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    Untitled Article

    object of their contention , the People—the great spirit of their purpose , the enforcement of religion—are almost forgotten ; as if each church were willing to leave its rivals in full possession , except the trifles . Here we see one journal contending very energetically that the Reverend W . J . E . Bennett , of St . Paul ' s , Knightsbridge , is not in retreat preparing for admission to the Roman Catholic Church , but that while the report to that effect was circulating he was actually preaching at one of his churches " in strains of Church of England oxthodoxy , completely opposed , and as all such preaching ever must be , both in letter and spirit , distinctive of

    to all sympathy with those errors Romanism to which the perverts in question must undoubtedly commit themselves . " " The text of his sermon at St . Paul ' s was from the Epistle of the previous day—* Therefore , seeing we have this ministry , as we have received mercy we faint not ;' and , alluding directly to the present unhappy state of things in the English Church , and to the ' dissensions ' ( his very expression ) which are so deploringly taking place , he gave his hearers distinctly to understand that he could not for a moment reconcile such a step with his sense of duty , but was determined in so trying a conjuncture to ' faint not , ' God being his helper . "

    So says the Post . This should be satisfactory to the Church claiming the reverend gentleman . But , after all , it is the position of only one man retained —retained , too , in spite of doubts on his part and inclinations to " faint ; " while reports of perversions like those of the Reverend Thomas Allies , of Launton ; the Reverend Henry Wilberforce , vicar of East Farleigh ; the Reverend Edward Bathurst , fellow of Merton College ; Lord Feilding and his wife , and others , attest the unsettled state of men in the Church , who regret the authoritative

    position which it is losing . These " perversions " to the Church of Rome mean that the converts miss in the Church of England some distinctive and authoritative power capable of satisfying the mind on the authenticity of the faith professed and on the efficacy of the observances ordered . How the Church of England , whose doctrine is certified , not by its own supreme authority , but by the lay authority of the Privy Council , —whose most essential tenets are litigated between the Bishop and a contumacious clergyman like Mr . Gorham , —and whose most sacred observances may be twisted this way or that , at the fancy of the minister , —can

    pretend to authenticity or authority over its followers , or expect to hold them together , we cannot understand . For , observe , it does not possess a comprehensive dominion through the mere simplicity and breadth of its doctrines , leaving minor questions to sectional or individual variation ; but its most fundamental doctrines are in litigation , while its oracle is in abeyance . The Church of England , as it now exists , has no unity , no voice of authority : it can neither be united nor proclaim its own law ; it is distracted ; it is mute . These are the reasons why its sons fly from it to the older Church of Rome , which still retains its unity of observance , its power of self-utterance .

    But we know well while this process of retrogression to the older church is going on , a converse process of secession from the Church of England and of all its offshoots of dissent is going on to the immense multiplication of the unorganized body that may be enumerated as free-thinkers . Since we last alluded to this subject new instances have come to our knowledge—several , not only among

    the laity , but among persons in orders ; and , indeed , it appears to us that the spirit most antagonistic to the Church of England , most wishful of its destruction , most , so to speak , vindictive for the degree of authoritative restraint which it still exercises , is to be found amongst those ecceders who hold their place and their peace , and ostensibly remain in the body of the church that they have abandoned ; for many do so . They are thus unable to share in that effort winch is now made with more or less of accord

    to bring the scattered body of seekers after truth under some common opinion . To many it might seem strange at first if they were told that such an accord is more possible to free and independent minds' than it can be to sects now contending over minor doctrines and technical trivialities . The broadest truths of religion embrace many forms of faith ; but the dogmatic church militant rejects the broader truth to raise its standard on trivialities . The champion of orthodoxy , for example , presumes that Queen Victoria is prepared to abandon her constitutional supremacy in the church because the Queen has ordered the ilevcrend Dr . Cumming

    " to preach before her Majesty in Scotland" after the Scottish method . While the several churches , are contending for the possession of individual ministers , or for the observance of particular doctrines ; while they are exulting or deploring the multiplication of altar cloths worked by British hands in tapestry , what are they doing to obtain possession of the people ? " What are they doing to establish their hold on the world as it is , and by

    possessing that world to bring it under allegiance to what in their eyes is the truth ? Their conduct is strange if we seek for any signs of such a policy . The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland , for example , formerly editor of a periodical at Rome , which contended that the earth stands still the great fixed centre of the universe , —readopting , inshoit , the dictum which the Inquisition forced back upon Galileo , —is nowheadingthe movement to suppress the advancement of education in Ireland , of that education which is preparing the rising youth far to excel its parents in knowledge and conduct , and is already promising to do so much in

    redeeming the country from famine and misery . In England we see the clergy striving to suppress the newer amusements of the people , those which are weaning them from bad habits , as the clergy of Bath have tried to suppress the Sunday excursion trains . The Bishop of London made a similar effort some years back against the Thames steamers which now pass his Fulham Palace enlivening the air with the gayest strains . But will anybody , who can compare the conduct and appearance of the passengers on board the steamers some years back with that which now listens to secular music on the

    Lord ' s-day , regret that the Bishop failed in his enterprize . He was unable to suppress the Sunday amusements of the Thames ; but he did succeed in one thing , in establishing among the people a sense of permanent antagonism to the metropolitan Bishop , and so far an alienation from the Church which he officially represents . When we look for the conscious and deliberate action of the Church

    on the body of the people , such we find to be the processes which they are setting at work . How far they are likely to gain the people , we must leave sager heads to determine . Meanwhile perversions , excursion trains , Sunday steamers , free discussion of opinion , and many other movements , bad as well as good , but all terribly destructive of sectarian supremacy , are gaining ground every day .

