On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (4)
-
Untitled Article
-
.t ^rfhTTITttr 1 ^ ^ 444- 4- U44++ 4- * i^ -¦ ¦
-
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.
Untitled Article
Wb foresee that our t&ak of indicating in a general way the contents of the Periodical * this month \ vill not be completed in this article ; indeed , the Whole space available for Literature in these columns would barely suffice to meet tie demands every quarter when the ' monthlies' are reinforced bj the ' three-monthlies ; ' and it i s precisely the latter which make the most demands . Take , for example , the Westminster Review , with its varied contents at once solid and interesting . It opens with a masterly survey of the principle and practice of " Christian Missions . " Sympathizing profoundly with that noble impulse which causes men to devote themselves to probable
destruction and inevitable hardships for the sake of carrying the truth to other human souls , the writer does not suffer himself to he led away , by his admiration for the motive , to blindly applaud the practice ; and in his survey of the history of missionary enterprize , he sums up with terrible force the damnatory evidence against missionary practice ,. palpable in the utter failure of all missions . The Catholic missions are described , and the results interrogated ; then the various Protestant missions are submitted to the same test . Everywhere the result is failure , unless we are to count as success the mere fact of thousands being baptized . By violence and by persuasion the heathens have been made Christians to the extent of baptism ; but in no Other sense . The greater immorality which has followed these conversions helps in some degree to explain the uniform and startling depopulation which the Missionaries have seen to follow their settlement among the
heathens : —¦ In 1777 , Captain Cook found 200 , 000 people inhabiting Tahiti . He declared his estimate to be rather under than over the mark . Those were the days of wars , human sacrifices , infanticide , and that ordinary recklessness of life which the missionaries profess to have , generally speaking , cured . Aged natives at that time remember the high priest Teearmoar , who uttered the prophecy "which the people caught up for its strangeness at first , and' repeat now for its dread pathos . It is at this day sung in the depths of retreat , where the missionaries cannot overhear" A harree ta fow , " The palm-tree shall grow , A toro ta farraro , The coral shall spread , A now ta tararta . " But man shall cease . "
A census taken just before the American Exploring Expedition was there , showed the indigenous population to be 9000 . The missionaries called it 8000 . In the Sandwich- Islands , the decline of the population is such as history can scarcely parallel ,- and as every hearer at an Exeter Hall May meeting should be informed of . We aretold , not only by native tradition , but by the early navigators of the Pacific , that there were once human abodes wherever there was good soil and water , and that the population : of this group was not less than 400 , 000 . Now it is under 65 , 000 . Twenty-five years ago—within the period of strenuous missionary effort—it was double tibis . We must refer to the article itself for details at once picturesque and conclusive wherewith the writer exemplifies his philosophical positions , and ¦ will only quote some part of what he says respecting
THE INSTITUTION OF EXETER HALL . Exeter Hall iB one of the institutions of our age , appropriate to a critical period of a Protestantism threatened by High Churchism or Komanisin on the one hand , and science and philosophy on the other . When the Clapham Church began its ministrations , nobody had the least idea of such a result as the Exeter Hall institution and its staff . The Bible Society -vras formed , and the religions leaders of the Anti-slavery movement were its originators and officers . Some of us are old enough to remember the conflicts about the admission of the Nonconformists to the Bible Society , and the zeal of the orthodox Dissenters when admitted . All these parties , and the Quakers as a body , and the leaders of missionary enterprize , held periodical meetings in London , and moat of them at the same time of year . Whea the menagerie was removed from Exeter Change , and the old edifice pulled down , the Low Church and Nbnconfbrrnist Headers of the philanthropy of the age proposed to build a place which
might be the head-quarters of their enterprizes—and Exeter Hall was opened in 1831 . Great boast has been made of the crowds assembled there , of the magnitude of their accommodation , and of the prodigious amount of the funds contributed for benevolent objectB ; but it does not appear that sufficient attention has been given to the bureaucratic intorosta created by such an organization . The expenditure of an annual million and a half in objects as various as the sects of the religious world , and reaching to the ends of the earth , must require a largo and diverse agency ; and the agency , with the money in its hands , constitutes a power—a power abundantly able to sustain missions under any adverse influences whatever . The mere collecting of the funds employs no small' number of poor clergymen , and lhymon who make themselves as like clergymen as they can . Vain men , and men who think it a duty to lot their name and station bo used in a good cause , are on committees ; and the real business of committees ia done by secretaries ; and the secretaryships , -which confer enormous Unrecognized power and prodigious patronage , are objects of ambition to the active and aspiring men of all sects that can get a footing in Exeter IlalL Whatever their sectarian differences may lie , these men have a strong interest ia such concert as may
