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Leader (1850-1860), 28th December 1850, Edition Town of 2, Page 950

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      the ablest casuist to point out where one degree of worship begins and the other ends ! A gentleman of high erudition , whose learning and writings must procure him respect , and who has spent some time with the English Jesuits , thus writes : — " There was a time when I could make a satisfactory distinction between the worship of God and ^ that of Mary , but it was before I became a novice ! " * Now , when the learned and even the ecclesiastics of the Church stray far away from circumscribed limits , —

      • when they are absolutely put to their *• wit ' s ends ' to define scholastic and casuistical terms , -which after all but afford a distinction without a difference , how must it be with the masses of the people ? How can they be kept from idolatry in " the worshipping of angels ?" It will not take away from the heinousness of the act to aver with Dr . Doyle , «« It is God we honour in them / ' t Once admit this principle , and we cannot censure the votaries of the grossest species of idolatry . They might well excuse their religious extravagance in the same way— " It is God we honour in them 1 "

      God is to be worshipped with latreia , the saints with douleia , say the dusty-musty schoolmen ! But both terms are employed in Scripture to denote the supreme degree of adoration . According to the Septuagint version in 1 Samuel , vii . 14 , we are commanded to give the worship of douleia to God alone ! Indeed , when critically analyzed , those terms change places . Strictly speaking , douleia signifies service , and latreia , worship . But to serve is something more than to worship . Therefore , the greater honour is given to the saints , and the lesser to God ! Samuel Phii / ltps Day , An Ex-Monk of the Catholic Church .

      Untitled Article

      COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANITY . Dec . 12 , 1850 . Sir , —There is a danger of our over-estimating the value of certain views that appear important to our own minds , and supposing they will appear equally valuable to others . Without any desire to fall into this error , there is a view I have taken of communism that appears to my mind important , and perhaps it may appear so to some of your readers . I believe in the religion of Jesus Christ , that is , as I understand that religion . With me that belief does not imply an unconditional reception of the Bible ; a connection ¦ with any church ; an adherence to any creed ; or compliance to any form . It simply implies a trust in God , a faith in the soul , and an ardent desire to

      bep royfis how far we have wandered from God and the long journey that lies before us . I would judge no man , still I think that all men who believe in Christianity should believe in Communism , and that they who strive for one should do so for the other . But indeed they must do so , for these two questions are bound together and could not be separated . I am , dear Sir , yours truly , Benjamin Glover .

      come in some measure Christ-like in life . Christianity appears to me to be , not opinions in the head , but principles in the heart , and that its outward manifestations to the world is not forms , but holy deeds . However widely Christians may differ in opinion about the outward forms they all agree as to the inward principle being essential to the Christian life , and that without them we can have no Christianity . Now the present state of the world is unfavourable to the growth of Christian principle . Wo may talk of our religion and build churches for its spread , but men cannot be Christians at the present , unless they have made fortunes and are independent of the world . The spirit of trade is opposed to the spirit of Christ , and the more a man becomes a man of business the less will he be a Christian . The mean

      trickery , the shameful chcatery , the lying , slandering , and heartlessness , connected with trade are disgusting to a pure mind . Men do not pretend to bo honest in business . A young man enters life with a cheerful , noble soul . A change soon takes place the first lesson taught him is to regard every man ho meets a « a cheat ; he is told that the leading thought of his life must be self-interest ; forming friends , going to church , and getting married are to be matters of business ; all poetry and love are soon trampled out of him . his very countenance is changed , he becomes cool and calculating , and has no smile for

      his wife , no laugh for his child , and no thought for God or his soul . And this change takes place in all so far as the spirit of business is indulged in . It is useless to tell men to secure knowledge whilst the means for so doing arc not within their reach , and it is equally useless to tell men to be good when circumstances forbid their being so . A shopkeeper cannot bo honest whilst he knows that every article upon his counter is dishonest , that no one thing that he sells is what it ought to be , nnd that he must

      sell or be ruined . Whilst it is the tendency of trade , as now conducted , to occasion these evils , to make man the enemy of msm , it would be the tendency of communism to loud men to live ( or each other , to cause every man to seek his brother ' s good . Communism is the teachings of Christ reduced to practice . It is religion taken from the study » nd pulpit and brought out into the world to do God ' s work there . It is religion going forth without the fetters of creeds , or the protection of bishops , to lend man to

      " Trentl the fruitful sod , A bciu ^ worthy of his God , " nnd not being a miserable two-legged money-grub as ho now in . Men sny of Communism that it is very good and poutii- in theory , but not practical . This only " Tin' Ni . viciatf . " Uy A . Sttinniitz . + Christian (?) Doctrine .

