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    ] r«« THE LEAD El. , : ¦ . ' /. ¦ W ^ fc...

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    tiittmtt

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    ^^^!Si^ S ^ ^ ^. ^'^^^^ Ss ' aam *

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    Worths, perhaps, of a passing mention in...

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    friends boldly resolve to open the arena...

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    Plato tells us how, at the grand banquet...

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    HISTORY OF THE WHIGS. History of the Whi...

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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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

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    ] r «« THE LEAD El . , ¦ . ' / . ¦ W ^ fcst rl /

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    Worths, Perhaps, Of A Passing Mention In...

    Worths , perhaps , of a passing mention in the literary gossip of > he day , is the foundation of a new club , which may end * as so many before it have ended in utter insignificance ; but which may also grow into celebrity , and have a history of its own . We allude to the Fiei ^ din ** Club , the members of which , limited to fifty , are drawn from vanous classes , ^ - authors , artists , guardsmen , lawyers , actors , M . P . ' s , noblemen , and " ciubable men , " as Johnson called Goldsmith , Like tjhe old . clubs of Johnson ' s day , this is meant only as a meeting of wits . A weekly dinner and an evening lounge comprise , ^ we believe , the whole of its objects : it is for those who like wit combats , not for bachelors m want of a luxurious home .

    Friends Boldly Resolve To Open The Arena...

    friends boldly resolve to open the arena of discussion ; let them treat politics and religion in a high , serious , and abstract spirit , with generous recognition of the diversities of parties , and magnaminous disregard of what is called " consistency , "— -not tying down contributors to any programme of settled minutiae , but allowing latitude to individual thought , and making the general tendencies of the journal sufficiently broad and coherent to counteract any special divergency;—then indeed they may stand a chance of creating a powerful organ . We anticipate the answer : Politics and Religion are too agitating for the calm amenities of Literature , —people who can come to no agreement on the two former , will shake hands over the latter ! That answer is specious , and not sound . You cannot separate literature from the two great and serious influences ; or , if you do so , Literature is a summer holiday ' s amusement , and no more .

    The prospectus of a new literary journal is before us , The Scottish Athenceum , which is to make its appearance on the 1 st of March , and to continue every fortnight . Until the journal has actually appeared , it may be idle to offer remarks upon its scope and purpose , yet we cannot refrain from making two friendly suggestions , to be weighed and treated according to their worth . The first suggestion is , that instead of imitating the Athenceum , the new journal should depart as widely from it as possible , in construction , in purpose , and in tone . A journal should have its own individuality ; the more it resembles another , the less need there is for its

    existence . If Scotland wants an Atheneeum , there is an excellent paper of that name ready to hand . Give Scotland a . new journal , and there is " ample room and verge enough" for as many as can be invented ; but we greatly doubt if new writers , without a new organ , will find a public . Scotland is not , intellectually , so separated from England as to need an Athenceum of its own , that shall be a copy of the English journal . One great and important feature we can at once indicate , as sufficient to give a distinctive position to the new work , and our second suggestion has reference to it . The AtTienoium and Literary Gazette both eschew politics and religion , a limitation of the field of literature which seriously detracts from their value , although it gives them a distinctive position . Let our Scottish

    The objection is sometimes made to us by sincere , but short-sighted well-wishers , who regret that the Leader should risk its success , by the introduction of religion . " Newspapers , " we are told , " are not the pi'oper place for religion . " We presume to think otherwise . Wherever we cast our eyes , we see social life inextricably interwoven with religion , which is everywhere an animating Impulse , or a formidable Obstacle . In Science , in Art , in Literature , in Morals , in Politics , we can sound the bottom nowhere without touching religion . At the three typical events of life—at birth , marriage , and death , —at the cradle , the altar , and the grave , we are confronted by this religion , which you would have us pass in silence ! If newspapers have not to treat that grave and all-embracing subject , their object is contemptible .

    In the Rambler for this month , there is an article by a French bishop , on the propriety of journalists treating religious questions . We have only to replace the word catholic by spiritualistic , and the following passage expresses our views : — "Ignorance in religious matters , and indifference , its inevitable rosult , aro undoubtedly the two great plagues of our day . Now it is certain that in the present state of things there is nothing bettor calculated , in the long-run , to remedy the evil in the masses of the population than religious journalism . Without it , the greater number of catholic questions would no longer be even mooted in the world , whereas in consequonco of its existence they aro necessarily studied : in the first

    instance by tho lay editors , who may probably make a fow blunders at starting , but who , needing as thoy do tho countonanco of tho clergy , will soon take care to make themselves competently acquainted with such subjects ; thoy will bo studied , in the next place , by tho lay suhaoribora to those journals , who , generally speaking , wbulfl never , have the resolution to opon a theological work , but who will willingly give their attention to some occasional theological discuHsion introduced into the columns of a journal ; thoy will ovon bo studied by lay writers inimical to religion , who boing sometimes under tho nooossity of engaging in dispute with the religious periodicals , would oxposo themselves fa the mortification of making gross mistakes if thoy did not study their adversaries' doctrinos . "

