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The Robert Stout Pamphlet collection has been encoded to represent it's physical form in the J.C. Beaglehole room as a collection of pamphlets bound into volumes.
I Enter upon this investigation with no lightness of heart, with no emotion of pleasure; but none the less do I enter upon it undoubtingly as upon a duty that needs to be done. For a quarter of a century I have been trying to find out what is most needed in the religious world, to promote a free, pure, and devout search after truth, and I have come to the conclusion that the first thing to be done is to emancipate the human mind from the strange delusion that the Bible is the perfect, authoritative, and final "word of God." How that delusion stands in the way of seekers after truth, how it hinders honest inquiry, how it separates those who would otherwise be like-minded, how it gives a fictitious and unnatural life to palpable superstitions, how it tends to bring Religion itself into contempt, and to cloud the very face of God, I shall presently point out: here, I 'only say that it is high time it came to an end.
It will give pain to many to have this said, but the "plain truth" must now be told. What then? some may say, have we not been having the "plain truth" all along? I answer;—Not often, if at all: partly because the truth has not really been known, and partly because a variety of considerations have kept many public teachers from speaking out on this subject. Some of these considerations deserve a little sympathy and even respect, while others call for neither.
The prevailing view—or the view that is believed to prevail—is that the Bible is the word of God; i.e., that God inspired men to write it, from beginning to end, as a perfect and final revelation of Himself and of His will to mankind; that upon belief in its absolute truth our hope of eternal salvation depends; and that to deny its infallibility and authority is dangerous heresy or even damnable infidelity. Now it stands to reason that, while such a view of the Bible prevails, anything like free inquiry respecting it is impossible. On the one hand, laymen have, of course, been taught to repress their doubts, and to even treat doubt as a temptation of the devil and a sin; while, on the other hand, any departure from the accepted view by a minister involved persecution and the possible loss of the labours of a life. So that the plain truth about the Bible has not been easily obtainable; and we are now in this curious and dangerous position,—that while it is still held to be orthodox to maintain the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, and while the vast majority of ministers are pledged to that opinion, a mass of evidence, positively overwhelming, exists, to demonstrate that the
At the same time, I most earnestly desire to say that I am not insensible to the supreme value of the Bible. There, the devout reader may find recorded the purest, wisest, and most consoling thoughts concerning the dealings of God with man, and the hope of man in God. There, the anxious soul may see how men have sinned and suffered, risen and triumphed in days gone by. There, every tone of the spirit's yearning cry, and every cadence of its confiding song, can be heard. There, the sage may find more than he can master, and the child all that it can need. There, saint and sinner may see that their rapture or their remorse is not the accident of to-day, that other wayfarers have felt as they feel, and that the strange living link of a common experience and a common destiny binds them to the great mysterious brotherhood of humanity. There, the heavy-laden may indeed find rest for their souls,—a refuge from earthly tumults, a shelter from the storm.
But the "orthodox" world is under a great delusion in supposing that this is so because the Bible is supernaturally inspired: it is under a greater delusion still when it imagines that the Bible is all wise, and beautiful, and good, as a whole: it is under the greatest delusion of all when it asserts that it is in every part the final and authoritative word of God. To dispel these delusions, then, and not to depreciate the Bible, is the object I have in view,—to make it possible to read the Bible with discrimination and true understanding, and to make it to us what it ought to be,—a book subordinate to conscience and reason, whose sacred duty it is to" prove all things, and hold fast that which is good."
I should, therefore, be utterly misunderstood if it were thought that Lam anxious to "lower" the Bible, or to "discard" the Bible, or to prove that it is "false," or, indeed, to do any one thing with it as a whole, except to prove that it is not one thing at all, but a very composite work, requiring the greatest possible care and discrimination from the reader of it. What I want to shew is that the Bible cannot be infallible, seeing that it is unequal, inconsistent, and full of startling contrasts of good and bad, earthly and heavenly; and that it cannot be a supreme and final authority, simply because it speaks in many tones, and says the most opposite things. In reading the Bible, the one great requisite is a moral and religious
not one thing at all, but many things, that it contains the most striking opposites, of good and evil, false and true. Hence, the conscience, the mind, and the devout soul, are and must be supreme.
But we shall be told that we have no right to sit in judgment upon the "word of God," and that our "carnal reason" should be made to submit to that word. The reply is obvious. The reproof begs the whole question; for the very question at issue is,—What is the word of God? Nay, more; it is our very reverence for God and for the real word of God that makes us pause before giving credence to this or that which is said to be His word; for surely we ought to take the greatest possible pains to ascertain what is God's word; and surely the measure of our reverence for God will be the measure of our scrutiny of anything that comes in His name, or that is said to come from Him. When, then, we bring reason and conscience to bear upon the Bible, we are acting in a really reverential and religious spirit: and it is a shame to call that revolt against God which in reality is an anxiety to be careful and faithful in giving heed to Him. Our scrutiny of the Bible, then, is itself an indication of our desire to know the will of God.
Besides, it is surely the intention of our Creator that we should use our best and noblest faculties—the only faculties indeed that seem to lift us above the brutes. When God made us men and women, and put the light of reason and conscience within us, do you think that He intended us, on the most sacred of all subjects, to neglect or destroy the best guide He has given us? The question is a very simple one:—Are Conscience, Reason, and Science to be relied on here as elsewhere? It is useless to reply that in any given case of "difficulty" we must conclude that the difficulty would vanish if we knew all the facts; for, in the first place, this is to assume far more than is admissible, and, in the second place, it is frequently not true that we do not know all the facts: and this I shall presently shew. The real test is to be found in this question:—Why do we believe that the Bible is true at all, or that anything in it is true? The only valid answer is;—We believe it because it seems right and good. Well then, if we believe this or that to be true because it seems to us to be right and good, is it not our duty to reverse the process if necessary, and to deem this or that to be false if it seems to us to be wrong and bad? Any other method
You ought to reason about the Bible, then. It asks you to reason about it. If you are to be true men and women you must reason about it. If you are to have a faith worth the name you must reason about it. If you are to know what you believe in you must reason about it. It is a poor, suspicious thing to go about telling people that they must not look into things—that they must not ask questions, and use their reason. It is falsehood, not truth that shuns the light of reason. It is guilt, not innocence that flies from the light of thought. It is weakness, not strength that asks you not to examine. What does Jesus say?—"Whosoever doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light." We call ourselves Protestants. Let us beware lest we sell our birthright. It was the old Roman Catholic Church that cursed the men of old, when they rose up and said—Let us prove all things, and only hold fast to that which is good." It is the Roman Catholic Church that forbids reason to hold sway, and inquiry to bestir itself. But how much better are we when we talk about not using our "carnal reason"? Why that is just what they said to the first Protestants—" You must submit your reason—you must not ask such questions." And now the Protestant Church raises the same frightened cry. What is the foundation so sandy that it will not bear a strong man's tread? Is the argument so bad that it will not bear the eye of reason? Is the Church in such a plight that it will not bear the light of thought? Is the Bible so unsatisfactory that you must not look it in the face; What are men afraid of that they try to cry inquirers down? I propose to ignore that cry, and to go on in a path where God and Duty seem to lead.
But I pause for a moment to answer a grave question. "What," it may be asked," do you expect to gain from unsettling people's minds on this subject?—what practical good can come of the critical examination of the Bible which you recommend? "This opens a wide question, and I can only just glance at it in passing, though before I conclude I shall have to refer to it again.
I might content myself with the reply that what I propose is necessary in order to really put us in possession of the Bible, and to enable us to properly use it. The arbitrary assertion that it is all alike true, inspired, and infallible, the word of God, and not the words of men, turns the Bible into a hopeless puzzle, and takes all reality, pathos, and beauty out of it. The assertion, on the other hand, that it is a precious record of the varying thoughts of men, of the struggles, hopes, fears, trusts, and doubts of men, floods it with meaning, and fills it with reality. It then for the first time takes its place as a part of the wonderful history of the race, and becomes indeed "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Besides, the Bible is notoriously
explained away, we want them recognized and explained. We want to know the history of these contradictions and errors: and this is possible if we will only treat the Bible in a proper way, as a book with a history. We shall see that contradictions and errors are to be expected in such a book, and we shall be able to see how they arose: nay more the contradictions and the errors will have a value all their own. But the way is stopped, and the whole thing is put upon a false basis and in an artificial light, the moment infallibility is claimed. More and more is the Bible being disparaged and flung aside for no fault of its own, but only because of the absurd claims made on its behalf.
It is important, too, to proceed with this inquiry, for the sake of vindicating the character of God Himself, to whom the most dreadful things are attributed. Why should our Heavenly Father be made responsible for the horrible proceedings imputed to Jehovah by the Bible? The fact is that this inquiry, inspired as it is by reverence for a just and holy God, is in the highest sense necessary and religious.
Then, as a matter of fact, belief in the infallibility of the Bible has stood in the way of progress; has given the sanction of a supposed divine attestation to all kind of errors; has bolstered up obsolete statutes, and perpetuated antiquated delusions, and made honest inquiry seem sinful or presumptuous. But if the Bible were seen to be what it really is, mankind would feel more free to bring reason and conscience into active play, and everything would be judged on its merits.
But perhaps the gravest evil connected with belief in the infallibility of the Bible is that Religion is thus daily brought more and more into collision with the intellect, the moral sense, and even the religious reverence of mankind. Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that unless we can rescue the Bible from the hands of blind Bible worshipers, and present it in a sober and rational way to the world, the intellectual and moral revolt against it will become a peril to Christianity itself.
And here, before I go a step further, I point to a grave fact that lies right before us at the very beginning. The Bible is said to be the word of God, given on purpose to settle our differences and guide us into all truth. It is a perilous assertion: for it compels the reply that if God gave the Bible to that end He has failed. So far from settling our differences and guiding us into all truth, it has been the cause of division without end. Multitudes who would think and feel alike on all great religious questions have, at what they believed to be the Bible's Ridding, gone as far as is possible
divided men, producing those very differences which you say it was meant to obviate or cure!
I take up the Bible, then, and what do I find? I find that really, in the ordinary sense of the word, it is not a book at all, but a collection of books or fragments of books of an extremely composite character. The only unity I find in the volume is the unity that is given to it by its nationality, and by its unbroken reference to a national Deity. In every other respect, it is altogether unlike the production of one mind, saying one thing, and seeking one end. Least of all is it like the production of an infallible and divine authority. To tell the plain truth, it is manifestly the most unequal and the most contradictory volume in the world, whose blemishes are as strongly marked as its beauties, whose deformities are as repulsive as its graces are attractive,—a volume reflecting all the lights and shadows of poor humanity, and not the changeless splendour of the mind of God.
It is, of course, important to remember that the original writings are all lost, and that the only manuscripts now in existence are copies. These are of various ages and different values. As to the Hebrew Scriptures, existing manuscripts in the Hebrew language do not carry us beyond the tenth century; though there are in existence copies of the Greek translation of a very much earlier day. Copies of the Christian Scriptures are much older; but some of these contain only portions of what we call the New Testament: only a few are complete, and none carry us nearer to the originals than the fourth century. We are therefore separated from the original writings by an apparently impassable gulf. The gravity of this circumstance is increased by the fact that most of the ancient manuscripts are either imperfect or differ one from the other, or include books which we do not now reckon to be canonical. But it is only when we turn to the English Bible in our hands that we see the serious position we are in. That Bible, it is said, is infallible; but what is really meant is that the ordinary printed Hebrew Old Testament and the ordinary printed Greek New Testament are infallible. But we must go farther back than printed books. The great question is; whence came the Hebrew manuscript for the one, and the Greek manuscript for the other? The answer is, that in neither case have we one manuscript at all. The standard Hebrew Old Testament only came into its final form about 170 years ago, and the standard Greek New Testament received its last touches in
But a practical difficulty of another kind comes in here; for the uselessness of even an originally infallible text is apparent the moment you ask;—And where is the infallible custodian, translator, and interpreter? The Roman Catholic Church cuts the knot of the difficulty by saying that God has still an infallible witness on earth, who is commissioned to declare His will and to interpret His word; and the Roman Catholic Church, in saying this, and in pointing to the Pope as the custodian and interpreter of the word of God, only supplies, though by a pure assumption, the necessary link in the chain. For an infallible text, in such a world as this, needs an infallible custodian, an infallible translator, and an infallible interpreter; and the ordinary orthodox Protestant has none of these. Hence the Babel of corrections, interpretations, and explanations, demonstrate nothing so surely as this,—that an infallible revelation has not been given, or that it has disastrously failed.
Where, then, did the Bible come from? For the Old Testament we are of course indebted to the Jews. But it is all-important to remember that it contains only the wreck or re-construction of a literature. The Jews, however much they may have been "the chosen people," and whatever their privileges may have been as the custodians of "the oracles of God," were scattered and crushed by surrounding peoples, and altar and home were alike desecrated and laid waste: and it was only after their return home from miserable and desolating captivity that they began to gather up the mangled memorials of better days. This being the case, it is obviously very difficult to say, when, how, and by whom the various books contained in what is now known as the Old Testament were written and brought together. Only one thing is certain;—that the Old Testament, as we have it now, had no existence 500 years before Christ. It was probably Ezra (B C. 450)who first attempted to found a canon of Scripture; and the Bible he put together, or sanctioned, included only the first five books, and even these ho produced only by allowing to himself all the rights or privileges
It is thought that Nehemiah, a few years later, made or ordered the next great addition to the canon; adding Kings, Samuel, most of the Prophets, some of the Psalms, and other books. This brings us to within 400 years before Christ.
A third addition was made still later, including some of the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, Chronicles, and Daniel. This brings us to 150 years before Christ. But even in the days of Christ himself the canon of the Old Testament was not considered absolutely closed; and for 100 years after Christ the book of Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and other writings were only doubtfully retained by the Jews. So that, in truth, the Jews knew nothing of an Old Testament, believed to be perfect from the beginning, verbally inspired and unimproveable.
A Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, made or begun about 200 years before Christ, contained many books not reckoned by the Jews. It was this translation that was best known to writers of the New Testament, and to the early Christians writers.
The New Testament also has a history. At first, the early Christians had no sacred books beyond the Old Testament; and they wanted none. Besides, the various schools or parties which all too soon arose looked with suspicion upon any attempt to erect a new canon or add to the old. In very early times, however, gospels and epistles appeared—good bad and indifferent; and it would naturally come to be a duty to sift these, and set up a kind of authoritative standard of appeal. When was this done? It is extremely difficult to say, but it is certain that the earliest Christians relied very little on any written word beyond the Old Testament, and that, outside of that, they had no such feeling as we have respecting inspired and uninspired, canonical and uncanonical books. Two other things seem certain—that the original writings are all lost for ever, and that no copies known to us carry us beyond the fourth century. In fact, the more we know the more we seem to be driven to the conclusion that we shall never have a really perfect text of the originals, and that we shall never know by whom the Gospels, in their present form, were written. It is, however, a fact that between the second and fourth centuries it was a common thing for books of Scripture to be mentioned with more or less approach to a list of accepted books, and that in the second century a list of canonical books existed, very similiar to our own. Beyond this, nearly everything is conjecture, except that at least 100 years lie between the death of Jesus and the dawn of the idea that there could be a
Bearing in mind, then, the history of the books that compose the Bible, is it going too far to say that the theory of its unity and infallibility is as irrational as it is arbitrary?
In the attempt to understand what the Bible really is, we must bear in mind four things:—First, that the various books which make up the Bible were written or compiled during a vast period of time. At least a thousand years lie between the writer of the earlier fragments and the writer of the last book. This is an important fact. These books were never written with the idea that they would ever be bound up together. They were never written with the idea of ever being put between the same covers and labelled "Bible"; and, as a matter of fact, the books composing our ordinary Protestant Bible never were so put together and labelled, till the reformers did it, less than 400 years ago; for, before their time, the Bible included books now deemed apocryphal. Now how natural it is that we should find in such a book, written at such immense intervals, and by so many men, a great deal of difference in the value and authority of its various parts; and how unnatural and unwise it is to take up the Bible, expecting to find it all equally authoritative, and all equally useful. Let us wisely distinguish, according to the light that is within us, and the facts of the case. Some of the books are plainly mere national records of wars, and the struggle for life,—simply history. Others are evidently only statements of what the ancients thought about such great problems as the creation of the world, the beginning of the race, the origin of evil and so on—plainly, not the miraculously inspired statement of the precise facts, but the result of anxious men's thought on these things. Other books are mainly expressions of personal feeling, like the Psalms; while others are the fervid records of what the Jewish reformers said and did—as the book of Isaiah and the other books of the Prophets. It is clear, then, that we have in the Bible, not a consistent, infallible, and final revelation from God, but a record of what thoughtful men said and did in the olden time, in their efforts to find out God, and solve the problems of the universe.
A second fact is important,—that many of the books are not original books at all, but simply compilations. This is true, for instance, of the whole Pentateuch, which no free modern scholar would attribute to Moses; but, indeed, very little scholarship is needed for that. Moses could not have written, for instance, the passage about the time when the Canaanite and the Perizzite were "then in the land," as something past and gone (Gen. xiii. 7): for in his day they were there; neither could he have written the passage about the time "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel" (Gen.
after his day that they occupied the promised land: neither, let us hope, could he have written the passage in Numbers (xii. 8) which declares that Moses was "very meek, above all the men who were upon the face of the earth. Assuredly, he could not have written, in Deuteronomy, the account of his own death.
But, not only is it the fact that the Pentateuch cannot be attributed to Moses: it is equally clear that these books cannot be attributed to any one person, as an original composer. The book of Genesis is now known to be a production of a very composite character,—a compilation of fragments, in fact, and of fragments very unlike one another, both as regards subject-matter and style. These fragments were put together by an editor belonging to a late period, who was more anxious to retain and preserve all he could than to make his various fragments agree. Headers of the Hebrew can see the differences of style in the different fragments, which have been pieced together to make this one book; but those who can only read the English may see that the book is a compilation, if they only notice the curious contradictions and the equally curious duplicate narratives in several of the books. Hence we have, for instance, two accounts of the creation,—one in the first and one in the second chapter; two accounts of the taking of the living creatures into the ark,—one in the sixth and one in the seventh chapter; two accounts of a discreditable transaction with Abimelech, in one of which (Gen. xx. 1-15) Abraham, and in the other (Gen. xxvi. 1-12) Isaac is the questionable hero.
The book of Deuteronomy is, as its name implies, a repetition of the Law; and it is a repetition which probably belongs to a much later date than the first giving of the Law in the earlier books, as, in many important particulars, it is a revised and altered edition of the Law. In this book, we have distinct traces of an ecclesiastical polity that could only have grown up after the time of Samuel and David. "The Law," be it remembered, was not a literary production, but a code, and a code that admitted of additions and readjustments; and such additions and re-adjustments the old Mosaic code received from time to time, and the results are seen in the very composite books that now stand first in the Bible—a veritable gathering of fragments, written and accumulated, not by one man at one time but by many men, during many hundreds of years.
The book of Psalms is another notable instance of compilation: and no one can read it with an open mind without seeing that it contains some of the worst as well as some of the best things in the Bible. Compare, for instance, the trustful piety of the 28rd Psalm with the brutality and passion of the 109th: or compare Psalm lxviii. 22-3 (where God is represented as promising that the foot of His people shall be dipped in the blood of their enemies, and
several books or fragments, written, not by one man or in one age, but during a period of 300 or 400 years.
The book of Proverbs is another instance of compilation, as that book is simply a collection of wise sayings by many men, though probably edited by one.
A third fact is also suggestive;—that we have only a small portion of what might have composed the Bible. The truth is that what we have is only what chance preserved, or what reverence, and zeal, and patriotism retained. Did it ever strike you, in reading the Old Testament, what a number of other books are referred to? Why were not these books included? I have told you why. They were lost in the various buffetings the Jews got from other nations; so that the Old Testament, after all, is only a fragmentary collection of fragments. If the Jews had not lost the other books, our Bible might have been, perhaps, a dozen times as thick. I will just refer for a minute to these other books. In Numbers we have a quotation from a book called, "The Book of the Wars of the Lord "—there is a book of old Jewish Scripture lost to us. In Judges and Samuel, we read of "The Book of Jasher "—there is another book lost. In Kings we read of "The Book of the Acts of Solomon "—that is another book we know nothing of. In Chronicles we read of "The Account of the Chronicles of King David "—this is also lost. We also constantly read of "The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah" and "The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel"—but these are both absent. In Chronicles we read of "The Book of Nathan, the Prophet." In the same chapter we read of "The Book of Gad, the Seer." In the Second Book of Chronicles we read of "The Prophecy of Abijah, the Shilonite," and also "The Vision of Iddo, the Seer." Where are these books now? and what reason have we for supposing that they were less valuable than the existing books of Kings, or Esther, or Ruth?
In addition to these lost books, we have, in the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, a number of books now called "apocryphal "; but it was a common thing for even the early Christian writers to quote these as Scripture. Baruch, Tobit, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and other books were so quoted: and even Augustine, 400 years after Christ, held the books of Maccabees to be canonical. Nor were these early Christian writers any more orthodox in relation to the New Testament. Several of them, and to a comparatively late period, refused to admit books, as, for instance, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the second Epistle of Peter. Other fathers, of the highest authority, cited as "Scripture," books that have been shut out, such as The Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistles of Clement and Barnabas, now labelled "apocryphal."
A fourth fact must not be forgotten,—that the writers of the Bible do not claim infallibility for themselves. It would have been a wonder if they had! The men who gave us the books of the Old Testament as they stand, knew perfectly well that they were human compilations of valuable documents or treasured traditions, and they were probably more conservative than consistent. The writers of the books of the New Testament, for the most part, either plainly tell us they are writing as reporters (Luke i. 1-4), or sufficiently indicate this "in the nature of their work. Besides, they disagree with one another; and, more than once, we are told that the apostles had to debate about grave matters, and settle them by discussion and vote (Acts xv.), that they even had quarrels and separated (Acts xv. 36-40), and that one great Bible writer (Paul) "withstood" another (Peter) "to the face," "because he was to be blamed" (Gal. ii. 11). How can men, so obviously fallible, have infallibility attributed to their writings!
And yet, with these facts before us, abundantly proving that the Bible is composed of books and fragments that the chances of a thousand years have brought together, people will go on talking of it as a unity—nay! as the perfect, final, and infallible word of God!
Passing now from these facts concerning the Bible from what we may call a literary point of view, I pass on to the graver considerations that relate to science, history, morality and religion. And, in the first place, I would lay stress on the fact that we have in the Bible, on the most important of all subjects, the character of God Himself, the gravest possible contradictions. It is indeed, wonderful that any one can believe that the volume came from God, seeing that the pictures presented of God Himself are utterly at variance with one another. In one book He is described as a dreadful Being who commands the most horrible slaughters, and who takes the part of a favoured people against the rest of mankind; in another book He is a God of love, and the Father of all men, whose tender mercies are over all His works. How are we to account for this if the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God?
The explanation which is sometimes offered, that God adapted His revelation to man's capacity, and that from time to time He gave man what we find in the Bible, because he was not able to receive anything better, makes God the author of error, confusion, and contradiction. It is surely far more reasonable to conclude that the errors in the Bible were the natural results of ignorance on the part of man. These inconsistencies and errors in the Bible are very perplexing so long as people hold that it is all the word of God; and many distressing attempts have to be made to reconcile these inconsistencies and to disguise these errors. But the moment we accept the simple fact, that the Bible is a record of men's thoughts, men's experiences, and men's hopes and fears, all is plain
Then, just as we might expect, we further find that the Bible contains a variety of passages which conspicuously betray the scientific ignorance, the defective morality, and the very limited religious insight of the writers of them. What are we say about the Biblical accounts of the creation of the world in six days, 6000 years ago; the nature of the heavenly bodies as mere lights and signs in the firmament, subordinate to the earth; the origin of man, and the date of his appearance upon the earth, and the familiar conversations of God with His creatures? What can we do with the statement that the children of Israel, to the number of more than two millions,—a multitude equal to the united populations of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Hull, and Bristol,—wandered about in a wilderness for 40 years with their flocks and herds, without fodder and with only miracle to depend upon for bread and water?—and what of this verse,—" And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot." What shall we say of such stories as that found in II. Chronicles xiii, that the army of the king of Judah, consisting of 400,000 men slew, of the army of the king of Israel, 500,000 men,—and all "chosen" men? The figures are foolish in their wantonness. What respect can we have for a story like that in Numbers xiv, which tells us that Jehovah was only kept from indulging his rage by a stimulation of His vanity that puts Him in the meanest possible light? What are we to say about the amazing stories that appear in almost every book,—some of them grotesque, like the story of Balaam and the ass, or Jonah and the whale; many of them childish, both for their simplicity and their ignorance, like the story of the fall of the walls of Jericho and of the halting of the sun; while too many are indecent or positively immoral, like the story of the Lord's command to Hosea to go and take unto him "a wife of whoredoms" (Hosea i. 2) or the story of the Lord's command to Ezekiel concerning barley cakes and dung (Ezekiel iv. 12, 15)? The books of Joshua and Judges are full of the details of savage warfare, horrible slaughter, and fearful crime; and the greater the ferocity the more emphatic is the assertion that the Almighty commanded it or condoned it.
In an earlier book (Exodus xxi. 20, 21) we read that God Himself uttered these words:—"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." Can we really believe anything so derogatory to God as that He expressly condoned cruelty
slave? In the same book (chapter vii. 18) we are told that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and then punished him for doing what the hardened heart led him to do. Is that a reasonable or righteous thing to ask us to believe? In the book of Numbers (xv. 32.6) we are told that God actually commanded a man to be stoned to death, for gathering sticks on the Sabbath: "and all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses." What a clear case of enlisting the sanction of Jehovah's name for a stern mortal lawgiver's discipline I In the same book (xxxi. 1-18), in the very midst of a series of assertions that "the Lord spake unto Moses," we find the following horrible story. The Lord commanded Moses and his bands to "avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites," and they did it. But they were too merciful for Moses (or the Lord) although they "slew all the males," took captive all the women and children, appropriated all their goods and cattle, and burnt up all their cities wherein they dwelt, for so the ghastly record runs. So he was angry with them, and cried, "Have ye saved all the women alive?" and then issued this horrible order,—" Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." And they did it; keeping alive "for themselves" not less than 32,000 virgins (verse 85). Why, for doing things not a tithe as fiendish, the English people were nearly goaded to drive the Turks out of Europe: and yet, a verse or two on, the Lord goes on speaking to His favourite servant again, and with every appearance of approval. I say it is an insult to human nature to ask us to condone this: it is blasphemy against God to call the record His inspired word.
Or what shall we say of the horrible record in Deuteronomy xiii., where we are told that God commanded His chosen people to murder any one who proposed to worship any other God, even though the heretic were a brother, a son, or a daughter, or "the wife of thy bosom"; and where, further, it is commanded that any city guilty of worshiping any God but Jehovah shall be utterly destroyed with fire, its inhabitants all having previously been slain, because of "the fierceness of the anger" of Jehovah? Is it not true faith in God that leads us to see in all this only the ferocious spirit of a ruthless religious fanatic who mistook his own fierce and pitiless spirit for the spirit of the Lord?
Or what shall we say of the story which tells us that God tried Abraham by telling him to murder his only son? Only a demon would issue such a command; and only a man utterly unacquainted with the sanctity and supremacy of conscience would ever entertain the question of obeying it. Or what shall we say of the ferocious curse in Jeremiah (xlviii. 10) respecting those who failed to utterly annihilate the Moabites—" Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword
I have an intense repugnance to quoting these passages at all, and would fain avoid it: but how is it to be avoided? If people will persist in declaring that the Bible, from beginning to end, is God's word; and if, in saying that, they try to make it the master of the conscience and the ruler of the mind, and even try to make religious outlaws of us when we let conscience and reason guide us, we have no choice, we are absolutely obliged to do what is necessary to prove that this book is a human book, bright and helpful, it is true, with human aspiration, trust, and love, but also stained and marred with human passion, sin, and error.
Again; it must be perfectly evident that very many things in the Bible relate only to local circumstances and transient needs—nay, belong only to long-outgrown phases of civilization, humanity, and culture. To these belong a vast proportion of the rules and regulations contained in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers;—rules and regulations concerning diet, social life, worship, and trade, some of which were doubtless wise enough in their day, but all of which are now either antiquated, ridiculous, or pernicious. Who, for instance, can attribute to the Almighty the regulation that the hare shall not be eaten, because he "divideth not the hoof" (Lev. xi. G), and that the swine shall not be eaten, only because "he cheweth not the cud" (Lev. xi. 7), or that shell fish shall be con-
Now, how are we to account for all this? It is perfectly easy to account for it if you take the book as it stands, and for what it it is, as a curious, instructive, but very composite and unequal collection of ancient records, each one reflecting a stage of civilization or a state of mind—each one telling, not of a revelation made by God, but of a discovery or thought on the part of man. If we see and understand that, all will be clear. Then, even the errors, the blemishes, and the atrocities will take their place as objects of interest; for then we shall not only be able to account for them but to find a use for them. No longer driven to explain them away, or to deny them, we shall give them their true place in the great process of human development; so that every word of the Bible will become valuable, as a record of some phase of the progress of the mind of man.
The Bible, thus understood, will become increasingly precious. It will gather pathos the more we find in it a record of the hopes and fears, the sins and sorrows, the wisdom and folly of struggling humanity; it will then live before our eyes with ever new meanings; its very imperfections will be storehouses of wisdom and knowledge; and the living present, gaining light from the past but trusting in God for itself, will find Him a God near at hand and not afar off.
I have spoken freely of the defects and errors of the Bible, but let it be remembered that I have had to do this only because of the untenable claims made on its behalf. I have already said that I see the other side. I go farther. I say that the Bible still stands as the book to which we must go for the noblest utterances of adoration, the most pathetic confessions of sin, the sweetest expressions of trust, the most tender and passionate pleadings of the heart in its yearnings after God, while, in the teachings of Jesus, we have that which the world can never hope or wish to make antiquated or outgrow.
But, for good or evil, the Bible is the word of man and not of God; it contains, not the oracles of Heaven, but the aspirations of earth. It grew from the old familiar soil of human longings and affections, hopes, and fears. It tells how men sought and suffered in days gone by, and by what strange paths humanity has gone in seeking after God. It is not the tomb of inspiration nor the sepulchre of the Eternal; it is a witness, not to a voice that can be heard no more, but to a voice that waits now to speak in the living soul,—to One who will be to us all that He was to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and Jesus and Paul. It has its glooms as well as its glories, its shadows as well as its sunbeams, its deformities as well as its beauties, but nothing need be wished away, for nothing is there but what belongs to the history of our kind. It is the world's most precious witness-bearer to God, and it will fulfill its highest mission when it leads you to Him for yourself.
God, then, we say, has not changed either in His disposition, His intentions, or His relations to man; and we are to Him all that men have ever been. From age to age we are borne on by the steady flow of His Providence. In science, in politics, in all the arts and aids of civilization, we are being slowly led on by His beneficent hand, and instructed by His enlightening spirit. The measure of our receiving is the measure of our capacity to receive. Revelation is really discovery, dependent, not upon God's willingness to reveal, but upon man's power to see; nothing is finished, nothing exhausted, in any field of knowledge or inquiry, the law of all things necessitating progress, but never allowing finality; the ages explain one another, and in the thoughts, the hopes, the aspirations, the activities, and the experiences of wise and holy souls in every age, God is perpetually becoming incarnated and revealed; the struggle after the perfection of what is human being simply the struggle after the discovery or development of that which is divine.
We bless God, then, for the Bible, and for all great souls and books; for they have all come from the same Eternal Master-Mind. The wells of salvation were not closed when the New Testament was written, and the voice of God was not hushed when it spoke to the last Evangelist.
And now, in conclusion, I return to the question I glanced at in the beginning:—Why tell the people these things?—why unsettle the faith of those who seem to find the Bible an all-sufficient guide? The reply is an obvious one,—I made it years ago;—If we seem to snatch from any the staff on which they have been leaning with full content, this is our apology;—The staff on which you lean will presently be broken before all eyes and it will be well to be prepared for it, that faith in God may not go with trust in the infallibility of a book. In its stead, we offer you not the words of a book that
to-day; consider, I say, what the effect would be if only for one day this nation were to live in full possession of this faith and under the influence of it. The memory of that day, and the results of it, would be fragrant when all who took part in its sublime fidelity had long since passed away.
Another reason for doing this work is that when we recognise in the Bible a natural instead of a supernatural origin, we, for the first time, find a use for every portion of it. As I just now indicated, the Bible will become more instead of less interesting to us as we see in it a record of human struggles, thoughts, and experiences. Where we are now driven to blame and criticise, because of the theory of infallibility, we shall be able to feel sympathy and to admire. The old characters that look deformed, and the old writers that often look hideous, when they are set forth as fully and directly inspired by the Almighty, will look heroic or admirable when we see them as seekers after God, and strivers after the light, though amid thick darkness. Yes! the Bible will become a living book, a book full of interest and instruction just in proportion as we give up the palpably impossible theory that it is the complete and final word of God.
But there is yet another reason for seeking to put the Bible in its true place as a record of human thoughts: this is, that while it is regarded as a complete and final revelation of infallible truth it will inevitably be the cause of strife and division. The theory is that the Bible has been given as a perfect revelation of Divine truth, to end our doubts and to authoritatively declare what is true: the fact is that the Bible has split Christendom itself into fragments. Every man or Church has its own point of view and its own half-unconscious preferences, which lead to exaggerated clingings to certain portions of the Bible or to one-sided interpretations of it: and it is these that are exalted into divine and infallible revelations.
But not only because of one-sided points of view is the Bible productive of strife and division: it is so also because it is in itself an inconsistent and contradictory book. In fact, there is in it so much that is fragmentary, inconsistent, or equivocal, that (and perhaps to a greater extent than any other book in the world) it furnishes
material for creed and theory builders of every kind. In truth, the condition of the religious world to-day supplies a grotesque commentary upon the statement that the Bible is the word of God, given to settle our differences and lead us all to infallible truth. Sects and churches, wide as the poles asunder, go to it for proofs of dogmas and justifications of practices utterly opposed to one another; and the dwellers in this theological Babel all fancy they think as they do at the bidding of the Most High! Some time ago, when George Dawson repudiated the bloody sacrifices of the Jews, and their perpetuation in the form of the bloody sacrifice of Christ, as an atonement for sin, this was the swift reply from the other side:—"What I do you dare to question the Bible? Who, according to that book, enjoined the sacrifices of old? Who sent Moses to Egypt to deliver the descendants of Jacob from bondage? Who opened the red sea and formed a passage for their escape? Who sustained the whole nation where there was all lack of natural sustenance? Who assembled them round Mount Sinai, and gave them the laws and commandments which were to be their national constitution in the land to which they were going?" And so the hopeless, irrational, wearying fight goes on,—the one side urging that we must advance on to rational, humane, and really religious ideas, the other demanding submission for all time to the letter of a book. The process is a melancholy one. First, people give in to the superstition that the Bible is the final Word of God, then they take a particular point of view or bring to the Bible a foregone conclusion, then they see just as much as their point of view enables them to see, or as much as their foregone conclusion will allow them to see, then they busy themselves in persuading people that the result is the final, infallible, and perfect revelation of the will of God, to dispute which is to be damned! And this it is—this taking of one's own view of the Bible as the authoritative word of God—that is at the root of nine-tenths of the bigotries and extravagances and persecutions of Christendom. It is certainly at the root of the monstrous and pernicious idea that God will send to hell all those who do not believe certain dogmas that are said to be revealed.
Now if we could liberate the human mind and heart from this bondage to a contradictory book, and throw people back upon themselves—upon the reason, the conscience, and the affections,—the change would be enormous. People who now totally differ about their ideas of God and man and the future would soon approach one another, led by the same human instincts: and then it would be seen that they had all along been the victims of a theory which, though a mere assumption, had been powerful enough to deprive them of the use of their faculties, and to induce them to force themselves to believe the most unlikely and even the most distasteful and dreadful things. For see what people have forced themselves to believe. They have held by the ghastly fancy of natural depravity and the inherent sinfulness of the little child: they have insisted on the even ghastlier dogma of salvation by the offering of the
them in the conscience and the heart, they insisted on compelling that voice to be still or to become, in some feeble, unnatural and forlorn way, an echo of another voice that comes sighing from the past. And the agony of this conflict has filled Christendom with those very distortions of truth and discords of error which are cited as proving that God is not speaking to men now, but which really bear witness against us for not listening to His voice.
Judge you what the effect would be if from the minds of all good men and women a clean sweep could be made of the assumption that the Bible or some particular notion thought to be extracted from it, is the word of God from which it is sin to swerve: judge what would happen if they could all be left with their truest selves—with their common sense, their common conscience, their common humanity, and shall I not add—their common reverence for God? I venture to say that the Babel of tongues would be at an end: the parted currents would flow in one broad natural channel, and the light of a simple trust in God would be shed over all. And where then would be the dark, depressing, irrational, and cruel beliefs that now only live because it is thought they are "revealed"?
Then see how theologians have fought against science, which has had to make its way, even in modern times, against the terrorism of orthodoxy and the ban of the Church. See how people, in the face of the clearest evidence, contend for the most impossible theories of creation, transgression, and redemption. See with what vehemence they insist upon the inherent sinfulness of all human beings, the existence of Satan, the reality of an eternal hell, and the need of atoning blood. Would all this be so, if it were not for the delusion that a supposed revelation from God has told us the final truth about these things? The proof of this is that when reason and conscience and humanity are appealed to for more reasonable and humane ideas, we are deliberately told that the carnal reason (and even the carnal eyes) of man must submit to the word of God. In other words.—we must silence the living witness whom we can question and improve, and compel ourselves to listen to a dead witness who can neither be cross-examined no corrected.
If, then, there were no other reason for telling the plain truth about the Bible, this would suffice for me,—that the delusion as to
Our cause, then, is the cause of the emancipation of the living soul form the dead hand of the past; the liberation of the human mind from the oppressive weight of mere authority; nay I the making straight in the desert a highway for our God. We are not rebels, striving against God; we are children, seeking Him. We believe that He is the living God for living men, and that He who spoke to the fathers will speak to us. We reverently and gratefully accept the good that is in the Bible, but we go to the God of the Bible for ourselves. We live in days that are rich with the accumulations of long laborious centuries,—with the hard-earned winnings of the thinkers of other days; and it would be a shame indeed if we were not better able than they to solve many of the great problems that oppressed their souls. Knowing this, we lift up our hearts to God for the light, the truth, and the guidance that belong to us to-day.
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One of the oldest, most popular, and most effective arguments in favour of the view that Jesus Christ was God, or at all events, a miraculous or supernatural, and therefore exceptional being, is the alleged existence of passages in the Old Testament, which are held to be predictions of his birth, mission, character, life, and death. This argument has appealed to a variety of peculiarities in human nature, which have caused it to be a telling one. People who could not appreciate a close train of reasoning, or be influenced by purely moral and spiritual considerations, have their sense of wonder gratified and their imagination excited by the consideration that the coming of Jesus and the circumstances of his birth, life, and death, were all foretold, ages before he appeared.
And here, at the very outset, I fully admit that the New Testament does more or less distinctly set forth Jesus Christ as the fulfiller of Old Testament predictions. The passages will come before us afterwards; here it will be enough to admit that the fact is so. But, while admitting that, we are forced on to the question—What then? Even in cases where there is a definite assertion of fulfilled prophecy, are we to give in to the evangelists without personal examination and the use of our own judgments? To do so would not only be foolish but base.
But the question is a far more complex one than it appears to be. As we go on, we find we are obliged to ask such questions, for instance, as these:—Were these alleged fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies afterthoughts? Did the Old Testament prediction suggest and half compel the New Testament fulfilment? Did Jesus himself believe that he was the fulfiller of Old Testament prophecies? If so, how far did ho consciously try to fulfil them, and, as it were, lay himself out for their fulfilment? Or, if Jesus did hold that he fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, did he not also lift those prophecies into an entirely new region, giving a moral and spiritual meaning and value to an altogether
he, but that any moral and spiritual reformer may be a true fulfiller of Old Testament prophecies—their fulfilment being not a personal but a perpetual one;—so that he claimed to be the Messiah, as he also claimed to be a son of God, not as an exceptional being, but as one who presented conditions and reaped blessings within the reach of us all? I feel sure there is a great deal this, and that a cool, impartial, and close examination of the alleged fulfilments of Old Testament prophecies in the New, would lead to the discovery that the all-pervading idea is, that the hopes of Israel found in Jesus, not the intended and expected, but the true, because the moral and spiritual, realization.
The question thus becomes forced upon us, whether the evangelists themselves, in stating that such and such prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, really meant that the Old Testament prophecy referred to him, or only that it spiritually received its moral and religious fulfilment in him. Jesus himself certainly never gave in to the political and material hopes of the nation, and neglected, in a striking and defiant manner, obvious political and material references of the prophecies. He announced that he came to fulfil, but he only fulfilled by spiritualising, and by acting out on a heavenly stage the drama intended for an earthly one. It will thus be seen that the question is far from settled, even when we have admitted that the evangelists held the Old Testament prophecies had been fulfilled in Christ.
When we, however, examine these passages in the New Testament which affirm fulfilments of passages in the Old, several very curious facts come to light; these, for instance,—that many of the passages from the Old Testament, quoted by the writers of the New, are mere descriptions, misread or used by them as prophecies; or that, as quotations, they are vague, or palpably inaccurate, or mere illustrations. It will well repay us here to look a little at this.
Take, for instance, as illustrative of the use of mere descriptions as prophecies, the following:—In Matt. xiii. 14, 15, we find it stated that Jesus spoke in parables to the people, because they were dull and blind, and because it was "not given" to them to know" the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven;" and "in them," we are expressly told, was "fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. "In John xii. 87-41, the passage is quoted with the added statement, that the people "could not believe" in Christ, "because" Isaiah said or wrote that;—a horrible statement, which of itself demands of us a sharp scrutiny of these alleged fulfilments.
Now what do we find in the passage itself in the Old Testament'? We find not a prophecy at all, but a statement of fact—a descrip-
See Luke iv. 16-21; John ii. 17; John xiii. lb; John xix. 36; Acts i. 16-20; Heb. x. 4-7.
Instances of the second kind, mere vague quotations, are as frequent. It is, in fact, one of the singular and most suggestive peculiarities of these quotations, that they are often so vague and far-fetched as to almost hint, after all, that the quoters did not really mean to suggest that the Old Testament writers actually intended to point out the events of New Testament times, and to hint further, that the New Testament writers only used the Old Testament passages as descriptive illustrations. In one place, Matt, xxvi. 56, we have the vague general statement, that" all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." And yet the very vagueness and generality here may indicate that the writer really regarded the events he alluded to as actual fulfilments of Old Testament prophecies. In Matt. ii. 28 we have the statement that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth," that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.' "But such a passage is nowhere to be found. In John xv. 25, we have the very vague statement concerning the Jews' hatred of Christ,—"But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." But it is well nigh impossible to fix upon any definite passage as that which is here said to be quoted. In John xix. 28, in a description of the crucifixion, we have this—" After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." Again, however, we look in vain for any definite" scripture" where this is to be found. To say the least of it, it is utterly vague. In John xx. 9, we read that the disciples did not yet know the Scriptures, that Jesus" must rise again from the dead." Here is the perfection of vagueness. Where are the scriptures that prophesy the resurrection of Jesus? The evangelist does not tell; and most assuredly the Jews knew nothing in their own Scriptures of a dying and rising Messiah.
Inaccurate quotations form another though a closely allied class of quotations from the Old in the New Testament. One fact is important, that the majority of the passages in the New Testament quoted from the Old, as fulfilled by Christ, are not taken from the Hebrew Bible at all but from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew. The original writers of the Greek New Testament, then, quoted at second-hand from the Greek Old Testament, errors and all; and, in addition, often quoted from memory, and quoted wrongly.
Then, finally, we have passages that are purely illustrative, which are hardly quoted as fulfilments, such as John iii. 14, 15, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever, believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." In a passage like that, we have suggested the possibility of a use of passages for the mere purpose of illustration and analogy, even where the formula occurs, "That it might be fulfilled."
Besides these, we have a great number of passages to which, in subsequent lectures your attention will be directed, as furnishing abundant examples of palpably inaccurate and forced application. Many of these are in the Gospels; others are to be found in the writings of Paul. Of these last, Mr. Jowett frankly says:—"There is no evidence that the apostle remembered the verbal connection in which any of the passages quoted by him originally occurred. He isolates them wholly from their context; he reasons from them as he might from statements of his own," going off upon a word," as it has been called—in one instance, almost upon a letter (Gal. iii. 16), drawing inferences which, in strict logic, can hardly be allowed, extending the meaning of words beyond their first and natural sense. But all this only implies, that he uses quotations from the Old Testament after the manner of his age;" so that this very emphatic and suggestive statement about Paul's loose way of dealing with the Old Testament must be made applicable to other New Testament writers. That this must be so, I shall in future lectures abundantly prove.
The New Testament writers, then, extracted from Old Testament passages From the play of Hamlet alone, we have taken out of their connection and applied to a thousand things, persons, or events, such phrases as these, for instance:—"Weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable"—" There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy"—"Brevity is the soul of wit"—"Let the gall'd jade wince; our withers are unwrung"—"More honoured in the breach than the observance "—"There's method in his mudness."forced meanings and applications. In some cases, it is true, it may be difficult to say what the original passage means; in many others it is perfectly plain that the passages quoted do not for a moment mean what the New Testament writers make them mean. Again and again Old Testament passages, palpably referring to Old Testament times—to Hebrew politics, and national joys and sorrows, struggles, hopes, and fears—are violently torn from their connection and applied to New Testament events. I shall prove that abundantly before I close. At the same time, I must again remind you that, in some cases, the writers of the New Testament may not have meant anything more than to use Old Testament passages as apt quotations, just as we do. How often do modern writers describe a thing by saying—"As Shakspeare says," or "In the words of the poet," or" As one has said," and then follows the apt quotation.
But, after making a liberal allowance for that, the fact seems to remain that the New Testament writers do deliberately quote from the Old Testament, for the purpose of affirming that the passages they quote were actually prophecies of Christ. Can we account for this? I think we can. The New Testament writers probably believed that Jesus was actually the expected Messiah, and if so they would naturally take it for granted that what were regarded as Old Testament descriptions were applicable to him. If they remembered a passage that bore a verbal resemblance to what they were writing about, they quoted it; if not, they felt so sure lie did everything as the fulfiller of Scripture that they inserted only a general reference to the Scriptures, such as" That the Scriptures might be fulfilled." In the time of Christ, there was a revival of Messianic hopes and expectations. Pretenders and fanatics had arisen to gratify the eager longing of the nation, and it was of the greatest possible importance that the life of this candidate for Messianic honours should have his life, work, and death, linked on to the Old Testament records. Innocently and naturally, therefore, the writers seized upon everything that could possibly help them. It mattered not to them that they tore a scrap from its context to furnish a fulfilment of prophecy: it mattered not to them that the passage they conveyed away plainly referred to ancient political events. Christ must have fulfilled all Scripture, and so all Scripture had to submit to be mutilated or appropriated, to furnish triumphant credentials to Christ. They were not dishonest, they were only fanatical: they did not intend to pervert and wrest the Scriptures, they only meant to glorify them by linking them to the life and work of their glorious Lord. They acted as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews acted when he assumed that Christ, as the true High Priest, and, strangely enough, as the perfect sacrifice also, fulfilled and completed in himself all old sacrificial forms and truths; or when he took the Jews on their own ground, as believers in those old sacrificial ideas, and showed them that divine and deeper purposes and transactions were accomplished by Christ. So indeed, may the other writers of the New Testament, in their affirmations of Christ's fulfilments of Old Testament prophecies, have mainly intended to show how far more gloriously this spiritual Messiah could fulfil the old national hopes than any agitator, warrior, or king.
But we need not be surprised at the most literal appropriation of old records as prophecies of new events. We have only to remember the history of the Christian Church, from its first centuries until now. What the New Testament writers did, the Fathers did,
Higginson's Spirit of the Bible Vol. II., p. 165.
These observations have now led us on to the very heart of the subject. Admitting that the New Testament writers quote alleged prophecies from the Old, and that they held their literal fulfilment by and in the Christ of the New, it remains for us as we have seen, to ask:—But what did the original writers themselves intend to say? Now, fortunately, we can answer that question. We have not only the Septuagint, from which the New Testament writers quoted, but the Hebrew Bible, with a vast amount of knowledge concerning it, far beyond that possessed by those writers; so that, in point of fact, we are better able to understand the Old Testament than they. But it needs no learning or profound research: it needs only honest English reading to get at the facts. The common plan is to cut out half-a-dozen lines, or to isolate a few verses, or, at most, a chapter, from the body of the work, and to read the passage by itself, altogether apart from the context. In that way you could make a passage mean almost anything. The only remedy for this is to go back to the original records, and to read straight on. If that be done, the plainest man who can read his English Bible will have the key to the alleged prophecies. And what he will find out is this: that, in every case, the alleged prophecy is more or less obviously, as a rule is quite obviously, a reference to current events, national and political. The so-called prophet will be seen to be an ardent politician, moralist, or reformer, profoundly interested in what is passing around him, and intent upon the working out of his own thoughts for the good of the nation. Sometimes lie is the prophet of hope, sometimes of sorrow—now telling of empire, and glory, and prosperity, and
Mr. Jowett plainly says that the Old Testament passages quoted by New Testament writers, are used "almost always without reference to the connection in which they originally occur, and in a different sense from that in which the Prophet or Psalmist intended them:" and it is that fact which makes it necessary to examine the alleged prophecies, and to resolutely see what it was that the original writer really meant. It is in doing this that we come across the undoubted fact that all the alleged prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament relate, in the original records, not to any remote future, not to any person unconnected with events then happening, but to scenes, circumstances, events, and persons all livingly connected with the prophet's own time.
Having got thus far, our way is perfectly clear; and all I have to do is to follow these alleged prophecies home to their source, and see what they really mean there. It will be an interesting and a curious investigation, and one that will well repay us in the end. If, however, in prosecuting this inquiry, any of those who rely upon external evidences should lament to see one of the great buttresses crumble beneath our hand, let this be remembered,—that it cannot be a bad thing to know the truth, that it must be a bad thing to be depending on that which is ready to pass away, and that it can only be useful and good to lead God's children to rely upon the manifestations of Himself in the living soul.
Having cleared the way by considering a variety of facts concerning the alleged prophecies in the Old Testament and their fulfilment in the New, I proceed now to name two principles concerning a genuine case of fulfilment of prophecy. First: a prophecy can only be recognised as such when it is simple and direct. If we allow that a prophecy may be complex and cloudy, we open the door to all sorts of impositions and vain imaginations, and men's fancies or prejudices, will create endless arbitrary meanings and interpretations; then, second, the event said to be predicted ought also to be clear, and as little ambiguous as the language that is said to predict it; for, if the language is not clear, the alleged prophecy may be made to mean almost anything; and, if the event is not explicitly stated, we have no guarantee that the alleged prediction and the event are related to one another. To this I will only add Priestley's shrewd remark, that if the passage in question was "not a prophecy when it was originally composed, it could not become one afterwards."
If these are sound rules concerning prophecy,—and I think they are,—we shall have solid ground to stand on, and good honest light to walk by in our examination of the alleged prophecies concerning Christ in the Old Testament, and we shall know what to do with statements such as that once made by a famous theologian,—that the" same prophecies have frequently a double meaning, and refer to different events—the one near, and the other remote—the one temporal, the other spiritual, or, perhaps, eternal. . . . The prophets thus having several events in view, their expressions may be partly applicable to one, and partly to another." We shall know, I say, what to do with statements like that—we shall dismiss them, as a mere contrivance for buttressing up a delusion. For what does that kind of argument come to? It comes to this, that you may make the alleged prophecy mean two things or anything. It would, therefore, be useless to show that the supposed prophecy referred to a political event in the days of the speaker; for, if we allow the loose accommodation of the theologians, the reply will be—"Yes, it is true that the prediction primarily related to the political event in the days of the speaker, but it also related to a spiritual event that should happen hundreds of years after the speaker's death." By proceeding in that wav you can do just what you like with the record. The only safe, the only honest, the only legitimate method is—to find out the speaker's or the writer's meaning, and to stick to that. It is told of a great modern preacher that, in expounding a passage denouncing judgment upon the "young lions" of a people (whatever that meant), he said this undoubtedly referred to England, for were not three young lions quartered on the royal arms? And I believe it was
I proceed, then, at once to ask—And what in relation to the predictions to be found in the Old Testament was the one meaning and intention? I put the question in that form on purpose, to convey the idea that, in the main the predictions in the Old Testament were related, and did refer, to one thing. What was that one thing? I reply, The restoration of the ancient Jewish people to their country from captivity, and the new splendour of their recovered national life; or the fortunes of the nation when beset by the foreign foe. These were genuine predictions, but they referred to pending events—to political changes already near at hand, needing no supernatural power to foretell, and admitting of no reference to altogether different, and far-off events.
I shall now proceed to show this, dealing first with the alleged prophecies concerning Christ, which clearly relate to pending political or national events; and then considering the alleged prophecies,—which are not prophecies at all, still less predictions,—concerning Christ, but which are purely personal descriptions of present or even past experiences; and, as being the richest of the so-called prophetic writings, I shall take, first, the prophecies of Isaiah. The first passage I shall refer to is one quoted in Matt. i. 21-23:—
"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying; Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."
The reference is to Isaiah vii. 14. We turn to the passage, and what do we find? We find an account of the siege of Jerusalem by the King of Syria and the son of the King of Israel, and of the going of the prophet to the King of Judah, to reassure him, at the command of Jehovah, who tells him to say to the king," Be not faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands," and to promise that the confederacy shall not prosper. Then Jehovah tells the king to ask for a sign to encourage him, but he declines, and then Jehovah says He Himself will give him a sign; and this very sign is described in the verse which is quoted by Matthew and applied to Christ. Here is the whole passage:—
"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings."
First of all note here, that the Hebrew word translated "virgin" is rendered "young woman" by the very best authorities; Dr. Vance Smith even suggests "young wife" with the article "the,'
" has conceived." But, in particular, note that this is a sign for Ahaz, the king, to reassure him amid his political troubles, and in view of his capital being at that time besieged by two kings. The prophet expressly says: You shall not be defeated: this confederacy of the two powers will come to nothing; and I promise that before the time a child, now about to be born, is able to refuse the evil and choose the good, and while as yet it is eating infants' food, you shall see the destruction of your enemies. In plain English: Do not be afraid of these two kings, for in a few months they shall be destroyed in or from their own... kingdoms. And this really happened. A year after, one of the kings was slain; and the other the year following. That the child, who was designated as marking the time, should be called Immanuel (or God with us), suggests nothing uncommon. It was an ordinary event, that children should be called by names indicative of God's presence and help. Thus the prophet's name itself, Isaiah, means the salvation of Jehovah; but it was a common custom among the Jews to give these symbolical names, and it was perfectly appropriate that the child, which was to mark the period of the king's deliverance and triumph, should be called Immanuel, or "God with us." In the very next chapter (viii. 10), this same word Immanuel is translated "God is with us," and in connection with a reference to the King of Assyria and the political and military events of the prophet's own day. Barnes, one of the most orthodox of commentators, fairly says of this use of the name of God or Jehovah in giving names to children," In none of these instances is the fact that the name of God is incorporated with the proper name of the individual any argument in respect to his rank or character." The great probability is, that the woman named was the prophet's own wife, mentioned in the very next chapter, as conceiving a son under the very same circumstances. That son, Jehovah told the prophet to call by another symbolic name; that son also he used and gave as a sign; for, said Jehovah, "before the child shall have knowledge to cry, 'my father and my mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the King of Assyria." This, in the 8th chapter, is a precisely similar case to that under consideration in the 7th; and as, in the second case, the wife of the prophet is expressly mentioned as the woman who conceived the son who should be given for a sign, it may reasonably be supposed that the woman in the first case is the same or a similar person. But, be this as it may, three things are plain,—that the birth designated was a sign for a particular and very near event; that the sign related simply and solely to Ahaz and his political needs; and that the child to be born would be eating child's food in a few months from the utterance of the prediction; for it expressly says—Before this child shall have done eating child's food, the two kings that now distress you shall be destroyed. This being the case, it is preposterous to say that the prediction referred to a birth 750 years ahead! What sign would that have been to Ahaz? and what rela-
that have had to the overthrow of two kings 750 years before?
But a few verses towards the end of chapter viii. clinch the whole thing. After comforting his king concerning the two kings against him, and describing the coming deliverance of the one and the destruction of the others, the prophet bursts into a defiance of the opposing kings and armies, and ends in this remarkable manner:" Now bind up the testimony "—or prediction, which I have uttered. "I will now wait for my God. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel."' What children? Why, the two children just mentioned—the one to be called Immanuel, and the other Maher-shalal-hash-baz—whose period of infancy would mark the limit of the existence of the invading kings, and who were called by symbolic names, indicating the help of God, and the swiftness of coming doom. But Matthew applies the prediction to Christ? I know he does; but that does not make it a proper thing to do. The prediction is perfectly clear, definite, and circumstantial; it related to particular persons, events, and circumstances in the days of the speaker, and in immediate connection with those persons, events, and circumstances. To take a prediction whose fulfilment is strictly limited to a year or two, and to make it apply to an event 750 years after, is altogether intolerable, especially when, by doing so, it has to be torn from its connection, and violently applied to a set of circumstances utterly different.
A little farther on, in chap. ix. 6, we come upon a passage which has been enormously relied on by those who have desired to find the God-man predicted in the Old Testament, but I will venture to say that the evidence is overwhelming that the wish has here been father to the thought. The verse runs thus:—
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
Now, keep well in your minds that this verse is a portion of the political writings we have just been considering. It is, in fact, only separated by ten verses from the prophet's outburst about his own children being signs of coming triumphs for his country and his king. Immediately upon that, he breaks out into an exultant song of hope about the rising hope of the nation, the king's young son, then only a few years old. All who know anything about the rhapsodies of loyalty, and the exigencies of the State, especially in troublous times, will understand perfectly well the prophet-courtier's joyous burst of song over this hope of the nation, young Hezekiah. Another reading of the history of the time would make this refer to young Hezekiah's first child, whose birth, two or three years before the death of his grandfather Ahaz, would naturally cause great rejoicing.the is not in the original; it is just a character attributed to the child, and not a personal and peculiar nature. As for the word "god," the Hebrew of that by no means necessarily refers to Deity. Moses is called a god (Exod. vii. 1): "And God said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet." In the Psalms the judges are called gods (Ps lxxxii. 6): "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High;" and Jesus recognised that fact, in
herons. So, in the verse before us, the same word is used, and the greatest scholars in the world read it hero or potentate, or render it by a phrase indicating a mighty ruler and conqueror. Martin Luther, in his German Bible, rendered it by two words meaning "mighty" and "hero." The other words require hardly any explanation; for, even as they stand, they are all applicable to such a king as the prophet longed for and hoped for, to rule over the hard-pressed nation; and it was with the genuine fervour and hopefulness of a poet-prophet that he hailed him as—Wonderful, counsellor, mighty hero, the abiding father of his country, the prince of peace.
I would only add, with regard to the application of this passage to Christ, that people who take the words "The mighty God" in their bare literality, and apply them to Christ, will find themselves in a serious difficulty when they come to the words, "The everlasting Father." Are they also to be taken in their bare literality? If not, why not? If yes, then will any orthodox believer explain to us how he is going to avoid "confounding the persons" when he accepts the statement that Christ was not only the Hon of God, but "the everlasting Fatter" too?
With two verses in the beginning of this chapter (Isaiah ix. 1, 2), 1 will conclude this lecture. These are quoted not very accurately, in Matt. iv. 15, 16. The quotation runs thus in Matthew:—
"And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying; The Land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up."
Here, a few words from the chapter in Isaiah are lifted clean out of their connection, and made to apply to Christ, just because he is said to have left Nazareth, and gone to live in Capernaum; and this change of residence, we are asked to believe, was predicted 750 years before ! It is too much to ask. But turn to the passage itself in Isaiah, and you find what I have all along been pointing out, that it is part of a long, connected, and sustained description of political events then happening, and that it relates purely to these. In Isaiah the passage is descriptive, not prophetic: it tells of something that has happened, not of something that will happen in 750 years. It tells of a great political event then interesting the nation, the prophet, the court, and the king; and is entirely connected with the invasion of Judah by two kings, the hopes centered in the young prince, and the coming triumph of the nation over all its foes. It is the merest piece of accommodation to cut out this
I "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see Now proceed with my examination of the passages alleged to be prophecies concerning Christ in the Book of Isaiah. In chapter xl. 3-5, we have the following:—
it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
This is quoted in Matthew iii. 1-8, where it is applied to John the Baptist, as the forerunner and herald of Jesus. The opening of the prophecy, however, is itself conclusive as to its application. The chapter (xl.) and those that follow it are by a new writer, but we have the old familiar cry of the consoling teacher to a troubled nation:—" Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished." It is obviously the cry of hope to a people on the eve of redemption from its troubles. All difficulties will disappear, the crooked will be made straight and the rough will become plain, and, to "the cities of Judah," the cry will go forth—" Behold your God." It is the word of the Lord to His oppressed" people:" it is a promise of deliverance and return: and it can only be applied to Christ or to John the Baptist as his herald, by unlimited adjustment and arbitrary adaptation.
The passage in chapter xlii. 1-8. is much relied upon:—
"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth."
This is quoted in Matthew xii. 14-21:—
"Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus know it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all; and charged them that they should not make him known: that it might foe fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and lie shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall ho not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust."
The point of similarity here is that Jesus did not hasten to assert himself, but charged the people not to make him known: and this is taken as a fulfilment of the prophecy," He shall not cry, nor lift
See a similar case, applying to the people, as this is made to apply to Christ. In Matthew xv. 7, we read, "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." But the passage in Isaiah (xxix. 13) is evidently addressed to the people of his own day. Perhaps all that Christ meant was:—" Ye hypocrites, the words of Isaiah fit you well, when he said, &c."
But the "servant" spoken of in the prophecy is not a person at all, but Israel or Jacob, the Mr. Sharpe is of opinion that this and other allusions to the "servant" refer to Zerubbabel, the viceroy or "prince" appointed by Cyrus to conduct the people to Jerusalem from Babylon. See Ezra ii. 1-2, Haggai i. &c., and Zech. iv. 6-9. Of the sixth verso of this chapter, Matthew Arnold says:—"We are familiar with the application of this to Christ; but it is said in the first instance of the ideal Israel, immediately represented to the speaker by God's faithful prophets bent on declaring his commandments and promises, and by the pious part of the nation persisting, in spite of their exile among an idolatrous people, in their reliance on God and in the pure worship of him. The ideal Israel, thus conceived, was to be God's mediator with the more backward mass of the Jewish nation, and the bringer of the saving light and health of the God of Israel to the rest of mankind." "people, personified.Israel, art my servant," and, in the previous chapter (xl. 27), Jehovah addresses "Jacob" and "Israel," pleading with them. In this same chapter (xlii. 19) He speaks of His "servant" again, and asks "Who is blind, but my servant?"—evidently referring to the people Israel, who could not understand the leadings of God. A little farther on, after many warnings, and descriptions of experiences, and promises of help and comfort, Jehovah again addresses the nation (xliv. 1), "Yet now hear, 0 Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen." So that this verse," Behold my servant, &c.," comes right in the very midst of a whole cluster of passages relating to the Jewish people as God's" servant," and referring to circumstances and events all occurring in the prophet's day. The identification is perfect. It was that people who were called God's" servant;" it was that people that should be gentle, gracious, and influential: and it was for their sakes that "God would go forth as a mighty man," and" stir up jealousy like a man of war," and" cry, yea, roar," and" prevail against his enemies." All that is in connection with the prediction which Matthew applies to Christ; but the merest glance shews how utterly inappropriate it is in relation to him, who certainly was not" blind," and who knew nothing of God as" a man of war" strong" against his enemies." But the whole thing is quite in harmony with the connected picture of a hard-pressed, suffering people, comforted by God as His "servant," and promised help and deliverance and a new career of glory and prosperity, even to the judging of the Gentiles. The passage can only be applied to Christ by sheer force of arbitrary accommodation.The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration."—Page 47.
