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'ttt? qattvttg Txr^ ^^a»-.o xxiu &AUN1& Ainu ma, COWA11DS
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to do right . They may defy it in the most flagrant manner—as Lord Palmerston has done in more instances than this Greek affair—and yet remain the scapegrace favourites of the public , as he has done ; because , to keep the full truth in view , his activity shines among the apathetic somnolence of his colleagues . Men may defy Public Opinion by the notorious profligacy of their lives , and yet it will be as powerless to prevent those profligates from flaring before them with Oriental ostentation , as the sick lion to resent the indignities of the ass .
The reason is obvious . Less than ever at the present time is there any means of enforcement . Public opinion has no powerful and material instrument by which it can enforce its decrees ; it can inflict no penal consequences , except by the most tedious and uncertain processes , which perseverance and ingenuity can always defeat . How , then , can it possess any faculty of compulsion ? Lei us admit that it must of necessity be as powerless as we find it in fact . Although the Peers
constitute the class of society upon the whole endowed with most wealth and influence , they may now be slighted , because they do not possess , as they formerly did , armed retinues to endanger the lives and power of their opponents . They no longer possess the instrument of power which succeeded to the sword—the pocket boroughs . A Stanley of Derby cannot storm the house of Bedford , nor raise up London against the " traitors" in office ; nor can the united Tories nominate a House of
Commons which shall vote to them , and them alone , the funds of office . We vaunt the " conflict of opinion " : there is now more conflict than opinion . Old traditions have lost their virtue ; but new convictions have not yet taken their place . There is no master conviction to endow the broken and distracted Commons with a master object ; and it is easily made to succumb by the old plan of " divide and rule . " The People , among whom may be some new but crude and imperfect convictions , have no
power in the state : they are unrepresented in the representative House of Commons , so-called . They have no vote , they have no locus standi in any part of the state ; they have no recognised right , unless French philosophers may be trusted who say that universal suffrage is the only thing to supersede " the right of insurrection . " But even the right of insurrection , if it remains to the People , has been sadly marred by their own abuse of it and the way in which they have taught official people the art of mob suppression .
The science of statesmanship m modern times has devoted itself almost exclusively to the art of checking and pulling down the powers in the country , and we see the result in this universal impotency , this constant inability to rescue the country from the disgraces into which it is dragged by a dominant mediocrity . It is very irksome to witness these disgraces , to see the national impotency ; very tedious to hear people bewailing , and see no effective effort at improvement ; very wearying to see statesmanship degenerate to the art of "
rubbing on , " and confessedly construct a policy of " measures from time to time suited to the occasion . " But let us always bear in mind , that disgusting as these exhibitions are , they are the necessary and inevitable consequence of that negative apathetic state of mind which is cultivated as the intellectual bienseance of the day . Public opinion has lost its substance as well as its force : we doubt almost every thing : we sneer at greatness as an obsolete incident of more dangerous times : we cloak and coddle ourselves up in an emasculating ' * comfort ; " we have faith in nothing except
material advantages and trading maxims ; and we find consequently that the great vessel of the state is drifting on the current of events without the eagle insight or steadfast faith of a Columbus to guide it towards the unknown continent of the future , without a race of men strong enough to bear up against shifting currents and adverse winds . We criticize and blame the exhibitions of pettiness and impotency in Parliament : they are the results of what is done out of doors . You , oh , Public ! who complain and condemn , give to these men at least the sanction of your tolerance .
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SECULAR EDUCATION AND COLLEGE FOR THE PEOPLE . The friends of Secular Education must have discovered by this time that , without some extraordinary amount of pressure from without , or some fortuitous position of parties , it is hopeless to expect concession of their demands from a Parliament constituted like , the present . Were the Whigs , indeed , to relinquish office ,
and forced once more to turn their hungry and expectant gaze upon the Treasury-bench , graced with the persons of their opponents , their conversion to the principle of unsectarian teaching would be a matter of course . They would once more find that the measure which in office they denounced was in all respects calculated to advance the interests of society , and consequently to be pressed forward with all the energy of patriotism and of
party . But since , with characteristic tenacity , the selfappointed leaders of Liberalism cling to office- — since neither to Lord Stanley nor Don David Pacifico , to Lord Ashley nor Lord Naas , are we for the present to be indebted for the blessing of a Liberal Opposition—we find ourselves , in regard to the educational question , thrown on our own resources . The Government will not help us ; and , pending the time when we shall get an available Opposition , we must endeavour to help ^ ourselves . It is , then , the duty of all who maintain the advantage of Secular Education to work in their several spheres for its partial and local application .
That which private benevolence and zeal for progress have carried out at Nottingham , and which resolution , energy , and self-denial have done at Sheffield , might be achieved in any town or populous vicinity where there are wealthy men who sympathise with the people , or where the people are determined to work out for themselves their emancipation from ignorance . The People ' s College at Nottingham , an account of which will be found elsewhere in our columns , is an example of effort on the part of the rich to give effect to their convictions of the necessity of secular training for the people . That at Sheffield
is an evidence of the manner in which the people feel their own necessities in this respect , and of the determination with which they set about the task of supplying them . We do not of course quote these instances with any idea of showing that the national obligation to educate the millions is superseded by them ; but to prove what can be done by private enterprise while the question of that obligation remains undetermined , and what examples may be produced of successful unsectarian culture , as well to urge on the settlement of the question as to serve as patterns for working out the principle when that settlement has been made .
