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Leader (1850-1860), 1st January 1853, Edition Town of 3, Page 17, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      purposes of Providence , grammar was not needed . " Let us call attention to the following : — " * The Christians claim a miraculous revelation / say the Mormons ; < and so do we claim their Scriptures and our own new ones . The miracles of the Book of Mormon are quite as credible as the miracles of the Bible—the angels of one as much a fact as the angels of the other—the . visions of Joseph Smith as authentic as the visions of Paul or Peter / " Unbelievers say , '« Show us the gold plates , the original records of the Book of Mormon / to which the Mormon replies , < Show us the original MS . of any part of the Old Testament or New Testament !'

      " ' Jesus and the Apostles wrought miracles ; so did the early church / say the Christians ; and the Mormons claim to work miracles to-day , and have a * church of witnesses' to corroborate the claim . Smith wrought miracles ; the elders work miracles ; the Book of Mormon itself is a stupendous miracle ; and the rapid rise and steady progress of the new sect is the most astonishing miracle on record say they . " If ever Christians appeal to the evidences of the genuineness and authenticity of the Christian Scriptures—the Mormons have their evidences . Do the more romantic appeal to the ' testimony of the Spirit ?'—the Mormons do the same , and

      Claim the ' undying witness of the Holy Ghost' to the truth of their religion . Sometimes the other sects attack the Mormons , and say , ' Work us a miracle . ' Say the Mormons , ' Do you appeal to miracles as proof of truth ?•—let us see the miracles of the Baptists or the Methodists , of the Calvinists or the Unitarians ! We have miracles in abundance to show / Orson Pratt relates sundry miracles in his book ( p . 53 and 69 , et seq . ) , * the great miracle of Reuben Brinkworth / cases of healing the blind , the leprous ; cures of the cholera , and other diseases ; cures of ' bones set through faith / There are written records stating the names and places of the persons , the time , and circumstance of the miracle , with a minute nicety to which the Christian Scriptures make no pretence . "

      In summing up , the writer says ; " The Mormons at present at Deseret live in an orderly and quiet manner—industrious , comfortable , and happy . The testimony of Colonel Kane , of Lieut . Grennison , of Captain Stansbury , proves this . There is abundant evidence that the Mormon emigrants are more orderly , temperate , clean , and decorous than any class of -foreigners that arrive in America . We trust they may renounce the miserable absurdities of their theology , discard the doctrine of polygamy , respect woman as the equal of man , abandon their hierarchical form of government , and

      become a great sect that loves God and man . It is not just to despise their humble origin , nor the extravagance of the rude men who set the sect in motion . If in the second century a ' commission * had been appointed to investigate the origin of the Christian Church and the Christian Scriptures , it might perhaps have brought strange things to light . For our own part , we are glad to see any signs of a fresh religious life in America , or in Christendom , and welcome this sect to the company of the Methodists and Anabaptists , the Protestants , and the Catholics , and wish them all God speed . The freaks of religious childhood do not surprise us ; and we expect a baby to cry before it talks , to creep before it runs . "

      Untitled Article

      The editorship of the Edinburgh Beview , vacant by the death of Professor Empson , is a post so honourable and desirable , that there has been considerable gossip respecting the person who will be chosen to fill it . Among the persons named was Mr . John Forster , the editor of the Examiner , and probably the very best person for the office ; Mr . Henry Rogers was also named ; but from the Athenceum we learn that Mr . George Cornewall Lewis is the person chosen . He is a man of extensive erudition , and moderate views ; whether he will rescue the Edinburgh from the timidity and heaviness into which it has lapsed remains to be seen .

