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November 18, 1854.] THE LEADER. IO97
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A TALKER WORTH LISTENING TO. The TabU-Ta...
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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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In"Ew Zealand. Traditions And Superstiti...
lievers bowed was the crown of thorns;—when wealth and worldly consideration , and courtly flatteries and the blandishments of the great , were not tie attributes and the appanages of priests and confessors , and the livery of bishops was not the consecration of " repos 3 . " But how has the Bishop of New Zealand revived at the antipodes the type forgotten and effaced at home 3 Simply by living , and working out the faith he preached and the doctrine he taught . Armed with no other authority than the word of his message—a message of good tidings—he has stood _ before the savages the living symbol of active faith ; and the presence of a sincerity so energetic , and a purpose so heroic , has won . thousands upon whom words and formulas would have been as chaff before the -wind . Unlike too many missionaries , Bishop Selwtn began his vrork at the right end : he laboured to humanise before seeking to convert ; he taught the savages how a being with a mind . and soul should live towards his
felloveman before he attempted to ingraft a new theory upon an old superstition-He first conciliated his rude disciples to the sublime privilege of intelligence , and to the responsibilities of reason and conscience , and only byslow but sure degrees moulded the tlinker into the believer . Others have been idly content to strew over , the confused terrors and aspirations that make up the aboriginal religion , a tlrin layer of evangelical formulas , as if conformity were Christianity- The result has been to substitute an ingenious hypocrisy and a lifeless vacancy fox the rude but sincere sense of swe and mystery which had surxounded the life and consoled the death of the
savage . _ Bishop Selwyn taught and proved to his untutored congregations that civilisation was not necessarily disease and vice , nor Christianity a cloak for systematic rapine and aggression : that the Church was not a government expropriator , nor a colonial quack in a sanctimonious disguise ; but , on the contrary , a bond of reconciliation , an authority of intercession , and a law of charity . We cannot wonder . that New Zealand should be appealed to as a-proof of that vitality -which is denied to the Church at home , not by her enemies , but by her protectors . Is it that in England the Church Is a corporation , in New Zealand a camp ?
November 18, 1854.] The Leader. Io97
November 18 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . IO 97
A Talker Worth Listening To. The Tabu-Ta...
A TALKER WORTH LISTENING TO . The TabU-Talk of John , Selckrb : with Notes by David Irving , LL . D . Constable and Co . Among the law-students who took chambers in the Inner Temple in the year 1604 , was one John Selden , the son of a musician , and tie hardestworking scholar of his time . After having been called to the bar , he practised chiefly as a conveyancer and chamber-counsel . Gaining a large income by ^ his professional labours , famous among his brethren as the most learned in the law of any man in his day , John Selden was not content "with great legal success and reputation . Versed in classical , oriental , and Gothic knowledge , he made himself famous as a profound and voluminous writer on antiquities ; entered into a controversy with Grrotius on a question
of jurisprudence ; won the friendship of Camdeii , Jonson , and Butler ; and supplied notes to that prodigious and perfectly unreadable poem , the Poly-Olbion of Michael Dray ton . Besides distinguishing himself in t"hese various ¦ ways , he became a senator , representing in the House of Commons first Lancaster , then Great Bedwin , then the University of Oxford . Though the most moderate of men , he was more than once committed to custody for expressing himself too honestly in his speeches , under the reign of Charles I . But when Parliament began to resist the tyrant , he was appointed to the office of Keeper of the . Records in the Tower , by a vote of the House . He died while Oliver Cromwell was still Protector of England , leaving behind him a wolL-earned reputation , as one of the most learned and industrious men that ever lived .
