respectable , the spiritual State Church of England , is not of faith unto eternal life , but of property unto temporal enjoyment , power , and glorification . , ¦ ¦ . ' And this is the state of that Establishment which archbishops , and aristocratic and bucolic laymen prevent from even attempting to be honest in the teeth of consequences ; and which , because it exercises so great an influence over the life of the nation , we would fain see became so .
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POLICY OF THE WESTERN POWERSTURKISH RESOURCES . Letteb VII . ( To the Editor of tlie Leader . ) gIB > —Appeals to theoretical justice are of little use in presence of practical iniquity . In this paper upon the policy of the Western Powers there will be but little appeal made to what men are pleased to term the finer feelings ; there will be still less to those principles of policy which unfortunately obtain too much credit in the present day ; and many of the misguided humane tarians and the advocates of the " other cheek " presentation will bo startled to see in the beginning of this enlightened nineteenth century a paper advocating a policy of tho most determined reprisal . It is useless opposing a stick of vermicelli to a sword , and directing at Russia a whole platoon of moral principles would make about the same impression as pelting Mont Blanc with pebbles . The truth is , the Western Powers of Europe have been infinitely too enlightened to bo sensible . Regarding the spider-like pertinacitv of Russia in a bad cause from a too
magnanimous and too highly moral point of view , and meeting it , where they have understood it , like enlightened Christians instead of like barbarian Christians , they havo committed a most grave though a very comprehensible error . Indoed , clad in their supremely high and lofty convictions , tho Powers havo protested and protested until those precious documents of inefficacious talk would almost " form a girdle
round tho earth , " and provide for tho moral political philosoph y of the schools for ages to como . And all this paper , sir , has only served as wadding for tho fcux de joie with which tho Russian army colebrated its victories . Russian policy has marched to its goal , in spito of those " paper bullets of tho brain , " and stands out now tho moat brazon has relief ever offensively exhibited to an astonished w 6 rld . And yet , until within these few days past , gontlemanly Ministers and honourablo members believed in this intact
uprightness of tho astuto Nicholas . Hounded poriods and pompous declarations of tho " per- « feefc pood faitn of our allies , " marvellously ope- * rated in restoring colour to pallid countenances ) and that puro and noble barometer , tho Exchange , by which , I regret to acknowledge , British statesmen are accustomed to measure public footing , rose up by jumps , upon " these eatig ,
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July 16 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER , 687
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 16, 1853, page 687, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1995/page/15/
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