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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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protested against the atrocities committed by the Revolutionary Commissary ; whereas , M . Bothy contends that Kossuth hesitated to accept his resignation on account of the good understanding that existed between his Commissary and General Bern . M . Bothy was not aware , at the time he addressed the editor of the Daily News , that an Englishman , Mr . Paget , the intelligent traveller , had frankly taken up his defence , by writing a letter to the Times , in which M . Bothy ia fully borne out in all his assertions .
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PAYMENT OT MEMBERS . The Members of the best Parliament England ever saw were paid for their services . Mr . T . B . Macaulay says , in a sneering fashion , " Each Member of the Long Parliament received £ 1 per week of public money ; 576 Members at fifty-two weeks , £ 119 , 808 . " This he , no doubt , deems monstrous extravagance . But has he ever had a word to say against wasteful aristocratic
expenditure at the present day ? During the first three years after the late Earl Grey came into office he and his immediate relations and connections received no less than £ 234 , 468 of the public money . Will Mr . Macaulay pretend to say that the Grey family did as much real service in return for that enormous slice of the national expenditure as Hampden , Cromwell , Andrew Marvel , John Pym , and other honest patriots of the olden time , gave for their £ 4 each per week ?
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THE FEE-GATHERING 8 Y 8 TEM . According to Benthana , the whole of the complicated and interminable system of procedure in our courts of law , has been devised for the sake of ? ' fee-gathering . " Instead of viewing law as an invaluable institution for the defence of property and the maintenance of order , he considered it merely a cunning piece of machinery for plundering the community . So far as regards the Court of Chancery , this is , no doubt , tolerably correct ; and one may gather , from the remarks of Mr . Baron Martin at the Manchester Assizes the other day , that it applies also , in some measure , to the practice of law in criminal cases : —
"He would call their attention to one circumstance , and did bo for the purpose of their considering whether some steps might not be taken to prevent cases of so slight a character being ' brought to the assizes at all . There were very few cases tried whore the expense was less than from £ 12 to £ 20 , and yet he had selected thirty cases where the property supposed to have been stolen did not amount altogether to Jt ' Ji . It was a waste of public money and of much valuable time to try cases of this description at so enormous an expense—men were charged with stealing 1 a peck of beans , shooting' a duck , stealing a sack , a few gallons of hog * * meat , a shoulder of mutton , an iron rat trap , two rabbit traps , eleven turnips , twelve glass bottles , &c . It appeared to him t <> be a desirable tiling 1 that some mode should be adopted to prevent this . "
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LEGALIZED roiSONIXG . The merchants in the City complain , with some justice , of the capricious way in which " Sir Chicory Wood" —as Mr . Monckton Milncs names the Chancellor of the Exchequer—acts towards the tea and coffee trade . The coffee-dealer may sell chicory , horse-beans , burnt parsnips , rotten wood , or any other kind of rubbish under the name of coffee ; but if the tea-merchant be found mixing sloe-leaves , or any other British substitute , with the Chinese herb , he is made to pay a heavy fine . This they hold to be unfair . If the buyer is to be left to protect himself in the case of coffee , they think the Hame rule ought to be extended to the tea trade . In that case , wo are told , a large house in the City promises to furnish a very excellent " strong-flavoured hyson" at one half the lowest price paid at present .
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A mOTECTIONJKT DUKE . In his own handwriting , the late Duke of Newcastle has bequeathed the bulk of his property to his second son , I * ord Charles Pelham Clinton . So says the Morning Post . The old Duke's motto " Shall I not do what I will with my own ? " has thus been carried out in a way which few persons would have anticipated . His eldest 8 » n , the late Earl of Lincoln , had too much good sense and too strong a love of justice to continue a Protectionist merely at the bidding of his father ; who visits the offence with a posthumous / ine ! SociAii Tiikoiuhh . —It in a matter of surprise that Rreivt social theorien are not , like scientific ouch , at once n ) . . i Cttd f <> tlie tC 8 t of adequate experiment . When we e the state expend immense huiiih ( not unwisely ) in ra ln K » e course of a river , " a North West passage , the l > un of a planet , or in testing the value of Warner ' e » g-ran Ke destructive , —is it too much to insist that , // , at » ea "t equally cxtctmve shall be made in behalf HriM | v anUy ? ilowevt ; « ' important or interesting these hi « natters are to man , they are surely less ho than '" own nature and the true principles of social science . nw . ni Vi ° ¦ fortm ' " « »« continually adding by experiapoil " lB 8 ue" ° ( the latter han 8 ou tho breath of an former ? 8 u PP ° 8 >» g the theories of the great social revaliu . ii i a mere delusion , yet , if only to suve the anv , 7 , i ° ff ? e » " 8 now wasted in di « oust . ion , to ment ln P ° f the P » e » er *« tl «» n of order , mu : h experiments ought to be made—HolSa Social Sciaue .
