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Leader (1850-1860), 29th October 1853, Edition Town of 2, Page 1046, Untitled Article

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      of life , in any position , in any emergency , where we may find ourselves . Mr . Cobden . says , if we knew the sanitary laws we should be cleanly , and avoid cholera ; if we are intelligent we shall keep our franchises ; if masters and men were well up in the laws of political economy , they would not " strike ; " if we were as smart as the -Americans , they would not beat us in manufactures ; if the masses were educated—the " masses who really govern" the country , who are " always called on in the last resort " - —they would be safer to meet , in times of trouble , than if they were immersed

      in ignorance and passion . It is the exclusive addiction to arguments like these—proper arguments enough for the slate , the ledger , and the till—arguments unrelieved by any appeals to higher and more spiritual motives—that deprives the teaching of Mr . Cobden of half its force and all its dignity ; and it is the very lack of those higher faculties that deprives England of a great statesman , capable of reconciling the jarring contrasts and harsh anomalies of our industrial epoch with the rights of humanity and the laws of God .

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      SCIENCE OF RELIGION IN WINCHESTER In his abstract of Comte ' s Philosophy of the Sciences , Lewes gives an instance of barbaric theology still usurping the place of scientific observation . Astronomy , he says , is a positive science ; " but so far is meteorology from such a condition , that prayers for dry or rainy weather are still offered up in churches , whereas , if once the laws of these phenomena were traced , there would no more be prayers for rain than for the sun to rise at midnight . " The same old notion of weather regulation still exists , as we find by the following extract , in a private letter from Valparaiso , written in August last : —

      "The ignorance and superstition encouraged at Santiago exceed all belief . To give you an instance that has just occurred . The rainy season was passing over , yet "the drought continued excessive , and cattle died by hundreds . Under these circumstances , the people requested the priests to have the processions that they usually resort to in such a case , but they endeavoured to put them off till the rain was evidently near . However , the people became importunate , and would wait no longer . The procession was got up in due form , but the rain did not come , and the priests

      had recourse to the desperate measure of putting their favourite St . Isidore into chains . Their usual way of compelling him to listen to their prayers is to put him head downwards into hot bran-and-water . This alarmed most of the poor people , who kept burning lights before his image in all their houses . The weather , at this time , was close and ojipressive , the thermometer standing at seventy-two in the shade ; and this in the depth of winter . A general dread of a great earthquake prevailed ; but it ended in a tremendous storm of thunder , lightning , and hail , such as cannot be remembered here . Of course this was

      confltrued into St . Isidore ' s angry answer , and as heavy raina succeeded , they are well satisfied . This is a fact in tho nineteenth century , " Positive science has not made more unqualified progress even in parts of the most civilized country in the world—meaning , of course , England . We never forgot that , on tho occasion of prayer and humiliation for tho cholera , move than ono minister , even of the " Established Church of England , " was found to trace these "judgments " to their evident proximate causes—human disobedience to " tho laws of Nature and of tho ( -rod of

      Nature . " Some clergymen , however , havo not yet so far advanced in their knowledge of God ' s works , and in one ( Uocobo , lately , wo noticed that prayers were offered up for tho cessation of rain , tho bishop of that diocese apparently being much better advised as to the expediency of turning on tho waters of tho sky , or turning them off , llm . 11 a superior authority is supposed to bo . The parish clork , by virtue of his orthodoxy , is considered , ex affitio , " clork of the weather , * ' and tho bishop puts himself forward ns the grand turncock , of tho il ' lCMMftfi .

      In tho sarao dioceao of Winchester , 'however , whh recently held a meeting of an archdeaconry , and tho archdeacon delivered sin important charge , tho drift of which , upon the whole , was laudable . Clergymen , ho Haid , had meddled too mucli in politics and mundn . no affairs . This is most l ; rue : wo find tho Kovorond John Cox proachin /^ " universal flu / Fratfo" at a mooting of ancient Vi'otoetioniflt agriculturists ; and wo find no end of bishops Riidchurehditfnitariofl managing that gro ; it charitnhln trust , the property of tiro church , for tho benefit of " existing interests , " at tho

