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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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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . "We do not undertake to return rejected communications . lib notice can be takeu of anonymous correspondence . " Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted it is frequently from reasons ouite independent of their merits .
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THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF SPTJRGEON . The exhibition which led to the disaster in the Surrey Grardens did not spring from altogether bad motives . At a time when the national Church falls into anarchy , sectarianism , and indifferentism , it is natural that preachers should arise appealing to the broad instincts of their fellow-creatures . When the national Church becomes formalist and
tech-It will not be supposed that -we in any degree share the opinions of the Atheist , who appears to us to hazard the most untenable proposition which the human mind can frame . But dogmatists who have adulterated religion with propositions quite as untenable , and more shocking , hare naturally suggested that extreme reaction . Upon them we charge the real institution of Atheism . "We have always held that , although human reason is absolutely incapable of determining many ideas and influences which the human mind
is capable of perceiving , but not of compassing , it can never perform its destined office unless it be free , subject only to the laws of logic , the dictates of conscience , and the . infallible decree of instinct . The Leader has always asserted the right of every conscienti ous opinion to its own free utterance ; partly on the ground that it is better to mow what is in the heads and hearts of men
higher classes which people it . He will speak in tne language of the people whom he is to address- Sir Benjamin Hali , has forbidden preaching on the open ground wMch has been spared for the people , in the rent-free church of the blue vault . It followed , then , that the preacher must preach in a rented church to a rent-paying congregation , but not a high congregation . What is this but a middles-class and shopkeeping congregation ? Wanted , then , a pilgrim for the shopocracy
of the metropolis— -a Pjexeb the Hermit for the trading part of the London Directory ; and if we discover the man , can we wonder that he possesses such qualities as that particular Peteb might possess . It is not the building that makes the saeredness of the church , but the religion , that makes the temple . Your Nonconformist is accustomed to see his Church supported by small
subscriptions , payments , in fact , for admission ; and what more suitable for such an entrancemoney than a great concert-room ? "What more in conformity with the mission of the preacher of this day who is carrying the truth to the publican and singer ? The bad style of the preacher , his rodomontade about " hell , " his association with deacons who Jook sharp after the pence of admission , are but circumstances inherent in the case . Mr .
Spubgeoit's continuance of his sermon after the horrible disaster had happened has been mentioned as a proof of his presumption : it only proved a well-meant incapacity for doing the best under the circumstances . He tried to draw back those who were flying in liorror at the scene of anarchy , by preaching to them a sermon on the text , " And the wicked are in the house of the Iiord , " while his deacons , were jingling the cash-box to prevent the retribution from falling on themselves in . the shape of ' the expenses . '
An immense concourse was assembled witlvj out any efficient control . In lieu of a congregation obedient to officers and "pastor , there was a mixed assemblage , amongst whom were scoffers and enemies . The belligerent preaching was met by defiance and stratagem , and the denunciator was defeated by a ' , ' which he had neither the power nor the influence to quell . The braving of public opinion ended in an event which was at once a farce and a tragedy . Many who had
abstained from condemning the bigotry of the preacher , will be shocked and disgusted by the bloodshed in which the play ended . He was exposed in a position to which , he was quite unequal , and disgust at his obtrusion is mitigated only by pity for the weakness which he betrayed . But pity for weakness is not a sentiment calculated to enlarge the influence of a preacher . Mr . SpuitGKOisr was an embodiment of reviving Methodism in . its lowest
form , and the indiscretion into which he has been betrayed will meet that revival of Methodism with a popular revulsion . If thero can be any consolation for tlie painful sacrifice of life and limb , ifc will be found in the fact that the sacrih ' co will be the price , probably , of saving the country from some part of the mischief which would have been drawix upon it by the new spread of a dark and vulgar Sectarianism .
than to be ignorant of it ; partly that no opinion is yet so perfect that we should rest content with it , and forbid contention or discussion of its opposite . We claim free utterance , then , for the Atheist , and even for the Methodist ^ although the latter appears to us to stand in horrid oppugnance to the very spirit of religion . What has been the effect of our advocacy ? / We do not claim for the Leader a higher position than it deserves when we say simply that we established , by
practical evidence , the possibility of conducting discussions upon the highest subjects of religion , politics , and morals , not only with safety for ourselves under the existing laws , but also without irreverence for any existing opinions , and without descending into any low controversy . We at once triumphed , and suffered by the fact that our example was instantly followed by many of our contemporaries ; for we challenge attention to the fact that after the establishment of the
Leader a marked change took place in the discussion of all those classes of subjects ; the discussion becoming at once more direct , more free , and more complete . One effect we fully anticipated : it was , that , with that freer treatment of religious questions , with that more confiding reliance in the inherent power of the religious idea , dogmatic scepticism would be at ; least as much rebuked as
dogmatic sectarianism ; and again we point to the far more liberal tone amongst the ultradeniers of religious discussion . The assertion of Atheism has nearly disappeared , " Secularism" is little more than the avowal of a preference for material subjects . It is in religious discussion something like the avowal of a preference for engineering or trade , rather than art or philosophy , in the pursuits of practical life .
