Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 20th November 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 1115, Untitled Article

Page 1115
Page 15
15 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • dDjreit Cumuli.
  • Pictures (1)
  • Text (7)
  • 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.

      Untitled Article

      AIM ( IN 1 ) ICl ' Ali ™ ' r . AH AM . OPINIONS , HOWICVICK HXTKHM 1 ! 1 IOI I Al l ( MV' : i > AN lai ' llMION i 'I' " HIMTOIl NliCKMHAItll . V ' S HlmNHno ItHHl-ONMIIIl . lt If OH NONIi . j I' ^ oIil ' iVl " ] '' ' ¦ "' '"''' '" mi lull , will C 5 (» llfi :: i : i hi ! hiil . h lriucli an , ) . V l'i-in 11111 ' coiil . i-dvt ji'Hicji , 111 m aniiHiiM ; i . wiikeiunl . loi- I n •! " ¦ ' " " ' : iliii . r |)(! i icd . II ' l . hcn , il . hi ! | ii-olll , iil ) li : lor I ,, ! ' ' ' " " > W | 'V .-ilimihl il . nol ., n . l . lru . il . , hi : tolerable " 'iiilvci'Murv l . o writ . e ¦ -Mii / roN .

      Untitled Article

      NAimATlI OBSMItVANCK" IN SCOTLAND . ( To the Ml / tor of f . / to Loader . ) 'It'll ' . I ° r ' ' ' " ' » ' lll | i Hun ? , must , feel personally intil ' d . , ' ° ^ <> 11 ' <) r your very able mid spirited exposure 'in / , "' " ro | ' " 'y {> i' prt'Kont Snbbuf . h Observances . " 1 ^ imi " " \ ' . llllv" llml wll » - ( ' « h popularly culled u " roliiu s n < " '' ° - " Horn in nn obscure sen .-ooast town "u > S , '"' ' WrtH * 1- ained ii ]) l , o ii rijjfid " observance of "smui V , " '" " My " l <) 111 ( ' ' ' ™^ " <> ( liii < < < lii . y U ' ilIi ([ -V tlui 1 oiih ( , pulnfublo of any meal during Um ' wwi , "id 1 ) " ' i "< ' <) i"oh '''<" - ( 'veiling" niosl , disturbed through lxwctl ' ' IH <)| " ° loads of Scripture mid eutediiwn ini-M l > iii ( i " i "" UM hy my w ^ ll-nuiiiiiiiiK but ill-j ud ^ d 111 1 tiiHliinuHtm-H . Ah for " rest , " and ii " uuiet

      walk / ' the one was unknown to me , while the other I was taught to regard as a desecration of the " holy day . " So great , indeed , was my Sabhath a day of unrest , that I looked forward to it with a sickening loathing and inward shudder . The duties of the day , I find , singularly enough , faithfully detailed in almost every particular , By Mr . George Combe , in the memoirs of his brother Andrew . It presents a very good general picture of a Sunday as spent by a Scotch family : —

      " The children rose at eight , breakfasted at nine , and were taken to the West Church at eleven . The forenoon service lasted till one . There was a lunch between one and two . The afternoon ' s service lasted from two till four . They then dined ; and after dinner , portions of the Psalms and of the Shorter Catechism with the ' Proofs' were prescribed to be learnt by heart . After these had been repeated , tea was served . Next , the children sat round a table and read the Bible aloud , each a verse in turn , till a chapter for every reader had been completed . After this , sermons or other pious works were read till nine o ' clock , when supper was served ; after which all retired to rest . Jaded and exhausted in brain and body as the children were by the performance of heavy tasks at school during six days of the week , these Sundays were no days of rest to them . "

      Now , Sir , it becomes an important question , What is the result of all this cramming of Bible and Catechism—this extraordinary spiritual tight-lacing—on the physical and moral health of the people of Scotland ? Are the people really—I know they are professedly—a more religious people than the English and some of our continental neighbours ? They are , we know , the greatest " Church-goers" in the world ; but Dr . Guthrie tells us , also , that they are the greatest " dram-drinkers , " and we all know the relationshi p which obtains between drunkenness , misery , and crime .

      Since the days of John Knox until now , the Protestant clergy have had almost tlie sole power of imparting secular and religious knowledge . Contemporaneously with their instruction have grown up the most appalling social evils , defying all description . For a faint glimpse , however , of some of these , the reader would do well to peruse Dr . Bell's Days and Nights in the JFynds of Edinburgh ; or let him read the following evidence of tlio I ? ev . Robert Buchanan , of Glasgow , on the condition of his parish , as cited by George Combe in his udmirable lecture on The Comparative Influence of the N ' atural Sciences and the Shorter Catechism on tlie Civilization of Scotland :- —•

      " Taking the parish all over , says he , " it contains hardly one bed for every three individuals . " " I have transcribed from our minute and careful survey , an almost endless list of cases in which from ten to twenty individuals of both sexes , and of all ages , occupy one single apartment , and that , too , of the very scantiest dimensions . " " Within the limits of that single parish , whose entire area is loss than eleven acres of ground , there are 115 places for the sale of intoxicating drinks— . spirit shops and cellars , low taverns , flaring gin palaces , and gaudy music saloons , all doing tho devil ' s work : as busily as they can . " The reverend Doctor adds , " It is absolutely horrifying 1 to think of such a state of things . "