      expense of successors , of the public at present , and of the cure of souls for all times . The cure of souls , indeed , like the cure of red herrings , seems to be carried on only for the benefit of the dealers in the commodity ; and if we judge by the frequent effects in the upper ranks of the " jolly full bottle" establishment , the cure of souls is a species of " bloater . " If the advice of the Winchester archdeacon were observed , clergymen would absolve themselves from this reproach ; and by restricting themselves to preach " the word" according to the standard ofthe Church

      of England , they would strictly define themselves as members of a special sect . They would then be quit of equivocal connexions , and we should understand distinctly what the Church of England is . It is now , by a fiction of law , supposed to be the Church of the people of England ; whereas it is only the Church of some of the clergymen of England , and of that comparatively small part of the population that follows the

      clergymen into the parish church . The Winchester archdeacon proposes to divorce the church from mistaken connextiOn with the people of England , and with the present state of opinion and feeling in this country , and to narrow its mission to a pure dogmatic sanction . This would complete the divorce of science and religion , in winch dogmatists so wonderfully co-operate with materialists .

      It is in the same diocese of Winchester that we discover a mediaeval instrument , singularly harmonizing with the notion of a pure dogmatic preaching and prayers to regulate the weather . It is an instrument of torture , not only preserved in Winchester jail as in a museum , but there applied for the cure of souls . It consists of an iron frame with leathern straps ; the frame is fastened to the hips of the prisoner , and iron crutches which pass up under the arms , and which may be lengthened at pleasure , stretch the arms to dislocation . Such appears to be a main

      reliance for the correctional discipline in the diocese and jail . But why not apply it to still higher purposes , —say , to a process like that of Santiago . They want rain , and they torture St . Isidore ; we want no rain , but we have no St . Isidore to torture . Yet we have a saint , and a torture screw—we have a Bishop and the Winchester crutch . Why not refute Comte by combining those two infallible elements of dry weather , and placing the Bishop in ; iille crutch throughout the remainder of the present rain ?' - ''

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      THE GOVERNING CLASSES . No . Till . TILE EAItL OF DEEBY . There is as little accounting for the special peculiarities of families as for the national peculiarities of peoples . But there is as little doubt of the idiosyncracies of tribes as of the distinctions of nations . A strong , odd man , turns up , marries , grips land , and founds : and for hundreds and hundreds of years , his descendants retain , continue , and intensify his characteristics . It is unnecessary to give instances of a notorious fact : in every man ' s society the phrase is heard , " just like tho family . " Who of us , with a family tree , which wo all protend to havo , does not excuse a failing or a vice in tho same way as Lucretia : "lam n Borgia , and must havo blood ; my father sheds it" ? Wo do more than excuse ourselves ; we pardon others from some such consideration ; for , as Lady Shuerhborough said to Mrs . Norton , " Tho

      Sheridans were always witty and vulgar , " to which Mrs . Norton replied , that " tho iShughborougliH were always vulgar without being witty . " And it is such a consideration which is forced upon tho notice ih examining tlio character and career of Edward Geoffrey Stiinloy , fourteenth Earl of Dorby . Looking to tho family , ; ih well as to tho individual liiHtory , wo find that for flovwral centurion thoro . han existed tho name man -occasionally , but not often , incarnated in a different figure ; and that tho present Lord Derby , accommodating himself to thin century , \ h doing exactly what l , ho Hint , Lord Dorby did in his tiino—; talcing tho oiMh in history . For , as tho Napiors aro all ( laHooiiN , no tlio Stanleys aro all Hportsmon . "/ SW « changer" w truer of tho clan than most family mottoes ; true in tho hoiiho that ovoiy Htanloy m whimsically versatile ; ho true , that tho very motives which lod tho first Karl to dosort his King , woro visible on tho three diflbront occasions when tho prosont Earl dosortod throo different pjirtios—Whigs , Poolitos , and Protectionists .

      establishing a senate of hereditary legislators , took the chances of temperaments ; and if Lord Derby looks upon life as a joke , and chooses to poke fun at posterity , who is to blame—you or he ? If you don ' t take the joke of his career , you are very dull . But even if you prefer to talk unreal twaddle about the " character of public men , "—talk ' utterly out of place in an age of Coalition , which means an age of no opinions , and to refer to the inconsistencies of Lord Derb y , his admirers of whom 1 am one , have no difficulty in his defence . For if he has passed his life in deserting his colleagues yet this is true- —that he always left a winning for a

