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Leader (1850-1860), 12th March 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 257, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      & * &t and conscience by extending thoir power of profxMhig a dispensation " from some necessary and very icrgent cause , aftd in cases which are not repugnant to academical discipline , " to the nondelivery of their lecture * by the public readers , and the nonattendance on fheir lectures by the students . The thing had an air « f plausibility , but we need not affront our readers by discussing the argument of dispensable and indispensable matter . The very title of the dispensing clause

      * pro minus diligenti publioorum lectorum audltione , " hows how narrow is the power committed to congregation of limiting the functions of the University . It wfll hardly be contended that a power of dispensation , granted for some irregularity of attendance upon the courses of the public lecturers , was intended to hpersede attendances on the lectures , and to dispense toith the lectures and lecturers themselves . In this

      latter sense , * dispensation' is evidently a word of Oxford second intention , called in , re-stamped , and reissued by the Hebdomadal Board . The governing body of the University has violated the Statutes to which it is sworn , and this not by the neglect of desuetude , but for collegiate advantage , A body , conscientiously attached to obsolete and impossible systems , deserves forbearance and respect , if it seek to carry them out according to the enactments to which it is sworn . From the Hebdomadal Board of Oxford argument and indignation fall alike misplaced .

      Untitled Article

      AS EffOMBHWOMAW ' S VOICE POB . ITALY . Thb ladies at Stafford House assembled to draw up a satiny address to their sisters in the United States , on behalf of the poor negro , to whose sufferings , perhaps , distance , as well as Mrs . Beecher Stowe , had lent enchantment in their eyes , have never , within our knowledge , raised their voice or " taker * up a pen" on behalf of the White victims of Austrian despotism in Italy , or of Busrian despotism in Poland , or of Bonapartist terrorism in France . These daughters of luxury , of delicatest porcelain , albeit wrought from common human clay , have no eyes to

      « ee , nor ears to hear , nor hearts to feel , the miseries of their sisters in Europe . They can whine with sentimental anguish over the tortures of the quadroon torn from his wife and child ; they can shudder with dainty horror at the whip they seem , to hear descending as it digs the bloody furrows on the negro ' s back , in some Carolina plantation ; but they do not hear the groans of widowed wives , of bereaved mothers , of orphaned daughters , in Milan and Mantua , in Buda and Pesth ; they do not weep for maidens and matrons scourged with sticks in the recesses of prisons , sometimes in the staring street ; they do not appeal to their aristocratic sisters at Vienna against the

      bastinado in Italy , or to their titled sisters at St . Petersburg against the knout in Siberia . How should they P These dainty sympathisers of Stafford House are the wives and the sisters of the statesmen and senators who begrudge the right of asylum to the refugees , after lavishing smiles on the oppressors ; of the men who , to . support the " balance of power , " connive at the restoration of the Pope , while they deluge savage islands with Protestant Bibles ; of the men who shamelessly calumniate the chiefs of European freedom , while they have a superfluity of compliments and caresses for the irresponsible and wholesale Assassins whose " sacrod" heads some fanatic knifo has grazed ; of the men who incite to revolt only to betray into

      . When , wo ask again , did these gentle ladies , in Stafford House assembled , ever plead for the desolation of Italy and tho wrongs of Hungary ? On the contrary , it is notorious , it is not forgottonby tho groatEnglish people , that these ladies are tho ornaments , while their husbands and brothors are the props , of a system and a policy congenial to tho crimes and cruelties of despotism , treacherous and hostilo to tho struggles of liborty .

      Our American friends may well laugh to scorn tho narrow and meagre humanity of those who can impertinently plead for poor blacks in Carolina , while they shut their eyes and harden their hearts to the despair of Italy " fainting 'noath tho thong , " and of Hungary trampled in tho dust by murdorous hoofs . If , howover , the voico from Stafford Houso bo an insolent mockery , there is * in tho great hoart of Engliah womanhood in many homoa , untainted by tho dissolving poison of aristocratic complicities , a deep and strong sympathy ,

      tender as the heart , and true as the soul of woman , for thoir suffering sisters in tho fairest climes of Europe . Thoy do not , it is true , form committees and indito " Christian Addresses" to the wives and sisters of the Austrian slavodrivors . They do not waste their ink nor scatter perfumod tears in idle demonstrations , nor do they affect impertinent comparisons between our institutions and tho " systems" of Frana Joseph and Radetzky . But thoy honour the patriot *—they pray for tl \ e deliverance of tho prisoners ;—they inroke tho vengeance of a righteous