In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, we have a long description of Jehovah's "servant," in humiliation and sorrow, the whole of which has been applied to Christ, and with considerable shew of plausibility: but the analogy vanishes before a steady reading of the chapter, with its connections, before and after. You know the chapter well:—
"Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed f For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: lie hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not, &c."
Now I feel that any one who sets out to prove that this was never written concerning Christ has a very difficult task before him, not because the evidence is defective, but because he will have a dead weight of sentiment, habit, and prepossession against him: and I confess that I myself find it very difficult to dissociate Christ from the words" He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." But it must be done.
And, in the first place, note that we must not isolate this chapter, or consider it apart from what goes before and comes after. The division into chapters is purely arbitrary and may really mislead. The description of this supposed person really begins with chapter Iii, 13. In that verse we suddenly find ourselves before what turns out to be a sustained description of a sorrowful witness-bearer, now despised, rejected, or unknown, but soon to be the wonder of many nations. The last verse of lii. and the first verse of liii. are livingly related to one another. They contain a striking contrast which the break sadly destroys.' "The lungs," says Isaiah," shall shut then mouths before him" (with reverence and wonder), for "they shall see what they have not heard of," but The suggestion has been made that the reference is to some well-known representative of the righteous part of the nation—some suffering confessor or martyr—who would be sufficiently recognised by the description given of him, and whoso life and death stood as a testimony against the nation in general, seeing that it was the prevailing iniquity and faithlessness that made him necessary and that sealed Ms doom. It is certainly suggestive that in chapter 1. 5-6, we have this servant of God represented as saying "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting." But this speaker is evidently supposed to be existing in Isaiah's day. See also chapter lvii. 1, where we have a pathetic reference to the central fact that" the righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart." See too chapter lviii. 1, where the prophet is summoned to "shew the people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." The 53rd chapter deals, in a highly poetic form, with the national sorrow on the one hand, and the national sin on tile other:—that is the central fact.we, he adds, did hear, and yet who of us beloved? In fact, the 53rd chapter is inextricably bound up with all that goes before, and it is plain that reference is again to the people Israel, the servant of Jehovah, who, all through, is addressed as His "servant."What "good tidings "? It goes on to tell us. The good tidings are such to the watchmen upon the poor crumbling walls, to the mourners in the "waste places of Jerusalem;" for the Lord, it says, "has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations." Therefore the cry comes,—" Depart ye, depart ye,"—that is from captivity—" ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be in the rear." What is all that but the plainest possible description of a great national event—even the restoration of the captive "servant" of the Lord, the people Israel, to its own land? And yet we are asked to believe that the very next verse leaps over more than 500 years, and, without any warning or reason, commences a description of circumstances and scenes, and of a person altogether unrelated to what has just been discussed with so much point and fervour:—yes I and unrelated to what comes after; for, when this chapter ends, the reference again becomes obvious to a people regaining its place among the nations and shining with fresh glory. The widowed and childless nation shall return from captivity; it shall" break forth on the right hand and on the left:" its children "shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited;" and "no weapon that is formed against it shall prosper." All that is only capable of one explanation—and that explanation is the historical one,—that the predictions of these chapters relate solely to Israel as the servant of the Lord and to its fortunes in captivity and restoration. The 52nd chapter is political and national; the 54th chapter is political and national; and the 53rd chapter is surely the same. It is simply incredible that between two chapters, plainly referring to present or impending local and political events, a chapter should occur, referring to events altogether different and to characters and transactions more than 500 years ahead.
The person of chapter 58, then, is obviously a people—the people all along treated and spoken of as a person; all along called God's "servant,"—the people also spoken of in Hosea xi. 1, where it is expressly said;—" When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my soil out of Egypt:" i.e. when the people Israel was in its infancy, I brought it up out of the land of Egypt. It is the nation, then, that is called God's servant or son: it is the nation that is now sorrowing," despised and rejected:" and the sorrows and sufferings of the nation were truly described as borne on account of the sins and follies of individuals. The prophet-poet, with a striking fervour of imagery, pictures the servant of Jehovah, the Jewish nation, in captivity: and we sent him there, he cries,—we with our sins and wanderings: "all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on him (i.e. on the nation, on His
It, says Isaiah, had not been violent or false: it was still God's servant, God's chosen, or, as Hosea actually calls it, God's son; the sins of individuals had ruined it for a time, but God would bring it again from the degradation to which those sins had hurled it; and once again it should shine and rule, and" divide a portion with the great," and" divide the spoil with the strong." All this harmonizes with the chapters that go before and after, carries out the figure of the nation as a beloved and chosen servant of God, and leads on to the splendid promises that follow, connected with the restoration of the oppressed nation to its country and its prosperity.
The 49th and 50th chapters give a striking instance of the vivid way in which the nation could be personified and treated as a person. In the 21st verse of the 49th chapter the nation is pictured as a once childless mother rejoicing in children, with kings and queens as nursing fathers and mothers. Then in the first verse of the 50tli chapter it is treated as a woman who might possibly have been divorced. But the book abounds with this poetic treatment of the nation. I admit that it is not easy to see the meaning of every reference in the 53rd chapter, on the hypothesis that the person spoken of is really the people Israel; but we ought not to expect that: and yet I feel sure that a plain translation and a careful reading of it will bring out the meaning very much more clearly than most people would suppose. Take for instance verse 9, which contains more than one misrendering of the Hebrew. The verse The verse reads:—" And lie made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because lie had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth:" and the margin gives us a reference to Matt, xxvii. 57-60, where, curiously enough, a "rich" man is said to secure the body of Jesus;—a wonderful fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy! thinks the reader. But the true sense is:—Although he was neither violent nor deceitful, ho made his grave with the wicked, and was with sinners in his death. The authorised version bears improbability on the face of it, and adequate knowledge has decided against it.all through, the people Israel is personified and addressed as God's servant: grasp also the fact that the prophet draws a sharp distinction between the chosen beloved nation and the individuals that are included in it: grasp finally the fact that the one burning thought in his mind is the restoration of this poor crushed sorrowing people to the old land; and I believe the chapter, with the chapters that go before and follow after, will be wonderfully clear. But, if we take it violently out of its historical connections and make it refer to a person and to events 500 years ahead; if, in a word, we read it as an extended prophecy of Christ, we shall still find it difficult to see the meaning of every reference. "What, for instance, are we to understand by Christ seeing his seed or his descendants, by his prolonging his days, by his dividing a portion with the great, and
It is a curious thing that we find in the book of Jeremiah (chapter xi. 19) a very close resemblance to one portion of the description given in the chapter before us:—
"But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be no more remembered."
This is Jeremiah's description of his own case, and the suggestion has been made that Isaiah's description of the man "despised and rejected" referred to Jeremiah. But one thing appears to be certain,—that Isaiah wrote entirely concerning his own times, that he referred entirely to the condition of the nation in his day, and that only by arbitrary accommodation and adjustment can his words be taken as descriptive of Christ.
To show how loosely the Evangelists quoted passages from the Old Testament as predictions, just take the reference to the 4th verse of this chapter, in Matt. viii. 16-17.
" When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed of devils: and he cast out the spirits with
hisword, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and boreoursicknesses."
This is quoted as a direct case of fulfilment; but what is the fact? In the Gospel the case is one of healing physical sicknesses, of taking sicknesses away: in Isaiah, as we have seen, the case is one of the bearing of sorrow for another, in consequence of moral evil,—a totally different thing; and yet Matthew calls it a fulfilment of the prophecy!
Another well-known passage is in chapter vi. 9-10:—
"And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."
This is quoted in John xii. 87-41:—
"But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him."
Now, note here first that the writer attributes to Christ the cry of Isaiah, "Lord, who hath believed our report?" The people did not believe in Christ, and the writer says that Isaiah foresaw this 750 years before, and referred to that, in fact prophesied that, when lie said," Lord, who Hath believed, &c." This is a striking instance
fulfilment of the prediction "He hath blinded their eyes, &c." The writer of John goes so far as to say that the people could not believe because Isaiah had said that, and that Isaiah said it, having Christ in his eye, 750 years before. What are the facts? Turn to the place where Isaiah has recorded this alleged prophecy of Christ, and what do you find? You find that the reference to the prophet himself is as direct, as explicit, and as limited as anything could be. He tells us how, in the year that king Uzziah died, he saw a vision, in which the Lord spoke to him and said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then he replied, "Here I am; send me." And the Lord sent him, giving him this charge;—.(see verses 9-10.) But not only does the narrative distinctly limit the whole thing to the prophet and the people of his time: the prophet's question, after receiving the charge, and the reply to his question, still more definitely fix it: for he asks," Lord, how long?" and the reply is given," Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate;" a description of things having no relation to anything in the life of Christ, but very true to events that happened in the days of the prophet.
The passage in chapter xi. 1-2, though widely regarded as a prophecy concerning Christ, is seen to be equally inapplicable to him when the context is read. The passage reads:—
" And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord."
But the moment we turn to the passage, and read what goes before and after, the connection of Christ with the passage utterly vanishes. This promised "Branch" from the stem of Jesse will, it says, be as an "ensign," which shall rally the people, who will be delivered out of the hands of their oppressors, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the other unfriendly powers. (See verses 10-16.) The whole reference is purely national and political, relating to the prophet's own day or to a time very near to it. To this "Branch," Zechariah (who wrote about the same time) refers (iii. 8 and vi. 12), and nothing is plainer than that it points to a political leader and deliverer in his own time. See also Isaiah iv. 2, where this "Branch" is promised, again in connection with escape from captivity. The" Branch" is probably Zerubbabel.
A passage in Isaiah lix. 20, is referred to in Romans xi. 26. In Isaiah it reads:—
"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord."
In Romans it reads:—
" And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob."
There is considerable difference between the two, but this is a common occurrence. The difference in the words, however, is nothing compared with the difference in sense. Paul quoted the words in relation only to the saving of all Israel, but Isaiah wrote them concerning a salvation accompanied by "vengeance" and" fury "against the enemies of the Lord. In short, Isaiah had in his mind the destruction of political enemies and the triumphs of the nation, (see chapter lix. from verse 17 to lx. verse 14,) while Paul thought only of a spiritual redemption. He quoted words that were moderately apt, but no real prophecy.
Isaiah lxiii. 1 is not quoted in the New Testament, but is often referred to as having a reference to Christ. It is a perilous passage to quote; for this Saviour, whoever he is, is not only like Christ because he comes in" righteousness" and is" red" as with blood, but he is also one who treads his enemies in his anger, and tramples them in his fury: and it is their blood and not his own that stains this awful Saviour.
The last passage I shall quote from Isaiah is that beautiful one said to have been quoted by Christ. It will in a very striking manner illustrate the loose way in which fragments of the Old Testament were taken from their connection and applied to the fresh incidents recorded by the New. The passage in Isaiah, chap, lxi. 1-2, is as follows:—
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;"
This is quoted by Christ in Luke iv. 16-21, and applied to himself thus:—
" And he came to Nazareth, where ho had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when ho had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down; and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And ho began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."
Thus far the parallel seems sufficiently striking, and if we idly took the matter for granted it would seem as though Isaiah had, in some way, foretold the advent of such a teacher. But a little thought will dispel that idea. In the first place this description of the gracious speaker was probably written about the year 425 B.C. The reader will note that various dates are assigned to different portions of this book. This is in accordance with a now generally accepted theory, that the book was written by different hands at different times, from the days of Ahaz to the time of Nehemiah, covering a period of about 300 years.me:" and he undoubtedly thought he had been commissioned to preach good tidings to his fellow-countrymen. In a previous chapter (1. 4) similar words are used:—" The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. "This is all he professes in the verses before us; for all he does is to describe a good teacher, who should preach good tidings to the meek, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom to the bound, and tell of the judgments of the Lord. That is all: but the description might have applied to many persons during those 425 years, as well as to the prophet himself. But, beyond that, go to the passage in Isaiah, and what do you find? You find features that not only are not found in Christ and in his circumstances, but you find features that make the description utterly inapplicable to him. In fact, the quotation in Luke stops in a very curious manner just at the place where the inappropriateness of it begins to be manifest. It quotes the words "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," but it does not add, as the verse in Isaiah docs, "and the day of vengeance of our God.". That" day of vengeance "was appropriate in Isaiah's day, but not in Christ's. The truth is that the passage in Isaiah, like all the other passages adduced, relates to national and political events in or near the prophet's own time. In the previous chapter there is a florid description of the coming glory of the nation,—" Arise, shine," it says," for thy light is come:" and, to make it certain that the reference is to the nation, we find the statement,—" For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall utterly perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." What can that be but a reference to political ascendancy and national glory? Then it goes on to say:" The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet." It would puzzle the cleverest commentator to extract from that a spiritual meaning or a reference to Christ, but its appropriateness as a description of national ascendancy is obvious. Then comes the passage before us, with its description of the comforting and sympathetic teacher, who proclaims freedom for the captive, and the day of divine vengeance;—thus continuing the story of the nation's deliverance from its oppressors. Immediately following this, we find the promise, "They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." And that is a vital part of the passage which, nevertheless, is quoted by Christ as fulfilled in himself. The merest glance at it shows that his explanation is purely arbitrary, that the fragment he takes out is violently sundered from its connection, and that in no real sense can the passage be taken as a prophecy concerning Christ,—as it clearly relates to a long and sustained description of national and political events, connected with the Jews and referring to events happening or about to happen in the prophet's day.
What then? must we accuse Christ of error or falsification? By no means, though we should be obliged to do so if we accepted the orthodox theory that he meant to say Isaiah really wrote the passage as a prophecy to be fulfilled in Christ. My explanation is that Jesus meant to say no such tiling—that lie simply read the words as a kind of text or motto, and that his announcement of fulfilment only meant that he had the old tidings to tell; and perhaps there was also the feeling that he could tell those tidings in a purer form, in a more spiritual form, uncontaminated with the old thirst for vengeance, and unlimited by local and political references. "Believe in Christ's life and doctrine," said Rowland Williams, "you will see how the lisping utterances of a province grew from childhood to a world-wide stature of spiritual manhoowas true that the old description of the consoling teacher was fulfilled in Christ;—not because Isaiah had the slightest idea of describing any one but himself or some one in his day, but because his description of a consoling teacher was mice more realised, and that in a very pure and perfect form. It was a case of simple adaptation of old words to new events, not as fulfilments of prophecies, but as appropriate illustrations of character.
This finishes our examination of the great prophetic Book of Isaiah, and I am not sorry that it ends with Christ himself quoting that Book; for that leads us to a glimpse of the truth—that he fulfilled old hopes by surpassing them, and realised old dreams by making them more than true. He did not fulfil ancient prophecies concerning himself, for there are none: but he came in the spirit of the old hopes and longings, sifted out the things that were local, earthly, and temporary, and made them universal, spiritual, and eternal: and it will be well for us if our faith in him be based upon things that are universal, spiritual, and eternal too.
I "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him Shall proceed now to an examination of the miscellaneous passages which are supposed to be prophecies concerning Christ, but which really arc references to passing or impending national and political events. In Genesis xlix. 10, we read:—
shall the gathering of the people be."
I shall not dwell long on this: the only wonder is that it should ever have been cited as a prophecy concerning Christ, more than 1600 years before he came. The passage itself, though put into the mouth of Jacob, had, in all probability, no existence till many centuries after Jacob's day,—till, in fact," Judah" had become a power under David; and then it expressed the fervid or defiant hope of the rising tribe. The word "Shiloh" points out, not a person, but a place, and the correct translation probably is, not "until Shiloh come," but until " he (i.e. Judah) come to Shiloh. The very same words are used in 1 Samuel iv. 12: of one who" came to Shiloh." The reference to Shiloh is obvious. It was a sacred city of Israel, whom Judah envied; and the poet predicts that Judah shall yet possess it. Or "Shiloh," as the symbol of rest (with which word it is connected), may stand for the culmination of Judah's triumphs. Anyhow, it is to Judah that the "gathering of the people" is to be, and Judah is personified and glorified all through. A comparison of this "blessing" by Jacob with the "blessing" by Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 7) brings out this meaning in a striking manner. Moses is made to beg for Judah that" his people" may be brought to him, i.e., that this tribe may occupy the first place and be, in fact, the ruling power. In both cases it is perfectly obvious that the reference is to the political fortunes of a tribe, and not to the spiritual reign of a Messiah. Applied to Christ, the prophecy is not only inappropriate but untrue, for the sceptre did depart from Judah before Christ came: it ceased in fact nearly 600 years before he came. But the application to Christ can best be shewn to be inadmissible by applying my favourite test,—by reading what comes before and goes after. Listen then to the whole passage:—
Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until he come to Shiloh; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; ho washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk."
Who would apply the last half of the prediction to Christ? But the language might very well serve as a description of a jubilant and successful tribe
In Deuteronomy xviii. 15, we have a passage that is quoted in the New Testament in one place, and believed to be referred to in another The passage is:—
" The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken."
This verse, Peter quotes in Acts iii. 22, applying it to Christ; and, in John v. 40, Christ himself, without quoting any particular passage, refers to Moses who "wrote," he says, of him. Now, to begin with, it is, one may say, absolutely certain that Moses did not write the Book of Deuteronomy at all. If Christ thought he did, he only shared the general tradition of his day; but the facts are irresistible, and it is no longer possible to believe that Moses wrote the words before us But, whoever wrote the passage, it cannot be applied to Christ. It is part of a message from Jehovah to the children of Israel, and it must be taken as a whole. The occasion was the remembrance of the shrinking of the people before Sinai, when they entreated that God would not speak by thunder and lightning, but through Moses: and it is upon that, that Moses is told to promise them a prophet "from among their brethren" like himself. What an utterly inappropriate thing it would have been to have promised them a prophet in 1000 years! The whole point of it lies in having the prophet now or soon They trembled at the thunder and lightning of Sinai, they begged for the voice of a man and not the thunder of a God; and what they ask is promised them But the special use of this prophet is explicitly stated. In the land to which they are going there are "abominations,"—cruel sacrifices, divinations, enchanters, witches, charmers, spirit mediums, (verses 9-12) But they must not hearken to these, for God will raise them up a true prophet, to whom alone they must listen.
The time and circumstances then are fixed, and the prophet like unto Moses, that shall be raised up "from among" them, is to be useful to the very persons addressed But a succession of prophets is indicated, for the chapter goes on to distinguish between the good and the bad, the false and the true prophets, and a test is given whereby the true prophet can be known; and then the next chapter still further clinches the reference to the time of the speaker by dwelling upon the entrance of the Jews into the promised land. Besides, Christ was not a prophet" like unto" Moses: lie was utterly unlike him; so unlike him that the Gospels contrast them again and again: so unlike him that in every point and on every ground the prophecy fails to be at all related to Christ, unless, indeed, we" spiritualize" the local promise, and see in Christ, what indeed we well may see, the culmination of the prophetic office in him; but that does not any more make the passage in Deuteronomy a prophecy of him.
A passage in Jeremiah xxxi. 15, is quoted in Matthew ii. 17-18,
"Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard iu Bamah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Kahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not."
And in Matthew it says that the weeping of the Hebrew mothers in the time of Christ fulfilled that. But the verse is a statement of fact and not a prediction; and what does the following verse in Jeremiah say? It says that God consoled the mourners, by saying," Refrain from weeping . . for they shall come a; rain from the enemy . . and there is hope that thy children shall come again to their own border:"—a perfectly monstrous reply if we think of the weeping of the Hebrew mothers for their dead children, but an equally rational reply if we think of what is clearly meant—the weeping of Hebrew mothers for then children gone into captivity. The taking of that passage out of its connection and its application to the time of Christ cannot be defended for a moment, while its reference to an ancient raid upon Judah is as obvious. The "Rahel" (or Rachel) of the passage is doubtless the wife of Jacob and the mother of Benjamin, the founder of the tribe to whom Ramah belonged. She is here poetically represented as weeping for her afflicted descendants, more than a thousand years after her death.
A passage in Zechariah xii. 10, would never have been pressed into service as a messianic prophecy, if it had not been quoted in the Gospels, as fulfilled by Christ. It runs thus:—
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
The reference to this is in John xix. 37, when, after the record of the piercing of Christ, the passage is added,
"For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced."
It looks just as though any phrase that seemed applicable sufficed as a prophecy; though here the passage is not even "Every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart."said to be a prophecy, but is only quoted as an apt saying: but that suggests a great deal as to quotations in general of Old Testament scripture. A reference to the passage in Zechariah, and a mere glance at the context shews its utter irrelevancy as a prophecy concerning Christ. In the first place, it is to be noted that the word "me" and the word "him" refer to the same person: the verse itself shews that. It says," they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him "—plainly it should be "they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him." This is the reading of the best manuscripts. The person pierced and the person mourned for are one The reference is to some person of very great political and national importance; for it adds;—
Christ was pierced. But the lines that follow make it even ridiculous to apply the statement to Christ: for it says that every one shall mourn for the pierced one,—
Need anything be added to shew that the prophecy could not have referred to Christ, and that it is from first to last inapplicable to him? The time indicated is one during which a siege of Jerusalem is going on (verses 2 and 8), the end of it being the destruction of the besiegers (verse 9.) But nothing of the kind happened in the time of Jesus. Then, so far from mourning for him, they execrated him, and, as one has said, "curse him and his followers even to this day." The meaning of the passage probably is that they shall mourn for king Jehoiakim as they had before mourned for king Josiah, who was slain in the valley of Meggidon.
In the passage I quoted just now, John xix. 86, you would notice the statement that certain things were done (to Christ)" that the scripture should be fulfilled,—"A bone of him shall not be broken." This referred to the piercing of Christ's side in place of breaking his legs. But the quotation from the Old Testament is woefully far-fetched; is, in fact, about as bad a case of accommodation as could be found. The passage referred to is in Exodus xii. 40, where the direction is given not to break a bone of the passover lamb. This use of the words" For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled" shews how loosely that formula could be used, and out of what unlikely and inappropriate material a prediction, a prophecy, or a promise could be extracted.
In this same book, we have a passage which, in like manner, is quoted, in the New Testament as applicable to Christ. The verso is in Zechariah ix. 9.
"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon (o
even upon) a colt the foal of an ass."The passage is mistranslated. We should read:—" Thy king cometh to thee (he is just, and hath been saved), lowly and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass." Probably, the person meant is king Hezekiah, who during some part of the Assyrian invasion had been in danger of being captured by Sennacherib.
The passage in which it is quoted is Matthew xxi. 4-5, where we find a record of Christ's riding into Jerusalem upon an ass, and the usual addition, "All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." In the Hebrew the "ass" and the "colt the foal of an ass" are one and the same: but the writer in Matthew suspiciously blunders, and lands us in the absurdity of Christ's riding on two animals; for it says:—"And the dis-
them their clothes, and they set Jesus thereon." If we turn to the place we shall see that this is another case of arbitrary procedure on the part of the evangelist, in the taking of a scrap from a description of one event and violently applying it to another. The king spoken of in Zechariah is evidently a political king, and one possessed or looked for in the time of Zechariah. That king is utterly unlike Christ. He rides indeed into Jerusalem but that is the whole of the analogy. He is a ruler over vast domains, stretching from sea to sea; and, it immediately adds, the chariot, and the battle horse, and the bow shall be abolished, and the king shall be on peaceful terms with the Gentiles round about; and this is the king that rides into Jerusalem on an ass ! The picture is perfectly consistent and clear, but it is a picture which excludes Christ. It is the picture of a rejoicing people welcoming their peaceful but mighty monarch,—his enemies subdued or reconciled, and his dominion secure from sea to sea. It is worthy of note that in the 72nd Psalm we have a precisely similar description of the Jewish king's happy reign; and that too has been taken as a prophecy concerning Christ; but the inapplicability of it is manifest. The king there described is a political potentate, and phrases can only be applied to Christ by isolating them from their connection or spiritualizing the whole.
I shall quote one more passage from Zechariah. It is in chapter xiii. 7.
"Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."
This has actually been quoted, not only as a prophecy concerning Christ, but as a proof of his Deity; since God here calls this "man" His "fellow"; although the Hebrew word only means a friend. The passage is quoted in Matthew xxvi. 31.
"Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad."
Here again, no affirmation is made that the passage from Zechariah is a prophecy now to be fulfilled. It only says "for it is written ": but it has been freely taken as a prophecy. Turn to the place and what do you find?—You find a description of a sorrowful time for the nation. Its "shepherd," or leader, is to be struck down, and "in all the land," it says, two thirds shall be cut off and die, and the remaining third shall be purified, and learn to call Jehovah their God. Not a word of this is applicable to Christ, but it is all a part of Zechariah's description of the scene connected with the smiting of the shepherd and the scattering of the sheep. It is simply a description of a terribly destructive invasion, and the scrap of it applied to Christ can only be made applicable by taking it utterly away from its connection. In all probability, the person meant is king Jehoiachin the successor of Jehoiakim above mentioned.
A passage in Hosea xi. 1 is quoted in Matthew ii. 18-16 as fulfilled
"And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and lice into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, ho took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son."
This is a case of direct assertion of prophecy; and a very bad case it is. We have already seen, by proofs that are overwhelming, that the people of Israel were constantly personified, and called the servant or son of God. It is so here. "When Israel was a child," that is—when the people of Israel were in the infancy of their national life," I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt "; and so, according to the record, He did, bringing forth the children of Israel out of Egypt. That the nation is intended is plain from the next verse, where we read that this "child" fell into idolatry, and "sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images." Then it adds,—" He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return" (or repent). What is this but an explicit limiting of the picture to the child of God, the people of Israel, called out of Egypt, then fallen into idolatry, and then sent to captivity? And yet Matthew, violently cutting half a dozen words out of their connection, perverts them into a prophecy concerning Christ! I do not wonder that acute persons have been led to say that the story of Christ's being taken into Egypt was itself invented to match the invented prophecy. The case is made more palpably bad by the fact that the verse is not a prediction at all, but an historical statement. It told of something past, not of something to come—" I called my son out of Egypt." But they who read the whole passage will see that the reference to the people Israel is clear. It must be noted, too, that "Ephraim" is also spoken of, and in a similar manner, (verse 8). Using the same beautiful and touching figure, and representing Jehovah as a Father dealing with children, the prophet says, speaking for God," I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms."
A similar passage, similarly treated, is to be found hi Micah v. 2.
"But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah,
thoughthou be little among the thousands of Judah,yetout of thee shall he come forth unto methat isto be ruler in Israel; whose goings forthhave beenfrom of old, from everlasting."
In Matthew ii. 1-6, we read:—
"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Whore is he that is born Xing of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judiea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the
Here, the interpretation of the prophecy is attributed to "the chief priests and scribes," which, to say the least of it, is unlikely. In any case, test the passage in Matthew, by an original reading of the passage in Micah. Its application to Christ will then be a burst bubble. The ruler who is to come out of Bethlehem is definitely described (verse 5) as a man who shall deliver the Jews from the Assyrians, and waste the land of Nimrod; and the rest of the chapter is taken up with references to the cutting off of enemies, the destruction of chariots, the throwing down of strongholds, the abolishing of witchcraft, and the smashing of idols: all of which is utterly inapplicable to Christ, and yet it all occurs in the description of the ruler from Bethlehem and the events of his expected reign. The reference to the Assyrians limits and localises the prediction, and makes it inapplicable to Christ, in whose days the Assyrians had ceased to be an independent people.
The last passage I shall refer to is in Malachi iii. 1, which is quoted in Matthew xi. 10, as a prophecy concerning Christ's "messenger," John the Baptist. It reads thus:—
"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts."
This "messenger" is, in Matthew xi. 10, distinctly said to be John the Baptist. But a reference to the passage in Malachi shews that this "messenger" is to herald in a time altogether different from that occupied by the life of Christ. It is a time of terror that is foretold. The very next verse asks," But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?""The Lord" will come with swift judgment. That day will" bum as an oven," and the wicked will be like" stubble," in that" great and dreadful day of the Lord:"—all of which does not at all apply either to John the Baptist, to Christ, or to his times. But further; the burden of the chapter is neglected "ordinances," and unpaid "tithes." On account of these, God will judge the people; and, to remind them of these, His "messenger" will come. The end will be accomplished in the purification of "the sons of Levi" (verse 8), that they may attend to the" offering" or ordinances of the temple" as in the days of old," and in the peace and prosperity of the nation, dwelling in its "delightsome land" (verse 11-12). Besides, this "messenger" of the covenant is one in whom the Jews" delight." I need not dwell upon this, to point out the utter inappropriateness of all that to John, to Jesus, or to his times.
Thus, one by one, the broken reeds disappear:—and what then? What good will it do to tell these things? I answer;—Much good. It put you in possession of the truth, and that is always good. It takes away a false buttress to the pernicious dogmas of the infallibility of the Bible and the Deity of Jesus. It helps you to really understand the Old Testament, and that is a great gain: and
If these do not appear to you to be good things, I can only express the hope that something may happen to you to compel you to think for yourselves,—to cease to be children and to begin your intellectual lives as self-reliant women and thoughtful men.
The church's love unto Christ. She confesseth her deformity, and prayeth to be directed to his flock. Christ directeth her to the shepherds' tents: and shewing his love to her, giveth her gracious promises. The church and Christ congratulate one another. The mutual love of Christ and his church. The hope and calling of the church. Christ's care of the church. The profession of the church, her faith and hope. The church's fight and victory in temptation. The church glorieth in Christ. Christ setteth forth the graces of the church. He shewetth his love to her. The church prayeth to be made fit for his presence. Christ awaketh the church with Iris calling. The church having a taste of Christ's love is sick of love. A description of Christ by his graces. The church professeth her faith in Christ. Christ sheweth the graces of the church, and his love towards her. A further description of the church's graces. The church professeth her faith and desire. The love of the church to Christ, The vehemency of love. The calling of the Gentiles. The church prayeth for Christ's coming.There is something so supremely ridiculous about the allegation that the Song of Solomon was intended to be a spiritual allegory of the tender relation between Christ and the Church, that only the most overwhelming evidence would serve to convince any one that this was seriously maintained. But, maintained it is, as any one knows who is acquainted with the average teaching given from the ordinary pulpits. But the very headings of the chapters suffice; for the translators of the authorised version, assuming with cool audacity or childlike simplicity that the Song did tell the story of the relationship between Christ and the Church, have placed a commentary at the head of every chapter: and these commentaries, when combined, form the following "orthodox" view of the book:—
Matthew Henry, quaintest, shrewdest, and yet most orthodox of commentators, though he solemnly asserts the ordinary orthodox view, confesses that "it seems as hard as any part of Scripture to be made 'a savour of life unto life.' "The Jewish doctors, he says, advised their young people not to read it till they were 30. He admits further, that the name of God is not in it, that it is never quoted in the New Testament, and that it has not in it "any expressions of natural religion or pious devotion." He goes so far as to say that we need to forget that we have bodies in studying it. Ho expresses the opinion, however, that it is a most profound book: "there are depths in it," he says, "in which an elephant may swim." He is right; and he might have added—in which an army of commentators might drown. "It requires some pains," says this commentator," to find out what may probably be the meaning of the Holy Spirit, in the several parts of this book,"—a commentator's way of saying,—It is really very difficult to make anything of it! and yet we are warned that we may" wrest it" to our "destruction." A famous divine, quoted by Matthew Henry, says that if we ridicule this book, i.e., if we do not believe it is an allegory of Christ and the church, we are "guilty of Blasphemy against the
truth about it.
First, as to the author. The book is attributed to Solomon—but it is very doubtful whether he wrote a word of it. If he did, it has a suspicious origin. The commentators say that "Solomon's songs were a thousand and five," and the Book of Kings says that he had a thousand wives and concubines. The coincidence is curious: This gives us a lady for every song, with five songs to spare; but, as the Book of Kings also tells us that, in addition to the thousand, he "loved many strange women," the spare songs are easily accounted for. Now, if any one calls that ridiculing the Book, all I can say is,—it is not meant as ridicule: it is mount as a plain statement of fact concerning the very significant and important question of authorship; for when the commentator says "it is not certain when Solomon penned this sawed song," it suggests that if he penned it at all, lie penned it with far more reference to concubines than to Christ; and it sustains me in the assertion that one of the greatest scandals of Christendom is that the passionate, sensuous, and, in some cases, indecent language of a love poem like this should be applied to Christ: for it is only by a treatment of it which is both arbitrary and grotesque that it can be made even passably reputable.
After the point of authorship, comes the question of "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of intention: and here the interest centres. But the intention lies, only too manifestly, on the surface. The book is an unmitigated love poem; and no one would have been more astonished than the author, to hear people gravely putting a religious and mystical meaning into it. A few local and personal references will make this plain:—Chapter i. 5:—
Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon."
Chapter ii. 7:—
"I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please."
Chapter iii 7-10:—
"Behold his bed, which is Solomon's; threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel. They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. King Solomon made himself a chariot (or, a bed) of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem."
Chapter viii. 11-13:—
"Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring; a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, 0 Solomon, must have a thou-
sand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred. Thou that smallest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice; cause me to hear it."
In addition to these personal and local references that prove intention, the actual narrative and the style of it, are, of course, important evidence. I freely admit that there are a few lovely touches in the poem—as exquisite as anything Thomas Moore ever wrote—but, mixed up with these, are passages of the most questionable" character—contemptible as third class love poetry—frightful as allegorical of Christ and the Church. Take this, for instance. Chapter iv. 1-5:—
"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the wishing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a peace of a pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men."
I dare not read you the amazing description in chapter vii.; but Bishop Patrick says of the highly indecent second verse, that it refers to the baptismal font and to the Lord's Supper. To shew you, however, how the commentators "wrest" the tiling to their "destruction," I will point out how Matthew Henry deals with the passage I just read. The song says that the beloved one's hair" is as a flock of goats"—a most outrageous comparison; but the commentator, nothing daunted, drags in the hair of the Magdalene and the passage,—" the very hairs of your head are all numbered." The song says that her teeth are "like a Hock of sheep, that are even shorn, which came up from the washing:" again an outrageous comparison, but the commentator says that, by teeth,'" ministers" are meant, for, says he," they, as nurses, chew the meat for the babes of Christ,"—an unconsciously true saying; for it is too often the case that ministers treat their hearers as babes, and keep them so, even to the chewing of their intellectual food for them,—to use the commentator's simile. The song says her lips are like a thread of scarlet, and what this means is evident,—that she had pretty bright red thin lips !—but the grave divine sees in the scarlet lips" the blood of Christ" in which, he says, we are to be washed. And so the ridiculous far-fetched allegorising goes on; and the commentator who warned us against wresting the Book to our destruction, wrests it with a vengeance to his own.
A third point is the "Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee. My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I plot, or the characters that appear in the poem. The popular orthodox view gives us just two characters—Christ and the Church; but this lands us in endless confusion; for no two people, however absurdly in love, ever till lied so incoherently, debated so unreasonably, acted so ridiculously, quarrelled, flirted, and contradicted one another so bewilderingly. In fact, if only two persons form the dramatis persona e or both of them must be insane. The only lucid explanation is that several persons speak during the poem—that, in fact the poem is either a series of a amat-
play. This is the view now held by the very best authorities, who have gone so far as to disentangle the parts of the various characters, and to give us the play in regular dramatic form. The characters are, say, at least six; and the poem or play is divided into about ten acts: so says Sharpe the translator. The characters are,—the Bride, called Shulamite; Solomon; and attendants. Shulamite is only the Hebrew feminine form of Solomon. Solomon and Shulamite, therefore, are similar to our Charles and Charlotte, Henry and Henrietta. It is easy to prove that there are more than the two characters concerned—the Bride and Solomon. Take, for instance, chapter vi. 1-3.—
am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies."
Who asks that question in verse 1? It is evidently some one who addresses the Bride; and, as she is asked where her beloved is gone, the questioner cannot be the beloved. It must be some third character. Early in the Book, a curious instance of this occurs. Some one (of course the Bride) is made to say," I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." Spoken by one person, this is the most contradictory incoherence. She is made to say she is "black" (or sunburnt) and yet "comely;" like the dark tents of Kedar and yet like the beautiful curtains of Solomon. The sense is seen for the first time when the verse is treated as a kind of dialogue, or soliloquy and chorus. The Bride laments—" I am suntanned!" then the women-chorus respond,—"but comely." "Like the dark tents of Kedar!" she mourns: "like the lovely curtains of Solomon," they reply. This is genuine love poetry, and is pretty enough in its way. It only becomes grotesque and nonsensical when grave divines take it on their reverend lips, and try to make it serve the purposes of religion.
Thus whether we consider the reputed authorship of the poem; the evident intention of it, gathered from the local and personal references in it and from the character of the narrative and the style; or the characters that appear in the poem, it seems plain that the Book is just what it appears to be,—a love-poem or amatory play, neither better nor worse than a multitude of oriental songs of the same nature.
A detailed examination of the poem would abundantly shew this:—one little illustration must suffice; and I quote this because I can give it to you in the words of an accredited orthodox commentator, the late Dr. Eadie. Explaining the word" Shulamite," (chapter vi. 13,) he says," In the passage, the scene lies in a garden, where the bride was unexpectedly seen by her lover. At once she retires. Her lover exclaims in ardour,—
"Return, return, Shulamith, Return, return, that I may look upon thou."
Such being contrary to Oriental manners and etiquette, she promptly and indignantly replies,—
"What! will ye gaze upon Shulamith As ye would upon a troop of dancing girls?"
In the authorised version, this absurdly reads like a question and answer; "What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies:"—a marvellously insane reply! But even Dr. Eadie, with his keen eye to the true character of this love-making scene, indulges in the usual orthodox somnambulism, and says that this name Shulamite is" a poetical figurative title of the church personified" !
What lesson then do we learn from this exposure of the vain imaginations of theory-makers,—from this glance at the gross absurdities into which men may fall who once forsake the homely ways of simple common sense? I think the lesson is simply this,—that we should be guided in all things by sober reasoning and solid fact. When we read the Bible, we should read it with our eyes open, and with our ordinary faculties on the alert: we should not seek far-fetched meanings, and give way to loose imaginations; but in all things rely upon common sense, and stick to the plain and obvious interpretation. If what is written is bad, let us frankly say so; if it is foolish or erroneous, let us honestly admit it: for, to be bound by a theory of inspiration that prevents our being reasonable and honest, can neither be right nor good."
Thank God, all this is possible for us who worship here; for we are free to inquire, and to follow out any result of our inquiry; and, above all, we are delivered from the injurious old superstition that acceptance with God depends upon any opinion we come to respecting Church, or creed, or book.
The second order of passages commonly regarded as prophecies concerning Christ are mainly to be found in the Book of Psalms. For the sake of simplicity I shall confine this class to that Book, and may even go so far as to include all the passages cited from the Psalms as belonging to that class. This is not to be wondered at when we consider that the Psalms are really personal poems, meditative, devotional, and political. I shall hope to shew that the passages which have been taken, (or which have been even quoted in the New Testament,) as applying to Christ, really relate to experiences in the lives of the original writers, and that these passages can only be applied to Christ as mottoes or illustrative sayings might be applied to any one passing through similar experiences.
In the Hebrews, chapter i. 5-13, we have a cluster of references to the Psalms, all intended in some way to set forth the exalted nature or office of Christ. Into these I shall enter only for the purpose of shewing the real character of the original writings, leaving, as beside the question, the aim of the writer of the Epistle in applying such passages to Christ. The first quotation is from Psalm ii. 7, a passage which is also quoted in Acts xiii. 38. It simply consists of the words
"Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee."
It is believed that the Psalm from which these words are taken was written 1000 years before Christ, and it would certainly require very decisive evidence to induce us to read it as applying to Christ. But the evidence is all the other way The Psalm from beginning to end is a purely personal one, and descriptive of what is going on at the time. The writer glances at the kings of the earth setting themselves and taking counsel together against the Hebrew monarch, perhaps himself; and then he cries out exultingly," I will declare the decree," as though he had read the book of fate. And what is the decree?—Simply that God has chosen the monarch as His son. That this is so is plain from the very next verse, in which God tells this son to ask for a wide extending dominion, and premises that he shall" break" the Gentiles or heathen" with a rod of iron," and "dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." How absurd to apply that to Christ,—the poor, peaceful, unwarlike, and uninfluential teacher! And yet it is a part of the description of the reign of the person here addressed as God's son. The Psalm ends with a significant piece of counsel to the kings of the earth, to be wise and come to terms with this son of God, lest they anger him and be crushed. The Psalm from first to last is descriptive of a king before the poet's eye, for whom he predicts, in the glowing language of the East, all the power and dominion and glory a warrior-king could desire;—not a scrap of it agreeing with the life of Christ.
It may be useful to remark that there was nothing extraordinary in speaking of a Hebrew monarch as a" son" of God," begotten" by God. The word" son" need indicate no more than filial affection; and" begotten" must mean adopted or chosen, for the being who is addressed as "begotten" that day, exists, and the "begotten" must therefore relate to position and acceptance with God.
A similar passage is quoted from II. Samuel vii. 14, where we find that the words "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son," are distinctly spoken of Solomon the son of David; the words being simply wrenched from their connection and applied to Christ without the slightest justification.
The next passage is Psalm xcvii. 7; or, at all events, that is the nearest we can come to the quotation, in verse 6 of Hebrews i." And let all the angels of God worship him." In the Psalm, the Terse reads," Worship him all ye gods," the word" god," as is common in the Old Testament, meaning mighty one. But the call here is a call to the worship of Jehovah, before whom all are told to bow. It is the impassioned poet's personal cry that we find here;—" Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols, worship him, all ye gods." The words not only do not speak of a person besides God; they exclude any such person.
The next passage is Hebrews i. 8-9,—
"But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
This is from Psalm xlv. 6-7. The person here addressed is evidently a very different person from Christ. He is called upon to gird his sword upon his thigh, and it it said that his" arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies." His garments are said to "smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces.""King's daughters," it says, are among his 'honourable women," and upon his right hand sits" the queen in gold of Ophir:" and in the very midst of this picture of the person addressed, occurs the passage" Thy throne, 0 god, is for ever and ever." Dr. Davidson says that the proper translation here is" Thy See Lecture II.God's throne, i.e., thy throne given and protected by God, is for ever and ever:" but, even retaining the phrase" Thy throne, 0 god," we can quite well understand it as meaning, Thy throne, 0 mighty hero; for so it is often used in the Old Testament,
The next passage is Hebrews i. 10-12.
"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remained; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them u,' and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail."
The passage is taken from Psalm ch. 25-7, where we clearly find it
The last passage in this cluster is Hebrews i. 18.
"But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until 1 make thine enemies thy footstool?"
The reference is to Psalm ex. 1, and as to that passage I have a few words of some importance to say, by way of introduction to a general view of the whole of that interesting Psalm. In the 1st verse, "The Lord said unto my lord," there are in the original two words for "lord" which unfortunately are merged in the translation. The one word for "lord" means Jehovah; the other word for" lord" means any dignitary. The verse is evidently addressed to the king by the poet, who calls the king "my lord" and says—" Jehovah has said to my lord—' Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'"Matthew Arnold renders the words," The Eternal said unto my lord the king," and adds, that it is" a simple promise of victory to a prince of God's chosen people." But at the very beginning the passage is inapplicable to Christ. The picture is that of a king putting down his enemies and trampling them under his feet. The Psalm is quoted in other places besides this 1st chapter of Hebrews, and requires therefore a little elucidation. Fortunately this is perfectly easy, as the Psalm is so palpably a courtly poem addressed to the king. The nature of the Psalm, as a battle lyric, and its utter inapplicableness to Jesus, will be seen the moment it is read through. Note especially the brutal reference to the dead bodies:—" The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, m the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of ins wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the place with the dead bodies, be shall wound the heads over many countries. Elo shall drink of die brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head." There k the clang of battle all through. The king ("my lord") is to sit at the right hand of his almighty warrior-God, who will send out His rod to smite his enemies; his soldiers shall be all willing, and give themselves as a fresh and beautiful free-will offering, to fight Ins battles, and the end shall be the universal destruction of his foes. Any application of that psalm to Jesus can only be violent, arbitrary, or poetical. Some of the phrases are, on any hypothesis, difficult to explain; but the drift of the whole is clear; and the drift is all away from Christ. The verse "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" may refer to the priestly character of the kingly office, or it may be a bad translation of words meaning, Thou shalt be great for ever, because thou shall be a righteous king, for the name "Melchizedek"
righteous king. But the application to a warrior king is perfect; and, by consequence, its inapplicability to Christ is evident.
The passage in Psalm xci. 11-12, is chiefly interesting as affording a proof that Satan can also quote Scripture, and dig from the Old Testament passages to serve as prophecies. When tempting Christ, Satan says,—Matthew iv. 6.
"If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in
theirhands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."
The words occur in Psalm xci. very much as Satan quotes them, and his quotation is certainly not less apt than those we have been considering. In the Psalm, the verse occurs in a description of the blessedness of the man who dwells in the secret place of the Most High; and the safety he enjoys is described as the result of his making the Lord his" habitation." It might be applied to any good man, and, as Satan did not say it was a prophecy of Christ, but offered it as a promise or description applicable to persons who trust in God, there was a good deal of point in his quotation, and, on the whole, it is perhaps the most legitimate and respectable quotation we have had to consider
A passage in Psalm xli. 9, is quoted by Christ in John xiii. 18, as applying to his betrayal by Judas. He refers to that event as one that will occur," that the scripture may be fulfilled;
'He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.'"
The passage m Psalm xh. is purely personal to the poet, who is describing his own sorrows, then happening, probably 1000 years before Christ. He is telling of his" enemies," who" speak evil" of him, who speak" vanity," who attribute to him" an evil disease" and even his "familiar friend," whom he "trusted," is turned against him This is obviously a description of his own sorrows, and can only be made applicable to Christ just as it could be made applicable to any one whose case was similar. But, in fact, Christ's case was hardly similar. Judas was not his "familiar friend" whom he "trusted." The Psalm so describes this friend, but Jesus, we are told, knew from the beginning who should betray him; so that Judas could hardly have been regarded as a "friend," much less a" familiar" friend, and still less as a friend to be" trusted." The quotation is singularly inapt, and the utmost that can be said for it is, that it was a natural thing for. Christ to express his sorrow in old familiar religious words, without at all intending to do what his over-eager followers made him do,—convert a description of personal sorrow into a far-reaching prophecy, and find the application in himself.
Three passages concerning the crucifixion are of some interest. One relates to the piercing of the hands and feet, and is to be found in Psalm xxii. 16. This will be best considered in connection with a second passage, in the same Psalm, verse 18, concerning the parting
"And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots"
Here is a direct reference to a prophecy and a statement concerning its fulfilment. All we can do is to turn to the place and see whether it really is a prediction of a future event, and whether, if so, the prediction answers to the alleged fulfilment. My affirmation is that the whole Psalm from which this verse is taken is a purely personal outpouring of woe. Christ, in his death-agony, appropriates the opening words of the 1st verse of the psalm" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But the next verse shews how inapplicable the Psalm is to him, for it proceeds to speak of long-continued but unanswered prayer, day and night and assuredly Christ knew nothing of this. A little further on, we find the same person contrasting himself with his ancestors, to his own disparagement. "They cried unto Thee, and were delivered," he says, "but I am a worm and no man:" and that likewise is not applicable to him In fact, it is only a little scrap, severed from its place in the psalm, and read apart from the connection, that can be at all applied to Christ. In the Psalm, the cry about parting his garments and casting lots upon his vesture is followed by the cry "0 my strength, haste thee to help me, deliver my soul from the sword, my darling (or my life) from the power of the dog, save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." Here there is hope for the person spoken of, but there was none for Christ; the psalmist fears the "sword," but Christ's terror was the cross, and his death-blows came from the nails. Besides, this miserable being looks forward to praising God in the "congregation" with his" brethren," and, in general, to a happy deliverance from his ill users: not one word of which applies to the crucified one. The question for us is whether we have any right to cut out two or three lines from the Psalm, and make them apply to Christ, although they form part of an extended description the greater part of which is utterly inapplicable. Those two or three lines may and do bear a striking resemblance to two or three lines in the record of Christ's crucifixion, but many things must be taken into account;—the bias of the evangelists and of the translators, for instance, who dearly loved a prophecy and revelled in a fulfilment: but there is nothing so exceptional in the piercing of hands and feet and the dividing of the garments of a victim as to make a reference to Christ necessary. But such a reference is not admissible when many other portions of the description do not apply to him at all.
The other quotation connected with the crucifixion well illustrates the excessive eagerness of the Evangelists to work into their narratives the slightest scrap of Old Testament matter. In John xix. 28 we read that, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus
and let none dwell in their tents: for they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." Imagine Christ talking like that! Why, he shewed a spirit the very opposite of that revealed in these revengeful words. He cried, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." And yet, remember, these wicked imprecations in the Psalm are a part of the cry in which occur the words" in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." The saying is evidently a poetic one, expressive of the unkindness of those to whom the Psalmist appealed. I was thirsty, he said, and they mocked me with vinegar. It was a poetic expression which might have occurred to any one, and which might describe any grief accompanied by pitiless neglect: but the proof is overwhelming that the Psalm is no prophecy of Christ.
The last passage I shall quote relates to the resurrection. It is found in Acts ii. 25-7, and 30-1. Speaking of the resurrection of Christ, Peter says,—
"For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."
Then Peter adds, explicitly, that David,
"Being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption."
This is perhaps the most clear and emphatic of all alleged prophecies concerning Christ. Peter undoubtedly does say that David looked for Christ, and that he predicted his resurrection. Turn we
"For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence
isfulness of joy; at thy right handthere arepleasures for evermore."
Note, in the first place, that the very highest authorities read, not "Thy holy one" but "Thy holy ones"—making the statement general, as to the lot of all God's faithful and holy ones. But this, though probably correct, is not my reliance. I rely upon my old court of appeal,—the context. We, as well as Peter, can read the Psalm for ourselves, and form our own judgment. It is one person who speaks throughout the Psalm: it is he whose heart is glad and whose flesh shall rest in hope: it is he who expresses his confidence that God will not leave his soul in hell nor suffer His holy one to see corruption. Now who is this speaker? Evidently the Psalmist himself, who tells his own hope in God. This is clear from verse 4 where he says he will not go after other gods nor offer their "drink offerings of blood." How utterly inapplicable is all that on the lips of Christ !—how perfectly in keeping with the case of one who lived in idolatrous times, and whose own pure worshiping of God contrasted with the idolatrous worship of others ! The word "hell" in the passage really means the grave, and the cry of the Psalmist is a simple, natural expression of confidence in God—that He would take care of him, and guide him through the valley of the shadow of death into the land of light beyond. If we apply that language to Christ we can only do so just as we might apply it to any other trusting child of God: and Peter himself had no business to use it in any other way.
I have now fulfilled my promise,—to trace home to their source the alleged prophecies concerning Christ in the Old Testament. We have seen that the original writers lived for their own day, and were earnestly intent upon the fortunes of the nation in their times. They uttered many glowing predictions concerning the people they loved, and pictured glorious scenes of prosperity and peace. They described mighty deliverers, wise rulers, triumphant kings, and halcyon days for Israel. But alas! their dreams did not come true. What wonder, then, that Israel took these prophecies to heart, and went on hoping for the promised golden days! what wonder that even now, broken and scattered as they are, the Jews still hug the old words to their hearts, and look for a Messiah yet to come! What wonder that the early Christians eagerly caught at the idea that all the unfulfilled hopes of Israel were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth !
And why have I tried to dispel that dream? First, because it is not good to believe even a pleasant thing if it is not true, since, above all things, it is our duty to face the truth: but chiefly because I want us to look forward, and to see that before us and not behind us he the fairest hopes of the race. Jesus came only to shew us what we all may be. He was a messiah,—a being sent by God, for
our sonship clear. He came to do a better thing than to fulfil predictions; for he came to create a new brotherhood. He came to do a better thing than to make past prophecies come true; for he came to give light to future ages. It is true that I have laboured in these lectures to dispel the delusion concerning Christ's Deity and concerning his supernatural origin, but, in doing that, I restore him to the race, I bring him within the circle of humanity, I find his place in the history of our kind, I make him all our own. Freed from superstition we can now come to him,—not our God—not a mysterious, doubtful, double-natured being, not something abnormal, miraculous, exceptional, monstrous, and bewildering, but our teacher, our brother, and our friend.
My main object in this paper, is to review the teaching of Jesus, and to form a more accurate estimate than I have lately heard expressed of its worth in the past and present; but I have thought it right to include his person and character in my theme to protect myself from that misconception which is otherwise almost certain to arise. For in all questions connected with religion, the sympathies of men are so powerfully engaged, that the criticism of a doctrine is frequently regarded as a personal attack upon the character of him who promulgated it, if not upon that of anyone who may undertake its defence. I think also that erroneous impressions prevail as to the means we possess for judging the person and character of Jesus; and therefore that a few minutes may be profitably devoted to the consideration of those two points.
Now of the Person of Jesus, we of course know nothing directly; and our indirect information about him is as doubtful as it is scanty. The inevitable tendency of modern criticism is to throw doubt upon the personality of all those typical characters which tradition has handed down to us as the founders of human improvement. It was like the uprooting of an old affection to learn that Homer and Aesop were imaginary characters; and if the personality of Jesus has no greater title to historic reality, the arrival at that conviction must certainly cost a pang, for which nothing could compensate but the accompanying certainty of an approximation to reasonable probability, if not to demonstrable truth.
The evidence preponderates in my opinion against the reality of the existence of Jesus. It is most remarkable that a person of his asserted pretensions and views should himself have written
nothing! Not a word—to preclude the otherwise certain misconception and distortion of his precepts; to say nothing of his objects and personal character. This would certainly be quite intelligible on one supposition which has strong support in the Gospels; namely, that his regards were limited exclusively to his own generation, in which he plainly said that he expected that the heavens and the earth would pass away. But this—is to impute to him an ignorance wholly inconsistent with his asserted character, if not altogether fatal to it. Not only did Jesus himself write nothing, but nothing was written about him for such a long time after the date assigned to him, as to preclude direct disproof of any statement respecting him—however absurd; for inherent improbability or incongruity with contemporary history cannot amount to more than moral disproof. Of improbabilities may impossibilities—the story is full, but to those who are as full of faith, even such mountains are easily moveable. But when in addition—the utter silence is remembered of contemporary historians who made it their business to report every analogous circumstance; it should be evident that the constant adjurations throughout the Gospels to exercise faith,—not only met a perceived want in even that credulous age, but also indicated a consciousness even then, that the evidence was not in itself probable or credible to those, who could not possibly then discern that faith is an intellectual vice, instead of a virtue.
But it may be said Socrates also wrote nothing, yet his existence is not doubtful. True, but first, he made no such pretensions as did Jesus; secondly, we have otherwise the best authority of that age for believing in his real existence; and thirdly there is nothing improbable in his story. History had made its appearance in the world, and if any history of that age is credible at all, those of Greece and Rome are the most so. There can be no comparison between the testimony of the cultivated Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, and that of the obscure and in fact—unknown writers of the Gospels; although the death of Socrates took place 400 years before Christ, when Xenophon was about 54 years of age, Plato 30; Aristotle being born 15 years later.
But of the existence of Jesus no mention whatever is made by the contemporary writers of Greece and Rome, or of the world; which proves that it could not have had any See Gibbon, vol. ii, p. 90(Bohn's edition), and Taylor's Diegesis, p p. 363-4 & 385-9, for evidence of the forgery of the passage in which Jesus is named. See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History and Middleton's Free Enquiry "The story in Josephus, of Jesus the son of Ananus, (see Wars vi, v, 3) is evidently the basis of much of that of Jesus of Nazareth. The similarity of their vaticinations (compare Mat. xxiii is very striking. The 35th verse of the xxiii ch. of Mat. affords overwhelming proof that it was written long (say at least 20 rears) after the destruction of Jerusalem, Zacharias, the son of Barachias, being killed in the temple 34 years after the reputed date of the crucifixion (Josephus, Wars iv, v. 4); and sufficient time must be allowed for the confusion of dates to arise The cunning reference in the popular editions of Josephus to 2 Chron. xxiv, 21, will not satisfy the demands of the citation. For "from righteous Abel to Zacharias" is evidently meant to include the complete series from the first to the last notorious case of murder—and the passage in Chron. refers to a time 900 years before Jesus. The prophet Zechariah. who has also been suggested as the person referred to, and the manner of whose death has not been recorded, and was therefore not notorious, lived about 600 years before. The Zacharias of Chronicles also was the son of Jehoiada not Barachias; the prophet Zcchariah was the son of Berechiah. (Zech i, 1)."prominent publicity at the time, if any reality at all. The fact that he is not alluded to in the writings of Philo Judaeus, who was born about the same time as Jesus's asserted birth, and lived to old age in which he
As Past,—which did not occur until long after his reputed death! One glaring instance is at verse 35 of the xxiii chapter of Matthew, where he speaks of the death of Zacharias the son of Barachias as past; although according to Josephus it did not happen until about the year 70.ante dated nearly half a century in order to set criticism at defiance. This was of course easy in an age and country, where there were no newspapers or records, which in any case would have had to prove a negative. The date of the story had only to be carried back beyond the memory of those addressed, to be secure from refutation. This theory concurs with the probably real conditions of the case, which are totally at variance with the received Gospel story. The date assigned to Jesus is altogether incompatible with that, but agrees perfectly with the theory which identifies him with Jesus son of Ananus, as the mere nucleus round which the stories of Chrishna and others, picked up probably by Paul in Arabia, and modified by the prevalent Neoplatonism, afterwards gathered. Of these we know that that of the slaughter of the innocents, and that of the taxing of the world are wholly incredible and mere inventions as applied to Jesus.
Paul's curious visit to Arabia, as mentioned by himself, is as incongruous with the rest of his story, as the fact,—that many of the leading incidents in the history of Jesus, are mere plagiarisms from the far older history of the Indian Christna—is fatal to the originality and historic truth of the Gospels. That Paul's epoch is also ante dated, and that his otherwise unintelligible visit to Arabia—much more probably ensued upon the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, concurs much better than the received chronology—with Lucian's supposed account of Paul, as, "a bald longnosed Galilean, who had been taken up to the third heaven and had there heard unspeakable words," and whom he had actually seen; for Lucian was born in the second century, writing and dying near the end of it. And even without these materials for a re-adjustment of dates, there would remain to be accounted for, the long period of time between all these asserted events, and the date of the first authentic Christian writing, and respecting which no explanation whatever can be given on the orthodox hypothesis.
These conclusions must of course more or less affect our estimate of the character of Jesus. The son of Ananus was evidently no better than a lunatic, whose vaticinations related to nothing beyond the evidently impending destruction of the city and nationality of the Jews. But the character of the Jesus of the
his open to considerable queston. The most remarkable thing reported of him is, that he went about ostensibly practising thaumaturgy and curing diseases; for the expressed purpose, less of labouring for the good of others, than to prove the truth of his doctrines! (John x, 37 8) Than which nothing could be more absurd. If Dr. Tracy were to appeal to his clever cures, as proof of the accuracy of his theological opinions, we should simply laugh at him; because, there is no congruity or relation between the two things; the one can no more be proved by the other, than any theology will enable a man without medical knowledge to cure diseases; and the pretension to cure anything so, proves something very different,—the folly or the roguery of the pretender. Yet such was the sole object of the miracles of Jesus! Also much suspicion is thrown upon those miracles, by the plain statement that their success depended, not so much upon his ability, as on the credulity of the spectators. (Mat. xiii, 58. Mark vi, 5-6.) "And he did not many mighty works there, because of Their Unbelief!"—The very reason why he pretended to do them, and should have done them if he could! "And he Could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief." lie,—who "knew what was in man,"—the manufacturer of man, marvelled! For what purpose did he profess to work miracles but to cure unbelief? yet when the occasion served, and demanded it, he could not do so! Jesus's statement (Mark ix, 22) that "all things are possible to them that believe," is obviously untrue, for a mistake would then be impossible.
Further than this there is really little or nothing by which we can judge of his moral character. He admittedly lived the life of a vagrant, apparently helping himself—or directing his disciples to help him—to other people's corn (Mat. xii, 1. Mark ii, 23) and donkeys, (Mat. xxi, 2. John xii, 14,) and giving evasive answers to plain questions. He never was in a position of trust and responsibility, and we have not very encouraging means of judging how he would have acted if he had been in one. His asserted meekness was certainly not proved when he scourged the people out of the temple, an incident in itself devoid of all semblance of probability. (Mat. xxi, 12. Mark xi, 15.) His judgment appears to have been worse than indifferent in more than one instance; not so much perhaps in the fact that
On the other side, what can be said? His devotion to his visionary purpose is, I fear, the best. He was sacrificed at last (accepting the story as credible) not with that confidence, enthusiasm and endurance which alone can give the halo of glory to the martyr, but in misery and despair! He begged that the cup might, if possible, pass from him! Not with the conscious joy of rectitude, but sweating drops of blood! He implied that he believed—whether he did or not—that his God had forsaken him in his last agony. Could this have been without a conviction that his life was an error, and his devotion a mistake? A pitiable case indeed! Let us thank common sense and straightforward criticism, that it is probably altogether fictitious. Pray observe that I regret as much as any one, that most of his good must be interred with his bones, and that the evil that men cause comes after them. I insinuate nothing against him but what the Gospels have said; and for that I do not blame him. I devoutly thank my philosophy that while pitying him as a deluded fanatic, and deploring the enormous evils which the teaching attributed to him has brought upon humanity, I can honor him for his good attempted, pity him for his misfortunes, and entirely exonerate him from all evil intentions. From the essential stand point of all religion—freewill—so much charity would be a simple impossibility. If man had a power of initiating action or motion as freewill implies;—if under the same conditions it were possible for him to act otherwise than as he does, there would then be room for blame to Jesus. With me, I rejoice to say, there is none. But religion can sec no error without calling it sin. It assumes that faults are voluntary, intentional, and of choice, and calls the ignorant victim of inherited passion, vicious education, and stringent circumstance, wicked, perverse, and damnable! Blind to the inevitable fact, that, according to its own principles, if sin can be, it must originate with the originator! That if man is bad, God—if there
But in any case the necessitarian sees that all such visionaries are the victims of exalted imagination, as well as of external circumstance, and that the intentions of all are equally blameless. Rather, perhaps, that intention enters but nominally, or faintly if at all, into the causation of action. For man's intentions are—like his acts—necessary products of his constitution and circumstances, over which he has no control, and which he cannot select. Thus, and thus only, is charity possible. And therefore, "let us not condemn one another any more; but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." (Rom. xiv, 13).