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      SIGNS OF THE TIMES . 5 , Park-row , Dec . 23 , 1850 . Sir , —You lately favoured me by publishing in your Open Council a letter on the " Employment of the People . " Your readers will remember that I then showed , by a reference to the " Enumeration Tables , " that for thirty years there had been a tendency towards decreased employment in agriculture and encreased employment in manufactures . The causes bringing about such results are patent to the intelligence of every man familiar with the history of British industry .

      Notwithstanding the fundamental doctrine of Adam Smith , that " every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command ; it is his own advantage , indeed , and not that of society that he has in view—but the stud y of his own advantage , naturally or rather necessarily , leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the

      society . " I endeavoured to prove that unenlightened selfishness was not always advantageous or even humanizing , and there was a limit beyond which our manufacturing development was neither desirable nor profitable , and that neither " naturally " nor •« necessarily " did it follow that the " most advantageous employment" of capital to the capitalist was always profitable to the labourer or beneficial to the state .

      I have just finished a tour of the manufacturing districts of England and Scotland , visiting en route Northampton , Derby , Manchester , Glasgow , and Aberdeen , and many towns of lesser note . Everywhere the land allotment system is on the encrease . The operatives of our larger and smaller towns are turning their attention to the land . Mr . O'Connor ' s gigantic movement in favour of his land scheme has everywhere left traces of its existence . The members of the Land Society , though disappointed in their hopes , have not abandoned the idea of being the cultivators , and , if possible , the owners , of small

      allotthe times , and devise some practical means that would facilitate the sales and transfer of land in England ; also give an encreased stimulus to industry * by an entire change in our system of Poor-laws . It seems to be the fate of the rulers of this , as of other countries , to shut . their eyes to facts , and their ears to truth , and blunder on in the old way , and then , when a stagnation in trade comes , and with it discontented and turbulent hunger , they get in a fright , pass coercion and arms bills ; make speeches about

      demagogues and the dangers of revolution ; and , turning round to the country , exclaim , " See how patriotic we are ; we have maintained family property and order ! ' Yes , my good state doctors , you repress , but you do not cure ; you allow the causes which beget the evils that endanger ' family property and order ' to grow and strengthen , and , when surrounded by difficulties , you place a policeman on one side of the door and a soldier on the other , and say to intelligent men , * Does not that satisfy you V "

      The workmen with whom I conversed , and they were the active men of the "working classes , seem quite alive to the importance of social and political reform . They think it very strange , but by experience they know it to be lamentably true , that excess of plenty and excess of scarcity produce in their cases the same practical results . They say , " When the market is stocked we starve , because

      there is too much ; should there be a scarcity we starve , because there is too little . " On saying to such men , " Don ' t you know that supply and demand regulate the quantity and price of commodities ? " they reply , " So our masters tell us , but it is a very sorry kind of regulation that starves us at both ends . " I leave the cut-and-dry «• buy cheap and sell dear" philosophers to answer these shrewd operatives in the best way they can .

      During my stay in Glasgow the walls of the city were constantly placarded with bills , setting forth the claims of operatives who were on strike against their employers . To-day it was the pipemakers averring that their employers had no need to reduce wages , but had resolved to do so because bread was cheap ! To-morrow , the powerloom -weavers told a similar tale ; next day the factory operatives complained of violation of the ' Ten Hours Act . " All is antagonism , a struggle between dependant labour and overreaching capital . Yet the newspaper press will have such a state of things called " prosperity . " I suggest the propriety of using occasionally the somewhat vulgar , but very expressive phrase , " pull devil , pull baker ; " they will then describe the present state of society aright , and call it a " pull devil , pull baker "

      prosperity . There is in this country the elements of a great movement ; among the operatives the leading ideas are " regulation" and ' association . " Regulation applied to the hours of labour , to be , if possible , universally adopted and enforced by law ; the principle of the " Ten Hours Act" applied to adults . By association they hope in some cases to add the profits of trade to the wages of labour , and thereby encrease their share of and command over property . Many of the thinking operatives reflect deeply on the existing organization of society ; and though not the disciples of Owen , Fourier , Louis Blanc , or any other great founder of any set school of Social