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DOCTRINE . We cannot attempt a reply to the long string of questions in Mr . Doherty ' s letter printed in our " Open Council" last week . But he has so radically misconceived our meaning in respect of Doctrine , when we said it is not a King to govern us , we want , so much as a Doctrine to be governed by , that a word in reply is indispensable . He seems to imagine we wish for more doctrines , more theories , more systems , than already exist ; but our demand is for the one doctrine which shall replace all those sectarian and conflicting views , and unite men under the banner of one faith .
At every period in the history of the world , we see society based upon convictions in common ; the unity is a spiritual unity ; as soon as that unity is disturbed the dissolution of society begins . In the break up of creeds lies the destruction of polity . European history presents a grand and signal example of the unity of doctrine controlling and coalescing various nationalities under one social svstem . As a form of society the hierarchy of the
Middle Ages was complete , effective , universal . It has fallen to pieces , because the doctrine upon which it stood has ceased to be the universally accepted faith of the European mind . Dissolution menaces it from within and from without . So long as our moral and political codes are grounded on and receive their highest sanction from a creed which thousands of the enlightened intellects of our time refuse to accept , or , accepting it , do so
'Ttt? Qattvttg Txr^ ^^A»-.O Xxiu &Aun1& Ainu Ma, Cowa11ds
THE SAINTS AND THE COWARDS . Ouu Sunday post is gone . The clamour of the Saints has carried the nay ; Ministers , it is understood , yielding the point " to make the nation disgusted with the change ! " A pretty mode of legislating , for a great nation ! In the same spirit philosophic parents suffer their babies to burn themselves with the candle , that the infant mind
may learn the properties of fire . Perhaps they would suffer them to swallow arsenic on the same pleasing experiment of " Philosophy in sport made science in earnest !" But the Government is not to bear the whole weight of blame . The guilty parties are the Cowards who abstained from " committing themselves : " those who uttered speeches they did not believe , those who voted in terror at Mrs . Grundy , and those who were kept away from the House by the same ignoble terror at that respectable female . Some of the Saints are in earnest , and in their grim Religion do really see glory to God and
beneficence to man in rigid cessation of all Sunday employment except prayer . Believers in the letter , they are right to enforce the letter . Formalists , they are right to enforce formalism . They insist upon the homage of hypocrisy . You may see through their diseased religion , you may turn from their unhealthy views , but at least you must acknowledge their right to get their views enforced if possible . If some of them are hypocrites , that is a matter for their own consciences .
Nothing is gained by calling them hypocrites ; no blame is shifted by the epithet . If they are hypocrites , so much the worse the cowardice which dared not withstand them ! Skulking cowards , knowing well enough the feeling of the nation , knowing well enough the cruelty of the proposed measure , anticipating , moreover , that this was but the first step towards other and more stringent
alterations , nevertheless were so alarmed at the thought of Mrs . Grundy , in her wrath and wig , — so subdued by the old terror of being denounced as ' infidel , "—that they held their peace , equivocated , voted , or stayed away , leaving to others the task of opposing bigotry and formalism . On them should lie the weight of reprobation . They are the traitors to their own convictions and to their
constituents . It is doubtless very amusing to sip your claret and smile with a superior air at the " cant" of the Saints , and protest in a tone of gentlemanly energy that the " good sense of the nation never will permit such an absurdity . " Meanwhile the Saints muster and gain the victory ; the good sense of the nation has no choice ; it made the enormous mistake of sending you , and the like of you , into its
House of Commons there to represent its " good sense "; instead of that , you shrink from the thin compressed lips and hard breathing of Mrs . Grundy , caress your whiskers with the whitest of hands , hold up the claret to the light , and think that on the whole you had better stay away from the discussion , lest the Reverend Dismal Jones should inform your wife ' s mother that you have " religion . " Perhaps you know not the happiness of a wife ' s mother , and care little about the
Reverend Dismal Jones , but think on receiving letters on Sunday is a " bore ; " and really you don ' t care if the Post is stopped , because if there should be any important news it can reach you by Telegraph ! And you order another pint of Lafitte , satisfied with that issue . It is , indeed , an effective substitute , and costs but a few shillings . The Telegraph is open to all men . A few shillings , and the message can be sent more rapidly even than the letter . If my child be dying away from me , and I am to receive the last lingering look—if the last gentle breathing is to fall on my bereaved heart , that I may feel the consolation of having
surrounded his last moments witn . love , cne xgraph will summon me—for fifteen shillings . It is nonsense to talk about some not having the money . Everybody has fifteen shillings ! Those poor wretches who cannot scrape the sum together are altogether of the inferior classes , and have none of the finer feelings ; sentiments are luxuries which must be paid for . As to there not being Telegraphs in every direction , really that cannot be helped ; so much the worse for those who are dying out of the
reach of a Telegraph ! Some little inconvenience must be borne with ; but meanwhile one hasn't the " bore " of reading letters on Sunday , and those poor devils at the Post-office are at liberty to devote their Sundays to uninterrupted prayer—if they like it : perhaps they don't ; they may prefer toddy in tumblers to the edifying discourses of my eloquent friend ; but , at any rate , they have the power of attending upon my friend , if they choose , and thus my religious conscience is at rest .
In this way is the " good sense of the nation " represented ! Mrs . Grundy , rouged , wigged , and intolerant , frightens many j the " bore " of letters ( with an eye to the Telegraph ) renders others supine ; and between the Saints and the Cowards a monstrous anomaly is perpetrated , as contrary to
the express dictum of Jesus , who said , reprovingly , " the Sabbath was made for man , not man for the Sabbath , * ' as it is contrary to all religious feeling out of the gloomy regions of Low Church . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 22, 1850, page 300, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1843/page/12/
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