On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    MADmrnxr Axrr» 'nrmn XN A1 uxjIUVJX a>sxu xiiii. XUIJJJ

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    and . distinctly apart from one another—intellectually and morally we are all united . " We all row in the same boat ;' . * or , as a lugubrious and classical authority says , are " all like slaves chained to the same galley . " The intellectual communication of ideas by which knowledge is imparted i ' rom man to man , and all that has ever been acquired , or ever will be acquired , may be made common to ally is not , however , more wonderful than that svnroathv . which makes the kindly heart " leap

    back to kindness , " and makes the beheld , or even imagined , sufferings of others suffering to ourselves . We cannot—such is the law of naturehear tbe screams of agony without being alarmed or terrified ; we cannot witness distress without being , at least , so much pained by it as to wish there 3 were no distress in the world ; and we cannot know of woe without desiring to have power , like the fabled owner of the four-leaved shamrock , to put an end to it . We may all help to bring about , as we all wish for the time-

    " "When not a tear , nor aching- heart , Shall in the world be found . " This moral sympathy , like intellectual communication , binds us altogether , and in " one fate , our hearts , our fortunes , and our being blends . " How it shall operate depends on times and circumstances . In the desert it stores up the gushing stream , and guides the wayfarer to the source whence alone he can draw the means of living . Jjn / scantily-peopled countries it opens the door of hospitality to the stranger , and bids him , though

    an enemy , to eat and live . In our old and longpeopled , and generally -well provided land , where , however , unfortunately , there are yet many poor and destitute , it induces those who are well-off to provide at one time , employment and education for the neglected young ; at another to distribute food and clothing , or build houses for the sick and aged . There never can be , we presume , any want of sympathy for suffering- ^—it is natural to us all ; and there never is , we know , any real necessity to excite our well-to-do-classes to administer to the

    wants of their brethren . Our land teems with charities , and our nation is renowned for its system of beneficence , founded on the grand principle , that in the midst of plenty no man shall be suffered to perish of want . Never does an occasion arise for contributing to relieve distress but subscription lists are filled to overflowing . That there is much destitution and much suffering every one is aware ; and he must be equally aware that there is much opulence and much sympathy , much good-will , . ever ready to open its stores and give both comfort and

    consolation to the woe-stricken , and the needy . The sufferings of the poor and the charities of the rich are parts of the same system , and if they did not exist together , and there were no sympathies between them , human nature would be shorn of some of its noblest attributes , and denuded of some of its greatest enjoyments . The patience to bear suffering , the fortitude to stand up unflinchingly to the stroke of calamity , and the delight of lessening or relieving them would have no ' existence . Not merely are the classes bound together by their moral sympathies , human nature is elevated by them , and made by the delight of giving delight like the Divinity . - We need not now recommend , nor can it be any

    part of the duty of the press to enforce the charity which all at this particular season are ever ready to manifest . , If any counsel bo required it should rather , perhaps , take the direction of recommending discrimination in the exercise of charity . The emotion is at all times and places 30 powerful that it is . always more necessary to direct it carefully and properly than increase the impulse . Admiring much , the sympathy which connects unsoen intangible mind with mind , and wondering still more at the many blessings it confers on us , Our few additional remarks will bo directed rather to the regulation of it , than to encourage the belief- — derived from its attributes approximating us to Divinity—that it cannot loqd us astray .

    It is at onoo remarkable and discouraging to observe that the appeals made to stimulate almsgiving into activity are as numerous and as urgent now , when wages are on the average 20 per cent , higher , than they werq before the Corn Jmowb were repealed , while the price of almost all necessaries has fallen in an equal degree , as when th « , major part of the people were almost fUnush-* Pf $ *< They are as urgent now , when the paupers > n the metropolitan -workhouses are in number

    22 , 625 fewer ^ or nearly 28 per cent , less , than at the close of 1856 . The patrons of Field-lane refuges , the lords bishops and the curates who solicit alms for others , and all the usual staff of high-bred philanthropy , are as active irt their calling now as when the people were really suffering , as we know from unanswerable facts , much more than at present . It is perfectly plain , therefore , that their exertions are not now , and probably never * are , actually in conformity to the wants and needs

    of the people , but in conformity to their own desire for notice . It must be equally plain that their exertions being dictated and regulated by this desire , extraneous to actual sufferings , are mis ^ directed , and are very likely to misdirect the exertions dictated by the noblest sympathies of our nature . We are alarmed at noticing that these demands increase year by year , though the actual suffering decreases , and we can only apprehend a continual factitious and wrongful excitement of sympathy if such exertions be continued .

    It is quite unavailing now for any man to pretend to hide from himself , or others , the great fact that at all times the noblest sympathies of our nature have been traded on by those who aspired by such means to gain wealth or distinction . It is a matter of notoriety that charitable institutions are founded in the metropolis for the benefit of governors and secretaries— -that a considerable number of men live in opulence by undertaking , as Lie Sage described one of their predecessors , to provide for the poor ; and their calling , their emoluments , their secretaryships , would be at an end were there no poor to provide for . They must

    necessarily keep the poor in existence , and must as necessarily continually alarm the public by accounts of their numbers and their destitution . ^ They know , instinctively , if riot from observation and science , that the number of claimants on the public bounty will be always very closely in proportion to the funds they can raise ; and in their own interest ; following their calling only with due diligence , they do continually harrow the public with tales of destitution , and continually augment

    the fund which they thus raise and devote to keeping alive distress . While a diligent and somewhat improved administration of the national funds devoted to relieving the poor , and very much improved fiscal regulations , have , in fact , diminished the number of paupers in England and Wales by 29 , 199 , or 3-60 per cent ., since last year , in a rapidly increasing population , the exertions of the so-called p hilanthropists tend continually to counteract this beneficial progress and increase the number of persons dependent on