Poor Jesus! deluded visionary! Thanks be to common sense and growing knowledge, your story is happily altogether incredible!
But the teaching—whosesoever it is—is here! and I wish to examine it impartially and truly. For it is a stumbling block in the way of many. I shall lay little stress on particular texts, which may be shewn to be contradicted, or as piety would say explained, by others. I shall not touch now upon the implied communism, nor on the toleration of the adulteress. Nor on the doctrine of faith, which deserves a separate paper. But I shall deal with leading admitted doctrines only; and shall quote, if at all, merely for general purposes of illustration.
The first thing to be done, is to distinguish what was peculiar in Jesus's teaching, from what he merely repeated; from what was taught hundreds of years before, by Confucius, Zoroaster, &c. Thus the doctrine of immortality was older than Moses, and was notoriously held by the Pharisees is Jesus's time. The common statement then that Jesus brought immortality to light, can only be made in wild contempt for veracity and fact. And for the golden rule,—"Do not to others what ye would not that others should do to you,"—Jesus deserves no more credit than any other man that quotes it with approval; but it must not be overlooked that in repeating it he spoilt it by putting it in the positive form—"Do to others as ye would that others should do to you." And the good of this maxim is very much exaggerated; for it is not of universal social application, and strict conformity to it would produce serious evil. If judges,
This brings me to the next thing, which is to point out, that what Jesus repeated, he invariably exaggerated and caricatured. He could not inculcate that aggression and retaliation are evil, (because provoking strife, and therefore opposed to self interest as much as to morality,) without a caricature, and saying, that if struck on one cheek you should offer the other to be treated likewise. And, "whoever shall take your cloak, give to him your coat also. If any one compel you to go with him a mile, go with him twain." Such teaching is absurd; and in practice would be destructive of true morality, and of society also. So is "resist not evil;" and "love your enemies," which is not only impracticable but wrong. Act towards your enemies so as to convert them into friends if you can, and no one will admire the wisdom and propriety of such conduct more than I. But to love them, is not more difficult than immoral.
And here I shall venture to lay down a canon, which I think is a decided advance upon any teaching of Jesus. I am satisfied that one great cause of the prevalence not only of immorality but of the vague and unfruitful ideas on the subject of ethics generally,—is the want of such a canon. But it is in diametrical opposition to the general teaching of Jesus. I hold that nothing would so much conduce to the improvement of morals generally both public and private as the fulfilment of such a rule as the following. I say that man individually and collectively should never let slip any opportunity of pronouncing in the most emphatic manner possible, the broad distinction between good and evil, virtue and vice; so far as he has attained to it. Love your enemies? Not at all. Hate them not, however evil they may be. For if they are evil, they did not make themselves. But mark your dis-approval of evil conduct wherever you may find it. I say not, "judge not, lest ye be judged," but, Judge, inviting judgment; as we do here. Resist Evil; ay! and to the death !
But according to Jesus, you should make no distinction whatever between your friends and your enemies, the just and the unjust. You are not to judge, but to love and bless, your enemies; do good to, and pray for, them! (Mat. v, 44-5) And what else in the name of common sense are you to do to your friends? You are thus told by Jesus, to ignore the distinction between, and suppress your own judgment of, good and evil, virtue and vice; Why? "That ye may be the children of your father which is in Heaven, for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good;
blasphemy; or else, a complete refutation of the idea of God? And this is not the only place where God is said to be no respecter of persons.
But though it is hard to find any doctrine originally taught by Jesus, there is one, which he has particularly appropriated; namely, the Forgiveness of Sins; and this I propose to shew, is both false and pernicious. And it is directly obnoxious to the rule I have laid down. For it places the good and bad upon a level, and is therefore execrably immoral. If we look round on nature or on human society, we find that evil, or error,—ay! unconscious error too,—Is Never Forgiven. The evil consequences of evil acts are as inevitable as recurring day and night; and must be so until the acts themselves can be undone. And mark! it is solely because this is so—because we find that fire Always burns, that we keep our fingers out of it. And it is only because such ignorant notions, produced by such false teaching, prevail on the subject of morality, that we are less certain of the effects of vice, than of those of fire. The obvious result has been that men believe (as they have been taught) that they may touch pitch and not be defiled! They have been led to think that they may safely err, because repentance and forgiveness avert the natural consequences of error. The vile sale of indulgences was but the natural and proper fruit of such confusion of the principles of virtue and vice; and men for 1800 years have literally—upon this false promise of the Forgiveness of Sins,—Sold Themselves to work iniquity before the Lord! ! !
If men were similarly taught that fire does not burn, they would soon learn the truth by experience of the directly obvious effects. But though more complex and therefore obscure, the effects of vice and crime are not less certain; and See corroborative remarks in Maudsley's Physiology and Pathology of the Mind. pp. 210-1.therefore, though they have been taught this falsehood for 18 centuries, most men have been acute enough to see their interest in being really moral, and dispensing with that forgiveness of sins, which puts others, bound hand and foot, into the power of the priest. But even yet many cannot discern it. They think a man may lie or steal with impunity, if only not found out. Not so. Nature's retribution is always of the most appropriate kind. Those who so misuse their judgment Destroy it. Falsehood invariably causes the destruction more or less of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil, wise and foolish; and we frequently see this remarkably proved by the silly manner in which, after a career of deception, men of good original abilities, at ast commit themselves and come to grief. But if they do not do
because it is unconscious in operation and in effect, and demands intellectual foresight to avoid. I suspect that a much more direct connection than could possibly be perceived at once will yet be traced between lunacy and falsehood.Honesty is the best policy!" Honesty Is the best policy. This is truer than all the Gospels. If it were not, morality would be a wild chimera, instead of a growing fact.
I must however turn, before I conclude, to Jesus's summary of the whole law.—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Mat. xxii, 37-9.) This is as obnoxious to my canon as the rest. Love your neighbours, good, bad, and indifferent, all alike ! And if their virtues and vices are not really theirs, but the capricious gift of God, I don't see why you shouldn't. But if the qualities which distinguish them, are their essential characteristics in accordance with which they cannot but act; I say, mark as plainly as possible upon every occasion, your judgment of their good or evil conduct, and so far do your part to educate posterity. Judge, and be judged. In complex and obscure cases, investigate, compare, discuss, and judge to the stretch of your capacity, every phase of human conduct; Approve the Good, and Condemn the Bad. On philosophical,—though not on religious,—principles, you may do this, and love the lovely to your heart's content: and without hating even your evil neighbour. You may hate his evil conduct, and if you like, the evil circumstances which
he, like yourself, is as good as his constitution and circumstances admit; and if he be so mischievous as to produce much evil or even insecurity to society, (which has preferent claims upon you exactly in proportion to its greater numbers) hesitate not, in your position as a member of society, to judge him, to stay him, to exterminate him, if necessary. But not in the spirit of religion. Judgment should be without love, and without hate, but not without discernment—blind. After judgment, love the worthy; but not the unworthy, who should be indifferent to you. But let worth and worth alone, determine your judgment and your love. One great blot upon the Decalogue is the fifth command, to honor your parents irrespective of desert, and for no reason but the personal relation to yourself! nothing could be more vilely immoral or subversive of the radical distinction between right and wrong, virtue and vice. Do Not then love your neighbours—or parents—indiscriminately. Honor what is honorable. Love what is lovely; But condemn what is evil, and abhor what is vile, as you would hate and shun your own destruction.
But love God First, says Jesus. Is God the better for your love? No! Is man? Yes, largely. Then, I say, love man, that is, the worthy man, first. Cannot God take care of himself? If not, how can he take care of you? Morality is—the manners of men towards each other. To love any other being (except woman) more, must therefore be immoral and evil. It is this putting God first, that is the evil essence of religion. Hark to the man after God's own heart—David, (see Psalm cxxxix, 21, 2) "Do not I Hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? Yea, I hate them with Perfect Hatred. I count them Mine enemies." What a diabolical utterance! Thus it is that the love of God, is, and always has been, the Perfect Hatred of humanity! When a man's imaginative egotism is once projected and exalted into the idea of a God and leads him to fancy that he can possibly owe a higher duty, than to his neighbour and himself, there is no length to which his pious enthusiasm will not carry him, to effect any purpose which he may be so unfortunate as to be persuaded is the will of his God! Let history tell how he has endeavored to emulate his fictitious divine fiend, in inventing horrid tortures for his unfortunate neighbour, whom he has deliberately sacrificed with holy joy, for a sweet smelling savour in the nostrils of the demon Jehovah! Could anything be more immoral? Yet Jesus taught all this in effect, when he said love God first. Yet we can freely forgive him, for he knew not what he did !
To conclude, what did Jesus teach that had not been taught before? Nothing ! The golden rule, which he spoilt, was better taught by Confucius and Zoroaster, and probably by thousands before them. So was the forgiveness of injuries as well as of sins. Even the precepts—to resist not evil, and to love enemies, did not originate with him, though he may have given more prominence to them, or exaggerated them more, than his predecessors. Why then, if he taught nothing new that was good, or good that was new, is he preferred to them, and falsely invested with particular credit, for repeating what others had said? Simply because his painful though impossible story, his unmerited wrongs, and miserable fate, have invested his memory with a melting pathos, which appeals directly and powerfully to human sympathy; which while it captivates the affections, deceives the judgment. Men are moved, aye, and to tears, far more readily by reading fiction than by witnessing fact. This is why men are utterly blinded to the otherwise obvious and vital defects of Jesus's teaching, and actually adore him, for what they would contemn another. And until men and women better appreciate and utilise their precious faculty of reason, and recognise their duty and interest in exercising it unreservedly upon every subject that comes before them, to distinguish and emphasize the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, their very virtues will always be liable to run them headlong into vice, and their Good will be Evil. And again I say unto you,—Judge!—not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment!
H. Thomas. Printer. 75 Little Collins Street West. Melbourne.
This College has always professed, as the crown of all its work, freely to teach Theology; and, in a recent Memorial to the Government, has prayed that, in every teaching University of the kingdom, provision be made for unfettered theological study, with appropriate honours, as a means of "developing the noblest branch of human learning" and "fostering the moral and spiritual elevation of the community." What then is "Theology," with which our life here is bound up, and of which we have ventured to speak as experienced representatives? The word itself, belonging as it does to a well-known group of compounds, indicates its own central conception. As Geology is the methodical knowledge of the earth's crust,—Physiology, of living organisms,—Psychology, of the self-conscious mind,—Ethnology, of the races of mankind,—so is Theology the doctrine or rational apprehension of God. He is its object; and those who teach it assume that our faculties can take cognizance of Him, no less than the Kosmologist assumes that he can intelligently construe the variety and unity of the world. The methods of seeking Him have indeed changed with the genius of the thinker and the temper of
Divine Knowledge, in which the toil shall end. This is the inspiration of Theology; and if that living breath departs, it collapses and dies.
By watching the gradual change in the choice and complexion of words, we gain a kind of Nilometer, which shows the shifting levels and gathering floods of thought, and warns us of the season's work. And it is not without significance that, in place of what used to be called the study of Theology, we now more often hear of the "Science of Religions" i.e. the systematic knowledge of what men have believed and felt on things sacred to them. The difference is obvious: it drops us down from a Divine to a Human object, from the yearning of Reason after its transcendent Reality to the history and critique of ethnic mythologies. As an element in the study of man, rich in psychological instruction, there is every ground for welcoming the new expansion recently given to this order of inquiries, and for rendering all honour to the leaders who open the way through them. And the treatment of them in the pure historical spirit, unperverted by theoretic preconceptions or apologetic interests, places them for the first
Whence this change in the aspect and method of religious theory? Why has it parted with its Infinite Object, and taken up instead with men's poor fancies about it? Can the broken lights of primeval superstitions render a truer image of things Divine than immediate intellectual vision? Have we really come to that last resort of superannuated philosophy, an eclectic commonplace-book of favourite beliefs? No doubt, the reason is, that our age finds it easier to feel sure of what Religion is in man, than of what it says of God; and can treat it therefore with tenderness and respect as a subjective phenomenon, but hesitates to follow its daring launch-out on to the ocean of real being. Its power as an element of character, as an
the wicked lay snares for themselves; or some attitude of the moral consciousness, e.g. the felt transcendency of duty over 'performance; and, seizing upon these included postulates, we say—"Here is the key: this is the whole story: we have got it now in the plain demotic character; and the hieroglyphics may be rubbed out." What is the result? Much, I think, what we should expect, where the text is disparaged to glorify the interpreter: its thought is twisted into a mask, through which his eyes look out; and under the guise of ancient sage or prophet, we arc confronted by the
Of this rationalistic reduction of religion to formulas of experience there are so many examples now-a-days as to indicate a general tendency of our time. Amid their varieties there is one cry in which all their voices concur. It is raised in Holland, but echoed everywhere. "No Metaphysics!"—which means, taken in the foreign sense of the word, "No inquiry into any See the discussion on "Godsdienst zonder metaphysica" and on the "Zedelijk Ideaal," in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, Real Being beyond the phenomena of the world: that is a problem which, whether admitting of solution or not, is indifferent to the spiritual life of humanity: either way, Religion remains a personal and social fact, the contents and significance of which we may examine." In other words, "It is nothing to Religion whether or not there be a God! We may give theology its discharge and let it carry off all its beliefs, without prejudice to human trust and piety; these have ample support from the laws of our nature and the order amid which we are placed, without seeking any deeper base." It is no wonder that when this one common element of all known religions (for even Buddhism does not answer to the demand, "No Metaphysics!") is removed, very divergent accounts should be given of what the residuary essence really is. In this indeed they do agree;—that Morality, as next of kin to Religion, must succeed to its inheritance and take its name: only, as they have hitherto existed both together on domains by no means co-extensive and with followers far from identical, it is necessary, if the world is to feel no bereavement, to devise some transformation for morality,—to give it a step of preferment from the temporal
stream of tendency as that continuous not-ourselves which makes for Righteousness.' Mr. Frederick Harrison has no objection to the 'emotion;' but prefers, as a Supreme Being, the idea of collective Humanity which claims the individual's service and weaves it into its texture for ever. The newest philosophy of Holland deems it enough that the morality shall be ideal; not the prosaic will of duty that toils under the burden and heat of the day, but the free flight towards visionary perfection to which midnight contemplation invites. Religion, we are assured, is "Moral Idealism."
Let it be admitted at the outset that, within the limits of Ethics,—if that were all the ground they claimed,—each of these teachers emphasizes an important truth. That on this scene of our life the course of things "makes for righteousness,"—that in "the stream of tendency" the defiling contents gradually subside and leave the waters purer as they flow,—that history, through all its tragedies, contains the promise of Right,—and that a firm trust in
passivity, which has only a sensitive value. On these terms he is not a man at all; nor even so much as a sponge in the sea, which at least does something with the water around it. The human being is first constituted by precisely the system of relations which are all here omitted: we are what we are by reciprocation: the individual is not the factor, but the product, of society; and, to understand our nature, we must reckon with humanity first as a collective and dominant organism, whence he starts forth and differentiates himself.
But it is one thing to be brought to the verge of Religion
the Living God, I submit that they attempt what is impossible, and that the very life of Religion centres precisely in that which they discard. They feel the elevation and beauty of the best type of spiritual growth, but would fain dispense with its secret aliment and conditions. They look with wonder at the stately stem, as it springs aloft: they love the shade of the foliage: they admire the blossom;—but they cut the root. It is a repetition, at a higher level, of the mistake which the Individualists commit. These try to make a whole of the single person, and from his nature, measured in itself, to deduce a theory of his existence, though that existence is entirely made up of a tissue of relations with his kind and his theatre of being. Humanism corrects this error; yet again renews it, when it shuts up mankind within their reciprocal relations, and cuts them off from diviner affinities beyond. Neither ourselves, nor our race, surveyed as an island, can ever be interpreted aright: to understand what we are, and even what we contain, we must venture the embracing seas and integrate our lives with the unmeasured sphere of being.
Do I then restrict the conception of Religion to the sentiments awakened by the presence of Infinite Perfection, and say that, short of this point, its characteristic spirit fails? On the contrary, I trace its secret power in all
religious nature; and the aspiration it sustains, the trusts it fosters, the self-sacrifice it renders possible and light, fling into our life its fairest colours and tincture it all with sacredness. Let this devoutness of heart be free as you will: let it go everywhere and touch everything: the finite also is open to it as well as the infinite; and the minor pieties are not to retire or renounce their name before the greater. But then, for both there is this indispensable condition; viz. that the inward homage, whatever its direction, shall alight upon a real object, and not lose itself in the dilution of an endless search. When I am awed and subdued before the grace and grandeur of a moral superior, it is not because he suggests, but because he realizes, a higher conception of excellence: it is as a living agent, as a personal embodiment, of righteousness, that he wields authority over my conscience. Take away this element, tear the picture out of the volume of true history and cast it to the transient winds of imagination, and all is immediately changed. The image remaining the same, I may still admire; but no longer in grave silence,—rather with outspoken praise: of my compunction I am relieved: the strength of resolution is relaxed: the "lifting power" of a devout enthusiasm is gone; and if I have gained any new variety of thought, it is simply added to my culture, but does not transform my life. A conception which reports itself as empty of reality, even if it startles us into a momentary
There is nothing to sustain the worshipful influence of its presence: we cannot venerate our own idea. Kaiser Julien; der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren, S. 12.Here it is that "Moral Idealism" falls short of the conditions of Religion; not because it is ethical, while religion is something else; not because it works among finite relations, while religion is concerned only with the infinite; but because its ideal perfection is known to be only in our heads, while the ideal of religion must be also real. Strauss himself makes the memorable confession, that "none but a book-student could ever imagine that a creation of the brain, woven of poetry and philosophy, can take the place of real Religion."
To mark then the step of thought which crosses the line into the hemisphere of Religion:—it is made when we affirm that over us and in relation to us the All-perfect Mind exists. Devout faith is a belief of real Being on the strength of what ought to be. If you look at it from the outside, you may call it the apotheosis of moral aspiration: if you name it from the interior, you will say, it is the revelation of God in the conscience. The former expression describes the ascent of my thought to its object; the latter, the descent of its object into my thought. As my purpose is at present only to clear the meaning and scope of words which are made mischievous by indeterminate
what ought to be. It introduces many convictions against which the logic of physical science is for ever chafing; but which take no notice of the rebuff, and continue to be bases of social law and invisible bonds of human life. To these criticisms, if time permits, I will devote a few words before I close. Just now I rest on the position that "Moral Idealism" is not Religion, unless the ideal is held to be Real as well as Divine.
To test this position, suppose the element of Reality to be now admitted, and now removed; and compare the natural working of the moral ideal under the two conditions; to see whether in both instances alike it is marked by the effects which experience shows to be characteristic of religion.
Ever since the Epistle to the Romans was written, it has become a Christian commonplace that, in all moral experience, I am divided against myself; inwardly identified with a superior call that beckons me; outwardly liable to take my lot with the inferior inclination that clings to me. In such conflict, whatever be its issue, the real self is always that which votes for the good; conformably with Plato's rule, that no man, of his own will (though, possibly, of blind impulse), ever decides for the worse. If I choose aright, the previous strife is laid to rest, and my nature is at one with itself and its own ends. If I choose amiss, the storm within is fiercer than before; I rage against my
Yet, in another sense, it is just this which is unreal; for it is never realized: it is something still to be, which not yet is. If you ask for the actual self, now and here, to-day and to-morrow, of each individual, it will be precisely that which he repudiates as the false one; wherein the struggle is not over, the temptation not banished, the unity not attained. Unless therefore fact itself is illusion, this other and relatively evil self is that which really is, both in each of us and in society. Yet, strange to say, it encounters a fate which befalls no other fact. Its right to be a phenomenon is disputed. Real as it is, it is condemned for being there, and has to skulk before an eternal protest which treats it as marring reality, and bids it take itself away.
What meaning then is to be put upon these two aspects of Reality, leading us at once to affirm and to deny it of the same object? To the Theist, the paradox easily resolves
Mind, eternally perfect; and Nature, perfectible by transition;—the one for ever being, the other only becoming (therefore partly not being) what it ought to be. Where the great whole consists of this permanent essence of reality and its partial negation, it is intelligible that both should report themselves in our derivative nature, and in their very lineaments claim their respective parentage, and by their native sympathies tend towards their home. In such a world there is no uncertain meaning in that consciousness of a higher that possesses me,—that sense of authority which every opening of duty brings,—that almost speaking appeal to my will that tells me, "This alone is right, and thou canst do it,"—that terrible conviction incurred by all wrong-doing, that I have lost myself and become alienated from an infinitely better than myself. These experiences necessarily belong to the relation between the opening conscience of an incipiently free humanity and the righteousness of an eternally free and holy God. We simply accept them, therefore, as telling us the truth: we believe our compunction, and have nothing to explain away in it: we do not construe it into a vain and illusory regret for what had to be, or think to rid ourselves of its demands
At the same time, the consciousness that what I have realized in act is not the true real, assures me that it has no roots and cannot stand; and that, just because I know this, I am not without the idea and love of that to which I have been faithless: so that the sacred affinity remains; the relation is not abolished; and hope springs up afresh. The local clouds of violated conscience cannot blot out the steadfast expression of eternal Will, all-embracing as the heavens: its everlasting eyes are over all, and know how to find the visual points in every answering mind. This objective persistence of a living Holiness is just the one steadying and sustaining power which condenses flying humours into force of conscience, and animates the waking toils of life with the glow of its divinest dreams. The women whom you could not frighten, and the men whom you could not move to say the false or do the wrong,—have they not been pre-eminently (I do not say exclusively) those who stood face to face with the Living Judge of Eight, and in their own incorruptible perception heard His voice—"Stand fast, for I am with you"?—a voice which at once guarantees the possibility and completes the sanctity of the felt duty. Is it possible to deny that such conviction, with the habits of inward piety which it creates, naturally imparts stability to the will and elevation to the affections?
But this conviction, we are told, is "Metaphysical:" it affirms an existence beyond phenomena; and from our religion we are to take all Metaphysics away. Be it so: then our "Moral Idealism" loses its objective hold, and becomes a mere subjective exercise of imagination: and the question is whether this will still serve as well. The change (may we not say?) amounts to a removal of the ideal from the moral to the æsthetic field; whereby, though it may fix my admiration, it parts with all immediate relation to my will; for it contains in it no assurance of either its authority or its 'possibility, any more than is contained in the artist's dream of a statue nobler than the Apollo, or a picture more touching than the San Sisto. The bare conception of a better in character, rising in the imagination and known to be an imagination, no more touches the springs of action with the sense of what I ought to do and be, than the conception of brighter wits or finer person or happier lot. Any vain longing which it may excite is but like the wish that last night's dream were not only a dream, and is as likely to depress me with a nerveless feeling of inferiority as to lift me into strenuous faith. It is the peculiarity of the visions of conscience,—that which marks them off from all other play of ideality,—that they cannot be purely egoistic, and in becoming such would drop their very essence; that to a lonely, unrelated mind they would be intrinsically impossible; that they profess to come to us upon a mission, to destroy our absolutism and plant us beneath a higher which has a right to the homage of our will. If this profession be not true, the
no less takes two to deliver the game of Duty from trivial pretence and give it an earnest interest. How can I look up to myself as the higher that reproaches me?—issue commands to myself which I dare not disobey?—ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has committed?—surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice?—and go through all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself in a mask and myself in propria, persona? How far are these "emotional" semblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimickry of reality? Are we to 'worship the self-ideality? to pray to an empty image in the air? to trust, in sorrow, a creation of thought which is but a phenomenon of sorrow? No: if religious communion is reduced to a monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone. It is a living relation, or it is nothing;—a response to the Supreme Reality. And vainly will you
But perhaps it will be said that the moral ideal, when traced through its history, is not purely subjective, although at present a phenomenon of the individual consciousness; since it comes to us from minds other than our own; both concentrating and reflecting the social sentiment by whose light we see and in whose air we breathe; and also storing up an indefinite inheritance of ancestral judgments of character, not only transmitted by descent, but looking down on us from the portrait-galleries of history and permeating the whole substance of literature. The standards of excellence to which admiration and reverence turn have actually formed themselves, it is urged, outside of us: they are not personal inventions which we might Methods of Ethics: Supplement to 1st Edition, p. 45. See also 1st Ed. p. 62. "That in us which claims authority is never a mere sentiment, hut always a faculty cognizant of an objective rule or imperative which exists independently of its effect on our feelings."weave in vacuo; but are presented to us as the objective fruit of human experience, the last distillation of good when all foreign ingredients are left behind; and it is not therefore without reason that we refuse to interpret them as egoisms, and feel them as claims upon us rather than as fancies within us. They do speak to us with an external authority: but this authority it is enough to treat as social, without attributing to it anything transcendental and divine. Why may we not, it is asked, set our foot on this reality, and so regain the missing power? This objection proceeds from those who regard the moral sentiment as communicated rather than indigenous,—as partly borrowed in our own time from other minds, and partly a legacy in our organism from a long past. They are ready to assent to Mr. Sidg-
they have detected its rudiments and conditions of growth in external experience, its conception of the objectivity of duty is provided for and justified. The fallacy is obvious. It is one thing for a sentiment to owe its existence to outward conditions; it is another to carry in its meaning an objective reference: to grow from without inwards is not to look from within outwards; and the objectivity we here investigate is not in the genesis of the conception, but in its contents. Its inherent belief of an authority beyond us is not explained by discovering for the sentiment a foreign origin, physiological and psychological, of which we are wholly unconscious. The discovery is yours, not ours; and its very merit for your genius depends on its having been a secret to our thought. The objective sources of our moral feeling are absolutely hidden from it: its objective authority is absolutely clear to it: to identify the two is to affirm that the same thing may be simultaneously in consciousness and out of it.
Suppose, however, the fallacy removed from this analysis by our becoming conscious of the actual origin of our moral ideal, viz. progenitors in the past, society in the present; so that, thus far, there is no hindrance to our finding in them the "objective authority," the "imperative" rule independent of our own feelings, which the sense of duty
thus presented to us is higher than we,—higher, moreover, than our noblest and best men, in whom also and with intenser eye the conscience retains its upward look? No: historical and actual Society constitutes, by its opinions, a force larger indeed, stronger, more enduring than we; but not even approaching our own ideal, much less passing away beyond it towards infinitude. Nay more: social opinions are either the expression of conscience already there, and then they are the effect of the very ideal they are supposed to form; or, they tell simply what men like and dislike and mean to insist upon with each other; and then they are not moral at all; the influence which proceeds from them is coercive only, not sacred,—compressing reluctant wills, but releasing none into a free enthusiasm. The objectivity, therefore, which is supplied to us by this doctrine is of the wrong kind for drawing forth the homage of reverent affection, and can offer only the blankest disappointment to any true moral idealism.
Besides, if the object in which the authority rests is a continuous and universal social will, it is for us a mere
home and country, through the generality of which faces look at us and fields and villages are seen: and these may become the occasion of some minor idolatries of the heart, shaping themselves however into the innocent forms of conscious personification and fervent song. But abstractions which have no such contents,—e.g. Law, Reason, Wealth, Opinion,—whatever pranks they may play with our Logic,—cannot persuade us to bow down and worship them. If the only object you have to offer for human homage be an impersonal conception of this kind, it is easy to see what will become of our religion under the change. We have only to substitute for the familiar terms of personal piety, which speak of "God" and the human "Soul," any of their supposed modern equivalents when the "Metaphysics" are discharged, and then estimate the gain or loss. Will then the Benedicite swell with the same tones of joy, when it has to sing—"Bless the Eternal Law, all ye its works; bless the Eternal Law, 0 my synthesis of organs"? Will the contrition which now cries—" Blot out my transgressions," "Cast me not away," "A broken heart Thou dost not despise," pour out its sorrows to a deaf "ideal," and shed its passionate
Eternal Not—ourselves that makest for righteousness, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt"? Will any Crucified one lose the bitterness of Death in crying, "O Stream of Tendency, into thy hands I commit my spirit"? And to the Martyr, stoned to death, will any Heaven open and any Vision come, when he exclaims, "Great Ensemble of Humanity, receive me"? For my part, I cherish the hope that our unsatisfied "Modern Thinker," after vain trial of such devotions, may return to his rest, and say with a natural reversion of heart, "0 Thou once Unknown, I thank Thee that though Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, Thou hast revealed them unto babes."
Our comparison then of the effects on life of the subjective and objective ideal sums itself up in this: that without personal relations between the Human and the Divine, Religion is divested of all its higher attributes and intenser forces: it loses its link with morals: it ceases to transfigure the affections: it relinquishes its grasp upon the will. It was by emphasizing these relations that Judaism became indomitable; and by universalizing them that Christianity laid hold of the foremost nations and rose into the foremost faith of mankind; creating and diffusing a heart-worship, a self-reverence and self-surrender, a depth of spiritual experience, a literature of character and devotion, and a breadth of social compassion, which are the redeeming features of modern civilization. To paralyze these relations is
An undertone of pathetic regret may sometimes be heard in even the most confident critics of Christian Theism; as if, in substituting their abstractions, they were conscious in their hearts of administering a dangerous anaesthetic to Religion, which might leave it speechless and paralytic, if it even survived at all. They plead; however, that the risk must be run; and that, to save any remnant of moral life, the organism of faith must suffer excision of some members which have hitherto been the seat of an intense vitality. Men have always taken for granted that the Supreme Power "thinks and loves;" but the critics have now laid it down that these predicates "cannot be verified, "—a dictum which, giving no account of itself, relies for its effect on mere supercilious iteration. If, in Mr. Arnold's vocabulary, to "verify" means to "test by experiment," the complaint is true, but irrelevant: the inner attributes of the Supreme Cause cannot be submitted to Baconian experiments, with registered results tabulated under "Sic" and "Non." Yet their exemption from this criterion does not discredit their existence: for if a Divine Mind were really
to justify by sufficient reason" is here equivalent to "verification," the complaint, though relevant, is unfounded: for we are guided by no other reason in attributing thought and love to our fellow-men than that which warrants our ascription of them to God. In neither case have we any immediate apprehension of these invisible affections of mind: in that degree of closeness they are known only as exercised by ourselves: in others we read them only by having thus learned their signs; and precisely the signs which assure us that we are not in a mad-house, but among companions directed by intelligence and moved by sympathy, repeat themselves in the legible order, beauty, and tendencies of the world. So similar are the marks in the two instances, that if intellect and feeling are allowed their causality in the one, legitimate induction (as Mr. Mill himself insists) requires their admission in the other: they must operate in both, or else in neither. How cogent this resemblance is, curiously appears from the fact that, with our modern men of science, it has become usual to accept this dilemma; and, as they will not admit Mind to be operative in Nature, they actually deny its efficiency in us. Both are automata alike; and all would go on the same, mechanically unrolling the scenery of life and history, though the superfluous appendage of consciousness were cut off. It is beyond the scope of my subject to criticise this pretended completion, but real subversion, of the philosophy of Descartes. Far
I conclude, therefore, as I began, with deprecating the separation between what are called the "Metaphysics" and the Ethics of our supreme beliefs. These beliefs, whose fertilizing influence is first felt far lower down, are found, when followed upwards to their springs, to have two co-ordinate sources,—one in the intellectual, the other in the moral region of our nature; the former bringing us to a transcendent Cause; the latter, to a transcendent Righteousness; together finding their unity in an Eternal Will. The exigencies of thought in dealing with its ultimate problems may require us, and the artifices of analysis may enable us, to contemplate them as distinct, and assign to them their respective lines of descent upon and through the mind arid character. But this detachment is our work, not theirs;—not a fact of life, but an illusion of the schools. In the common sense and feeling of men, and in the faith of Christ, they perfectly blend, and in blending support
mere metaphysics offers us but a pale and icy reality: "Religion without metaphysics" offers us but a painted dream.
The truth of which the new doctrine is a caricature is perhaps this:—that the progressive element of Religion is to be found in an ever-expanding moral ideal as human experience enlarges and the human conscience increases its refinement and its range. New social perplexities of duty, new sufferings for compassion, new virtues for veneration, new temptations for conquest, enter the field as the ages open, and leave the old formulas of righteous life inadequate: and in nothing will a true piety show itself more than in freely embracing its more comprehensive trust, and suffering 110 filaments of habit to detain it from a higher perfectness. On the ontological side of Religion,—in the conception of Primal Being and Power,—there is no such process of advance: it is a fixed thought, and, as a necessary idea of Reason, does not add to its contents, but remains "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Precisely, however, on this account is it the indispensable substratum for the moving images and varying colours of goodness and beauty as they unfold. "Without a permanent there can be no change; and the ideal which for ever grows must in its essence be secured upon the Real. It is idle
And unless we are to throw away all idea of homogeneity and proportion between cause and effect, and between instinctive tendency and its fulfilment, the Rational and the Moral in us can neither have their beginning nor reach their end, in the absence of Divine Reason and Divine Eight. If our human experience teaches us anything certain, it is this: that it is Thought which kindles thought, and Love which elicits love, and Character which moulds and refines character; and that, not upwards, the inferior prevailing to better the superior; but downwards, the greater lifting the less. To reverse this order, to educe Mind from what is not yet mind, and Conscience from blind and neutral force, is to put more into the effect than the cause provides, and ipso facto to convict the explanation of incompetency. And similarly when we face round to see whither our nature looks instead of whence it comes, we find not an appetency, affection, or energy of our being, that fails to meet its fitting object: through the range of the animal, the domestic, the social life, the several relations, of, which one term is within us, complete themselves by hitting upon the other in the external scene. The scientific intellect slakes its thirst on the order and beauty of the world; and even when it ventures, in sympathy with the
style of nature, on guesses and forecasts too daring for immediate belief, its vaticinations have often struck the truth. Is then this analogy to he first broken when we reach the highest levels of our humanity? Are we there flung out of all relations, though still furnished with their inward drift and cry?—still sent to seek, with prejudgment that we shall not find? If we are to assume any concinnity in our nature, or any harmony of it with its theatre of being, such disappointment of its ends carries in it an improbability revolting to the Reason. And can then the "Moral Idealism" step in and deliver us? Yes; if it speaks to us, not in its own name, but in that of its Inspirer; if it stands before the Living God, taking thence its inner power and sending thither its secret prayer, and can utter its prophecies as foregleams of His righteous Will. At such a voice, Conscience becomes transfigured from human to Divine, and life on earth is turned into a "kingdom of heaven." But if, because its God is dead, it can only display its own imaginings, and propose them in tones of personal suggestion, without an organic faith to integrate them with the possible and the intended, it will wield no persuasive influence, but speak as a prophet ere yet the live coal has touched his lips. Its visions will pale and fade; its promises dissolve in unreality; and the sickened conscience that has trusted to it, sink into helpless debility. Human life is too strong for the grasp of spiritual æsthetics: let it remain within the hold of the All-ruling hand.
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Presuming on the ignorance—or what they believe to be such—of the people of this city and suburbs, Dr. Cameron, the Dean of Melbourne, the religious papers and the Sabbatarians generally, are putting forth a number of statements with respect to Sunday observance, which have no foundation in Scripture or in reason; and are reproducing numerous sophisms and fallacies which have been refuted, by eminent divines and other writers, over and over again. It may be therefore advisable, for the information of the public, to cite the following opinions and dicta from the published writings of well known prelates and clergymen, whom even Dr. Cameron, with all his recklessness of assertion, will hardly venture to charge with aiming at licentiousness under the garb of liberty.
Maintains that on the Sunday all recreations whatsoever are to be allowed, which honestly may refresh the spirits and increase mutual love and neighbourhood amongst us; and that the names whereby the Jews did use to call their festivals (whereof the Sabbath was the chief) were borrowed from a Hebrew word, which signifieth to dance and to be merry, or make glad the countenance. . . . What is the cause (he says) that many of our sectaries call this day the Sabbath? If they observe it as a Sabbath, they must observe it because God rested on that day; and then they ought to keep that day whereon God rested, and not the first as now they do, whereon the Lord began His labours. If they observe it as the day of our Saviour's resurrection, why do they call it still the Sabbath; seeing especially that Christ did not altogether rest that day, but valiantly overcame the powers of death.—The Doctrine of the Sabbath. London,
God imposed not this law (of the Fourth Commandment) upon Christian people by any evangelical precept; neither did He command the Gentiles at any time, before or after the Law, to initiate the example of resting the seventh day of every week. And therefore abstinence from worldly labour upon the old Sabbath, in imitation of God Almighty, would not be a work of holiness and true obedience in us Christians, but an act of judicial superstition. The evangelical law imposeth no commandment of total abstinence from secular labour, or from civil actions, during the space of a natural day, either upon the old Sabbath day, or upon the Sunday, or any other day of the week.—A Treatise on the Sabbath Day. London,
The Sabbath was not instituted in the beginning of the world. No Sabbath was kept from the Creation to the Flood. Neither was it kept from the Flood to Moses. Nothing is to be found in Scripture touching the keeping of Sunday. In the fourth century, from the time of Constantine to that of St. Augustine, Sunday was not taken for a Sabbath. Neither was it regarded as such during the next six centuries. The Lord's Day had no such command as the Sabbath, that it should be sanctified, but was left plainly to God's people to pitch on this or any other for the public use. And being taken up amongst them, and made a day of meeting in the congregation for religious exercises, yet for 300 years there was neither law to bind them to it, nor any rest from labour or from worldly business regarded upon it.—The History of the Sabbath,. London,
Sure our Saviour would never have styled his yoke easy, and his burthen light, had this strict observance of the Lord's Day been a part of it.—A Discourse of the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. London,
The following points ought to be taken as certain and granted amongst Christians:—1. That no part of the law delivered by Moses to the Jews doth bind Christians under the Gospel, as by virtue of that delivery; no, not the Ten Commandments themselves, but least of all the fourth, which all confess to be, at least in some part, ceremonial. 2. That the particular determination of the time to the seventh day of the week was ceremonial. And so the obligation of the Fourth Commandment in that respect, although it were juris Divini positivi to the Jew, yet it ceased, together with other legal ceremonies, since the publishing of the Gospel, and bindeth not Christian consciences.—A Sovereign Antidote against Sabbatarian Errors. London,
It was never yet revealed by prophet or apostle that God would thus or thus punish honest, lawful, and harmless recreations upon the Lord's Day, with such particular judgments as are observed to have fallen upon some particular persons in divers quarters of this land. Let such threatenings be produced, and something is said.—Seven Questions of the Sabbath briefly disputed Oxford,.
The Jewish Sabbath being abrogated, the Christian liberty, like the sun after the dispersion of the clouds, appeared in its full splendour: and then the division of days ceased, and one day was not more holy than another. And when St. Paul reproved the Corinthians tor going to law before the unbelievers, who kept their court days upon the first day of the week, he would not have omitted to reprove them by so great and weighty a circumstance as the profaning the Lord's Day, in case it had been then a holy day, either of Divine or apostolic institution.—Ductor Dubitantium.
St. Paul, the great patron and champion of Christian liberty, not obscurely declareth his mind that Christians of strength in judgment did regard no day above another, but esteemed all days (he excepteth none) alike, as to any special obligation, grounded upon divine law and right; in subordination to which doctrine we may add that this appears to have been the common opinion of the wisest and most orthodox Christians in the primitive church. . . . This law, as it was not known or practised before Moses, so it ceased to oblige after Christ; being one of the shadows which the evangelical light dispelled, one of the burdens which the law of liberty did take of us.—A Brief Exposition of the Lord's Prayer and Decalogue,
We not seeing any ground in Scripture for it, cannot be so superstitious as to believe that either the Jewish Sabbath now continues, or that the first day of the week is the antitype thereof, or the true Christian Sabbath, which, with Calvin, we believe to have a more spiritual sense; and therefore we know no moral obligation, by the Fourth Commandment or elsewhere, to keep the first day of the week more than any other, or any holiness inherent in it.—An Apology for the True Christian Divinity,
No one is by the Christian dispensation obliged to obey any part of the Mosaic law, as such, any more than he would have been if that law had never been given.—Lectures on Divinity, No. 209.
As for the Sabbath, we be lords of the Sabbath, and may yet change it into Monday, or any other day as we may see need; or we may make every tenth day holiday only, if we see cause why.—Answer to Sir T. More.
Our forefathers which were in the beginning of the Church did abrogate the Sabbath, to the intent that men might have an example of liberty.—Declaration of Baptism.
As to the Lord's Day, we are not able to refer to a single passage in all the Scriptures of the New Testament in which the observance of it is enjoined by God. . . . Let then our fields and parks be open. And as there must be temptation in an alehouse, and as there can be no sin in reading, why should not our libraries be made accessible in the winter?—The Lords Day. 1856.
No one who would read St. Paul's own writings with unprejudiced mind could fail to come to the conclusion that he considered the Sabbath abrogated by Christianity. Not merely modified in its stringency, but totally repealed. . . . I cannot but believe that the false, Jewish notions of the Sabbath-day which are prevalent have been exceedingly pernicious to the morals of the country.—Sermons.
The Apostle Paul decides nothing; leaving every man's mind to guide him on the point.... I therefore infer that Sabbatical obligation to keep any day, whether seventh or first, was not recognised in apostolic times—Notes on the Greek Testament.
I do not believe in the continual obligation of the Fourth Commandment. I have no faith in it.—Speech in the Glasgow Presbytery, Nov 16, 1865.
In no one place in the New Testament is there the slightest hint that the Lord's Day is a Sabbath, or that it is to be observed Sabbatically, or that its observance depends on the Fourth Commandment.—Bampton Lectures.
Mr. Bright spoke as follows:—
I desire in my lecture of this evening to explain what in my opinion are the meaning and mission of the Sunday Platform, and to enter a protest against any attempt to suppress it. (Applause.) And, in order that this may be seen to be of any value, it is perhaps necessary in the first place that I should show that there is a decided and premeditated effort to be made, now or in the immediate future, to ensure such suppression. Even after all that has been said, people find it difficult to convince themselves that those who are making this effort are really in earnest in what they are undertaking. It seems such a monstrous thing, at the present day, and in an English colony, that any government should desire to interfere with the peaceable pleasure and profit of a large section of the community, who do no harm to any other section, that it is indeed difficult to conceive such an effort is to be persisted in. But, from the first, for my own part, I have been well assured that the attempt was a premeditated one, and I felt tolerably convinced that it would, at least for a time, be persisted in. There was some little while ago an article in the S. M. Herald very fairly, in many respects, discussing the question, and offering, for the Herald, tolerably strong opinions why such an attempt should not be continued; and in that article it was said that the writer believed that the words affecting public lectures had found their way into the Licensing Bill through an inadvertence, and that they were not aimed at the Sunday evening gatherings. I addressed a letter to the Herald, in which I pointed out that such a contention as this seemed to be scarcely tenable I said that I believed—and moreover it was not merely my own belief, but that of a gentleman of legal standing in this community whose opinion would rank deservedly high—that those words "any public lectures" had never before found their way into a Licensing Bill, either in Imperial or Colonial British legislation. (Applause.) I pointed out that the only method in which such words could possibly have found their way into the Bill by inadvertence would have been by their being copied from some other enactment; and as there would seem to have been no enactment of the kind from which to copy
Herald, for what reason I am not aware; but possibly in pursuance of the usual policy of that paper, never to advance too far in the direction of freedom. (Laughter.)
However, this phase of the question is now placed beyond farther argument; for, as you are aware, in moving the second reading of this Bill, Sir Henry Parkes, the head of the government, took occasion to declare his sentiments, and what those are I will read to you from the report furnished in the Herald. He said:—"In connection with this there was a proviso in the Bill as it now stood, that these licensed theatres or public halls should not be used for Sunday lectures or other purposes without the special authority of the Colonial Secretary That appeared so he was told, very oppressive to some persons, but he failed to see the oppression. (Laughter.) He supposed there would be some movement made in society if the play of "Hamlet" was performed on a Sunday. Every religious sect in the country would feel scandalised, but that would be morality itself compared to some lectures. A lecture on the anatomy of the human frame might be made injurious to the welfare of the whole community,—(laughter)—and if they were not prepared to have the plays of Shakespeare performed on Sunday, he did not see the hardship of requiring a person wishing to instruct the public being called upon to state what he was going to do. (Laughter) If certain lectures were given in a theatre on a Sunday or on a Monday, and the government did not step in to prevent them, there would be a loud outcry and very justly so. He was sure that House in the spirit of liberty and fair play was not yet prepared to allow large classes of the community to be scandalised by some indecent performance under the title of a lecture. And if the House was not prepared to have the plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists performed on Sundays, he could not see how they could allow these lectures to be given It would remain for the committee to deal with this question when the Bill had passed its second reading, but he thought the principle could be defended, that the provision was no invasion of the liberty of the subject or of the liberty of the platform." Now that is the opinion expressed by Sir Henry Parkes in introducing the Bill, and holding that opinion, of course we can easily understand how those words "any public lectures" found their way into the measure.
Now, I do not intend to-night to enter on the discussion of the question as to whether it would be well or not for Shakespeare's plays to be produced on Sunday. But inasmuch as it has been said by certain clergymen that they would prefer to have Shakespeare's plays performed than that lectures like mine should be given, I affirm that I would far rather have Shakespeare's plays performed than suffer the infliction of many of the sermons they deliver. (Laughter and hear, hear.) Shakespeare's plays would at all events not cause a man to hate his brother man; while many of the sermons delivered on a Sunday do have the effect of sending away their audiences with hearts filled with hatred of those who are opposed to them in theology. (Applause.) At all events, the public are not now demanding theatrical performances on Sunday evenings, while they do demand Freethought lectures. With respect to the argument of Sir Henry Parkes, that certain lectures might be delivered which would be a scandal to the community, so in the same way certain
Thus having shewn from the speech of the mover of the Bill himself, that there is a decided effort to be made now or at an early time to suppress this and similar platforms, let me repeat that I am not in the least degree surprised at it, because I am well aware that there have been attempts made to cause such legislation as this to be introduced. Not only here, but in other places where the Sunday platform has been instituted, the clergy have been greatly exercised in mind regarding it. They have seen, to their disgust, that it is a self-supporting institution, that it is not likely to fall to the ground, as they at first hoped, for want of public patronage; and they have been consequently troubled in their minds as to the best method of dealing with it. Some have suggested, as I know, that it should be publicly proceeded against by such obsolete laws as might be raked out of the dust of past legislation, but this has been opposed on the ground that it would but turn the lecturers into martyrs, and make them more popular than ever. (Applause.) Hence, it has been deemed, the best means of suppressing it, that prominent members of the Government should be ear-wigged on the subject, and the result, I make bold to say, of such earwigging, possibly, as we are informed by Sir Henry Parkes himself, with his full concurrence, is to be found in the Licensing Bill introduced into Parliament.
Seeing then, that this institution of a Sunday Platform is to be, if possible, suppressed, it becomes needful that we should consider what are its objects, and what its probable mission. And in order that we may fairly understand these we shall have to consider first what have been the object, the mission, and the nature of that other Sunday institution, the Pulpit. The ostensible object and mission of the Pulpit have been to minister to the spirituality, morality, and intellectual development of the people, and in the past doubtless it has, at times, acted powerfully in this direction. Even now, under exceptionally fortunate circumstances, i.e., where the Pulpit is filled by a man of capacity and breadth of thought, it may be beneficial to those who resort to it. But the same object and the same mission, precisely, are those which are set before the Sunday Platform. Hence, in these respects, in the aims of the two Sunday institutions, they are on a par—in their avowed aims they are on a par;—both
Remember, that the Pulpit and the Platform, as institutions, are something more than merely pieces of furniture—something altogether apart from fixings. You may have a Pulpit which looks like a Platform, and in some rare cases you may have a Pulpit which is really a Platform. In America they are becoming, I believe, comparatively common. Apart from exceptions, however, the great difference between the two institutions is this:—The pulpit everywhere, (even if the person who fills it occupies the stage of a theatre) is the result of previous organisation Thus, a committee has to come together, a congregation has to form, and the person who addresses it has to speak in such a way as shall be satisfactory to the organization which supports him. He is, in truth, no matter how free he may deem himself or be deemed by others, under the authority of certain persons who are in reality placed above him Every occupant of a pulpit has to think of something else besides the simple question, what do I regard as truth? Every occupant of a pulpit has to turn side glances perpetually to another question,—what will be thought of this doctrine by those I am addressing? Will it be regarded as sound? Thus the pulpit wherever it is found, is under the control of sectarian organization. Now the platform, that is to say the Sunday Freethought Platform, is completely free of organization. The happy occupant of such a platform has not to go forth from the place where he stands in fear and trembling as to what the great "Mr. So-and-so" will think of what has been put before the public; or still worse, to speculate as to what the great "Mrs. So-and-so," who is such an ardent supporter of his organization, might have to say when he calls upon her in a few days time, lie has simply to place before those who come to hear him what he conceives to be truth, and nothing else. And that is a grand position.
The most fatal fault of modern society, as indeed it has been throughout so much of the society of the past, is this—that people are afraid to declare their real sentiments, afraid to speak out to the world the simple truth as they conceive of it. We can hardly realize the mischief that this has caused and is still causing to the world. In the words of John Stuart Mill—" Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. (Hear, hear.) Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think." On Liberty, 2nd ed., p. 61.
Viewed within itself the lecture platform is a most admirable means of giving information to those who from their occupations during the week, or from disinclination to study, are unable to make themselves acquainted with the grand thoughts of the time, with the great and subtle questions that are now agitating public opinion, or with the arcana of scientific facts. On this subject I would read you a few words from an essay upon the lectures of that distinguished astronomer who is now delivering addresses with such success in Melbourne, Mr. R. A. Proctor, and whom before long, doubtless, we shall have the pleasure of hearing. (Applause.) In speaking of Mr. Proctor, the writer of this excellent essay under the head of "The Critic," in the On Liberty 2nd ed. page 82.Australasian of Saturday, 5th June, says:—" There are many people who are desirous of gaining knowledge who yet, from habit of mind, are not able to assimilate it with east when presented in a book. The effort of translating the letters of the printed page into ideas and facts is too much for them. They want the ideas and facts put before them conversationally. It is far easier to get at their minds through the ear than through the eye. This is where the usefulness of the lecturer comes in. He collects a large number of people interested in his subject; he puts himself, with a lecturer's tact, into relation with their understandings, feels by an acquired sense when he is commanding their attention, and conducts them through a subject which many of them would have been quite unable to follow without his assistance." Now that very fairly I think presents what may be done by a lecture; and as I have said, there are also to be considered those people who have not time to study these subjects for themselves. If that be the case with a lecture on purely scientific topics, the remarks apply with even greater force to lectures on subjects connected with what is generally known as Freethought, i.e. opinions which are opposed to those entertained by the majority of mankind at the time when such views are presented. Mill says:—" If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves."
I have attempted to shew wherein the platform as a Sunday institution differs from the pulpit. It differs precisely in this respect, that the occupant of it is thoroughly free. He has not to go forth to bow down before anyone in possession of a little authority, from the sole fact probably of his possessing a great deal of cash. He can speak what he believes to be true, and as his opinions grow and enlarge the public receive the benefit of them. There is no obligation or restriction on
Sectarianism, be it remembered, is not a good thing in itself. It is a thoroughly bad thing in all its results, excepting so far as its teaching may make in the direction of moral goodness; but we know right well that a vast proportion of its teaching is based on speculative, yet changeless, creeds, which rational men and women are beginning to know to be false. They are beginning to perceive that there is no truth in the creedal statements that the eternal God ever walked the earth in the guise of humanity and was put to death by his own creatures, that a child was born without a human father, that three persons arc One, that the judicial murder of one man made atonement for all who believed, and that the rest are to be tortured in flames for everlasting; these and various similar statements are begining to be regarded by vast numbers as false, and as Thomas Carlyle says (in a passage quoted in Marcus Clarke's admirable pamphlet "Civilisation without Delusion") "the first of all gospels is this, that a lie cannot endure for ever." (Applause.) Truth has nothing whatever to fear from freedom of speech. Truth invites, does not shun, attacks; and if the Sunday Platform is allowed, as it must sooner or later be permitted, to develop itself unassailed, except by argument, the truth must benefit by the unfettered speech to which it will conduce.
There ore manifold other agencies at work now, besides the Churches. In the remote past the Church was the sole teacher of anything in the shape of morality and domestic virtue. Now there are unnumbered secular agencies, most of them having had the churches opposed to them in their initiation. There are temperance societies, friendly societies, debating clubs, schools of arts, athenaeums, public libraries, and the press, and it is just as much as the old churches can do to come stumbling along after these institutions—(laughter and applause)—patronising them when they no longer require patronage, after having opposed them while they were struggling for existence. Every good and beneficial institution has been so treated, from the Sunday School itself upwards. All organizations of a catholic character will stand their ground, and if we can only be rid of religious sectarianism the result will be enormously beneficial to mankind. In speaking thus, 1 allude not to one sect, but to all. All in direct proportion to the power they possess, will persecute freedom "We discern the evidence of this fact in every direction. It was once thought that in those sections of Christianity, where indeed the Christian belief is whittled away as thin as possible, that dogmatic opposition to other forms of belief would be at an end. But it is not so. Even such a sect as the Unitarians, who are almost everywhere cold-shouldered by orthodox Christians, who will not admit they are Christians at all,—even they sometimes act as illiberally as the other sects. I have noticed an instance quite recently in an American paper. Some of you may be aware that there is a publisher in the United States, who, to the shame of that country, has lingered a full year in gaol for the publication of some obnoxious opinions—Mr. D. M. Bennett, editor of the New York Truth Seeker. I can say nothing regarding the work, for the publication of which he was imprisoned, as I have not seen it, but I know that men like Elizur Wright, James Parton, and Colonel Ingersoll would not uphold him if he had not been impelled to his work by a love of truth, and a desire to benefit his race. This man was cast into gaol, and remained there twelve months. A large number of his friends in New York, as the time arrived for his liberation, were determined to give him a grand reception. They applied for a large hall in New York, known as the "Cooper Union Hall." At first there was no objection offered, but after a while the committee of that hall, which is under Unitarian superintendence, having been established by the beneficence of a well-known Unitarian after whose name it was called, refused the use of the hall for the purpose. They were not liberal enough to throw open their doors to an arch-heretic like Bennett, and the result has been that the promoters of the movement had to obtain another, the Chickering Hall, and I believe a splendid demonstration, in which people from all parts of the United States assisted, occurred there on the 2rd May last. I refer to this to shew you that you cannot enter upon anything in the shape of sectarianism without at once entering also upon something which resembles the ancient religious bigotry. With the Platform this is of course altogether impossible. It is an institution founded in freedom. It asks for no mediator between the lecturer and the public. If the lecturer has something to say, and can say it so as to be attractive to the public, the public will come and hear him, and no one else is required or ought to be suffered to interpose between them (Applause.)
Such being the claims of the Sunday Platform, what is the nature of the attack made upon it? The time is past when any orthodox priesthood are enabled, directly, to fetter freedom of speech. As long as priesthoods had the power to do so, they did it. They attacked directly those who in any form of teaching were opposed to them in opinion, and crushed them. Of course, the Church which did this with the greatest vigor was that which from its unity occupied the most powerful position, but all churches have, to the extent of their ability, persecuted those whose opinions differed from their own. For some time, however, thanks to the efforts of Freethinkers, it has been unpopular to avowedly attack freedom of speech, and so side issues have been raised. Oh! no, they never, any of them, want to cripple freedom of speech ! Those who imprisoned George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, did not wish to crush freedom of speech, only to guard the morals of the public! (Laughter.) So with those who attacked and imprisoned Bunyan, and placed Defoe in the pillory! And so in a most remarkable instance at a later time; an instance which I propose to dwell on for a little, because I believe it will prove most instructive to those who are opposed to us in sentiment.
In the last century religion in England was, as historians plainly shew us, at a very low ebb; a fact not to be wondered at when we remember that it was a state-supported religion, and that those who were called its teachers knew very well that they need not make any exertion to secure the support of the people they addressed. Hence, it is not strange to learn that religion had fallen into disrepute There were fox-hunting parsons who prided themselves on hopping easily over a five-barred gate, parsons who rushed away as soon as possible from the few words they deemed it necessary to address to their parishioner on Sunday, in order to go and see a cockfight. These parsons ran away from the pulpit almost as soon as they entered it, and for any benefit that their flocks derived they might just as well have gone before,—(laughter)—left their pulpits to go into the vestry in order that they might drink with their boon companions. On all sides we are told the Church was in a dreadful state. The clergy, to a large extent, were hangers on for preferment to the Ministry of the day, or still worse about the ante-rooms of the king's German mistresses. Everywhere there was nothing but lethargy and corruption. No new churches had been erected, and no schools opened, we are informed, since the grammar schools in the days of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth. The masses of the people were ignorant and brutal. Such was the state of religion in the early portion of the last century, and what occurred? There were certain men in the English Church, itself, who could not be content with a mere sham religion. They must be in earnest, endeavouring to do something to awaken the people to the conviction of the greatness of the truth of that which they themselves believed. The most prominent of these men were the two Wesleys and Whitfield. Though differing completely from their religious views, let me own at once, that they did a grand work in, at all events, making people truthful and resolved that their lives and religious professions should be no longer at variance. What happened to them? In "The Life and Times of John Wesley" by the Rev. L. Tyerman, I find the following,—part of a letter from John Wesley himself:—" Being convinced of that important truth which is the foundation of all real religion that by grace we are saved through faith, we immediately began declaring it to others.
But in doing this, we were assaulted and abused on every side. We were everywhere represented as mad dogs, and treated accordingly. We were stoned in the streets, and several times narrowly escaped with our lives. In sermons, newspapers, and pamphlets of all kinds, we were painted as unheard of monsters." In order to shew you the opinion then entertained of this zealous and vital religion, I will give you a quotation presented by Mr. Tyerman from a pamphlet by a reverend doctor of divinity of the time, who no doubt set much store on his knowledge of the dead languages, while arguing feebly in living ones. (Laughter.) This pamphlet was entitled "The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of being righteous overmuch; with a particular view to the doctrines and practices of certain modern Enthusiasts. Being the substance of four discourses lately preached in the parish churches of Christ Church and St Lawrence, Jewry, London, and St. Martin's in the Fields, Westminster, by Joseph Trapp, D.D." (Laughter.) And what does Dr. Trapp, D.D., say?—"For laymen to officiate in reading prayers in any assembly, except their own families, is an encroachment upon the office of those who are ordained to holy functions; and for them to expound or interpret scripture is neither laudable nor justifiable, but tends to the confirmation, not the removal of ignorance." Having thus expressed his dissatisfaction at laymen intruding upon sacerdotal preserves, Dr. Trapp next proceeds to give his opinion respecting one not a layman—" For a raw novice, though in holy orders, to take upon him, at his first setting out, to be a teacher, not only of all the laity, in all parts of the kingdom, but of the teachers themselves, the learned clergy, many of them learned before he was born, is an outrage upon common decency and common sense; the height of presumption, confidence, and self sufficiency! so ridiculous as to create the greatest laughter, were it not so deplorable and detestable as to create the greatest grief and abhorrence, especially when vast multitudes are so sottish and wicked as, in a tumultuous manner, to run madding after him." Thus you see that precisely similar denunciations were levelled against those who followed Wesley and Whitfield, rather than the orthodox Church of England clergy, that are now used against those who come and hear freethought lecturers. (Hear, hear) And Dr. Trapp says further—" They (the Methodists) teach such absurd doctrines, and second them with such absurd practices, as to give countenance to the lewd and debauched, the irreligious and profane. For a clergyman of the Church of England to pray and preach in the fields, in the country, or in the streets of the city,"—this is one of the saddest features, "to preach in the fields or the streets of the city "—and, now by this Hill they want to prevent Freethinkers from speaking anywhere else. (Laughter.) Dr. Trapp goes on—"This is perfectly new, a fresh honour to the blessed age in which we have the happiness to live. I am ashamed to speak upon a subject which is a reproach not only to our church and country, but to human nature itself. Can it promote the Christian religion to turn it into riot, tumult, and confusion? to make it ridiculous and contemptible, and expose it to the scum and feoffs of infidels and atheists? To the prevalence of immorality and profaneness, infidelity and atheism, is now added the pest of enthusiasm." A great pest always to orthodox preachers! (Laughter.) "Our prospect is very sad and melancholy. Go not after these imposters and seducers, but shun them as you would the plague." When we find the clergy a century or so ago talking in that fashion of those who are now almost worshipped
In Gentleman's Magazine for
These extracts will shew you what was thought of Methodism at that time. I have dwelt on these occurrences and conflicts of the last century in order to indicate the difficulties which this movement which is now admitted to have done service of a highly moral and excellent character in that generation, had to encounter and the way in which it was spoken of by those who then plumed themselves on their orthodox conservatism. But different ages unfold different developments. The
In the customary style of subterfuge we are told by the clerical organs who attack this institution that they attack it, forsooth, simply on the ground that money is taken at the doors. Oh! they are once more, most anxious for freedom of speech, tremendously anxious! Well, we thank them for nothing. (Laughter.) We do not want their toleration. As Shakespeare says:—
"What needs the bridge much broader than the flood?" "The fairest grant is the necessity."
We ask for no affected toleration for free speech at the hands of these gentleman we don't want it. They overdo the thing in offering it. All we ask from them is simply that they shall keep to their own business, mind their own concerns, and leave us alone. (Applause.) This overdoing of a thing is always a mistake; people who overdo anything are sure to render themselves ridiculous I noticed lately a most amusing instance of this kind in a humorous picture which I doubt not is familiar to a good many of you. There was an individual who, unfortunately for himself, had to have a tooth extracted, and who was blessed by nature with an extremely large mouth. When he saw the dentist standing with the forceps ready to operate, ho opened his jaws so wide that the dentist stood back and politely remarked, "Don't open your mouth so wide, please; I stand outside." (Laughter.) Now, as regards those gentlemen who are so kind in offering us their toleration of free speech, I would simply ask them not to open their mouths so wide. They cannot open their mouths in affected toleration of liberty, without showing their teeth. I have here a
Protestant Standard, which has been very much exercised in its editorial mind on this subject. On the 15th May (and it returned again to the topic in pretty much the same vein on the 22nd, and I daresay frequently since, for I do not often read it) it says—" We go in for free speech." Of course! (Laughter) "We have fought for free speech." Doubtless, against all those who wished to fetter them, but not for those they wish to fetter. "But then, free speech ought to be defined. Blasphemy is not free speech." If these gentlemen had been under the tender mercies of the Roman Catholic Church a few centuries ago, they would have been termed blasphemous. However, they now say to Sir Henry Parkes, "Let him give notice to the Sunday evening lecturers, Messrs. Bright and Co., that charges to their lectures on Sunday evenings are illegal, and that they must rely on the power of the plate, and we guarantee that the result will be, that the freethought lectures will be at a discount." (Laughter.) Further down in the same article,—"We want no gag on 'free speech.' We desire no crippling of lectures and knowledge. We have no fear from the paltry infidels who now live by their slanders on the Bible and its teachings. And we are convinced that the Bible has stood the charges of far heavier artillery than that of the mercenary infidels who now occupy the 'platform' of the theatres on the Sunday evenings in Sydney. But we think that Sir Henry Parkes has a right to insist that if theatres and concert halls, and shops and business houses are to be closed on the Sunday, Bright and Co.'s nostrums ought to be forbidden on Sunday evenings, ought, at least to be forbidden, unless on the free-trade principle of the 'plate'—which Mr. John Hurley will hold gratis." (Laughter.) Now that, you will see, is simply aimed, as all preceding endeavours to crush freedom have been, in Protestant countries, (all at least excepting those where one sect has been very powerful, as at the time of the burning of Servetus, in Geneva, or the torturing of the poor Quakers and others in Massachusetts)—it is simply aimed at a side issue because they dare not strike openly. They indulge in shallow raillery at those they term "infidels," and endeavour if possible to get up a feeling against them, while at the same time striving to stop the only institution before the public which permits those they attack obtaining a hearing. They acknowledge the platform could not exist as a sectarian organization, and hence beseech that it shall be compelled to organize. Transformed into a pulpit they know its power is swept away.