But the heads of our Church have not advanced so far as the press , or society , or their own congregations . They are still promoting that bigot of Cheltenham who supposed that the true counteractive to religion was to render religion odious by identifying it with tyranny , and exhibiting it as incompatible with reason . Yet we do not charge Her Majesty ' s
Ministers , still less Her , Majesty ' s Primo Minister , with bigotry . On the contrary , in these appointments'W © seem to discern much impartiality , without much care , from what quarter of the Church the dignitaries might bo selected ; ns if the opinions of a Bishop , or the spirit of his episcopation , did not matter Tt is not bigotry that appeal's to us tho fault indicated by tho selection , but indilYerciv tisin .
With an established imliflcrcnfcism , tho natural conscqncnco is tho rising of a popular preacher to address tho people in the language of tho truo faith . Such a prencher will he alien to tlio Establishment and to tho
meal in its teaching , it is natural that the popular preacher should be a man addressing himself to his congregation in the homely language winch speaks direct to their hearts . If the appointed preachers of the national Establishment cannot fill their churches , it is natural that the popular preacher should take a pride in filliug something larger than a church ; nay , lie may think that it is his duty to address the people wherever he can assemble them ; and since the owner of the field would warn him off if he were to address the people in the church of the blue vault , since the Chief Commissioner of Works has
warned him out of the public parks , nothing was left him but a hired field , a temple which he might share with the publican and sinner . Have we been doing anything but describe the actual circumstances of the day ? Take the latest facts , the latest appointments in the Church . The Bishop of Oari , isi , e is a fashionable preacher , one whoso language does not rise above the apprehension of a mixed audience ; he is an accomplished man , an Honourable , and brother to a distinguished statesman , a llight Honourable high in office . It would have been possible to appoint to the see of Gloucester one of the most
accomplished , pious , and spiritual men in the Church of England ; but it was thought necessary to appoint a Baking . The great see-of Durham is given to a Bishop for whose selection every friend apologizes , with the plea that the new Bishop translated from Ripon is a very worthy , hard-working man ; as though a Bishop and a clerk in a bank were . to bo measured by the same
qtialitlGS ! Tho Bishnn nf Tiftwnnw nnirci -flm nvm ^ ties I The Bishop of London , says the evangelical Morning Herald , " promises " well ! Bishop Jaoksok has performed well , and everybody expected him to be translated to the metropolitan see ; but some of these personal arrangements dictated tho shifting of Dr . Ta . it from a quiet parish and schoolmastershi p to bo tho diocesan of the great metropolis . Tho Deanery of Westminster has tm d * " — — — «* - »« , m *^ , » T T ^^ uw «¦» 4 A fc « f UV Mm A Jt % % ¦ ! been
given to Cuisnevix Trench ; tho only objection to whoso appointment ia , that he ought to have had one of tho bishoprics . And tho Deanery of Carlisle is given to Mr . Cxosb , who distinguished himself lately by thundering an anathema against tho Gloucester musical festival , whilo he stands immortalized m tho history of tho English Church ugunng in tho last prosecution for Atheism . '
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THE WALEWSKI MANIFESTO . The Prench Government endeavours to represent its Neapolitan policy ns a sequel to its interference in Belgium . ITollowing tho announcement of suspended relations with Naples , tho text of a new Belgian Treaty appears in tho JMoniteur by which attempts against the Emperor ' s person—for that , in this case , is tho only person' in dangerore excluded from the category of political offences . Thus , whenever the Jb ' roncli police
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SATURDAY , OCTOBEH 25 , 1856 .
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¦ .. —•¦ ? —— . . -. ¦ ¦ There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so ' . unnatural-and convulsiTe , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law : of -its creation in eternal progress . —De . Aknoid
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October 25 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1010 V
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 25, 1856, page 1019, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2164/page/11/
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