keep up tiio organization in vigour and authority . They are tho paid staff of a rich social department ; and the zeal of a paid staff on behalf of the department by which it lives and enjoys life may always be depended on . That zeal cloaka all deformities , conceals all delinquencies , gets rid of sinnors , and obtrudes Ha , saints ; denies failure , magnifies auccess , and dWotcs some of Its professional benevolence to " making things pleasant" for contributors who enjoy giving their money , but woxild bo painfully disturbed by hearing that anything was going wrong . The mibacribing multitude assetnftfc to hear of widows rescued from the pile , children snatched from the Ganges , savages nimging hymns , missionaries dying in the odour of sanctity , . Tews extolling the crosH , and infant converts from Romanism spitting out texts in the priests' faces ; and it would be a chilling' disappointment to them to hear that widows still choose to burn ; that the heathen ar « perishing out of their lauds ; that a dying missionary now and then hopes that no more brethren will como out into tho wilderness , and . waste their livea at . ho has done ; that some hypocrite has embezzled funds ; thut a devoted member h « ro and there ba 9 turned secular , and become dovotod to Maintnoq in one form or another . Tho ruTo of conduct in tmch cases is , " least fluid , nooneat mended ;" and tho glow of hopo and complacency is not to bo clouded over by bud' tMingn which
nobody will' be' the better for hearitig , while' somfc Will he the'worse for the telling . Thus the servants df Exciter Hall become its masters . While professing to render their account , they lead the religious public Whithersoever they wilL Now and then some story comes out wtiioli rfeveals the true quality of aottie of tie managers of missions and other enterprizes . Sucn a case as that of DavieS versus Pratt , which our readers may remember , and other disclosures occasionally made in the law and arbitration courts , justify any strength of expression that can be used' in warning the donors of the annual million and a half to look to the spending of their money , and to the character of the agents they employ to promote the spread of Christianity . We need not descend into the dirt of sectarian and philanthropic intrigue and scandal to bring up specimens-. The reports of the law-cotuta are doing that work for us . We need only point to facts open , to general knowledge ,, and registered already as material for history .
The next paper is on the " Natural History of German Life , " taking the admirable works of Kxehx , as text , and setting forth what is properly called the ' natural history' of the German People as a basis for social and political philosophy . Had we space at disposal we would quote largely from the very quotable pages of this article ; the following onslaught on that strange misconception , the ' ideal peasant' is all we can venture on : — Only a total absence of acquaintance and sympathy with our peasantry could give a moment ' s popularity to such a picture as " Cross Purposes , " where we have a peasant girl who looks as if she knew I _ . E . L .. ' s poems by heart , and English rustics , whose costume seems to indicate that they are meant for ploughmen , with exotic features that remind us of a handsome primo tenore . Bather than such Cockneysentimentality as this , as an education , for the taste and sympathies , we prefer the most crapulous group of boors that Teniers ever painted . But even those among our
painters who aim at giving the rustic type of features , who are far above the effeminate feebleness of the " Keepsake" style , treat their subjects Tinder the influence of traditions and prepossessions rather than of direct observation . The notion that peasants are joyous , that the typical moment to represent a man in a smock-frock is when he is cracking a joke and showing a row of sound teeth , that cottage matrons are usually buxom , and village children necessarily rosy and merry , are prejudices difficult to dislodge from the artistic mind , which looks for its subjects into literature instead of life . The painter is still under the influence of idyllic literature , which has always expressed the imagination of the cultivated and town-bred * rather than the truth of rustic life . Idyllic ploughmen are jocund when they drive their team afield ; idyllic shepherds make bashful love under hawthorn bushes ; idyllic villagers dance in the chequered shade and refresh themselves , not immoderately , with spicy nut-brown ale . But no one who has seen much of actual ploughmen thinks them jocund ; no one Who is well acquainted with the English peasantry can pronounce them . The slow in which no sense of beauty beams , no humour twinkles ,