To the denunciations and vituperations heaped upon infidels, I would merely reply in the words of Mill, in his "Essay on Liberty,"—" If Christians would teach Infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to Infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected the Christian faith." On Liberty, 2nd ed., p. 93.
Spite of the feeble opposition of bigotry, it will prove the mission of the Sunday Platform to carry the watchword of freedom further than it can at present be, or ever has been in the past, carried, by religious sects. Sects are always under the dominancy of the most bigoted and straightened minds, and hence all the pulpits supported by such sectarian efforts are circumscribed and dwarfed. But what men now require and are gradually establishing, is this very institution of the Sunday Platform, where no organization is necessary, where the man who has something to say, which he believes is of value to his fellow creatures, and who has the capacity of saying it in such a way that his fellow creatures will come and hear him, can be at full liberty to say it. We demand that this institution shall be allowed to develop itself according to its own laws, and we fail to see the justice of its regulations being formulated by the "gentlemen" who edit the Protestant Standard. They assert that if what they desire were brought to pass, the institution would immediately decline. Whether that be so or not, our desire is that the institution shall flourish, not decline, and to insure this consummation, it must be left to develop itself. In the past we have seen how interference with a cognate institution—the Press—has always been pernicious; whereas when the Press was left to develop itself according to its own needs it gradually attained to a magnificent power for usefulness. Supposing the Press had remained as it was in the past, when any one who had something to write to his fellow creatures, and wished to print it, had to go and bow down before some Mecaenas, some patron, and ask him for permission, where would have been its influence? That was the fashion formerly, and that would have continued had not the Press worked out its own freedom from censorship, and gradually acquired a position so that any man who desires to print his thoughts is able to do so without going to any Colonial Secretary and saying, "By your leave, sir." As the Press has thus been enabled to work out its freedom, to vindicate its right to expand and develop precisely as the exigencies of surrounding circumstances demanded, all we ask is that our own institution, that is just acquiring strength, shall be left to develop itself in a similar way.
Surely, in the past there has been enough of this intolerant persecution, without the same unhappy struggle being perpetuated in this century. It is difficult to understand how Sir Henry Parkes, who has been regarded sometimes as nearly a Freethinker himself, should consent to come down to Parliament and in the abused name of liberty propose to fetter this growing institution? Surely he, who knows nothing regarding it, save from interested and biassed hearsay is not such a good judge of its value as those who come and patronise it. Surely the people of this colony, from whom colonial secretaries spring, may be trusted to decide what is good for themselves without the leading strings of a Government official. I am happy to say that some among the members of Parliament have taken up a proper position and spoken out well on this matter, one gentleman especially. And really I think it should make Archbishop Vaughan himself laugh in his sleeve at the turn events have taken. He must be amused to observe that Sir Henry Parkes, who claims to be such a model in upholding freedom, should be thus endeavoring to fetter a free institution, while a gentleman who belongs to the Catholic faith comes forward as its staunchest defender. (Applause.) On the second reading of the Licensing Bill, Mr. Fitzpatrick (applause)—the leader of the Opposition—after speaking of the evils of intemper-
The Bill has, since been withdrawn by the Premier for the resent session.Herald as follows:—" He was as much impressed with the evils of intemperance as any member, and he would go very far to check them, but he would see all the temperance societies farther before he would consent to gag men who desired to express their conscientious convictions on Sundays. Members inclined to support such a proposition were not three generations removed from those who would have shed the blood of those who differed from them in religious belief. Were they to punish a man because he did not agree with their views of Christianity? Why, what a pretence of liberty it was to say that a man should not invite his friends to hear him in any house, provided he did not break the peace or utter libels. If such men's views were right, why should they not express them; and if they were wrong what harm would they do? The community was dotted with tens of thousands of men who did not hold their views of Christianity. These men did not force men to go to listen to them. Only those went who chose to go. If they stopped Mr. Bright lecturing who else would they stop? The views that gentleman expressed were not widely different from those of the Unitarians, and would they cause the Unitarians to close their church? When he read this clause his hair rose on his head and his blood crept to learn that in the 19th century they were to be asked to prevent educated gentlemen expressing their views on human nature and the great hereafter. Where would they draw the line? (Applause.) Now I say that all honour is due to a gentleman who utters sentiments of that enlightened character There were others who spoke to a similar effect, but in attempting to guage the opinion of Parliament we must remember that those who are disposed to be bigoted rarely speak out, and it is not to be thought because a few members utter their sentiments as opposed to these clauses in the Licensing Bill, that therefore they may not, some time or other, be carried. Those who intend to support such clauses say nothing about it, but they vote; and although I myself do not believe that this Bill, will pass at all this session,
Under the circumstances I think the public, or that portion of them who desire this institution to continue, are perfectly justified in resisting such an attempt to the uttermost. It is a policy of repression worthy, as was said by Mr. Wilson, of a country like Russia, not of any country where free institutions are supposed to flourish. We do not want here the repose which is only to be secured by repression. There is danger in any one sitting on the safety valve of a steam engine to prevent the noise of the steam escaping. Better let it escape. The man who sits on the safety valve may perhaps enjoy the idea that he is stopping an agitation which is unpleasant to him, but he will probably suffer the subsequent inconvenience of being blown off his seat, and having to be picked up in shattered pieces.
And what, I would ask in conclusion, has happened to justify this attempt at suppression? Has there ever been the slightest reason offered why there should be any restriction at all, save and except that which we
For the purpose of comparison I republish the sub-leader of the Age of the above date:—
"The very best cause may suffer from the character of its advocates; and we are satisfied that the cause of a free Sabbath is being very seriously injured by the injudicious people who bring forward Mr. Thomas Walker as one of its champions. It is the grossest insult that can be offered to men like Bishop Moorhouse and the Rev. Chas. Strong to find such a man placed shoulder to shoulder with them in the controversy. Mr. Walker is only known as a sort of Infidel Cheap John, who carries about with him wherever he goes a wallet full of scraps of Voltaire, Volney and Tom Paine, and is prepared to prove to any-body who will listen to him that he was consulted at the making of the creation, and is perfectly familiar with all its secrets. "Having flown over many" knavish professions, "Autolycus tells us that he finally settled in that of rogue as the most profitable of all. Mr. Walker is not Autolycus, of course; but he is almost as much favored by fortune, for he finds people ready to pay for hearing his ribaldry and flattering his egotism as easily as that famous snapper-up of unconsidered trifles found yokels to buy his extravagant stories about fishes singing songs a hundred fathoms above the level of the sea, and usurers' wives being brought to bed of money bags. From figuring as a trance lecturer in the interests of Spiritualism, he now takes the platform as an avowed opponent of everything spiritual, turns upon his former friends with the usual violence of the renegade, and admits that he is an impostor by teaching down the things that he once taught up. That he should be able to gather an audience about him in such a city as Melbourne has always struck us as a circumstance of very unhappy augury. A moment's consideration should tell any thinking man or woman that the themes which he handles with such pertness and audacity have puzzled and outwitted all the commanding intellects of the day, and that problems which Spencer and Huxley and Tyndall have retired from in despair are not likely to be solved by a pinchbeck Bradlaugh, for whom the kangaroo and the savage have only just made room.
In answer to the above charges and imputations, I, the same day, delivered the following reply at the Age office:—
Sir,—Since you admit you do not want to have me "gagged because this is a free country," and I suppose your paper a portion of the "free press" guarding and procuring those principles of fair play, without which no country can be free, perhaps you will grant me space to reply to a leader of your to-day's issue. When I am compared to Autolycus who finally settled to the "profession" of a "rogue" because that was "the most profitable of all;" when I am called a "sort of Infidel Cheap John;" when I am accused of admitting that I am an impostor, and finally when it is urged that my motive in my "hostility to the Sabbath of the Bible" is only an attempt to advertise myself and my "business," which business you declare to be the hawking "of second hand infidel wares;" in common fairness I claim the right to be heard in my own defence, against these and your other accusations. Now in the first place, Mr. Editor, what warrant in fact have you for saying "Mr. Walker is only known as a sort of Infidel Cheap John, who carries about with him wherever he goes a wallet full of scraps of Voltaire, Volney and Tom [generally spelled-Thomas] Paine, and is prepared to prove to anybody who will listen to him that he was consulted at the making of Creation, and is perfectly familiar with all its secrets?" Surely you, who profess to be writing in the interest of morality, the Bible and the clergy, should not descend to the reckless utterance of such charges, unless you are well backed with the necessary proofs of them! To descend to such childish abuse as that just quoted is scarcely becoming the editorial dignity, and its silliness is exposed by yourself when a little later on you aver that I back myself to prove that there never was a "Creation" nor yet a "Creator" to consult with me. As to my "scraps" from the "Infidels" you have mentioned it may not be out of place to ask you when you poked your sagacious eye into my "wallet?" Am I right in surmising that you have been a regular attendant at all my lectures 1 If so, it is reprehensible of you to speak disrespectfully of the ignorant "masses" upon whom such as I are reported to "trade." If not then how are you in a position to judge as to what "scraps" I use, or as to whether my "wares" are "second-hand" or original?
Because I was formerly a spiritualist and have had the manliness to "give it up" in more mature years, you charge me with positive dishonesty; call me a "renegade" because I advocate what now I am forced to accept by evidence as correct, and say that I admit that I am an impostor by teaching down the things that I once "taught up." If this method of reasoning be sound, it cuts the throat of every "converted christian." Not a single convert either from sin or heathenism, but preaches down what he once "taught up," to use your own expression. Paul becomes a self-admitted "impostor" because from being a persecutor of Christians, he accepted Christianity. Luther, Calvin, Knox, and all
I have never backed myself "to prove right off that there is no such Power" behind phenomena as that spoken of by Prof Tyndall. This is an unfair representation of my position. Behind phenomena I recognise the necessity for their substratum and whether this substratum be called "Power" or "Matter "or by any other name I do not now concern myself, but simply wish to record my protest against the assertion that I back myself to prove that no such "power" exists. If your meaning be that I deny the existence of "God," I again deny that this is untrue. The existence of "God" I neither affirm nor deny, since I contend that until the word is defined to me, it is unmeaning.
I fully admit that what Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall cannot solve either to their own or the general satisfaction, it would be folly to expect me to finally settle. But if by this is meant that I have no right to hold or express an opinion on the matter, I join issue with you. If I have no right to hold and publicly express views upon unsettled questions, neither have the general clergy of Melbourne, for the same reasons. We are not all philosophers, nor bishops nor editors, but surely we have a right to our opinions and
It is customary, even to a criminal, to credit him with honesty until the charges brought against him are proved, and I therefore may justly complain that you discredit any honorable motives I may have in joining in the agitation for the opening of our Libraries and Museums on Sundays. To insinuate, nay, to positively declare that my motive in what I have done is simply "business" advertisement is mean beyond expression. Perhaps the knowledge that some editors and leader writers, write for pay, and just as they are "instructed," without any reference whatever to their honest convictions, may incline you to a warped judgment of the honesty of others and cause you to throw suspicion everywhere. Under these circumstances there would be some excuse for your charge, but otherwise there is none. Whatever you may say, I claim to be actuated by an honest love of the work I am doing, and I claim, as a citizen, my right to do it. What prescriptive right have you or the clergy to agitate for reforms? Why do you deny me, what you claim for the clergy and yourself in this respect 1 And although the movement is ostensibly set on foot for the good of the working men, by what virtue do you presume to declare yourselves the only friends the working men may have? By what authority do you call those "charlatans and coxcombs" who, whilst they differ from you on some points of theology, are yet anxious to see the reform in question carried out! Is it because it is an insult to Bishop Moorhouse and the Rev. Chas. Strong to have my name mentioned in the same breath with theirs? Without wishing to cast the slightest reflection on either of these justly honored names, I may ask who is to blame for the insult 1 I reply those narrow and bigoted individuals, who, in consequence of their intolerance, insist upon insulting these clergymen, because on this one point at all events, I agree with them. They cannot help my agreement with them, neither can they help my expression of that agreement. And how can it be insulting to them, that I should agree with them? Evidently the insult is not offered by me but by those who persist in urging accusations against these prelates for what they can in no wise help. Then you should abuse these bigoted people, not me, for the insult you complain of. And in like manner if there be those who refuse to do good because there are those working for the same end and whom they dislike, and if there be others who will positively do harm because I am working for an admitted
I remain & c.,
Thomas Walker.
In place of the appearance of the above, the following was inserted in the "Notices to Correspondents:"—"We have received a letter from Mr. Thomas Walker vindicating his position before the public, but as we have no interest whatever in his views and do not recognise him as an authority on the subjects he handles, we cannot find space for it. Received.—' Please a Friend.' 'A Stanch Walkerite,' 'A Secularist.' * * * "
It will be seen that not only I, but others, had written and met with refusal of justice, because they had spoken in my defence. Again I replied by the following brief letter, which was not even acknowledged as received:—
Sir,—In your sub-leader of yesterday, you say you have no desire to "gag" me, yet in the very next issue you virtually admit you have done it; you refuse to publish my reply on the grounds that you take no interest in my views, and you do not regard me as an authority. If you have no interest in my views, why devote a leader to the abuse of them? Having taken so much interest, you certainly should take the further interest to grant the appearance of my defence. As to my being no "authority" on the subjects I treat upon, I have only to say, that has nothing to do with my claims. You have abused me and made charges which are untrue, I claim the right to refute these charges. If I am not an authority on my own views, I may be pardoned for saying neither are you. But this is a point for the public to decide. You have no moral right to "dub" me as you please and then to assume infallibility by denying me the right to reply. You have made accusations, I have replied, dare you leave the decision upon them to the public? This is all I ask.
Yours &c.,
Thomas Walker.
On the following Sunday I delivered a lecture to one of the largest audiences ever assembled in the Opera House, in reply to these newspaper calumniations. In the course of that lecture I stated it as a fact within my personal knowledge that more than one of the leader writers of the Age held views in close affinity with my own. By comparison of the leading articles of this paper, its lack of principle becomes self-evident, for in the course of a year almost every point of the compass is traversed from Atheism to Puritanism. Ostensibly a working-man's paper, it would appear that its only quality entitling it to that claim is its clap-trap and cheapness. From all appearances what it calls "the masses" in its columns, it calls "them asses" in its council chambers. So far as the writer (whom I have reason to believe is a Spiritualist) of the sub-leader above quoted is concerned, I need not mention further his lack of logical consistency. The fact that he' talks about "the making" of "creation" is sufficient to display either his verbal redundancy or his want of clearness of thought, or as is most likely, both. And the fact that he should make it appear in one paragraph that I admit, what he says I deny in another, shows that his memory was too weak and his logic too flimsy to tide him through a single article. His unfairness, or folly, or both, are displayed by the fact that he presumes to gauge not only my abilities and moral proclivities, but my acquirements, without having heard me deliver half a dozen lectures in his life. Perhaps this is giving him credit for too much. It-is more likely he has heard none. I do not wish to boast, but in self-defence, if it be needful any further, I may be excused for saying that to fill the Opera House Sunday after Sunday for nearly two years; to conduct several debates; to hold numerous week-night meetings; to secure 761 votes in the electorate of Richmond when contested by seven candidates, all men of wealth or political fame except myself; to receive the abuse of most of the clergy and that touchy old lady the Age, requires something more than a few "scraps" from three freethinkers. I mention these facts not egotistically, but to show the absurdity of the writer's criticism. Let me recommend a "scrap" from one of the writer's own authorities. He has quoted Prof. Tyndall against me; now let me confront him with Tyndall's own words:—" Most heartily do I recognise and admire the spiritual radiance, if I may use the term, shed by religion on the minds and lives of many personally known to me. At the same time I cannot but observe how signally, as regards the production of anything beautiful, religion fails in other cases. Its professor and defender is sometimes at bottom a brawler and a clown. These differences depend upon primary distinctions of character, which religion does not remove. It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call 'Atheists' and 'Mate-
I need say no more except to advise the writer of the criticised article to become more familiar with his own authorities.
At the conclusion of my lecture in reply, a vote was taken, and by a show of hands fully 3000 people designated the article as "unfair and cowardly." I now submit the pros and cons for the silent decision of the Melbourne public.
The Bishop of Melbourne delivered his inaugural address, in which he said: —The Diocese of Sydney is now engaged in a most solemn and important duty. It is selecting the persons who are to be submitted first to the Bishops of New South Wales, and then to the Bishops of Australia, as those from whom our future primate is to be elected. You will, I am sure, join with me in the earnest prayer that all who are concerned in this great duty may be led to perform their part in it with a simple desire to promote the welfare of the Church and the glory of God. May God grant that the future Primate of Australia may be not less faithful to his Master and not less zealous in his office than the beloved and lamented Frederic Barker. I recently received from Mrs. Barker a printed account of the last days of her departed husband, and I am sure I need not apologise for repeating here one or two sentences of that touching and impressive statement. At a religious meeting which Bishop Barker attended a few weeks before his death, the verse, "To die is gain," was thus read, "To have died is gain." "The Bishop thanked the reader for reminding them of the true rendering, adding, Yes, to have died; death itself is no gain, it is the wages of sin; but to have died, to have passed through the grave and gate of death into the presence of Christ, that will be great gain." This firm confidence in the love and power of his Saviour accompanied him to the end. "After the last paralysing shock to his nervous system, he said, 41 think this shows I must not go back to Australia. I am perfectly composed. I am resting on the Rock—the Rock of Ages. As I have had a second attack, there is no reason why I should not have a third—Ebenezer! It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait.'" This was the prevailing frame of his mind to the end. His last audible word was "Ebenezer!" There is a divine store of help, he seemed to say, and hitherto, even up to the drawing of the last breath, "The Lord hath helped me." That is his parting testimony to us whom he loved, and remembered to the last. "Our men die well," said John Wesley. And that is no small thing; for no man can well be false when he is consciously passing into the presence of Eternal Truth. May God enable each of us to keep the like unswerving faith, and to deliver the like parting testimony. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." I desire at the very beginning of this address to thank many generous laymen, and especially Mr. Ormond, whose noble offer gave us all so powerful a stimulus, for their liberal donations to our Cathedral Fund. The building, as you see, is rapidly progressing, and is already developing a chaste grandeur of form and a balanced fitness of details, which few of us had realised from an inspection of the rough plans which were at first laid before us. It is not, however, for the beauty and harmony of its design that we shall principally value it, but rather for those great spiritual uses to which we hope to make it subservient. As a school of preaching, of divinity, of sacred song, and as the natural centre of our Diocesan Services, Societies, and Organisation, it will supply a felt want, and stimulate, we trust, a larger and more effective activity. The mention of the Cathedral naturally suggests Trinity College, and the generous benefaction of Mr. Joseph Clarke, which has enabled us to proceed to the erection of much-needed additions to the building. Plans have been prepared on a comprehensive scale by Mr. Blackett, of Sydney. These, I believe, have given general satisfaction, and it is the first portion of this large design which we are now beginning to carry out. More and more, as I realise the work to be done in this colony, I become convinced that we must train our own clergy. Colonial youths understand the life of our people, and not only more readily conform to its conditions, but also more easily resist its temptations. It is to be confessed, however, that at present candidates for our theological scholarships are neither so numerous nor so well-prepared as we could desire. There must be
elite of our workmen into Working Men's Colleges, Church Guilds, and Christian Young Men's Societies. But what of the great mass who can find pleasure neither in reading nor thinking, and what, moreover, of the large number of married workmen who cannot satisfy themselves with the pure and quiet pleasures of home? Karl Hillebrand suggests "some kind of secondary employment, which shall bring in some small profit, and shall not be fatiguing." In Sheffield, in my early days, large numbers of workmen were kept from the public-houses, and greatly improved both in health and pocket, by renting and cultivating small garden-plots on which they raised vegetables for household use, and grew the simple flowers of country gardens. I fear that Australians might object to the work which this healthy and humanising amusement might cost them, and that they will be found to prefer the spectacle of a game of cricket or football. Could they, however, get over their first disinclination, I am persuaded that they would find both health and pleasure in garden work. Music is attractive to the population of a sunny land like ours, and I would suggest to the clergy that young men who care nothing for study are often found to take pleasure in concerted music, and readily join brass bands, string bands, or drum and fife bands, which meet for practice in school buildings. Mr. Gosman recently suggested that a volunteer cadet corps might be organised in different neighbourhoods for rifle practice and drill, and I certainly cannot see why the rifle-butts and the drill-ground should not prove as attractive in our time as did the archery-butts on the village green in the days of our forefathers. There is use as well as amusement in such exercises as these, and young men would be sensible of this, and find in it a stimulus to perseverance. Again, for older men, parochial clubs are often found to be useful. I once furnished some rooms for such a purpose, which included billiard-rooms, refreshment bar for coffee and tea, large reading-hall, and rooms for the meetings of sick and benefit societies. Smoking was allowed, and we soon nearly emptied some of the drinking places, and were heartily thanked by the wives of working men for preserving the health and substance of their husbands, and for sending them home in their right mind, and with their wages in their pocket. The mention of my own club reminds me of the care taken to promote harmless amusements in the parish of St. Peter's, London Docks. You will remember, perhaps, what a wonderful work was done there, how all the people were made to love the church, how 500 communicants were gathered from amongst one of the lowest populations in London, and how the clergy could say at last of a district which had been a sink of impurity, "not only has open professional sin been swept away from the streets of St. Peter's; but, besides, there is not one known house of ill-fame in the whole parish "—though such places swarmed round all its borders. It is interesting to ask how men who achieve such results dealt with the question of amusement. Here is their account of it:—" In the evening
ipso facto, to have no real case either for the Master whom he serves, or the church to which he belongs. Why, then, let us ask, do so many of our boys drift away from church on leaving school? This is a wide question, and one which may not admit of a simple answer, seeing that the causes in operation are many and diverse. People point to the prevailing scepticism, the precocity of our youths, their spurious independence arising from defect of home influence, and the attractions of outdoor life in a genial climate. No doubt each of these causes has its influence. But surely we cannot say that a youth is specially sceptical who has for years attended a Sunday-school class, where he has received intelligent instruction. Surely, again, if he resisted the snares of spurious independence till he was 15 years of age, we are not to suppose a sudden access of that infirmity in all cases. What, then, is the last straw which breaks the camel's back? Suppose it to be granted that a youth has been tugging for some time at the elastic band of mingled duty and affection which bound him to the church, what stimulates those final desperate efforts by which he breaks it? More than one thing, perhaps, again. Still, let us try to discover those circumstances which are likely to have had most influence, With growing years there is in every boy a double development—of will and of intellect. The expanding intellect demands enlargement and satisfaction. New questions are arising in the soul, and a quickening curiosity to explore unknown realms of thought and knowledge. Is provision generally made in our Sunday-schools to meet this need? We talk about wanting employment for our laity. Well let me ask this, and let me ask it of my lay brethren who are just as much bound to extend the kingdom of Christ, according to their opportunities, as I am:—Are our most intelligent laymen ready, first, either to build separate class rooms for adult scholars, or to take classes of such to their own houses for instruction? and secondly, are such laymen ready, nay anxious, to make such a book as Farrar's History of St. Paul, the basis of study for advanced lessons, or to give such instruction in the wonders of God's works as shall naturally lead the mind of an intelligent youth to the Divine Creator of all that is good and beautiful, supplementing such lessons, as occasion shall serve, by trips of a semi-scientific character to the habitat of a plant, or the exposure of a geologic formation? No one can conceive the blessedness and the blessing of such work as this, unless he has attempted it. But besides the growth of understanding in boys, there is, as I have said, a development of will, of the sense of self-dependence and personal dignity, which must to a certain extent be respected. Now, how does the church try to meet this? I believe that as a rule it does not try at all, and so necessarily does harm. Young men, like young nations, are very sensitive. They suspect that their youth may be despised, and are constantly on the watch for signs which may justify such a suspicion. Hence, the necessity for great and even tender consideration on the part of their elders. Now, there are many boys in the senior classes of our Sunday-schools, whose parents do not attend church. Consequently they have no seats provided for them, apart from the school, even if they desire to continue their attendance. They have grown too old to relish the company of little boys, and if they separate themselves from the school they find themselves thrust into corners, and treated as if they were of small account—the very thing which provokes their developing manhood to dislike and resistance. You may say, perhaps, that this is a necessary result of our pew system, and that on the whole it is not desirable to abandon that system. I am certainly not prepared to advise its abandonment at present, but this I do say most emphatically, that if we keep the pew system, free pews should be reserved in a good place—pews just like the others in appearance, for the elder scholars of our Sunday-schools. Vestrymen, I know, sometimes talk about loss of funds, but even on this low ground—and it is so low as to be almost beneath consideration, when regard is had to the interests involved—can it be good policy to drive away from church, at the most susceptible period of their life, those who, if loved and cared for, would become our best and most valuable supporters? I do hope that at least in this respect we shall endeavour to reform our treatment of elder scholars. In connection with this subject, I would just repeat the suggestion which I have offered once before, that a very strenuous effort be made to keep together, by classes, occasional services, or other means, those who have recently been confirmed. The season of confirmation I always found to be the parish priest's best opportunity. Hearts are then tender, minds have been recently exercised upon subjects of sacred interest, and if only the good intentions of that time can be developed into fixed
Laicus proesentibus clericis, nisi ipsis jubentibus, docere not audeat We may clearly infer from this, that the laity might teach when the clergy were absent; and, with their consent, even when they were present. It is perhaps worthy of notice also, that the same council admit by implication that women might teach, not members of their own sex only, but men also, so long as they did not teach in the public assemblies. The words are "Mulier, quamvis docta et sancta, viros in conventu docere non prcesumat." Such teaching as that of Miss Marsh, and, indeed, of most of our female evangelists, would fall within the lines which are marked as permitted by this canon. The only authoritative utterance of our own church on the subject of lay preaching is to be found in the 23rd article. These two points are to be noted. We observe, first, that the prohibition of the article extends only to ministering in the congregation; that is, in the parish church. To this prohibition, the Puritans objected at the Hampton-court Conference that it was not rigid enough, implying, as it plainly did, the lawfulness of lay ministration and preaching when it was not in the congregation. We notice in the second place, that even in the congregation the prohibition extends only to those who are not "chosen and called to the work by men who have public authority given unto them in the congregation to call and send ministers
Natural Religion. The book takes as its motto Wordsworth's words, "We live by admiration," and it shows that nothing good ever was done, or can be done, in poetry, in art, or in ethics, except by men who fix their eyes on something greater, nobler, and more beautiful than themselves. Try to make an artist by teaching him the rules of art. A pedant you may make in that way, but an artist, never. If he is to get the tenderness, the life, and the inspiration which appeal to human souls, which touch them, sweeten them, ennoble them, he must have his own spirit kindled and uplifted by a beauty, grandeur, a solemnity in nature which he feels to be infinitely admirable, and infinitely beyond and above him. It is so in morals. Try to form a good or great character by teaching rules of morality. You may create a Pharisee or a Philistine by that method—a man "who is pure, as the dead dry 6and is pure "—but a large, noble, affluent, influential soul, never. Men can only be lifted into higher moods and motives by in tensest worship of what is seen to be infinitely good, and infinitely beyond and above them—in a word, by religion. The enlightened Theist must be just as certain of this as the most devoted Christian. To try to form character or improve conduct (the great end of life) without religion, is the wildest and stupidest dream which ever misled the fantic or the visionary. There are some things in education of which I am doubtful. Of this I am as certain as I am of my own existence. Miss Francis Power Cobbe is at least no bigot, and what does she say of the future of a life without God? "I honestly think," she observes, "that the process of making atheists, trained as such into philanthropists, will be but rarely achieved. And I venture to propound the question to those who point to admirable living examples of Atheistic or Comtist philanthropy, how many of these have passed through the earlier stage of morality as believers in God, and with all the aid which prayer and faith and hope could give them? That they remain actively benevolent, having advanced so far, is (as I have shown) to be anticipated. But will their children stand where they stand now? We are vet obeying the great impetus of religion, and running along the rails laid down by our forefathers. Shall we continue in the same course when that impetus has stopped, and we have left the rails altogether? I fear me not. In brief, I think the outlook of atheism, as a moral educator, as black as need be." "If," says Professor Naviile, "there is a man on earth who ought to fall on both knees and shed burning tears of gratitude, it is the man who believes himself an atheist, and who has received from Providence so keen a taste for what is noble and pure, and so strong an aversion for evil, that his sense of duty remains firm even when it has lost all its supports." Now secularism is practical atheism. The man who never thinks of God lives really without Him. And what, then, is likely to be the future of those 100,000 children, nearly the half of our children of school age, who never hear about God at all? We know what their homes are. The mere fact of their absence from Sunday-school tells us this. You know what are the special temptations of youth, and you know, I suppose, that some of the most attractive and sensational literature of the day is little else than a Satanic irritation of the strongest and most destructive passions of our nature. Well, then, here is a child, who has never been taught to think of any obligations to God, turned loose in the midst of this literature to choose for himself. Tell me, as an honest man, whether you think the power to read under these circumstances a blessing or a curse. For my part, I say at once, that to call our present reading, writing, and arithmetic business an education is nothing better than a cruel jest. So strongly do I feel this, that at times when I see the fresh young creatures swarming out of the doors of our schools, a dull heavy pain settles over my heart which I can hardly master. I want to help them, and I cannot. I see them launched upon the down-hill road to selfishness and misery, and I cannot stop them. So far as words are concerned
1. This Association is called "The Australasian Secular Association."
2. The Provisional Committee appointed to draw up the Rules of the Australasian Secular Association has been guided by the Rules of the National Secular Society, the Eclectic Association of Victoria, and the Free Discussion Society, and has made such alterations and additions as were deemed necessary.
3. The objects of Secularism are to maintain the Principles and Rights Freethought, and to direct their application to the Secular improvement of mankind.
4. By the Principles of Freethought are meant the exercise of the understanding upon relevant facts, independently of every intimidation.
5. By the Rights of Freethought are meant the liberty of free criticism for the security of truth, and, the liberty of free publicity for the dissemination of truth.
6. Secularism relates to verifiable knowledge, and to actions, the issue of which can be tested by experience.
It declares that the promotion of human improvement and happiness is the highest duty, and that the test of morality is utility.
That human improvement and happiness cannot be effectually promoted without civil and religious liberty; and that, therefore, it is the duty of every individual to actively attack all barriers to equal freedom of thought and utterance for all, upon political, theological, and social subjects.
7. A Secularist is one who deduces his moral duties from considerations which pertain to human welfare, and who, practically recognising the above duties, devotes himself to the promotion of his own and the general good.
8. The objects of the Australasian Secular Association are to disseminate the above principles by every legitimate means in its power, the Formation of Branches and the Affiliation of Kindred Societies, and to secure concerted action throughout Australasia on all matters pertaining to the general good.
9. Members may be either Active or Passive.
10. The Active List consists of those who do not object to the publication of their names as Members of this Association.
11. An Active Member's duty is to send, as often as possible, reliable reports, to the President or Secretary, of Special Events, Sermons, Lectures, or Publications affecting Secular Progress. He should also aid in the circulation of Secular Literature, and generally in the Freethought propaganda of his neighborhood. Where a local Society exists, he ought to belong to it, whether or not it be a Branch of this Association.
12. The Passive List consists of those whose position does not permit the publication of their names, except at the risk of serious injury. The knowledge of these names is to be confined to the Executive, and the members will be referral to only by initials.
13. It is earnestly requested that persons in an independent position will enroll themselves only as Active Members.
14. Member's Yearly Subscription shall be—For Adult Males, 10s.; for Ladies, 6s.; for persons under 18 years, 5s.; and for families, 20s., and shall be paid quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly, in advance. Persons may be admitted free on satisfying the Executive that they are unable to pay the subscription, and that they are doing good Secular work.
15. Any person who shall be nominated by a Member of the Association, or who shall sign a form of declaration, as hereinafter provided, and forward it to the Secretary, with not less than one quarter's subscription, may, in the discretion of the Executive, be admitted a Member of this Association. Should any candidate be not admitted, the subscription shall be returned.
16. Any Member more than six months in arrears may, provided due notice of his default shall have been sent to him, and disregarded by him, be erased from the Roll of Membership.
17. The Executive shall have power to expel any Member, but the Member so expelled shall have power to appeal to the next General Meeting of Members, or to a Special-General Meeting called for that purpose.
18. The Executive Council shall consist of a President, three Vice-Presidents three Trustees, Secretary, Treasurer, Librarian, and twenty Members of Committee, nine of whom shall form a quorum.
19. The Executive Council and two Auditors shall be elected by ballot at the Annual Meeting; they shall hold office for one year, and be eligible for re-election, and shall be nominated verbally or in writing to the Secretary, with the consent of the nominee, not less than seven days prior to the Annual Meeting.
20. Any Member of the Executive Council absenting himself from three consecutive Meetings, without a satisfactory explanation, shall be deemed to have vacated his office: and any vacancy occurring, through resignation or otherwise, shall be filled at the next Ordinary Meeting of the Association.
21. The Executive Council Meetings, for the Election of Members and transacting Executive Business, shall be held each month.
22. The Ordinary General Meetings, for receiving contributions and transaction of general business, shall be held every quarter.
23. Annual Meetings, for receiving Committee's and Auditors' Reports and Balance Sheet, the Election of Officers, and transacting any other business that may be deemed of sufficient importance by a vote of the Meeting, shall be held at such times and places as the Council shall determine.
24. Special Meetings may be called by the Executive at any time.
25. The Executive shall call a Special Meeting upon a requisition, signed by not less than 50 Members, fourteen days prior to holding the Meeting, due notice of which Meeting shall be given by circular to every member not less than seven days prior to date of Meeting. No business, other than that of which due notice has been given, shall be transacted.
26. Rules shall in no case be adopted, altered, or rescinded, unless at a Special Meeting called for that purpose, and thereat carried by an absolute majority; and due notice of every new rule, alteration, or rule proposed to be rescinded, must be forwarded to the Secretary.
27. The Secretary shall keep minutes of the proceedings of all Meetings of the Association, and of all Meetings of the Council; keep all books, issue members' cards, receive and hand weekly to the Treasurer all monies, furnish quarterly financial statements, transact all correspondence, and hand over all books, papers, and monies of the Association in his possession, at the request of the Association.
28. The Treasurer shall pay in all monies received to the Bank of the Association weekly, and present the Bank Pass-books and Vouchers for all payments weekly to the Secretary, and to each yearly Meeting of the Association; and the Bank Passbooks made up to date to every Quarterly Meeting.
29. The property of the Association shall be vested in the Trustees of the Association.
30. All payments shall be made by cheque, signed by the Treasurer, and three Trustees.
31. When convening the Annual Meeting, the Secretary shall issue a circular epitomising the year's proceedings for the information of Members generally.
32. At every Meeting of the Association, the President, or one of the Vice Presidents, shall take the chair, or, in their absence, a Chairman shall be elected, and he shall regulate the proceedings, decide questions, keep order, and carry into effect all the rules of the Association. His decision in all disputes shall be final, and he may always exercise, at his discretion, his right to vote.
33. The Secretary shall be paid a salary fixed by the Association.
34. The Treasurer shall be paid a salary of 1s. per year.
35. The Executive Council, subject to the ratification of the Association, shall, when possible, engage a Lecturer, who may also be an Officer of this Association, at a remuneration agreed to by both parties.
36. Affiliated Societies, whose members join the Australasian Secular Association, shall pay 6d. per year, per member. All such Societies shall each elect a member to the Council of the Australasian Secular Association, who may be an addition to the already existing Council. Branches wishing to nominate those living at a distance, may appoint corresponding Members.
37. At all Executive Council Meetings, and at Ordinary General Meetings, Annual Meetings, and Special General Meetings, the first business to be entertained shall be—reading the minutes of the previous Meeting, and their adoption or otherwise. The consideration of business arising from the minutes, postponed business to take precedence. Correspondence to be read; each letter or communication to be disposed of before entering upon other business. Then shall follow general business, including appeals, reports of Committees to be adopted, objected to, or referred to Committee for further consideration.
38. Any Member, when proposing a motion or amendment, or discussing any question, must rise and address the Chairman; and no Member shall be interrupted, unless by a call to order, when he shall sit down; the member calling to order shall then state his point of order, and the Chairman shall decide upon the same.
39. Any Member desirous of proposing either an original motion or amendment, must state the nature of such motion or amendment before addressing the chair in support thereof, and shall write it in form, if required, sign and deliver it to the Secretary, who shall add thereto the name of the seconder; and no motion or amendment shall be withdrawn without the sanction of the Meeting, nor shall any motion be entertained until seconded.
40. If more than one Member rise at the same time, the Chairman shall decide which is entitled to precedence.
41. The Mover of any motion or amendment shall be held to have spoken to the same in the discussion of either.
The Seconder of a motion or amendment shall not be held to have spoken if he has only seconded the same without remark.
No Member shall be allowed to speak more than once, except strictly in explanation, or in contradiction of a misstatement, excepting the mover of the motion, who shall have the right of reply, and no speaker shall occupy a longer time than ten minutes. No further discussion shall take place after the mover of the motion has replied.
42. No Member shall propose more than one amendment upon any motion.
43. The Chairman's decision shall be final on all questions of order or practice, and he shall state the same without comment or argument.
44. Only one amendment shall be discussed at one time, and, upon the adoption of any amendment, the original motion shall be deemed rejected, and the amendment carried shall be acted upon as an original motion. It is competent whether the amendment is carried or not to receive other amendments, one at a time, to be disposed of in like manner, and decided on until the subject is disposed of.
45. Should the Chairman desire to speak to any question under discussion, he must do so before the reply of the mover of the original motion.
46. Questions touching the interpretations of the Rules shall not be considered or answered unless submitted to the Secretary in writing prior to the opening of the Meeting.
47. In the event of any Officer or Member of the Association having urgent business to place before the Association, it shall be competent for him to move the suspension of Standing Orders, and, if agreed to by the Association, such business shall take precedence of all other.
48. All questions brought under discussion at any Meeting, shall be decided by the majority of Members present, by show of hands.
49. In case of any doubt or difficulty arising as to questions of practice and points of order that are not met by these Standing Orders, reference shall be had to Parliamentary usage.
50. The Lectures, Discussions, and Debates shall be held in such halls, and on such dates as the Council may determine, and shall each evening be open to the Public on condition that they conform to the rules.
51. The Secretary shall arrange for securing eligible lecturers for week-night debates, and for sufficient attendance to take collections or admission fees at the door, to which two Members of Council shall always attend in person.
52. The introductory Lecture, on evenings set apart for general discussion, shall occupy no more than 30 minutes, and may be extended to 45 minutes by special permission of the Chairman. No speaker except the Opener shall speak twice in the discussion, unless in default of Speakers and by special permission of the Chairman. No speech shall exceed 10 minutes, except that of the Opener, who shall have 15 minutes after the discussion to reply, not later than a quarter to ten, and that of the leading opponent, who may be allowed 20 minutes.
53. No person shall take part in the discussion unless present at the commencement of the Lecture, except by special permission of the Chairman.
54. If the Chairman desire to speak to the question he must do so before the Opener's reply.
55. Set debates, conducted according to rules agreed to on both sides, may be held at any time and place, subject to approval
56. The Executive Council shall be also the Library Committee of the Association.
57. The Committee shall meet to inspect the Library and books prior to the annual meeting in each year.
58. The Library shall be maintained and extended by donations, or loans of books from Members, and by purchase by the Committee.
59. The Librarian shall keep a catalogue of all the books, and a clear record of the Members to whom, and the dates on which any book shall be issued.
60. Each book may be detained for one month; after which month three pence per week shall be charged.
61. The Librarian shall collect and pay to the Secretary all fines for overdetention or damage etc., as laid down in rules 60 and 65; and he shall report to the Secretary monthly all such monies which may be due and unpaid, and shall issue no more books to defaulters.
62. There shall be no additional subscription: but Membership of the Association shall confer all the advantages of access to the Library.
63. No more than one book at a time shall be issued to any member.
64 No book shall be issued to any person not a member of the Association.
65. Any volume lost, mutilated, defaced or soiled to the dissatisfaction of the Committee shall, if required, be paid for to the Librarian at the valuation of the Committee by the Member in whose possession it was when so misused.
I am desirous of joining the Australasian Secular Association, in order to extend its principles, and I pledge myself to do my best, if admitted as a Member, to co-operate with my fellow-members to obtain the objects set forth in its rules.
Name————
Address————
Occupation————
Dated This————
Active Or Passive Member————
Stephens, Printer 106 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.
Bulbophyllum sciadanthum.—Stems compressed and at least their upper joint gradually broad-dilated and flattened; leaves narrow-lanceolar, elongated; umbel 8-10 flowered, sessile; stalklets very long, bearing at the articulated summit a minute thinly acuminated bract; lobes of the calyx rose-colored; the upper lobe ovate-lanceolar; lower lobes deltoid-semilanceolar, connate into a short almost semi-ovate base; inner lobes lanceolar, not much shorter than the outer, slightly longer than the labellum; the latter somewhat thicker than the other portions of the calyx-limb, ovate-lanceolar, towards the base slightly dilated, but not distinctly lobed, above the base callous from two depressed incrassations, thence upward smooth, at the margin somewhat membranous, at the base provided with a very short unguis; free part of the column extremely short, not prominently denticulated; tube of the calyx slender, twice or three times as long as the lobes, at first bent downward.
On the summit of ranges at the sources of the Waimasse-River in the Island Upolu of the Samoan Group; Betche.
An epiphyte; pseudobulbs not seen. Leaves attaining a length of nearly one foot and a width of about one inch; their consistence not very thick. Umbel partly clasped by the base of an elongated leaf and generally supported also by several diminutive leaves. Stalklets 2½-3½ inches long. Height of the calyx-limb hardly above 1/3 of an inch. Ovary narrow as in Sarcochilus, measuring about one inch. Pollinia dropped from all flowers which came under dissection. The labellum not being very carnulent, this plant might bo transferred to Dendrobium, if indeed any difference of the pollen-masses may not remove it into another generic group. In flower during November and December.
Dendrobium Johnsoniœ.—Racemes conspicuously stalked, glabrous, bearing several very large white flowers; bracts deltoid or lanceolar-ovate, much shorter than "the stalklets; outer three lobes of the calyx semi-lanceolar, narrowly acuminated, of about equal length, the two lower of these with their adnate base forming a short deltoid-saccate prolongation; the two inner lobes nearly twice as long as the outer, elongated-rhomboid, attenuated into a narrow wedge-shaped base, pointed into an acumen at the summit; Labellum (labial lobe) somewhat shorter than the inner lobes, but exceeding the outer in length, ridged along the median line of its lowest portion by a narrow callous vertical straight plate with a free and blunt end', lateral lobules bf the labellum nearly semi-orbicular, from one-third to half the length of the plainly membranous almost ovate but slightly acuminated main
Eastern peninsula of New Guinea; Rev. James Chalmers.
Had it not been my particular desire to accede to a wish of the enterprising discoverer of this magnificent orchid, that it should be named after the "daughter of the Rev. Mr. Johnson of Surrey-Hills, New South Wales, a young lady, who materially had assisted the New Guinea Mission," I should have hesitated to describe this plant for publication, no leaves being transmitted with the flowers. Of the latter from 10-12 in the racemes received, pure white (to judge from the dried specimens) except a rosy tinge of the labellum, particularly over its lateral lobules. Inner lobes of the calyx tender-membranous, remarkably large, thus attaining a length of nearly VI inches. Pollinia dropped from all flowers examined. Semi-mature fruit already half an inch thick, about as long as its stalklet. Dendrobium Johnsoniœ differs essentially from D. macrophyllum, near which it will have to be placed systematically, in not downy racemes, in less elongated pedicels, in very much shorter bracts, in the not yellowish flowers, in double the size of the inner calyx-lobes (though similar in form, unless more dilated), in their being very distinctly-extended beyond the other portions of the calyx, in the more elongated and less roundish upper part of the labellum and in the elongated basal ridge of the latter.
Along with the flowers of D. Johnsoniœ I received those of a species, allied to D. undidatum and D. Joliannis, which new congener I should like to distinguish in honor of the finder as D. Chalmersii; it differs from both already by the lobes of the calyx being more pointed, the inner of them decurrent, the basal pouch shorter and the labellum proportionately longer with a comparatively broader summit; D. Chalmersii agrees with D. Johannis in minute bracts and also almost in the size of the flowers, but has the terminal part of the labellum still broader, so much so as to exceed considerably the width of the lower portion, the reverse taking place in D. undulatum. Leaves not obtained. Racemes 3-4 inches long, glabrous; color of the flowers faded in the transmitted dried specimens, perhaps yellowish. Stalklets fully as long as the flowers, if not longer. Lobes of the calyx twisted-and wavy-crisp, narrowly accuminate, the 3 outer semi-lanceolar, the lateral somewhat smaller and not attenuated at the base, but narrowly decurrent from the upper lobe along a portion of the column to the two lower lobes, the latter adnate only to form the short basal roundish-blunt prolongation, thus the lateral lobes not so distinctly interior as usual. Labellum measuring about half an inch, slightly "longer than the other portions of the calyx, its terminal lobo in outline almost renate, much crisped, somewhat folded back, hardly shorter than the lower portion of the labellum, which is roundish semiovate, produced at the junction with the upper lobule into a short blunt tooth at each side, and raised along the axis by three slightly elevated lines; column at the apex deltoid-bidenticulated; pollinia elavate-oval.
Dendrobium fililobum.—Glabrous; stems very slender, not jointed arising from a fibrous root, enclosed in elongated membranous scales at the base, terminated by a single linear-lanceolar rather long fiat leaf; peduncle very thin, about as long as the clasping lanceolate-linear rather elongated and rigid bract, bearing seemingly only one or two pale-yellowish flowers; stalklet about twice as long as the calyx, the five lobes of the latter tender-membranous, from a broadish base narrowed almost to hair-like thinness, the inner lobes somewhat shorter than the outer, but all in proportion to their narrowness extremely long, the lower two produced at the base into an oblique semiovate-conical prolongation; labellum purple, about three times shorter than the calyx-lobes, narrow-linear, acute, glabrous, dark-colored, at one-third of its height produced into two minute violet' colored, decurrent lobules, the median line raised; free part of column very short; ovary slender.
On trees at the sources of the Waimasse-River in the island of Upolu of the Samoan Group, at an elevation of about 2,000 feet; Betche.
Stems yellowish, 6-10 inches high. Pseudobulbs none. Leaves 5-7 inches long, ½-2/3 inch broad. Floral bract yellowish, nearly ono inch long, complicated. Flowers resembling those of Eria (Mitopetalum) speciosa, but the lobes still narrower. Stalklets 1 ½-2 inches long. Outer lobes of the calyx slightly exceeding one inch in length. Pollinia already dropped from the only flower available for dissection. Fruit not seen. Flowering in December. Allied to D. tipuliferum (G. Reichenb., in the Gardener's Chronicle D. bijlorum, D. camaridiorum, D. acuminafissitnum and D. longicolle. Anomalous in the genus as regards the inarticulated stems.
—Leaves undeveloped; branches thick, cylindrical and slightly rough; stalklets a little longer than the calyx and as well as this shortly glandular-downy; sepals 5 lanceolar," about three times shorter than the petals; filaments rather thick, very short; tubular summit of the anthers black-purplish, by about one-third shorter than the cells; ovary scantily glandular-downy, its cells bearing one ovule.
West Australia; from the late Mr. James Drummond's collections, in which no indication of the precise locality of this plant is given. Nearest in affinity to T. efoliata, but the branches stouter, neither twisted nor (as far as the fragmentary state of the specimens allows to judge) anywhere velvet-downy, anthers not rough, their tubule not quite so long and not pale-colored, ovules solitary;—fruit unknown.
Erect; general vestiture of short spreading jointed but not very glandular hair; leaves small, in outline ovate-or rhomboid-lanceolar, with several short rather acute tooth-like lobes, the base gradually tapering into the leafstalk; flowers exceedingly small, clustered into minute glomerules and these again arranged into axillary and terminal simple or branched and soon interrupted spikes; floral leaves reduced to bracts, hardly longer than the clusters, broad towards the base, acute at the apex; sepals deeply concave, but not keeled (while young); stamens one or more in each flower; filaments at length exceeding the sepals; ovary vertical.
Near the Finke-River; Rev. H. Kempe. An annual, pleasantly scented herb, from a few to several inches high. Largest leaves measuring about one inch in length, but most of them smaller. Longest spike attaining four inches, others variously shorter, especially the secondary spikes. Young flowers similar in size and structure to those of C. carinatum, but none seen in an advanced state.—The leafless almost paniculate spikes much like those of C. ambrosioides and of Dysphania plantaginella.
Bertya oppositifolia. — (F. v. M. O'Sitanesy.)—Tall; leaves largo, opposite, oval-or oblong-elliptical, slightly recurved at the margin, above quickly glabrous, beneath as well as the branchlets grey-velvet-downy; flowers of both sexes singly sessile; segments of the calyx four, oval, nearly glabrous, three times as long as the four thereto opposite persistent ovate bracts; column of stamens as long as the calyx; anthers but little longer than broad; styles 3 or oftener 4, dilated at the base, deeply cleft into 2-4 rather long stigmatic lobes; ovary 3-4-celled; fruit ovate-globular, 1-2-seeded, velvet-downy.
At the base of Expedition-Range, Thozet and Kilner; on sand-ridges near the Nogoa-River, rare; P. O'Shanesy.
Length of leaves as great as that of B. Findlayi and B. pedicellata, but width much greater; general vestiture as well as the flowers similar to those of B. oleifolia; division of calyx quaternary as in B. quadrisepalea; position of leaves different from that of any congener, although occasionally opposite leaves may occur in B. oleœfolia also; augmentation of ovary-cells to four likewise exceptional in the genus.
Bertya dimerostigma.—Glabrous; leaves small, scattered, linear, somewhat acute, at the margin refracted to the broad and flat midrib; flowers axillary, sessile, solitary; bracts three times shorter than the calyx, broad-linear, persistent; segments of the calyx five, nearly lanceolar, overlapping at the base, hardly half as long as the fruit; style scarcely any, stigmas 2-3, short, each cleft to the base into only two divisions; fruit ovate, slightly pointed, glabrous.
In desert-country near Victoria-Spring; Giles.
Differs from B. Cunninghami in verrucular not angular branchlets, in shorter pale-green leaves, in absence of distinct stalklets of the flowers, in at the whole lesser stigma-lobes and possibly also in the staminate flowers and seeds, which hitherto remained unknown.
(To be continued).
Colonel Hutton, having for some time been collecting Coleoptera about Dandenong, sent to the Club, by Mr. Goldstein, a portion of the collection, to ascertain if there was anything amongst them of special importance. Dandenong is situate about 20 miles from Melbourne in an easterly direction, and, had it not been that I have myself collected there on two or three occasions, I should, from the nature of the country, have certainly expected the bottle handed to me by Mr. Goldstein to contain some rare specimens. I was not, however, disappointed in finding they consisted almost exclusively of the commoner kinds, the best, perhaps, being a fine Elater (Chrosis illitd). The specimens comprised a total of 49, and may be classified as 5 Elaters, 1 Curculio, 20 Longicorns, 1 Dynasteni, 2 Rutelini, 8 Malacodermidæ, 7 Plinidæ;, 2 Tenebrionidæ, 2 Lucanidæ, and 1 Buprestidæ. The last-named must, I think, have been put into the bottle by mistake, it being the well-known and beautiful West Australian Stigmodera Roci, and, if occurring at Dandenong, would certainly be a fact well worth noting, as I have no knowledge of its ever before being taken in Victoria. Probably Colonel Hutton will enlighten us upon this point. Of the Elaters the only one, as previously stated, of any value, is the Chrosis illita, which is general in most parts of the Colony, being taken in the parks around Melbourne, also at Ballarat and other places; the remaining four are procurable all through the Summer under the bark of the gum-trees or flying about in the dusk of the evening. In the Longicorns we have one specimen of a by-no-means common variety of Sympliyletes pulverulens; one S. decipiens, plentiful enough on the wattle, in which it also breeds, during the Summer months; five of Hehecerus marginicollis, to which the same remarks apply; four of Stenoderus suturalis, an even more common insect; and a rather fine specimen of Stephanops nasuta. There are also 7 specimens of Epithora dorsalis, which I have taken in every part of the Colony where I have been collecting, but some that I got last January in the Western district differed from the present ones by being decidedly larger and of a much darker color. It was, however, beyond all question, the same insect, and this leads me to recommend collectors, in arranging their collections, to label separately the specimens of all insects they may get from different localities, as they will not only serve to show the many varieties occurring, but will be useful in determining the limits of their habitats, &c. The one specimen of Dynastini is a male of Chiroplatys latipes, and is common about Melbourne, as are also the two Rutelini; one being Anoplognathus analis, and the other A. olivieri. The former was in my younger days well known to all boys as the common Cockchafer, and common indeed it was, as we had only to go over to what is now Carlton, and at the first gum-tree in flower we could always secure them by dozens.
Metriorrhynchus atratus and 3 the name of which I do not know; the former may be taken in numbers from off the Leptospermum lanigerum and L. scoparium when in flower, and is generally a very common insect. Of Tenebrionidæ the only two specimens belong to the genus Pterohelœus, whilst the two Lucanidæ are both males of Ceratognathus niger. The name of the one specimen of Curculio is unknown to me, but although I have it in my collection I do not think it is by any means of common occurrence.
Before concluding, I would express the hope that the example set by Colonel Hutton, in collecting and forwarding to the Club specimens for examination, will be followed by many others over the whole Colony, as it is through such collections, humble in themselves though they may be, that a great deal of valuable information is derived. So far as lies in my power I will be only too pleased to furnish information, and in both Entomology and the other branches of Natural History I have no doubt we possess several members who entertain the same feelings as I do on this subject.
The usual monthly meeting of this Club was held at the Royal Society's Hall, on Monday evening, the 17th April, the attendance being good, and Mr. H. Watts occupying the chair. After the preliminary business, which consisted of several nominations for membership, and the promise by Mr. D. Le Soüef of a paper on Snakes, was dispatched, the reading of the papers in the programme was proceeded with. These consisted of, first, a few notes by Mr. D. Best, on some Coleoptera collected in the vicinity of Dandenong by Colonel Hutton. The specimens, for the most part, comprised the commoner kinds of beetles to be found around Melbourne, the majority being Longicorns, with a few Elaters and some of the less numerous families.
Dr. T. P. Lucas followed with a further contribution of his essays on Geology, and his remarks relative to the origin of mineral veins and the occurrence of gold provoked an animated discussion, many members taking part therein, the majority appearing to dissent from the views expressed by the writer.
The Rev. J. J. Halley, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Club, at the invitation of the Chairman, offered a few observations on his recent visit to Europe, alluding to the interest shown in anything Australian by the Zoological Institute at Naples and by the various Microscopical Societies in England. He promised to give, on
The exhibition of specimens, which always follows the reading of papers, was an interesting one, comprising some fine exotic Curculio and Longicorn beetles shown by Mr. C. French. A rare bird of the genus Knot, undescribed by Gould, by A. J. North. Some rare shells, notably Cyprœa madagascarensis and Cyprœa decliris, also Conus betulinus and Corbula truncata the latter, a shell recently found in Victorian waters, and not hitherto known as inhabiting them—by Mr. J. F. Bailey. Some fine birds, viz.,—Fairy Prion, Crescent-marked Oriole, Painted Quail, and Allied Dottrel, by T. A. F. Leith. A Queensland Alligator's Egg, by Mr. J. E. Dixon, and by Mr. F. Spry, Lepidoptera collected by him since previous meeting.
After a pleasant conversazione the meeting was brought to a termination.
That the Second Annual Conversazione of this Club should have attracted so large an audience as crowded the rooms of the Royal Society's Hall on Wednesday evening, the 26th April, is evident proof of the growing popularity of this deserving young Club, and must have been a source of great gratification to its members. It was certainly a disappointment that the retiring President, Professor F. McCoy, F.G.S., &c., was unable, owing to a severe attack of bronchitis, to be present; but his valuable address lost none of its interest in the hands of the Rev. J. J. Halley, one of the Vice-Presidents, who, at short notice, kindly undertook the reading of it. The address, which appears further on, detailed the proceedings of, and the useful papers contributed by, members of the Club during the past twelve months; but the portion most deserving of attention was that referring to the intention of the Club to offer to the scholars attending the schools in and around Melbourne prizes for the best collection of and essays on Natural History, the same to be sent in prior to the next Annual Conversazione. This announcement was received with considerable applause, and is certainly a step in the right direction. The address was immediately followed by a Lecturette entitled "Beauties and Curiosities of Protophytes, a first form of Plant Life," by the Rev. J. J. Halley, who treated this so instructive a subject, illustrated as it was by diagrams, in his usual genial and comprehensive manner. A second Lecturette on a somewhat similar subject, entitled "Microscopic Life around Melbourne," was delivered by Mr. H. Watts.
The exhibits as a whole were unusually good, but the palm must be given to the Birds, the display of which was greatly superior to that of the previous year. Especially noticeable were the Paradise Birds, Pigeons, &c, from New Guinea, shown by Mr. C. French, as was also Mr. T. A. F. Leith's very handsome case of Australian Birds; and Mr. A. Coles, of Kyneton, is to be complimented upon the superior manner in which his exhibit of Wading Birds and Flying Gurnet was mounted. Mr. D. Le Souëf had a fine specimen of the gorgeous Himalayan Argus Pheasant, also one of Imperial Pheasant,
Wellingtonia gigantea, or mammoth tree, and Miss Guilfoyle's collection of Fish, &c., in alcohol, formed a most interesting group. Australian Insects were exceedingly well represented by portions of the cabinet collections of Messrs. D. Best and C. French. The former includes 350 species of Longicorn and 230 of Buprestis Beetles, as also a fine case of Hymenoptera, or Wasps;—the latter comprised a varied collection of four drawers Buprestis and one of Cetonia Beetles, a case each of Butterflies, Hawk-moths, and timber-feeding Moths, amongst all of which were many exceedingly rare and beautiful specimens. Mr. French had also a fine case of large Longicorns containing 52 species of the genus Batocera. In the case of beetles shown by Mr. F. H. Du Boulay were some rare species of some of the best families of Australian Coleoptera: this exhibitor had also a case of Butterflies. The sole exhibitor of Marine Algæ, Hydrozoa, and Bryozoa was Mr. H. Watts, whose carefully-prepared specimens, which were hung on the wall, attracted a good share of attention. Occupying a table by itself was a most interesting collection of 64 species of Victorian dried Ferns, very carefully mounted, and shown by Mr. F. Pitcher. Mr. J. E. Dixon's two cases representing Insect Architecture showed some of the many curious forms of habitation adopted by our hymenopterous and other insects, and evidently proves Mr. Dixon to be a close observer of their habits. A case containing a select series of the eggs and nests of the Australian Falconidæ was shown by Mr. A. J. Campbell, and Mr. P. Dattari exhibited a large case of very fine exotic Beetles. On a screen were hung a number of Native Weapons, &c., from Cape York and New Ireland, sent in by Messrs. T. G. and W. Sloane; and adjoining them were several Zulu assegais, from Mr. J. H. Matthias, who also showed specimens of the blue clay in which the diamonds are found at the South African fields. Mr. F. Wisewould had a number of Victorian Snakes, and the young of Native Bears and Opossums in various stages of development; and Mr. C. French, jun., had a very creditable case of Victorian Insects of his own collecting. Mr. J. F. Roberts exhibited two very curious plants, one being the rare Amorphophallus zebrina, and the other the equally rare orchid Cypripedium superbum. The complete collection of dried Epacridæ of the Grampians, recently presented to the Club by Mr. D. Sullivan, of Moyston, also formed an interesting exhibit. The Rev. J. J. Halley had in the kindest manner brought with him one of his Microscopes, but owing to his being so occupied with the Address and his Lecturette, he unfortunately had but little time to devote to it. A pleasing feature
"Another pleasant year has passed, and we again meet to celebrate our usual annual 'commencement,' as the University men say, by a Conversazione on the second recurrence of the anniversary of our opening day.
"The Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria now has on its Roll one hundred and forty ordinary members, including nearly all the best known Victorian lovers of Nature, and of the out-of-door exercise which is inseparable from the working of a Field Naturalists' Club, and which gives it both its great healthy attraction and' its peculiar usefulness. This substantial increase on the number of .last year is a very satisfactory proof of the favor with which the Club is viewed, and gives promise of increased prosperity and usefulness in the future. Amongst the Honorary Members, as you know, are the most distinguished Naturalists in every department of Natural Science in this and the other Australian Colonies.
"The papers read at the regular meetings during the year have embraced almost every branch of practical Natural History, and were as interesting as they were varied.
"The first paper of the year was a highly valuable one, by Mr. F. C. Christy, on the 'Lepidoptera of Japan.' Mr. Christy is a very old colonist, well known in the old time for his knowledge of English Lepidoptera, of which he had a considerable collection of his own taking or breeding, and who had begun to work well upon our Victorian Lepidopterous Fauna. He was thus well qualified, on going to Japan, to commence the study of the Lepidoptera of that country, and to quickly recognise the curious fact, which had struck previous observers, of the great resemblance of the Lepidopterous Fauna of Japan to that of Europe; many of the species even being identical. In this instance the great curiosity is that the near resemblance to the European Lepidopterous Fauna is much more striking than in many of the intervening countries at a less distance. Both the Moths and Butterflies show this curious agreement, and it is not at all confined to species which could in any probable way have been imported.
"Mr. H. Watts, who for many years has been well known as an industrious and successful investigator of our shore Fauna and Flora, has at several of the meetings exhibited and described many fine and interesting species of Sea-weeds, and that group of minute molluscoida, the Polyzoa, of which group our shores exhibit a greater variety than probably any other part of the world.
"Our illustrious colleague, Baron von Mueller, has contributed no less than three papers, during the year, on new or rare plants recently discovered,—one of them being the rare Orchid Pterostylis vittata found by members of the Club near Brighton. And, as of the Baron it may well be said that he adorns every subject which he
"Mr. W. H. Wooster, of Springfield, Goldie, has entered upon a series of interesting papers detailing his observations on the animals of his district. And here I might point out that the most interesting and important observations in every branch of Zoology hitherto published, at home and abroad, have been of the nature of local Faunas; as, similarly, the best works, containing the most valuable observations on living plants, are of the nature of local Floras. There is so much to observe everywhere, which has not yet been duly set down upon paper, that any persons confining themselves to the local natural productions of their own parish or township might write in time a most useful treatise which would last, like White's 'Natural History of Selborne,' or Paget's 'Natural History of Yarmouth,' or Mac-gillivray's 'Natural History of Dee-side,' as standard highly valued field contributions to knowledge for all time. It is astonishing also how little technical knowledge is necessary to begin such works or series of observations with, as one may see by noting the early life and mental condition of those charming describers of the natural objects of their districts under the greatest difficulties, Hugh Miller, of Cromarty, and Peach, of Cornwall. Mr. Wooster has already given us his observations on the Native Bear (Phascolarctos), Opossums, Bandicoots, &c., and is understood to be preparing early continuations of his observations on the lower animals of his locality for the Club. Observations such as these on the habits in a state of Nature of even our commonest animals are highly desirable, as so few of the observations made are accurately recorded; and nothing is more calculated to make our Club really useful to Science, as genuine field observations on any of the living inhabitants of our country.
