On this page
-
Text (3)
-
920 THE LEADER. __ [SaturdAY >
-
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, v. THE GRAND D...
-
WELLINGTON AND NAPOLEON. To constitute a...
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.
Who Is Gaining Ground? Those Who Maintai...
of Napoleon , Proudhon , " cesf le vol . To retain arms by right of " purchase , or long possession , is an offence , m the French police law ; to snatch them away is the principle of property . The naivete of this circular is amusing , but what we are noting is the fact , that this adventurer , backed by the more uneducated classes , and by an immense army , is openly subduing the more intelligent and " cultivated classes of France ; those classes which have given to France her character for intellect , science , and art . Under the controul of the inferior classes , the physical , or non-intellectual , is making inroads over the ¦ w hole world . The two exceptions which we note are these :
The first is republican America , which , by favour of its new aggressive policy , is asserting itself over an extended domain , and is so far carrying a superior intelligence to overcome an inferior intelligence . The second exception consists in the constitutional part of Europe , mainly England , which retains a position of precarious neutrality , menaced by the semi-barbarous invasion which it fears rather than defies .
920 The Leader. __ [Saturday >
920 THE LEADER . __ [ SaturdAY
The Evangelical Alliance, V. The Grand D...
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE , v . THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY . Oxje remarks of last week on " Italy and the Italian Cause in England , " were , it now appears , singularly apropos . A strange light is thrown upon that Report of the Society of the Friends of Italy from which we extracted passages of deep significance . The Protestant Alliance , a very fierce and futile society of intolerant declaimers , whose platform oratory is identified with Exeter Hall , sounds the alarm , inditing fervent addresses with an apostolical twang , and
appealing to " Protestant Europe" in behalf of the " Word of God , " of which the said society is the well-approved depositary . Let us for a moment examine the logic and the sincerity of these evangelical crusaders . In September , 1852 , they suddenly awoke to the fact , that Italy was once more under the dominion of the Papacy ; in spiritual as well as political bondage—a bondage rendered more dark and cruel by the fitful gleam of freedom that had for a moment scared , the oppressor and blessed the land with light . the of the
Our readers have not forgotten case Madiai—a Tuscan gentleman and his wife , of blameless lives , who were lately condemned to the galleys for four years , witli hard labour , for reading the Bible and forsaking the Boman Church . Our readers have not forgotten the case of Mr . Ilamilton , the English schoolmaster and missionary , who was turned houseless upon the streets of Naples , in the teeth of formal treaties . Our readers have not forgotten the cruel expulsion of the- English missionaries from Hungary in the depth of winter . We cite * these three instances of recent
occurrence ; many more might be adduced to prove that the Church of ' Rome , logically and consistently a persecuting Church , rules supreme ovei life , law , and conscience , throughout ( he western and . southern continent of Kurope . Jn i'Yanoe , the coining JOnipire has sworn an alliance , offensive ; and defensive , with the priests . The . Body-gu : i . rd of the Pope in Italy , it persecutes and harasses Protestants at home . Even Prussia , half afraid of the . Reformation , coquets with that admirable principle of authority and . submission embodied in the infallible Church . The Papacy , which in lHl , <> was a homeless outcast- —rejected bv Italy , derided in
( JJcrinaiiy , si suppliant in 1 'Yance—is now , by the graee and aid of bayonets , more insolent ., more overweening , more ; imperious than ever . And what , has " Protestant England , " represented by iny Lord ( Shaftcsbury and Kxetor Hall , been doing ( o uphold / he failing cause of " pun ; and reformed religion P" They have spouted and / stormed from pulpit and platform ugsiiust the abominations of the " Babylonish Lady ; " they liiiv ^ Jbi » tt «« K */ % "iIkujiain " ' lrl , l . « 'rH ; they have hnviVtaWHfbQito }" * '' I (> I : I <> 1 ' ;( ll <\ y lmV ( '