Considering how much Solden did for himself , it is strange that his claims to the attention of posterity should rest , almost exclusively , on what another man has done for him . Such , however , is strictly the case . His reputation as a great scholar , a profound lawyer , and a moderate Parliament man , is not the sort of reputation that lasts for centuries . His works are confessed , by the very few learned men who have read them in later times , to be harsh , obscure , and unattractive in style . He would , beyond all doubt , not have been known now beyond the circle of a few patient scholars and antiquaries , but for the possession of a . gift which he himself most likely valued least of all the faculties that distinguished him—the gift of conversation . Wo
know Selden , in these times , not by what he wrote or did , but by what he said . His Talk-Talk is the one sound pillar on which the weight of his fame rests ; and that pillar is built up by another man—otherwise ontirely obscure—his amanuensis , Richard Milward . For twenty years Alii ward was the trusted friend and assistant of Selden . During that pei'iod , fortunately for posterity and for his master , ho committed to writing , from time to time , some of the best things which fell from the famous scholar ' s lips in his social moments , 'flie collection of sayings thus made was published thirty-five years after Selden' 8 death , and has lasted , through various new editions , as one of the classical books of . English literature , from that time to this .
Comparing Selden with two other famous talkers whoso sayings have been recorded , wo must pronounce him to bo , in our opinion , inferior to Johnson , tut in most ways suporior to Coleridge . lie has not Johnson ' s vast human sympathies , or Johnson ' s extraordinary wit and information a . a a talker . But 5 n general felicity of illustration ho sooms to us to approach the groat and good doctor closely . The clearness—the admirable clearness—of his language is always on a par with the shrewdness of Ins observation , and the ¦ vi gour and wisdom of his thoughts on most subjects . In the first groat requisite of intelligibility ho is fur superior to Coleridge . He has no mugwiucanco of colloquial imagery , and tries no daring flights of metaphysical speculation ; but in shxuwd worldly wisdom—worldly in the bettor hcjdsc of the word—hois far in advance of Coleridgo , and consequently fur more instructive and amusing to readers in general . There arc passages in the records of 1 ub talk—especially tho pufisugea in which women uva tho subjects of conversation—which give us no very pleasant idea of his disposition , for they present him in tho ohnruotcr of an mvotwatcly hard-headed un < l hard-Juearted lawyer , who will tako only tho practical ( floiuotimoa only tho oynical )
view of all earthly subjects . But of the -wisdom and shrewdness of the man of the extraordinary vigour and readiness of his intellect , and of his marvellous clearness of expression as well as of thought , almost every page ofhis Talk affords some striking example . His conversation embraces a wide range of literary , political , moral , and theological subjects ; and on every on © of them , he has delivered himself of opinions which are as important as in * structive , and as true in our day as they were in his . Let us hear him on one or two topics , which will probably be topics of universal interest as lone as the world lasts . s Beginning with Religion—will our orthodox readers permit us to quote what Selden has to say on a doctrine which has been rather fiercely handled in a controversial way of late ? Here are the opinions on the subject of Eternal Punishment of a man whose funeral sermon was preached by an archbishop , and who is vouched for by Chief Justice Hale as " a resolved , serious Christian . *
If the physician sees you eat anything that is not good for your body , to keep yon from it he cries 'tis poison ; if the divine sees you do anything that is hurtful for your soul , to keep you from it , he cries you ate damned . To preach long , loud , and damnation , is th . e way to be cried up . ' We love a man that damns us , and we run after him again to save us . If a man had a sore leg , and he should go to an honest , judicious chirurgeon , and he should only bid him keep it warm , and anoint with such an oil , an oil well known , that would do the cure , haply he would not much regard him , because he knows the medicine beforehand an ordinary medicine . But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him , your leg will gangrene within , three days , and it must be cut off , and you will die unless you do something that I could tell you , what listening there would be to this man ! Oh , fox the Lord ' s sake , tell me what this is ; I -will give you any content for your pains .