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dr . Giles ' s hebrkw records . Hebrew Records : an Historical Inquiry concerning the Age , Authorship , and Authenticity of the Old Testament . By the Reverend Dr . Giles . John Chapman When we are given the Old Testament to read , we are told that it is a divinely-inspired volume , and not the work of man , but of God . Not only is the record of events said to be the account delivered from Heaven of the creation , and the history of ages following , but the very words we are required to believe proceeded from the same source , and must remain immutable . Dr . Wall , the Professor of Hebrew in the University of Dublin , has gone so far as to say that as a written language , the Hebrew , was for the first time made known to Moses ; and therefore , we suppose , rendered intelligible to all the people by Divine inspiration , when brought out of the land of Egypt . Dr . Giles does not enter into the question of the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; but he says Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch , and therefore , we suppose , he does not presume God to have been the author . Besides , he says , it is not infallible , hecause often in error , ana bearing all the signs of a human work j therefore , we suppose , it is not with Dr . Giles a volume of Divine inspiration . Science has given rude shocks to the credibility and inviolability of the circumstances recorded in the Scriptures . The infallibility of its history has ,
therefore , been denied by the learned . Strict adherence to a literal interpretation of its words has been found impossible by those who would reconcile science with Revelation . Yet there are many who consider orthodoxy to consist in accepting no other than the simple meaning of the words as emanating from Divine inspiration , and as the foundation of the Christian religion . They will not allow that a word expressing one thing denotes another , or that a fact mentioned as actually occurring was an allegory , or a way of relating something else in the mind of the writer . Oriental fiction , p oetic imagination , human fallibility , are discarded for the stern reality that it is the word of God , and that it is the Revelation not only of material causes and effects , which would otherwise have
been unknown , but of the religious relations which began and have continued between man and his Creator . We may suppose a Jew indifferent as to whether the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden be the fact , or whether it signified the difference of man in a state of ignorance and innocence on a par with the animals , and our present state of progressive improvement superior to the beasts and on an equality with the gods . Death and evil may have come into the world , as represented in the Bible , the state of man may have or may never have changed ,
it may have been from better to worse , or worse to better ; these are questions which do not vitally , and beyond mortality , affect the Jews . It is not so with the Christians ; on this story of primeval antiquity hangs the entire new dispensation . On the introduction of original sin and death by our first parents depends the atonement of Chri . st , the sacrifice of God necessary to redeem us from the effects , not of our own , but the transgression of our forefathers . A further question enters into the consideration of this story , as regards more the philosophy of religion . The attributes of omniscience , omnipotence , and benevolence conceded to the Creator , it may be asked
how could he make men to fall when he had tlie foreknowledge , power , and goodness to prevent it , and the consequences which ensued to man and to himself in nuhHcquent revelation . On logical , philosophical , and religious grounds we might question such a narrative . Yet Christians are disposed to see in it a most satisfactory account <> f the origin of evil , and of the remedy applied in revelation . Supposing that any part of the prior accounts of thcereution be scientifically wrong , it invalidates this / story , and if it be allowed to be an allegory , we do not see that on any foundation of uncertain interpretation a further structure can be formed .