      heaven upon the sovereign ean&cators and the anointed murderers . As we write , we have before us an eloquent" Appeal to the English People " on behalf of the patriotic cause , by an " Englishwoman . " It is from the pen , we believe , of an amiable , and high-minded lady , long resident at Leicester . Taking tho noble protest of Elizabeth Barrett Browning against a false peace , as a text and an inspiration , this generous lady , ' * confident in the religion and justice of the cause / ' appeals to those " who valuing freedom of thought and action for themselves , desire to extend its blessings to others , " to subscribe to the fund now being raised for the patriot leaders of Italy and Hungary . May our countrywomen listen to this noble voice . It is for them to mould

      the spirit of their children to the love of liberty and the hatred of oppression : it is for them to elevate and broaden the sympathies of their husbands and brothers , too often deadened in the paralyzing grasp of trade , and withering in the cold diode of the counter and the Exchange . This appeal relates in simple and touching language the facts of the Italian and Hungarian cause , too familiar to our readers , and it concludes with theae heart-stirring worda : " Women of England ! assist with your sympathy , and what influence you have , the cause of the weak and the oppressed . Let each one do something . Give each one , even if but a trifle , to the Kossuth and Mazzini fund . Spare not vour money , at least , in aid of those who are giving

      their lives in defence of freedom of conscience , and liberty to move and speak as free men . Aid those who are giving their hearts , ' blood , with their tears , as they urge their beloved ones to go forth and die for the Sight—to those who even on the scaffold , amid the tortures of a lingering death , can exhort the horror-stricken crowd to ' Remember God and their Country ! ' I « the life of the Pure and the Brave to be left for an undefined period to the mercy of the Foul and the wicked ? Oh ! Make the battle as short as possible , and turn it into a victory for the Eight . Forget not the Faithful Pead who , in our own land , have won for us all that gives our lives their worth—and may the blessings of those ready to perish be on you . "

      This appeal , be it remembered , is no morbid " Uncle Tomery . " It is not the languid intoxication of a literary dram .

      Untitled Article

      THE VAXTXB OV " OX DIT . " We are sometimes reproached with the number of " unconsidered" rumours that our Paris correspondent whips up in bis weekly communications . It is neither our fault , nor that of our correspondent , if the silence , or , at best , the fragmentary information , of the independent press in France , ia eked out by the rumours of the salons and the streets , which suggest , if they do not alwayB correctlyHdisclose , the truth that lurks under the official assertions and denials of the Moniteur , a journal which , under its present editorship , deserves the title of " Menteur Universel . " There is a passage in a letter of Voltaire ' s

      which exactly sets the value , in the present state of Trance , onancx dit . Voltaire , writing to D'Alembert , in July , 1766 , expresses his horror and disgust at the judicial murder of a youth , named La Barre , who , at the age of seventeen , vraa burnt alive at Abbeville , after having had his tongue torn out and his . right hand cut off , for not having bowed to a , procession of Capuoins . By tho way , at the rate the church is going on in France , under the auspices of Louia Napoleon , it is not quite impossible that this pleasant recreation of burning boys alive for not taking

      their hftts off to a procession of monks , may be renewed for tho edification of the regenerated society of France . Wo are aura that our religious contemporary , L'Univers , after putting down theatres , would desiro no bettor substitute for tho drama than an occasional auto dafe in tho public squares . It was only last week that our correspondent related the fact of a young man sentenced to prison for receiving tho Communion without having previously " confessed . " Would not the punishment of La Barro bo only the logioal development of this syBtem of judicial condemnations for constructive " eacrilogo" ?

      Well , Voltaire , writing , as we have said , to D'Alombort , in horror and disgust , says , " What ! in Abbeville , theso Husiris en robe are to murdor children of sixteen , with tho most horrible tortures , and the nation suffers it ! It in scarcely talked of for a moment : away goos tho world to tho Opdra Comique ; and this barbarism , grown more insolent from our silence , will go on judicially slaughtering whomsoever it will . Let rno know , I besoooh you , what people aay , since thoy do nothing . ( Mandez moi , je vous en prio , ce qu ' on dit , puisqu ' on ne fait rien . ) It in u misorablo consolation to bo told that theso monsters are abhorred , but it is the only ono that rornains to our weakness , and I entreat you to give it to mo . "