    charity . The same classes , it may be noticed , and nearly the same individuals , always take the lead in getting up these periodical impulses to public charity . They do not originate with the suflerers ; the philanthropists are always collecting funds for some special purposes , and , always aiming , therefore , at keeping in strength and power sonic individuals or some institutions which nature and

    the course of society are against preserving . They appeal perpetually to the public and always succeed in hxing its attention , through the indigent or suffering classes , on themselves . There are demagogues in charity as well as in politics who excite public feeling by exaggerated representations . There arc traders on the public sympathies as well as on the public alarms . If the noblemen and gentlemen who are so forward in writing to the Times and appealing to the public for contributions , were content to allow their

    warm sympathies to molt their own purse-clasps wo should nave a bettor opinion of them than wo have , and believe that the public alms-giving they promote would be more eflicacious in diminishing the number of the poor than in enlarging their reputation and influence . They should work more in private and less in public . " Who foulldu a ohurcU to God and not to famo , Will novor murk tho rniirblo with his name . "

    Madmrnxr Axrr» 'Nrmn Xn A1 Uxjiuvjx A&Gt;Sxu Xiiii. Xuijjj

    NAPOLEON AND THE POPJB . Napoleon III . is Emperor of Pamphlets , ns well as of the French ; and , through his scribe , disciple , or amanuensis , M . do La Guorronio ' re , he has just favoured tho world with an Esnay on the Papacy that is calculated to delight the descendants of Galileo , and make the evangelical bricks of Exeter Hall skip for joy . In order to find reasons for supporting the ingenious proposition , that " tho

    smaller the territory the greater will be the sovereign / ' thenew pamphlet thus blandly shows why the Papal dominions should not be large . " A great State implies certain requirements which it is impossible for the Pope to satisfy . A great State would like to follow up . the politics of the day , to perfect its institutions , participate in the general movement of ideas , take advantage of the transformations of the age , of the conquests of science , of the progress of the human mind . He cannot do it . The laws will be shackled by dogmas . His authority will be paralysed by

    traditions . His patriotism will be condemned byfaith . * * * * 'jke World will advance and leave him behind . " With the poor old Papacy thus afflicted by forces of life and motion ; neither able to move itself nor to stop the progress of humanity what is to be done ? The difficulty is great , and the solution clever , if not profound . Rome is tobe made the very opposite to the oasis in the desert . It is to be a little field of barreness , which no rude ploughshare of improvement shall venture

    to tiller—a small dark corner , where the owls and bats of superstition may have refuge from a world of light — an clysium . turned topsyturvy , where tradition may usurp authority , science be shut out , and patriotism become the target for the shafts of faith . We can figure the Pope enjoying his paradise , oscillating in his apostolic chair like Foucault ' s pendulum , in one m > changing plane , and making conspicuous the movement which he does not share . While so

    many doubt— -in . practice , at least- ^ the progress of humanity , we can have no objection to a ' Poucault-pendulurn Pope , which will tend to popularise the joyful fact , and when by this subtle invention in mental mechanics , and other more positive aids , the universal conviction is in favour of going diligently ahead , why , some fine morning , the apparatus being no longer wanted , will not be wound up , and the pendulum will stop !

    Rome may be necessary as the future capital of a regenerated Italy , but it is not worth quarrelling about now , and if the Papal dominions are to be limited within narrow bounds , and municipal institutions are to replace Cardinal Antonelli and the abomination of sacerdotal , rule , Young Italy should be contented to wait the operation of opinion , and not compromise much valuable liberty by a premature employment of force . As for the . Komagna , it is satisfactory to learn from M . de La Guerroniore , that France cannot restore the Papal authority , and will not permit Austria to

    neutralise Magenta and Soll ' erino by undertaking the task . In the words of the pamphlet which , we trust are true , prophetically if not actually , " the dominion of Austria in Italy is at an end . " Thus deprived of his best friend , the Pope must permit his case to be decided in Congress , and fortunately tho " eldest son of the of the Church " considers that "it is permitted to pious , but independent minds , to discuss the extent of its territory , " which " territory history has proved to be divisible . " It does not matter that tho majority of the great Powers arc schismatic , for if they cave territory to the Pope in 1815 ,

    they may take it away in 18 G 0 . So runs the argument , and if England joins in no guarantee for maintaining tho Pope at Rome , she may usefully recognise as part of tho public law ol ' luirone the severance of any portion of his dominions , in accordance with the wishes and interest * of the people concerned . This pamphlet confirms the view expressed somo time buck in theae columns , that Napoleon III . was anxious to emancipate himself from priestly control , and-would need tho alliance of England to ensure his ' succodrf . li " , wtuout compromising ourselves , we aid him well in this useful endeavourwe shall greatly 'diminish ™ Q

    , chances of war , which will bo lessened in proportion 0 . 9 tho French Govornmont is allied with the intellect of its subjects , and divorced iVom tho craft and malignity of tho Jesuit Propaganda . Tho course that tho great statesmen of IClizabeth ' s timo would have taken in clenr enough , but wo are not confident it will bo boldly followed by our present , rulers . If France adopts a more Protestant poiioy , Austria ^ under hor ignorant , inou rablo young Emperor , ia likely to bo more slavishly Popish , and it would bo tho part of wisdom entirely to ( rive up tho idea of maintaining her « v » «* S . ? :

    Europpan power , and to look to the rise of unll ° Germany as the natural and rational way of ad " justing its balance that is being disturbed by no * decay .

    Untitled Article

    1394 THE LEADED [ No . 509 : Dec . 24 , 1853 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1859, page 1394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2326/page/14/