      Sam changer , " properly translated , means , ' '• Everv Stanley hedges . " ^ The Earl of Derby is a magnificent , heart y , clever man , and he has enemies only in those who are too solemn to comprehend him . It is absurd to censure with gravity a man for the shape of whose cerebellum as for the shape of whose legs , thirteen queer Earls are accountable ; and whatever the jerk * of his career , and the mischief of his capers , there is neither frowning nor laughing at a man who looks upon politics as a scrimmage , and history as a spree . Your laws in

      losing side ; or that , as in the last case , if he gave up a hopeless party , it was to take to a principle still more impracticable , —to be the Mrs . Partington of the ocean of Democracy ! History ( Mr . Macaulay ' s ) intensely admires Lord Halifax , who , though a trimmer , had . a fine prejudice in favour of impossible causes ; and similarly chivalrous has Lord Derby always been ; his political book has always been so made up , that under no possible circumstances could he ever win . A Vicar of Bray , who changes to keep his living , is contemptible ; but heroic is the inconsistency of Mm who goes forth into the political world as knight errant of dead principles and damned projects .

      We may consider the career of this remarkable man with the impartiality of posterity ; for , as a politician , he is defunct . He had his opportunity when he was allowed to be Premier , and he threw away the opportunity ; and no man ever got two chances . Reviewing his career without partisan passion we see much to excuse and much to respect . And whatever has to be

      said of his character , the distinction is not to be denied him , that he is the only clever eldest son produced by the British Peerage for a hundred and fifty years ; Lord John Russell being the only clever younger son of the British Peerage during the same period . Smart , clever , dashing , daring , he always was ; and there is no use in saying he was not more , for he never pretended to be more ; and if his order and the

      Conservative classes plunged at him and made him Premier , greedy to get hold of the only clever born Earl known in the memory of living man , why he was the p erson in the realm the most astonished ; and if he niado a mess of it , as he knew he would , who was to blame you or he ? He must have been immensely delighted : it the joke of sending him , a breezy young fellow of thirty , to govern Ireland , tho most ungovernable of countries ; but if Parliament and nation did not see the indecency of it , why should he not enjoy the joke—and go ? Ho did go , and passed a very jolly t ime ; and if

      ho sot north and south by tho ears , and drove O'Connell into chronic insurrection , why that was Parliament ' s business—not his . When Lord John ftakocl him to govern tlio Colonial Empire , a year or two alter , ho accepted tho office with a chucklo ; it was a joko for a man who had never beon out of England , except to Ireland , and who had never read a book , oxcopt Slwkspoaro's historic plays and tho Rmuiu ) Calendar , to l >" tem

      awked to organise tho most complicated Colonial sys in tho world ; and if ho very nearly destroyed tho Colonial Empire , why hqw absurd to impeach him—who asked him ? Does ' nt know whoro Tambofi " is ! Wollf did ho uvor protond to know whoro TambofF w . Did lio ovor sot up in tlio Colonial OlHco to know anything % l ) id ho- ovor presume . to l >« wiser than tho clorkfl ? Did ho over contradict King Stovoiw in w « lifo ? Of course ho novor did . Thoro was iiovor n « y

      concealment or sham about him . Mo found 1 k » w » born into a Heat in tho Commons and fclion into tlio J ^" * just as ho was born into Knowsloy und » *' lirt ° Liverpool ; and ho always said ho did not hoo why ^ should not anniMo himself in governing—it was ff ° * fun jih racing—and besides , ho could do both , " « ^ always ] klh dono , at tho Hiimo timo running' Hw »> J , liorww in both . Ho hatod work , .- «• ho told "voryl ""^ ho'd fight in tho House jib long iiu thoy likwl , and w « ^ they liked—it wan all tho tmno to him—but < kudtfw , .

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      1046 THE LEADER . [ SattjR 1 > ay ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 29, 1853, page 1046, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2010/page/14/