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730 THE LEA DEE,. [No. 332, Saturday,
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COLONEL LAKE'S CAPTIVITY. Kars and Our C...
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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.
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The Lover's Seat. The Lover's Seat. Kath...
recommend . Dr . Johnson one day , when in advanced life , met one who had been his fellow-collegian a doll bat good man , whom he had not seen since they were at the university , who began talking about their respective years . " Don ' t let us discourage one another , " said Johnson , interrupting him and changing the conversation to another topic . In fine , constituted as we are , we must have our prejudices and our exaggerations even ; and when these are innocent , for they may be so , humanity winks at them . Hear what a great author says , but without supposing that he contradicts anything lately heard respecting moderation , for everything , as my Uncle Toby says , has two bandies . " Exaggeration , " says he , " is in the course of things . Nature sends no creature , no men into the world without adding a small excess of his proper quality . Given the planet , it is still necessary to add the impulse ; so to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path , a shove to put it on its way ; in every instance a slight generosity , a drop too much . Without this violence of direction -which men and women have , without a spice of exaggeration , « o excitement , no efficiency . We aim above the mark to hit the mark . Every act hath some falsehood of excess in it ; and when now and then conies along some sad sharp-eyed man , -who refuses to play at this game , but blabs the secret , the wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms , of lordlier youths with a little more excess of direction to hold them fast to their several aims , makes them a little wrong-headed in that direction in which they are rightest , and on goes the game again with a new whirl . " And again : — Is it not strange that grave men professing holiness should overlook the care evinced in the divine oracles to convince us that even truth itself is not of such moment as the exercise of toleration ; that charity is greater than faith and hope ? that love actually overthrows the barriers between union and division , between -what God ordains and what the perversity of man occasions , raising those associated with the latter above all whom the former seems to glorify ? For what other end than to convey this lesson is it recorded that the only one out of the ten lepers who returned to give glory to God when cured was a Samaritan ? that he who did what all others are charged to do , wa 3 also a Samaritan ? Can human thought conceive a spirit more profoundly tolerant than that which breathes in the words of the chief of the Apostle 3 when alluding to the death of Christ , he says , " Et nuncjratres scio quiaper iffnorantiam fecistU , sicut etprincipes nostri ? " N " o , no ; the mercy that doth outstretch the universe will not be insufficient for one soul . Can the common sense of mankind
be more indulgent than the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles , saying , without intending to disparage the force of true authority , " He who ohserveth the day , observeth it to the JLord , and he who eateth , eateth to the Lord , for he gives thanks to Qod ; and he who eateth not , eateth not to the Lord , and gives thanks to God ? t herefore , let us not any longer judge one another , —non ergo amplius invicem judi- erau 8 . " What is the one concurrent voice of religion unless that re-echoed by the j iniversal Church and by the human conscience ? * ' " Wilt thou draw near the nature of our God ? Draw near Him then in being merciful . " ~ Yi b € f 6 is its real operation seen but in him who follows that noble counsel , " Weep for the frail that err , the weak that fall ; Have thine own faith , but hope and pray for all ?" In teaching us very forcibly that we should quicken our perception of the good and the lovely by being constantly on the watch for it in common things , the author points to one of Dickens ' s greatest qualities : —
To one who considers the various and multiplied kinds of observation in which men indulge , it may be a subject of surprise that by way of novelty some do not at times watch for the sake of finding virtues as so many do , in order to discover faults in others . I promise them that , without looking under these boughs , they would not Dave long to wait to put up game of this sort in abundance if they havo only eyes that will see it ; but it is the exception always that exclusively strikes them , when something goes wrong , and they are wholly blind to the wonderful interchange and play of graces which keep society together . It is an axiom of jurisprudence , — " quod communiter fit censetur legitime fieri . " No doubt in all Christian ages the principle will apply to a great extent in the moral order also , where what is recognized as good , is , after all , only a conformity with the Divine plan in general . Wickedness is a thing contrary to nature ; it is striking , hideous , deformed , inconvenient , offensive to every common judgment , hateful when discovered . When seen , every one remarks it , and cries out . Vices are in their nature intermittent , and comparatively rare ;
whereas virtues are always before us , and their continuous succession drives one another out . . What an admirable watcher in this respect is Dickens , who not only sees , but forces us to aee goodness in very minute things : in a Kit bashfully bidding Iris mother " get out ; " in a Short ' s resolution , that "he's not agoing to stand that , " when he thinks Nell lias been stolen from her friend ; in a Swiveller only just out of a fever , and , hearing how ho can save the lad , crying out to the little nurse , and plucking off his nightcap and flinging it to the other end of tha » room , " Marchioness , if you'll do me the favour to retire for a few minutes and I'll get up ; " in the dying boy afraid to kiss a loved one lest he should make her ill ; in an ostler almost hating lumself for deceiving two children lovers about a pony for their good . Thus does this great magician—for it really seems a case of magic when we are on some points brought to the use of our sonaes—enable us to employ our eyes and cars . When once awakened by the touch of a wand like liis , we may all take the initiative in this tsarjie course . We can then all of us see goodness in the common things that puss daily before our eyes ; in the smile of kind approval bestowed by some one passing
