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Leader (1850-1860), 24th April 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 394, Untitled Article

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      force of conquerors . Secular and soejal education must precede Christjanitfy in Indiaf . and perhaps by the time we have trained our 4 ar £ $ eUow-subjects up to tb-e . E uropean level , we m $ * be able to give ^ tjj . ein a mpiceGathojUp form of faith than that perverse andunintelligible dogrha which the iaif-taught missionary now carries at the heels of the soldier .

      Meanwhile , practicall y ^ the Hindu has a strong sense of our intelligence ; and may have a stronger sense , when we have illustrated it more copiously in practical works for his benefit . Mr . Herries enumerated several public works completed , in progress , or contemplated ; the latter category being the most extensive ; but our administrators had better make haste . A . revenue with , a standing deficiency is a strong memento to be diligent in fetching out the resources of the country . A method of taxing that leaves only 20 or 30 per cent , to the actual cultivator may be an improvement on the old plan , but it is an

      improvement only in embryo . Luckily the State has not alienated the land in India j it therefore keeps open the way to improve the condition of the actual cultivator ; and there is no reason to believe that the system of tenure will be rashly altered . The prime objects must be , to relieve the labouring class of excessive taxes , and to seek for revenue out of enlarged production . Mr . Hardinge boasts that the salt-tax is reduced to 8 d . ahead ; but 8 d . ahead is no trifle when the income of alabourer is not always more than 40 s . a-year . The tax is one impeding production : let it be abolished , and let the cultivator be aided

      with roads and irrigation , —not suddenly , perhaps , but gradually ,-r-and the 8 c ? . a-head . will soon be supplied to the revenue , and more with it . In Indi&j as everywhere else , productionis the true basis of social / Wealth , and of-official revenues . But we should oniy suspend improvement , or arrest it altogether * if we went upon any bigoted plan of Europeanizing the country . ' perhaps in no department however is deference for that paramount British tyrant , Cant , carried to such injurious length as in the military . Not that Cant can altogether prevail in the teeth of

      facts : Gant forbids conquest , and we have added provinces comprising 9 , 000 , 000 souls to our empire within twenty years . But , in deference to thrice-ignorant Cant , the military rule consents to enfeeble itself , shrinks into undue cringeing , instead of being bold , frank , and thoroughly effectual . It is mainly by our victories that we stand in India . Instead then of affecting to avoid conquest , it should be pushed steadily forward . In the sense perhaps of consolidation rather than extension ; but always in the sense of complete subjugation to the foe , of full victory to our arms . While natives are admitted to a new

      exaltation through our own institutions , let contumacious chiefs bo absolutely crushed , or scored with chastisement until they tremble at the very sound of the name of England . The Burmans , the Affghans , ought to bo guards for us to the tribes beyond ; lackeys to England , hearing her voice " with an obedient start . " Idle toys like " the Nizam , " inflated with the fantastical delusion ' of an existence , ought to pass into traditions . In consolidating our territory , rooting out the political " snags" that still besot our course ,

      and correcting the erroneous ideas of the border tribes , there is ample work for some years to como : but jt would bo done bettor if it were dono frankly , boldly , and in the once-for-all st y le . Talk not of " inquiry" as the preliminary to some " altered course" in . India , some reduction of the army , and vast recruitment of missionary force : such dreams cannot attain , practical existoncp amid the rough facts of Indian life . Meddle rashly with the rule of " John Coompany" and who shall answer for the conseqxionooflP No , if there bo any change , lot it bo in the direction of boldness , efllciency , and expedition . Lot " John

      Coompany" send over the very best Governors ho can find—not men to bo " provided for , " but efficient Proconsuls . Lot local affairs bo managed as much as possible locally , with local knowledge and local sympathy , and always in Indian fashion . If India is to be of any service to us , it must bo as India can only bo ; and hor service is groat , in illustrating our power before the natjons , in contributing to our commerce , in finding employment for numbers who would otherwise bo driven in upon us at homp in these little islands . But , we say , tlv ? fiojd may bo cultivated with double , witji fivo-fpld , > vith tpn-fbld profit , if pretence * foe i > bau 4 oned . an . d realities sought . In

      more efficient service ^ there is extended employ * ment for our civil seryants-r-tliere _ ¦ , is promotion for our young officers , to betrainedin the ntirsery that produced a WelMnj ^ on-r-rtb ^ re is new and incalculable employment for our civil engineers , disbanded from railway service , at home j yes , wealth , hope , activity , honour , life and fame , for the sons of many a family which , at home can scarcely hold its own in the incessant race from the workhouse , ijonest action in India may be new existence for the Indian tribes , wealth for Englishmen , strength for England in the great movements that await the world .