merry gaze , —the slow utterance , and the heavy slouching walk , remind one rather of tnat melancholy animal the camel , than of the sturdy countryman , with striped stockings , red waistcoat , and hat aside , who represents the traditional English peasant . Observe a company of haymakers . When you see them at a distance , tossing up the forkfuls of hay in the golden light , while the waggon creeps slowly with its increasing burden over the meadow , and the bright green space which tells of wort done gets larger and larger , you pronounce the scene " smiling , " and you think these companions m labour must be as bright and cheerful as the picture to which they give animation . Approach nearer , and you will certainly find that haymaking time is a time for joking , especially if there are women among the labourers ; but the coarse laugh that bursts out every now and then , and expresses the triumphant taunt , is as far as possible from your conception of idyllic merriment . That delicious effervescence of the mind which we call fun , las no equivalent for the northern peasant , except tipsy revelTy ; the only realm of fancy and imagination for the EngBsh cltown exists at the bottom of the third
quart pot . The conventional countryman of the stage , who picks up pocket-books and never looks into them , and who is too simple even to know that honesty has its opposite , represents the still lingering mistake , that an unintelligible dialect is a guarantee for ingenuousness , and that slouching shoulders indicate an upright disposition . It is quite true that a thresher is likely to be innocent of any adroit arithmetical cheating , but he is not the leaB likely to carry home bi 3 master ' s corn in his shoear and pocket ; a reaper i 8 not given to writing begging-letters , but he is quite capable of cajoling the dairymaid uito filling his small-beer bottle with ale . The selfish instincts are not subdued by the sight of buttercups , nor is integrity in the least established by that classic rural occupation , sheep-washing . To make men moral , something more is requisite than to turn them out to grass . We have next a severe but deserved castigation of Dr . William Smith for unscrupulous bookmaking , and the sin of " obtaining reputation under false pretences . " The writer is justly indignant that Dr . Smith , whose share in the " Classical Dictionaries" has been so trivial , should claim the
reputation of them , should speak of " my Classical Dictionaries , " and advertize them as the works of Dr . Wiixtam Smith . There is indeed «« something too much of this" ; but Dr . Smith appears to have begun his literary career in this way : — . One of his first publications was an edition of part of the writings of Tacitus , tne text being copied from a German edition , the essay of Botticher " Do Stylo lociteo being translated by a friend , aa a sort of introduction , and the notes translated by another friend from those of some German scholars . The union of these three portions completed the book , saving tho title-page , which was tho genuine contribution oi lit . Smith himself . _ # Readers of book advertisements must have noticed the iteration of Dr . Wix-MAM Smith ' s name , and set him down as a bookseller ' s hack of very rapid paces ; according to the statement of his reviewer this " pace" has been so surprising that except Albxasdbk Dumas , who is said to keep a company of " eminent hands" in employment , we know of no such
ra-PoJcellini thought three and a hnTf years' employment of hta undented time not more than enough for the single letter A , to say nothing of revising t » at fetter , copying it tor tho press , and printing . In a shorter period thaw this , Dr . Smith throws off a lexicon of more than 1200 closely-printed three-columned pag « 8 > and' this aa a bit of bv-plny ; for simultaneously he was fulfilling « ho duties of three professorships—Latin Greek and HiHtory—in the " Now College" of the independent denomination ; secondly , he was editing and himself writing largely In tho Dictionary of Geography ; thirdly , ho was putting together a School" History of Gnsocfl , reqninng no slignt amount of labour , though little more thwn . an abridgment of Mr . Wrote 0 worK , fourthly , he was abridging tho Classical Dictionary down to a / o ^™ "J **™ . ° J fifthly ho drow up , within tho same period , a second edition « f tho Smaller jljjctlonarv of Antiquities , " with " alterations and additional so numerous , that M" ™ 96 DO regarded , " lie tells us , " to a considerable extent as a new work ; " sixthly , he anper-
.T ^Rfhttitttr 1 ^ ^ 444- 4- U44++ 4- * I^ -¦ ¦
Utantart-¦¦
Untitled Article
¦ - r .. . » r . — Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature .- They ao not rtialtSlMw ^ hey intejfpr et and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Rewew . *
Untitled Article
JtttT 12 , 18 S 8 J 1 KB tEAPE-K . 663
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), July 12, 1856, page 663, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2149/page/15/
-