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    hated t > y large numbers of those who are to be " converted . " Sometimes one sect competing with another provokes a , conflict of mutual disparagement . Sometimes those who set themselves above their fellow-creatures exhibit the weaknesses of their nature far more than , its power . We have Bishops excited by theological ire against their own officers , proving to the public how readily an angry Bishop may be made to forget grammar as well as decency "We have prelates falling into the practice which

    is ridiculed in ladies' -maids , of beginning a note in" the third person and continuing it in the first . The Bishop of Bangor denounces an active clergyman in his diocese as insolent , and the clergyman tells his Bishop that his monitions are not godly . Mr . Stanley complains that he is oppressed by the Bishop of Winchester , because the Bishop required him to keep a curate , since he could not maintain any kind of regularity in his administration , or even read the service so as to be heard . And

    the Bishop of Durham is accused of obstructing the opening of chapels , just as the Bishop of Bangor treats the proposal to have two services on Sunday in certain parts of his diocese as an . offence . These are pictures of clergymen taken by themselves ; and "while prelates and pastors fall out , the working classes whom they are to Instruct stand by and laugh at the teachers . These and other causes have * . made clergymen the obst motors of religion . For the result , we have evidence that can scarcely be controverted —that of Mr . . Beam . , ' preacher and assistant of Sfc . James's , Westminster : —

    per week ; and Mr . Beames depicts the state of the people as deplorable : — The scene of our operations was a secluded village , as the novelist would call , ifc ; La vulgar phrase , a back settlement , long neglected , cut off on three side 3 by tlie sea , a river and a- creel , from the rest of a county . The aristocracy , tenant-farmers ; and . the rest of the population , labourers . It was just the place to expel crude ideas raised by reading Theocritus , at Oxford , or looking \ vpon"Watteau ' s pictures ; j ust the place to disabu 33 us of Areadiaiiism , pastoral

    romance and the like . The people were deplorably ignorant , and though there was no public house in the parish , generally druukaz'ds . Bastardy was rampant , although the population was under 400 ; ia short , the hot-bed atmosphere of a town was alone wanting to produce a full maturity of vice ; poverty , sickness , and suffering , were too common . If seclusion and ignorance are favourable to simplicity of character , if simplicity means innocence and purity , in a word good moral condition ; this parish was , at any rate , an exception to the rule .

    Noit no&ter Tiic serrno—the sermon is that of the preacher and assistant of St . James ' s , Westminster . Mr . Beames ' holds that perhaps if boys are endowed with secular knowledge , if their reason is cultivated , they may be the better able to comprehend arguments , for or against religion , and better able to take in . religious ideas . It is an opinion that does no dishonour to religion , or . to the arguments in favour of it j our readers can say whether it has not from the first number of this journal been the opinion of the Leader .

    ' We ask whether the artisans who have been at our schools during the last ten years seem to have any deeper impression , of religion ? Experience and truth compel us to answer , No . Let it be assumed , however , for * a moment , that church or cfhapel-going i 3 not an index of the effect of our present system in teaching religion . Other witnesses to its failure are not wanting . It has been said by a great authority in thii present day , that working men may be divided into thinkers and drinkers . Making every allowance for the epigrammatic turn of the saving , is it so ¦

    very far from the mark ? Is drunkenness less a national vice , less contrary to the spirit of religion than of ol el ? And what becomes of our thinkers ? How many of them retain the religious impressions you would have us believe they imbibed at school ? Are not thousands of them active , determined infidels ? Ten or twelve infidel lecture rooms in London—how many in the provinces . we know not—are supported by working men , ' some c < f them holding 1 , 500 persons , lufidel reviews , tracts , magazines , lending libraries , essays , inoefc you at every turn in the bookshops of our Lack streets . *

    It is the very reverse when the teacher is an anti-religious missionary . " If Cooper or Holyoake is the lecturer , " says Mr . Beamks , " the lecture-hall is crowded , though a fee is paid at the entrance . How many working men would bo collected if a preacher of acknowledged eloquence lectured at Exeter-hall % When Cummino , or BrNNEY , or M'Neilk are announced to lecture , how many working men are drawn into , the throng- ? And yet the elements are not wanting which , under other forms , attract them . "

    Mr . Beames explains clearly enough why'it is religious teaching has had the effect of reversing ; the result intended . It is because the religious teachers havo attempted a fraud upon the bulk of the people . ' They have withhold that which tho people desired—instruction in matters of fact , history , or science—tuition in morals and worldly wisdom , under tho pretence that it was necessary to make religious dogma precede this kind of eduoation . They lm-vo thought it bettor for the country to keep the religious machinery down to ttto standard of a damo school , where an ancient dame teaches tho unwashed boya at twopence a-hoad

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    desist . Now , then , rates , ministers' money , the regium donum , the Church Building A _ ct , the disabilities of the Colonial clergy , the law of simony—the prolific source of perjury , evasion , and profanity— the privileges of the ecclesiastical courts , tlie administration of episcopal and capitular estates , are questions ripe for settlement by measures of amendment or abolition . But , without political reform , administrative and ecclesiastical reforms can only ba patches on a system of selfishness and abuse ,