    If our objecting friends will consider the matter for awhile , they will see that it is not our introduction of religion , so much ns our introduction of religious views at variance with all shades of orthodoxy , which prompts their council . The Times , tho Chronicle , tho Standard , and the Nonconformist are not told to forbear from touching religious questions j then why should we forbear ?—because our beliefs are at variance with

    established churches ? ' Caution might whisper such a thing , but Conviction disdaih § to lend a ( n ear to it ! Other creeds hate thei ^ r ' organ ; the Leader is the organ of a creed which is , more or less eoiisciouslyi the' creed of vast numbers ( we will riot say the majority , le >& i it be held as boasting ) of the thinking minds of Europe— -a creed which , rejecting all ; l . , the forms of revealed religion , is yet able , in all sincerity , to respect-those forms , because of its cardinal principle . We hold that the religious sentiment is the same in all men ( differing only in degree ) , and the intellectual forins , or dogmas , which that sentiment may accept , are nothing more than the efforts of the Intellect to explain the great mysteries . all feel and none , can penetrate : this man . accepts the Swedenborgian explanation , that man the Mahometan ; this man the Pantheistic , ' that man the Calvinistic j yet , after

    all , each is forced in humility to own that ixod is inscrutable ! We , in the Leader , act upon that conviction ; because We believe Gfed t ^ be inscrutable , we distrust all theologies that pretend to be more than ffie formulas of a faith which , though ineradicable ,, js not capable , pf intellectual proof . We may , without vain boasting , appeal to our treatment of antagonists in proof of the respect with which we view every conviction , tub matter how opposed to our own . A sarcasm may escape us now and then , a phrase more bitter than becomes philosophy may sometimes beflung ; at an absurdity ; for we have no immunity from error , and fall short of our own standard , like other men ; but on great occasions , and in the general conduct of discussion , we appeal to our readers to decide whether we have not uniformly upheld and practised the principles of full religious liberty ?

    Plato Tells Us How, At The Grand Banquet...

    Plato tells us how , at the grand banquet givesn in Olyinpus in honour of the birth of Venus , the guests were startled by the appearance of a woman , pale and wan with hunger , who stretched forth her hands , imploringly for food . Her name was Poverty . Before the birth of man she was ; and- —if we are to believe Job ' s comforters , the economists—she will live till the end of time . That the " poor shall not dife out of the land" seems to many a consolatory creed , and nothing can surpass their angry ' scorn of those who indulge the fond hope of extirpating the evil of pauperism . That poverty and misery have always accompanied man is an historical fact ; that they always and inevitably must do so , is a prophecy we refuse to accept ; though M . Carne , in an able article in La-Revue des Deux Mondes , endeavours to convince us of its truth , declaring' it to be a " fundamental law of human nature " - —jtis

    " Destiny unshunnablc as Death . " Looking at human history as we do , the prophecy seems singularly unwarrantable . That Want should have checquered the lot of ignorant man is conceivable enough ; doubtless the chimpanzee , prowling through the woods , is sometimes hard pushed for food , and the lion grows lean and irritable upon insufficient nourishment ; but that man should never be able to control his destiny by forethought and conquest over Nature—that his science and care should not provide against famine , over-population , and the inequalities of fortune , that is what we cannot believe ; if it be Utopian to hold such views , be it ours to deserve the name of Utopists !

    Curious it is to notice the sophisms of optimism in this matter . The fact of Want being a terrible reality there is no gainsaying , has forced religious optimists to reconcile it with their ideas of benevolence . But to them all reconcilements of that kind are facile . St . Augustin was one of the first ; he escaped the difficulty by a bold assertion— " God has willed that we should all bear our burdens : the burden of the poor is want , the burden of the rich is wealth . " This is one way of equalizing burdens , certainly . The burden 6 f wealth—whose back is too weak to bear that ? Whom do we find anxious to unburthen himself of it ?

    Something of the same intrepidity of sophism we find in a recent work by a Dr . Duncan , called God in Diseases or , the Manifestations of Design in Morbid Phenomena , —wherein he undertakes to point out the " contrivance" and the " Divine beneficence" of disease ! That a man shoukl ever have stood by the bedside of patients , should have walked the hospitals , and seen the lingering life-long sufferings consequent upon some accident resulting from no crime greater than that of stepping oh an unobserved piece of orange-peel , and then deliberately attribute these sufferings to the " contrivance" of a " Divine beneficence , " is , to our minds , a most painful evidence of tfte moral and mental perversion which current religious dogmas effect .

    History Of The Whigs. History Of The Whi...

    HISTORY OF THE WHIGS . History of the Whig Ministry of 1880 to the Passing of the Reform Bill By John Arthur Roebuck , M . P . 2 vqls . ' John W . Parker and bon . Anxious as wo aro to respond to the natural eagerness of curiosity on t » part of readers to know " , all about " . Mr . Roebuck's new work , w Jj ^ J seems to havo boon delayed , in order to appoar at the vory . niomont wll , ° " expectation sits high in the air , " and public fooling , agitated by w hopes , fears , and scorns su £ gos"ted by Lord John ' s new I 3 ill » lends to t »» volumes the interest of a pamphlet , —anxious as we arevet the roatiinb ft

    , faculty being limited , and tho demands thereon almost unlimited , . ' " " not tins weok venture on an estimate of the Hutoryofthe Whig JmH **™^ certain scruples—popularly discredited—about not having read tho w preventing us . Only two-thirds of tho first volume havo as yet do mastered , and wo must eontont ourselves this week with an extract or ^ Tho Histoty / does not , as wo wore given to understand , come f * ^ " ^ the pf eseht time ; ifc coases with the passing of the Befotm Bill j » ' and the author only contemplates bringing it down to 1884 c In ®*

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1852, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14021852/page/16/