Orthodox people—like the authorities of King ' s College , for instance , who only renounced their " love" of Mr . Maurice when Mr . Maurice declined to " damn" them in return— 'may object to the conclusions to which these words lead , though they are spoken b y ' * a resolved , serious Christian . " Of the wit , shrewdness , and clear common sense of Selden , they must , however , be allowed by everybody to furnish a notable example . Again , these few sentences ( from which certain controversial gentlemen whom we could mention might learn a valuable lesson ) show his wisdom and clear-sightedness in a very remarkable manner :
IDO 1 A . TBT . Idolatry is in a man ' s own thought , not in the opinion of another . Put case—I bow to the altar , why am I guilty of idolatry ? Because a stander-by thinks so ? I am sure I do not believe the altar to be God ; and the God I worship may be bowed to in all places , and at all times . Not less justly does he think and express himself here : PRIDE . Pride may he allowed to this or that degree , else a man cannot keep up his dig * nity . In gluttony there must be eating , in drunkenness there must be drinking : ' tis not the eating , nor 'tis not the drinking that is to be blamed , but the excess . So in pride . . The next wise saying we shall quote , is as true now as wlen it was first uttered . Selden is speaking of
WAR . We look after the particulars of a battle , because we live in . the very time of war ; whereas of battles past we hear nothing but the numbars slain . Just aa for the death of a man : when lie is sick , we talk how he slept this night , and that nighty what he eat , and what he drank ; but when lie is dead , we only say , he died of a fever , or name his disease , and there ' s an end . Occasionally , Selden ' s wit fails him , and then he takes refuge in a quibble of the small and dreary kind , as in this extremely grim joke about coou works . In Queen Elizabeth's time , when all the abbeys were pulled down , all good works defaced , then the preachers must cry upjustification by faith , not by good works . Sometimes he is atrociously cynical in speaking of women . Had he fallen in love , made an offer-, and got his ears boxed for his pains , when he said this about
MAN AND WIFE ? ' Tis reason a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets , and pay all the scores she sets on him . He that will keep a monkey , 'tis lit he should pay for the glasses he breaks . After that , it will bo nc ; edless to tell our fairreadera that Selden was never married . He makes a wonderful observation , in his capacity of cynical old bachelor , on
THE WIVES OF niSHOPS . You shall see a monkey sometimes , that has been playing up and down the garden , at length leap up to the top of the wall , but his clog hangs a great way below on this aide . The bishop ' s wife ia like that monkey ' s clog ; himself is got up very high , takea place of the temporal barons , but his wife comes a great wuy behind . When a bishop is compared to a lively monkey , and a bishop ' s vife to a heavy " clog , " it is time to change the subject , and get baok to less dangerously froo and easy talk . Let Selden tell us , in an inimitably quaint way , a capital story of A BUND FIDDLER . A blind Addler playing to a company , and playing but scurvily , the company laughed at him ¦ , his boy that led him , perceiving it , cried , " Father , let us begone , they do nothing but laugh at you . " " Hold thy poaco , boy , " said tho ilddler ; " wo shall have their money presently , and then we will laugh at them . " One noble saying , and we ' must have done . Seldon is talking of
MOKAI . HONEBTV . They that cry down moral honesty , cry down that which is a- groat part of religion , my duty towards God , nnd iny duty towarda man . What oaro I to neo a man run after a sermon , if ho cozons and cheats aa soon an Jio cornea homo V On tho other hand , morality must not bo without religion ; for if so , it mny chwiigo oh I «< jo convenience . Religion must govern it , Ho that 1 ms not religion to govern his morality , ia not a dram better than my mastiff dog ; ho lonfj ; a » you ntr <» k < i him , « n < l plous « him , and do not pinch him , ho will pluy with you uti finely an inny bo , lie is a very good moral mastiff ; but if you hurt him , ho will ily in your face , uuct Umr out your throat . Before wo close Suldon ' a Table- Talk , wo must thuuk Doctor Irwng for t . he excellent edition whioh bus occasioned tho present uoliue . TUo prefaceis full of usuful facts about Soldon , and Uio noto . s throughout show genuine ) intelligeneo of ros «» rch . On awry account , wo cim houcjbtly recommend , the book to our readers .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 18, 1854, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18111854/page/17/
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