    The enormous preponderance still enjoyed by a privileged class , the conflict between minorities and majorities , the irregular plan by which one-sixth of the registered electors , and onefortieth of the adult male population , send a majority into the House of Commons;—this it is that must he changed before the nation can be fairly represented , and before the public service can be conducted on public principles . We believe , nevertheless , that no mere Reform

    Bill will excite such a genuine political enthusiasm as that which forced upon the Peers the Act of 1832 . Events do not repea-t themselves . What was done twenty-three years ago was the conquest of a principle . What could be done in the same direction now , unless by a very bold and ample measure , would raise few hopes , and . promise , few real developments of the Constitution . For this , it must be remembered , is the hope of the

    English nation ;—that its Constitution will progress , that old forms will disappear when they have lost their value , that new forms will be adopted when they are essential to the glory of the commonwealth . While , by these changes , Great Britain keeps pace with time , she will never grow old , but preserve the force and the fixe of youth . Once , however , arrest the process by which she accommodates herself to the inevitable innovations that

    INTERRUPTED REFOJtMS . When" the war commenced , the Ministry asked the Parliament to postpone the consideration of a group of reforms , and Parliament ass ented , with the general concurrence of the nation . Well , the war is past ; let us once more consider our grievances . We have been taxed 3 and we have cheerfully paid the bill . We have had a thousand illustrations of incapacity and administrative abuse , and some practical reforms have been applied to remedy an evil state of

    things . We have proved the necessity and the value of innovation , and we must now return to the point at which the discussion was laidaside , in order to strike with both hands at the public enemy . The burden of a costly war has been laid upon us , and it came at a time when bad harvests , high prices , and unusual poverty aggravated tlie infliction . The Parliamentary machine worked badly , parties were in confusion , the last general election had exposed the facilities for bribery and corruption in the hands of the rich and the hereditary .

    It was then that Lord John Russell ' s supplementary Heform . Bill glimmered for a moment in the House of Commons . The finality chief admitted that Great Britain had outgrown the measure of 1832 ; but his scheme was so naiTow , technical , and faltering that it disgusted the liberals , created scarcely any

    sensation among the Tories , foil flat upon the country , and was withdrawn , with a pledge on the part of Lord John Russeli ,, that ho abided by its principle , and would introduce another bill . But ib is not his bill that the nation will accept ; unless he revolutionises himself Lord John Russkll will speedily be the Grandfather of Reform .

    Ho said , in 1854 .-, that ho believed tlio House of Commons to bo so habituated to electoral corruption that if tho bribery laws had boon then for tho first time proposed , they would not have been enacted . That was his confession ; Liberals must not forget it . All the measures introduced to euro tho evil were postponed , oxcopt ono , which was bo mutilated by Conservative amendments that its etfbct was inappreciable .

    A black body of ecclesiastical abusoa stood in front of tho lleformers , when they wore warned off Ivy tho war . " Strong government " was tho symbol by which they wore adjured to

    move society , and the sap will cease to flow ; she will become an old-world monarchy , and another state * in the West , will inherit her prosperity . These speculations have a remote range ; but they bear on the work of the hour . When the provisions of the Treaty of Peace have been declared and discussed ; when foreign politics are , for an interval , laid aside , as they will be , unless the ^ Revolution ps suddenly renewed ; when the armies are recalled ; the fleets laid up ui ordinary ' , political parties divided xipon

    domestic questions ; it will be the time for the English nation to ask , whether it is really self-governed , and , if not , what stands in the way . The answer will be , that we have an imperfect Parliament , that the Registration Courts are full of class and money influence , that bribery and intimidation vitiate the elective system at the hustings , that the opinion of great constituencies is rendered inoperative by the votes of small constituencies , that huge abuses encumber the administrative machine , and that the privileges arid honours of government are vested in two or three sets of families

    in rotation . If the middle classes aro sincere , and if ( ho working classes are at once serious and moderate , it will not be long before these questions are raised with an energy that Parliament cannot resist . The war is over ; it was not at random that wo said , months ago , that afterwards would come a reckoning foi tho maladministration of tho war .

    Instead of listening to the crascy rhapsodists who coin ^ anecdotes of impossible inlamy ; insteac of employing illiterate spouters in deputation * to poors and members of Parliament , whos < affability liattera the impotence ot * tho spokes men , why do not tho intelligent middle am working classes devoto themselves to tho eluoi dations of solid English interests , and to tin process which would extinguish corruption an convert an artificial aristocracy into a roc

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    • A'TJon for Ednontlonnl Reform . " By Thomas Uonmcs , M . A , l'reuchor und Aeatatnut of « t . Jnimm ™ WeutrninHter . mid Author of tho " Jtookcrloa of London . *' A pninphlot , published by ftlr . Itldgwuy .

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    AraiL 12 1856 . J THE LEADER . 349

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 12, 1856, page 349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2136/page/13/