"Our excellent Secretary, Mr. Best, has continued his papers on the 'Longicorn Coleoptera of Victoria.' These wood-eating beetles are wonderfully numerous in Australia, and although the grand series collected by that excellent Melbourne Entomologist, the late Dr. Howitt, never fails to excite my astonishment, yet not only Mr. Best but my excellent assistant in this department of the National Museum, Mr. W. Kershaw, have added to the series enormously, and new species are being added every year. Considering the injury done by the larvæ of these beetles, as well as those of the many wood-eating Lepidoptera, to the timber of our forest trees, it is astonishing that their natural enemies in other countries, the Wood-peckers, should be entirely absent from Australia.
"Another of our Entomological colleagues, Mr. C. French, has chiefly added to our transactions during the year by his papers on those favorite plants, our Native Ferns, his monograph on which will be completed in one more paper, already promised.
"Mr. D. Sullivan, of Moyston, has given two interesting papers of great value, as showing to our members the true type of a Field-Club paper, namely, local Fauna and Flora of the immediate neighbourhood of the dwelling-place of the observer. In this case, Mr. Sullivan has added greatly to the interest of that mountain range by
Epacridœ of the Grampians.' It is to be hoped that Mr. Sullivan, Mr. French, and our other botanical observers will give of their superfluous stores to form an Herbarium to be kept in the rooms of the Club for reference, and as a help and incentive to the other members desiring to attain a knowledge of the native plants of our Colony.
"Mr. J. F. Bailey, who has often added to our knowledge of Victorian Conchology, has given three papers on general Conchology during the year. And, similarly, Dr. Lucas has treated of general Geology, with the object of aiding the members who may be desirous of making field observations on the Geology of our locality.
"Mr. Goldstein, who is so practised an observer, and so skilful in preparing objects for the microscope, has given very interesting demonstrations of the 'Yeast-plant,' and the changes of the Protococcus.
"One of the most valuable and interesting of all the essays we have had contributed to our meetings is the admirable paper on the 'Marine Fauna of the Eastern coast of Australia,' by that accomplished comparative anatomist, Mr. W. A. Haswell, whose studies under the best observers of Germany and England render his settlement in this part of the world a lucky chance; for the working out of many problems concerning our Marine Fauna required just such skilled and well-trained observations as he is so well fitted to make and contribute to our literature from time to time.
"Mr. Le Souëf, the indefatigable Honorary Secretary of our Zoological and Acclimatisation Society, exhibited living specimens of the two largest serpents of our warm Northern frontier, namely, those Great Rock Snakes, the Carpet Snake (Morelia variegata), and the true Diamond Snake (Morelia spilotes), which are by some considered distinct species, and by others to be only varieties of the one. They are the peculiar Australian generic representatives of the Rock Snakes or Pythons of South Africa and India, and the Boas of South America.
"Two pleasant papers on the 'Carenums of Mulwala,' New South Wales, were contributed by Mr. Thomas G, Sloane, of that place; and the last for the year was by Mr. W. R. Guilfoyle, on the 'Pituri plant and its curious effects on the functions of animal life.
"The Excursions of Members of the Club into the country on the 'Field-days' have been as well carried out and planned as formerly, and, considering the difficulties which most of the members, who are
"A new interesting movement of practical utility for enabling the younger observers to learn the methods of preserving and setting up specimens of Birds, Fish, Insects, and Plants, &c., has been commenced during the past year with excellent results, and the information and instruction given at the meeting held for the purpose was so highly appreciated that several other meetings of the same kind will be held from time to time.
"A good commencement of a Natural History Library has now been made, and, in addition to various standard works furnished by the members and friends to the cause, the Club subscribes to several of the more important English periodicals on Natural History subjects.
"Amongst the projects for the future it is intended to offer prizes to the pupils of the State Schools in the various parts of the Colony for the best collections of specimens of the natural productions of their locality, with papers relating to them; the papers and specimens to be sent in in time for the Annual Meeting and Conversazione next year. When we remember the great good which followed from my old friend, the late Rev. Professor Henslow, encouraging by prizes the formation of collections of Plants and Insects, and papers on their places of occurrence, &c., by the school children of his parish; and recall the delightful evidence which he has given of the growth of intelligent habits of observation and orderly records of facts in plain, clear, truthful language, by these young people of both sexes in Suffolk—the children often adding great varieties, and sometimes entirely new additions to the previous scientific records of the country, in which they often anticipated the Professor (to his great delight) in recognising—and remembering his evidence on the influence for good of such occupations on the character and habits in after-life as those children
"I may now make a few suggestions for the next year's work. In the first place, so little is known and so much is ready to hand which, if carefully and accurately observed and recorded, would be a real addition to human knowledge, that every member of the Club may be assured that he can do really good work without any great sacrifice of time or money. Field observations are the main things wanted of members of the Club, and as I know that many a good observer is stopped on the threshold by not knowing the name of the object he desires to write about, and as a large proportion of the natural objects about us actually have no names, or are at present undescribed, I will mention an excellent plan to overcome this difficulty. In all cases, if you can get a specimen of the object, preserve it and designate it in your journal or note-book by a number; having distinguished it in this way, all your observations can go on unchecked. If you send such a numbered specimen to be preserved in the Museum of the Club, all the future observations on A, B, No. 1, or No. 50, &c., can be referred safely to the right species when that is determined, and each further observation on the given species might refer always to it under the same number, an index being made as you go on to show at what pages of your journal entries concerning No. so-and-so are to be found. In this way the observer need not stop to determine the species at first, and many a good observation may be saved that might otherwise be lost.
"The habits of few of our native quadrupeds are as yet well recorded, and anything added is worth having. The Birds are much better known than those of most countries, but of several species the nests and eggs are not well described. Of Reptiles, the Snakes are pretty well known, but the Lizards and their habits have been little observed. Of Frogs, the exact sounds uttered by the different kinds are scarcely recognised, although with a lantern in country gardens on Summer nights the determination of which sound belongs to which frog is easy. The metamorphoses and early habits of the immature young of the Sand-frogs and the Tree-frogs are scarcely known. Of all fishes, the time and seasons of coming, and going, and of spawning, have yet to be recorded in successive years by many observers. Of Mollusca, the males of our so-called Paper-Nautilus have not yet been found, and the habits of most of the other Cuttle-fishes would form an interesting record. The tongues, with their patterns of teeth, have yet to be figured for most of our univalve shells. And the general distribution of the bivalves, and especially the soft Ascidian Molluscoids, have yet to be recorded. The soft compound Ascidians, which abound on our shores after storms, or which are easily dredged, have often the most strikingly beautiful colors when fresh, which disappear shortly after death; and the record of these, either by description, or, better still, by the aid of a box of moist colors, would be good work for a Field Naturalists' Club, and which none other can so well be expected to do. Very few of the Worms,
Neuroptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and the lower types, as well as of the Arachnida, or spiders, from the neighbourhood of Melbourne. The chief good work for the members of our Field-Club in connection with these is the observation and record of habits, the breeding and noting the larvæ with their food, habits and cocoons of the Lepidoptera, and the habits and colored drawings from life of the Spiders, with their webs, trap-doors, and other food-catching or dwelling structures. The attempt to describe the new species without the means of referring to the great European Collections, and the extensive literature of every group in all the languages of Europe, is only likely to burden the subject with useless synonyms. The Zoophytes, or Corals, and Hydroida, as well as the Echinodermata, or Sea-Urchins, and Star-fish, are pretty well-known from dried specimens, but their colors when alive, and particularly of the Sea-Anemones, are only partially known. From time to time the Decades of the Zoology of Victoria, which I am publishing for the Government, will give some help in identifying many objects on which further field observations may well be made; and the Southern Science Record, published by some members of the Club, affords a vehicle for publication which will give zest to the coming year's labors.
"And now, with many hearty good wishes for the success of the Club, I must again thank you for your kindness in enabling me to address you a second time as President."
The audience, having enjoyed a pleasant evening's entertainment, gradually dispersed, and the second Annual Conversazione of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria terminated shortly after 10 o'clock.
The ordinary meeting of this society was held on the 20th April, Mr. R. L. J. Ellery, the President, in the chair. A number of new members were elected.
Mr. James Stirling read a paper on "The Phanerogamia of the Mitta Mitta District," in which, he gave an interesting description of flora found in that neighbourhood.
A paper was read by Mr. W. W. Culcheth, C.E., on "Notes on Irrigation," which occasioned some discussion, in the course of which, Mr. Kernot expressed a doubt whether successful irrigation was not impracticable in this country, on account of the high price of labor. Mr. Culcheth said, he thought, the labor difficulty might be overcome, and he knew of no conditions which would render an irrigation scheme impracticable here.
The usual monthly meeting of the Microscopical Society of Victoria was held on the 27th April. The Vice-President (Rev. J. J. Halley) occupied the chair, and there was a fair attendance of members.
Mr. G. Matthews, of Ballarat, was nominated as a country member.
The Acting Secretary acknowledged receipt of the February number of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, and the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, vol. vi, part 4.
Mr. Bale submitted a design for a Stage-micrometer, in which a plate bearing the slide is moved across the stage against an opposing spring by a fine screw with graduated head: the eye-piece being furnished with a single cobweb, or silk fibre, the screw is turned till one extremity of the object is coincident with the cobweb, then turned further till the image of the object has completely crossed it; the number of the divisions of the screw-head which have passed an index point giving the diameter of the object. This system of micrometry does not appear to be in use in England, but in some German microscopes it is applied to one of the screws which control the stage-movements.
Mr. Allen exhibited an interesting Lichen, found in the Cape Otway forest, belonging to the genus Cladonia, and known as the Coral Lichen.
Mr. Halley described his visits to the principal Microscopical Societies of England, and gave an interesting account of the Royal Microscopical Society and the Quekett Club, also of the Leeuwen-hoek Club, of Manchester, which is limited to seven members, who meet at each other's houses in rotation.
Among the exhibits were some sections of Australian plants, double-stained very successfully by the Rev. T. Porter, also a variable low-power objective by Zeiss, shown by the same gentleman, and Synapta spicules, Trichina spiralis in human muscle, Meridion circulare, a species of Schizonema, and other diatoms, shown by Mr. Halley.
The annual meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales was held on 3rd May, in the Society's large hall, Elizabeth street. There was a good attendance, and Mr. H. C. Russell, the president, occupied the chair.
Several new members were introduced.
Mr. P. N. Trebeck moved, and Mr. W. G. Murray seconded, the adoption of the following report, which was taken as read:—
"It affords the council much pleasure to report that the affairs of the Society show increasing prosperity. The number of new members elected during the year was 46; one name was restored to roll. The Society lost by death 3 members, by resignation 6; 10 were struck
The balance-sheet showed that the receipts for the year, including a balance in the Union Bank of £8 15s. 7d., were £1,048 0s. 3d., while the expenditure was £987 7s. 10d., leaving a balance in the bank of £60 12s. 5d. The building fund account showed a balance in hand of £35 12s. 3d., and the Clarke memorial fund account, £218 2s. 3., which is placed in the Oriental Bank as a fixed deposit.
The motion was put, and adopted unanimously.
The ballot for the election of the officers and council was taken, and the result afterwards announced as follows:—President, Mr. Chr. Eolleston, C.M.G.: Vice-Presidents, Messrs. Robert Hunt, F.G.S., and F. N. Manning, M.D.; Hon. Treasurer, Mr. H. G. A. Wright, M.R.C.S.E., and L.S.A., Lond.; Hon. Secretaries, Professor Liversidge and Dr. Leibius; members of council, Messrs. H. C. Russell, B.A., F.R.A.S., W. A. Dixon, F.C.S., C. S. Wilkinson, F.G.S., Charles Moore, F.L.S., G. D. Hirst, W. G. Murray.
The following new members were also elected:—Messrs. Samuel Corn well, jun., Fletcher Dixon, Alfred G. Milson, James Milson, Alexander James O'Reilly, B.A., (Cantab.), Alfred Shewen, Mark W. Trail, Sydney A. Want.
Reports from the sectional committees were read, showing that the following officers had been elected for the session:—Microscopy: Chairman, H. G. A. Wright, M.R.C.S.E.; Secretary, P. R. Pedley; Committee, Dr. Ewan, F. B. Kyngdon, G. D. Hirst, H. O. Walker. Medical: Chairman, Dr. P. Sydney Jones; Secretaries, Dr. H. N. Maclaurin, Thomas Evans, M.R.C.S.E.; Committee, T.C.Morgan, L.R.C.S., Edin., A. Roberts, M.R.C.S.E., Dr. Mackellar, G. Bedford, M.R.C.S.E., Dr. Craig Dixson, Dr. Ewan The President then read his annual Address, which, through pressure on our pages, we are compelled to hold over.
The monthly meeting of this Society was held on Wednesday evening, 26th April, at the Free Public Library, the President, Dr. James C. Cox, F.L.S., in the chair. Dr. William Williams, Darling-hurst-road, was elected a member of the Society. The following donations were acknowledged:—Southern Science Record, vol, 2, No. Bulimus Rossiteri, described in page 586 of vol. vi of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. Also a specimen of his new Partula Layardi, from Havanah Harbour, Vate, or Sandwich Island, New Hebrides, and an albino variety of the species from the same locality. Dr. Cox exhibited and read a descriptive note on a stone hatchet from Barranjoey, Broken Bay. The Curator of the Australian Museum exhibited collections illustrative of the fauna of Lord Howe Island, which had been recently obtained there by Mr. Alexander Morton, including the following:—Birds: Porphyris melanotus, Strepera crissalis, Porphyria melanotus, Procellaria Gouldii; Halcyon vagans, Dactylositta trivirgata. Echini: Strongylocentratus (sp.?), Hipponœ esculentus, Echinometra lacunter, Breynia Australasia. Geological specimens: 20 specimens of various rocks, from the sea-level to a height of 2,840 feet: some specimens of recently formed rocks, containing semi-fossilized shells of Bulimus divaricatus and Helix (sp.?), and portions of the carapace of a turtle. Mollusca: Five recent species of land shells, Helix sophiœ, Helix textrix, Helix (sp.?), Vitrina Hillii, Bulimus divaricatus, two species of oysters — Ostrea mordax, Ostrea cuculiata; Tridacna elongata. Corals: Tulipora (sp. P), and a large reef-coral. Fishes: two species of Serranus, and about 10 species of rock fish (Labrida?). Mr. Ramsay also exhibited a native head-dress, from New Guinea, beautifully ornamented with the feathers of the Paradise Bird. The Rev. J. E, Tenison-Woods exhibited, among other rare Bryozoa from New Caledonia, a specimen belonging to a new genus, cup-shaped, with the cells on the external surface. A special vote of thanks was accorded to Dr. R. R. Read for his donation of a very rare and valuable book, "Figures of Molluscous Animals, selected from various authors, etched for the use of students, by Mrs. Maria Emma Gray." This example was a presentation copy from Mrs. Gray to T. P. Woodward, and contains a large number of MS. notes and corrections.
At the usual monthly meeting of this Society, held on Tuesday evening, May 2, there was a good attendance of members, His Honor Chief Justice Way occupying the chair as President.
The Hon. Secretary announced a long list of donations to the library; also that the Waterworks Department had forwarded specimens of the strata gone through in the well-boring at the Waterworks Yard on the North-East Park Lands.
Mr. D. B. Adamson showed a very ingenious planetary map of the Southern Hemisphere, whereby the position or time of rising or setting of any indicated star or planet may be discovered almost instantaneously, and at any time of the day or night.
Professor R. Tate directed attention to a pseudo-morphid of quartz after calcite, forwarded by Mr. J. G. O. Tepper from Clarendon. The same gentleman had also forwarded a piece of fluor spar and a presumed fossil in slate from Field's River.
Mr. S. Pollitzer mentioned that during an excursion to the neighbourhood of Field's River in search of the traces of the glacial period in this colony, some time ago discovered by Professor Tate, he had found a large block of granite, quite distinct from the prevailing geological character of the district; and Professor Tate stated, in reply, that Mr. Stirling Smeaton had also found traces of the same erratic character further north.
Dr. E. C. Stirling exhibited and explained Williams's Freezing Microtome, intended for making large sections of animal tissues for microscopical purposes by the medium of ice and gum solution. The instrument may be popularly described thus:—A cylindrical wooden box, about six inches diameter and six inches high, having a metal cylinder in the centre, is filled with equal parts of ice and salt. This is then covered with a glass lid, having in the centre a small round or square metal plate. On this plate the tissue to be operated upon is gummed after being saturated with highly concentrated gum solution. This metal plate comes into contact with the cylinder, passing through the middle of the ice and salt mixture, and the gum above is consequently frozen; but as it freezes in its natural state without undergoing crystallization, it enables the razor to cut the frozen tissue without fracturing it. The razor is mounted in a frame, regulated by set-screws, enabling the operator to shave off a section 1/600 of an inch in thickness, or even thinner. Dr. Stirling exhibited several large sections of animal tissues, mounted for microscopical purposes, as made by the use of this instrument, and remarked that one possessed an historical interest. He explained that when in England lately he made application to the Home Secretary for licence to try some experiments upon dumb animals, with a view to testing the virtues of ligatures made from the sinews from kangaroo-tails, which he believed to be far superior to those made of "cat-gut," so-called, because the latter, being made by a process of partial decomposition, were liable to melt away within twenty-four hours when used as a ligature around an artery, and thus occasion great danger to the patient; but the sinews from the kangaroo tails, being in a natural state, would last for many days, and in the meantime a proper closure of the artery would take place, and the ligature would in time be absorbed. The Home Secretary, in his wisdom, refused the application, and he was obliged to wait for an opportunity to try the experiment upon a human subject. This opportunity occurred, and proved to be eminently successful, though the patient died. The death, however, occurred through other causes, and the ligature was then examined, after a lapse of ten days, and it was found that the artery was properly closed, whilst the ligature was in process of absorption, as shown by the section of the artery now exhibited by him. Some discussion followed upon this, and in answer to questions, Dr. Stirling said he considered the sinews made ligatures far superior to any others known.
Professor Tate mentioned that whilst in the Northern Territory he had seen Mr, Foelsche, who had shown him the several plants used by the natives there medicinally, including the Sarcostemma australe, which, it had been stated, was used by the natives as a remedy for
The President asked if it was known when the last epidemic of supposed small-pox occurred in South Australia, and the Assistant Secretary stated that in the early part of
The Assistant Secretary mentioned that he had noticed great quantities of blood exuding through the skin and at the caudal extremities of some Port Jackson sharks which he had caught and carefully abstained from wounding in any manner. The body on the softer parts assumed a red blotched appearance, and the blood seemed to come out like a perspiration whilst the sharks were dying.
The Hon. Secretary stated that Mr. W. L. Wragge, one of the members, had received the gold medal of the Scottish Meteorological Society for a valuable series of observations taken during several months on Ben Nevis, Mr. Wragge taking the higher station, and Mrs. Wragge recording at the lower one at Fort Willian.
The paper upon "Diurnal Lepidoptera of Balhannah District," being almost purely technical, was taken as read, Professor Tate giving a brief résumé of its contents; and the same course was adopted with Mr. J. G. O. Tepper's paper upon "Some South Australian Lizards."
A monthly meeting of this Society, the first of the present session, was held at the Museum, on Monday, April 17, Mr. Justin McC. Brown in the chair.
Mr. W. F. Ward, Government Analyst, who had previously been nominated by the Council, was balloted for, and declared unanimously elected as a Fellow of the Society.
The Hon. Secretary (Mr. Barnard) brought forward the usual returns.
The Secretary called special attention to the extent and value of the donation (No. 10), from the Trustees of the Australian Museum, as an act of great liberality, especially coupled with the promise of a future gift of skins of New Guinea Birds, whenever mounted specimens are available for the purpose. "In exchange, the Trustees
The Secretary read a letter from Baron F. von Mueller, K.C.M.G., with a short paper, entitled, "Remarks on the Vegetation of King's Island."
Mr. R. M. Johnston, F.L.S., followed with a "Note and Description of the first discovered representative of the Genus Pupa in Tasmania," with a drawing of the Shell.
The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to the writers of the papers, and to the donors to the Museum, making especial mention of the presentation of Birds from the Australian Museum, and of Shells from Miss Lodder.
At 8 o'clock the members adjourned to the upper rooms of the Museum, when an exhibition of the telephone took place, at which a number of ladies were present by invitation. Mr. R. Henry, the superintendent of telegraphs, conducted the proceedings, and commenced by giving a lucid and interesting description of the construction and uses of the instrument. Communication was made with Pearson's Point, Mount Nelson, and Battery Point; the extreme distance traversed being about 20 miles. The experiments were very successful, and afforded much gratification to those who witnessed them. Twelve telephones were employed on the occasion, by which means the various messages and replies were made audible to a number of persons simultaneously. In addition to conversation held between the several stations, music and singing were introduced, the airs being distinctly heard in the room.
In conclusion, Mr. Henry gave explanations of the working of the phonograph and microphone, which were attentively listened to.
A great man has just passed away from amongst us. The enthusiastic naturalist, Charles Darwin, whose patient industry and invariable candour won him the goodwill even of his enemies, has joined the great majority, at the ripe age of 73, after a life, as a scientist, of almost unparalleled activity, and the propounding of a theory which may fairly be said to have resulted in a revolution of thought throughout the learned world, from San Francisco to Nagasaki, and from Cape Town to Archangel.
It was the development of this latter idea, perhaps, that created more enemies for Darwin than did any other of his voluminous writings. The theory of Evolution is by no means a new one. It was hinted at by Lucretius in his celebrated poem, in which he enunciates
vera causa assigned was by no means backed up by phenomena. The respective writers, therefore, received most unmerciful castigations from Hugh Miller, Prof. Sedgewick, and others, and the Lamarckian cum Vestiges theory fell into disrepute.
It remained for Darwin not only to revive the theory, but to place before the world a reasonable modus operandi by means of which changes in species and gradual evolution, from the simplest to the most complicated organisms, had been brought about. His theory (which, by the way, is altogether misunderstood by thousands of his admirers) is, that all species are prone to vary by almost imperceptible degrees; that in some cases the variations are in favor, surrounding circumstances being taken into consideration, of the animal; that there is almost invariably a superabundance of births and a consequent struggle for existence; that in such struggle the individuals of a species possessed of any advantage of structure will be more likely to live and bring forth offspring than are their less fortunate confreres. Hence the idea of the survival of the fittest, and by a series of these gradual changes and destructions, after thousands, it may be myriads, of centuries, a new species altogether dissimilar to the members of the original stock. It is notable that Darwin did not touch upon the origin of life. How the primal germ came into existence he did not venture to assert. In this respect he appears to have been possessed with all the modesty of Newton, who, when asked to give a reason for the force of gravitation, straightway replied, "I know of none save that it is the will of the Creator."
The views of Darwin, however, in his "Origin of Species," and more especially in his "Descent of Man," were considered hostile towards the popular interpretation of Genesis, and, as a consequence, drew down upon him a good deal of clerical opposition, which was all the stronger from the circumstance that the new theory was as hotly combated by men of science as by priests and bishops. It is doubtful,
ex cathedra utterance of many of the least worthy disciples of the master.
The publication of the theory has brought the doctrine of evolution prominently forward, and caused it to be studied by persons who, otherwise, would have paid no attention whatever to the subject. Even clergymen of the most orthodox school, as witness the late Canon Kingsley, are firm Darwinians to a certain extent. There is no doubt whatever that gradual variations, and the law of the survival of the fittest, have played a most important part in the history of the organic world, and that sexual selection, a sort of supplemental theory of Dr. Darwin, has played a most important part also. But as the originator added a supplement, so other investigators may add still further supplements. It may be, as Professor Mivart appears to think, that there was appointed from all eternity, by an all-wise Creator, a law by which, at a given time, new species shall arise by natural birth from their progenitors. And other causes may, by patient investigation, be brought ultimately to light. Meanwhile, those who seek to unravel the mystery must take an example from the life-long conduct of him who has lately departed from this earthly scene, who, being dead, will not be forgotten, and with regard to whom, let us hope, the most virulent of his adversaries will say, in all humility, "Requiescat in pace: the good" that thou hast done live after thee, and if, peradventure, thou hast inadvertently done evil, let the grave hide it,—let the dust cover it."
The "Catalogue of the Australian-stalk and sessile-eyed Crustacea," by Mr. W. A. Haswell, has been printed by order of the Trustees of the Australian Museum, Sydney, and is, according to the preface, intended as the first of a series of works of a similar character. It is a volume of over 300 pages, and contains descriptions of all the known Australian Malacostracous Crustacea, amounting to 540 species, and including many which have not previously been recorded as occurring in Australia. It also gives very many new Australian localities for species already known as natives of our shores. A very large proportion (over 200) of the species were originally described, and in many cases figured, by Mr. Haswell in a series of papers running through the last three volumes of the journal of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, and necessarily representing a vast amount of careful and most valuable scientific work.
The publication of this work places the student of the Malacostraca in a more advantageous position than that occupied by observers in almost any other department of Australian Natural History, summarizing as it does the whole body of information obtainable on the subject and presenting it in a compact form. We sincerely trust that the expressed intention of publishing similar works on other classes will be carried into effect as soon as practicable, and that the selection of authors for the work will be as well made as in the present instance. We should like also to see our own Museum following the good example set by the Sydney institution, so that each Museum could be occupied at the same time with a different class, to the manifest advantage of scientific workers. We may instance the Bryozoa as a class of which a synopsis is much wanted and could readily be prepared from the large amount of material available.
In conclusion we may take some slight exception to the title given by the Museum authorities to the work under consideration. Doubtless the Edriophthalmata have been conventionally known as the "Sessile-eyed Crustacea," still the term is wanting in scientific accuracy, since the vast group of the Entomostraca are just as truly sessile-eyed Crustacea as those to which the term is applied in the Catalogue. The title "Australian Malacostraca," with which Mr. Haswell heads his pages, should therefore, we think, have been adopted as the title of the book in place of the inexact and possibly misleading one actually made use of.
Having occasion recently to pass through the Botanical Gardens and Domain, my attention was arrested by what to me appeared a new feature of insect life. I observed, a cluster of the common red ant on one of the branches of a young eucalyptus engaged, as I at first thought, dismembering some unfortunate insect victim which had fallen a prey to them; but, on closer inspection, I was surprised to notice that they carefully avoided injuring the insect, and, indeed, seemed to be going through a sort of "caressing" motion with regard to it, while the object of their attentions made efforts to disengage itself from their embraces. The insect, which in body, was about the size of a pea, and semi-transparent, exuded at intervals from the anus a milk-like fluid, upon each of which occasions there was a rush of the ants, who immediately sucked it away. I shall feel glad if any one can enlighten me upon this certainly interesting phase of insect life, which may be no novelty to others, but is so to me. I am aware that the ant is known to milk the "aphidæ," and squeeze them for the sake of a kind of saccharine fluid which they yield; but I was not previously aware of any other insect being used by them for a similar purpose until the above mentioned incident came under my notice.Alpha
See F. Hill "On Crime" M. D. Hill "On the Repression of Crime." Dr. J. Bruce Thomson's" Psychology of Criminals," in the Journal of Mental Science, Dr. Maudsley's address before the Psychological Section of the British Medical Association, The proper method of disposing of criminals is a subject upon which there appears to be as great a diversity of opinion, as any with which I am acquainted. If the best plan has ever been proposed, it would seem to have found small favour; for I know of none—whether practised or not—which is not widely and loudly condemned, not excepting even those most in vogue. Some persons still advocate flogging and hanging; others exclaim at such expedients with horror, as being not only wrong, but brutal, and also ineffective as deterrents. Some, with Mr. C'arlyle, would swiftly sweep from the universe the Devil's regiments of the line. Others find more joy in trying—however ineffectually—to bring one sinner to repentance, than in giving countenance and assistance to thousands of other men who need everything but repentance. Some are for doing more or less than justice to the criminals; some few to their victims—past and future; some few regard the claims of society; but in what justice to any of them consists scarcely two persons agree. I believe that this variety of opinion arises from want of clear perception of the nature of crime and of criminals, and of the relations of society to both. Most of those who are best acquainted with the subject—agree,—that there is a large and more or less distinct class of persons, who by birth, education, habit, and therefore inclination, subsist entirely—or mainly—by crime; by systematically preying upon their neighbour's property, generally with small care whether their neighbour's lives become involved in its acquisition. It appeal's that though occasional accessions from without are received by this class, they are actually trifling in number, and comparatively easy to deal with; it does not seem that the ranks of crime would thus be permanently augmented, but for the association with the criminal class which the adoption of such a career necessarily involves. On these points the evidence of experts
Lancet,
The broad assertion frequently made, that members of the criminal class can readily be recognised at a glance by an acute officer, is scarcely eligible as a basis of action. A very remarkable statement, however, made by one of the highest authorities on the subject, is worthy of the gravest attention. Mr. Fredk. Hill (for many years Inspector of Prisons in England and Scotland), in his valuable work on "Crime," gives as the result of his long experience and statistical knowledge (p. 55), that "nothing has been more clearly" shown than that crime is to a considerable extent "hereditary" And he further says (p. 56), "If all the" criminals in the present generation could be collected and "placed in confinement—the young to be cured, and the old" to pass the remainder of their days under control, the next "generation would probably contain but few thieves." And he continues, "One of the most serious evils perhaps of the" system of short confinements is, that it allows the "perpetuation of a race of criminals. So long as a man is in" prison, he cannot at any rate become the father of future "offenders; and as the greatest number of crimes is committed at that age at which the passions are most violent," this consideration is a further and important reason for "long and unbroken periods of confinement." Report for must be of almost constant commission; and as is otherwise probable, the crimes unreported and perhaps unsuspected, bear a large proportion to those detected or even known. A single party of Manchester pickpockets is estimated to have cost England more than £26,000 (p. 59).
Mr. Hill speaks of the imprisonment for life of all our criminals at once, as very desirable, though scarcely practicable; and appears to regard the state of public opinion as a more insuperable difficulty than even the cost of their arrest and maintenance. The first obstacle must, I think, give way, if it be only plainly and often enough shown that the balance of results would be clearly and largely good. And if a criminal cost much more in plunder, surveillance, detection, conviction, and occasional imprisonment, than he would in detention for life; the latter course must clearly be the most economical. The diminished expense for detections and convictions in the future should not be omitted from the calculation. And even if ten times the present expenditure were found to be necessary for gaols at first, a large economy would thus inevitably result; while far more important objects would also be attained; namely, the increased security to society of life and property; the fewer accessions to the criminal class from evil example and association; and the certain check to the propagation of criminal children. This, as the most perfect of all preventives, is an object of such transcendent importance, as should counterbalance many weighty objections, did such exist. But prevention has always been subordinated to cure, and to cure of the most imperfect and impossible description; instead of being adopted as itself the most perfect cure of all.
But it seems more than doubtful whether any extra expense would be involved for gaols—even first. "No unreformed inmates of a prison," says Mr. M. D. Hill ( See p. 502, quotation from Repression of Crime, p. 465), "however extravagant" its expenditure, cost the community so much as they "would do—if at large. This fact has been so often "proved that I must be allowed to assume it as undeniable." It has been estimated that a criminal
Weekly Dispatch,
The broad proposition—that no convicted criminal should ever be released, is one which can scarcely be expected to gain ready acceptance on its first proposal; though I look upon its ultimate adoption as certain. The wisest and most beneficent suggestions have always met with strenuous opposition at first, and have never been cordially adopted, until the objectors discovered that the ends they themselves had most at heart, were actually being best effected in spite of their opposition. Man, however, never learns anything—except under compulsion. Few will contest that of all economic subjects, this is one—the solution of which is of the first importance, or that it has yet to be found; and fewer still will fail to recognise that the moral aspects of the question are more important still.
The present state of things is notoriously unsatisfactory, but the full extent of the mischief produced can scarcely be apprehended, for it is of daily increasing proportions. A worse than foreign enemy is maintained by us in our midst, and favoured with every advantage that our civilisation can furnish. We endow the criminal—known or unknown—with every protection from the ministers of the law which is accorded to the honest citizen, and actually assume that he has not done what we know he has done, until a certain method of proof has been fulfilled; and any loophole that a clever lawyer can find, is made effectual to save him from the legal consequences. But if—by force of circumstances, a conviction follow, the consequences tend rather to confirm him in his evil career, and perfect him in his profession. He lives as before, at the cost of his honest neighbours, with medical and every other attendance free; the most select of the society he prizes most, and no more work than is exactly calculated to keep him in health. He is far better fed, housed, and cared for, than many honest labourers; See Argus (supplement), Mayhew's London Labour and London Poor, (to which I have lost an important reference) as regards the Dietary Scale in England. Also at Munich, and Valencia, see Repression of Crime, pp. 552 and 556, &c.
I would define a Lord Stanley, on the criminal as one whose acts are habitually predatory, and in contravention of the laws which protect property and person. If a criminal act were shown to be incongruous with the character and previous habits of the perpetrator, I would not call him a criminal; but if his criminal act were shown to accord with his habits and disposition, I would at once class him as a criminal upon his first conviction. A second conviction should be taken as decisive—as to criminal habit and disposition under any circumstances. One criminal act may not prove a habit or disposition; but its recurrence is proof of a liability which must augment with repetition. A habit is only a more advanced stage of the same course. But habits are formed and confirmed under ordinary conditions of life; and there can hardly be a more glaring or mischievous fallacy than the supposition, that conduct produced by the discipline, and exhibited within the precincts of a gaol, will probably be maintained under opposite conditions outside it, and in the face of habits which were the outcome of previous longer life, and which are stronger in proportion. "Can the" Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then "may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." (Jer. xiii. 23.) Experience and statistics combine to prove the strict truth of this wise saying, and that it is impossible to make good citizens out of confirmed bad ones. In fact, they must be Transformed physically, before moral reform can be possible. Every tree is known by its fruits, and good deeds should no more be expected from bad men, than grapes from thorns, or tenderness from tigers. Vice to the vicious, and crime to the criminal, are as natural as heredity, habit, and association can make them; and if their subjects are temporarily susceptible under certain conditions to corrective influences, they are inevitably more so to the
Persistence of Force, as is any other object in the universe. The force of habit is as certain and necessary as that of gravity. And this is admittedly a fact, proved by the statistics of crime, so far as they have been investigated. In Dr. J. Bruce Thomson's article on the "Psychology of Criminals" in the Journal of Mental Science (Oct. they never "knew an habitual thief man or woman, who became "honest and industrious. A distinguished writer, who has, "as he says, looked more criminals in the face than any man in" Scotland, and has well studied their characteristics, says—"as to reforming old thieves—find me the man who has made" an honest working man out of an old thief, and I'd next set "him about turning old foxes into housedogs. The feat is "impossible." Mr. M. D. Hill, in his work already quoted, gives ample reasons for entirely distrusting the so-called statistics of reformed criminals, (pp. 589—594.) In fact, reliable statistics on the subject are impossible; for no test applied to a criminal when under gaol discipline, is of any value as regards his conduct when beyond it;are reliable, as far as they go; and experience, so far as certain, agrees with the theory that criminals cannot really reform, and that therefore they never do. In fact, if a man guilty of crime were by any possibility to become a worthy member of society, that would only prove that he was never really a criminal; that is, that his criminal act was not habitual or characteristic. But supposing it possible that a small percentage of genuine criminals could reform without relapse. Should the very doubtful chance of the reform of one criminal weigh for a moment against the imminent risk, not only of his not really reforming, but also of his influencing for evil—not one, but many—hitherto innocent members of society, to become criminal like himself?
But even were all this otherwise, or doubtful,—society is no more called upon to show consideration or tenderness to criminals, or to try—to its own prejudice—to change their nature, than it is bound to tame every tiger, or civilize every serpent. As Mr. F. Hill remarks, the "humanity of the "English law is in fact, inhumanity both to society, and to" the criminal himself." Doubtless it may be plausibly urged that a criminal is but the product of circumstances, with the determination of which he has actually less to do than society itself; and therefore that the Justice which Mr. Carlyle invokes upon him, would really exempt him from punishment altogether. But though the premiss is certainly true, the conclusion is absolutely false. Though society may be spoken of as a kind of personality—in so far as it has a power of acting, its personality is constantly changing, and it certainly is not to blame for the shortcomings of its previous personalities in past epochs. It can do no more than act for the best in present circumstances; and cannot do so better than by marking in the most practical and emphatic manner possible, the full breadth of the radical distinction between good and evil—right and wrong—so far as it has attained—so slowly and painfully—to the knowledge of it. All other kinds of knowledge are surely worthless in comparison; but the value of this is practically depreciated and ignored by every man who fails to pronounce and establish it to the full extent to which he has the opportunity. This is a duty—which, it appears to me, is fully as incumbent upon society, as upon the, individual, if not more so. Yet this is where both the
One of the most surprising things in connection with the subject is, the small practical sympathy shown for the victims of criminals. To judge by the sympathy commonly exhibited, we might imagine that men in general regard the probability of their becoming criminals themselves, as much greater, than that of their being made the victims of criminals. Although punishment is administered to the criminal far too much in the spirit of revenge, from a sense of "wild justice," as Bacon calls it, and is arbitrarily measured by some idea of impossible quantitative proportion to the turpitude of the offence—instead of simply by the probabilities of its repetition—the "wild justice" is very rarely extended to the unfortunate victim. How rarely is compensation afforded to the victim of robbery or personal violence of any kind! The criminal—once caught—appears to exhaust public attention and sympathy. Would not public funds be more justly appropriated to pensioning the victim of a brutal rape, than in maintaining her ravisher in ease and idleness? Though not prepared to advocate state compensation to the victims of the depredations or violence of criminals generally, I believe it would be difficult to disprove the Justice of such a proposal; as crime takes place solely by the failure of society to maintain the sufferers in that security, which is surely the tacit condition of good 'behaviour. Why do not those who talk so much of justice, seek to apply it here? But they do not. And I do not,—but why? Because utility is the only rational basis of human action. And while the criminal classes remain at large, they would manage to get the bulk of the compensation as well as the plunder. Futile attempts at imperfect justice have always resulted not only in injustice, but also in enormously evil consequences, which weigh far more heavily on the worthy than on the unworthy members of society. It is therefore incumbent on society—and it is also expedient for it—to recognise the claims of prospective victims; rather than as at present, to its own and their detriment, to devote its whole attention and expenditure to the amelioration of the condition of the criminal.
Theoretical principles of nearly every form corroborate the view, that consideration for the criminal should be .subordinated to the interest of society. Whether we adopt the admirable saying of Buckle, that the perfection of government
may by a bare possibility be the sole victim; not only is that rarely the case, but the security of all is jeopardised and infringed.
Mr. Carlyle, however, enounces a remarkable theory. He asserts that Justice should be executed upon the two-legged human wolf as a palpable messenger of Satan. But his view of justice extends no further than the act for which he invokes revenge! But has not the "merely ill-situated pitiable man" a claim, and a prior one to be avenged? For his urgent temptation, his unconsciously acquired evil habits, his worse associations and worst ignorance, his undesired birth in degradation, his inheritance of iniquity and passion? Why should he, rather than Mr. Carlyle—have been born to vice and its hopeless uncompensated consequences, in conditions which would have equally shapen in iniquity his scornful contemners? Surely justice should regard causes as well as effects, and withhold both hate and blame from those who, with different antecedents, would have been different men?
But the rectification of antecedents is an impossibility, and Society should therefore relinquish the vain chimera of justice, the opportunity for which has irrevocably past; and should devote its whole attention to the modification of consequences, so as, out of the present possibilities, to evolve the greatest future good. Is not a weighty obligation laid upon us all to do so, in virtue of those superior conditions which we so undeservedly enjoy, and which have made us what we are? Is it justice to hate and revenge, in conditions which justice would actually exchange? Should we not rather exercise our unearned prerogative of position with scrupulous care, as those to whom the future of the human race is temporarily entrusted, to produce the best possible conditions for our successors? When Mr. Carlyle claims,
vice versa? If not, can there be any ground for belief in causation at all? And if divine paternity made the difference, where is the justice of the distinction made? It is excluded. Justice then forms no valid ground for the punishment of any criminal whatsoever. Justice is an impossibility without a reversal of the past. The idea of punishment also, should therefore be discarded; particularly as it is per se a mere barbarity devoid of good result (unless as a feeble deterrent to others), and essentially unjust in principle. We can at best only so act in the present, as to educe good and avoid evil in the future.
Another very important consideration should lead us to the same conclusion at which I have arrived on other grounds,—that a criminal should never be released. It is characteristic of the criminal classes, that they are both unscrupulous and improvident, and set at nought the restrictions which society imposes upon the numerical increase of morally-disposed persons. An enormous impediment to the moral progress of the people would be at once removed, were convicted criminals never liberated to propagate their evil kind; the honest poor would be so far relieved from competition—at an immense disadvantage—with others who scruple not to avail themselves of means of subsistence from which honesty excludes; a part more or less—of the burden of foundling and reformatory asylums would be saved to society; the proportion of uneducated—or rather mis-educated—children would be largely reduced; and the first direct step probably in the history of the world would have been taken to improve, or rather to stay the deterioration of the race of human beings. For it must be obvious that if those below the general average of morality and intelligence multiply—as we know they do—far more rapidly and promiscuously than those above it, the tendency must be to lower the general average. And that tendency is enormously enhanced by the consequently increased competition, against which the honest poor have to contend in living, and in educating their children. And the highest
by habit should never be released under any circumstances.
The increased security to Society generally,—the rescue from injury and depredation of those who would otherwise be victims,—the banishment from society of constant evil examples,—the prevention of the production of a large number of evil children; these are advantages which are obvious, and can scarcely be over-estimated. The disadvantages appear to be all embraced in the one item of the cost of maintenance. But it seems doubtful whether that would not actually be reduced, even if all convicted criminals were incarcerated for life. I have already quoted the weighty opinion of the Recorder of Birmingham to that effect, and it is obviously true of those prisons in America and elsewhere, which are (said to be) self-supporting. But it must not be forgotten that it is precisely in such institutions that the life conditions of the criminal are made entirely superior to those of the honest labourer with whom he is made to compete, and whom, in a place like England, he thus helps to starve. Prison labour, if made remunerative, is thus doubly objectionable, and the cost of maintenance should be considered irrespective of the results of the prisoner's labour. But even then the increase of criminals by example and propagation would be checked, and the total number of criminals would therefore certainly diminish. The cost of police; now mainly engaged in watching and re-catching released criminals, might be safely reduced, so as probably to more than compensate for any extra expense in gaols.
And as regards the criminals themselves, the most plausible objection appears to me to be, that perpetual imprisonment would operate too much as a premium to crime, if they were to be maintained in conditions (as at present) vastly superior to those of the honest labourer. For this cruel and pernicious anomaly, a remedy should then be found, and I have one to propose. The maudlin nonsense that we hear about the loss of precious liberty is altogether
Are morbid sentimentalists who constantly repeat it. But liberty is prized by the active and industrious, not by the idle and lazy. The simple incontestable fact that our thieves and forgers, as a rule, repeat their offences as soon as they regain their liberty, proves that they really appreciate their comfortable quarters, their gratuitous medical and other attendance, their food and exercise carefully regulated to maintain them in perfect health; and above all, the consciousness that their life in clover is at the expense of the honest labourer and taxpayer. Deprivation of liberty would be a punishment to an active mind and body, to a person to whom work is pleasure, and to whom debt, dependence, degradation, and depredation are equally repugnant. But criminals prove by their acts that they prefer gaol-life to freedom (M. D. Hill, p. 523-4); for they regularly adopt, as soon as liberated, the very means which experience has taught them are the most certain to secure their return to it. The only plausible argument to the contrary is, that attempts are sometimes made to escape. But these are notoriously rare exceptions, and arise from a love, less of liberty than of license, and hatred of social restraint rather than desire for free action; and these attempts to escape, admittedly prove extra intractability and impatience of social obligation. No attempts are made to escape from Munich or Valencia prisons.
Though perpetual imprisonment would prevent convicted criminals from contaminating Society, and propagating criminals, after their conviction, it is still open to grave objections. For the honest starving poor who contribute to their support should not be so mistaught that crime will entitle them to State maintenance and solve all their difficulties; and if criminals were made by their labour to pay for their keep, they would so far compete with honest labour, which would thus be placed at a disadvantage, though entitled to preference for any employment or expenditure. It therefore remains to be shown that there is a sure means both of preventing an increase of the expense of maintaining criminals and of avoiding, at the same time, the slightest appearance of offering to Sir G. C. Lewis says, that "by vivisection, important physiological facts have been established. Some of the ancient physicians of the Dogmatic sect were permitted by the kings to open the living bodies of convicted criminals, a practice which was defended against the objections of the Empiric sect, upon the ground that it is reasonable for a few criminals to suffer for the benefit of many innocent men. In modern times, likewise, the practice of inoculating criminals with the matter of the plague, for the purpose of throwing light upon contagion, has been recommended if not practised; and it appears that the French Government used in the 10th Century, to furnish annually to the physicians of Montpellier a living criminal for dissection." Sir G. C. Lewis takes this statement at second hand, and throws some doubt upon it, by adding in a note, that he has been unable to verify it by reference to the original author. See Sir G. C. Lewis' Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, vol. i., pp. 162-3. It is well-known that much modern knowledge has been acquired by experiments on the living subject, and could not have been otherwise attained. And it appears that they have been much more freely practised in Germany and France than in England.them or to others the premium to commit crime, which are the defects of the system of perpetual imprisonment. If, in attaining perfectly these ends, my proposal can be proved to present also the means of acquiring know-
In the English Cyclopaedia, under the head of "Inoculation," it is stated that that preventive of a deadly disease was very slowly adopted in England, after its introduction from Turkey in Sec "Will the Coming Man Drink Wine?"—all our criminals without exception. They should be divided into, say three classes; of which the first might be simply made subjects of experiments in diet, or in the trial of the effects of drugs of such a character as to produce the least inconvenience or pain, and extending over long or short periods. The second class might be used for experiments of a more critical or important character—if, indeed, any experiments involving such results as the improved health, longevity, and morals of the human race should be called other than important. The last class should be reserved for experiments in which
Atlantic Monthly Magazine,
All the objections to my proposal that I have been able to foresee are, the apparent inhumanity involved in its execution, and the alleged defect of moral right to put it in practice. For if there could be any question as to the deterrent effects of the plan, or the transcendent importance of instituting experiments upon the living human subject, I think those points may be best examined when I consider the advantages to be attained.
And first as to the inhumanity. I not only deny, but retort the charge. The fact is, that Mr. Hill's remark, already quoted, that humanity to criminals is inhumanity to society, is strictly applicable to the case; and the real difference between my position and that of my possible opponents is, that I prefer to exhibit my sympathy and humanity towards the unfortunate Mary Egans, Sullivans, Grahams, and Eltons, &c.; towards the innocent victims, than towards their criminal ravishers and murderers. I feel that as a member of Society
owed the protection and security, which it failed to afford to those helpless women in their dreadful need, I am bound to acquit myself of the responsibility which I certainty share, and this paper is my contribution to that end. If I have opponents, let them recognise that they are not only defenders of such villains as Sanders, Branch, Elton, Ritson, and Weechurch, &c., but their rewarders, and the accessories before the fact of the like crimes and outrages, if not participators in them, in the future.
But I extend my sympathy and humanity to millions besides the victims of robbery, murder, and rape. Millions of innocent sufferers from excruciating diseases of every description will have good hopes of release from their pangs by means of the rapid increase (which the proposed system is calculated to produce) in medical knowledge, which has hitherto languished under disabilities almost equivalent to prohibition. I can even discern a possible solution of the gigantic evil of poverty, which afflicts so heavily a large proportion of our fellow creatures, and dooms their progeny to inevitable ignorance, and probably to crime. Are we to show no humanity to these innocent victims of our social errors, but exhaust it upon those who, by their own act, have cancelled their title to consideration. And is it even a wrong to them, to make them, or rather to confer on them the privilege of being, against their wishes, of inestimable use to the Society they have wronged? The special aims of my proposition are to expand and exalt human sympathy, and to concentrate it upon the most legitimate objects.
The right of Society to act generally for the decided benefit of its aggregate body, is ordinarily admitted to be beyond question. As regards the taking of life, the right, I think, has been more rarely questioned, than the policy of Society in doing so, and thereby conducing indirectly to the acquittal of the guilty. The last is of course not a defect of the law, but of its administration; and the general diffusion of knowledge seems its only legitimate cure. The abstract right to take life is a transcendental point, which should be dealt with on its own grounds. The possession of the power may be logically maintained to constitute the right. Power indisputably vindicates natural right in every other case beside that of man; and in human action it does the same where no injury is inflicted elsewhere. The question then becomes;
per se it is so precious that nothing can be put in competition with it, we can only oppose our opinion to his. But should he condescend to reason on the subject, weighty arguments may be adduced to the contrary. The fact that thousands risk and sacrifice their own lives for the most trivial of objects may prove no more than their opinion, but opinions are as good on that side as the other. It may also be said that human life, like everything else, where very redundant, must have a smaller value. But waiving that, death being the inevitable lot of all, what is taken is an uncertain number of years or days of life. The value of these years or days may be estimated in two ways; the good work done, or the pleasure experienced. The first of these would be amply satisfied by my proposition, which, I contend, provides for unsurpassable good to the human race. And as to the pleasure of the individual, that has an ample off-set in the pleasure taken from others; in the direct injury to some, and the lessened security of all. The consideration of the evil lives into which many are led by the greater prospect of impunity, should 1 think bear preponderant weight. But I have already given ample reasons why the interest of one unworthy, or even worthy, member of society should be subordinated to the interest of its aggregate body and posterity.
But as regards the right or justice of taking the life of a criminal; I may safely assume that my transcendental objector must grant that, for reasons already given, it is absolutely impossible for any human being to ascertain in what justice would consist, or to estimate only approximately the due weight to be allowed for inheritance of evil disposition, education, and provocation. But his premises are also understood to involve that in the next world perfect justice can and will be meted out to him. Therefore, the surest way to act justly to a criminal, is to leave the account of justice to be equitably balanced there, and despatch him with all convenient speed to where that consummation is to be achieved. On these principles—consistently applied—to inflict any punishment, as such, but death, is to incur the
doubtful cases; but may confidently act for the good of society, even at the otherwise possible risk of sacrificing an innocent person. And we should thus abolish an admittedly most prolific source of the miscarriage of justice, and of the encouragement of crime; and at once explode that really stupid saying, that it is better that ten guilty should escape, than that one innocent should suffer. The fact is, that death being inevitable, the suffering is altogether assumed, being far less than that endured by the majority of honest men who die in their beds; and that it is clearly better for society and morality, that ten innocent persons should suffer, if only apparently guilty, than that one guilty one should escape. For the execution of a supposed guilty person—though innocent—should deter others as much as if he were really guilty, and is therefore good for society; while to let one guilty man escape is to teach possible impunity and immorality to all. To those who demur to this conclusion, I will merely propose a comparison of the popular penal system, which, as I have represented it, implies that it is good that many innocent should suffer for the benefit of one guilty,—with a fundamental principle of the popular religion, which implies that it is good that one innocent should suffer for the benefit of many guilty,—and with my conclusion that it is good that one guilty should suffer for the benefit of many innocent; and I challenge a candid and thoughtful decision.
These reasons are of course superfluous for those who recognise the clear right of society to dispose of criminals with sole regard to its own purification and good; and in fact for all but those to whose objections they specially apply. But it is necessary to meet, by anticipation, every objection which it seems likely will be made.
The first advantage arising from my proposal, is, that it is eminently, nay, pre-eminently calculated to operate as a deterrent. If those who are least likely themselves ever to become subjects to it, view my plan with horror—which I am prepared to believe—how much more will those do so who are the special objects of it? From my own knowledge of the criminal class, I suspect that this horror is likely to be enormously exaggerated. But I think the prospect of being made really and specially useful to society, would appal the worst of them quite as much.
Secondly. By never releasing a convict, which is a part of my proposal, the reproduction of criminals, either by association and example, or by direct propagation, would be prevented. This is, I think, no more than the plain duty of Society towards its as yet uncontaminated but weak members. But the non-production of evil children—not so much for their own sakes (though that good should not be overlooked) as for the general improvement of the race and the security of the great body of society—is a good which can scarcely be over-estimated, and is beyond calculation, extending as it would into the remotest future.
Thirdly. These objects, important as they are, scarcely, if at all, surpass the incalculable benefits which would accrue to the human race by the great, and perhaps, first impetus to medical and physiological knowledge which would be the direct result. The present condition of medical knowledge is notoriously miserably deficient, and it is no compliment to the profession to say that people outside it know less. It has been, I think, an entirely mistaken policy of the profession, how much so ever forced upon it by circumstances, to shelter its own ignorance behind a technical terminology, and otherwise to maintain the monopoly of its poor apology for knowledge. By keeping patients, and thousands who otherwise See would be patients, in such outer darkness, I believe that it has narrowed its own sphere of observation and research to the smallest limits, and deprived itself of much of that knowledge which is its greatest want. Had it not always as a body persisted in this suicidal course, originally adopted, doubtless, solely in self-defence, it might not have suffered as it has under prohibitions and disabilities which from time immemorial have been legally and conventionally imposed upon its education. Had legislators and others been aware that their own comfort, health, and longevity lost enormously by
English Cyclopaedia, Art. Anatomy.
Did men ever yet obtain real systematic knowledge otherwise than by experiment? Yet doctors are, and always have been, specially debarred from that best means of learning their business, and of benefitting the world; and it has only been by stealth, at considerable personal risk, and by circumventing the laws and Society itself, that some indomitable earnest workers have learned the very little that is known. The existence of homoeopathy in the face of allopathy demonstrates that the fundamental principles of medicine are in doubt and uncertainty, to say nothing of the thousand points of detail upon which opinions are divided. The notorious fact, also, that leading allopathists of Melbourne actually practice, by means of spiritual mediums and clairvoyants, is a sad proof of the insufficiency of ordinary means of diagnosis and methods of treatment. It is, I think, impossible to estimate the nevertheless certain prospective benefits, or to exaggerate the value to humanity of the scientific experiments which I propose—whether for acquiring accurate knowledge of the more obscure functions of the human body, the perfecting of capital surgical operations, the discovery, testing, and utilization of drugs of every description, or the solution of various most important physiological problems. Several of the most eminent members of the medical profession here fully endorse my views on this point. The popular mind will probably best recognise the importance of the proposal, in considering the instance that I have quoted in which it has already been practised in England. Inoculation was the first check to the then appalling ravages of small-pox, and prepared the way for the discovery of vaccination, which has since superseded it. The historical fact that the popular mind was at once convinced and satisfied by the experiment in that case is my ground of encouragement in reviving the proposal after a dormancy of 150 years, and advocating its wide extension. It is to me a guarantee that my recommendation
It is almost amusing to think how very foolishly Society defeats its own purposes in its conduct towards the medical profession. It lays down that doctors shall not experiment. If any ordinary person suspected for a moment that his medical attendant was experimenting upon Him, he would never see his face again. With what difficulty has the comparatively worthless privilege of obtaining a dead body for dissection, to learn scarcely anything beyond mere anatomy, been wrung from the stupid prejudices and superstitions of the people? How can the living expect to benefit by experiments, unless upon the living? It should surely be obvious that to learn with certainty the effects of drags upon the living body, experiments with them upon the living body are indispensable. But that would be too shocking! And what is the result? That every one of us who employs a doctor to attend himself, his wife, or his child, actually furnishes a subject, and too often a victim, of ignorant, blind, and uninstructive experiment in his own person or that of one of his family! Instead of enabling certain knowledge to be acquired as I suggest, by careful and conclusive experiment upon persons who voluntarily (when they know it as the legal penalty of crime) offer themselves for it! For a doctor cannot experiment profitably upon his ordinary patients, because he cannot be sure that the conditions he prescribes are carried into effect; he generally has reason to suspect that they are not. Even in a hospital (his only school at present) experiments must be strictly limited to the demands of the cases before him, and are so slightly more profitable than ordinary practice, that almost the sole advantage is, that he can have some certainty as to the conditions under which they are made. But in practice, because we stupidly prohibit perfect experiments upon persons who are good for nothing else, we actually subject ourselves to experiments of an imperfect, unprofitable, and even dangerous description!
Although experiments upon animals may have been useful, they are well known to be wholly inadequate to secure reliable knowledge of the susceptibilities of the human subject. In fact, it is fortunate that this is known. For as it is now certain that doses of various drugs, which would kill a man, are perfectly inocuous to many animals, it would
A fourth advantage is the enormous reduction of cost in the final disposal of criminals which would obviously result; as all the worst criminals would be utilised for experiments, involving so much risk or certainty of death, as would speedily reduce their numbers. I believe that the present cost of disposing of criminals would be reduced far more than fifty per cent., and that the supply of subjects for experiment would soon fall far short of the demand.
It has occurred to me that it may be thought that 1 have neglected or overlooked the question of Reform of Criminals, but I have touched upon it; and I admit that, just after reading the accounts of the noble institutions for that purpose at Munich, Valencia, &c., any proposition in which they are entirely ignored must appear cruel and unjust. But the fact is, that greater cruelty and flagrant wrong are unintentionally done by those very institutions; and not to persons who deserve evil at our hands, but to innocent stragglers who are entitled to protection from contamination and encouragement in virtue. The honest poor have in the first place a preferent claim to the expenditure itself. They have another, not to be exposed to the competition of prison labour. They have also a claim not to be taught that crime is rewarded with large expenditure, good food, lodging, and attendance, with freedom from care; while struggling poverty meets not only with anxiety, misery, and starvation; but with demonstration that by depredation and violence they may reverse their evil condition. It is as if you gave to the burglar the wages due to your honest servant, and informed your servant that he and his family must want, because what was his due might be the means of reforming the burglar, adding that he should follow the burglar's example. But, as I have said, the estimates of reformation have been
die of want and disease, because they do not rob and murder! But even all this is nothing to the cruel wrong involved in the immoral lesson thus deliberately taught, that vice meets with the reward of virtue, and virtue, with what should be that of vice.
I believe I have now shown that the ideas of justice and punishment should both be discarded as futile and worse than useless in dealing with this question; and that reformation is, if not impossible, at least rare and incapable of timely test or proof; that the permanent incarceration of criminals would be a far better protection to society, present and future, than the current penal system; that it must necessarily tend to reduce crime to a minimum; that the cost would probably be much less than might be supposed; and that it would even furnish the means of effecting a direct and certain moral improvement in the human race. And I trust that I have also shown that the utilisation of criminals for scientific experiments would reduce the cost of perpetual incarceration of all criminals to a smaller amount than any other plan without exception; that it would operate as the most powerful of all deterrents from crime, and thus obviate the principal objection to all self-supporting or life imprisonments; that it would give an impetus to medical science which must speedily have a beneficent effect upon the health, comfort, longevity, and, still better, the morals of mankind; that it satisfies every want, extinguishes every anomaly, and solves every difficulty in the great problem of the disposal of criminals; and finally, that the charge of inhumanity recoils at once upon those who raise that objection, as their sympathies should be with—not the criminal—but his innocent victim.
Stilwell and Knight. Printers. Melbourne.
In this paper I propose to consider, not so much suicide itself, as the judgment of it, and of those who commit it, which is commonly formed; and how far that judgment is logical and true. To do this it will be necessary to consider suicide itself to a certain extent, as the object of that judgment. But suicide itself can possess but slight interest for those who are not tempted to commit it; which I trust will always be our own case. For it is certain that no one ever committed or was tempted to commit suicide, unless under circumstances of acute painfulness, or in a state of morbid excitation almost equivalent. But we judge our neighbours every minute in the day, and almost mechanically. That is, we condemn or approve without subjecting every decision to the rigid scrutiny of reason; but our ordinary hasty judgments are unconsciously determined in accordance with principles arrived at when we do trouble ourselves to consider particular cases carefully. Of so much the more importance is it then to do so correctly. It is my own impression that there is no point on which the popular judgment is more fallacious and less digested than on that of suicide and its victims; and I think that the fallacy which underlies the matter commonly misleads men in such a multiplicity of other instances, but is so much more susceptible of clear exposure in this than in them, that time and attention bestowed upon the careful consideration of this topic may be attended with particularly beneficial results.
Let us begin at the beginning: what is the cause not only of suicide, but of all men's acts? Indisputably pleasure and pain; and of these pain is chief. For pleasurable conditions are often enhanced by passivity, but pain is urgent and will not be denied;—action is imperative. All man's natural exterior covering is more or less delicately sensitive to impressions, which produce sensations painful or pleasant, and thus constitute his motives to action. It is indeed difficult to conceive how without a sensation he could acquire a motive to action at all. In fact, he has no other way of receiving impulses to action. By his sensations only does he learn what is hurtful, and what is beneficial to his system. How else could he know that fire burns, or that blows bruise? or what is good or bad for food or life? Why do we like people of what we call good feeling, but because we feel and know that those feelings produce corresponding actions?
But not only do we thus recognise what is good or bad for us, but we thus, and thus only learn how to act. Having thus been taught what is painful and pleasurable, we thus, and thus only learn how to reproduce the pleasure, and how to elude the pain. This is our only warranty for any action. Why do we eat or drink? We feel the sensation of hunger or thirst; we distinguish by experience the appropriate aliment; we seize it, and call it good if it answer to our anticipations. And "To enjoy is to obey," says Pope.
If cold, we light a fire; if too hot, we seek the shade. In every case the pleasure realised or the pain avoided, is not only the reason
justification. Existence is itself almost unexceptionally a pleasure, and to the sum; extent how tenacious are we of existence! How inestimable a good it is regarded, may be judged from the amount of pain which it will outweigh.
But in some rare instances we find that these infallible monitors, our sensations, advertise us that existence (the balance of pain over pleasure being overwhelming) is an evil, and non-existence a good; and if we act then, otherwise than in accordance with our feelings and convictions, do we not do violence to our nature? What do I say? Is it possible for us to act otherwise than as our sensations indicate to us the best course to avoid the pain and secure the pleasure? Certainly not. It is not competent for us to act otherwise than as our nature prompts and impels. And if there be any truth or significance in the principle that "to enjoy is to obey" it must be applicable to all cases; and when our enjoyment is to be found only in non-existence, our obedience must inevitably be involved in it also. Indeed, if anything more so:—for our existence is to a great extent involuntary; and the term obedience is indisputably more applicable to a voluntary than an involuntary act, whether the object be the maintenance or the destruction of our life.
The same argument has been well applied by Rousseau to the theological aspect of the question; and as the principal objections to suicide are generally advanced on theological grounds, I may not pass them over.