      Untitled Article

      It is not easy to estimate the value of what may be called the supplementary legislation of the Press . The Press is not only the exponent and the guide of public opinion ; it is the great corrector of corporate abuses and imperfect institutions . If a railway company does wrong , a " letter to the Times" brings that wrong before a large tribunal . If an Irish jury send a man to the gallows upon evidence which would only convince an Irish jury , the Press steps in with indignant voice to arrest the hangman before the judicial murder be consummated . If a monopoly be found oppressive , or if a public body be wasteful in its expenditure , the Press is ready to expose the evil . Lust week the Atheiueum made a bold and timely assault upon the Auditors' Report of that much mismanaged institution , The Jjiterary Fund . We transfer a portion of the AtheruBum comments to our

      pages : — " Two circumstances strike tho oyo on running down this page of numerals : — ( 1 ) tho Hiimllness of the amount of money collected as compared with tho cost of its collection , -and ( 2 ) tho want of reasonable proportion between tho amount distributed and the expense of its distribution . The amount ; of money collected iliirinur the year which in , of course , exclusive of the permanent income—in net , down at !) i ) H / . 4 . v . Tim particulars of this mini are not Htated ; but us if , is well known that the Queen ' s annual donation of 100 guineas , and tho important subscriptions of the foreign ministers and of our own literary peers and eminent men of letters , are all collected at the expense of a penny letter , wo may assuitio tlnit ; «/ [ east half the money is , or might be , collected almost free of cost to tho institution . If so , it appears that , as it is now managed , the getting together of a Hum

      under 500 A costs an expensive dinner , and a considerable amount besides . What , tho yearly dinner actually costs , is not here reported ; but as there were I ' M diners at the last at a guinea each eighteen stewards . present , paying two ^ uineiis each extra twenty-two stewards absent , who paid three guineas each—making in all 211 guineas , or 221 / . 11 . ¥ ., and us Micro is a loss on the dinner charged against tho fund of 20 / . l ) . v ., if our reckoning is right , tho dinner must have cost upwards of 240 / . ( ! an any one assert that ; this expeiiMO is necessary ? Arn tho malingers Hure that they tfot as much from the dinner as is spent , on the dinner ? Thou , as to tho disbursements of the year :- we find that W ' . tf > l . has hecn ^ i yen away , and that the charge for ho giving it has been no loss tlmn GUI / . !>« - T '» o evil is less this vti » r t » a « it wan last ; but even with the improvement , what iu the conclusion to which thcac liiuU will figures loud P All tho great itourt of expenditure—tho

      dinner , rent of premises , salaries , stationery , and so forth—may be fairly set down as expenses of collection ; the transmission by post of fifty cheques to distressed scholars is certainly not a very costly part of the business . Neither need ifc cost much to receive a dividend across the bank counter . When then ? Why , this : — it appears , that to collect what we have assumed to be about 500 / ., an expense is incurred of upwards of 600 / . for ' office expenses / and upwards of 240 / . are laid out on ' a dinner '—in all more than 840 ? . Absurd as this supposition may seem , we have no doubt that the fact is even more so . We have assumed , for the sake of argument , that without the 840 / . sunk , the 500 / . could not be obtained : Taut we are convinced that such is not the case . Every man who can read figures must see that when he sends money to the Literary Fund no fair proportion of it can ever reach the persons in whose favour it may be subscribed . Thus the springs of charity are dried up . Even the wealthiest may fairly object to support an institution which is not true to its mission ; and as to literary men , it is unreasonable to expect them to sustain in any great degree a fund so largely drawn upon by ' office expenses' and by the losses of an annual dinner . "

      Untitled Article

      LIFE OF THOMAS MOORE . Memoirs , Journals , and Correspondence of Thomas Moore . Edited by the Eight Hon . Lord John Russell . 2 vols . Longman and Co . A member of the House of Bedford—a statesman who has held the perilous eminence of the Premiership—undertaking the modest , troublesome , and affectionate task of editing the Memoirs and Correspondence of one who gained his position by a pen , is surely remarkable among the literary phenomena of these ages , and carries the mind back to those not very

      distant days when the chiefs and nobles had not even the modest literary acquirement of being able to write their own names : when hands familiar with the sword-hilt were never inked by " clerkly" occupations . The men who now represent those chiefs are as ambitious of literary distinction as the " poor devils" who have with a pen to combat W ^ nt . The House of Howard on the platform of the lecturer at Mechanics Institutes , and the House of Bedford on the title page as " editor" of a poet ' s Correspondence , will one day be noted as marking an era in historic development .