    Untitled Article

    WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATIONS AND THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP . It is a wholesome and significant sign of the times to find the Examiner advocating an amelioration of the law of partnership . Some time ago the Economist took up the question , and we are glad to find our contemporary pluck up heart and follow in the good cause . It is true that great care is taken to convince the readers of the

    Examiner that they need have no fear of such amelioration leading to the establishment of Socialist or Communistic systems . This , to the timid and sensitive readers of our contemporary , may be so far needful , as to cause it to have recourse to the caveat on the ground of self-preservation . For ourselves , we have no fear from the clear heads and warm hearts to which we address ourselves . We shall plainly state the grievance and the remedy required , and leave our readers to infer ^ what dangers will or will not be run by the adoption of the latter .

    The grievance is this : that , by the existing law of partnership and joint-stock companies , all persons uniting together for purposes of trade or business are individually liable , on the one hand , to the full extent of their means for the debts of the concern on which they enter , if their numbers are not below twenty-five : and that , on the other , should they amount to that number , they cannot carry on their affairs , even with an unlimited responsibility , without the cumbrous and expensive process of registration under the last of the acts of Parliament named above . Should they require their

    liability to be confined to the amount of their respective shares , they must go to the further extent and trouble of incorporation under a special act of Parliament , or of a charter from the Crown . The consequences of these difficulties to the working classes are very serious . It renders it impossible for them to unite among themselves for purposes of trade ; for from less than twenty-five of their number the requisite capital could not be contributed , while , if they reached that amount , their capital would be swallowed up by the necessary expenses of registration . The expensiveness

    of this process militates also against the junction of capitalists , however well disposed , with a large number of workmen for industrial ends ; while the law of partnership , and the boundless liabilities imposed by it , except in the case of the promoters being incorporated , prevent their entering upon such joint undertakings , except by advancing capital in the shape of a loan to the treasurer or manager of the

    association of working men , with the chances of whose honesty and prudence they , as well as the parties assisted by them , are forced to be content . Thus are the working classes , and those who are disposed to assist them , hindered from joining their means so as unitedly to produce that from which may be derived the improvement in all respects of the condition of the former . It is true that some

    noble hearts have disregarded all chance of loss ; and , in the full face of its risk , aided in the establishment of Working Men ' s Associations . But these are the very persons who should be guarded from the disasters possible to hazardous benevolence . The selfish and the worldly minded need no such protection ; they can guard themselves . The grievance has been stated ; the remedy , we conceive , is this . To pass , either as a separate bill or as an extension of the Friendly Societies Act , a law that shall enable the powers

    and privileges of joint stock companies , without the present cumbrousness and cost , to be extended to bodies of men united for trading , or industrial purposes , however large their number , provided that their capital did not exceed a certain fixed amount . With this might be combined a provision , drawn from the French law of partnership , En Commandile , which should relieve from responsibility , beyond the amount of their actual shares , such persons of capital , whether large or small , as should be disposed to assist the

    undertaking by their contributions without taking part in its management . The managers of the concern would , as is the case in France , be liable to the full amount of their property . Thus , relieved from unjust risks and oppressive expenses , generosity and industry would have fair scope for united exertion . The wrongs and privations of the working classes would have the best possible chance of being remedied by their own endeavours ; and the assistance in the good work of those able to afford it would tend to establish a bond of brotherhood

    between rich and poor . For such a law we know it is the intention of some of the People ' s friends strenuously to agitate in the next session of Parliament . The People themselves must aid them . All friends of progress must unite to press forward the great step in the onward march of humanity : and we do not undervalue the services of the Examiner in lending the good work a helping hand .

    Untitled Article

    THE CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE . The thoughtful author of Friends in Council , speaking of the sad condition of the working class , sayS ; — " All that the rich could do to elevate the poor could hardly equal the advantage that would be gained by the poor themselves if they could thoroughly subdue that one vice of drunkenness , the most wasteful of all the vices . " Did it never occur to the author to enquire whether all this drunkenness is not owing more to neglect and

    misguidance on the part of the middle and wealthy classes than to any inherent inclination for vice on the part of the poor ? Few men who are properly educated , and who can rely upon earning a cornfortable subsistence for themselves and their families , free from sudden vicissitude , ever become drunkards . But the want of a sound national system of education , which would inspire the labourer and

    the artisan with purer tastes and a higher sense of duty ; our scrambling industrial system , with its long hours of toil and consequent exhaustion of body and mind ; our want of cheap and wholesome amusements for working men ; and , above all , the wretched condition of the poor man ' s home , owing to the crowded state of our large towns , and the neglect of sanitary reform by the middle class all conspire to drive the working man to the beer-house or the gin-palace in his hours of

    relaxation . Temperance reformers arc too much in the habit of addressing their exhortations to the poor alone , as if the work of reformation lay chiefly with themselves : they would do much more good were they to call upon the middle and wealthy classes to bestir themselves actively in removing those baneful causes which tend so powerfully to tempt men to escape from domestic discomfort and misery in

    Untitled Article

    636 Q £ 1 ) C 3 LtaiieV + [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 28, 1850, page 636, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1854/page/12/