      Now , Sir , what is the social and moral condition of our continental neighbours , the French , so much traduced for their levity on religious subjects ? Let the . Reverend Dr . Outline—the great Scotch doctor—tell . In hid . Pleafor ' Drunkards , he says , " lit ; spent , as a student , souk ; five or six months in Paris ; he witnessed ( ho carnival ; yet inn id such scenes , and during that extended period , lie suw but , one case of intoxication ; and this in a , city containing a population six times lamer than Edinburgh . " " Well—we stepped

      from the steamer upon one of the London quays , and had not gone many pace * , when our national pride , was humbled , nnd any Christianity we may have had was put to the blush , by the diHgnsting spectacle ol drunkards reding along the streets , and filling 1 , 1 m air with stnmgo and horrid imprecations . In one hour we Kinv in London and in Kdinburgh , with nil her churches , and schools , and piety , we see every day - more dninkenncHS than we saw in live long months in niilfy Paris !"

      How , Sir , do the clergy propose to remedy this dreadful state of things ? they answer , " Hy means of more vlmrches and more Catechism . '" Scotland and Miigliind both hiivo tried their hand at cioitization for now two or threo centuries ; and yet , this is the state we nre in , and my quotations prove the state of our civilization . Unless this said over-dose ol ' church nnd Catechism possess tlie properties attributed by some to Honweopathy , that , " a medicine or u poison which will

      produce a dineaso will cure it , " 1 confess that , I must despair of any salutary reform from such nn application . Doctors ol'divinity , like doctors of physic , 1 fear , thrive bent , while the patient is nick . If ii , l > n not , so , appearances at ; all events are against , them . In physic , the principle of every man being liis own doctor is , we all know , hy the faculty dreadfully abhorred ; and so it ; is with the doctor ol" divinity , us witness the Hiinpleniinded confoHsion of honest Doctor Croly— " It in the

      intellectual character of the people ' s pursuits which we fear !" It is obvious , from these facts , that the people must think for -themselves . The laws of Nature are open to them : ever present with them—encouraging by reward , or condemning by punishment . They tell us by inspired lips , that the Sabbath was made for man—not man for the Sabbath . The most eloquent of prophets , Isaiah , reproves the Jews ( as if speaking from the Most High ) , in a series of questions , as follows , for making their religious professions and fasting a cloak for their sinful wickedness ! Why were not the passages quoted by Dr . Croly ? They must have smote him : —

      " Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man to afflict his soul ? Is it to bow down his bead as a bulrush , and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? Wilt thou call this a fast , and an acceptable day to the Lord ? " Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness , to undo the heavy burdens , and to let the oppressed go free , and that ye break every yoke ?" . But I have greatly exceeded the space I fear this communication merits in your columns . Permit me , in conclusion , to urge upon my c < pmtryinen—the sons of Scotland—to make a bold stand against the present

      spiritual desecration of the Sabbath : against the present slavish and demoralising bondage . The opening of the Crystal Palace a portion of the Sunday at Sydenham does not necessarily close the church-doors of the metropolis , or anywhere else . The battle waged is not so much against slavish Church customs as against slavish pot-house customs . The aborigines of Britain were first raised from their wild barbarity by a cultivation of the simple arts—by studying the capabilities of the external world to promote tlieir immediate happiness . A simple belief in any superstition , has ever failed to effect this for them . And so with- our . own

      Christianity ; beautiful and humanising as it undoubtedly is , rightly understood and taught , it will fail to perfect our civilization so long as the moral and physical elements of Nature are unstudied , and science and the arts neglected . I am , Sir , yours obediently ,

      Untitled Article

      D ISKAELI-CI / ATTDIAN-STILICHO . That implacable literary sportsman , the Globe , expresses nable surprise at Mr . Disraeli quoting Claudian as & ^ entree to bis petit souper of Thiers . ( By-the-bye , did TV aeli design an pxecxable mental pun , or did he forget r a nation ' s tears are spelt ?) The solution is obvious , p el always quoted Virgil , and the common men of the Commons seldom stray beyond the precincts of that unknowled ged thesaurus of Parliamentary classicism , " Eton latin Grammar . But our author-statesman , who is " nothin ^ if not Novel , " resolved to break the servile

      tradition , and to display his familiarity with an unfamiliar oet # the Lower Empire , in whose verses , indeed , turgid bombast is not seldom interrupted by passages of grace and grandeur , but who , for all purposes of school and col-Wo does not exist . Vivian would say that the official panegyrist' wanted " lead to his sandals , " so he went to the heaviest , rather than to the most ancient he could find or perhaps a malicious secretary went for him . But surely there is more in Disraeli-Claudian-Stilicho than meets tho eye . Why did he select Claudian , the poet of the Lower Emp ire , and not a classic ? Surely as a delicate compliment to Louis Napoleon and his friends the priests , in educationand