First then, there is no prohibition of suicide from Genesis to Revelations. Was this because it was a sore subject with the author '? Pliny says that there is one invaluable privilege which man has, but God has not; that of terminating his own existence. I think if any being should hate hi life, it should be the creator of a hell, and of evil. If he hates it, and cannot get rid of it, how awful is his punishment! The Bible however does not forbid suicide. "Thou shalt not kill" was evidently intended to prohibit encroachment on the rights of others; the taking from them their existence, their highest good. And when the destruction of another is considered a good for the social body, both nature and law not only justify, but command it.
But it is said, we have no right—it is a crime—to quit the post assigned us by Providence. On exactly the same principle we can have no right, and it should be equally a crime, to leave the country or the spot where we were born, or where we find ourselves at any time. We have no justification for doing so, but the very one I at first adduced:—that our sensations and experience lead us to deem it best for us to do so. To say that Providence placed us here, is only a mysterious and irrelevant way of saying "we are here as we say" God knows," when we merely mean "me don't know." And those who say so will surely not demur to say that our sensations are equally bestowed by Providence. Then as Providence notifies to us the propriety of our going or staying, solely through the sensations by which alone we can discover it—when we are similarly convinced that non-existence is preferable to existence—on what ground can it be maintained that suicide is not the will of Providence? In fact, if Providence governs all, the success of a suicide proves decisively that his act was as much the dispensation
he possesses the superior merit of obedience. Rousseau also shows how unreasonable it is to accuse the suicide of a desire to withdraw himself from a post of duty and from the governance of God. For on the theory of a God and a future life is it not impossible for him to do so? He simply steps into another post, as much or more under the government of God; by many supposed to involve greater, instead of less capacity and scope, and therefore more responsibility. What is death on this theory? Merely passing from one room to another—from a scene where circumstances indicate, in the only way in which we can receive such an intimation, that we are no longer required, to another to which we appear to be invited, and where therefore we may confidently hope to be enabled to act with better effect. If Providence gives us an appetite and food, and we consider that that justifies our using both,—if when Providence causes the sun to heat our heads we consider ourselves justified in interposing an umbrella to stop the inconvenience,—or if we scruple not but hasten to sacrifice a gangrenous limb for the sake of preserving the life we value more:—why, when life becomes painful, should we not rocognise it as an intimation to move to a more favorable field of exertion, and why hesitate to use the means which a careful Providence has placed within our reach?
It is however, obvious that suicides are caused by the overwhelming pressure of circumstances, and the imagined impossibility of coping with or improving them. In every case dissatisfaction with existence is the reason for the act; and if it were in the conscious power of the unfortunate victim to make his existence agreeable, or tolerable otherwise, we may safely assume that that alternative would be preferred. Knowing as we do, and feeling the almost inexhaustible power and elasticity of the love of life, it is difficult if not impossible to realise the appalling load of hopeless despair which must oppress and excruciate the sensibilities of a sane suicide, before that energy by which alone the human race is maintained and continued, can in him find no employment so tolerable as its own destruction. How all the sweets and delights of life, which make the love of it so strong in all animated nature, must be converted into gall and wormwood! Is there anything so calculated to arouse the liveliest pity, the most compassionate sympathy? For who can assure himself against similar conditions?
Yet human ill nature has stigmatised the act as a voluntary crime of the deepest dye! It has been imagined not only to blacken the memory of the unfortunate victim himself, but also, by an excess of illogical stupidity, to injure the fame of those relatives who would have done all in their power to prevent it! This happily has not been general. Thus to impute turpitude to unfortunate misery, is pre-eminently a blot on Anglo-Saxon institutions. To the disgrace of England be it said that she was among the last of the nations of Europe to relax the savage severity of the laws on this point. Sui-
sorrowing relatives by confiscating his property!
Surely it must be obvious that punishments of unsuccessful suicides can have but one tendency:—that of making them more careful to avoid failure on the next occasion. It is self-evident that nothing could be more fatuitously absurd than to endeavor to punish abortive suicidal attempts. It is like telling a prisoner that if he escape, you will punish him for doing so, if you don't catch him! In every way the conventional judgment in such cases seems to be diametrically opposed to the most fundamental principles of humanity and common sense.
What can be the cause of all this unreason, contradiction, and cruel illiberality? It seems to me that it is entirely attributable to that abominable spirit of intolerance which will not permit our neighbours to act, speak, or think otherwise than as we approve. For that intolerant spirit it appears to me that Christianity, that essentially intolerant religion, is mainly responsible. But this should not be carelessly stated without reasons given, for intolerance is not overtly taught by Christianity. The true cause of Christian intolerance seems clearly chargeable to monotheism. For when people cheerfully allowed their neighbours to have various gods of their own, there was no ground for intolerance of their religions. But when once a man feels bound to assert that his god, and therefore his religion, is the only true one, and that he and his god are jealous of all others, intolerance obviously becomes the mainspring of his conduct, so far as he is pious. This is corroborated by the fact that the other monotheistic religions, the Jewish and the Mahometan, are as intolerant as the Christian.
Religion is notoriously a common cause of insanity, as well as of suicide. The reason is plain. Instead of learning from experience and reason that his happiness depends solely on the practice of virtue—which consists in understanding and utilising to his utmost the circumstances in which he is placed, and resolutely appropriating knowledge and its advantages wherever he may find them—man is too early taught to distrust and repudiate his most valuable faculties and important privileges, and to rely for guidance and strength upon an imaginary power, which of course fails him entirely whenever it is put to the test. If favorably circumstanced, or blessed with a naturally resolute temperament, he may get through life without a very serious mishap; but too often under less fortunate conditions, repeated failure confirms his fatal distrust of himself, produces despair; and he is driven and tossed like a rudderless ship upon the waves of life, and is ultimately lost in the storms of insanity or the whirlpool of self-destruction.
In what is England behind the foremost nations of Europe? Is it in energy, intelligence, or wealth? No. But she is pious. Though her national institutions are free, in conventional opinion the bulk of her people are slaves. The personal and social freedom of action of
It is surely contrary to English, or any principles of justice, to condemn any man unheard. Could we only hear and realise the history of a poor suicide, could we know and understand all the cruel circumstances which inevitably caused his act, I imagine that nothing further would be necessary to induce us to retract our condemnation; particularly when we reflect how little our own circumstances arc within our choice. When once the causes of all human action are discerned to be necessary in their operation, no room is left for blame. It is inapplicable. For it essentially implies that error is not necessary, but is avoidable under identical antecedent conditions.
We naturally and instinctively hate death; and if we hate and recoil from misery less, it is simply because it is generally the lesser evil. But surely the unfortunate, unwilling victim of misery—aggravated to such a degree of torture that even hateful death appears comparatively a blessing—should be the object rather of sympathy and compassion than of blame. It should require no further argument to prove that to blame or to hate a poor suicide involves a total misconception and confusion of ideas.
The only plausible argument for endeavoring to discourage, or even deprecating suicide, seems to me to be, that were it to become prevalent population would decrease; and the race must become extinct if the practice were to become general. But apprehensions on this score are utterly idle and baseless. The natural inevitable law of demand and supply amply guarantees us against such a contingency. Suicides have never been common except where population was condensed and misery great—where life, being redundant, possessed a smaller value, and was comparatively at a discount. It is unknown in sparsely peopled countries, while in China, Japan and India, and in large crowded cities, it is, I believe, prevalent in proportion more or less to the density and pressure of population. Other causes arc of course operative. Intemperance I find causes (at Geneva for instance) one twelfth of recorded suicides. By far the greater numbers are attributed to disease. I presume that in most of As in the debate 1 was accused of advocating suicide, I would say that if asked 'whether I advocate or deprecate it, I reply "Never be miserable if you can help it, still less commit suicide;" but 1 think it just as idle and impertinent to urge upon the miserable, as upon the happy, any arguments for or against it.these cases death is known to be inevitably near, when I think suicide, to avoid pain, is wise, rather than otherwise. The suicide of the Jews at York (said to have been 500 in number) in the reign of Richard the First, was in my opinion clearly an act of wisdom. For I imagine that the alternative would have been inevitably worse. It was usual then for Christians to commence intercourse with Jews under such circumstances, by drawing their teeth—not with chloroform or ether spray, not with skill or tenderness, but probably with a hammer and a cold chisel—the object being to give, not to relieve the toothache. This instance alone proves unanswerably that circumstances can justify suicide; and in my mind in every case, the circumstances which cause, must therefore justify, suicide, or any other act. The consequences alone of any act determine its goodness or badness. By men, of course, the consequences can only be divined
every man endeavors to foresee them as accurately as possible, whatever object he may have in view. To offer arguments for or against suicide to anyone not driven by exceptional circumstances to contemplate its execution seems utterly idle; and entirely presumptuous to those who are. For to have any weight, arguments must have special reference to the particular case; and even then, they can have no efficacy comparable to that of whatever 'distracts the mind from the subject; for all depends upon the state of mind of the man himself, which if he could, he would scarcely communicate. This is a conclusive reason why no other man is, or can be, competent to condemn the act, even as an error of judgment; for that state of mind can only be guessed at by others, even by the results.
My only object in considering this subject was to seize a favorable opportunity of deprecating that pernicious spirit of intolerance which leads men to presume to judge and blame their neighbours; causes hatred and all uncharitableness; intimidates and fetters thus the human mind; and is the greatest obstacle to its development and improvement. For activity is the one thing needful, even when erroneously applied. We learn most from our errors. New troths scarcely strike us, unless they explain and teach the remedy for former faults. Even the greatest and most fatal errors, involving the destruction of those who commit them, are of more inestimable value to others who are active-minded enough to profit by them, than perhaps even their own. Mental activity should be promoted and encouraged to the utmost. Happy those who are so constituted and circumstanced that their activity is always in the best direction! Let us pity and be grateful to those who are less fortunate; by whose errors we profit; who are sacrificed to the general good. If they deserve no credit, because their sacrifice was involuntary, they are clearly not proper objects of blame for missing the mark which we, by better fortune, may have hit. Inactivity is the only thing really to be deprecated; for by inactivity no good can accrue to anyone.
And let us remember always that charity and reason are thus at last in harmony. It marks an important step in the history of the progress of the human mind, when it is discerned that charity and blame (or condemnation of others) are essentially incompatible. There is no place or ground for uncharitableness with those who have once comprehensively grasped the idea of causation; who apprehend that men's actions, being necessitated, must be blameless; that activity is virtue, and that reason is its highest form.
R. Bell, Steam Printer, 97 Little Collins Street East, Melbourne.
This Lecture, delivered before the Scots Church Literary Association in Melbourne, has been reprinted from The Argus at the request of several gentlemen, and with Mr. Justice Higinbotham's kind consent.
I am to address you this evening on a subject which I may not so much as attempt to make entertaining. What I shall say will, I fear, be in part unwelcome and probably displeasing to some of you. I should deeply regret if I were supposed by you to be capable of seizing the opportunity to respond rudely and ungraciously to the honour which has been conferred upon me in being invited to deliver a lecture in this place. I desire, therefore at once to inform you that I am not responsible for the subject of this lecture, nor, indeed, for the manner in which I shall treat that subject.
When the invitation was given to me to lecture before the Scots Church Literary Association, the Rev. Charles Strong requested me to select a particular subject, and he assigned a reason for his request. The position of the Christian churches in the world at the present day; their relations to mankind and to one another; the relations of the clergy and the laity to each other in the several churches; the effects of existing disunion between the churches; and the prospect and the means, if any exist, of a return to unity; all these aspects of one most difficult and thorny subject are, we know, often present, and suggest disquieting and desponding thoughts to a large and increasing number of educated minds, both lay and clerical, in this day. But such thoughts rarely find adequate and complete expression; they never form the subject of friendly discussion or of deliberation with a view to active effort of any kind. "The disease requireth rest rather than any other cure "was the judgment of Bacon in reference to the internal causes of dispute about matters" not of the highest nature" in one of the churches. The indolence or hopelessness of educated men has led them tacitly to extend this judgment to "the high mysteries of faith," and "the great parts of the worship of God," to which its author intimates that he did not intend to apply it.
Most thinking men would agree that controversy, unfruitful at all times, could not be productive of any but mischievous consequences upon these the highest subjects. But may there not be free and also peaceful discussion without controversy? You may be of opinion, perhaps, that a young poet has spoken the word of practical wisdom upon this matter. "Men," said Keats, "ought not to debate or dispute about truth; but they ought to whisper results to one
I heard a sermon preached in a church in Victoria some time ago, which seemed to me to touch the heart of the particular question—namely, the growing division between the minds of the clergy and of the educated thinking laity in the Christian churches, its origin, and the means of restoring union, to which I desire to invite your attention this evening. The preacher was addressing himself to the different sections of a mixed congregation, and when he came to the adult males he spoke to this effect, "Which of you, I ask,
The observation is true, we have good reason to believe, of all the Christian churches and in all countries of Christendom. It is true of the Greek Church in Russia: we are told by the author of a remarkable book lately published—Underground, Russia—that the whole of the educated classes in Russia are materialists. It is true of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy and the other countries of Europe where that church prevails. It is true, though the fact may be less obvious and there may be a larger number of exceptions, of one and all of the Protestant churches of Germany, Great Britain, America, and these Australian communities. In all countries professedly Christian the laity evince by their conduct in reference to great public questions such as education and the relations of the State to the churches a growing and profound distrust of all church systems of religious and moral belief. In all the churches the clergy display more and more unwillingness even to allude in their addresses to the laity to the intellectual bases of religious truth and of moral obligation. In all the churches in all Christian countries the adult male laity, by whom the affairs of the world are managed, on whose judgment and mind and character the highest interests of mankind in the present and in future generations mainly depend, remain intellectually untaught by those whose mission, if they have any mission, it is to teach. And to teach adult thinking laymen, I will add, rather than women and children. For is it not a keen and yet a most just reproach to all adult laymen that we have abandoned to other and strange hands the duty of teaching wives and children, which plainly devolves by natural obligation on ourselves? We have an excuse indeed; I do not mean to say that it is a justification. We ourselves are untaught, and we are consequently incapable of performing a duty which demands a knowledge of the most difficult of the sciences and the most delicate of arts, I mean the science and the art of educating and training the undeveloped mind of the child and the receptive and dependent mind of the woman. But where shall the responsibility be laid for the uneducated and untrained condition of the layman's mind with respect to the highest truths?
The late Rev. Professor Dinan, in an able article on "Religion in America," written in 187G, describes the most recent phase of American religious culture as "the .esthetic phase," in contradistinction to the ethical and the theological phases which preceded it. He observes that the present tendency of American Christianity is to assign to "sentiment "a more prominent function in religion; that a wide-spread reaction has set in, not so much against any particular tenet of the old theology as against the whole dogmatic apprehension of Christianity, while at the same time, owing the quickening of ecclesiastical activity and the impulse to ecclesiastical development, there exists a strong conservative preference for stable ecclesiastical order and a decided tendency to aggregation in a few great denominational types.
This description may be extended to Great Britain and to these colonies of Australia, and it will represent with tolerable accuracy, I think, the present state of religious organisations in the mother country and amongst ourselves. Everywhere, in all Protestant churches, dogmatic truth is either not presented at all to the intellects of educated laymen, or it is presented in such a manner as that the large majority cannot understand it, and will not accept it. The reasoning intellect of man demands ideas as its needful and sole proper aliment. It is only through ideas that the human intellect can be enabled to render that service which the religion professed by all the Christian churches claims from the intellect as well as from the affections of our human nature.
But the clergy of the Christian churches, abandoning the attempt to educate the layman's intellect, appeal to human sentiment, and employ art in various forms to evoke sentiment and to attract and influence the feelings by pleasing the senses. Let me not be supposed even to think disparagingly of any human sentiment that is true, or of art that is genuine; but I venture to affirm that neither the best and the noblest sentiment nor art when it is most pure and refined can be a substitute for the verities of religion—if religion have any verities. What is sentiment at its best? "How beautiful is noble sentiment," exclaimed Carlyle, without any touch of scorn, I think, but taking a just measure of its slight and fleeting value in the serious concerns of politics and religion. "How beautiful is noble sentiment! Like gossamer gauze, beautiful and cheap, which will not stand any tear or wear! Beautiful and cheap gossamer gauze, thou film shadow of the raw material of virtue, which art not woven, nor likely to be, into duty; thou art better than nothing and also worse."
And of art, when it is employed in a church as a substitute for intelligent religious thought, hear the opinion of the greatest living master of art, Mr. Ruskin, whose supremacy, I think, is most clearly
Now what is the cause of this waning influence as a teaching power of all the Christian churches? What is it that has created the wide and ever-deepening chasm between the intellect and the intellectual judgments of the educated Christian clergy, in their capacity as teachers, and the intellect and the intellectual judgments of the educated laymen? This inquiry is one of the very highest interest, and it has not received, I think, its due share of consideration either from clergymen or laymen. I do not think that we should be justified in tracing this fact to any deterioration in the general body of the clergy. So far as the Protestant churches are concerned—and it is with respect to them only that we have information on which an opinion could be founded—it may be affirmed, I think, that at no time previous to the present has more care been bestowed by all the churches upon the preparation and training of candidates for the duties of their office. And it may be affirmed with even more confidence, that at no period since the Reformation have the clergy of all the churches alike displayed so much zeal and devotion in the discharge of their allotted duties, or earned so generally and with so few exceptions a title to the personal influence which naturally and most justly belongs to consistent conduct and a blameless life. Neither should we be at liberty to conclude I think, that the clergy do not and cannot teach the laity, because laymen generally are at this day indifferent to religious truth, and refuse to be taught. The growing interest which the general body of educated laymen take in the highest and largest questions of religion and morals is certainly one of the most marked features of the present intellectual life of the world. At no time during the last 200 years have so many persons been engaged, fitfully and unmethodically it must be admitted, yet anxiously and eagerly, in the search for truth. Ideas, "the natural home and resting-place of the human mind," as they are fitly termed by Coleridge, are sought for with more or less earnestness by the great majority of educated thinking laymen in the present day.
If we look to the history of this city of Melbourne alone, we shall find that at any time during the last ten years any one who has professed to be able to communicate anything to his fellow men on the subjects of religion and philosophy has been able to secure a numerous, earnest, and attentive audience of thoughtful men, provided only that his hearers were not invited to assemble within the walls of a Christian church, and that the preacher has not founded his teaching upon the lines of any of the Christian creeds. What, then, is the cause?
I believe that the best answer to this question will be found in the additions that have been made by modern science to human knowledge, and in the change or rather the revolution which those additions have made in the mind and its judgments with reference to subjects of religious speculative thought. I do not allude to the numerous great practical discoveries of recent science. Of the two classes into which the sciences may be divided, founded upon what Bacon calls "the last or farthest twofold end of knowledge," namely, those sciences which tend "to the glory of the Creator," and those which tend "to the relief of man's estate," the latter class appear to leave no special enduring mark upon the minds of successive generations of students.
On the other hand, the two great sciences of astronomy and geology, which have gradually raised and expanded the human intelligence more than all other influences put together, have done very little to help man in his contest with material nature. A learned and very practical thinker, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, startled the scientific world half a century ago by the proposition that the discovery of Copernicus had been of little or no benefit to man for any practical purpose, but he proved his proposition as he stated it by showing that almost all the requirements of navigation, the art which more than any other derives assistance from astronomy, might have been supplied by the Ptolemaic system of astronomy if that system had not been supplanted. The science of geology, in like manner, during its briefer history has done comparatively little towards giving effectual practical aid to man in his search for mineral wealth. But astronomy and geology, each exerting a wide and indirect influence, have enormously extended man's conceptions of space and of time in the minds even of persons who know little or nothing of either science, and in doing this they have changed the whole character of human thought upon the highest subjects of speculative inquiry.
The extent of this change may perhaps be best understood by comparing, or rather contrasting, the state of two minds, before and since the time of Copernicus. Let us take the case of a European, an educated and learned man, at any period between the second and the sixteenth centuries. What were his thoughts about Nature and God? He could see, as we now do, that man was at the head of the animal world. But he believed, in
Let me ask you to make the effort that is necessary in order to form an idea, inadequate though it must be, of the universe as it presents itself to the student of science in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Astronomical spaces and geological times are so vast that without some artificial aids the mind fails to apprehend them. The phrase "a million of miles "or "a million of years "conveys no definite conception of distance or of time to a mind of ordinary capacity, and yet it is in such conceptions that the chief value of both sciences consists. I will use, with your permission, a measure of space which most of us can grasp, and I will invite you by its aid to try to get a distinct idea of interplanetary and interstellar spaces.
Those of us who have come to Australia from Great Britain have a tolerably definite idea of half the compass of the globe we inhabit, and thereby of its whole circumference. Now, think of this fact—a ray of light will travel a distance of nearly eight times round the earth in a second of time; it will take more than eight minutes, or four hundred and eighty seconds, to pass from the sun to the earth; that is to say the distance of the earth from the sun is something more than three thousand eight hundred times the length of a girdle round the earth. If we pause to reflect on this we shall get some idea of the enormous distance of our planet from the sun. Now, let us take in this further fact, that the planet Neptune, the most distant from the sun of all the planets, is more than thirty times further from the sun than is the earth. It taxes severely our powers of thought to stretch the mind so as to be able to conceive this idea of the magnitude of the space occupied by the sun and its attendant planets, and yet this idea, when it has been reached by a great effort, is only preparatory to the apprehension of the infinitely vaster spaces beyond the limits of the solar system.
To get a notion of these spaces I must ask you to make another effort of thought. One of the two stars called the Pointers, the
These stupendous discoveries of modern science, in regard to space, have been accompanied during the last century by discoveries equally stupendous, though not by any means so certain or precise in regard to time. The evidence yielded by the earth's strata points with reasonable certainty to the conclusion that man has existed on the earth during a period anterior to history of about two hundred thousand years, and that the age of the earth itself must be measured, not by thousands of years, but by scores, and even by hundreds of millions of years.
Both astronomy and geology have surely revealed to us clear proofs of ascertained and unchangeable law, of design and increasing purpose, of slow and steady progress, and also, I think, in animated nature, of benevolent if stern discipline. The earth and all the other planets revolve, and have revolved for millions of years, round the sun in the same direction, in similar elliptic orbits, at rates of progress that vary in accordance with unvarying laws, and in periods related to each other by a fixed proportion of times and distances. Kepler's great discoveries are know to us by long verified experience, and are held by us with a minutely accurate certainty, far transcending the certainty we can feel with regard to anything under the immediate cognisance of our senses; and hence we necessarily feel an undoubting confidence in scientific predictions of events still in the future, and in scientific generalisations which may be as yet only highly probable.
In illustration of this, consider the instance of a verified and of an unverified scientific prophecy that occurred quite recently. It was announced many years ago that the planet Venus would begin to pass between the earth and the sun on the
The same order, the same unvarying action, the like steadfast purpose and constant exercise of developing power are observable in the history of plant and animal life upon this planet, as revealed by geology; formless matter changing into crystallised inorganic matter, inorganic matter developing into organic matter instinct with life, plants, and animals of various degress of complex structure with corresponding degrees of internal life, following one another in ascending scale, until now, in these latest days, man, God's last, and undoubtedly His greatest work on this earth, has been reached—
"One first matter all, Endued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and in things that live, of life But more refined, more spirituous, and pure, As nearer to Him placed, or nearer tending, Each in their several active spheres assigned, Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportioned to each kind."
The student who at present contemplates these vast results of modern science is another and a totally different man from the mediaeval student. It is not so much a change as a revolution that his mind and its concepts have undergone. To him man no longer appears to be the centre of all things, but one of the smallest of the works of God, although also the most wonderful and the grandest of those that are known to us, as is shown by the marvellous capacity displayed by him in the act of discovering his littleness. To the same student God also is presented in an entirely new and inexpressibly grander form of conception; anthropomorphism, or the representation of God in the likeness of man, is no longer possible in any shape; arbitrary dealing, capricious favour, vengeful punishment, sudden passionate change, are attributes that are wholly unthinkable in regard to the Creator by an educated layman in the present day,
There is, of course, no opposition or conflict between modern science, with its great results and the enlarged conceptions which it has evolved in the human mind, and religion, using this last word in the sense that points to the existence of the supreme mind and the relations existing between that mind and the derived mind of man. So much was recently demonstrated with rare eloquence, and also with the utmost ease, by one to whom also, as a clergyman, we laymen of all denominations are deeply indebted for the sympathetic and helpful interest he has shown in some of our lay difficulties, and for the broader and more tolerant tone that has been communicated by him to the discussion of many public questions—I mean the Bishop of Melbourne.
At present no more can be said than this, that there exists no opposition between religion and modern science. Considerable advances have been made by science in our own day in the direction of the probable unity of the elements of matter and the probable unity of the originating causes of matter and motion. But science retains an attitude of reserve, and still refuses to speculate. This attitude, however, cannot in all probability, long be maintained.
It is not merely the right; it is a necessity for science to speculate upon, to inquire into all phenomena, mental as well as material. But science, affrighted by ecclesiasticism and its not yet exhausted terrors, has for a long time almost wholly abandoned the field of highest speculation to the Christian churches, and they in turn do not care to occupy it. " Non Jingo hypotheses, I do not frame hypotheses," exclaimed, in the early days of modern science, the illustrious but timid English philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, alarmed at the consequences that were to follow from his formula of universal gravitation—the grandest generalisation in physical science ever propounded by the human intellect. He wished, if it were possible, to confine his formula to the bare statement of the terms of a mathematical proposition. But Euler, not less distinguished as a mathematician than Newton, declared that gravity must be caused either by a spirit in the particles of matter, like "the directing angel," supposed by Kepler to reside in and to regulate the movements of the planets, or by some subtle material medium. Euler accepted the latter hypothesis, and this is still adopted and applied by science in the present day to explain the operation of particular modes of motion, light and heat, as well as of gravity; although its sufficiency, even for this purpose, is undemonstrated, while its insufficiency to account for other modes of motion, as well as for any vital or mental phenomena, is admitted.
But a great and a most happy change has begun, and has made rapid progress within our own time. Ecclesiasticism has become far
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection made its appearance, and instantly there rose from scores of English pulpits, and through a hundred channels in the English press, cries of indignation and scorn, and also, it must be said, of fierce personal vituperation, directed against the blameless author of that book. In the early part of last year (
As soon as science shall be completely set free from its lingering fears it must return, we may expect, as an inquirer and a learner, to the field of deductive speculation and hypothesis. Even now the old and inevitable questions "Whence" and "Why," the questions which every human intellect that really lives at some time puts to itself, and must either find some answer to them or perish in the attempt, again begin to be heard. Whence comes matter? And whence comes motion, or rather the force or forces which first originated, or which is, or which are, ever originating motion? And seeing that, as Sir John Herschel has observed, mere force may produce chaos, but never a cosmos, whence comes the ordered, regulated, directed force, which, never changing, never failing, has produced and still sustains the motions of the planets and all the complex phenomena of life upon this planet?
Such is the form which this Sphinx's riddle has now assumed, and science cannot rationally refuse either to accept the only hypothesis that has ever been proposed which pretends to explain all phenomena, or to suggest another equally comprehensive and equally consistent with ascertained facts. I mean the hypothesis which supposes that matter was originally created, and that every movement of every particle of matter has been in all time and now is impelled and directed by a supreme mind or will, ever and in every part of every natural phenomenon exerting a force analogous to that by which the derived mind in animals and man creates and directs motion in matter.
According to this ancient hypothesis;as applied to the facts of modern science, the world is but "manifested deity," or, as Agassiz has expressed it, "the whole creation is the expression of a thought, and not the product of physical agents;" every so-called "law of nature" is merely the continuous action of the
Nowhere has this hypothesis been more accurately or better stilted than by our English poet, Pope:—
This hypothesis has been declared by one acute thinker of the present day to be "unthinkable," and it cannot, of course, be entertained by those who so regard it. To my mind it appears to be as thinkable—not more so, and not less—as the fact, of which I am conscious, that my mind possesses the power of moving a finger or a limb. Each of us is conscious of this power, and he cannot rationally refuse to believe in the fact of its existence merely because he knows nothing either of the essential nature of the mind in which the power is lodged, or of the relations between the mind and the body on which the power is exerted.
To those minds that can apprehend it, this hypothesis yields the only satisfactory explanation of the innumerable and complex facts that go to make up "the burden and the mystery of this entire " (otherwise)" unintelligible world." It is the only hypothesis which even pretends to account for all phenomena, mental as well as physical. If it should ever become a theory or even a "working hypothesis "of science, in the same way that the purely hypothetical existence of ether is now necessarily assumed for the purpose of explaining gravity and light, and the nomenclature of science be varied and adjusted to the theory, it can hardly be doubted that the separation (not opposition) that now exists between religion and science will disappear, and that science and religion combined will exercise a most powerful and enduring, as well as beneficial, influence over all educated minds, and through them will transform the world.
My mind has been led to a further conclusion. I believe—and I conceive that in the circumstances under which I am addressing you, I am called on to state to you my belief—that not only is there no opposition between modern science and religion, or natural religion, as it is sometimes vaguely and inaccurately called, but that there is no opposition between modern science and that system of religion which was communicated to the world by the founder of Christianity.
What was that system? What was the truth which He, whom we heedlessly call the Great Teacher, diligently sought for and discovered for himself, and which He desired to communicate as the most, precious gift that mind can give to mind to every member of the human race? Is it presumption in a laymen to ask this question? I fear that many who aspire to control the mind of the laymen, while they are unable to teach or persuade it, really think that it is.
Now, I am very sensible that with regard to questions of this nature, I, and you also, my brother laymen, are unlearned and ignorant men, and extremely liable in consequence of our ignorance to fall into grave error. But why are we ignorant? I say that it is because the chaos of creeds and the babel of striving tongues in the Christian churches leave us ignorant and untaught, and compel every thinking layman to set out alone and unaided on the perilous path of inquiry.
And what shall a rational man who is constrained to seek truth for himself upon this subject do other than this, to close his ears resolutely against all others sounds and voices, and try to catch the sound of that one voice which alone above the din of nineteen centuries still makes itself heard as the voice of one that has authority? That it is more profitable to seek the fountain-heads than to follow the course of the rivulets is a canon of critical research peculiarly applicable to this inquiry. The precise words employed by a teacher are almost invariably the best exponent of his meaning; they acquire a supreme and exclusive value when differences arise as to what the scope and the effect of his teaching were, and when those who had the privilege of hearing him, and who might be expected therefore to be competent and concordant interpreters, have admittedly failed to comprehend his meaning and his mission, and do not agree with one another as to several particulars as well as to the general spirit of his doctrine.
The words of the Great Teacher of which the gospels are not the exclusive depositories have come down to us by tradition only. No contemporary record of them exists, or has ever existed. Not more than two of His immediate followers committed to writing His remembered words, and the Gospel of St. John—assuming as I do that it is genuine—was not written until more than thirty years, or, according to another authority, more than fifty years after his Master's last words had been spoken. The general accuracy of His reported utterances, spoken in one language and recorded in another and a very different language, depends largely in respect to both form and substance on what has been called "the uncertain testimony of slippery memory." But an answer conveyed almost wholly in a quotation from an old and still existing book has a very special claim to be regarded as an authentic and probably accurate report of His actual words. Such an answer we find in a passage that occurs in all the three synoptic gospels, with some unimportant differences in each. The full meaning and force of this passage—the most weighty and significant, I think, that is to be found in all Jewish and Christian literature—will be apparent if we
The highest philosophy amongst the Jews appears to have consisted in the search for a comprehensive rule of life and conduct, founded upon and capable of being traced to a principle or a fact accepted by the understanding. That this thought pervaded Jewish literature and is a key to its historical meaning is shown by a curious and instructive passage quoted from the Talmud by Emile Deutsch, which with your permission I will read to you:—
Six hundred and thirteen injunctions was Moses instructed to give to the people. David reduced them to 11 in the 15th psalm. The prophet Isaiah reduced them to six (c. 33, v. 15); the prophet Micah reduced them to three (c. G, v. 8); Isaiah once more reduced them to two (c. 5G, v. 1); Amos reduced them to one (c. 5, v. 4); but lest it might be supposed that God could be found in the fulfilment of His holy law, Habbakuk said (c. 2, v. 1), "The just shall live by his faith."
"What is your doctrine? What is the truth sufficient, according to your teaching, for the guidance of the life of man?" This was in effect the question put by the jurist or scribe to Him who as a boy appears to have proposed questions of a like nature to the learned doctors of the Jewish law. You know the answer that was promptly given to the question. It was quoted from the early records of Jewish history, where it had lain neglected for fourteen centuries, buried under heaps of ecclesiastical traditions and forms. It states the central principle or dogma of the existence of one God and His relationship to man, together with the primary and secondary rules of human conduct founded on and springing out of that relationship. And on these rules, the answer proceeds to state, "hang all the law and the prophets;" they contain the whole practice and theory of the universal religion which the Teacher had himself sought for and had found; none more comprehensive than these exist.
With the exception of a few, a very few, discordant notes, which a just and fearless criticism may and must either moderate or reject, all His other utterances are in complete harmony with and merely elucidate this one. I believe that no student who reads with an unpreoccupied mind the records of the sayings of Christ can doubt that it was this simple and sublime idea, realised in his life as an idea never before or since has been realised, that possessed, controlled, and animated it all; that it was this that gave great and enduring authority to His words, and has gained for his person the tender reverence of millions of men who have never accepted only because they have never been enabled to understand His doctrine; that this was the good news which he wished to extend from the Semitic to the other races of mankind; and that the transmission and the teaching of this truth, and the application of it to all the varying circumstances of civilisation in the course of its development was the wise purpose of the commission which He gave to His church.
If my inquiries upon this subject have led me to conclusions not wholly erroneous, it will be evident that there is no opposition or conflict between the religion of Christ and modern science. The
"When we have really penetrated," a recent writer, Mr. Greg, observes, "to the actual teaching of Christ, and fairly disinterred that religion of Jesus which preceded all creeds and schemes and formulas, and which we trust will survive them all, we shall find that so far from this, the true essence of Christianity, being renounced or outgrown by the progressive intelligence of the age, its rescue, re-discovery, purification, and re-inthronement as a guide of life, a fountain of truth, an object of faith, a law written on the heart, will be recognised as the grandest and most beneficial achievement of that intelligence."
"The Christian religion has existed for more than eighteen hundred years. The religion of Christ has yet to be tried. The contest lies between the Christian religion and the religion of Jesus Christ; the religion of which Jesus is the object, or that of which Christ is the subject." The contrast which these words of Lessing vividly express brings us into the presence of the most portentous fact, as it appears to me, of this age of the world—a fact so fraught with pain and perplexity that I should be glad if I were able to pass it by. But I cannot do so, for it contains in itself the answer to the question which I have undertaken the attempt to solve.
I assume that the founder of Christianity intended to establish a church, an organisation which should propagate and should for ever maintain His doctrine throughout the world. The positive evidence of such intention is slight; the antecedent probability in favour of it is strong. The best and the most fruitful thoughts are usually the most evanescent, and when they are lost it is difficult to regain them. The saying of Wordsworth,
"is proved by the history of systems of religious thought to be equally true as applied to communities and to individuals. And the higher the ideal, the more difficult it is to propagate; the broader and more comprehensive the principle, the harder it is to apply it to the minute and ever-varying circumstances of practical life. It is unquestionably true that the religion taught by the founder of Christianity avowedly claims a right to hold absolute and exclusive control over all the faculties of the human mind, and to employ them continually in their fullest energy. To communicate a religion of so exalted and exacting a character to nations who were ignorant of it, and afterwards to keep its claims constantly before the minds of those who should adopt it, as well as to supply the means of applying its principles to the new and more complex events and circumstances of advancing civilisation, might well be supposed to require a permanent teaching organisation of some kind.
Of the intended form of the church, whether it was to be art independent and separate body, or whether it was to be identical with the State, the civil head of the community presumed to be united by the bond of a common faith, we have no knowledge. Certainly no system of government was fixed by the founder of the church, no ritual was prescribed, no form of common prayer was directed, but only a closet prayer, constructed, according to Wetstein, almost verbatim out of the Talmud. Everything except the central dogma and the rules of life dependent on it was left at large, and free to adjust itself to the different characters and habits and the varying conditions of each nationality and age. How instructive is this majestic silence in the Founder of a religion that was to affect so largely the destinies of mankind! How deep the debt of gratitude due from all who acknowledge His authority for the liberty with which He intended to make and to keep them free!
Christianity is, and always has been, represented in the world by the Christian churches. The churches are organisations, distinguished by different forms of government, by different rituals and forms of worship, and chiefly by different and conflicting systems of religious belief, contained in hostile creeds, articles, confessions, and standards of faith. This last fact is that which appears to me to carry with it the final condemnation of all Christian churches alike as they exist down to the present day. All other differences may be necessary, or if not necessary, may be expedient, and therefore lawful. But unity in the object of worship and in the fundamental principles of belief and practice must be the essential and distinguishing mark of the one Church founded by Him who restored and announced to the whole world the obscured faith in one living and true God.
I assume, of course, that not one of the Christian churches can successfully set up so much as a shadow of a rational claim to regard itself, or to be regarded by others, as being itself the sole Church of Christ.
A protestant, and addressing the members of a protestant church, I will now further assume that no man and no council or church has had authority given to it to alter or to add to, in anything great or small, by way of development or otherwise, the doctrine of the Founder of Christianity, or to impose the profession of belief in any added doctrine or practice upon the human mind and conscience as a condition of membership of the Church of Christ. But the great bulk of the propositions of fact and of belief in even the earliest creeds and in all the later articles, confessions, and standards of faith, are undoubtedly additions to the primitive doctrine. If we except the first article in the earliest and the least exacting creed, the Apostles' Creed, which is a superfluous repetition, we shall find scarcely anything in any of the creeds and standards, increasing as
Again, some of those dogmas which the churches have superadded to the doctrine of Christ without His authority, and which they endeavour pertinaciously to force upon the clergy and the laity, are dogmas which, as some of you, I doubt now, know from bitter personal experience, are revolting and odious to the natural conscience and to the understanding of man. I am well aware that at this point I stand on the borders of the deepest mysteries of being and of Providence. Such mysteries, painful and full of perplexity as are many that the course of nature and the constitution of the human mind present to us, must be endured. Faith reposes in the assurance that they all admit of, and that they will yet receive, explanation—
But while the human understanding bows before the mysteries of God, and awaits His solution of them, may we not, ought we not, to resent the attempts made by men like ourselves, only far more ignorant—to represent the hideous dreams that our interpretation, no doubt faulty, of those mysteries sometimes suggests, as articles of Christian faith, and the acceptance of such articles as a condition of salvation?
I observe, lastly, that some of the articles, and not the least opposed to reason and conscience, of these unauthorised creeds, have been undermined by recent science. The ancient tradition that man was created perfect, that the first man so created fell by his own act, and thereby introduced death for the first time into the world, and entailed hereditary guilt and moral ruin upon all his posterity, appears to have taken some hold upon the Jewish mind. The alleged historical fact, and the dogma of hereditary guilt founded upon it, are not so much as mentioned once by the Founder of Christianity; possibly they were included by Him amongst the traditions which had been the means, He said, of making the commandment of God of none effect. But both have found their way into the majority of the Christian churches, and have lent a distinct colour to most of the Christian creeds.
Now, if there be any general conclusions to which recent geological science has forcibly drawn the human mind, and to which, although they may not be established by inductive proof, laymen cannot, if they would, refuse to accord belief, they are these—That man at the first did not fall from a higher state of existence, but that he rose from a lower; and that what we call death, or the change and dissolution of the organic form in which life temporarily resides, existed on this planet from the time that life first appeared upon it, and millions of years before the comparatively recent date when man first came into being. There is here irreconcilable variance between modern science and the doctrine of the Christian churches.
And now we are brought to the point at which we find the answer to the question—What is the cause of the failing influence as a teaching power of the clergy of all the Christian churches over the minds of educated, thinking laymen 1 Science in its modern, enlarged, and generalising spirit, and also in some of its recent conclusions, is opposed, not indeed to religion, but to the creeds of the churches, all of which urge an unfounded claim to infallible authority. The laity are habitually and of necessity influenced, though they do not always know it, by the broad conceptions of nature and of God which science imperceptibly but irresistibly conveys to their minds. Thinking laymen cannot reconcile these conceptions with the doctrines of the creeds; they have ceased even to make an effort to reconcile them. They yield an indolent assent, indeed, to the creeds, as they do to every part of the particular church system with which they are connected by birth, but in fact and actual practice they totally disregard them.
The clergy of all the churches, on the other hand, occupy a very different position. The clergyman is selected for his office while he is very young, and long before he has had time or has acquired sufficient intellectual expansion to be able to comprehend the nature and scope of the great subject to which his life is to be devoted. His mind is carefully trained to believe the tenets of a particular church, to defend and to teach them and them alone, and to carry on ceaseless war against the opposing tenets of other churches; and the fulfilment of these narrow functions during the whole of his professional life is attempted to lie enforced by sanctions highly penal in their personal, social, and professional consequences. How can a mind so trained, and harshly compelled to submit to such discipline, exercise the commanding power of a real teacher over the intellect, differently constituted, ever otherwise occupied, and constantly subject to influences so wholly diverse, of the educated, thinking layman at this day? The thoughts of the two men are not in unison; there is no intellectual sympathy, no common intellectual interest between them in regard to a large number of the topics and arguments which the clergyman is constrained to select for his pulpit utterances.
I must use all brevity in stating to you, the lay members of this Society, the practical conclusions upon this subject at which I, a layman born into another church, have arrived.
They follow from the belief I hold, that the creeds of the Christian churches, while they have been by far the most potent engine of ecclesiastical power, have also been the most dangerous and insidious enemies of the religion of Christ—that so far as they have expressed his doctrine, they are merely an unauthoritative and superfluous repetition of that doctrine; while so far as they have pretended to add to it, they have either obscured or falsified it, and in either case have imposed a burden on the intellect and the conscience of the Christian world which is now becoming wholly intolerable. If this
The laity are the only instrument by which reform can be effected. They are not free from a share of responsibility for the evils that exist. In Protestant churches they undoubtedly possess the power to remove them. The aid of the clergy cannot be expected; it ought not in fairness to be asked; the opposition of the clergy must be overcome.
The means of reform apparently available are suggested by the proposals that were made at the time of the Reformation to abolish the creeds. These proposals were not accepted. The conduct of the Reformation, which in the earlier days of Wyclif and Huss was in the hands of the laity, and aimed at a lay reform of ecclesiastical abuses, passed at a later period into the hands of the clergy and of politicians, and it is to them rather than to the general body of the laity that the Church of England owes the added burden of her Articles of Religion, and the Church of Scotland that of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
If the compulsory subscription by the clergy of all creeds, articles, and standards were abolished through the united action of the laity in only one of the older Protestant churches, consequences most momentous and beneficial might be expected, I think, to follow. The example would be catching, and would probably extend quickly to all the Protestant churches. The intellectual division between the clergy and the laity would soon be removed, for both would rejoice speedily to forget the systems of dogma that now, like a nightmare, oppresss them both. Alterations in ritual necessary for the purpose of consigning those systems to complete oblivion would then be readily made. Science and the churches would be no longer alienated, and the unworthy jealousy and emulation between the various churches, of which their rival creeds are the constant and by far the most effective cause, would cease. A real union, founded upon an enlarged basis of belief, would gradually be established, and formal union would not long loiter behind the removal of every cause of disunion. And when the Protestant Christian world is united, and all its churches combined in one, the open abandonment by the educated laity of the Catholic and the Greek churches, and the final absorption or total decay of both of those churches, would only be questions of time and education. Do not suppose that I am speaking of results which I believe to be at present possible or near. That abolition of subscription by the clergy in any one or more of the churches would be immediately productive of great results, and would probably lead ultimately to the further results I have indicated, I do believe. But before the initial step of practical church reform can be taken, it is necessary that a spirit which shall point to and demand reform shall first be created in the minds of the laity, and I am bound to admit that I do not perceive at present any indication whatever of such a spirit in any one of the churches.
I am aware that I have already exceeded the limit of time which a lecturer is entitled to ask from the most liberal and indulgent audience; and yet I will crave your permission to add another word. I would ask you, my brother laymen, are you entirely satisfied and contented with the state of things now existing in your own and in the other Christian churches 1
Do you think that we, the laity generally, can view our own conduct and position in respect to the churches with unmixed gratification? We criticise the clergy with unbounded freedom—usually, as it appears to me, with cruel injustice, and often in profound forgetfulness that our criticism reacts upon ourselves—for their alleged illiberal and narrow views, and for irrational, unpractical, and ineffectual teaching. But may we not be reminded that the views and the teaching of the clergy are the direct and the necessary result of the church systems which we, the laity, have helped to form, and which we continue to support, and to guard jealously against all change, even after we have ceased to entirely believe in them?
We imagine that we ourselves are free; and in a certain sense we are. We are not bound by subscription to any church; each of us is free to leave the church in which lie was born, and to go anywhere or nowhere. But should we not greatly en if we imagine that we are free from the influence of creeds to which we pay the observance of outward adhesion, but which do not govern our thoughts and convictions? There is not one of us who does not yield apparent assent to much that he does not and cannot really believe. Is it possible that assent without belief shall continue for an indefinite time without affecting the natural vigour of a man's intellect, and even the integrity and straightforwardness of a manly character?
Every day these burning questions of religious thought in connection with their general tendencies, and also with the personal applications they suggest, are brought nearer and nearer to us, and they naturally inspire an increasing number of us with uneasiness, and even with vague and terrible apprehensions. The state of the world as it now presents itself to our observation cannot, we may be sure, long tolerate the continued treatment by the laity of these questions with careless levity, or with self-isolating reserve, or with the boastful incapacity of honest agnosticism.
Is it not an astounding fact—I take it to be an indisputable fact—that at the end of the nineteenth century of the so-called Christian dispensation a very large number of the most cultivated, the most thoughtful, the most sober-minded, and the most upright men in all the civilised and Christian countries of the world, are really unable to determine whether good and sufficient reasons can be found for belief in the existence of God, and whether there is any basis for morality other than supposed personal interest or utility? We cannot
"She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold Of night primeval and of Chaos old! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest, Closed one by one to everlasting rest; Tims at her felt approach and secret might Art after Art goes out, and all is night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head! Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before. Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And, unawares, Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private dares to shine, Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos, is restored, Light (lies before thy uncreating word. Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all."
We do not, of course, believe that this catastrophe imagined by Pope will finally overtake and overwhelm the human mind, though as yet the way of escape may not be apparent. Science itself seems to forbid that thought of utter despair. It is a wholly incredible supposition that the light which has guided humanity so far in its painful but inevitable struggle upwards on the eternal hills to the point that it has already reached will be suddenly and finally withdrawn. The power which has been man's help in the ages that are past is, and must be, a rational ground of his hope in years to
For my part, I believe—and this, my deep conviction, is the last result of my reflections, which I shall "whisper" to you, my brother laymen, to-night—that it were the part of highest wisdom for you and for me, and for all thinkers everywhere, in this day of rising floods and beating wind, to withdraw resolutely and with all speed from all the lower standpoints of thought that are now no longer tenable, and to meet on the high central platform of thought—the rock of all ages, whereon every human mind may, if it will, build for itself a secure and indestructible abode—God, "the living Will that shall endure when all that seems shall suffer shock"—God, revealed to the intellect in every minute movement of matter, and in all the phenomena of this vast universe—God, revealed anew to the intellect, and also to the responsive human heart, as the Father, the Friend, the Guide, and the Support of our race, and of every member of it, in the simple but profound philosophy, and also in the sublimest life, of Jesus of Nazareth, the Light of the World.
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When we compare the present with the past, we are apt at times to feel a little startled by the discovery that this nineteenth century of ours, about whose enlightenment we pride ourselves, is not quite so superior in all respects to other eras in the world's history as we were inclined to suppose. If we take the average intelligence of the people of any nation of today. We are surprised to find that it does not seem to occupy a very much higher position than that of some of the nations of days gone by. If we take Athens, for instance, in the time of Pericles—"Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence "—we should find that her citizens at that time were not at all inferior to those of to-day. The thought might indeed be forced upon us, that in general intelligence, in quick-witted sensibilities, in the spirit of inquiry, in questioning subtlety, in the desire and absorbing passion for beauty and for truth, the Athenian citizen stood far ahead of the average citizen of to-day. The Greek was a born lover of art, and a born critic. He was a subtle philosopher, and an enquiring statesman. He could look back upon the traditions of the past with joy, he loved the myths and legends that were interwoven with the history of his country, and that were hymned in the songs of his greatest poets, but he did not allow these beautiful apparitions to influence his judgment in matters of speculative research. In Democritus and Heraclitus, in Plato and Aristotle, we find the germs of speculative doctrines that are only new beginning to put forth their tender leaves of hope. Never was the pursuit of truth more eagerly followed than in the Greece of old time—never was the private judgment of the individual at a higher flood. And yet when we consider the high intellectual standard of each individual member of the Athenian community 2000 years ago, when we contrast it with the questioning unrest of Florence at the time of the Medici, or of Europe during the Renaissance, and gaze with pride on our own century with its advanced scientists, its great mechanicians, and its social reformers, are we not appalled to find that the average individual does not appear to have benefited to the extent that might have been expected from his 2000 extra years of training? That this is the case appears probable from the fact that, notwithstanding the glorious blaze of science which illumines the world of today, strong men and strong women may still be seen sitting on the grass-grown steps of ruined thoughts, gnawing at the dry bones and husks of old, bespattered, but still unburied religions. And when one who is a member of a Church, but whose opinions are not in harmony with its doctrines, has the courage and the address to point out what a grinning skeleton these dry bones form, is he not entitled to the gratitude and the respect of all right-thinking men? And even if the opinions which he utters do not commend themselves in their entirety to our own minds, we are none the less bound to acknowledge their worth, and to recognise the good they are likely to do; and while we can appreciate and respect the utterances of such a one, it is none the less our duty to show wherein we differ from them, or wherein they appear defective to us. We may not be satisfied with these opinions—they may not seem to go far enough or deep enough for us; but in any criticisms we may make upon them we arc bound to exemplify that spirit of fairness, of candour, of deference, and of respect, which ought to characterise all controversial utterances.
The now famous lecture recently delivered by Judge Higinbotham, on" The Relations of Modern Science with the Christian Churches," is the lecture of such a one as I have described. It is a lecture which ought to be welcomed alike by Churchman and by Freethinker. To the Churchman it should show the weakness of Christian creeds, and the inadequacy of theologic conceptions to meet the requirements of modern thought; while to the Freethinker, if he takes the lecture as the literal expression of the Judge's opinions, it should show the inherent frailty of even the most advanced view of orthodoxy, when looked at from the social and scientific vantage ground of to-day. By Freethinkers it has not yet publicly received that attention which the merits of the lecture and the well-known ability of the lecturer deserve. By the generality of the Churches, on the other hand, it has been received with a storm of indignation, and by a plethora of that remarkable kind of criticism which is usually employed by the clerical mind when it feels called upon to attack aggressive infidelity. I do not think the Church is ever so pitiably weak as when it marshalls its forces, sets up in battle array its ghastly skeletons, dead puppets, and withered dogmas, with the faint hope of routing the well-drilled, well-disciplined, keen, cutting, arguments of the man of science. The spectacle is similar to that of an army of Chinamen of old time, unarmed except with unmusical instruments, marching onward in battle array, with clashing of cymbals and rolling of drums, in the hopes of frightening away a squadron of British redcoats, armed with the bayonet and rifle. But
It is these points in the Judge's lecture which I intend more particularly discussing this evening; and in order to prevent verbal confusion, I would like in the first place to distinguish between theology and religion. To me it seems, however paradoxical it may sound, that there is no necessary connection between religion and theology; and in any lectures I have had the honour of delivering from this platform. I have always studiously endeavoured to refrain from confounding the two. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that theology and religion are not in any way convertible terms; and that any points of agreement there may be between them (all except one) are accidental and not necessary. And this lies in the fact that theology has been a religion, but it has now fallen from that high pedestal. The one point of community between the two is that both entail the idea of worship. With modern theology, however, worship has sunk into an accident, a second place, while belief is tie essential element—belief in the existence of a divine architect and ruler of the universe, belief in the excellencies of creed and dogma pertaining to the antique-modern churches. Theology has faded from the rank of a religion, and fallen into that of a superstition. Vanished is the principle that ministered to her early welfare, and made her a power among men. That power she in part still jealously clings to, but the worship and devotion to a power higher and more noble than her devotees, that grand principle she has lost, and in its place can only be seen the stalking shadows, the ghostly mummies, the empty forms and hollow ceremonies that show that a religion was once there.
And, religion; what, then, is religion, and wherein does it differ from theology? Religion is the worship of ideals. "Worship" and "ideal" are both essentials of religion. When this proposition is clearly understood it will be seen that true religion, or what the distinguished author of Ecce Homo" has called" natural religion, has the very closest connection with man's individual and social welfare. Our shattered ideals mark the faltering footsteps of the world's progress. What would we be without them these ever-to-be-ruined idols, that are seen glittering on the horizon of hope? and even if when grasped they stand before us reft of their loveliness, unadorned with the glamour of longing, what then? If they have beckoned us onwards they have served their ends. Ideals must be set before us. ideals must be shattered and replaced by higher ones, if we wish to progress. The very possession of an ideal indicates the desire to rise to something higher—shows the desire to excel—shows dissatisfaction with present surroundings, the first element of success. Ideals indicate the intelligent recognition of a higher life. And worship is no less a necessity of the social medium. True worship is based upon the fundamental principle of sympathy, and entails the idea of love and affection. We love the bright visions that haunt us in our waking dreams. This worship, this sympathy, this love and affection, entail the idea of
me and the not-me between our grosser selves and what we may reach by striving, between the individual unit and the social medium that surrounds him, this is religion. And worship is the recognition of that feeling. Whenever this feeling is recognised, and that recognition influences the life of a man, there is religion; that man is a religious man, even although he has kicked off the traces of theology, and disbelieved all the miracles that wore ever packed into a superstitious world.
The shoemaker who, in spite of the frownings of fortune, manfully sticks to his last, and desires and endeavours to turn out good work, shows by his very endeavour that he has the element of religion in him. The desire of doing good work, in whatever department of life our sphere may be placed, is an ideal, and exemplifies the striving after that never-to-be-reached perfection, to which all our aims tend, and which forms the essence of religion. The ideal of the artist is beauty, and in the worship of beauty, and the burning ambition to pourtray her ever vanishing forms, is the delight and the absorbing passion of his life. There are ideals, there is worship — a worship no less pure and unselfish—no less lovely in its strength than the ideal of worship itself. The man of science too has his ideal—an ideal it may be, cold and impassive like a marble statue, not quivering with life and motion and feeling like that of the artist's. The Goddess of Truth uses no blandishments like the Goddess of Beauty: her eyes do not sparkle, nor her red lips quiver, nor her smile fascinate, nor her hair shimmer in the sunlight. like those of Beauty's Queen; but she allures, and enchants, and enraptures her devotees by the charm of her voice, by the sweet siren song she sings telling of the mystery of the world, and of how men may learn her secrets. And so we might go on to exhaust the different departments of life, and point out that in each there could and ought to be worship and therefore religion. The doctor, the lawyer, the schoolmaster, the mechanic, the tradesman, the labourer as well as the minister of a church, may each have his ideal; and in so far as he worships it and endeavours to act up to it, he is a religious man. But this worship of ideals, which you call religion," remarks an objector, "is too exclusive, it does not bring men together like the system of religion which you call theology does. It does not indicate any community between man and man, or between man and society—it is not religion, it is religions." This objection at first sight seems a grave one, but I hope to show you before this paper is brought to a close that it is in that direction that theology so censpicuously fails, and it is from that aspect we can see that a true or natural religion is absolutely necessary for the welfare of man and society.
From the distinction here drawn between theology and religion, it will be seen that there is no necessary connection between religion and any system that professes to account for and explain the origin and harmony of the universe. A disbelief in the existence of God, or in the excellence of the creeds and doctrines inculcated by the Churches, does not prevent a man from being religious; while on the other hand a man may be religious who does believe in these same creeds and doctrines; but if his only worship consists in the worship of these and their belongings, his religion will be of a much lower form than that of the other.
I have thought it necessary to indicate the distinction between religion and theology at some length, as I think it furnishes a fundamental principle in accounting for the anomalous position of the Church of today, and afford is a genuine criticism on that part of Judge Higinbotham's lecture which deals with the "Waning Influence of the Church." In fact I think that there are signs in the lecture which would make it seem probable that this is the position which Judge Higinbotham would himself have taken, had his judgment not been warped by a still lurking shadow of theology—namely, a belief in the divine government of the universe. It seems to me that the worship of ideals is the only religion compatible with a theory of universal development; and the principles assigned by the lecturer as causes of the waning power of the Churches, I would consider not to be fundamental causes at all, although they might help, but to be merely signs of that waning influence. The anthropomorphic conceptions of the deity conflicting with the results of modern science, the conflict of creeds and their superposition on the purer doctrines of the founder of Christianity, and the incompetence of the Christian clergy, assigned by the lecturer as reasons to account for the anomalous position of the Church, are as I have said, rather signs than causes of its degeneracy. The real cause seems to me to lie in the fact that theology is a shattered ideal—that since the time when Christianity was a genuine religion, men's minds, men's emotions and aspirations have developed into something higher and nobler, society has reached a higher groove in the scale of progress and can no longer be satisfied with the old apparitions. It requires some higher ideal to strive after—a religion which will again minister to its welfare and its wants, one that will be in harmony with its higher stage of development.
Society is an organism—is a development from a lower to a higher form. This development, it is true, has been of gradual accomplishment, but it is none the less sure, as we may see by comparing the present with the past. The institutions of society are a part of society, and if they are to be retained they must develop along with society. If they remain stagnant, incapable of reform, incapable of change, incapable of adapting themselves to the changing needs of society, society leaves them behind, and they become rudimentary, effete, worthless, dead injurious, in fact, to the growth of society, and hostile to its best interests. I do not think that any truth can be plainer than this. The butterfly does not incommode itself with the cast of shell of its mundane life, and why should society impede its progress by clinging to the hollow husks of institutions, merely because these have been of service to it in the past. Take any of the institutions that are of genuine utility to us to-day, and you will see that they all evidence this law of progressive development—a law which is the grandest generalisation of our own or any time. Our Parliament, for instance, the English Parliament, is the result of ages of growth. At first a collection of the freemen of the tribe, it was gradually and at the same time unconsciously remodelled to meet the requirements of a nation. And throughout the history of the English nation, how often has its Parliament suffered change in order that it might be brought into harmony with the advancing views of the people? It is not 50 years ago since the Reform Bill was passed, and the day is not far off when a higher point of development will be reached—namely, the day when the English people feel that it will be to their interests to obtain manhood suffrage. The laws of a country present the same phase of development. At first they are crude and imperfect and ill-adapted to the meagre requirements of a primitive state of civilisation. As the society grows, however, the relations of its members to the community and to each other become more complex, and an ever-developing system of rules is required and is obtained to deal with the ever-increasing complexly of these relations. New arts, new industries, new modes of life are ever being brought into being, and the old ones that have proved unsuitable are discarded by the ever-widening sphere of civilisation. The wooden plough of our ancestors is discarded for an iron one, the wagon gives place to the locomotive, the scythe to the reaper and binder—it is thus society progresses. All her parts obey the law of progressive development—all except one of her institutions. The Church alone undergoes no change, no reform, makes no effort to look forward with humanity, to bring itself into harmony with modern thought. It still worships the wooden plough; it still exalts the wagon and the scythe. Stationary it looks wistfully back to the past, and with its old prophetic spirit gone, it gazes with horror on the advancing sea of human life. Was it always thus? Did the Church always present the same barrier to progress as it does today? Was it always out of harmony with the requirements of the time? In the old Jewish days the Church was a necessity of the State and its very life. Its functions were statecraft rather than priestcraft. It helped to knit man more closely to the community of which he was a member, and preferred to consult the interests of the nation rather than of the chosen few. Its power seemed to wane, and a new departure was taken at the rise of Christianity. Pauline Christianity flourished, and under the dominance of the Catholic Church the nations of Europe were partially confederated. The revival of learning forced another change, and the Reformation was the result. Since then English-speaking countries especially have been noted for religious revivals; a new sect has sprung up, or the colour of a surplice has been changed, but where have been the reforms to bring the spirit of the Church into harmony with the spirit of the times, to change its skeleton thoughts into the living ideas of the present? The Church is the same in spirit to-day, evidences the same intolerance to opposing opinions, is based on the same principles, cherishes the same legends, accepts the same explanation of things, teaches the same false ethics as it did centuries ago. Its development has been arrested, it has ceased to be governed by the law of Evolution; and to bring it into harmony with modern thought, into harmony with the complexity of modern relations will require something more than mere reform. Utter regeneration alone can save it.
This is the great truth that Judge Higinbotham has emphasised, this is the one principle that makes his famous lecture so valuable; and although the manner in which he has reached that central truth may not appear quite satisfactory to us, although we may not entirely agree with the conclusion he draws from that premise, and although the remaining portions of his lecture may seem faulty, we cannot but rejoice at the success that seems to have attended his effort—a success all the more pleasing to us when we remember that it is this very point that Freethinkers have so frequently emphasised. The Judge's utterance on this subject has fallen like a bombshell in the citadel of the Church. He has shown that utter regeneration is necessary to bring the Church into harmony with the social requirements of this century. He has exorcised creed-divinity from the Scriptures. He has cut away the foundations
"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."— (I. Cor. xv., 22.) "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."— (Rom. v., 12.) "Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."— (Rom. v., 18,19.)
This is the cardinal doctrine of orthodox Christianity. If you take away the doctrine of the fall of man, if you show that man has not fallen from perfection to imperfection, but has been progressing from a lower to a higher form of life, you take away the connecting link between the Old and the New Testaments, you cut away the ground from Christianity and leave no necessity for its existence. If man did not fall then there is no need for the system of the Christian Churches—that system topples over as soon as this is shown.