. tiIicrfffi' * uj » ^ J ' tLjVfiST'ffi' sectarian bigotry , and HffrtYj ^ JfO vlMff ^^ k' ^< I pains and penalties j ^ Wj ^ 'fclicrr ftsjJow . ^ V ^ ets ; they have insulted jfrti ^^ iitedho yiwb qaored mysteries of the tM ^ ii ^ Cmth ^ U ^ ^ VK hi ^!; and , by wuy of an exsitnpte / j rf * nuujftfyttHH , % \ y have ; burnt saints m olligy , ' ¦ | ' itid '() oii » UJ ; W < t- < -M . rtliiml . s with fagots , on Blj ^ jliijniUJi ijl ydniyHtf uo ( ' H () i ' <' the Roman Church , m mlSblQSon into contempt . And what did these name Protestant champions
in ' 48 and ' 49 , when the JPapal throne was tottering , and all Italy struggling into the light of a free conscience ? They stigmatised the men on whose banners was inscribed " Abolition of the secular Papacy , " as anarchists ; they connived at , if they did not approve , the restoration of the Papacy , as the representative of " order ; " they discountenanced and calumniated the National Italian party , as revolutionary and subversive ; they never raised hand or voice in favour of that traditional Protestantism which the England of Cromwell taught to conquer . And what do they propose to do noio , these
officious champions of the " Word of God" ? To undertake , in the name of Protestant Europe , an excursion to Tuscany , " in order to obtain an audience of the Grand Duke , to implore his clemency and mercy for our fellow-Christians !" But in order to " dispel all suspicion of any political motive , " the deputation is to be polyglott—English , Swiss , Dutch , French , and German . As if the Grand Duke were an independent power ! To this complexion the official Protestantism of England has come I Meanwhile their unhappy clients , the victims of such advocacy as that of Exeter Hall , are languishing in the midst of malefactors in the Maiemme .
Let us ask the noble president of the Protestant Alliance how hehas behaved towards the Society of the Friends of Italy ? Has he given in his adhesion to that society , or lent the influence of his name and character to its objects P Now the programme of that society is plain enough for his lordship to understand . " Abolition of the Secular Papacy ; " " Spiritual and National Independence of Italy ; " Italy , the stronghold of the Papacy . We will tell Lord Shaftesbury in what the impotence of his Protestantism consists . It is not national , but sectarian ; not thorough and direct
of purpose , but " safe" and " expedient ; " it is afraid of itself , and halts at its own conclusions . It will not stir a step to make Italy free , but it will go on its knees to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in behalf of some occasional victim . The Church of Rome is at least consistent with herself . Claiming to be the absolute possessor of infallible truth , she persecutes heretics even to extermination , and would burn theirbodies to save their souls . When she asks for religious equality , she means equality as a stepping-stone to supremacy . But
when my Lord Ashley preaches Protestantism , we ask him what Protestantism he means : the Protestantism that slanders fellow-churchmen like Dr . Pusey , burns the Pope in effigy , proscribes Roman Catholic brethren , and devotes to persecution here , and condemnation hereafter , all who claim to think or to worship according to a broader or more ancient faith than his own P It is not by such Protestantism , nor by such champions that the Papacy is to be encountered —no , nor even the Madiai to be released .
Wellington And Napoleon. To Constitute A...
WELLINGTON AND NAPOLEON . To constitute a great life , it has been said , two things are necessary—groat qualities in a man himself , and a great inheritance from the past . Not only must a man have noble faculties ; there must also huve been prepared for him , whether by the wisdom or by the blunders of predecessors , a certain field of circumstances wherein his faculties may have scope . Napoleon was a great man , and his inheritance from the past was the chaos of the . French Revolution . Newton was a great man , and his inheritance from the- past was
the incomplete- astronomy of the days of Kepler . Had Napoleon not come in the- rear of that immen . se social convulsion , his constitutional gifts , extraordinary as they were , would never have led to such splendour of fame ; and had Newton , with all the patience of his mighty mathematics , intervened at any earlier moment in the history of astronomical specula ! . ion , his would not have been that superlative honour which consists in having ascertained the highest physical generalization that can be asserted of tho universe .