      Reformers , they are , nevertheless , radically in earnest in their desire for important changes in the laws and property of the country . When to such quiet but ominous signs of the times are added 44 Tenant-right League , " ?• Freehold Land Societies , " " National Charter , " and other suffrage associations , none of which can be snuffed out by a speech in Parliament , or buried amidst the stife of religious antagonism ; but all of which are destined to grow into imposing and 4 < great facts , " being developed proportionately to the encreaso of intelligence and the pressure of tho times , it is not , I think , too much to augur important changes in the future . 1 am , your obedient servant , Samuel M . Kidd .

      ments . Through the agency of trade associations and local land societies is being laid the basis of a new evolution of the industry of the country , which , if understood and encouraged by her Majesty ' s Ministers , might be so directed as to aid in remedying many of the evils of which good men of all classes complain and deplore . The most noticeable feature of the present land movement is its local character . The shoemakers of Wellingborough have their small allotments at Wellingborough , the spinners of

      Oldham have theirs at Oldham , the blockprinters of Campsie have theirs at Campsie , and so on . These allotments are small , but they show the tendency of the mind , keep alive a taste for agricultural pursuits , and exercise a very salutary influence on the health and morals of the population . That partial employment in agriculture and success in art may exist together , no one who has read anything of Switzerland can doubt . That a man may be a good watchmaker , and yet know how to grow cabbages , is , I think , not an unreasonable stretch of his

      powers ; in fact , I know hundreds of excellent workmen who excel in their respective arts , and manage their gardens with economy and success . Experiments in cultivating allotments on a large scale may , for some purposes , be desirable ; but , as a whole , local land societies are perhaps preferable ; they keep alive «• home " associations , and strengthen the bonds of citizenship ; they prevent the breaking up of old family ties , and the giving up of present

      employment . From some farms that have been let , and some small estates that have been sold , the letting and sales of which have come under my notice , I infer that land near to manufacturing towns will not fall in price . When in Ayrshire I heard of several farms which had been let at rather high rents than otherwise ; several practical farmers , however , gave it as their opinion that the parties taking the same would have reason to regret their bargain . Within tvyo miles of a thriving manufacturing ; town in Forfarshire , a small property , consisting of eight acres of land , was sold at the rate of £ 100 an acre . The late owners are old friends of mine , and they parted with their patrimony to look for a home in America . Similar results may

      not follow in Norfolk , Suffolk , and other counties mainly agricultural . In such counties the probability is that rents a nd the value of land will full ; one effect of which will be that landlords and farmers will of necessity be obliged to find some other way of maintaining their labourers during tho winter months than starving them in a workhouse . If the men called statesmen , and who are supposed to represent the wisdom and intelligence of the empire , were wise , they would profit by these quiet signs of

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      DIVORCE . Dec . 24 , 1850 . Sib , —If in one respect more than any other >; our paper has fulfilled the promise contained in its ^ title , it is in the fearless manner in which the question of Divorce has been touched upon in its columns , and the immorality of the canon law pointed out . Believing , as all who watch the undor-currents of society must do , that men ' s minds are gradually awakening to a perception of this truth , I rejoice to see the Leader at its post ; not waiting , as is the fashion with so many of our journals , until a truth has become popular , but ready to welcome and herald its first appearance .

      Having attentively read and carefully considered all that has lately been written on this subject , I venture to offer a few remarks , which have , at least , been patiently thought out in my own mind before they are offered to tho consideration of others . In the first place , it has struck me , in reading the various letters in the " Open Council , " that the arguments for and against Divorce , with scarcely tin exception , arc founded on expediency rather than

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      950 IfffK & £ && £ ?? [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 28, 1850, page 950, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1863/page/14/