It is for the clear exposition of this point that we ought to feel indebted to Judge Higinbotham but before I proceed to discuss the remaining portions of his lecture let me draw your attention for a moment to the question of anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity prevailing in the doctrines and teachings of the Church, you will remember, was one of the reasons assigned by the Judge to account for the waning power of the Churches, for he rightly pointed out that such conceptions were not in harmony with the teachings of modern science. One clergyman, at least, who has attempted to criticise the Judge's lecture, has had the temerity to assert that anthropomorphism does not prevail amongst the educated clergy of the Church. I think it can be shown that the conceptions of the Church concerning Deity are necessarily anthropomorphic, and that the Judge himself, holding the opinions that he does, cannot escape the taint that his lecture professes to condemn. Anthropomorphism, as you are aware, is the system that endows the supreme power that is assumed to govern the universe, with human attributes—it conceives God in the likeness of a man. The clergyman to whom I have referred, while denying that anthropomorphism prevails in the Churches, asserts that it is merely owing to the imperfections of language that we are compelled to speak as if we believed that God possessed human attributes. It seems to me, on the other hand, that if we admit the idea of God at all, and at the same time make any predication whatever about him, we are compelled to speak of him as possessing some attributes of humanity, not from the mere imperfections of language, but from the imperfection of thought. It is perfectly logical, in fact it seem a necessity of thought, to admit the existence of a something underlying the world of phenomena in which we live and of which we are a part. But when we go so far as even to predicate that that something, power, call it what you will, is an intelligent power you at once fall into anthropomorphism. You cannot make the smallest predication about it without picturing it to the mind in terms of something seen or touched, and in doing so you are going beyond the limits of possibilities of experience. This is a necessity of thought. Even to think about a thing you must think about its parts. If anyone can picture something to his mind, without picturing some attributes also, he must have a mind that is more than human. It is absolutely unthinkable, it is absolutely impossible, to make a synthetic proposition concerning Deity or anything else without at the same time predicating attributes of it. And so I say that anyone who makes any predication whatever concerning Deity must necessarily endow that Deity with some qualities, must in some manner or other picture him to the mind (if he does not do this his predication means nothing), and, therefore, he necessarily falls into anthropomorphism, for he cannot do less than endow that Deity with the highest qualies he is capable of imagining. These qualities are necessarily human, as human attributes are the highest known to man. That the clergy and the Church itself do endeavour to do this is a matter of certainty, not of doubt. They believe in an intelligent power, and so does Judge Higinbotham. This is quite sufficient to fix the taint of anthropomorphism on to them and him. Judge Higinbotham talks of "God revealed anew to the intellect and to the responsive human heart, as the Father the, Friend, the Guide, and the Support of our race, and of every member of it." If this is not anthropomorphism then I do not know what that term means; and although I think that the Judge is perfectly right in condemning the anthropomorphic conceptions prevailing in the Church, and in pointing out that such are not in harmony with the teachings of modern science, but on the other hand, that they are grossly fallacious and greatly to be
If any system of theology is necessarily anthropomorphic, if any system that postulates Deity and at the same time makes predications concerning it evidences the same flaw, wherein do views such as these conflict with the teachings of modern science? Does science point to the existence of a power underlying phenomena? and if so, in what manner does her indication differ from the assumption of the theologian or the Deist? These are questions of the highest moment to us. There can be no question that science does most unmistakably point to a something—I will not call it a power—a something not ourselves, underlying the world of sense. This, however, forms a psychological rather than a physical puzzle. It seems to be a necessity of thought to conceive of noumena as distinguished from phenomena, to conceive of something in which qualities coin - here and are grouped together so as to form what we call a thing. This conception may or may not be true, but the only thing we can be sure of is that the truth of that conception we can never verify, and therefore can never know. Take an apple, for instance, and see if you can think away any one of its qualities, and you will find as a matter of fact that you cannot. If you could do this, you can readily conceive that what would remain would not be an apple at all. An apple is of a certain colour, of a certain shape, and of a certain taste. This knowledge we get from the eye, touch and the muscular sense, and the organs of taste, respectively. These sense qualities, colour, shape, taste, are grouped together by the mind, and to the thing before us we give the name "apple." The process of grouping qualities together so as to form a thing is said to be due to the synthetic power of the mind; and it seems to be a necessity of thought, as 1 have said, to conceive of something outside of us giving rise to the changes in our sense organs which we call qualities, something in which these qualities co-inhere. And although when we analyse our groups of sensations we know that the odour is not in the rose, nor the colour in the violet, but that these are subjective and not objective, yet we are compelled to imagine an objective something which gives rise to these impressions of sense. And yet all that we know is that an apple is a group of sense impressions objectified by the mind. You cannot think away one of the qualities of a thing. An apple must be of some colour. It is inconceivable, it is unthinkable, to have a visible thing without colour. You may think of a change of colour, but you cannot think of absence of colour. Similarly you may think the shape of the apple changed, but you cannot think of it having no shape. Nor can you think of it without taste, although you can readily conceive the taste changed. Now, if you could picture to the mind (which of course you cannot do) a thing without shape and without colour, that thing would most assuredly not convey to your mind the idea of an apple; it would not be an apple, nor would it be anything else that we are capable of thinking about. It is beyond our capacity of thought, and therefore totally beyond our knowledge; and what a thing is outside of its qualities, what it is that underlies the world of phenomena, that we can never know, in spite of Schelling's abortive attempt to get over the difficulty by postulating an intellectual sense. It has been urged, and it is quite true, that had we ten senses instead of six, our sensible world would be larger than it is, things which are now beyond our ken would come into being. Unfortunately, however, the number of our senses is limited to six, nor do we know of any indication that would warrant us in believing that we are likely to develop any others. We cannot conceive of another sense, but if we had ten thousand senses the mystery of existence would still be the same, our world would still be a world of phenomena, and the reality underlying phenomena we would still be unable to grasp. This, it seems to me, is the farthest point to which science can go. Science, therefore, does most unmistakably point to a something not ourselves underlying the world of phenomena, but about that something she is dumb, and she knows that she must ever remain so. She does not say that such a thing exists, but she says that we cannot think of it not existing, and that is the sum of her predication about the matter. If she were asked to formulate a proposition embodying that view she might possibly say that what the mind is compelled to think as underlying the world of sensible things is the sum of the negation of things. Further than this she could not go. Therefore it is that the teachings of science are directly opposed to the fundamental principles of any system of theology. The idea of a first cause, she does not tolerate, because she knows that that idea is absolutely unthinkable. Science only deals with the world of phenomena—her researches do not extend beyond that sphere because she knows, and inferentially asserts, that such research must ever be in vain. To her there is no knowledge outside of experience. Her position is purely and simply that of the
I notice that the Bishop of Melbourne has recently seen occasion to refer to the Agnostic in terms of severe disparagement. It is not worth an Agnostic's while, however, to notice the arguments which the learned bishop uses to support his position, for argum at there is none. In its place there is a little gentlemanly abuse, which the Agnostic, or any other searcher after truth, can afford to despise, for abuse, even of a gentlemanly kind, and even when made use of by a bishop, is of no avail when it has the stern logic of the sciences to deal with. The man who is eager in the search for truth is prepared to welcome her whenever her fair form appears, no matter if her trailing garments sweep away his most cherished ideals; and he can afford to abide the jeers and scoffs of those who heap contumely on him, well knowing that they sin through ignorance, and cry out because they are weak. Such truth-seekers are Herbert Spencer, Tyndall. and Huxley—the latter two of whom the bishop curiously enough seems to rank in the category of Materialists. Anyone who is acquainted with Tyndall's writings should know that Tyndall's position is purely Agnostic; while it is Huxley himself who says that the only escape from Materialism is Agnosticism. Is it not startling to find such sparsity of knowledge on the part of those who pretend to criticise the positions of the leading men of thought? And while I am digressing let me draw attention to the looseness of phraseology which again and again characterises the writings of some when dealing with technical words. In a leading article of the Australasian condemning the position taken up by the opponents of the Rev. Charles Strong, I find this remarkable sentence, "The Science of Theology is no less progressive than the Natural Sciences." To hear Theology dignified by the name of science is enough to make us wonder if we live in the nineteenth century, and to be told it is a progressive science is almost sufficient to make us doubt the fact of our existence when we consider that theology has not given birth to one single new idea for hundreds of years. I only mention this as an instance of the muddiness of thought that is apt to characterise many of those who write about theology, for I take it that obscurity of language is the great concomitant of obscurity or absence of thought.
To return, I say then that science dumbly points to a something behind existence, but whether that something is a fiction of the mind, or a something real she cannot and never can know. But she does know that the God of the theologian is a fiction of the mind, for, by analyzing this idea of God and divesting it of its human attributes, she can show that instead of God creating the world it is the world that has created God. When, however, the man of science strips the false conceptions and human qualities from off the God of the theologian the residuum is his own unknown and unknowable power. Unknown and unknowable, these are the final dicta of science. When, therefore, theology assert? that this unknowable is known, calls it God, asserts that the world was created by it, that God is an intelligent power, and is the father, the friend, the guide, and the support of our race,—how can there be anything else than conflict between theology and science. And yet Judge Higinbotham tells us that there is no opposition between modern science and religion—using religion in the sense that points to the existence of a supreme mind, and the relation existing between that mind and the derived mind of man. Those of you who have followed me thus far will see that there is the most direct opposition. Science as I have said deals with the known, and the unknown that is nevertheless knowable. Religion—theology—deals with the unknowable and illogically asserts that it is known. To understand the former proposition aright it is necessary to remember that science draws a limit round thought, and asserts that outside of that limit knowledge cannot go. Inside lies the domain of possible truth. If anyone, fifty years ago, had asserted that he knew there were metals in the sun similar to those on our planet, he would probably have been considered insane. But now, by the aid of photography and the spectroscope we are enabled to detect the presence of these metals with as much certainty as we know that two and two make four, or that two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Fifty years ago, then, this fact was unknown and would have been considered absurd, but the result has proved that it was knowable for it is now actually known. And it is with equal certainty known that we cannot know a thing apart from its attributes, apart from the forms which the mind gives it. That we cannot know things in themselves is of the highest certainty possible. Our knowledge is limited to the capacities of our organisms to the conditions of thought, and a man cannot, go beyond that limit, any more than he can climb up his own back. Science, then, indicates what can and what cannot be known, and limits herself to experience and to possibilities of experience. Theology is not based upon knowledge at all, but upon faith, belief. She calmly postulates a deity and asks her votaries to believe in that deity. If she asserts the credibility and truth of an absurdity how can her doctrines be in harmony with the truths of science.
In dealing with the origin of matter too, the Judge wants to know the whence? and the why? and his answer thereto evidences a
are here, and remembering that to endeavour to find out what we should do—and do it. That is our duty. The question of whence? must forever remain in darkness as well as the question whither? "Where do we find ourselves?" says Emerson," In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But the genius which, according to the old belief, stands at the door by which we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink, that we may tell no tales, mixed the cup too strongly, and we cannot shake off the lethargy now at noonday. Sleep lingers all our lifetimes about our eyes, as night hovers all day about the boughs of the fir tree. All things swim and glitter. Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide through nature and would not know our place again."
The Judge's belief, then, in a divine government and origin of things, must be accounted for from the fact that he does not recognise the strength of the Agnostic's impregnable position, and has overlooked the teachings of modern metaphysics and ethics. He thinks that it is very astounding that we are unable to determine whether there are sufficient reasons to necessitate a belief in the existence of God, and whether there is any basis for morality other than supposed personal interest or utility. I have tried very briefly, and perhaps very imperfectly, to show in this paper that quite sufficient reason can be shown to necessitate a disbelief in the accuracy of the Deist's or the theologian's conception concerning God. Belief is a very different thing from knowledge. We may believe in the existence of a supreme power underlying phenomena; but we are not warranted in making any predication whatever about such a power, for it, if such there be, is wholly without our experience. All we can say is "there may be" but
—" We cannot know,
For knowledge is of things we see."
Whether there is any basis for morality beyond ulitity is an ethical, not a theological question, and must be determined on sociological ground. And the theory of divine government, however, it would appear, seems to exercise very little influence on the lives and characters of the majority of men. The basis of morality is to be found in the sociological medium, and must be sought for there and not in any theory of divine influence. Duty is a social, not a theological question.
And, now, having drawn attention to what we consider to be the excellencies and principal defects of the Judge's treatment of the relations between science and religion, are we in a position to accept his final conclusion—viz, the change which he deems necessary to bring the Church into harmony with the requirements of modern thought? I think that we cannot at all events entirely agree with his final conclusion. He advocates a change from the Christian religion to what he calls the religion of Christ. But what this religion of Christ is to be we nowhere get any clear indications either from his lecture, or from the traditionary opinions of Christ himself, which have been handed down to us from his own time. It seems to me that what Judge Higinbotham calls the religion of Christ may be divided into two portions, one of which we may accept as true or as partly true, but the other we cannot help rejecting as false. These two portions I consider to be Christ's system of theology and Christ's system of morality. Judge Higinbotham himself indicates the division when he says that Christ's system "states the central principle or dogma of the existence of one God and his relationship to man, together with the primary and secondary rules of human conduct on and springing out of that relationship." And he further says that the proposition, "God is a spirit, is the single central dogma of Christ's theology," and this proposition he further
But I conceive that a higher ideal is being gradually placed before the world than that worshipped by Judge Higginbotham; and this ideal is foreshadowed in the knowledge that we have only ourselves to trust to. Which do you consider the more moral man, the man that is likely to be of most benefit to society? Is it the man who, even if he desires to do what he conceives to be the right, does not act upon his own responsibility, but prefers rather to accept the guidance of his stronger neighbour? Or is it the man who has used his best endeavours to find out the right, to discover what his duty is? who feels strong enough to believe that he has only himself to trust to, and knows that by trusting to himself he thus benefits society; who says that society progresses along with the progression of the intellectual and moral worth of its individuals? Who is the more successful mariner? Is it the man who has no confidence in his own powers and his own resources, who distrusts his capabilities as a navigator and who, fearing to venture on the open sea, hugs the land closely during his journey, trusting merely to the beacon that flames on the headland, or the sight and the sound of the breakers as they dash their carded waters on the shore? Or is it the man who knows that he has mastered his art, and fearlessly sets sail for the deep blue waters of the boundless sea, knowing that though the winds blow, and the rain pours in torrents, and the clouds obscure the sun, and the stars fail to peer through the shrouded vault, still he can bring his vessel safely into port? for well he know? there is more safety on the boundless deep than amidst the shoals and quicksands of the shore. The man who recognises that his success, if it is to be worth anything, must depend on his own endeavours, is he not the man whom we are accustomed to regard as truly great, and whom we weaker sons of clay feel inclined to honour because of his greatness? Is it not these men who have been the guiding stars of humanity? Is it not therefore a greater thought, a more praiseworthy ideal, a more highly moral idea, to consider that we must do our duty here, not because we owe any responsibility to a divine being, but that we do it because it is our duty, because we know that duty is the central preserving principle of society, and society is our mother, our salvation and our god. There is in society, Mathew Arnold tells us, a power which makes for righteousness. Without it society would cease to exist, and it is better, therefore, to trust to one another than to believe in the efficacy and the power of that fiction of the mind which the theologian calls God. Listen to the opinion of one of the foremost men of thought of this century, listen to this account of the inefficiency of the religion of Christ and the need of a new religion, which Mathew Arnold gives us in his poem of "Obermann Once More ":—
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And returning again, for the last time to our system of ideals. I conceive that a true religion must be a social religion, must be a religion of society—it must be one that recognizes to the full, that emphasises and extols the sacredness of the tie that links man to his mother society. Hence it is that I consider that true religion is a necessity if society desires to progress. For I believe that art itself and science and all the divided interests of mankind may even be of danger to society unless there is some common ideal, some common recognition of the dignity of the world, something that will cause men to have more regard for the interests of one another. As it is our ideals are isolated. And isolation of ideals tends to isolation of individuals and isolation of individuals means a frigid world—a loosening of the linking tie. The artist works solitary in his studio; the chemist absorbs himself in his laboratory; the biologist dissects his insects; the gardener gloats over his orchids and ferns; but no matter however earnestly and reverently each worships his ideal, how self-sacrificingly and devotedly each does his work and endeavours to promote its interests, there is little in all this which brings before each and all the idea of one another. That idea, the idea that there are others besides ourselves, others just as important as ourselves, and for the sake of whom we must pare away our rough corner, must tone down our fiercer thoughts, others, for whose sake and for the sake of us all we must wear smiling faces and generous hearts, others, whom we must strive to help and allow ourselves to be helped by,—from whose eyes we must clear away the mists of error that the sunlight may smile on their faces, and the winds of heaven breathe sweet music in their ears—others, whom we should cherish and revere — this idea, I say, and the full consciousness of it, must abide with those who rightly conceive that a true religion is an essential part of the social organism, if that organism is to go on progressing; must abide with those who desire to see that true religion established. And let our religion be such a one. and let us so act up to it, that it cannot be said of us that "We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us,"—let it be such that those who come after us cannot say, as Christ so pointedly and so truly said of the Church of his time, in words that seem peculiarly applicable to the Christian Churches to-day.
"Woe unto you for ye make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess." "Clean first that which is within the cup and the platter, that, the outside of them may be clean also."
"Woe unto you for ye are like unto whited sepulches, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleaness."
Mr Robert Stout, on the 13th April, gave a lecture on the above subject, in the Lyceum Hall, which was crowded in every part. The Mayor of Dunedin occupied the chair, and on the platform were Messrs H. S. Fish (M.H.R.), M.W. Green (M.H.R.), T. Bracken (M.H.R.), W. D. Stewart, J. W. Jago, A. H. Ross, J. Robin, W. M. Bolt, and J. Braithwaite.
His Worship the Mayor, in introducing Mr Stout, said: Ladies and gentlemen, I have to introduce to you to-night a gentleman who has been so long and favourably known to a Dunedin audience that I do not need to say one word to you about him. He has always taken a lively interest, both by his action on the platform and by his pen, in everything affecting, not only Dunedin, but the Colony at large. He has been known as a politician, as a Minister of the Crown, and probably as legal adviser to most of you here present.— (Laughter.) The only difference between his meeting you in the latter capacity and his meeting you here to-night is a difference against himself, inasmuch as he cannot charge you for the advice he is about to give.— (Laughter.) I don't need, however, to ask from you a patient hearing for him; and therefore, without further remark, I will introduce Mr Stout to you.
Mr Stout spoke as follows: Mr Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, if it has been recently admitted that there can be no good government, no progress nor reform, without political life, and if it has also been admitted that this political life can best be stimulated by public discussion, and by the public meeting of citizens, I need not apologise for addressing you. I congratulate Major Atkinson on the admission which he has made that political life is necessary and that it must be diffused throughout the Colony, and not confined to its capital. I also congratulate the party of which he is one of the leaders on their leader making such an admission. When I think how Sir George Grey was abused, and how he was denounced for meeting the citizens of this Colony in public meeting, and for discussing with them vital political questions, I recognise that we have made a great advance in our political education.— (Applause.) I think that this admission having been made, it nerves us all to publicly discuss public questions, for I believe that on their proper decision depends the future well-being of our Colony. In what attitude and in what position, it may be asked, did Major Atkinson address us? I recognise to the fullest extent that he did not make a party speech. I recognise also to the fullest extent that his speech was free from the personal criticisms that often form the staple of political utterances in this Colony.— (Applause.) I recognise, further, that his speeches are free from party bias. But he is a party man, he is Colonial Treasurer, and he is the leader of the Ministry in the House of Representatives. Therefore he is not an ordinary lecturer giving utterance to his political views. He is a political leader, and we must assume and believe that he thinks that these political doctrines which he has enunciated are necessary for our welfare. And then, what is our duty? I apprehend that our duty is to carefully criticise every portion of his speech, and see whether it is politically sound or not. If we fail to do so, we are not doing our duty as citizens. We have no right to take the views of any man, or to accept any political doctrines, without careful criticism — without turning them over, and looking at them from all points of view.— (Applause.) I therefore propose to-night to deal with the several political questions on which he has touched, and to see whether the positions he takes up are politically sound. He dealt in the main with six questions,—viz., with our Constitution, with our Legislative Council, with the functions of Government, with taxation, with land tenure, and with pauperism; and to-night I wish to say a few words under each of these heads. He says of our Constitution that it is almost perfect, and the only alteration which he might make is the introduction of what is termed
It would take a lecture in itself were I to endeavour to explain Hare's scheme to you; but I may say that the scheme which we now have is the very antipodes of Hare's scheme. Hare's scheme consists in this: that instead of confining the constituency to one small district, the electors are to have a wide choice, and minorities are to be allowed to join together; so that the minority, say, in Dunedin, Christchurch, or Auckland may be able to send one man to represent them. Our present idea is this: that there shall be single electorates, and that each electoral district shall only return one man. This is the very opposite of Hare's scheme: it almost deprives any minority of the power of sending a representative to Parliament. I ask, and I think you have a right to ask, that if it is proper to have the representation of minorities, how comes it that the system that had existed in New Zealand for many years should have been altered by Major Atkinson's Ministry? We had, for example, the towns united as one electoral district. We had several electoral districts in the Colony—like Franklin, Wanganui, and other places - returning two members. Why was it that the single-electo-
I understand from him that he is in favour of the constitution of the Legislative Council being altered, and I here ask. Why alter it? Does he want the Legislative Council stronger than it is? If he wants that it will mean, I presume, that the Council shall oppose more vigorously than in the past the legislation that is proposed by the House of Representatives—in fact, that though our machinery has worked smoothly in the past, the Legislative Council shall be made so strong that we shall have an era of deadlocks. Does anyone want the Legislative Council any stronger? If not stronger, does he want it made weaker? If he wishes that, what does he mean? That there is to be less control over the legislation of New Zealand by this second Chamber than there has been in the past? If you will read what took place during last session of Parliament, you will find that the Legislative Council, while considering bills, never took the trouble to dispose of one clause at a time, but in Committee they actually voted for 100 clauses of bills at a time without a reading. It cannot be very well made weaker than it now is.— (Applause.) Why, then, is the Legislative Council to be altered? I ask Major Atkinson, or anyone who desires an alteration in the constitution of that body, to say what he means, and whether the people of New Zealand are to allow a second Chamber to grow stronger, so that we shall have those ruinous deadlocks we saw occur in the neighbouring Colony of Victoria. Here I ask, Is a second Chamber necessary at all— (A Voice: "No.") I assert it is not necessary.— (Applause.) I apprehend the only necessity of a second Chamber is to supervise and provide against hasty legislation. Now we can only judge of the good that our second Chamber has done by tracing its history, and I tell you that every vital bill—every bill that really touched our Constitution on a vital point, which was really a political bill — has never been checked, however crude. One has only to look at the Abolition of Provinces Bill—one on which the people had not been consulted, and one which, I believe, worked a great deal of harm to this Colony. What did the Legislative Council do with that bill? Only two or three members out of the whole of the Council saw fit to criticise it, far less to oppose it. If you look at the record of bills passed in New Zealand you will find that the only bill in reference to which the Legislative Council seemed to take up a determined position was the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill — a bill nobody cared anything about— (laughter)—and at last they passed it. What good, I ask, has our second Chamber done? It has never taken up the position of saying in regard to a bill, "The people have not been
The Functions of Government," and I regret that here we are now getting on to the twentieth century, and, according to Major Atkinson's speech, after all our political training, after all the books on political science that have been published, after all the experiments in government we have had, extending back for thousands of years, we are reduced to this chaotic position. He says that what the duty or function of the Government is, nobody knows.— (Laughter.) Certainly, if that is so, we are in a very lamentable plight. He says that the only thing that is to guide us is this: that we are to determine from time to time what it is for the advantage of the people that the Government should do. That is, a chance majority in the House is to determine what the functions of the Government are. I deny that that is so. I say that the function of Government, if we are to have true liberty in any State, must be limited, and that it must not depend upon a chance majority. Why, ladies and gentlemen, if the functions of the Government are to be determined by a chance majority, what will you say has been right or wrong in the past? A majority of people in England, and perhaps a majority of the people in Scotland, say that a State Church is right, and if you put the question to the people of Ireland, I have no doubt that a majority of the people would say that it is the duty of the State to support the Roman Catholic Church. I ask, If this is to be our test of the functions of Government, where is the true liberty for the individual—for the minority? I say that the whole function of Government is this: not merely to recognise the rights of the minority, but to recognise individual liberty; to so pass laws, to so manage its affairs, and to so administer the State, that there shall be given to every individual man the fullest liberty, subject to the like liberty to everyone else in the community.— (Applause.) I say that wherever the functions of Government tread on that liberty that Government is a usurper—that Government is becoming a despotism. I admit, however, to the full that in new countries—through want of historical associations, through want of the habit of organisation amongst residents in new colonies—the State may have to step in and do things that it is not necessary in old countries that Governments should undertake; but I say it is our duty to watch closely the inroads of the State on the individuality of the people. If we ever choose to say that the only limit of the State's functions are the views of a chance majority, we are laying the foundation for a despotism, the end of which we cannot now see; and I say that this theory of Major Atkinson's, that there is no limit of the State functions but what a chance majority may decide is the fallacy underlying the whole of his proposed political changes, with which I shall deal presently. And new I may say one or two words on taxation. He told us that Adam Smith's four canons of taxation were yet recognised as correct, and I may say this: it is almost marvellous, when one comes to read recent writers on political economy, to find how little they have yet done on this great question of taxation, and how little advance they have made beyond Adam Smith's four canons—"equality, certainty, convenience, and economy." The last three no one ever questioned; it is only when one comes to deal with the question of equality that any differences of opinion arise. I do not intend to go into Major Atkinson's figures I have not time to do so—but I wish to say something about the question of the relative fairness of a
Those in this meeting who were in the Colony in
What did we see? We saw this Colony had expended not one million, not two millions, not ten millions, but nearly double that in improving the lands of this Colony. We saw that the lands of this Colony had increased in value; and this increase in value had not been caused by the landowners, but by the State. It had been caused by the increase of population and by their industry. We said: Is it fair that ail these railways should be made, that all these bridges should be built, that all
Land is a monopoly, and it will always remain a monopoly. I, however, believe that the land should belong to the State, and not to individuals.— (Applause) The only reason why land is given to an individual is that it may be made most productive; and it is contended by Mill and various other writers that taxes may be specially put on it. We may get at its value now, and if it is found at the end of 10 or 20 years that a man's land has increased in value, this tax is put on in order to get (Mill says) some portion—not all—of that unearned increase in the value of the land which is continually going on all over the world. I say, therefore, that a land tax is a fair and equitable tax compared with a property tax. I ask you to remember what has been done by the present Ministry in reference to the property tax. Unless the property tax produces something, the whole burdens of the country are cast on the customs revenue, while the property tax produces a miserable pittance. While the Treasurer says that the Colony is worth many millions, the sum paid annually into the Treasury under the property tax amounts to £156,000. That is the great good which has been done under the present Government in taxing the propertied classes, who, owning hundreds of millions' worth of property within the Colony, are only asked to pay £150,000 a year into the State Treasury. But the radical distinction between a land and a property tax hangs upon
Here I may say that I am quite at a loss to understand what views are held by Major Atkinson on this question of land tenure. He says that he is favour of free-trade in land. When did free trade in land ever answer, and what does it mean? It means that a person who owns land can do with it what he likes. It means that if one person owned Dunedin he could say to the people of Dunedin, "Clear out. The land is mine." It reminded him of what a Maori member once said in the House. The Maori was objecting to the form of fee simple, as their lands were going away under it. He believed in communal rights. He said that if this mode of depriving the Maoris of their land was not stopped, the only thing left far them would be the main roads on which to stand and view their former possessions. If you once admit that there is to be free trade in land, then the State has no right to control contracts relating to land. In Ireland it has been found necessary to pass a law which says that the landlord shall not fix what rent he likes. There the State has said: "We will not recognise free trade in land. We appoint Government officers, who will step in between you and the tenant and fix what a fair rent shall be." In order to meet the difficulty in another way, what did they do in France? There the State has said: "You have no right to dispose of your land on your death as you please; but the State will step in and dispose of it for you." Major Atkinson says that after next session there will be free trade in land in this Colony, but this will simply be the beginning of our difficulties. Until this question of land tenure is faced—until Major Atkinson understands the difference between free trade in land and the nationalisation of the land,—we cannot hope for any wise land laws. Now I come to deal with the Major's scheme of
Here, I may say, I recognise that we ought to thank him sincerely for the effort he has made to solve this problem— (hear); but I wish to find out first what solution he proposes. His solution is that there should be a poll tax on all people between the ages of 16 and 23 or 18 and 23 years; and those between 23 and 48, in order that they may reap the advantages of the system, have also to pay for five or seven years. I want you to know what this money amounts to—what this poll tax which the Major proposes will produce. I find that there are in this Colony about 61,000 people between the ages of 16 and 23. There are really over 62,000 persons; but I have left out, in order that the Major may have the benefit,
First, I wish to say a few words in reference to some of Mr Green's remedies, because I wish to apply the same principle in dealing with Major Atkinson'8 or any other scheme. I do not believe in State interference in reference to becoming a publican any more than the State interfering in reference to dealing out sick-pay. I believe that if the State became the publican—the vendor of liquor—you would not stop drunkenness to any appreciable extent; and you would have other attendant evils, just the same as you have other attendant evils wherever the State interferes with what should be left to individual effort. In reference to a State paper issue, I will tell you what a paper issue means, or how far it could do any good. The only effect of a paper issue, supposing the Colony had a bank of issue, would be this: If instead of the banks issuing bank-notes, the Government did so, seeing that the banks issue only about a million a year, it would save £40,000 or £50,000 in interest. That is all that could be saved, because we have got to pay for things outside the Colony, and people outside the Colony will not take our banknotes except they can get them exchanged or recognised beyond our Colony. Therefore to issue more paper money in this Colony would have no effect further than bank-notes now have in the Colony—simply for the purpose of exchange. You would only save the interest on the money, which I believe would only amount to £40,000 or £50,000 a year. But you would have other attendant evils, because the tendency of every Colonial Treasurer in difficulties would be to use the printing-press, quite careless of the effect that would be produced a few months afterwards. I wish to point out, before I leave this question, two dangers in reference to Major Atkinson's scheme, one of which has been entirely overlooked in any criticism I have seen of it. One great evil would be that all our young people at 16 or 18—I mean those of the labouring classes who have not large means, and who could not pay those various sums to the Colonial Treasurer—would at once have to turn to some profitable employment. What does that mean? It means in one respect that no poor person's children would have a chance of higher education, because if they had at once to turn to work for their living they would be deprived of the chance of attending the higher schools. I say that is a danger existing even now in this Colony. As soon as youths come to the age of 16 they are removed from school and set to work. Some of the brightest boys who, if they were sent to the grammar schools and university, might become ornaments to the Colony, are sent to drudge for a living, and on account of the poverty of their parents they have no chance of attaining to high distinction.— (Cheers.) If we have this evil at present among us, I say it would be intensified tenfold if the Major's scheme were carried out. Then, I say, the standard of living must be necessarily lowered. If you have the people living up to a certain standard, and if they get less money to live on, they must lower their standard of living. What does that mean? It means either worse lodging, or worse food, or worse clothing, or less amusement. You cannot, the Major says, pet nothing out of nothing. Therefore, where is this money to come from? It must either come out of the savings of the people, or out of their expenditure. If it comes from the saving people, they would save their money in any case, and make a better use of it than by handing it over to the Colonial Treasurer, who will disburse it perhaps among those who are not provident. Now Major Atkinson gave us four causes of poverty—bad laws, want of thrift, over-population, and crime. I think the causes are different. I say the first cause is State interference with human rights.— (Cheers.) The second cause is physical weakness; third, mental weakness; fourth, moral weak-
This is one of the social evils which it will take ages and ages to get rid of, and it will only be got rid of finally, not by trusting to legislative means, but by raising the standard of living of the people, by educating the people, and by promoting culture amongst the people. Let us look to our Statute-book. It is enough to make us cease to believe that anything can come by merely passing laws. If you look at our Statute-book you will always find an amending Act the preamble of which says that all previous Acts have been failures. No great social reform can ever come from State interference. This I cannot better illustrate than by quoting a passage from one of the greatest of living men, who says: "You see that this wrought-iron plate is not quite flat; it sticks up a little here towards the left—'cockles,' as we say. How shall we flatten it? Obviously, you reply, by hitting down on the part that is prominent. Well, here is a hammer, and I give the plate a blow as you advise. 'Harder,' you say. Still no effect. 'Another stroke.' Well, there is one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see. The evil is as great as ever—greater, indeed. But this is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it. Instead of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practised in 'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting point. He would have taught us how to give variously-directed and specially-
Mr J. W. Jago had had the honour and privilege of moving a few nights ago a vote of thanks to Major Atkinson for his discussion of this great and important question, in which the present and future welfare of this Colony is involved. He had been asked again by gentlemen upon the platform to do a like duty on this occasion, and he did it as freely and heartily as before. He would not say whether or not he agreed with Mr Stout, as in tho case of Major Atkinson, but he thought both had done a great service to the community. The whole question was one of very great difficulty, and required much thought and serious discussion: and any gentleman who aided the ultimate solution of the matter, as he thought Mr Stout had done, deserved the thanks of the community. He would propose a vote of thanks to Mr Stout for his address.
Mr W. D. Stewart, in seconding the vote of thanks, said that everyone who contributed to the information of the people on the problem of poverty was entitled to thanks. He need scarcely say that he had given this matter some little consideration, and keenly appreciated its difficulties. The scheme propounded by Major Atkinson, to his (the speaker's) mind, would tend to foster poverty, and not to prevent it.— (Applause.) He thought that a great many of the suggestions and arguments advanced by Mr Stout were not only plausible, but well founded.— (Applause.)
The vote of thanks was carried unanimously.
Mr Stout said: I thank you very heartily for the vote which you have unanimously passed. I have to regret that in consequence of the number of the subjects I had to condense a great deal that I had to say. I will ask you now to join with me in a hearty vote of thanks to the Mayor for presiding over this meeting.
The vote was carried by acclamation, and the meeting dispersed.
Printed at the "Otago Daily Times" Office, Corner of High and Dowling Streets, Dunedin.
I Propose to speak to-night of certain possible future developments in the Governments of free States. Perhaps it may form the best introduction to such a subject if I glance very briefly at the growth of Governments in civilized countries up to the present time. In doing so I will occupy but a few minutes whilst I sketch in the rudest outline the main features of that history with which, no doubt, you are all well acquainted;—and that only for the purpose of contrasting the condition under which Governments of the present day exist, with those of earlier periods.
It may be assumed that all government had its origin in the physical conditions of our nature—in the government of the father over his children; that it expanded into the patriarchal—the government by the head of a cluster of related households; that it further developed into the tribal, under the headship of the chief; and lastly consolidated into the national—the community of race, under the authority of the king. Under the chief or king in early times, the decisions of the ruling power, so they affected the action of the community, were often submission to the assembled people, and were assented to or rejected by, acclamation: and thus a rude democracy restrained in some fashion the will of the monarch. Personal equality of right was the rule where all were equally warriors. In this, however, there was one wide exception: for slavery appears amongst the earliest communities of which we have cognizance; and slavery arose from the conquest of feebler by stronger races. Slaves were chattels, not citizens; they had no existence in the polity of the State. Thus, even when Athens was at its greatest, and possessed a definite political constitution, and was perhaps the most perfect specimen of a democracy in ancient history, the slaves constituted a body which is said by some to have included nearly two-thirds
The machinery of representation is of modern growth. It has been remarked by writers that there is little or no trace of such a contrivance in classical history; as little is there amongst oriental nations, or amongst those northern races from whom the civilized world has mainly sprung. The personal appeal to an assembled people could have been possible only in comparatively
It is clear that this extension of the principle of democracy is within the possibilities of the future in free Governments; and, in respect to one class of subjects, its utility and propriety will hardly be disputed. It has often been argued that the body entrusted with the duty of making laws for ordinary purposes of government is not necessarily clothed with the power of altering the fundamental principles of the Constitution. This position was taken by Mr. Grattan and those who opposed the union of Ireland with Great Britain; and constitutional lawyers of high position maintained the same view. The name of Lord Plunkett alone is sufficient authority for claiming great weight to the arguments adduced:—that a parliament elected by the people to make laws for their government cannot exceed the powers confided to it;—is incapable, morally and constitutionally, of putting an end to
How far this process of appealing directly to the masses may become incorporated into the practice of Governments, it is impossible to speculate; still less to predicate what might be the results. I have gone no further than to indicate it as not undesirable, in questions where there are grounds for doubting whether the Legislature is not trenching on the limits of its Constitutional powers. But this at least may be said, that the modern contrivance of the vote by ballot renders that possible, which could not otherwise be obtained without the risk which always attends the assembly of great masses of the people in times of popular excitement, and the difficulty of ascertaining with accuracy, in the confusion of public meetings, the real voices of those entitled to vote.
I have occupied your time in this brief sketch of the growth of government for the purpose of calling attention to this fact: that the aspect of government in the present day is different from what it has ever been, so far as we know, at any previous period; that it is only within, comparatively speaking, the few past years that the mass of the people, without any underlying substratum such as slavery, have become a predominant power; and that by the machinery of election and representation that power is now exercised without turmoil or violence, but peaceably and effectively. Step by step franchises have been lowered, until manhood suffrage has been reached in some countries, and is rapidly approaching in others; and even universal suffrage, that is a suffrage including women, is largely and ably advocated.
The momentous question for the future is—now that power has passed or is passing into the hands of the masses,—What will they do with it?
The history of the present century has been one of what may be termed specially political strife; the main attention of statesmen has been given to questions relating to the re-distribution of the balance of political power between the different classes; and on this platform political parties, and their outcome, party government, have been formed. But with the final adjustment of that question, with a franchise enjoyed by all classes equally, political agitation must cease, and party government disappear. Other matters must occupy the arena. The power once securely lodged with the people, to what purpose will they use it? That is the problem of the future. Political power is not an end; it is only a means to an end. It needs little sagacity to predict that the improvement of the social and physical condition of the people will monopolise the thought and mould the action of the governments of the future. Social reform will take the place of political.
We may predicate so much, not only from forecasting the probabilities of the future, but from a survey of what has already taken place even in the few years of the present reign. Just as the increasing pressure of the public mind has been felt on government, so has the spirit of administration changed its character, in the direction of ameliorating the conditions of life, and softening the asperity with which laws, framed in
And this brings us to the question so often asked,—What are the limits within which the duties of Government lie? and what are those which ought to he left—to use a common expression—to private enterprise? A question never satisfactorily answered, because public opinion, reflected in or led by the views of statesmen, is undergoing a gradual but great change in this matter. It used to be thought that the only duty of Government was to collect the revenue required for the support of its power and dignity, to maintain order in the community, to provide for the due administration of the laws, to guide the nation in its action in relation to foreign States, and to maintain the national religious institutions of the country: that all interference with matters of a commercial character should he left to the private enterprise of its citizens. Nay further, it was argued that any interference by Government in other matters tended to impair the spirit of independence in a people, and to cripple the energy of individual exertion. No one will deny that there is a truth underlying this view. To have everything done for us by a sort of beneficent despotism, instead of being compelled to the wholesome exertion of doing it for ourselves, no doubt tends to emasculate the energy and to enfeeble the self-reliance of a people. But how if the people are themselves the Government, or the basis on which the Government rests, and in obedience to whose behests it lives and moves and has its being? It is clear that the old doctrine is one transmitted to us from ages, when Governments were regarded as something above and outside of, and often opposed to the people, instead of being in and of them. One of the most striking features of modern times is the exten-
The question then is,—Does not Government, exactly in proportion as it becomes more and more a reflection of the popular will, assume more and more the position of a directory of a company, in which every citizen is a shareholder? and if this is so, what then are the limits within which the action of Government should be confined? Let us consider for a moment the extent to which the old idea of Government has already been violated in all free States; that is to say, the matters in which Government engages, which might be left to private enterprise. Take the post office for example. There are companies for carrying goods and parcels and delivering them in towns and in the country. And what is the difference between a letter and a parcel? But no one will dispute that by the creation of a national organization for distributing letters, an immense benefit is conferred on the whole community. And yet can it be denied that Government not only interferes in this matter with private enterprize, but does so to the utmost extent, by vesting in itself a close monopoly, and debarring by penalties the competition of private persons? Take again the post office money order system, in which the Government competes with the bankers in the business of transmitting money; or the savings banks, in which it goes into the market against a multitude of private companies. I might also instance the case of railroads; which in this, as in many other countries, are Government monopolies; and are managed with at least as great satisfaction to the public as those which are still in the hands of private companies. Still more aptly may I quote the instance of telegraphs, which, in Great Britain, were bought by the State, after the experiment had been tried for some years of their management as private speculations; and it is, I believe, admitted that they are now managed by the Government with as much success and with as much benefit to the public as when they were in private hands. The Government Insurance Office, and the Public Trust Office are instances in which we in this colony have carried the same principle to a step further than has been elsewhere attempted, and, so far as I am aware, without any complaint against the establishment or the management of those institutions. And it is not only
It is evident, then, that the old definition of the duty of Government fails to include much of what is now generally admitted to be within its proper functions:—that the realm of private enterprise has been invaded at many points; and that with the greatest benefit to the people. Take for example the supply of water. A private company would probably only supply it in such quarters as would prove remunerative. But in the hands of the governing body, it would be supplied equally to all classes; not only subserving the luxury of the rich, but bringing to the poorest home that which is a necessary condition of health and comfort. Seeing then the extent to which Government has already intruded into the territory of private enterprise, the question forces itself upon all who speculate on the possibilities of the future, to what extent may not the citizens of each State be beneficially associated in a common organization for special purposes?
In the existing organization of society two great underlying principles are at work, pointing in opposite directions, and in distinct hostility the one to the other. I mean "Why then ask of silly man To oppose great nature's plan."competition and communism. Competition claims that the interests of society are best subserved, by relying upon the instinct of human nature which impels each individual to acquire as much as possible for himself. It finds expression in the old proverbs "Self preservation is the first law of nature "—" Charity begins at home "—"God helps him most who helps himself" and such like. It regards success as the natural and predestinated reward of superior strength or skill, sagacity, forsight, or cunning; and in these days it appeals to a new sanction, derived from the all-pervading law of organic life, now generally accepted, that nature operates by "the survival of the fittest" and its advocates may well ask in the words of Scotland's bard,
It asserts further, that, in the universal struggle of all for superiority, the self-reliance, endurance, skill, and prudence of every individual are sharpened and strengthened; that the result is a
co-operation is applied. Co-operation is no more than a partial adoption by one section of the people, and for a special purpose, of that which communism would apply to the whole, and for every purpose in the organisation of society. Communism was attempted in the first formation of the Christian Church, and was adopted in supposed compliance with the will of its Founder. We all know how the experiment first displayed its inherent weakness, in the dishonesty of some of the members. And even those who have no hostility to the extreme doctrine in theory, can hardly fail to perceive how inapplicable it is to human nature in its existing phase. Surely all but the most visionary must admit, that community of goods can only exist in a people amongst whom coexists a corresponding community of character and feeling, of principle and of honor, of motives and impulses,—a people trained to an entire abnegation of self, and possessing an all pervading faith in one another. Some of us may indulge in the dream, that such may be the final consummation of human society; that to such an end the destinies of our race are surely though slowly tending; but we must also perceive that community of goods, as a universal rule, will be the result not the cause of that refinement and elevation in the moral condition of mankind, without which it cannot exist.
No sane thinker on these matters can believe that communism, in its furthest development, could be suddenly or violently imposed with any hope of practical success, upon men who have for long ages been trained in the opposite belief, and all whose conceptions have been moulded on other principles. Social systems are things of growth. They may be violently broken up by convulsions; but even
But what cannot be effected by sudden and violent change may be approached by the slow but irresistible growth of popular feeling, especially when awakened by the teaching of those who have applied great information and power of thought to the investigation of the causes of the unequal distribution of the, comforts and conveniences, not to say the necessaries of life, amongst different classes and individuals. And such is one remarkable feature of the literature of the present day. Such too is the tendency of those institutions of which so many have sprung up in the last twenty or thirty years, the co-operative clubs, and the still older Friendly Societies, and the older yet associations of Trades Unions. All these are separate and isolated endeavors, tending, in special spheres, to the same end as that which communism aims at applying to the entire organization of society; and they are based on the same great underlying principle which inspires the faith of the communist. Under the influence of these institutions the public mind is being schooled and educated, no less by their failures than by their successes; is learning the true principles, so far as they can be said to be established, if political economy—of the laws which regulate the creation and distribution of wealth; is being taught, above all, how much it is possible to achieve, consistently with the existing moral and mental condition of men; and, at the same time, by the reaction which wholesome exertion exercises upon the human faculties rightly used, is being elevated and trained to an extent which may render it capable of wider and more beneficent applications of the principles which inspired its earliest efforts.
Let us clearly understand the difference between the two principles of which I am speaking. The doctrine of competition is based on the belief that the mainspring of human action is
Which, then, is the nobler instinct of the two,—the law of self-interest, or the law of brotherhood? Test it by an extreme case. Let us suppose that some of us are cast adrift upon a raft in mid ocean; that there is but a limited supply of food and water; that the only hope of safety lies in being picked up by some passing ship before our supplies are exhausted. Shall we deem that a fulfilment of the highest duty of man, which would impel the strong to cast the weak to the sharks, so that their own chances of life might thereby be prolonged? Or shall we be ashamed of the weakness under which our breasts have sometimes heaved with emotion and our eyes filled with tears, when hearing, as we have sometimes heard, bow the strongest and roughest seaman of the company has deprived himself of the portion which was his equal share, and waved from his burning lips the last drop of water, that he might alleviate in some measure the sufferings—perchance add something to the desperate chance of life—of the feeblest woman or the tenderest child with whom he was bound in a companionship of suffering. Shall we say that this is a strained or unfair test of what is noble or base in human action? Are we not all, each generation in its turn, adrift on the
Among the manifold developments of the doctrine of competition, I will notice one, in the system of contracts, upon which the largest part of all undertakings, by private persons and companies, and also by Governments are carried on; until it has come to exercise a great influence on the organization of society. It has grown up out of the necessity, that, where works require the organized labor of large numbers of workmen, they should be directed and superintended by someone having skill and experience in the description of undertaking required. It is rightly assumed that such an overseer will apply the labor at his disposal in the most efficient manner. But it is further assumed that, by inviting public tenders, the work will be done in the cheapest manner for the employers if the lowest tender is taken. But what are the grounds for such an assumption? The cost of a work is a fact. With a known market price of materials, and of the current rate of wages at the time, a work will cost just the same, whether done by a contractor or by an employer. It is quite true that the employer has the advantage of knowing exactly, or thinks he knows exactly, what his utmost outlay will be; and, where he is ignorant of the mode of the execution himself, he thus insures himself against loss; but, as a matter of fact, the work costs the same. If the contract price is less than that, the contractor loses; if more, he gains, and often gains enormously, very much more than the fair value of his labor and skill in superintendence. That this is so the enormous fortunes made by many contractors in all countries clearly prove. The workmen do not work more skilfully or
I have taken this as one instance of the manner in which the application of the doctrine of competition operates to distribute the produce of labour with enormous inequality, and to produce a natural feeling of discontent amongst the masses. I am quite aware of the arguments put forward by modern writers, especially in that most remarkable work on "Progress and Poverty" by Mr. George, to prove that the possession of land by private individuals is the sole cause of the unequal distribution of wealth. But I confess myself to be unable to perceive why the monopoly of large estates in land should give one man the power to grasp an unfair proportion of the produce of labor, whilst the same evil should not arise from a similar monopoly of capital. It may be quite true, and no doubt is, that, in the war between labour and capital, the attention of those who are suffering .from the existing condition of society has been mainly fixed on the monopoly of capital, and has overlooked the perhaps still greater evil caused by the monopoly of land; but to attribute no ill effect to the former seems to me to overstate the case as against land. The truth is that the monopoly of capital is a more patent fact presented to the view of the working classes. It is not unnatural that the labourer should regard the possession of great landed estate which has been handed down for generations as the heritage of a noble family, if not without a feeling of envy, still without active hostility; especially when relations of a kindly and beneficent character have existed between the fortunate possessor of wealth and the poor around him, which have been equally handed down from the ancestors on both sides; and the people may well fail to trace the cause of the increasing hardness of their lot, in arrangements which, so far as they can sec, have
You perceive I am arguing that the doctrine of the older writers, from Adam Smith downwards is, in its practical application to the circumstances of society, not to be set aside; and that capital must be regarded as the agent for setting labor in motion; and hence that the popular view, that the accumulation of vast hords of capital in few hands, with all the incidental power with which it invests its possessor over the lives and happiness of a large part of his fellow creatures, is a great and patent evil in a State—that this view, I say, is one founded on a truth which cannot be set aside. This being so, the remedy seems to lie in the direction of a more even distribution of capital amongst the community; not by violent spoliation of the rich and division of existing wealth amongst the poor, which would effect no more than a temporary change without affecting the cause of the evil, but by such adjustments of the economical machinery, that is, of the artificial arrangements we have made as regards property, that wealth shall naturally tend to distribute itself, instead of to accumulate in heaps.
It is common to hear it said these things should be left to the free working of economical law;—that the State should not interfere. But the State has always interfered. It formerly allowed the combination of employers, whilst it made the combination of employed criminal. In a multitude of ways in olden time it tried, both directly and indirectly, to force down wages, and to encourage the monopoly of wealth. The spirit of legislation has, indeed, to a great extent changed. Trades union combinations are no longer illegal. Friendly Societies and Savings Banks are under the patronage of the State. The great question for the future is, in what way and to what extent can the State encourage and stimulate the movement by which working men may become shareholders in industrial enterprises, and so become the recipients both of wages and profits—to what extent can co-operation be aided by, or even be absorbed into the duties of Government—to
In railways which belong to a Government, this is already done to the fullest extent. Every taxpayer in the country is a shareholder in the company by which they are managed. It is on the security of the taxpayers that the capital has been borrowed to construct them. If your railways do not produce, in net profits, enough to pay the interest on the debt, the balance has to be paid by taxation. If the net profits exceed that interest, the money goes directly into all our pockets; because taxation for other purposes of Government can be remitted to an equal amount. A Government railway system is, in fact, nothing more than a large co-operative society in which every taxpayer is a shareholder, and shares the profits, or has to pay the losses by calls under the name of taxes.
A Government Insurance office is a somewhat similar institution applied to one section of the community instead of the whole; that is, to those only who voluntarily associate themselves. But there is this distinction. In a State Insurance office on the mutual principle, the profits are periodically divided amongst the insurers, not amongst the taxpayers; whereas if the office is guaranteed by the State, any loss, were any possible, would have to be made up by the taxpayers, most of whom have no interest in the concern. In this respect the plan of compulsory insurance proposed by the Rev. Mr. Blackley, which has been submitted for the consideration of this colony by our Government, is devoid of the inconsistency I have just pointed out; because, all being insured alike, all would share equally the risks and profits;—the profits in this case, being the allowance in case of sickness or accident, and the annuity after a certain period of life. I can conceive no form of co-operation more sound in principle or more entirely beneficial to a community than such a scheme, if carefully adjusted to the circumstances of the people in which it was in force.
Another form in which capital is accumulated in few hands is in the business of banking. Might not banking be more usefully carried on by the State, that is by the whole community as a
Here again the old objection would start up,—There would be no security that the affairs of the bank would be conducted with prudence, sagacity and skill. But what security is there at present? We are told the motive of self interest: that the shareholders are certain to look after their money. But have we not recently had some startling examples of the contrary? The truth is that the shareholders rely on the directors; and the directors must rely on the fidelity and ability of the paid managers, who have no interest in the concern except their salaries, and their prospect of promotion by the exhibition of honesty and capability; and why those qualities should be found in the service of private persons only, and not in the service of the State, I am unable to see; the more so that I do see, as a. fact, vast concerns conducted by all Governments, in which agents possessed of the necessary qualifications are not difficult to find. This, then, is only one of many directions in which it seems to me possible that Governments may aid in applying the principle of co-operation to embrace the whole community, and may impose a barrier in the way of a mischievous monopoly of wealth in private hands.
But here I must notice an objection not without weight. It is said that under our system of Government by representative chambers, and responsible ministers who are the organs of political
Government, that is the ministry of the day, is not entrusted, according to our constitution, with more than a limited part of the powers of the State. The laws are not administered by the political Government, but by the judicial. And well did the great founders of the American Commonwealth comprehend the value of that principle, when they kept the judicial functions distinct from the political, and, in some respects, extended the powers of the former at the expense of the latter. For example, the Courts of law in England cannot set aside an Act of Parliament. They can only interpret it. But the Supreme Court of the United States can declare an Act of Congress null and void, as having been passed ultra vires. If, then, the administration of one large part of the functions and powers of the Government as a whole, are not entrusted to the administrative or political Government, where lies the difficulty in handing over the powers of the State, in what may be called its commercial capacity, to bodies outside of, and beyond the influence of the political Government? If we hold, as we all do, that the great bulwark of our liberties lies even less in franchises and popular government, than in the independence of the Courts of law, both of the Crown on one hand and of the people on the other, would it not be equally not only wise but necessary, and equally in accordance with the whole spirit of the Constitution, that the administration of the Government in its commercial character should, in a similar way, be protected from influences which could not fail to be mischievous, and should be vested in independent authorities, specially adapted to secure the success of the undertakings committed to their charge?
The last subject to which I will call your attention is that of possible changes in the nature of landed property. It is very remarkable how clearly the evil of the monopoly of land was foreseen by the first Jewish law givers. In the code of law which we find in the book of Leviticus, the law of Jubilee
That all lands were, in early times, held in commonalty as the property of the State is now sufficiently established. That, as settlement on land for agricultural uses took the place of nomadic habits and the pursuit of the chase, private and personal rights intruded themselves into the communistic title, there can be no doubt. Under the Feudal system the land was vested in the Crown, and was held by the tenant, originally for service, which was subsequently commuted into payment in money. But before many generations had passed away, the interest of the tenant gradually exterminated the communistic title of the State. The history of the law of real property is one of a persistent encroachment of private upon public right, until at length the right of private property in land acquired a sort of sanctity superior even to that which was attributed to personalty. But it is clear that the national title was never wholly abandoned, nor, had the monarch been in realty, as he was in theory, the trustee and guardian of the public estate for the benefit of the whole community, would, perhaps, such encroachments have been tolerated. But this great change in the idea of private property in land took place in ages when the interests of the great feudatories were paramount, and
But whatever view we take as to the right of the State to resume the ownership of the soil, there remains the question of its expediency. Will such a policy produce the beneficial results promised? And again, are the evils such as to justify the application of so drastic a remedy! I confess myself unable to accept Mr. George's conclusion, so far at least as I have been able to consider the subject, that all the ills arising from the vast inequality in the distribution of wealth would be at once remedied by a resumption of the ownership of the land by the State; or to perceive the justice of the distinction he draws between the monopoly of land and of other forms of wealth as the only cause of those evils. For the purpose of this argument, land appears to me to have the same effect on the social system as any other form of wealth; and, if I assented to the doctrine of the abolition of private ownership, it would be because the more equal distribution of wealth amongst the different sections and individuals of society, appears a result which must in some fashion be achieved, unless the whole fabric of modern civilization is to be permitted to crumble into the dust. In this view the aggregation of large tracts of country in private hands should be subjected to the same restrictions which should be applied to wealth of whatever kind. I have only called your attention to this as one amongst the other burning questions which must before long occupy the minds of statesmen during the next generation. But I may point out that the recent legislation on the subject of the land in Ireland has greatly hastened the period when the question must be brought to a practical issue. That measure seems to me to be a final abandonment on the part of the British Government of the doctrine hitherto thought to be beyond the pale of discussion—the inviolability of the right of private property in land. The new land law for Ireland does without question admit the principle that it is within the power of the Legislature to partition the property in the soil between the landlord and the tenant, that it takes the land out of the category of those things which are the subject of free bargain, regulated by the ordinary law of supply and demand; and, more than all, that it does this without recognising any claim to compensation on the part of the landlord. Confiscation has been for ages the basis of title to a great part of the soil of Ireland; but it has been the confiscation of the property of the rich to give to the rich: now for the first time it
In conclusion, I have endeavoured to call your attention to some of the demands which may possibly be made on future Governments, because the phenomena of the present day indicate the approach of an epoch, which may be one of momentous consequence to the civilized world; phenomena which force on us the question— In what direction are we really moving? I have read that in one attempt which was made by the late Sir Edward Tarry to reach the North Pole, by means of boats, used as sledges where no open water was to be found, as the seamen were toiling over the icefields; and dragging the boats at a rate which seemed to promise a successful termination to the expedition, the observation of the Commander shewed that their real position was, day by day, further south than on the day before. To the superficial view of the seaman he was travelling to the north; the higher knowledge disclosed the truth that the whole icefield was bearing him to the southward, faster than his wearied footsteps traversed its surface to the north. And may not this be our own case; May it not be that, dazzled by the glitter of the enormous wealth which is increasing with such amazing rapidity around us,—ministered to in every want by the stupendous powers of nature, which are being evoked from their secret recesses to be chained to our chariot wheels—may not we blindly fancy that we are building up an enduring structure of imperishable prosperity, whilst we are really underlaying the foundations with subterraneous forces, which, sooner or later, may shatter our palaces to atoms? How can we close our ears to the warning voices which, like the unheeded utterances of the prophets of old, tell us that our civilisation is rotten to the core; that its only result is, that whilst the rich are growing ever richer the poor are growing ever poorer? What can we say of a social system which is powerless to solve an economical problem except by the inhuman machinery of "I'll fares the land to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, while men decay."the strike; a machinery which at once paralises "the might that slumbers in the peasant's arm," and crushes, with equal and pitiless cruelty, the tenderness of maternity and the innocence of childhood? What shall we say to the incomprehensible phenomenon, that the Irish peasantry, with a population of five millions, are in the same state of misery and
Or what, again, is the solution of the mystery that, after so many years of the boasted beneficence of our rule over India—the rule of the mightiest and wealthiest nation on the earth—periodical famine still stalks over the rice fields of Hindostan, mowing down in its ghastly stride more human victims than the car of Juggurnaut or the sword of the ruthless despots whose rule we have replaced?
What well grounded belief have we that this stupendous fabric of modern civilization of which we boast is destined to be more enduring than those of which the shattered monuments alone tell us of their existence and their extermination? They fell—some we know—all we may confidently believe, because, in the fierce competition for wealth, and the insatiable lust for power, the moral elements which knit together all human society were dissolved; the luxury of the rich became licentiousness; the degradation of the poor wrought crime and lawlessness; wealth became the agent, and poverty the victim of corruption; the ties of home and the fires of patriotism were drowned in the rising flood of anarchy, and the seething mass preyed on itself until swept away by some stronger race;—some race which, though apparently of ruder and less matured social organization, was yet closely united by the strong affinity of its individual atoms; compact by the love of kindred and the pride of race; strong in the instinct of brotherhood and faith in one another, in all the true and only elements of enduring national greatness. And it is not enough to tell us that the poor are better off than they were, because the rate of wages is higher, and the price of food and clothing lower than formerly. You can measure lengths by a two-foot rule if you know that your two-foot rule remains unchanged; but to measure things in different ages by a standard which is itself constantly fluctuating from age to age, this is but a deceptive process. No one who knows anything of the history of the English
Shall we then say that there is no hope for the future—that our modern civilization must die, like those which have preceded it in the world's history? Shall we, like the men of old continue to eat and drink and marry and be given in marriage, while the waters of anarchy are oozing up under our feet, and the windows of heaven—the divine retribution for national wrong—are opening above our heads? or will the men of this generation, warned by the ruin of the civilizations of the past, evoke the means of salvation for that which we have inherited? I would fain fancy that
strike, the widening gulf between class and class, between rich and poor, are all, to take the evidence of their own writers, repeating themselves in the land of republican freedom, with the same ominous aspect as that which looms over the future of the most aristocratic of European States. But I cannot lose all faith in America; I cannot lose faith in a country which came triumphant out of the great war for the emancipation of the slave, and the maintenance of the Union; I cannot forget how, whilst the purblind critics of the English press were prophesying that the self interest and selfishness of the Western States would induce them to withhold their aid in that great struggle, all minor, all selfish considerations were merged in the instinct of a lofty patriotism; and from the farms and log huts of the western prairies, from a people, though keenly suffering under the pressure of a protective tariff which they hated, mothers sent forth their sons and wives their husbands to fight in the common cause, that, come what might, the great experiment of a free republic, to which they were pledged in the eyes of the civilized world, come what might, should be maintained invoilate. And I cannot but believe, that when that great people come to perceive the real cause of the
And not less in these colonies of our own Empire, which have grown up as if by an enchanter's wand on the shores of the Pacific, not less on us, though on a smaller stage, does the duty lie, to meet with courage the demands of the future. We stand in a position peculiarly fitted for the attempt. Tradition and precedent, and old world forms and prejudices, and a superstitious reverence for private over public rights, have not yet interwoven round us their inextricable web. The memory, though yearly growing fainter, still lingers amongst us, of those early days in these settlements, when a community of toil, and an almost equality of wealth, bound us all, class and class together, in a strong community of feeling and interest. To us then more than to all others has fate allotted the task of dealing with the problems of the future. By what specific laws, it is not for me now to suggest, but by legislation, I confidently believe, it must be, which must be based on such a reconsideration of the rights of property, as shall tend to redistribute more equally amongst all the joint results of the productive powers of the earth and the creative energy of human labor. That the poor will ever wholly cease out of the land, and crime be heard of no more, we may not hope; but it may be the imperishable glory of the statesmen in these new born nations, so to modify the social and economical conditions of life, that wide spread poverty shall not be the necessary result of artificial law, and crime shall not be bred by the cravings of want, and matured by the sense of wrong.
And if after all it be that our civilization too is destined to fulfil the law of all organic life, and to sink into decay; if the mighty empires of the present must pass away like a tale that is told, we may yet cherish the faith, that from their ashes a new civilization will arise, to which that of the present may be but as the rude institutions of the savage or the tottering footsteps of the child; that man will rise ever higher and higher to those lofty regions of social, moral, and intellectual being, to which the secret and prophetic yearnings of his son) assure him that he is capable
Edwards and Green, Printers, Wellington.
In bringing forward a project involving a large expenditure of public money, I am aware that I must be able to show that great public advantages must result from its adoption. This, I believe, I shall be able to do, if you will be so kind as to read the following explanation of its nature and aims, and think it out carefully. And, first, I would explain that as my present engagements will prevent my taking any but a purely honorary part in carrying it out, should it be adopted, I have no personal object in advancing it. I would ask you, therefore, to forget my personal insignificance, and consider this project purely on its merits, giving only such weight to the expression of my personal opinions as may be due to the fact that for five years I made the principles of Exhibitions my constant study, and was engaged in the practical work of carrying them out.
The main objects of this scheme are to attract population and capital to develop the resources of these Australasian colonies by making the European, and more especially the British, public acquainted with the opportunities which exist here both for settlement and for investment. Other objects are to extend the markets for our frozen food and wine, by overcoming the prejudice now entertained by European consumers; to show the mother-country a faithful representation of the work accomplished in Australasia by her sons, and the opportunities which still exist here for Englishmen to improve their condition without losing their nationality; and to draw closer the ties which should bind these sister colonies together by presenting the first model of a Federal Australasian Government, and arousing a national Australasian patriotism, which shall have its foundation in our attachment to the mother country.
Of the three fundamental sources of wealth Australasia possesses the first—land in abundance. But in the other two—capital and labour to develop the resources of the land—she is yet very deficient. There is no one amongst us who will not admit that the progress of Australasia may be measured by the influx of capital and population to her shores. There are few who will question the advantage to be gained by promoting a larger influx of these essential factors of our development.
The mother country is at once that from which it is most desirable that we should receive capital and population, and that from which we have the best opportunities to get them. For generations yet our population must come chiefly from the United Kingdom, and our capital from London. This and many other passages have been quoted verbatim from the Melbourne Argus, by the kind permission of the Editor.
Are the natural resources and social condition of the United States so much superior to those of Australasia, as to warrant this preference on the part of our countrymen for a foreign soil, a foreign life, and foreign securities? We who know these colonies well can conscientiously give a negative reply to this question. The reason of the different treatment we receive lies chiefly, as I have already said,
What is to be done? How is this ignorance, which is so detrimental to our progress, to be removed?
I reply that we must advertise. Australasia is in the position of a tradesman who opens an opposition shop, but finds that, although he can sell as good or even better articles, people continue to patronise the old establishment simply because they know more about it. As far as population and money are concerned, America is the "old establishment," and consequently she secures without effort by far the larger share of public favour. Is it not of the utmost importance to us to break down the existing prejudice, to compel our fellow-countrymen at home to understand that on the whole they will find their interests better served by casting in their lot with us than by establishing themselves in a foreign land?
