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    13.-6 ¦ ' ¦ The Leader and Saturday Anal...

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    ROGER BACON* IT is pleasant to read a bo...

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    * Boino hitherto Incdftqd Works of Roger...

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    An Itfnetl View Of Ametucan Aljtaihs* E ...

    America that we could not find in the English books and a gxeat deal that explains and turns to account what we diafind -in . them . We allude to a . pamphlet by Theodore / Parker repnbhslied by Mr Chapman from the American edition . That distinguished thinker and writer had ministered for fourteen years to . a cpngreiration in Boston . Hard work shattered his health . He sought repose , abstinence from all clerical work having- been imposed ^ upon him . From Santa Cruz , " amid the gorgeous , vegetation of the tropics , " under "their fiery skies , so brilliant all day / and star-lit witii such exceeding beauty all the night , " he wrote to his New minis

    En gland congregation a letter , detailing his " experience as - ter , with some account of his early life , and education ior the ministry . " This letter , printed in America , and republished here , is before us . Much of Its contents are personal : that part we put aside The great bulk of the matter is theological , and it is not within our present province to expatiate upon our disagreement with his religious views , of an examination of the steps which led him to them . But Mr . Parker , truly apprehending the meaning of his office , has taken a large part in the great work in the cause of humanity , progress , and political honesty , in which New England is foremost , the leaven of the States . And he has much to say to his readers on the history of the public policy of Ins country , on the cirunKennebb

    anti-slavery fight , on the various movements agamsc , and , to speak generally , the moral , social and political wrongs of the Transatlantic Republic . A citation of some of his statements and sentiments may help to a clearer view of inner American affairs , and may -ive some collateral guidance for the solution of our own difficult problems—the same on both sides the ocean . . . Mr Parker can tell the truth . We believe that he does tell tlie truth . Leaving aside the testimony yielded by his previous life and works , of his honesty and faithfulness , internal evidence , from this pamphlet itself furnishes these two conclusions . He has fought his way from one creed to another . Independently of our own estimate charitmust allow that he having

    of the intrinsic value of either , y > built up his own faith in one department of opinion , at great , social sacrifice , is likely to be equally uncompromising- and honest y m the formation of his views on other subjects . Again ; he speaks very plainly to his New England flock . He rebukes their own sins . He is more copious , more severe on Boston sins than on Southern sins He recurs oftener to the drunkenness , prostitution , and dbllar ^ vorsliip of the Northern cities than to the slavery and eoncubinao-e of the Southern Slave States . And when he assails slavery , it is hot so much the " institution , " as the apathetic indifference to , or the open support of it by the North that he reprobates . Speaking plainly and severely , therefore , to his own followers , the probability is that he is honest . For he is obviously no cynic by nature , but ¦

    rather likely to err on the suave side . : . _ . When Mr . Parker entered pn his public duties , Mr . Garrison , m the Anti-Slavery cause , " was beginning his noble work , but in a style so humble that after much search the police of Boston discovered there was nothing dangerous in it , for 'his only visible auxiliary m it was a negro boy : ' " Dr . Channing , " after long preaclung the dignity of man as an abstraction , and piety as a purely inward life , with rare and winsome eloquence , and ever-progressive humanity , be ~ an to apply his sublime doctrines to actual life in the individual , the state , and the church . " Horace Mann was beginning his movement for the improvement of public education . " Pierpont , singlehanded , was lighting a grand and twofold battle , —against drunkenness in the street , and for righteousness in the pulpit ,-j-against fearful ecclesiatieal odds , maintaining a ministers right and ^ duty to oppose actual wickedness , however popular and destructive . And Emerson had begun to hold up before men ' s eyes eternal and

    immutable morality , . _ , . Incorporated and hoary wrong was up in arms , bociety commenced to deal after its wont with the prophets of truth . Dr . Channing could not draw a long breath in Boston . Orthodox ministers and schoplmasters united in attacking Horace Mann s scheme . Anti-slavery men were cut . hi the streets . Garrison was