      And , let us hasten to add , Lord John has performed his humble task with skill and simplicity , just as if editing had been his special business . It was not an easy thing to do ; and on the whole he has done it far better than we usually find it done . The preface is written with unostentatious modesty , with nice feeling , and with an affectionateness honourable both to his friend and to himself . It is not because he is Lord John Hussell , whom politically we have so frequently attacked , that we should hesitate to say emphatically of him what his performance claims from us ; nor , on the other hand , that we should be led away into the opposite extreme , and be cheaply generous . What we have said , is said totally irrespective of his position , solely respective of the work in hand . Nor will we dismiss it without noticing two minor points which arrested our critical pencil . One is a touch of bathos which overpowered our gravity . " It is true , " he says , " Mr . Moore had a small oilice at Bermuda , and that in his latter days he received a pension of 3001 . a-year from the Crown . JBut the office at Bermuda was of little avail to him ,

      was the cause of the greatest embarrassment he ever suffered , and obliged him to pass in a foreign country more than a year of his life . " What a calamity—a year of' his life ! The second point is in reference to Moore's tenderness towards his mother , the expressions of which , Lord John says , " flow from a heart uncorrupted by fame , unspoilt by tho world . " We regret to see such currency given to so ancient and deplorable a commonplace , which , if it moans anything , means nonsense ; and if only a " rhetorical phrase , " has assuredly not the merit of being novel . " Heart uncorrupted by fame ! " Are hearts usually corrupted by it ? The utmost one can say is , that fame stimulates the vanity by reiterated caresses ; though lie is : i bold man , and a poor observer , who will assert that men are vainer under success than under failure . We will back the vanity of a " neglected genius" against that of a successful Goethe , an

      unread novelist against that of a Dickens , a hissed tenor against ; that of a Mario , for nny amount you please ! Waiving this point , we still say that if * success increase the vanity , it , does not corrupt the heart ; and as to Mio heart being " unspoiled" by " the world , " it would be to insult . Lord John to . ask him if he seriously believes the world ( iu any other Mian an exclusive sense ) spoils a nature good in itself In communion with our fellow men we art ; bettered , not spoiled ; we learn there the groat lesson of how "to live for others in others ; " we learn there to subordinate the primary instincts of egotism to the higher social instinct ; we learn there kindness , and charity , and tolerance , and sympathy ; moving among the good and tho bad , among those who are better than ourselves ami those no I ; ho good , our moral education makes its slow and diUlouIt progress . If" the world" spoiled us , how would man ever improve ? how would social evolution be possible ! ?

      Lord John speaks with more wisdom and pertinence when he speaks oi tho independence and homely practical virtues requisite in literature , as elsewhere : —

      " It may , however , with truth be averred , that while literary men of acknowledged talent have a claim on tho government of their country , to « uvn them from penury or urgent distress , it is better for literature that eminent authors should not look to political patronage for their inniiitoniinec . II . is desirable that , they who lire the heirs of fame whould preserve an independence of position , and that the rewards of the Crown should not hind men of letters in servile adherence . Rightly did Mr . Moore understand f . he dignity of the luurel . 11 ( 5 never would barter ' bin freedom awuy for any favour from any quarter . Although the wolf of poverty often prowled round his door , he never abandoned his huniMo dwelling for the Httfety of tho City or the protection of tl "' Tulace . From tho . strokes of penury , indeed , more than once , neither his unceasing exertion , <„ n

      Hut never did he make his wife and family » pretext lor political Hbabbiness ; novcr did ho imagine that , to leave a disgraced name as an inheritiuioo to bin children was bin duty as n father . JSIeithor did he , like many a richer man , with negligonco amounting to crime , loavo hi « f riuleHinon to miner for h ' m want of fortune . Mingling cureful economy with uu iiitojiao lovo of all tho enjoymunta of societ y , ho lnamigcd ,

      Untitled Article

      JAWAttv 1 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 17

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 1, 1853, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1967/page/17/