On this page
- Departments (2)
-
Text (7)
-
June 8, 1850.] Q£t)t %ta\jtV. 251
-
—^ '^ Sr 'Y " ^Sm ft) vpli^/^N ** 1 \ ^J ^C/ V HJrH^I^ °<V g| g% <^& ^ —^£ ^ - -^ Q\, aJ J£ JL ^ , j£> ( °M " (^JL *~* \ {~s ^- ^ ^- ^
-
SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1850.
-
. '^^Itftlti* ^lITrttt+ r' j^/UUllt xlUllirJ3«. ' —
-
There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
-
THE CHURCH, HER DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR S...
-
CARLYLE ON PARLIAMENTS. Talk and twaddle...
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.
June 8, 1850.] Q£T)T %Ta\Jtv. 251
June 8 , 1850 . ] Q £ t ) t % ta \ jtV . 251
—^ '^ Sr 'Y " ^Sm Ft) Vpli^/^N ** 1 \ ^J ^C/ V Hjrh^I^ °≪V G| G% ≪^& ^ —^£ ^ - -^ Q\, Aj J£ Jl ^ , J£≫ ( °M " (^Jl *~* \ {~S ^- ^ ^- ^
IB * 'c ^ J & afor ^
Saturday, June 8, 1850.
SATURDAY , JUNE 8 , 1850 .
. '^^Itftlti* ^Litrttt+ R' J^/Uullt Xlullirj3«. ' —
• public Miririf .
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation m its eternal progress . —Du . Arnold .
The Church, Her Difficulties And Their S...
THE CHURCH , HER DIFFICULTIES AND THEIR SOLUTION . The ill success of the Bishop of London ' s bill for establishing a new Ecclesiastical Court of Appeal promises to lead to more serious consequences than even the secession to Rome of some of the forward and most ardent spirits of the Anglican party . It is true that the unyielding manner in which the royal prerogative was vindicated by Lord Lansdowne , in his opposition to the measure , may tend to further exacerbate those whose inclinations have long been turned towards separation from the state w th anything but a friendly feeling for the latter , and in this , as well as in the Romish secessions , may be found cause for embarrassment to the more moderate members of the Establishment . . But ulterior , and , as we have said , more serious consequences may be expected . Will not the Church , will not the country be led to recognize the difficulties of their position ? Will they not see in the failure of this Episcopal attempt a warning to look into the actual state of things as regards doctrinal tests , and to enquire whether the real method to heal the distractions of the Church would not be to relax , rather than to tighten further the bonds which those tests involve . It were well
to look calmly and dispassionately at the present position of the Church ; we should in that case see not only her articles and formularies at variance with each other , not only usages and doctrines , introduced at one particular period and to meet one particular exigency , contradicting other usages and doctrines introduced at other periods and with reference to other exigencies , but we should perceive
among those who profess to be her members , as well lay as clerical , such diversity of opinion upon these usages and doctrines , in themselves sufficiently discordant , as to render impossible the attainment of that uniformity , which , however desirable it may have been , has never yet existed among those within her pale , since the period of the Reformation itself .
It is fair to suppose that the Bishop of London contemplated a remedy for this evil in the measure he attempted to introduce , but its inadequacy is apparent if we reflect on the consequences that would result from its being put in practice . Either the Episcopate would unite to enforce one particular interpretation and acceptance of the Church's usages and doctrines , which would be felt by the large section favouring opposite views to be a tyranny so intolerable as to force them into secession : or , on
ihe other hand , the court of appeal would be so far flivirbel as to render its judgments practically inoperative , the moral weight of the minority so far counterbalancing that of the majority ' s decisions as to make it impossible to enforce them . It is hopeless , therefore , to attempt an advance to a greater strictness in governance , and it is equally hopeless to attempt to keep things as they are , which the Ministry , in opposing the Bishop ' s measure , seem , in the true spirit of Whiggery , to have for their object rather than any broad bold effort to obtain
for the Church more liberty of opinion . A rigid insisting on uniformity , if honestly and thoroughly r : irried out , would be preferable to the present f-iHte of uncertainty wherein doctrines of such importance , and involving such momentous considerations as those of the sacraments , their nature , necessity , and efficacy are left as ' * ' open " or rather " vexed questions ; " and plain laymen , who would hold the truth if they could attain it , are perplexed between the various views propounded as truth by various teachers , and terrified by the denunciations in which the various teachers enforce them .