in ; in the youth that listens to the street musician ; in the gcuff voice that calls the inattentive girl to pass running before the bridge is drawn , —and so on for ever . It would be well-if we were to adopt the practico of painters , and apply it to the general spectacle of human life . "Quam multa vident pic tores , " exclaims Cicero , "in umbria et in emineiKia quaa nos non videmus I" The untrained , as Hazlitt says , only see nature as it ia reflected to them , from art . The painter sees the picture in nature before ho transfers it to the canvas . He refines , ho analyzes , he remarks fifty things which escape common eyes ; and this affords a distinct source of reflection and amusement to him , independently of the beauty and grandeur of the objects themselves . The critic dwells with delight on the grace and beauty of the picture ; but who -Will suppose that the painter had not the same pleasure in detecting those nice dlattaotlona in nature ? Painters see boauty where others see nothing of the sort ; in torn attoofeto fpv dusty feet , in a poor room , iu a broken pitcher . Let a moralist study men and women with the same attention , and he will find the beauties of goodness in th «} most minute and despised details of common life .
Here is a passage which we commend to the attention of red-hot Protestants : — We need not say in the style of Reviewers , that no schoolboy is ignorant of what we perhaps ourselves have only just discovered ; but I think we may afllrm , that no one of any consideration in the republic of letters , as the learned call it , any longer gnitends that intolerance was confined to any class or portion of the world . The Presbyterians of the Long Parliament in England , who persecuted tliroo sections of their countrymen , —the Puritans of Boston , who wished to sell for slavos thouo who oji ^ ld not pay the 0 n « s Incurred by their ro ' . igious dissent , —the CalviniBts . Lutherans ,
and Anglicans , were all as obnoxious to the charge of intolerance as those who resisted their first advances , while , by the way , offering the cardinal ' s hat to Erasmus " the champion of liberty , and expressing with Bossuet their affection for Melancthon and Bull , —all were intolerant . But the beautiful lessons which our Saviour taught and which celestial men ,. combining with their instructions what is common , age after age transmitted , have wrought through long centuries into the common mind and popular thought , have found an echo in the general heart , and no one can no w arrest this tendency , bring back Tyburn or the cells of "Venice , with , the bigot ' s racfc , or harden the softening human heart again . " Which is the work that remains , " asks a French writer , " that of Luther substituting a system of opinions for what he found existing , or that ofj & rasmua claiming for man liberty of conscience , and adopting the sublime word of CnWtian philosophy ? Which has now most life ? this Chriitiaa philosophy , or Lutheranism , or any other sectarian system confiscating liberty of conscience for its own profit ? " While again protesting against the imputation of having a double and concealed object in such reflections , may we be permitted for once to
hear what can be advanced , especially on one side , in reply to the charge often brought against it of greatest intolerance ? What is most attacked needs most the defence of the generous . The thoughts of ra '< £ h respecting differences in religion are not now , some one will say , exactly what they were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ' . I see , he will continue , but two opinions at present , —the one of those who think that sects should disappear ; that there should be union among all , founded on the mutual recognition of one another ' s errors , and on the assumed hopelessness of having one truth , one external communion ; the other of those who believe that sects should disappear ; that there should be union among all , founded first on an external communion among those who bold that there is such a thing as trnth in matters of religion ; and that as many as can be moved by the grounds of credibility in its favour should embrace it ; and , secondly , on the belief that there may be a sincere union of love , involving every kind of service between those forming this communion and those without it externally , -who are so swayed by circumstances and involuntary ignorance as not to perceive that they ought to belong to it ; and that with them they may be united in their present pilgrimage , on the common ground of humanity and charity ,
from which I suppose religion itself is not to be excluded , —and eventually , by means ¦ w ith which they are unacquainted , in Him who alone knows what spirit all were of . It is not easy to perceive how this latter view is less favourable to an enlarged , intelleetual , and practical toleration , than the former . What is there in it to prevent those who hold it from regarding with an infinite love every one of the human race ? One may think , on the contrary , that it is more conducive to this universal love and forbearance than the former view ; because , if all idea of possessing truth be hopeless , we have no guarantee beyond a sentimentality , which , iu some relations , is very uncertain , for that very forbearance and love , which , in spite of what may be objected from the history of the past , springs out of a conviction of that truth which expressly inculcates forbearance and universal love , and not out of despair , or out of the notion that since all cannot think alike on such matters , when men suppose themselves to be perishing , they ought to wish to perish with all rather than be separated from others , while involved in the commun ruin . I repeat it , —the love of toleration ivill ^ jSeaai : us , even at the risk of appearing to exercise a double part , to hear with most paVence what can be alleged in defence of what is most accused , even though that hearing may tend to a supposition of its being the least guilty .