    mobbed by men in handsome coats , and found refuge m a gaol . A committee of anti-slavery ladies was hooted and driven into the streets . Mr . Parker " counts it a piece of good fortune , that he was a young man when these things were taking place , when great questions were discussed , and the public had not ya % taken sides . He came to Europe , and lottrned much that ho afterwards madQ good use of . " It is only , " he says , " in the low pavts of London , Paris , and Naples , that an American learns what the ancients' meant by tho ' People ' the ' Populace , ' and sees what 'barbarism may exist m the midst of wealth , culture , refinement , and manly virtue . There I qould learn what warning . and what guidance the Old World had to offer to the New . " It is somewhat startling to us , ; and very instructive * to find an American eye , from its focus , taking-in Naples and London together , and finding , any one point of resemblance . Mr Parker enumerates and estimates tho tow great social forces for o-ood ' or ovil in the States . The organized trading power "

    controls all things , amenable ouly ^ tp the all-mighty dollar , " The organised political power " makes tho statutes , but w commonly cpntroUed by the trading power , and has all ol xts inults often intensified ; yot it seems amenable to the instincts ol tho people , who , on great occasions , sometimes , interfere and change the traders , rale . ' The organized ecclesiastical power " is more able than either ot tho others ; and though often despised , in a few yeara can control them both . In this generation no American politician onn aftrontjt . The organised literary power , " tho endowed colleges , the periodical press , with its triple multitude of journals , ~ ooinmo » 'aial , poUtioal , theological , —and sectarian tracts , has no original ideas , but diff \ iaos the opinion of the other powers whom it represents , whoso will xt

    serves , and whose kaleidoscope it is . " It is some little consolation , to us to know , heavily as we feel , fiscally , the burden of an . aristocracy of bitth , that , in a social aspect , the respect for the peers , alth ough it degenerates into vulgarity , still acts as some counterpoiseto the sordidness of " the organized trading- power , " to which in the States there is no set-off . ¦ " ' ¦ :. ¦ . . , , The problem put by Mr . Parker—and we need not say it is not solved by him , —is how best to use this fourfold organized power , againsi drunkenness , prostitution , undue severity of criminal codesj wealthworship , and social despotism . The " poor Irish" he would educate , and deliver from "their two worst foes , the Popish priest and the

    American demagogue . " Mr . 'Parker says , "I learned early m life , that the criminal is often the victim of society rather than its foey and that our penal law belongs to tbe dark ages of brute force , and aims . only to protect spciety by vengeance on the felon . " " There are three great periods in each great movement of mankind , —that of sentiment , ideas , and action . " Mr . Parker , when a young man , thought matters were ripe for the last . Mr . Parker , the .. reformer of mature age , sadly yet sanguinely confesses that he and his fellowworkers must still" seek toarouse the sentiment of justice and mercy and to diffuse the ideas which belong to the five-fold reformation "from " povertydrunkenness , ignorance , prostitution , crime . "

    , We might multiply equally interesting extracts , equally suggestive of application to our own case . The best service we can render our readers is to warmly recommend the pamphlet to their attention , for the reasons we have so fully stated . The following sentences are significant . They increase our sense of the writer ' s truthfulness ; for it costs a scholarly man a great deal to disparage his own class , —one which has as much esprit de corps , not to say assumption , as any monopolizing guild . " In the last forty years , I think no New England college , collective faculty of pupils ,, has shown sympathy with any of the great forward movements of mankind , which are indicated by some nar

    tional outbreak , like the French Eevolutions of 1830 or 1848 . ; . The scholars' culture has palsied their natural instincts of humanity , and gives them instead neither the personal convictions of free moral reflection , nor the traditional commands of Church authority , but only the maxims of vulgar thrift , — ' Get the most and give the least - buy cheap and sell dear . ' Exceptional men , like Channing , Pierpont , Emerson , Ripley ^ Manri , Rantoul , Phillips , Sutaner , and a few others , only confirm the general rule , that the educated is also a selfish class , morally not in advance of the mass of men . "

    13.-6 ¦ ' ¦ The Leader And Saturday Anal...