They are terrified , if by these inconsistencies they arc not made sceptical and indifferent : this is the most general and the most natural consequence of a system like the present , in which each man ' s view
is proclaimed to be that of the Church in general , and enforced with equal acrimony : in which prevail confusion without comprehensiveness , dogmatism without certainty , and intolerance without uniformity . What is the remedy for this ? We can see none , but in the relaxation of tests , and in the extension of terms of union . As matters now stand you are forced to leave individual opinion to a certain extent free . Lord Lansdowne stated that
comprehensiveness was the aim ol those who composed the formularies and articles of the Church , we rather think he should have said compromise , but at all events let comprehensiveness be openly professed as our aim , let us not tacitly wink at individual freedom of opinion , but openly proclaim it as the Church ' s principle and affix to it the Church ' s sanction . The precise amount of latitude in private judgment might involve some delicacy and difficulty for its definition : it were better , therefore , at once to say let no test be exacted but that of love to God and man , no party or
individual rejected who adopts this as the principle by which practice should be guided , whatever may be the views severally entertained on matters of speculative opinion . This once established as the Church ' s principle , details would be easily arranged , as their arrangement would be a work of charity and mutual accommodation , the comprehensive Church , the dream of the tolerant and pious Arnold , would be realised , and , like the restored Cathedral of Cologne , would open her portals to no exclusive worshippers of the Holy and the Infinite ; but , noble in her power to endure and to assuage the differences of her children , she would , with
her Catholicity , reassume the maternal character she has lost , and become in letter and in spirit the true Church of England .
Carlyle On Parliaments. Talk And Twaddle...
CARLYLE ON PARLIAMENTS . Talk and twaddle by voice and pen to an inconceivable extent seem necessary amongst us in publ c affairs before the plainest and most feasible thing can be done . London is to have pure water some day , instead of water which is hard and nasty . But before that can be done vocalized air , to the extent of many , many millions of cubic feet , will be expended in Parliament , in association chambers , in town-halls , in open-air meetings . The summer Zephyrs and the winter Boreases
will stumble against the endlessly repeated commonplaces . Dr . Reid ' s medicated zephyrs indoors will faint under the continuous dose . Tons of waste paper , written and printed , will lie for sale before that one most natural , most plain , most virtuous article can be handed to a London citizen —a jug of blameless water . So also with our Dead , which we have the irreverent and silly habit of condensing into a mass of concentrated pestilence where our abodes are thickest . Some dav we shall carry out the corpse to be restored to nature according to the wise laws of nature . We have
perfectly made up our minds , having made up our stomachs to the necessity long ago ; and we are going to do it . But , before we do it , we must all of us , in every class of this highly cultivated society , and in every possible capacity of family circle , electoral constituency , parish body , trade incorporation , Parliamentary assembly , official department , and all other living categories whatsoever , undergo the same long-continued paroxysm of converting plain facts and pregnant arguments into the stalest and most nauseating , commonplaces before we can make our intention an act .
The one great sinner in this idly-interposed process is Parliament . That which should make the laws is precisely the thing that boggles and procrastinates , as if the making of a law or the issuing of a sanction for what all of us desire were the very last function that it was destined to perform . There is an institution amongst us called a Debating Society , intended to exercise the faculties of young men , but altogether so doubtful in its efficacy , and so extremely remote in its bearing upon actual life , that upon the whole somewhat
members of debating societies are ashamed of their connection and generally conceal it . The youthful member commonly resorts to its place of meeting with the same decorous secrecy that he does to the Cyder Cellar or any other less recognisable resort of indiscreet youth , and it is a matter of social politeness not to ask searching questions as to such resorts , especially the debating Society . This institution , therefore , is the one which stands the remotest from any sort of practical work in the business of life , whether commerce , or science , or
legislation ; but it is precisely the institution which the body charged to make regulations for the practical business of life in every branch has taken for its model ; and having done so , our practical Parliament can never effectuate any one of its many duties until it shall have fulfilled the task of many debating societies in one . With this grievous difference , that whereas the Debating Society is decorously secret , and troubles nobody but itself , the Parliament is flagrantly public , and forces you to read or hear , perchance to discuss , and therefore to repeat , to dispute , to do justice to , and therefore repeatedly to turn over on this side and on that , an immense mass of what was once sense ,
but having been so turned over , and bleached , and rebuilt many times , has been converted into the most fade and unavailing- nonsense that ever passed current in tolerant society . And all this is necessary even for such of us as retain some kind of sense , because , in the midst of this effete and unavailing nonsense , may lurjs , and does sometimes lurk , very p otent , not to say perilous and mortal decrees , as a pitchfork may be hidden it * a haystack , to the fatal refutation of him who 4 not think it necessary to turn over the whole stack by handfulls , but confidently lounges on it in serene and unmisffiving temper .