Let not the reader suspect that we are on the way to become " perverts " because we select passages -which seem to prove the existence of that supposed paradox , a tolerant Catholic . We do so on the ground which is well expressed by Mr . Digby when he says : — Man ' s chief wisdom is fairness ; fairness turns even to his own advantage ; and fairness is shown in recognizing neutral ground , and meeting on it with a friendly feeling towards all , seeking , as far as one can , -ways of union and accordance , which , while never dangerous to truth , are best obtained gradually , stop by step , following the river ' s gentle windings , not the harsh , straight lines and parallels , that have more the air of a wish to protract for ever warlike operations , than of that equity and benevolence to which the heart and that will which so rules the understanding are sure soonest to surrender , if they ought to do so .
If any one objects that all this liberality is logically inconsistent with Catholicism , we can only reply that we prefer illogical virtues to logical vices , and still more to « 71 ogicnl vices , of which one of the commonest m Protestant intolerance .
730 The Lea Dee,. [No. 332, Saturday,
730 THE LEA DEE ,. [ No . 332 , Saturday ,
Colonel Lake's Captivity. Kars And Our C...
COLONEL LAKE'S CAPTIVITY . Kars and Our Captivity in Russia : With Letters from General Sir W . F . Williams , Bart ., Major Teesdale , and the late Capta ' m Thovipson . By Colonel Atwell Lake , C B lientley . The public has been anxious about this book . It was expected to contain the untold part of a story in which all Englishmen arc interested—the story of Kara and its defenders . There had already been narratives of the blockade , the battle , and the capitulation , but there had been no account oi the captivity ; indeed , since the beginning of the Russian conflict onlv two volumes have been published purporting to be by English prisoners of vrnv in the enemy ' s country . The first presented the simpering reminiscences oi a feeble-minded Lieutenant ; the second , besides being of doubtful authenticity , was ineffably foolish ; so that Colonel Lake ' s is the only unadected lish in
and intelligent narration that has appeared of an Eng man ' s captivity Eusaia during the Turkish war . The narration is brief , as was the captivity . But it is anecdotical , diversified , and illustrative in an interesting degree ot llussian provincial manners . From Kara , General Williams and hi * companions-iu-urms were taken to Mouraviert ' s camp , and thence toAlexandropol , and among Georgian and Armenian villages to Tiflis . At that city , whore Sir Robert Ker Porter enjoyed such delicate hospitalities , they stayed some time , waiting for an order from St . Petersburg . The elleet oi the order was , that General Williams , with his aide-do-camp and secretary , proceeded toBiazan , on the road to Moscow , while Colonel Lake and Cap tain Thompson were conducted to l ' enza , nearly seven hundred miles from that capital . Their journey led them through the lowlands of the- CaucaHus , and the pass of Dariel , to Ekatcrinograd , and Stavropol , and the valley o the Don . After a residence at Penza , they travelled homeward by wiy ol
Moscow . . The incidents of the captivity were not numerous , but they were cuarm ,-terietie , and Colonel Lake describes thorn in a natural and manly style . Uoforo noticing them in detail , however , it will be as well to sketch , svnopticully , the contents of the entire volume . First , Colonel Lake vrntcs i succinct and simple account of the blockade of Kars , from the arrival ot tn British oflicira to the day of the surrender . Ho is preparing , for 8 e I »" j " j ' publication , tv strictly military narrative , upon a much larger p lan . L i * . ' ]
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02081856/page/16/
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