In a , deep sense , possibly , tho two things always go together . Possibly , on the one hand , no nobly constituted individual i . s ever born info tho world , but Micro is already going on the precise series of circumstances to which ho may most hopefully silly himself ; and possibly , on tho other hand , every grand ( rain of incidents once set in motion lias tho power to draw from tho everlasting fount of nervous energy si soul made exactly to control it . But a rough everyday philosophy takes no account of these possibilities ; and henco complaints arc unceasing ,
that the right men are not found in the rie-hf circumstances . All our possible Hampdens Kv in villages in the Orkneys ; the man who could be the philosopher of the century sells apples in Tottenham-court-road ; and he who could be th Napoleon of England is , by the last census a Spitalfields weaver . ' " Wellington , " said Napoleon , " owed more to fortune than to himself . " It needs no great boldness to assert that the saying , in the sense in which it was intended , is not a true one . Fortune did essentially no more for Wellington than
it did for Napoleon himself—it gave him a suitable inheritance , it brought him in contact with his destined opportunity . The inheritance of Napoleon was the French Revolution . The inheritance of WeDington -was—Europe at war with Napoleon , and England implicated in that war . The greatness which Wellington achieved was as much the result of his own intrinsic ability applied to the management of his opportunity , as of
was the greatness Napoleon . Both brought great faculties to a great task—both fairly an d perseveringly built the edifices of their respective reputations ; and if there is a difference between the two— -if the greatness of Wellington and that of Napoleon are , and ever will be , distinct things in the imagination of mankind , —it is not because opportunity did proportionally more for t he one , and ability proportionally more for the other ; but because there was a radical difference
between the two cases , jointly and severally , as regards the kind of ability , in possession , and the kind of opportunity given . In the order of historical time , as well as in the order of mental magnificence , Napoleon stands first . His inheritance , as we have said , was the chaos of the French Revolution . Not once in a thousand years is such an opportunity put up to auction . A great and intelligent nation—a nation claiming to be the most civilized on earth , and endowed at least more than any other with the quality of social plasticity , had broken loose from all the traditions and moorings
of the past ; had crushed and guillotined out of itself every element of hereditary rule and almost every principle of ancient authority ; had thrown defiance and disaffection into all the nations round ; and , at length , set upon unanimously by the powers of these nations , was struggling for its right to continue in its course . This man and that man did feats in its behalf—this man and that man aspired to the championship ; and the man who in the end proved himself the most but Ita
capable was not a Frenchman at all , an - lian educated in the French service . In this factitious Frenchman , this Corsican flung into France , there were united in a higher degree than in any other known man , all the qualities required by the situation , or capable of extending and enlarging it—ambition to desire , courage to attempt , intellect to scheme , skill and activity to execute . The first strategist of his age , ho was precisely the man to secure to Franco her wellearned anarchy , by scattering the armies that Bourbon form oi
were reimporting order , in the that article , from the hostile courts of the rest or Europe . The servant of no creed except tnai . which was implied in his own dogmatic conaUtution , acknowledging no law except that wjuu arose from the application of his own judgmentand generosity to successive external emerge - oies , he was pronely tho man to indootrina afresh tho anarchy wliich he had saved , and «> bocomo the master of a people who would actq no new authority except such as might lSHueir htbagau
a now incarnation of physical mig , < -. highly cultured in many respects , not w hearted , with instincts alive to what was nuv ¦ sible in his own ago , and a curious 8 < 'nHttivcncsH the opinion of posterity , he did not aim at o < h a mere Coth or Attila , but at being the <> h »" ^ toristic conqueror of a civilized epoch—a m 0 tho stamp of Gmmr or C harlemagne , l > ui * ^ centuries more forward . Lastly , p ltjwl * . prolific invention , an ideality which play < institutions , and cities , and thrones , and au < actual matter and ciro . miHtanco of human ( , . ff _ as the ideality of a poet plays with Inn coming fancies , ho was tho man to oover J u i __ for a time at least , with now socisi ^ ' ^'(( , lions , and to simplify or complicate w r , | lHl / by factitious political combinations . Jl ? ' jiv ( V ,. ' . i .. i ; i . r , J" Nimnlenii—bis prod igotis uiv ,
ness , his intellectual originality , . l <> . !" ' , oUl , t , ( j ( l ever else wo choose to call iL—1 i « h his u » "" ^ right of superiority over all tho men oi Ji «
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 25, 1852, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25091852/page/12/
-