Now this peculiar perverse conditition of Parliament is the one which has struck Thomas Carlyle as the essential condition to which Parliaments have arrived ; and he contrasts the essential incapacity of modern Parliaments with the effective mode anql work of the two great paroxysmatic Parliamentsthe Long Parliament of London , and the National Convention of Paris . Not , he truly says , invitinjr instances to British reformers of this day . The causes : —
" The fact is , Parliaments have , b ^ ad two great blows in modern times ; and are now in a manner quite shorn of their real strength , and , what is still worse , invested with an imaginary . Faust of Mentz , when he invented ' moveable types , ' inflicted a terrible blow on Parliaments ; suddenly , though yet afar off , reducing them to a m « re scantling of their former self , and taking all the best business out of their hands . Then again John .
Bradshaw , when he ordered the hereditary King to vanish , in front of Whitehall , and proclaimed that Parlialiauieiit itself was King , —John , little conscious of it , inflicted a still more terrible blow on Parliaments , appointing them to do ( especially with Faust , tpo , or the Morning Newspaper , gradually getting in ) what Nature and Fart had decided they could never do . In which doubly fatal state , with Faust busier than ever among them , they continue at this moment , —working towards strange issues , 1 do believe .
" Or , speaking i < i lc * s figurative language , our conclusion is , first , That Parliaments , while they continued , as our English ones long did , mere Advisers of the Sovereign Ruler , were invaluable institutions ; and did , especially in periods when there was no Times Newspaper , or other general Forum free to every citizen who hail three fingers and a smattering of grammar , —deserve well of mankind , and achieve services for which we should be always grateful . This is conclusion first . But then , alas , equally irrefragable comes conclusion second , That Parliaments , when they get to try , as our poor British one now does , the art of governing by themselves as the Supreme Body iu the Nation , make no figure in that capacity , and can make none , but by the very nature of the case are unable to do it . ^ Only two
instances are on record of Parliaments having , many circumstances , succeeded as Governing Bodies ; audit is even hoped , or ought to be , by men generally that there may not for another thousand years be a third ! "As not only our poor British Parliament of those yeaTs and decades , but all the sudden European Parliaments at Paris , Frankfort , Erfurt , and elsewhere , me Parliaments which undertake that second or impossible function of governing as Parliaments , and must either do it , or sink in black anarchy one knows not whitherward , —the horoscope of Parliaments is by no means cheering at present ; and good citizens may jus ly shudder , if their anticipations point that way , at the prospect of a Chartist Parliament here . For your Chartist Parliament is properly the consummation ol Unit fatal tendency towards the ah ¦> vc-iruujtioued impossible iuuisiioii ,
on the part of Parliaments . ' The remedy : — " These are serious considerations sufficient to create alarm and astonishment iu any constitutional man . But really it grows late iu the day with oonstituional meu ; and it is time for them to look up from tt . eir Dilolme . If the constitutional man will take the old Deloliue-Bentham spectacles oil' his nose , and look abroad into the Fact itself with such eyes as ha may have , 1
consider he will find that , reform in mutters burial do * s not n > vv rnenn , as he has long sleepily fancied , reform in Parliament alone or chiefly or pernaps at . all . My alarming message to him is , that the thing we vitully need is not a more and moie perfectly elected Parliament , but some reality of a ilulin-4 Sovereign to prcbide over Parliament ; that we have already got the former entity in some measure , bur . that we are farther than ever from the road towards the latter ; and that if the latter be misRftd and not ^ ot , thero is no life possible for us . A New Duwuiny-rurict ., un ii . finitfly itioinud Governing Apparatus ; then' K . ome lu , no jnijjjjt lit ) . A Parlia't , any ' oouc .-ivabii : l \ uIruuvi , ! ., cmmulut ; to attempt th (
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), June 8, 1850, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08061850/page/11/
-