      Untitled Article

      OHUBOH HAB . MONY IN VBANCH . An amusing' and instructive controversy has beon raging of late in ecclesiastical circles in France , touching tho Univers , that ferooiouB ultramontano organ which superlativo English Churchmen , and noophytos of Itomonism on this aide of tho Channel so warmly admire . Tho Arohbishop of Paris , who is only perhaps so much of a CUtflicMi aa to worship the Powers that be at Paris ,

      scarcely less than those at Rome , lias found it expedient to visit with severe censure the doctrines of the Univers ( which for us at least have the singular merit of not halting at their own . logical conclusions ) and not only to discountenance the circulation of that journal , but absolutely to forbid his clergy either to read it or to write in it . The French Archbishop who i 3 ( we say it with all respect to the mild and amiable virtues of our domestic Primate )

      what " John Bird" would probably have been under similar conditions and " environments , " is not supported in this crushing censure by the whole Episcopate , into which , indeed , a strong and glowing element of ultramontanism has lately been infused . M . de Dreux BrezeV , Bishop of Moulins , in a long and very ably written circular to the clergy of his Diocese , takes the side , with more or less of precautionary reticences and circumlocutions , of the offending Univers .

      But the passage in this Episcopal circular , which many of our readers -vs ill agree with us in thinking the most instructive , if not the most true , is within a few lines of the conclusion , where the Bishop says that , if he does not think himself called upon in any way to influence his clergy in their choice of a newspaper , ( he would not object to their taking in the Leader , as a tonic ) he still thinks it far better that they should not engage in writing for any journal . rt Not that even on this point , " to quote the gentle words of this French bishop of the nineteenth century , " I would enjoin , I only advise : I do not exact , I ask : I impose nothing upon your obedience ; it is only to affection that I appeal . ( ' John Bird , ' of Canterbury , himself could not exceed ' Pierre' de Moulins in . tender compliance . )

      Your merit will not therefore be the less , nor your recompence , and my consolation will be increased . The fact is , Messieurs , whatever people may say , that even in the discussion of matters which we possess most accurately , certain aptitudes are required for this daily polemical discus * sion , which Grod has not granted to us : and to enable ua to overcome its perils and vexations , a callousness ia necessary , which happily is not yet ours . Accustomed to expound their thoughts without contradiction when they

      teach or when they preach , priests need have more indifference than human nature ordinarily can boast of , to bear with that contradiction , when they write . Hence an unseasonable pre-occupation about their dignity in the defence which it had been better for them to remember during the attack ; hence those controversies protracted without end by infinite disputes , or terminated by appeals to discipline , ( a la rigueur ) or by complaints , which become the sport of the public . "

      It strikes us that what this respectable Bishop saya of the clergy when they write , is very often applicable enough to the clergy ( of all denominations and of all countries ) when they speak , in the arena of open polemical discussion . We say of all denominations and of all churches , as the Kev . Professor Baden Powell remarked in a recent lecture at Oxford : "Bi gotry and persecution exist in other churches besides tho Eomish , and in our day too "—to which we beg to add that they oxist in other sects besides tho Church of England . It is all a question of " doxy . " With very many Nonconformists " religious liberty" means liberty to sit at their foot—nothing more . If an example bo wanted , comparo tho combatant * in tho recent discussion on Secularism .

      The letter of tho Bishop of Moulina has been denounced by the Arohbiahop of Paris to the Popo . This paper war is quite aa edifying in its way as the recent passage-atarraa between two English bishops in the House of Lord ? , where we find one of the successors of tho Apostles giving the other tho lio direct , and tho latter rising to " assure their lordships that thero would bo no hostile meeting in consequence . " To be suro theso apostolical amenities are consecrated by tradition . Peter and Paul once came to spiritual blowB . Is not Henry of Exeter tho Peter of Anglicanism , while his brother of Oxford is tho Paul of " Pusoyism ?"

      Untitled Article

      irNSTAMFKD NKW 8 PAPUBB . Wk aro informed that Mr . Truelovo , of the Reformers ' Library , Strand , is summoned to appear before Mr . Jardine , at Bow-street , on Thursday next , at two o ' clock , to show cause why ho should not bo fined 201 ., for selling tho Stoke-upon-Trent Newspaper , tho same boing unstamped .

      Untitled Article

      March 18 , 1853 . ] IHBLBADBB . * 5 T

      Untitled Article

      Oun Pobtb !—There aro drinking-songs by teetotallers who trespass in gingor-beer ; love-songs by men to whom love in a jest ; home-songs by bachelors who live . at thoir clubs ; work-songs by the veriest idlers ; hunting-songs by those whose noblest game havo been rats nnd inico , and such small deer j warsongs by gontle ladies ; sea-songs by landsmen -who get sick in crossing a rlvor ; matin-nongs by sluggards who novor saw the sun rise ; vespers by good fellow * to whom evening ia the boginning of the day | mad songs by men who are never in a passion j and sacrod aongn by men who are nover in a church . —From Daixaq' 8 Poetics .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1853, page 257, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1977/page/17/