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      CHURCH ANARCHY AND ORTHODOX DISSENT . "It cannot be pretended by Sir Bo . bert ' s worst enemy , " says the Times , — summing up the Maynooth case , with a due regard to the " popular" taste for truth and error , in the form of " half-and-half , " — -i £ cannot be pretended " that the elaborate arrangements of 1 S 45 , comprehending the formation of these new colleges , and , in fact , a new university , were aimed bnly at a momentary pacification . The

      whole scheme , bothinits rebigious and its secular aspects , was designed for posterity ; and it is for us who survive to watch over the results / They have not been satisfactory hitherto . So far there % a case for inquiry ; and that inquiry constituencies may very property deinanjii j and the Legislature as properly concede , " Cui homo ? "Wh $ t we wanty in Ireland as well as in England , is not " inquiry ,- ' —that refuge ofindecision andI insincerity , but religious liberty . Liberty , so admirably defined by Kpssuth , is the one thing that

      men are the last to concede to others . In commerce , men desire free trade ^ except irt their own wares > -- ~ Phe-Spitalfields weanrer ; deppeeatea : free trade in silk . In politics , the Republican , Democrat , or Chartist , would train up the young in his own opinion , and cannot tolerate others who differ from him . In religion , even the dissenter has his " orthodoxy . " "We know all about what . has happened in Ireland , without any inquiry ; a church

      is kept up , with endowments taken originally from the Catholics , and is specially enjoined to teach the falsehood of catholicity ; the soldiers of the church quartered on the conquered people . Still a large portion of the church of the conquered was but lately half inclined to enlarge its opinions and fraternize with all knowledge , scir entific activity , and liberal feeling ; but , for party purposes , English statesmen raised a howl against the very name of "popery , " so that the most liberal Catholics would have been craven had

      they sided with the aggressors . Religious opinion is not free in Ireland : it is required to call itself anti-papal , required to take an oath of abjuration , required to confess itself conquered , arrested , beaten , even by low dogmatists , whose pror testantism is nothing but the incapacity , through ignorance and grossness , for understanding the dogmata of the lloman creed . Religious opinion is not free in Ireland to purify itself by its own working , —as it is so well inclined to do .

      Nor in England . Whilp courts of law are deciding that a man must not be a Jew—not even that wholly modern form of the stiffnecked race , which is found in the Liberal English gentleman versed in all the amenities of the nineteenth , ccjit tury ; while the Primo jVjinister is suffering to poep through reserves and disclaimers the intention of a new crusade against Popery , —while the House of Commons is fomenting a now and aggravated converse of the Gorh . am case , in the diocese of Bath and Wells : while all this is

      going forward in courts of law , and law-making , the council of the London College of Dissenting Ministers is expelling three students for—non * conformity ! Yes , a pamphlet is before us , b y Mr . Robert M . Theobald , " one of tho expelled , " relating how it all happened . * Briefly to tell tho facts as they happened practically , the story is this : —On tho 3 rd of February last , in class , Dr . Harris , fjjo Principal , whose attention seems to have boon directed to tho horesios of certain students , " put questions , which led to a conversation that lasted tlireo quarters of an hour . Three of tho students , Mr . Theobald , Mr . Halo White , and Mr . Ercdorick White , wore summoned before a meeting

      of the Council , on the l , 3 # i , ® ttd » i »^ Ihe interval invited each , to , hold a qpnverj 3 ation , severally ' with Professor Godwin . On tlie . 13 th , each was before the coweil for about half an hour , and cross-examined , by laymen as [ wellr as ministers . Next day , tlie Btudents were told tjiat thiey " had expressed opinions incompatible yidith t&eir retention inthe College . The father pftjje $ wo gentlemen named White attendeid at the next meeting of the council , and made ttpreki demands : — - That the moral character of the students should be placed above suspicions . ';• that the opinions for which they were condemned should be distinctlv

      stated j that the creed , or law , according to which they were judged , shpuhi be produced / These demands were not granted . ^ few jbrief conversations resulted in a ^ eTT proposition , by the couni cil , that the three student should withdraw from the , college for tjiree months , to reconsider their position . The students declined tiiis species of voluntary rustication , and desired to Tcnow in what way they had broken the law P Still no compliance was made tvith this repeated / demand ; but , on the 27 t ? i of March , the students were peremptorily told by the council that their connexibn with the . college must cease ;

