On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
their cargoes of liberated clerks , who thus keep holiday . There will be walking , and riding , and tea-drinking , and ruralizing , in spite of Mareh winds ; and London will look as gay as on the evening of the day when it mourned at the funeral of George the Fourth , the father of his people , or at that of George the Third , the father of his people before him . And many there will be who
will think that a fast day , appointed by government , is a serious and sedate thing , and to be entertained with a sedate and serious countenance ,-especially on account of the children , ~ and the servants , and the poor people in the neighbourhood ; and they will go once to church to set them all a good example . And the orthodox dissenters , having had their fast beforehand , and being just now zealous for dissent , will keep the day with a proviso , as some marry with a protest , seizing it merely as a preaching
opportunity * And some churchmen will . keep the day in the spirit of superstition , thinking to placate an angry Deity by prayer and ceremony ; and others will observe it in the spirit of a fierce fanaticism , vituperating whatever there is in the country of liberality , benevolence , and enjoyment . Such , practically , will the fast day be , with the great majority of the nation ; and the government , by which the day has been appointed , cannot , if it would , make it otherwise .
The government , then , as to such a purpose as this , is utterly impotent . It cannot enforce a national fast in any sense of the word which is borne out by a theological dictionary . It can only command a partial cessation of business , and the partial use of certain forms of words purporting to be prayers . The circumstance is one indication , amongst many , of a fact which we have before endeavoured to illustrate , and which is characteristic of the
present time : that we are in a transition state , from one form of society to another , and lack that unity between government and people which is requisite for all great national purposes . In homely phrase , we do not , and in the present state of things we cannot , all pull together . When rulers act , the people are not seconding , but jealously watching , their efforts . When rulers preach , the people laugh . When there is profession on the one part , there is suspicion on the other . The form of authority stalks about with a dark sullenness for its shadow ; and every threatening has an echo . There is but little of that which should be universal , mutual confidence and co-operation . Even our democratic politicians trust in a system of checks and counterpoises ; power always on , the change , and suspicion always on the
alert . And so it must be , and nothing better than this nice balancing can we have , till the rulers and the ruled are as one . When that which represents the head , in a state , is like the head of the body , the national organ of intelligence and volition , then shall we possess the unity Which is power . Let the community perceive that the agency of its institutions is to throw the direc 7
Untitled Article
146 The Fast Day and the Cholera .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 146, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/2/
-