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    January 26, 1856.J THE LEADER, 85

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    NEW lUUfiACHIdQ OF THE WORD. Will Oxford...

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    LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE. Whatever do...

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    OUR SILEN"CE ON THE HOILE CASE. A Corres...

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    A Respectable Neighbourhood. It Is Disco...

    Palmer has his portrait painted in the accounts of his neighbours , and yet to this day there is a disposition to rally round him ; but he is a man who carries his prayer book in his hand , and has always done his best to " keep up appearances . " If he had avowed opinions of doubt a , s to the institutions of the Church , if he had been a confessed disciple of George Sand , or Milton , on the subject of marriage , if he had been a democrat in principles , he would

    probably have been persecuted by his neighbours ; and instead of finding lawyer , coroner , and curate , to express indignation at the persecution , the society of Rugeley would have declared that he merited all that he met , and that " they expected such a termination at last . " Rugeley is punished for this confusion . If it treats a " indium prohibitum" the breach of a conventional law , as " malum in se" or a violation of the law of nature , or indeed as

    something worse , it tacitly puts a licence on violations of natural law , on outrages against life and affection , so long as the offender pays for his licence by keeping up appearances ; and advantage is taken of the licence . No sooner is Palmer detected , however , than tliose who stand apart from , him join in the hunt , although they may be not unaccused by conscience . Do the other 148 poisoners of last year come forward in the sincerity of their

    hearts to confess ? Do post-masters who have examined letters , magistrates who have listened to one side , relations who have taken out policies of . insurance , declaim against casting the first stone at Palmer ? Most likely they are foremost in the hunt-,, for to seem on the side of the accuser blinds suspicion— - as the pickpocket in the street cries , " Stop thief , " to prevent the crowd from tripping him up before the policeman .

    There is immediately a cry that we must alter the law of insurance , to prevent " these evils , "—that we must not put a premium upon poisoning . But it is precisely by relying upon these artificial laws , these police guarantees , that Society , as we call . ourselves when we want to abuse other people , has superseded natural safeguards by artificial safeguards . We owe . to Mr . Fitzrov a bill for preventing husbands from beating their wives ; and people

    do say that the cases of wife-beating have nmltiplicd since the bill passed ; though others explain that a more stringent law only multiplies the cases of detection . But what must be the state of that society in which the policeman is the guarantee for the safety of the bride ? We have instances this week of parents endeavouring to force their children into courses of , vico and crime , and the police magistrate interferes . Palmer avows that he made his

    wife commit forgery ; and had the couple persevered in that course , a detective would probably have interposed ; but what is the state of society in which the family education , nu < X the domestic morals , arc regulated by the constable ? If wo had arrived at that pointwhioh , thank Gop ! we have not—we had hotter all of us give up the ghost , and retreat to a better world ; for Devildom would have been established in this . But , if we want to

    encourage the progress of such civilisation , we had bettor continue multiplying our artificial safeguards , our statutablo compacts , our policfi . surveillance within the street door , as a substitute for the natural affection bctweon man and man , man and woman , parent and child . Perhaps if we had something loss of this disguise of nature , these moral stays to improve the natural figure , instinctive affection woxud recover its force , and " the plant , man , " would # row more healthily , and in more safety .

    January 26, 1856.J The Leader, 85

    January 26 , 1856 . J THE LEADER , 85

    New Luufiachidq Of The Word. Will Oxford...

    NEW lUUfiACHIdQ OF THE WORD . Will Oxford continue to bo the seminary for th < i gentlemen , the leaders , and the instructors

    of the English people , or continuing to be the seminary for a sect , will it lapse into an ambiguity , and cease to be national ? The question is practical . At the present moment , strong in the belief that " The Church of England" is not to be overthrown , the " Dons" Oxford may laugh at their voting such a question ; but established forms of faith have been disestablished . At one time the Druidical form of faith was established in these islands ; and persons who lapsed were recalled by a

    peculiar mode of destruction in wicker baskets , to the orthodox : " persuasion . " The Komanist form appeared to be unalterable until Henry VIII . wished to divorce his wife ; the Independents had hopes of ascendancy " until Charles II . brought back Popishhopes , to be overthrown finally by the Orange dynasty , which secured the Apostolical succession to the schismatical

    ' ' . Church of England ; " trifles less than the deep questions of the present day having overthrown ecclesiastical regimes not less ancient than that now dominant in Oxford ; During the Reformation , the " Church of England " was pronounced to be the Christian Church , according to the enlightened view of this country ; and there really is no other tenure for a national church . Oxford dissents from that national

    definition of the national church , and sticks by some local test . An incident occurred lately which confirms our statement ; and the shame of Oxford is about to be consummated in a very painful way . The Reverend Benjamin Jowett put fortb . a new view of a doctrine , which , has perplexed many ingenuous and earnest Christians—the doctrine of the Atonement . It was not , he said , G-od who was reconciled to man In the

    sacrificesuch an interpretation of the event would be barbarous , and would -impute anger and passion to the Most High— -passions which man himself contemns and repents . But it did reconcile man to God—an interpretation , consistent with religious feeling , with the conception of divine attributes , and with logical

    argument . But it is not consistent with the thirty-nine articles ; a fact obvious to one Golightly , who is the Del C ^ kketto of Oxford-He at once challenged Mr . Jowett to lie down on the Procrustes bed with its thirty-nine degrees , and Jowett lay down . But this is not all ; he is about to republish his work , explaining away the doctrine .