    13 .-6 ¦ ' ¦ The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Eeb . 11 , I 860 ,

    Roger Bacon* It Is Pleasant To Read A Bo...

    ROGER BACON * IT is pleasant to read a book which has at the same time the freshness of a first edition and the savour of antiquity , and this pleasure is proportionately increased when that which is before us is , not a mere literary fossil , valuable only for its age and the light it throws pn a past era of social life , but a part of the bone and sinew of our present knowledge— -of bur past and our future liberty , There is certainly no man living now— -probably no one ever did live , who has read all the extant works of Roger Bacon . The thingis npt . possible , for most of them exist only in manuscript , and these scattered about among the libraries of Europe . Only one of his

    works has , - until the present day , found an editor , and that one we have in a ctirtailed and mutilated form ; and yet , with the exception of Francis Bacon alpne , England owes more of her present high position in experimental and physical science , and of hex liberty of thought itself , to the impulse giyen to philosophy by the oppressed Franciscan than to any other name in her annals . The earlier Bacpn turned men ' s minds tp the truths pf " natural knowledge " at a time wlien they were enslaved by schelastic theplpgy , or sunk in the ignorance of unrefined sensualism . The latter Bacon ,, at a time when men ' s hearts were sickened , and their reason stunned by . a . ¦ > /» 1 ^ . !¦ ¦ % 1 ? £ *_ . 1 ! 1 1 ^ 1 ^ « ... . ' . anaiA W «* S \ 1 I •¦» 1 ** m ! i » NHAt \ A « A / l strnui 104 / 0

    the clangour ot tneoiogicai e * . w » e , y » vc *« j we ** *»« e , u ^ *^" to doubt the being-of all truth , again directed human thought , and , by a new method , fixed it , as it seems , for over in the direction ot those subjects over which it has hitherto made the greatest conquests . ,. . ,. ' ., . It is difficult for us , who live among assopmtiipns so widely different , tp understand what were the influences that could induce such a man as Rpgor Bacpn tp entev into the mpnostic state j and ot all the religions orders that to which he attached himself seems , on retrospect , to have been the least cpngenial tp thp great thinker . Tho key to tho mystery , perhaps , is that the Franciscan older had but recently begun its course in England , and that its avowed end was tp counteract the sloth and evil habits of the beneflccd clergy and monks of the old orders . Its work Jay especially among the

    popr and the neglected , and perhaps tho philosopher saw , what was mest certainly true then as new , that the workman would receive knowledge gladly , or , at the least , bo but its passive enemy , while those who were enjoying endowments given for the spread of knowledge would bo its bitter persecutors . There exists much evidence tending to prove that the workmen in . the towns of mediaeval England were really a far better instructed class than most of the clergy of the same period . They who built pur cathedrals and punvillage churches will ever bo held in affeotionate remembrance . They wljp disgraced thorn by crimes , such net oven the Reformers in the fierceness of their wrath could hardly exaggerate , had bettor , « fov their pwn eidces , be forgotten . ^ From a hundred places in Bacon ' s writings it is evident now

    * Boino Hitherto Incdftqd Works Of Roger...

    * Boino hitherto Incdftqd Works of Roger Bacon . ( JPr . Xot / eri PfW "' Onoro oMWfi-w inoditaj Vol , I . t Opva Tcrtltw . * X ty ™ ¦ *"'» »• XII . Oamjrtnd-tom JL'HlQSopMw . Edjtt & d fcv J . S . Bwhwbk , ffl . A- Published under the direction of the Mm » tor of tho Bolls .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 11, 1860, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11021860/page/12/