      who forbid " paganism , " forswear the classics . Why did he pick out that not euphonious scoundrel , Stiiiciio ( the name sounds like an " o ' clows ' - man ) , as a peg whereon to hang the venerable grey hairs of the Duke , which ( we mean the crop of 1831 ) have just been offered for sale by advertisement . Stilicho , as the Globe indignantly exclaims , the " contemporary of Alaric : " the marauding and traitorous ruffian in the pay of the Vandal . Again , we say , a delicate compliment to Louis Napoleon and to his dme damnee , that respectable Minister of War , M . Lcroy St . Arnaud . It is to flatter the nephew of the uncle whom Wellington conquered , that tho memory of "Wellington must be profaned , in the British House of Commons , by the miserable lip-service of his official panegyrist ,- speaking to tho ear of attentive Europe ! Again , it is asked , where is the appositeness or grace of the quotation ? Claudian speaks of the shining scalp and wellknown grey hair of Stilicho ( whom we suspect to have b (! en nearly bald ) . Disraeli , alluding to the Duke ' s grand old face among the British Peers , quotes tho " shining scalp" of Stilicho . We reply , in behalf of Mr . Disraeli , that lie has merely followed an admirable precedent . Captain Fluellon compared Maccdon and Monmouth , because there was a river at both places , and " salmons in poth . " Disraeli compares Wellington and Stilicho , because they botli bad grey hair when they were old .

      We trust we have avenged tho literary roputation of - \ lr . Disraeli—by doing for him what tho Scholiasts did for . Homer . Mr . Disraeli ' s " quotations" are tho . so of a stockbroker . Voila tout !

      Untitled Article

      November 20 , 1852 . ] THE LEADEK . 1115

      Ddjreit Cumuli.

      dDjreit Cumuli .

      Untitled Article

      NOTICES TO COJtlt . ESPO . N'DEjS-TS . Wo must entreat many of our correspondents who hava favoured us with recent oinniiumicatious , to lay what muy soeni neglect to the charge of tho extraordinary circumstances of the past week , circumstances which are not likely noon to occur again . Wo have to plead the same excuse for tlio omission of several important papers in type . Mr . Dry , of Dublin , writcsto ihe elleef , Hint the oarly cloning movement has not produced tho expected results in . causing young men liberated from the counter to stuily—not from want want

      of disposition on the part of young men , hut lroin , oi power . After tho day ' s attention , to business , the frame is too exhausted for mental " ' application . Mr . Dry proposes tlmt the young men should go e ; irly tolxul ivnd rise early in the , morning , and so study when the mind i . s fresh . For this purpose , ' Break of Dai ) Schools should be , insf it uted . The plan i . s good on paper , but we fear there will be as grenl , n difficulty in getting tho young men to bed us is now experienced in gel ling them up . The . Early Closing Movement will have ( o be Huececdcd by iin . Karly Sleeping Movement .

      Untitled Article

      Tim [ xooxsKQurcNou op Lovk . —\ Vbnt i . s the meaning of fidelity in love , and whence tho birth of it , ? 'Tis a stateof mind thai , men fall into , and depending 1 on tho man rather than the woman . ' Wo love being in love , that ' s the truth oiffc . If wo bad not met Joan , we should have nicf , Kate , ami ndoml her . We know our mistresses are no hotter than many other women , nor no pVetfier , nor no wiser , nor no wittier . 'Tis not ; for thi'w reasons wo love n woman , or for any special quality or charm I know of ; wn might as woll dfwnand that a lady should be tho fullest ; woman in the world ,

      like tho . Shropshire giantess , as that she should bo a paragon in any other chiiructer , before we began to love her . Ksniomi ' s mistress bud a thousand faults beside her charms : bo know both perfectly well ; she was imperious , sho was light-minded , sho was Highly , she was fiilso , she hud no reverence in her diameter ; she was in everything , oven in beauty , the contrast of her mother , who was the most devoted ami tho least , selfish of women . Well , from the very first moment he Haw her on the stairs at , Wulcole , Ksmond know he loved Heirtrix . There might , be better women—he wanted that one . He cared for none other . Was it because sho was gloriously beautiful Y lteiiutiful us she whk , be hath heard people say i « score of times in their compuny , that , Beatrix ' s mother looked as young , and wan the handsomer of the two . Why did her voice thrill in bis ear so ? She could not sing near ho well as Wioolini or Mrs . Tofts ; nay , . she . sung out of tune , and yet ho liked to bear her better ' tlinn St . < ' eoilia . Sim

      bad not n finer complexion than Mrs . Sleole ( l ) iek ' n wife , whom he had now got , nnd who ruled poor Dick with a rod of pickle ) , and yet to set ) her dazzled Usmoixl ; ho would shut hi « eyes , anil flui thought of her dazzled him all the sumo . Sho was hrilliant , and lively in talk , but not so incomparably witty us her mother , who , when she was cheerful , saitl the linest , things ; but yet , to bear her , and to be with her , wan KfsiuoiidVt greatest pleasure . —TnAOifKitAv ' tf ICsmond .

      Untitled Picture

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 20, 1852, page 1115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1961/page/15/