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    Untitled Article

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    , 1^HtftiT Vi JcJUUUl ^w*U*v^u

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    Untitled Article

    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 in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .

    Untitled Article

    THE WANT OF THE DAY . Much Church and no Religion—that , in its public aspect , is the sight that England presents at this day . Immense clergy bustle , but no religious influence . Religion there may be at heart—we are so assured . Religion there may be among sects and cliques—we believe it . Religion there may be in the earnestness with which men contend about doctrinal differences—we do not libel human nature bo much as to imagine that all the zeal is false or

    worthless . Religion may actuate home missions and foreign missions—missions to convert aborigines alien to our land—missions to redeem the victims to our social inequalities : but they are little else than private efforts , and are wholly unable to cope with the evils that they profess to encounter . Home missions may niggle at the masses of crime and vice which are overwhelming our large towns , but they are unable to make any manifest impression or to check the yearly growth of the gigantic

    monsters . But in its public action , in its State departments , where is the Religion of England ? For any effective broad controul over the social conduct of life , where is the sacred influence ? Truly it is represented more obviously in the zeal of sectarian contest than in any other shape . In that barren enterprise the several forms of the Church militant amongst us are contending with each other in a ceaseless battle , which has no result but ceaseless bitterness .

    It is a strange forgetfulness of the immortal end in the human means . Every sect will tell you that Religion is the sole sufficient motive to every great action for good ; and yet , without exception , the sects appear to be forgetting the practical influence while they are quarrelling about the specific methods in which it may be applied . Survey the whole round of daily life , and ask if you can deny the assertion .

    Parliament meets again this week . Its first act on reassembling was to join in prayer . It has in the session more than once discussed religious subjects ; and will again . There are in Parliament zealots , and also men stirred by a genuine zeal . But what is it that we expect from the session ; how much work ; how much resolution to grapple with substantial things ? Is there a man amongst us that anticipates any great result , although the powerful Parliament of this powerful country shall sit for more than six months in the year ? The

    most important questions of public policy and public necessity press upon the consideration of Parliament , —the rights of the people , the administration and very integrity of the colonial empire , the morals and improvement of the people in sanitary matters , much elucidated of late by Science under the impulse of calamity . Parliament itself has confessed the necessity through its leading men , and has set down , not indeed all that

    needs to be done , but still a large batch of work . How much of that will be performed ? Very little , we know . And why t Because there is no motive " Parties are broken up , " and there is no party motive , —no competition for public favour in that line . In the absence of party there is no otherno aggregate motive that overrules all men , makes them active and devoted to their duty . Parliament does not ; ict under a sense that man is bound to

    obey and carry forth the law proclaimed in the conduct of the universe . Even in the most distinct and urgent enterprise that invites public action there is supinencss . Under the terror of pestilence some sort of formal recognition has been made of the necessity for sanitary improvements ; a strong but transitory burst of the right spirit was heard in the sermons that were uttered from so many pulpits on the Fast-day , animated as those sermons were by anew doctrine which admitted of the reconcilement of

    Religion to the laws of nature , lint the manifestation of the spirit was transitory . Official departments have taken unto themselves men stirred by the love of sanitary improvement , and strong to work therein ; but , alas ! who supposes that those earnest men really possess a hold of power , or are to substantiate their doctrines in thoroughly elective measures ? The Metropolitan Commission debates , the Board of Public Health issues blue

    books , but unless more is to be done , and speedily , in sooth it may be said that the imperial Government is trying to cheat Providence by feigning to obey its dictates , while it is evading the execution of its duty by a few formal appointments of men reputed to be the best for the work . There is no immortal motive here ! Are we to look into the state of society for the influence of Religion ? Are we to find that safeguard shielding the wife against the fatal violence of the husband ; the husband against the insidious poison of the wife ; the child against the parent ? Nay , look into the Church itself , and see what is going forward now—Gorham braving Exeter , Exeter pamphleteering Canterbury ; parish memorializing against parish , Dissenters exulting over dissension in the Church ; holy men quarrelling over the shapes of churches and chapels , and the meaning of words , the rights of " persons of the Church" to property , the sacred right to that " religious freedom " which consists in exemption from certain taxes called religious . But we do not see the clergy or ministers of any sect walking forth among the people to recal them from error and crime in the name of the God that all sects acknowledge . We do not see them appealing from human dissensions to the instincts and affections common to all mankind , —we do not see the clergy advancing in the National Council , and effectively stirring Parliament to its duty of working for the welfare of the people . Sect and sectarian dogma are made the subjects of public strife in abundance ; but if we look for Religion as a motive for public action , we must confess that churches have forgotten their greatest office in thinking more of their own differences and the small contrivances of human subtlety . The nation might he Atheist for any fruits that we see in its public action . Is it possible that Sect , with its rancorous and proverbial hatred , can so set man against man as to neutralize the universal spirit , and incapacitate men for ministering to the will of Providence in the service of his kind ?

    Untitled Article

    AN EXAMPLE FOR ENGLAND . England ' s Colonies are furnishing examples to the parent country , not as to the profit derivable from rebellion , —although Ministers have thrown out the practical hint that rebellion is the most effective form of the " pressure from without " — but , in the tangible advantage of a distinct moral purpose , the imperial Government has just been beaten by the force of moral purpose and of concentrated purpose in the Cape of Good Hope . The pith of the story may be soon told , and it is one that ought to serve as a practical lesson to the English People .