    In vain . The interpretation cannot be explained away . Such > ' passages remain in literature , though the author repudiates them .. Coleridge erased from'the " Ancient Mariner , " " the-stanza beginning "A gust pf wind start up behind j " but no one passage is more quoted than that quaint octave . Malthus talked , ia his first edition , of Nature having " no covcx" at her board for the " unbidden guest , " who belongs to surplus population -, he omitted the startling words in subsequent editions , but they survive in a thousand other volumes . And these are

    only phrases—triilcs . Mr . Jowett s interpretation of the Atonement is a real light upon the moral interpretation of Christian doctrine ; it reconciles the doctrine with history , with facts , with instinctive sense , with the conception of divine mercy . It cannot be suppressed ; but Jowktt may , and ho consents to be so . As some creatures survive only to create a structure , and then die—as the coral insect builds

    its fair island and expires , so the amiable Mr . Jowett completes a great doctrine ol the English Church , by lighting up the lamp that hitherto remained unkindlcd and dark ; and then , yielding to the stronger will of lower minds , he consents to be dragged down , and to drift in the stream of forgotten agencies . But the doctrine stands , and the lump will not be extinguished .

    The force of truth is greater even than the obstinacy of dogma . The people c ' of England" has a Church , divided though it is by doctrines which possess sections of it , and unconscious as it is of its real unity amid the conflicts of sect . The freedom which has been allowed to discussion , however , is gradually enabling the preponderating truths to crush the half truths ; and religion , by no force of rack or inquisition , is gradually suppressing schism and dissent . At the church

    of St . Peter ' s , Saffron-hill , on Sunday week , the Rev . George Mansfield preached a sermon on Religion in Common Life—a fine out-spoken discourse which tells the world that religion is not imprisoned in dogma or church ; that one truth cannot be incompatible with another , one law of God destructive of another ; but that to live well , and do good , and to obey the laws of the creation , is to be religious . Who wrote that sermon—Joen Cairjx Minister

    of Errol . It was preached before Queen Tictoria , " defender of the faith , " who commanded it to be printed . It had the imprimatur of her consort Prince Albert , whose own sermons have sometimes been such as Nature preaches , God's silent minister . The discourse , composed by a minister of the Scottish Church , was preached again ly a minister of thxe English Church . Verily , it seems to us that , Oxford notwithstanding , we are arriving at a real Christian era .

    Lord Stratford De Redcliffe. Whatever Do...

    LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE . Whatever doubt may rest as to the interference of Lord Stratford de Redcxiffje to prevent the succour of Kars , there is none whatever as to his Lordship ' s habitual temper . His influence at Constantinople is becoming daily a sorer offence to every one placed within reach of it . He may be an excellent man ; he is , unquestionably , an acute and powerful diplomatist ; but sufficient illustrations have been given of his ungovernable ill-hxundur , and

    of his egotism , to render it probable that his authority is hot always exerted in a public spirit . The controversy relative to the sacrifice of General Williams must be brought to ahead . If Lord Stratford be to blame , he must not be shielded . If the Turkish government neglected its duty , it is important that the truth should be known . Perhaps the war department in England is responsible . But we believe we have correctly indicated the causes of

    the abandonment of Kars . They will not be breathed in Parliament . In another campaign the policy of the Allies might "be modified ; but hitherto France has not adopted or sanctioned one step towards the establishment of a strong military position in Asia Minor . France has no considerable trade in that direction ; Ejngland sends upwards of a million sterling worth of her manufactures to Trdbizond alone , and her trade penetrates thence into Central Asia . Who is accountable for the disaster which threatens to blockade this important road ?

    Our Silen"Ce On The Hoile Case. A Corres...

    OUR SILEN"CE ON THE HOILE CASE . A Correspondent writes t 6 express his surprise and regret at our having abstained from comment upon the case of the poor lad Hoixe , sentenced by ft bench of county magistrates to a month's imprisonment , for the heinous crime of slaughtering a pheasant in the execution of his natural and religious duty as a British scarecrow . We beg our correspondent to 1

    believe that it was frort * no inattention to the case ( reported in another part of our paper , under the heading of " Our Civilisation" ) , that we left it to make its own way to the feelings of our readers , but it is our habit and practice to decline to follow needlessly in the track of our daily contemporaries , whose more special office , and whoso peculiar opportunity it ia , to seize upon each passing

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 26, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26011856/page/13/