      The joints in controyersy with Mr Theobald appear to have been these . He riegarded the Bible as being not in itself a revelation , but the record of a revelation ; hdf accepted the Bible as an historipal record of authority resting on its interpal Trbrtli ; he Tepudiated a comparison of the inspiration aecorde 4 to the ^ writers and that accqrde ( i ¦' ¦ to > nien . of ^^ genius ; Ijie Shakespeare , although derived from the sames origin , because in the one cage directly conveying injunctions to mankind , and in the other , indireptljf instructing . This is otir own summary of his yiewpi , in order to let the reader have some idea of the nature of

      the conteovepsy , and Mr . Theobald must not be held responsible for it . He must be held only partially responsible for the siibjoiiied extract iroin a letter to K ^ father * because it is avowedly hurried and impierfect ; but ' it is more compact and shar ^ p than Iiis niore studied exposition , arid therefore better suited to let the reader s 6 e the spirit ^ at work . "I believe that the opinion which makes the Bible so uniq ue in its origin and nature arises from a false intellectual expression and interpretation of a true feeling . Men have felt that the Bible is the greatest of books , and that it contains ap articulate apd clear expression of the very truth which they need in their most important

      relationships—their spiritual position before God , ' —and they have rightly said , f This is God's Book , Kia phosen euido for life , His appointed messenger concerning IJjmself and immortality . ' Now , so long as this truth rertliins thus 111 the region of mere feeling , not as yet cl o thed in p recisely Bcientific notions , it is true . Directly it ^ translated into tho language of the intellect , there are a thousand chances that it will bo misrepresented and perverted . And so it has been . That if ; i § God's Word is made to mean another thing than the same expression does mean when jt is spoken of every true , beautiful thought that stirs and inspires a man ' s being , and gives life to his spirit : —and thus God is represented as having two voices , one very uncertain , indistinct , inarticulate , and even distorted , in nature , consciousness , books in general , history , and humanity , — &cin

      another voice , perfectly clear , distinct , articulate , ., tho Biblo . The two are opposed to one another instead oi being identified , and what is contained in a book , subject to aU tho uncertainties of interpretation ( # > whjch jiecessaril y bqlong to literature of aU kinds , k maao by confident and baseless assumptions more certajn ana final than the teachings of nature and consciousness , poyovor enlightened by culture and by the SqoJc itselfi f truth tho New Testament is valuable not so much for its etatemonts as for its descriptions , its pictorial representations of tho most perfect and divinplifo that has ever iivoa upon earth : and , presenting this picture , jt leaves man , if ho dare , to theorizo upon it , and ap p end hia intellectual rosourcos rather in ouribijs investigations concerning tno nature of tho colours in which ifc is drawn , than the dmno

      beauty which is represented . " In tho main , the two other expelled students aro understood to hold similar opinions . Our readers will remember that wo hayo before pointed to tho general eohiam which divides almost every Dissenting body , from tho Weslevans to tho Unitarians , into two , —tho " orthodox , or reactionary , and tho . heterodox , or pr ogressive . We , believe wo shall not be wrong in saying , «» 1 C tho numbor of those in tho New College wJio hmite

      hold progressive opinions is by no moans to tho throo expelled . The leavon is fitill tliero ; it consists in the diWerenco botweon the young ana tlio old . Dr . Harris and his coadjutors did nov produce tho Thirty-nino Articles of their corp oration ; but verbally , tho Principal p ronounco < ltn ° opinions of the throe students to bo not ^ vinodox" } practically , tho students were required w eubscribo , by a kind of hintod understftn cliog- j- _ some unwritten Thirty-nine Articles ; «» a *"

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      * Statement of JFaots competed with Ma JGxjnrtsion of Thrco Studonts from the New Collega , London . By Robert M . Theobald , A . M ., Ono of tho Expollod . A Bhjfling pamphlo ^ pubjwhod by Mr . iioborfc Thoobold , pf J ? ftlornofltor-row .

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 24, 1852, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1932/page/14/