    Without going too far back into the history of the Cape , —its compulsory surrender of certain kinds of slavery , its grievances under the sport of blundering philanthrophy which virtually disarmed the European colonists on the border in the face of the marauding tribes , —it is enough to remember that the colonists of the Cape , both the descendants of the Dutch and the English settlers , have aspired to a decided character for integrity and general morality , and have made it a point of honour that their community should not be disgraced by the introduction of a convict population . More than one contest on that point has been urged with the Administration at home ; but the determined temper of the colonists has extorted the respectful deference of the officials . It is in the teeth of that past experience that Lord Grey made the recent attempt to introduce convicts into the Cape . But the manner in which he did it seriously aggravated the injury . On the plea that England did not know what to do with her convicted felons since the abolition of convictism in New South Wales , he proposed to distribute a part of the number yearly accruing among a variety of colonies , omitting , however , the West India Colonies , proper , perhaps , on account of their climate , and the North American Colonies , no doubt because they had shown the disposition to resist injury . lie issued a circular despatch to the governors of colonies , stating his intention , but also stating that convicts would not be introduced without the consent of the inhabitants . A copy of this despatch was sent to the Cape of Good Hope : by the same ship was sent a separate despatch , announcing that an instalment of convicts , persons punished for offences arising out of the Irish disturbances , would be sent at once ; and they were sent . Not only , therefore , did Lord Grey violate the position which the Cape had maintained with

    so much painstaking perseverance , but he " added insult to injury" by professing to await the consent of the colonists , and then proceeding to act on the presumption of a consent which , as his past experience must have taught him to know , was the last thing that he had a right to export from the Cape . In the treatment of the colony , therefore , the Minister showed a remarkable combination of vacillation , presumption , and unfairness . The colony stuck to its purpose . Its conduct afforded in every particular a contrast to that of the imperial Minister .

    It was consistent throughout the affair , perfectly explicit , and strictly practical . The colonists organized themselves very generally to maintain a passive resistance against the Government , so long as the importation of convicts should be threatened : a pledge was taken that none of the convicts should be employed ; that no house should be open to the newly-landed English immigrant ; that no intercourse should be held with those who aided the Government , and that supplies of food should be withheld from all the state departments .

    Some few colonists endeavoured to compromise matters by atrimming course ; but the indignant and contemptuous treatment which they received soon stifled every hope of that kind . It was obvious that the whole colony was engaged with a hearty assent in this passive resistance . Had the governor braved it , not only would Government have become impossible , but the Ministers of Government would have starved . Governor Sir Harry

    Smith chose the only judicious course when he reduced his obedience under the orders from home to a minimum , and determined to retain the convicts on board ship without attempting to land them until he should receive further instructions from his superior . At the date of the last intelligence orders had arrived from Downing-street to send away the convicts who were about to sail without having set foot on shore ; the Cape had gained its object in every point .

    The success of a small community in thus wresting a policy from the hands of an imperial Minister , holding at command the resources of the most powerful Government in the world , appears more signal and instructive when we note the elements of the policy in the contest on both sides . Lord Grey , the English Minister , had been rein his

    gardless of consistency ; he had wavered own purpose , even within the despatch of a single mail : and had presumed that the small community would follow his wavering . He had not thought it necessary to keep faith with this small community ? but had held out a promise in a circular , and then presumed impunity for breaking his promise before it could reach those to whom it was

    addressed . The Cape was consistent to its own single purpose of repelling convictism from its shores throughout the times of quiet and the times of trouble , and by fastening on that purpose with bulldog tenacity , the small community beat the Minister who had the resources of the British empire at command . Here then we see a powerful Minister proclaiming a policy in the face of the world , attempting it , and failing : a colony , far from the largest , wealthiest , or strongest among those dependents on England , also proclaiming its policy , sticking to it , and carrying it out in the teeth of the British Government .

    Lord Grey was regardless of the moral point , — the tainting of a population with an infusion of convictism . The Cape made that point its all in all ; and the Minister who disregarded moral considerations is obliged to yield to the weaker

    pro-. Lord Grey throughout his attempt , as it appears by the result , was prepared to take the advantage if he could get it , or to give it up if he were thwarted . Certainly his policy was not worth any devotion . The Cape colonists threw themselves body and soul , men and goods , into the contest , — they burned their ships ; they went on without thought of retraction , prepared for any result but that of yielding the object upon which they had fixed their regard : pub ' lic devotion has carried the day .

    Lord Grey ' s spirit has been ungenerous ; the spirit of the Cape was generous . The Minister did not scruple to promise , and to break his promise ; he tried to surprise the Cape into an assent , presuming a servile obedience . Thwarted in his endeavour , he does not scruple to vent his annoyance and mortification by unjust slurs on the conduct of Sir Harry Smith , who certainly had pulled the Government through the period of embarrassment with a minimum of damage ; indeed , the slur is bo unjust that in a subsequent des-

    , 1^Htftit Vi Jcjuuul ^W*U*V^U

    I&ttbltt SHfatr * .

    Untitled Article

    58 © fce QLeaiiet . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 13, 1850, page 58, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1840/page/10/