We premise these observations because Dr . Giles says in his preface that his book is historical , and not religious . Yet in Ins introduction , p . ;» , he
declares " the doctrinal parts of the Christian scheme , and all that gives to it the character of a divine revelation , become destitute of meaning until they are explained by the antecedents of the Jewish Scriptures concerning the temptation of Eve , the fall of Adam , and his ejection from Paradise . " Though Dr . Giles may disclaim any intention of invalidating the authority of the Scriptures , and weakening the reverence for them , yet we cannot but think he admits the effects of his investigations to the contrary , and points to the consequences in
religion which must result from the truth of the positions endeavoured to be proved in his book . He shows these directions particularly as referring to the story on which the Christian faith is founded . We could conceive the first account of the creation susceptible of a variety of scientific deductions without invalidating religion ; but we cannot imagine a religious doctrine signified , a revelation made of the state of man , being capable of any other sense than that in which it is commonly received , or of any other meaning than that which the terms used are intended to convey .
Infallibility was there , if anywhere , necessary , as the story was necessary to be believed , and on it the salvation of man is made to depend . Science served to show revelation incompatible with actual facts ; but revelation remained to be accommodated to science . Dr . Giles , by his historical inquiry , may be said to sweep away the subject matter of dispute , or by removal of the ancient landmarks entirely to alter its character . However , Christians have no reason to consider their religion attacked . Dr . Giles declares his object to be historical and not religious , and only asks a patient hearing to the conclusions he has come as to the age ,
authenticity , and authorship of the Old Testament . The result of his researches is , that the Bible is not the old book we think , the most ancient of historical records , but a comparatively modern production . As a compilation it is not so old as Homer . If Dr . Giles be right , the Old Testament was compiled about the same time as Pisistratus , at Athens , had the credit of collecting and arranging the poems of Homer . According to Dr . Giles , Moses did not write the Pentateuch but only the Ten Commandments , or as much as could be contained upon the two tables of stone which he carried in his hands . Dr . Giles shows that whenever
mentioned in the Bible , the book of the law meant the two tables of stone . Facts and arguments are produced to prove that Moses was not in possession of a written language when he left Egypt . Neither was the spoken language of the people the Hebrew in which the Scriptures are written , but Egyptian . The Egyptians had no other writing's hut hieroglyphics up to and later than the Christian era . There were about seventy persons in Jacob ' s family when they settled in Egypt , and they remained there about
500 years , according to the Bible , though the commentators will have their sojourn there only to have been 215 years . The Hebrews intermarried with the natives , Moses was brought up by the Egytians ; therefore it is not likely they spoke any separate language . Dr . Giles thinks the alphabetical character was derived from the Phenicians , to whom the Jews as well as other neighbouring nations owed their written language . The Greeks acknowledge their acquaintance with letters to have come from the Pheniciantj . The Greek was the first
employed m Egypt as a foreign acquirement , or wan introduced by the Greeks who settled there after the conquest by Alexander . The Jews had no sacred writing ; the Egyptians had only it , and the tendency of priestly institutions is to perpetuate any practice longer than it is held by other countries governed by more popular elements . Dr . Giles does not say when the Jews first resorted to a written language . From their constant intercourse with the Syrians , Phenicians and Sidoniuns , and the inhabitants of the sea coasts , and the literature under Solomon , unless wo presume it to ho a fiction , we must suppose the Hebrews had some written
records before the Babylonian captivity . Be that as it may , Dr . Giles does not think tlie JScripturew were compiled till after the Babylonish captivity . In fact , were not written as we find them till 500 years before Chri . st , instead of 150 O as generally supposed . The external evidence , which is universal consent us to the date , can only In : traced an originating after the Christian era , and being carried ou from individuals to individuals . The . internal evidence on which Dr . Giles rents , hi ; thinks abundant and conclusive to prove that the dates given to the Scriptures are purely imaginary , lie . shows all these chrouologicul staU-uient , N to !> e
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March 8 , 1851 . ] toifrt VLea 1 t $ t * 225
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make 1 aws—they interpret and try to enforce them—Edinburgh Review .
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The sudden indisposition of the Literary Editor obliges us to omit our usual leading article under this head . .
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Leader (1850-1860), March 8, 1851, page 225, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1873/page/13/
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