I readily acknowledge that we have made several fairly successful attempts at advertising. We have been represented at numerous Exhibitions; we have held International Exhibitions ourselves; we have scattered statistics in thousands, and pamphlets only less numerous than the sands upon the sea shore. But what has been done is nothing to that which remains to be accomplished. Statistics, pamphlets, and lectures are admirable in their way, but it is necessary first to engage the attention of those we wish to impress. We have distributed pamphlets, and they have been more or less read—mostly less. But no one who reads our English papers, or talks with any Englishman who is generally considered to be well-informed, will contend that these pamphlets have been understood. Again, the Exhibitions at which we have been represented have been held in countries whence neither population or capital could be expected to come here, and our courts there have been insignificant atoms in the International molecule, passed over unnoticed by many, and, when visited, giving but a very imperfect idea of our resources. The Exhibitions held here certainly produced a great sensation upon those who visited them, but, unfortunately, we could not bring any large number of European visitors out to see them, and the reports in the European press, though useful as far as they went, were meagre. For all this there can be no question but that these Exhibitions proved profitable to the colonies in which they were held. The stimulus given to commerce since
I believe that the comparative inefficiency of the advertising we have hitherto done is due to our having under-estimated the depths of the prevailing indifference to Australasia, to our having over-estimated the capacity of the British public for receiving information about us. The business man advertises down to the level of those he wishes to reach. The pamphlet and the lecture are excellent in their proper time, but first we have to engage the attention of our customers. How can we arrest that attention?
When an Australasian Exhibition is spoken of you naturally think of the Australasian Courts at the Sydney and Melbourne Exhibitions, and it does not take much thought to arrive at the conclusion that a fac-simile of those courts would be altogether too insignificant to attract attention in London. But my proposal is for an Exhibition of such an entirely different character from any hitherto held that, in considering it, it becomes necessary to dismiss from the mind all previously conceived ideas of Exhibitions. And herein lies its greatest difficulty. The
To begin with, the collection of exhibits from each colony would have to be on the same scale as the Victorian Court at the Melbourne Exhibition—the only really representative collection of the resources and industries of an Australian colony which has yet been shown at any exhibition. Then the exhibits of each industry should be shown together in separate departments, instead of all jumbled up together. An undifferentiated mass of anything is meaningless and uninteresting, but directly you classify the component parts of the mass the meaning becomes clear, and interest is at once aroused. Having thus succeeded in attracting the attention of the visitor, he should be provided with further information. To each class of exhibits there should be one or more attendants to give explanations to visitors, photographs (coloured, if possible) illustrating the life and processes in connection with that industry, and a placard placed in some prominent-position, showing the number of hands employed in it, and the rate of wages paid to them. Thus wool would be accompanied by pictures of station life and appliances, placards showing statistics of growth, rates of wages paid to hands, ration scales, &c. Grain and Hour would have photographs attached, showing farms and farming operations, mills and method of transport, and bills giving the fullest information with respect to agriculture, and the life and pay of those either directly or indirectly connected with it, the conditions on which laud could be purchased, &c. Would not such a method of treatment make the exhibit of flour something more to the English farmer and agricultural labourer than a mere mass of extra-refined meal? Would it not thus become to him a living thing, speaking in distinct and unmistakable tones of a far-off land, where the conditions of life are easy, where home is reproduced, where English habits and customs prevail, and where many industries are prosecuted with success? Again, a saddler visits the building. He sees several cases of saddlery, and thus learns that saddles are manufactured in Australia. He looks up from the saddles; and finds a big placard staring him in the face, conveying the information that so many hundred people in that particular colony are engaged in saddlery at wages of from say 10 to 15 shillings. Would not this turn his thoughts powerfully to the advisability of emigrating?
The exhibits have been classified; photographs, models, and other appliances illustrating each industry, and placards giving the striking facts in connection with them are posted conspicuously in their neighbourhood. But this is but the first chapter of the lesson I wish to teach the visitor. So far the object has been to attract his attention; now that it has been engaged, we must follow it up. His mind is now in a condition to receive and digest information, which he would have shied at before; we can now safely bring to bear upon him the lecture and the pamphlet. Short graphic lectures should be delivered in the building daily, with panoramas and models to illustrate the subject; the magic lantern might also with advantage be brought into use. Pamphlets should be distributed gratuitously, giving particulars of the life of each class of settler. These lectures and pamphlets should not, as they have hitherto done, deal with colonial life in a general way. What is everybody's business is nobody's business. They should treat as far as possible of every particular class, of labour. It would not, of course, be necessary to have a separate pamphlet on each trade. There should, for instance, be one pamphlet on the life of the artisan, giving particulars of the rent he would have to pay, the kind of cottage lie would live in (illustrated by a woodcut), the wages he would get, the price of food, clothes, and articles of household use. Then at the end would come the particulars as to each trade, supplied by some competent authority. The life of the farmer, and of the agricultural labourer would be similarly treated in another pamphlet. A third would deal with the life of the miner, and a fourth treat of "Australasia as a field for Investment." Everyone would thus be able to choose the information he was in need of, instead of
Not the least valuable and interesting part of the Exhibition would be really good Government collections, illustrating the fauna, the flora, and the geology of each colony. To say nothing of the possibility of useful discoveries being made by giving European savants an opportunity of seeing these collections, Science is popular at present, and to make the Exhibition attractive we must bring all kinds of influences to bear. Upon that grandest of all aids to success, fashion, which in London at present means what the Prince and Princess of Wales do, we can safely count. H. R. H. would, one can almost say certainly, not only take the presidency of the Exhibition, but also take an active interest in the proceedings. It would soon be considered "the correct thing" to "do" the Australasian Exhibition, and, in England, where the aristocracy go the middle and lower classes follow. For the first two sections a special attraction should be provided, on the principle that there should be a hook for every fish. First, they should see a refrigerating room, with meat, &c., displayed in every state through which it passes from the time it leaves our shores until it goes into the hands of the cook. Having thus prepared their minds they should be passed on to the refreshment rooms, where for half-a-crown they should* be given an "Australasian lunch"—soup, fish, roast, entrees, game, puddings, butter, cheese, fruit, wine, should all be Australasian. Even the bread should be baked of Australasian flour. No one who could afford it would forego the pleasure of being able to say that he had lunched entirely on meats and drinks produced at the other end of the world, or being able to descant critically on the relative merits of Australian kangaroo, New Zealand frost fish, beef, wildfowl, &c. The visitors who had partaken of such a curious meal would tell everybody about the wonderful things they had eaten. They would talk, and we should be advertised. With the savour of our viands in his nostrils, and the generous juice of the Australian grape stimulating his circulation and warming his heart, the visitor would be obliged to confess that these southern lands are not wanting in the elements of civilisation, and we might reach his imagination through his epigastric regions. Nor would this be the only advantage of the luncheon. When people had drunk our wines out of curiosity, and had eaten our meats and found they were good, they would ask for them at the shops, and thus the prejudice, which our frozen food and wine trades are striving to overcome, would disappear.
At least one day in the week the Exhibition should be open free of charge, so that there should not be a working man in London who could not take his family to it. It has been objected that because free museums and picture galleries are not well patronised by the working-classes, that they would not come to see this Exhibition. But the cases do not run on all fours. An Australasian Exhibition would be a temporary novelty of a popular character, well within the understanding of the masses, and purposely made specially attractive for them. The very word museum indicates to most people (myself, I fear, amongst the number) a dry-as-dust sort of place to be carefully avoided, and picture galleries are generally also beyond the taste of the working class. This Exhibition would unquestionably be the most popular, novel, and interesting free show ever offered to the British working man. But, since we specially want to reach the agricultural labourer, this would not be sufficient. Canvassers should, therefore, he sent into the agricultural districts to tell people about the Exhibition, and to distribute to agricultural labourers excursion tickets to come up to London and back free of charge. Objection has been taken to this idea on the ground that these country visitors could not afford to pay for lodging in London. There is, however, no reason why they should have to stay a night. They need only spend one day in the Exhibition, and the travelling backwards and forwards could be done at night. To prevent fraud they should be unable to make use of the return half of their ticket, unless it had been clipped at the gate of the Exhibition. By arrangement with the railway companies over a million French working men were brought from the provinces to the Paris Exhibition free of charge for a very small sum, and £20,000 would do wonders in this direction. I venture to say, moreover, that the mere announcement that labouring men could go to London and return to their homes at the expense of the young British communities at the Antipodes would produce a great and lasting impression on the minds of the masses in the mother country.
Not the least attraction of the Exhibition to the British public will be in the novelty in the idea. The British public like pluck, and above all, pluck in their
It may be argued as regards our manufactures, that people living in England can see better things every day in England. Apart from the interest attaching to the modifications which the circumstances of Australian life have brought about in our manufactures, is there not a special source of attraction in the fact that these things were made in an out of the way half civilized country, such as the ordinary Englishman imagines this to be? It is not to him a grape from a thorn? Would it not surprise—which is the mother of interest—him to see the degree of excellence attained by many of our manufacturers? I answer from practical experience at the Paris Exhibition that it would. If I was asked once I was asked a thousand times whether such and such an article was produced in Adelaide; and though the English people who visited the Paris Exhibition belonged mostly to the educated classes, their astonishment was a perfect picture to behold.
But this Exhibition would appeal not only to the love of the fashionable and the love of the new. When all is said and done, man cannot live merely upon beer and skittles. The strongest source of attraction lies in the fact that it would have a strong practical interest to every class of the English people, from the highest to the lowest. The educated classes do not know what to do with their boys at the present moment; the farmers are finding American and Australian competition too strong to make farming pay, and are on the look-out for fresh fields and pastures new; the working man was never harder up, and agricultural labourers in particular are being driven out of England by the pressure of population. Capitalists have been taken in so often over foreign securities that they are searching for safer fields for investment. Does anyone mean to tell me that all these people will not be glad of an opportunity to learn, in an amusing manner, something about the capabilities of Australasia? If you show a starving man a photograph—which cannot lie, though it may flatter—of a cupboard full of victuals, within an easy walk, will he not take the trouble to look at the photograph? Having seen the photograph; will he not "make for" the victuals?
The ordinary International Exhibitions have doubtless got stale and flat, but that any novelty in the way of an Exhibition, however small, will attract a large number of visitors, the recent successes of the Electric and Fisheries Exhibitions clearly proves. Surely it is plain to the most ordinary understanding that an Australasian Exhibition is capable of presenting more new and interesting features than a Fisheries Exhibition.
Apart from the sources of attraction to the Exhibition, and the effect produced upon the minds of those who visit it, I would call attention to the enormous amount of information about these colonies which will be spread throughout the United Kingdom by the Press in connection with it. Anyone who glances over recent English tiles will see that every paper, from the "Times" down to the smallest provincial rag, is full not only of descriptions of the Fisheries Exhibition, but of all kinds of information about fish and fisheries which under ordinary circumstances would never have become known to the general public. And so it will be in this case. Not only descriptions of the Exhibition, but of Australasia and Australasian life will be published in every paper in Great Britain and Ireland, and in the leading continental papers. Why this advertisement alone is worth the whole cost of the Exhibition if not a soul came to look at it.
And now that I have laid my proposals before you, let me answer some of the objections which have been raised. One journal, with a singular confusion of thought, has asserted that this proposal is underlain by the same principle as that of the private-venture Exhibitions which I originated. The least reflection will, I think, show that my proposal is for an Exhibition which shall be national in the highest sense of the word as opposed to private. Individual exhibitors at this Exhibition can only seek their own profit out of the public advantages resulting from the Exhibition, and cannot make any direct profit out of it as is the case in International Exhibitions. It must be a national effort for a national purpose. Would not an Exhibition on the lines I have marked out tell the world "something new beyond what we have already told?" The last time we exhibited in England—which is obviously the only place from which we can expect to get any large amount of capital or population—was in
Nor after all is the Exhibition solely in our own interest. Is it not important to the mother country that her surplus population should be directed to British rather than to American soil, that her capital should be invested within the limits of the Empire, and that the ties between the mother country and this her Australasian daughter should be drawn closer together? It seems to me that these are strong reasons for anticipating the hearty support of our fellow-countrymen in England, and for awakening their enthusiasm.
I will now ask those of you who agree with me as to the efficiency of such an Exhibition, to enter into the mode of carrying it out, and the cost.
The first step obviously must be for the Governments of the colonies concerned to agree to appoint conjointly a Federal or General Commission to perform the same duties with regard to this Exhibition as are generally performed by the Commission of the nation which holds an International Exhibition. These duties may roughly be defined as follows:—To enter into communication with the participating colonies, to provide a building in which to hold the Exhibition, and to issue and carry out regulations for its management. Seeing that the work of this general Commission would be almost entirely in London, it might reasonably be composed of the Agents-General, a few prominent Anglo-Australasians and Englishmen — such as the Duke of Manchester —interested in the colonies. H.K.H. the Prince of Wales should be asked to be President, and to prevent intercolonial jealousies, and ensure influence, experience, and popularity in the executive management, I would suggest that Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen, the Director of the South Kensington Museum, and late British Executive Commissioner at Paris, be asked to take the position of Commissioner-General. The expenditure of the General Commission should be defrayed by the participating colonies pro rata to population, and, of course, each colony would have its own Commissioner, just as is done for any International Exhibition in a foreign country. As something has been said about the difficulty of federal action in the matter, I
Where is the Exhibition to be held? Here two courses present themselves. The cheaper is to rent 600,000 square feet, which I calculate to be the utmost space we could fill, in the Crystal or Alexandra Palace. The better would be to obtain permission from the Imperial Government to erect a temporary structure in the Horticultural Gardens at South Kensington, where the Fisheries Exhibition is now being held. The cost of the former plan I guess to amount to about, £18,000, that of the latter I estimate at £60,000, the contract being for use and waste only. It will be seen that this latter estimate is reasonable when I recall to your mind that the cost of the temporary portion of the Melbourne Exhibition buildings, covering an area slightly larger than 600,000 square feet, was £56,000. Take oft £16,000 for cheaper labour and materials, and add £20,000 for ornamental purposes, and you arrive at £60,000 as the cost of a building of the same size sufficiently ornamental not to disgrace the colonies.
But how do I arrive at my 600,000 square feet? Thus:—The Victorian Court at the Melbourne Exhibition occupied 178,000 square feet, New South Wales, 30,000; New Zealand, 12,000; South Australia and Queensland, 10,000 apiece. On the basis that the productions of each colony were represented as fully as those of Victoria were on that occasion, I calculate that the courts of each colony at the London Exhibition might reach the following dimensions:—Victoria, i50,000; New Zealand, 100,000; New South Wales and South Australia, 80,000 apiece; Queensland, 60,000; Tasmania, 30,000; Western Australia and Fiji, 10,000 apiece; New Guinea, New Hebrides, and other islands, 10,000 between them; refreshment and lecture rooms, 70,000—making in all, 600,000 square feet. The expenditure of each colony to fill the above areas I roughly estimate as follows:—Victoria, £30,000; New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, and New Zealand, £20,000 apiece; Tasmania, £15,000; Western Australia and Fiji, £8,000 apiece. It must be understood, however, that these are only rough estimates, as the amount which each colony would spend on its own representation would be a matter entirely for its own consideration.
The expenses of the General Commission can, however, be calculated more easily. The following table shows alongside of my estimate the amounts expended for the same purpose, as shown on the balance-sheets of the London International of
To recoup this outlay there would be the admissions at the gates, which might amount to anything between £50,000 and £150,000, according to the success of the Exhibition. Nor do I think that £100,000 can be considered an unreasonable mean estimate when you note that the Fisheries' Exhibition took £20,000 in admissions the first week after it was opened, and that the Electric Exhibition is reported to have taken £130,000. Should anyone think that the free opening of the buildings on Saturdays would affect the receipts at the gates on paying days. 1 would point out that in England classes do not mix as they do here, and that at nearly all public institutions there are two sets of days—2s. 6d. and Is. days—attracting two different classes of visitors.
There is no Exhibition announced in any part of the world for the year
The New Zealand Government, to whom 1 submitted my proposal, have announced their intention of asking the Australasian Governments to co-operate with them in establishing a permanent Australasian Exhibition. But this seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. A permanent Exhibition would probably be the outcome of a temporary one, just as the South Kensington Museum was the outcome of the London International, and if a free lease of a central site could be got it might be well to build the nucleus of the temporary Exhibition of stone. But before doing this it would be necessary for the Australasian Parliaments to make up their minds to an annually recurring expenditure for maintenance, and a much larger original outlay than a temporary Exhibition would involve. Then, the essence of success in these matters is to "make a splash," and this could far more easily be done for a temporary Exhibition than for a permanent one, which people could easily go to see at any time. Again, a permanent Exhibition could be little more than a collection of raw products, much smaller, less attractive, less representative, than a combined display of our industries and resources. A permanent Exhibition would, I believe, be useful, but a temporary one seems to me to be likely to be more effective in itself, and the best foundation stone for a permanent one.
In conclusion, let me ask you to bear in mind that the effects of the Exhibition would not be confined to those who visited it; that the information about Australasia spread abroad by the Press and through the reports of visitors would reach to the uttermost cornel's of the United Kingdom; that there would hardly be a soul from John O'Groat's to Land's End who would not gain some crumbs of new knowledge about these communities. It is the march of the troops through the children's playground which makes the recruits of ten years afterwards. Who can doubt but that the bread thus cast upon the waters would bear fruit after many days, and in immigrants who, at the time of the Exhibition perchance, learnt no more about it than the mere fact that it was being held?
Thanking those who have taken the trouble to read this proposal,
Gibbs, Shallard, and Co.,
Printers, Publishers, Stationers, Lithographers, Pitt Street, Sydney.
The name of the Company subsequent to registration was changed with the sanction of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies in accordance with the provisions of the Companies' Act to "The New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company Limited"
1. The name of the Company is "The East Coast Native Land and Settlement Company (Limited)."*
2. The Registered Office of the Company will be situated in the North Island of New Zealand at Gisborne in the Provincial District of Auckland.
3. The objects for which the Company is established are:
4. The liability of the Shareholders is limited.
5. The capital of the Company is Five Hundred Thousand pounds (£500,000) divided into One Hundred Thousand (100,000) Shares of Five Pounds (£5) each with power to accept Land from Aboriginal Owners thereof at prices agreed on or to be agreed on and to issue paid-up Shares to such owners to the extent of the agreed on price of the Land which they may convey to the Company and with power to increase or to reduce Capital by special resolution.
We the several persons whose names and addresses are subscribed are desirous of being formed into a Company in pursuance of this Memorandum of Association And we respectively agree to take the number of Shares in the Capital of the Company set opposite our respective names.
1. The Articles of Table B of the "Joint Stock Companies' Act
2. In the interpretation of these presents the following words and expressions shall have the following meanings unless excluded by the subject of context:—
" " " "
The "Company" means "The New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company, Limited."Month" means a calendar month.Capital" means the capital for the time being of the Company."Shares" means the Shares in which the Capital is from time to time divided.Shareholders" means the holders from time to time of the shares of the Company.Office" means the Registered Office of the Company."Aboriginal Native" means an Aboriginal Native within the meaning of the Native Lands Acts.
Words importing the singular number only include the plural number words importing the plural number only include the singular number words importing the masculine gen-gender only include the feminine gender.
3. The Capital of the Company is £500,000 in One hundred thousand Shares of £5 each.
4. The issue and allotment of Shares shall be made to such persons and on such terms and conditions as the Board of Directors may think fit Shares may be issued and allotted either as paid up in full or as partly paid up by way of payment for lands and hereditaments live and dead stock and personal property from time to time or at any time purchased or contracted for by or on behalf of the Company.
5. The Directors may require that Shares held by Aboriginal Natives shall in no case be transferable except (1) With the consent of the Native Committee with whom the Native holder is connected (2) With the consent and approval of the Directors of the Company Every Share Certificate for any such Shares shall be endorsed accordingly.
6. The Directors may from time to time make Calls upon Shareholders in respect of all monies unpaid on their Shares and each Shareholder shall be liable to pay the amount of calls so made to the persons and at the times and places appointed by the Directors Provided that calls shall not exceed 5s. per Share and shall not be made in any case at intervals of less than three months.
7. A Call shall be deemed to have been made at any time when the resolution authorising such Call was passed.
8. If before or on the day appointed for payment any Shareholder does not pay the amount of any Call to which he is liable then such Shareholder shall be liable to pay interest for the same at the rate of Ten pounds per cent, per annum from the day appointed for payment thereof to the time of actual payment.
9. On the trial or hearing of any action or suit which may be brought by the Company against any Shareholder to recover any debt due for any Call it shall be sufficient to prove that the name of the Defendant is on the Register of Shareholders of the Company as a holder of the number of Shares in respect of which such debt accrued and that notice of such Call was duly given to the Defendant in pursuance of these Articles and that such Call was not paid And it shall not be necessary to prove the appointment of the Directors who made such Call nor that a quorum of Directors were present at the Board at which such Call was made nor that the meeting at which such Call was made was duly convened or constituted nor any other matter whatsoever.
10. The Company may if they think fit receive from any of the Shareholders willing to advance the same all or any part of the monies due upon the respective Shares beyond the sums actually called for and upon the monies so paid in advance or so much thereof as from time to time exceeds the amount of Calls then made upon the Shares in respect of which such advance has been made the Company may pay interest at such rate as the Shareholder paying such sum or sums in advance and the Directors may agree upon.
11. The instrument of Transfer of any Share in the Company shall be executed by both the Transferor and the Transferee and the Transferor shall be deemed to remain the holder of such Shares until the name of the Transferee is entered in the proper Register in respect thereof.
12. Shares may be transferred in the following form or to the like effect:—
I _____ of _____ in consideration of _____ paid to me by _____ of _____ do hereby transfer to the said _____ Shares numbered _____ in "The New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company (Limited) " standing in my name in the books of the said Company to hold the same unto the said _____ his Executors Administrators and Assigns subject to the several conditions on which I hold the same at the time of the execution hereof And I the said _____ do hereby agree to take the said Shares subject to the conditions aforesaid. As witness our hands this _____ day of _____ 188
The Directors may require that no transfer of Shares held by any Aboriginal Native owner shall be valid until the same has been consented to by the Native Committee with whom such Aboriginal Native owner is connected and further until the Directors for the time being have consented in writing to any such transfer And every Share Certificate or Scrip for Shares issued to any such Aboriginal owner shall be indorsed as Not Transferable except with such consent.
13. The Company may decline to Register any Transfer of Shares made by a Shareholder who is indebted to them or unless the Transferee be approved by the Board.
14. The Transfer Book shall be closed during the thirty days immediately preceding the Ordinary Annual Meeting in each year.
15. Upon every Transfer of Shares the sum of Two shillings and sixpence shall be payable to the Company.
16. The executors or administrators of a deceased Shareholder shall be the only persons recognised by the Company as having any title to his Share.
17. Any person becoming entitled to a Share in consequence of the death bankruptcy or insolvency of any Shareholder or in consequence of the marriage of any female Shareholder or in any other way than by transfer may be registered as a Shareholder upon such evidence being produced as may from time to time be required by the Directors.
18. Any person who has become entitled to a Share in any way other than by Transfer may with the consent of the Directors instead of being registered himself elect to have some person to be named by him registered as a holder of such Share.
19. The person so becoming entitled shall testify such election by executing to his nominee a deed of transfer of such Share.
20. The deed of transfer shall be presented to the Directors accompanied with such evidence as they may require to prove the title of the Transferor and thereupon the Directors shall register the Transferee as a shareholder.
21. If any Shareholder fails to pay any Call due on the appointed day the Directors may at any time thereafter during such time as the Call remains unpaid serve a notice upon him requiring him to pay such Call together with any interest that may have accrued by reason of such non-payment.
22. The notice shall name a further day and a place or places being a place or places at which Calls of the Company are usually made payable on and at which such Call is to be paid It shall also state that in the event of non-payment at the time and place appointed the Shares in respect of which such Call was made shall be liable to be forfeited.
23. If the requisitions of such notice as aforesaid are not complied with any share in respect of which such notice has been given may be forfeited by a resolution of the Directors to that effect Provided that no Share shall be forfeited unless a Call due in respect thereof shall be at least three months in arrear.
24. Any Share so forfeited shall be deemed to be the property of the Company and may be disposed of in such manner as the Directors think fit. A Certificate in writing under the hands of two of the Directors and countersigned by the Chairman that a Share has been duly forfeited in pursuance of these presents and stating the time when it was forfeited shall be conclusive evidence of the fact therein stated as against all persons who would have been entitled to the Share but for such forfeiture and such Certificate and the receipt of the Company of the price of such Share shall constitute a good title to such Share.
25. A Shareholder whose Shares have been forfeited shall notwithstanding be liable to pay to the Company all Calls and Interest thereon owing upon the said Shares at the time of the forfeiture but the Directors may if they think proper pay back to any such Shareholder such portion of the proceeds realised upon the sale of such Shares as they see proper.
26. The Company may convert any Paid-up Shares into Stock.
27. When any Shares have been converted into Stock the several holders of such Stock may thence-forth transfer their respective interests therein or any part of such interests.
28. The several holders of Stock shall be entitled to participate in the Dividends and Profits of the Company according to the amount of their respective
29. The Company in an Extraordinary Meeting convened for that purpose may from time to time by special resolution increase its Capital by the creation of new Shares of such description and amount as may be deemed expedient.
30. Such Extraordinary Meeting may determine the conditions on which such increase shall be made the number and amount of the shares into which such increased Capital shall be divided and the time mode and terms at and according to which such last mentioned Shares shall be issued and how the Premium if any on such Shares shall be applied And in particular such Shares may be issued with a preferential or qualified right to Dividends and in the distribution of Assets of the Company and with a special or without any right of voting.
31. Any Capital raised by the creation of new Shares shall be considered as part of the original Capital and shall be subject to the same provisions in all respects whether with reference to the payment of Calls or the forfeiture of Shares on non-payment of Calls or otherwise as if it had been part of the original Capital.
32. The Directors may from time to time at their discretion borrow from any of the Directors Share-holders or other persons any sum or sums of money for the purposes of the Company but so that the monies at any one time owing shall not exceed the nominal amount of the Capital.
33. The Directors may raise or secure the repayment of such money in such manner and upon such terms and conditions in all respects as they think fit and in particular by making drawing accepting or endorsing on behalf of the Company any Promissory Notes or Bills of Exchange or by Mortgage or charge of all or any part of the property of the Company and of its uncalled Capital for the time being.
34. The Board of Directors may also from time to time issue debentures for such amounts and payable at such times and in such manner and at such rates of interest and generally upon such terms and with such security as the Board of Directors may from time to time think fit And in like manner the Board of Directors may from time to time issue Debenture Stock either redeemable or irredeemable upon such terms and with such security as the Board of Directors may from time to time think fit Such Debentures and Debenture Stock respectively may be made payable to bearer or otherwise as the Board of Directors may direct.
35. The Debentures and Debenture Stock may be designated "Mortgage Debentures" or "Mortgage Debenture Stock" and may be secured by a conveyance and assignment of the lands tenements and hereditaments and other the real and personal property for the time being of the Company or of any part or parts thereof including the unpaid capital for the time being of the Company to the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Limited or to
36. Such Mortgage Debentures or Mortgage Debenture Stock may be issued in New Zealand or in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland by the Directors or by such Agents as the Board of Directors may appoint.
37. Any Debentures Bonds or other Securities may be issued at a discount premium or otherwise.
38. The Directors shall cause a proper Register to be kept of all Mortgages and Charges especially affecting the property of the Company or any part thereof
39. The first Ordinary Meeting of the Share-holders shall be held at such time not being more than twelve months after the incorporation of the Company and in such place in Gisborne as the directors may determine.
40. Subsequent Ordinary Meetings shall be held at such time and place as may be prescribed by the Company in General Meetings and if no other time and place is prescribed an Ordinary Meeting shall be held on the first Monday in September in every year at such place in the City of Auckland as may be determined by the Directors.
41. The Directors may whenever they think fit and they shall upon requisition made in writing by any number of Shareholders holding in the aggregate
42. Upon receipt of such requisition the Directors shall forthwith proceed to convene a meeting If they do not proceed to convene the same within twenty one days from the date of the requisition the re-quisitionists or any other Shareholders holding the required number of Shares may themselves convene a meeting.
43. A notice specifying the place time of meeting and the purpose for which any Extraordinary Meeting is to be held shall be transmitted by post to each Shareholder twenty-eight clear days at least before the day of meeting And no other business than that specified in the notice shall be transacted at such meeting.
44. Twenty-eight clear days' notice shall be given of all Ordinary Meetings and that by advertisement or in such other manner as may be prescribed by the Company.
45. No business shall be transacted at any Ordinary Meeting except the declaration of a Dividend unless a quorum of Shareholders is present at the commencement of such business and such quorum shall consist of not less than ten Shareholders personally present.
46. If within one hour from the time appointed for the meeting a quorum is not present the meeting if convened upon the requisition of Shareholders shall be dissolved In any other case it shall stand adjourned to the same day in the next week at the same time and place and if at such adjourned meeting a quorum is not present it shall be adjourned sine die.
47. The Chairman (if any) of the Board of Directors shall preside as Chairman at every General Meeting of the Company.
48. If there is no such Chairman or if at any General Meeting he is not present within fifteen minutes after the time appointed for holding the meeting the Shareholders present shall choose some one of their number to be the Chairman of the meeting.
49. The Chairman may with the consent of any General Meeting adjourn the same from time to time and from place to place but no business shall be transacted at any adjourned meeting other than the business left unfinished at the meeting from which the adjournment took place.
50. At any General Meeting unless a poll is demanded by at least Five Shareholders a declaration by the Chairman that a resolution has been carried and an entry to that effect in the book of the proceedings of the Company shall be sufficient evidence of the facts without proof of the number or proportion of the votes recorded in favour of or against the resolution.
51. If a poll is demanded by Five or more Share-holders it shall be taken in such manner as the Chairman directs and the result of such poll shall be deemed to be the resolution of the Company In the case of an equality of votes at any General Meeting the Chairman shall be entitled to a second or casting vote.
52. Every Shareholder shall have one vote for every Share up to five he shall have an additional vote for every complete five Shares beyond the first five up to one hundred and an additional vote for every complete ten Shares beyond the first one hundred Shares.
53. If any Shareholder is a lunatic or an idiot he may vote by his Committee or other legal Curator
and if any Shareholder is a minor he may vote by his Guardian or any one of his Guardians if more than one.
54. If two or more persons are jointly entitled to a Share or Shares the Shareholder whose name stands first in the Register of Shareholders as one of the holders of such Share or Shares and no other shall if he be present be entitled to vote in respect of the same and if such person shall not be present then the person jointly entitled with him to the said Share or Shares and whose name shall stand next in the said Register as one of the holders of such Share or Shares and no other shall if he be present be entitled to vote in respect of the same and if there be more than two persons jointly entitled to the said Share or Shares so on in like order.
55. No Shareholder shall be entitled to vote at any General Meeting unless all Calls due from him have been paid.
56. Votes in respect of Shares may be given either personally or by proxy.
57. The instrument appointing a Proxy shall be in writing or in print and under the hand of the Appointor or if such Appointor is a Corporation under the Common Seal and duly attested by a witness No person shall be appointed a Proxy who is not a Shareholder of the Company.
58. The instrument appointing a Proxy shall be deposited at the registered office of the Company not less than 24 hours before the time for holding the meeting at which the person named in such instrument proposed to vote but no instrument appointing a Proxy shall be valid after the expiration of three months from the date of its execution unless in relation to an adjourned meeting.
59. Any instrument appointing a Proxy may be in the following form which may be altered as found convenient
I _____ of _____ being a Shareholder of " The New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company, Limited," and entitled to _____ Votes [or Vote] hereby appoint _____ as my proxy to vote for me on my behalf at the [Ordinary or Extraordinary as the case may be] Meeting of the Company to be held on the _____ day of _____ [or at any General Meeting of the Company that may be held within three months from the date hereof]
As witness my hand this _____ day of _____ 188
Signed by the said in the presence of
Provided always that if any Shareholder shall have given or shall hereafter give to any other Shareholder a general Power of Attorney conferring upon such Shareholder a general power to appear for him and vote in his name at all meetings of this Company or of Companies in which he may be a Shareholder or shall in any other shape or way give to such Shareholder authority to act for him which but for the foregoing provision as to Proxies would be legally sufficient authority for such purpose then and in such case such Shareholder on whom such authority shall have been conferred shall on producing for inspection such Power of Attorney or a duly certified copy thereof at the office of the Company at least one day before the meeting at which he desires to act under the same and if such be required on production of the original of such power or on proof that the same is deposited at any Deeds or Land Registry office within the Colony and so long as such power or authority is not in writing expressly revoked be entitled to attend such General Meetings of this Company and act and vote in the name and on behalf of the Shareholder conferring such authority upon him.
60. The number of Directors shall be not less than ten nor more than twenty of whom at least one-
61. From and after the confirmation of this Rule by an Extraordinary Meeting of Shareholders the present Directors shall cease to be Directors (except such as may be re-appointed) and the following shall be Directors of the Company viz. John Logan Campbell Hon. James Williamson M.L.C. Josiah Clifton Firth Hon. Daniel Pollen M.L.C. James McCosh Clark Thomas Russell C.M.G. Seymour Thorne George M.H.R. John Blair Whyte M.H.R Allan McDonald M.H.R. Thomas Morrin C. A. deLautour M.H.R. J. W. Matthews Patrick Comiskey Wi Pere J. Buchanan M.H.R. Robert H. Rhodes J. Barraclough.
62. The Directors shall receive such remuneration as may be sanctioned at a General Meeting and it shall be divided in such manner as the Directors may think fit.
63. The Company from time to time may by the resolution of a General Meeting increase and having increased diminish the remuneration of Directors provided that such remuneration shall never without the unanimous consent of the Board of Directors be less than the remuneration to be sanctioned as hereinbefore provided.
64. There shall be no meeting of Directors unless at least Three European Directors are present.
65. The continuing Directors or Director may act notwithstanding any vacancy in the Directory.
66. The Share qualification of an European Director shall consist in his being the registered holder of
67. No Director shall be disqualified to act as such by reason of his being a Managing Director or Agent of the Company or being otherwise interested in the operations or business thereof.
68. Every Director shall vacate his office on ceasing to be the registered holder of his qualifying number of Shares or becoming bankrupt or suspending payment or compounding with his creditors or being found lunatic or being of unsound mind or by resignation of his office but until an entry of such vacating of office shall be made upon the book of proceedings or minutes of the Board his acts as a Director shall be valid and effectual.
69. At the first Ordinary Meeting of the Company all the Directors shall retire from office and the Shareholders shall thereupon elect permanent Directors.
70. At each Annual General Meeting after the first one-fifth of the Directors for the time being or if their number is not a multiple of five then the next greater number shall retire from office but shall be eligible for re-election the retiring Directors being fixed by ballot unless the Directors agree among themselves until the whole have so retired and there-after by seniority of service.
71. The Company at the General Meeting at which any Directors retire in manner aforesaid shall at the meeting fill up the vacant offices by electing a like number of persons.
72. If at any meeting at which any Election of Directors ought to take place no such Election is made the meeting shall stand adjourned till the next day (unless the next day be a Sunday or a public or general holiday in which case such meeting shall
73. The Company in General Meeting may remove any Director before the expiration of his period of office and may appoint another person in his stead .The person so appointed shall hold office during such time only as the Director in whose place he is appointed would have held the same if he had not been removed Any occasional vacancy, in the Board shall be filled up by the remaining members of the Board by the appointment of any duly qualified Shareholder who shall in all respects stand in the place of his predecessor till the next Ordinary Meeting of the Company.
74. The Directors may meet together for the despatch of business adjourn and otherwise regulate their meetings as they think fit Questions arising at any meeting shall be decided by a majority of votes The Chairman shall have a deliberative vote only but in case at any meeting there be only three Directors present including the Chairman and the Chairman disagrees with the other two Directors upon any question that question may if the Chairman see fit be postponed to the next Ordinary Meeting but no longer A Director may at any time summons a meeting of the Directors.
75. The Directors may elect a Chairman of their meetings and determine the period for which he is to hold office but if no such Chairman is elected or if at any meeting the Chairman is not present at the time appointed for holding the same the Directors present shall choose one of their number to be Chairman of such meeting.
76. All acts done by any meeting of the Directors or of a Committee of Directors or by any person acting as a Director shall notwithstanding that it be afterwards discovered that there is some defect in the appointment of any such Directors or persons acting as aforesaid or that they or any of them were disqualified be as valid as if every such person had been duly appointed and was qualified to be a Director.
77. The Directors may delegate any of their powers to Committees consisting of not less than Three Directors as they shall think fit Any Committee so formed shall in the exercise of the powers so delegated conform to any regulations that may be imposed on them by the Directors.
78. A Committee may elect a Chairman of their meetings. If no such Chairman is elected or if he is not present at the time appointed for holding any meeting the members present shall choose one of their number to be Chairman of such meeting.
79. A Committee may meet and adjourn as they think proper Questions at any meeting shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and in case of an equal division of votes the Chairman shall have a casting vote.
80. The Directors shall cause minutes to be made in books provided for the purpose
And such minutes as aforesaid signed by any person purporting to be Chairman of any ensuing meeting of Directors or Committee of Directors at which such minutes shall have been read and confirmed shall be receivable in evidence without further proof.
81. The business of the Company shall be managed by the Directors who may exercise all such powers of the Company as are not by the "Joint Stock Companies' Act
82. Subject to but without restraining the generality of the last preceding regulation the Directors shall have power to do all acts and things which they may consider proper or advantageous for accomplishing the objects and carrying on the business of the Company And in particular they shall have power to do the following things:—
ipso facto entitle and authorise the Directors so appointed to exercise all the powers and authorities which the Ordinary Directors themselves may or might exercise under these Articles in so far and to such extent as necessary or required in the carrying out of any of the objects of the Company which the Directors in New Zealand have resolved shall be undertaken and in the promotion and management of such business within Great Britain and Ireland.
83. Directors Managers and other Officers of the Company shall be indemnified by the Company against all losses and expenses incurred by them in or about the discharge of their duties except such as shall happen from their own wilful act neglect or default No Director shall be responsible for any other Director or for any Officer Clerk or Servant of the Company or for any loss or expense happening to the Company by the insufficiency or deficiency of value of or title to any property or security acquired
84. The Directors may declare a dividend to be paid to the Shareholders in proportion to the number of Shares held by each and to the amount paid up upon such Shares.
85. No Dividend shall be payable except out of the profits arising from the business of the Company.
86. The Directors may deduct from the Dividends payable to any Shareholder all such sums of money as may be due from him to the Company on account of Calls or otherwise.
87. Notice of any Dividends that may have been declared shall be given to each Shareholder.
88. No Dividend shall bear interest as against the Company.
89. The declaration of the Directors as to the amount of the net profits of the Company shall be conclusive.
90. Every Dividend shall be paid by cheques on the bankers which shall be delivered or sent by the Secretary to the Shareholders.
91. In case two or more persons are registered as the joint holders of any Share or Stock any one of such persons may give effectual receipts for all Dividends and payments on account of Dividends in respect of such Share or Stock Provided that in case of payments to Maori Committees of any Dividends the receipt of the Chairman of such Committees shall be sufficient.
92. The Directors shall cause true accounts to be kept of the sums of money received and expended by the Company and the matters in respect of which such Receipts and Expenditure take place and of the Assets Credits and Liabilities of the Company.
93. The Books of Account shall be kept at the Registered Office of the Company or at such other place or places as the Directors think fit.
94. The Directors shall from time to time determine whether and to what extent and at what times and places and under what conditions or regulations the Accounts and Books of the Company or any of them shall be open to the inspection of the Shareholders and no Shareholders shall have any right of inspecting any Account or Book or Document of the Company except as conferred by statute or authorised by the Directors or by a resolution of the Company in General Meeting.
95. At the Ordinary Meeting in every year the Directors shall lay before the Company a statement of the income and expenditure and a duly audited Balance-sheet containing a summary of the property and liabilities of the Company made up to a date not more than three months before the meeting from the time when the last preceding statement and balance-sheet were made or in the case of first statement and balance-sheet from the incorporation of the Company.
96. Every such statement shall be accompanied by a report of the Directors as to the state and condition of the Company and as to the amount which they recommend to be paid out of the profits by way of dividend or bonus to the Shareholders and the amount if any which they propose to carry to the Reserve Fund according to the provisions in that behalf hereinbefore contained.
course of the post and in proving such service it shall be sufficient to prove that the letter containing the notice was properly addressed and put into the post-office.
The increasing importance of the Land Question, and the widespread interest with which it is regarded in this and the neighbouring colonies, has induced a number of the supporters of the views advocated by Mr. James Mirams, M.L.A., to republish in full the admirable speech recently delivered by that gentleman on the motion for the second reading of the Land Acts Amendment and Continuation Bill. This measure is now before the country, and no more opportune time could be presented for submitting the immense array of facts contained in the speech in question for the consideration of the large section of the community interested in an early and correct solution of the difficult problem raised in connection with the disposal of the Crown lands of Victoria. The speech, which is distinguished by its clearness and lucidity, contains an impartial review of the history of land legislation in this colony, and points out most unmistakably the errors and defects of the existing system. The remedy which Mr. Mirams commends for immediate adoption is one that has many strong advocates in this and the other Australasian colonies, in all of which the Land Question has, for many years, proved a fruitful source of controversy. The adoption of a system of State leasing would, at least, prevent the perpetration of fresh blunders, and avoid the perpetuation of those which have been committed in the past. Of the speech itself the Age says:—"It would be difficult to speak too highly of the valuable contribution made to the leasing question by the hon. member for Collingwood, Mr. Mirams, in a speech which exhibited some of the best qualities which distinguish him—industry, fair dealing, lucidity of statement, considerable powers of generalisation, and a keen sense of the weakness of his opponents' arguments."
The compiler of the speech is largely indebted to the admirable report which appeared in Hansard.
Mr. "It must not be forgotten that our soil is exceptionally rich, especially for wheat-growing, and that our climate is so favourable as to have the effect of causing many persons from the other colonies to settle and make their homes here."Mirams.—Mr. Speaker, at all times it is a somewhat difficult matter to do justice to a large question of this kind, but it is additionally difficult in the circumstances under which I am called upon to address the House to-night, when there is such an evident indisposition on the part of honourable members to enter into the discussion at all, being desirous of taking up business which they consider to be of more immediate importance. I am not responsible for that, however. I cannot, in justice to the views which I hold on this very important question, refrain from addressing myself to it, even although in doing so I may run counter to the wishes of a large number of honourable members. I desire, first of all, to address myself to the speech made by the Minister of Lands when he introduced this measure some five months since. On that occasion the honourable gentleman supplied the House with a table of statistics. There is no doubt that the paper which he supplied us with was a very voluminous one except as regarding the particular aspect of the question which we are called upon to discuss. A large portion of the information which I think the country had a right to look for was not forthcoming, and those of us who had to address the House on the particular aspect of the question to which it related, and who are opposed to the view which the honourable gentleman holds as to the way in which the remaining portion of the public estate ought to be dealt with, have had to justify ourselves and our position by means of information gathered from all kinds of sources, instead of being supplied with it in an authoritative form by the Lands Department. I refer more especially to the fact that we have been supplied with no official statement as to the amount of land which has been selected under the various Land Acts that have been in operation for many years past, and which has passed out of the hands of those who originally held it. That, in my opinion, is one of the most important matters which the House should have been called upon to deal with. I am quite sure that no honourable member can attempt to properly deal with the question until he is in possession of full and correct particulars as to the methods in which the land has been disposed of, and of the results of those methods; and no honourable member can attempt to deal successfully with the land in the future without obtaining that information. The Minister of Lands supplied us with a considerable number of figures which have very little to do with the questions at issue between the various parties in the House and in the country as to the manner of dealing with the public estate in the future. The first passage in the speech of the honourable gentleman to which I shall refer is the following:—
I may here mention that the foregoing statement supplies incidentally one of the best answers to a frequent argument used against the leasing principle, namely, that our settlers are sure to leave us unless we can offer some very peculiar attractions in the mode of our land legislation. The Minister of Lands, having made the statement which I have read, ought to have given us some facts to bear it out. If our climate and our soil are exceptionally good for the growth of cereals, especially wheat, the honourable gentleman ought at least to have proved his statement, and he ought further to have proved that the growth of wheat has been encouraged by the Land Acts of the past, and more particularly by the present one—that of
Mr. Francis.—You include the maize harvests of New South Wales and Queensland?
Mr. "Under our system of selection, notwithstanding all that has been said against it, Victoria has become the greatest wheat-producing colony in Australia. During Mirams.—Of course I do, but that makes no difference so far as my argument is concerned. If I leave out the maize harvests of the north-eastern colonies, I might as well omit the barley harvests of Victoria. The Minister of Lands bases his argument on the superior quality of the soil and climate of this colony for the growth of wheat, and I want to point out that, if we disregard all other crops, some of which are exceptional in particular colonies, and confine ourselves to the illustration which the honourable gentleman himself has taken, namely wheat, there is only one colony which is worse off than ours. So then
Of course, in using the term "our land law," he is referring to the law which has been in existence since "But this is no proof of successful settlement."Argus. After the Minister of Lands made his speech on the second reading of this Bill last session—the House will remember that the honourable gentleman has given us two second-reading speeches on the Bill—the Argus contained a leading article, in which, speaking of the large totals of yields of grain which had been given by the Minister, it said—
Why? Because every one knows that one of the principal conditions under which selectors take up their land is the condition of carrying out so much cultivation. Whether they intend to hold the land genuinely, or have merely taken it up speculatively for the purpose of selling it at the end of three years, they must at all events perform a certain amount of cultivation, and consequently the gross result is necessarily large. As the "While the selectors are engaged in fulfilling the conditions of their licences and leases, which prescribe cultivation to a certain extent, and while the land they till retains some of the fertility of virgin soil, we may be sure that the production of wheat and other grains will be large. The real results of our agrarian experiments will not be known until most of the selectors' titles have matured, and they are free to do what they please with their holdings."Argus said—
That will be the real test. The honourable member for Creswick (Mr.
bonâ fide by the people who took it up in the first instance, and who professedly took it up for the purpose of cultivating it. Upon that point the country has been supplied with no authoritative information at all, and, in the absence of that information, honourable members have to make calculations for themselves. The honourable member for Creswick has arrived at the result which I have mentioned by calculating according to one process, and, as I shall presently show, I, by calculating by a totally different process, have arrived at a result remarkably close to that of the honourable member for Creswick. But even if the amount of grain mentioned by the Minister of Lands were a criterion of successful settlement, the honourable gentleman would still have to make good another point before he would be in a position to base an argument upon it for the House agreeing to extend the present system. He would have to show that, before the passing of the Land Act of
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—The effect of the Land Acts has been to put the people on the land instead of sheep.
Mr. Mirams.—We will come to that directly. If the honourable gentleman can prove that the Land Act has put the people on the land, he will have more trouble in proving that it has kept them there. The Land Act was not passed merely to put people on the land, but to keep them there, and the honourable member for Creswick last night clearly showed that 50,000 out of the 80,000 selectors who took up land under the various Acts are nowhere to be found on the land. Returning, however, to the subject I was discussing, I find that the total yield
Mr. McLean.—Because the selectors have to cultivate land which is unfit for cultivation.
Mr. Mirams.—I fail to see the compulsion. No one compelled them to take up the land if it was not fit for cultivation.
Mr. McLean.—They wanted it for other purposes.
Mr. Mirams.—They wanted it to get rid of it. That is just what I say. A large number took up land, and merely went through the form of cultivating a portion of it, in order to comply with the conditions of the Land Act, so that they might then pass the land on to someone else who would buy it, and then they went with the money they so obtained to some of the other colonies.
Mr. McLean.—I have seen land——
Mr. Mirams.—What the honourable member has seen in one particular instance is nothing. I am dealing with the whole net result of the twelve years' land transactions of the colony as set down in the public records. Exceptional cases do not affect the average, which is what I am dealing with. If the land is exceptionally bad in some cases, it is exceptionally good in other cases. Then what is the result as regards root crops? In bonâ fide settlers who intended to remain on the soil. If it were genuine, it strikes me that the quantity of land under root crops would not have decreased during the twelve years, in view of the larger area under cultivation, but would at least have increased side by side with the increase in the growth of grain. Is it not the fact that the readiest and least expensive way in which that portion of the selectors who take up land for speculative purposes can comply with the conditions of the Land Act is by putting in a crop of wheat? I believe it is, and I think that circumstance accounts for the fact that root crops have not been grown so extensively as they formerly were. Whether that be so or not, the fact remains that there were 3735 acres less under root crops in
Mr. Connor.—A large number of vineyards were destroyed in
Mr. Mirams.—But surely the colony does not depend for the production of grapes on one district alone. Every one who professes to know tells us that this colony is wonderfully adapted for the cultivation of grapes and the manufacture of wine—and the result of the Exhibition at Bordeaux proves the truth of the statement—and surely the fact that a few acres were destroyed at Geelong should not diminish the returns of the whole colony for twelve years. If this colony is adapted for grape growing, as every one says it is, and we had real bonâ fide settlers, who wanted to make the best of their land, the number of acres under vines would have gone on increasing at such a rate during the twelve years that the mere occurrence of one bad season in one district in the colony would not render the yield in
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—The result of subdivision.
Mr. Mirams.—There we have another quibble. The honourable gentleman asserted that the Land Act has been a great success, and based his assertion upon certain figures. When I come to deal with those figures he attempts to lessen the force they give to my argument by what I must call a parcel of miserable quibbles, which have no force when properly investigated. He first takes a fact, or an alleged fact, and when he is bowled over he attempts to get away by some side-wind or excuse. He stated distinctly, only a few minutes ago, that the Land Act had settled people on the land, and driven the sheep off.
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—I said the Land Acts had settled people on the land instead of sheep—referring to the squatters' sheep.
Mr. Mirams.—What does the honourable gentleman mean? I want him to explain, if he can, to the House and the country how it comes, if the sheep have been driven off to make room for selectors, that there were 436,662 more sheep in Victoria in
Mr. Connor.—By improving the land.
Mr. "Our desire is to continue the land policy which has been in force for so many years, and which has had the effect of settling the people on the lands and making Victoria the greatest wheat-producing colony in Australia, and one of the greatest wheat-producing countries in the world."Mirams.—I suppose the cows and the sheep would have stopped breeding if they had remained the property of the squatters, and there had not been selectors. That is the meaning of the honourable member's interjection, if it means anything. There is another point in connection with this matter to which I wish to call attention. Sending the people to the land, whether they have remained there or not, has imposed a very large burthen upon the country. It has necessitated the expenditure of immense sums of money, which the country has had to borrow. We have had to provide for the construction of railways, roads, bridges, post and telegraph offices, schools, and all the other conveniences of civilisation. If the Government encouraged the people to go upon the land, it was quite proper to follow them with those appliances. As to the mode in which it has been done, there may be differences of opinion, but the fact of the propriety of the proceeding no one will dispute. Well, we have got rid of nearly 10,000,000 acres of land under this process, and we have burthened ourselves with £10,207,000 of additional debt. What I say is that we would not have had the debt if we had adopted another system. Very likely, if we had sold the land properly instead of giving it away in the manner we have been doing, we need not have borrowed money. We might at least have obtained sufficient from the land to provide those conveniences for the people to which I have referred. That, however, is another question which I do not propose to go into just now. I now come to the question of settlement. The Minister of Lands, in speaking on this point, said—
As regards the question of wheat production, if the figures I have cited do not satisfy honourable members, they will have to find others for themselves. In dealing with the question of selectors, I may say that I have taken my figures from the last report I could obtain at the Lands Department. The total number of selectors of all kinds, so far as I can estimate them from this report, who had taken up land previous to
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—You forget that the purchase of a single acre may transfer a holding to a higher area.
Mr. "But we know that the attempt to create a yeomanry on a large scale has only been partially successful. Selectors struggle on until they can get a title, and then in too many instances their holdings, which have been granted on easy terms, in the hope that they would be attached to the soil, go to swell the estates of the large land owners. Then with a sum of money in their pockets, which they have acquired in a great measure at the expense of the general body of the Victorian taxpayers, they take their departure for the neighbouring provinces, where the capital with which we have furnished them can command greater advantages."Mirams.—But the Minister of Lands will see that, to make anything out of his interjection, he must show a reduction in the number of the one-acre areas, because the moment one is added to another allotment it must cease to stand as it formerly did in the records of the Lands Department. In no case can what the Minister of Lands alludes to touch my argument in the least, and, moreover, I think he will find it difficult to show that the single-acre allotments are less in number than they were before. I have gone into the question of area in exactly the
Argus. Well, the Argus of
And on the same question the "All those men who transferred their holdings in Victoria had no chance to select again. The law prohibited such a process. It was necessary for them to seek another colony, and the great majority were drawn across the Murray by the superior inducements of the land and land law of New South Wales. Immigrants to Victoria having in Victoria acquired capital by selling out, came to us with their earnings and their energies, and their experience as land speculators. Five years ago we felt their influence in a new flush of prosperity, especially in our southwestern district. While Victoria was mourning their departure, our land and Customs and railway returns were rapidly increasing; our free and comparatively illimitable land reserves were acting as a sponge, and we were becoming moist at our neighbour's expense. To some extent, the same conditions still exist. They might be perfectly satisfactory if only the present were to be considered; but it must be recognised that surely as Victoria has met her reckoning day, so are we advancing on ours. Land monopoly is not unknown in New South Wales. Dummyism is a very familiar word in our vernacular; the process begun across the border is continued here; land is going for a fraction of its value to incorporated companies and non-resident landlords. The lesser matters of continuous strife between selector and squatter, and consequent waste of energy, might be forgotten, could it be shown that we have in any degree learned the lesson Victorian history teaches, or that our selectors were as a body honest homemakers and tillers of the soil, and not merely birds of passage and transferrors."Sydney Morning Herald of
That is the testimony of the leading journal of New South Wales as to the effect of our people going over to that colony to settle with money supplied them by the sale of land here which was given to them for a very different purpose, and on terms which would never have been allowed them except with the hope that they would remain firmly settled on our soil, and in that way indirectly and directly benefit this colony. That is an aspect of the case to which I think the Minister of Lands will do well to give his serious consideration, and upon which he ought to supply some authentic information before the debate proceeds much
Hansard out of which I could read plenty of extracts showing that such members used the strongest possible language against the adoption of the 640-acre area, condemning it on a great variety of grounds. For example, it was denounced in the land debate of
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—Yet the Land Bill of
Mr. Mirams.—That is true, but the feeling of the House and country proved to be so strong against the area being so large that the Assembly undid what it had done, and reduced the area to 320 acres.
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—It was the Legislative Council that made the reduction.
Mr. "We have nearly 32,000,000 acres of land to deal with at the present time. Of this area, as I have already pointed out, I believe that about 9,000,000 acres will be taken up under the selection clauses of our Bill. Owing to those 9,000,000 acres being so interspersed among the 32,000,000 acres, it is impossible to separate them except by selection. That is the only way in which the good land can be separated from land which is fit for no other purpose than grazing; and after the 9,000,000 acres have been selected, the balance of 22,000,000 acres will have to be dealt with in some different way."Mirams.—And this Chamber agreed with the alteration for the reasons which will be found set forth in the speeches I refer to. Now, however, it is proposed to revert to the system which was then discarded. Let us next look at another aspect of the subject. The Minister of Lands, in his second-reading speech on the Bill, said:—
But what does the honourable gentleman want to separate the agricultural from the grazing lands for? Is it not one of the objects of the Bill to combine grazing with agriculture? Is not the mixture and contiguity of such lands just what he would desire? He must admit as much himself, because I find a few lines further on, in the speech I refer to, that he stated as follows:—
"By this arrangement selectors will be able to rest and manure their agricultural holdings by running sheep over them, and by having two strings to their bow—agriculture and grazing, instead of agriculture only—they will be able to increase their chances of farming successfully and profitably."
Seeing that he aims at combining both industries, why does he not want to combine in each holding land of both the kinds suited to them? In any case, why does he want to separate them? His different statements can hardly be reconciled with his arguments. If he asked the House to believe that it would be difficult to mark out areas containing the required proportions of agricultural and grazing land, I would know what he was driving at, but he has done nothing of the sort. Further on he stated:—
"We estimate that it will take from 10 to 15 years before the 9,000,000 acres of agricultural land still available for selection will be taken up; and after those lands have been taken up, we will have, as I have already said, 22,000,000 acres still remaining. That is close upon the one-half of the total area of the colony. So that the statement that under our Bill the lands of the colony will be squandered is simply a cry of 'wolf' when there is no wolf."
Yet the honourable members who side with the Government in opposing the mode of settlement in advocacy of which I will speak presently are never tired of telling us that it is too late to resort to it, simply because all the lands of the colony are gone. How will they make their assertion
"The improvements required are reduced from 20s. to 10s. per acre; and, as is now the case in New South Wales, youths and girls of 16, instead of 18, will be allowed to take up land. This concession with regard to age is intended for the benefit of parents of large families. For a long time it has appeared an anomaly that a youth of 18 should be able to take up 320 acres, and that the head of a family of five or six should not be able to take up more; but, by reducing the minimum age to 16, growing boys will be able to help their parents by taking up land."
But what is there special about the "youth of 18" that the minimum age should be reduced to 16? Will not a boy of 16 grow up in a few years, and become his own master, just as a boy of 18 will? If you cannot expect a boy of 18 to help his parents, how can you expect a boy of 16 to do so? Many honourable members will remember that, on the 27th June last, in response to a motion of mine, a return showing the number and area of selections which had been transferred during the nine months ending 31st March, of the present year, was laid on the table of the House. It was signed by the responsible officer of the department, and showed that
Mr. W. Madden (Minister of Lands).—It is all given in the annual returns.
Mr. "The grazing capabilities of the new runs will be assessed before they are offered to public competition, and a rental of Is. per sheep will be charged."Mirams.—There is a great deal of information which is not given in the annual returns, and which I have had to work out, by a long process, in order to give the House the simple figures which I quoted' last night. There is another point in the speech of the Minister of Lands to which I desire to refer before leaving this branch of the subject, and it is in relation to the mode in which the honourable gentleman; proposes in the Bill to deal with what he calls the squatters' runs. I do not object to the method which he intends to adopt in relation to a portion of those runs. In my opinion he takes a very wise course in: determining that in the future only runs of a smaller area than have hitherto been granted shall be obtainable from the State. That is a move in the right direction. He also proposes to fix the rent of those runs at a certain sum, and then to put the rights of the runs up to public-auction, so that the highest bidder above the upset price may obtain them. I have not much objection to that, but I have grave objections to the mode by which the honourable gentleman proposes to ascertain the amount of rent to be fixed upon the runs in the first instance. The honourable gentleman said in his speech when introducing the Bill:—
I would like to know why, in fixing the amount of rent, the honourable gentleman proposes to continue the system which has been in operation' in dealing with squatters' runs for so many years past, and which has; worked so prejudicially to the public interests, and so greatly to the benefit of the pastoral tenants—that is the method of assessing the rent according to the number of sheep which the land will carry? I admit that, by putting the land up to public competition, we shall, to a very great extent, remove evils which existed when there was no competition. Under the new system the purchasers of runs may have to pay a pretty good premium to the State for their leases of three-years, but I shall show that even to that practice there are grave objections. It has frequently been said that the absolute capabilities of runs cannot be ascertained, unless either by the persons who have been using them, or by their immediate neighbours, and, consequently, competition for the right to have the runs for three years would be very limited indeed, and not likely to bring much to the State by way of premium. In the past, the lessees paid Is., per head for the number of sheep which these runs were supposed to carry, and the consequence was that one-third more sheep than were paid for were placed upon the land. In
We now come to deal with the question of the land as it presents itself at the present moment. My remarks up to this time have been directed to the criticism of the proposals of the Government to meet the necessities of the case. I think I have shown that the provisions of the past have .not accomplished the object we have in view. We have now to consider what is the best course to adopt to secure the fullest results and the best .returns from the public estate, not only in the interests of those who go upon the land, but in the interests of the whole community to whom the public estate belongs. No one, I think, will deny that the land of the country belongs to the people of the country—that there has been no particular privilege given by Providence to any one class which could enable them to claim an exclusive right to the soil over any other class. It is the duty of the State, therefore, to make the best use it can of the public estate in the interests of the people who compose the State. We are, at the present time, the representatives of those people. Members of this House in dealing with the land stand exactly in the position of trustees for the public, and we are called upon now to undertake one of the most important duties that devolve upon us—to decide what is the best thing for us, as trustees, to do with the remainder of the public estate which is left under our control. We have no power over the past, however much we may regret the want of success which has followed our past efforts.
Mr. Grant (Chief Secretary).—We have.
Mr. Mirams.—I admit that, in the particular way in which the honourable gentleman is looking at the matter, we have something to do with the past. We have sold or parted with the land, but, of course, I admit that the State, backed by a majority of the community, could even determine to take it back again, or could determine to put a tax upon it. But all must acknowledge that it is much harder to go back upon the past, to impose conditions which are to be retrospective upon property we have parted with, than it is to deal with that which is still absolutely within our own control. Accepting that position, and assuming that the 35,000,000 acres which are left are all we have to deal with, it becomes our duty to consider what is best, in the interest of the whole community, to be done with the land that still remains. Although honourable members may dispute the extent to which our past system has been a failure, no one will assert that it has been an absolute success, or even so successful that we should go on in the same direction with light hearts. Looking at the question in its broad aspect, it seems to me that there are four parties who have to be considered. The first is that section of the community who are anxious to obtain the whole and sole possession of the lands of the colony. I do not say this in any carping spirit towards those persons, because we find the same feeling existing in other countries, and I presume that it is a natural feeling. It is especially a natural feeling in a country like this, that when men become possessed of wealth by any means—by trade, by mining speculation, or by fortunate gold discoveries—they should desire to invest their wealth in a landed estate, which, while yielding a certain and progressive return, will at the same time also secure for them and their children certain advantages which are only obtainable from the possession of landed property. That feeling is abroad in England at the present time to so large an extent that moneyed men are willing to give prices for
bonâ fide cultivator, who desires to obtain land for real settlement and cultivation. It is for that class that we profess to legislate, but, in professing to legislate for that class, we have in reality so legislated as to assist the two other classes in obtaining their several objects at the sacrifice of the public estate. Finally, apart from these three classes, there is the whole community, who have as much right to be considered as any of these three sections—more right, indeed, to be considered than any of the three, except it be the real bonâ fide selector who desires to become possessed of the soil, that he may settle upon it, and rear up his family upon it, and improve and cultivate it. The question then arises—How can we, in the light of past experience, so legislate as to secure the use of the land to those whom we desire to use it without assisting those to obtain it whom we do not desire to have it? I assume, of course, that there is no public man in the community who professes to desire to assist in any way in the further accumulation of large estates. Now, the experience of the past goes to prove that we cannot stop the action of
I wish now to say a few words as to what I understand by the leasing system. I desire to do so because I have noticed that, in the whole of the discussion in relation to this question, the public have been systematically misled, either wilfully or ignorantly. All through the discussion the word "leasing" has been played upon, and it has been assumed that the advocates of the principle of leasing in this colony intend to follow the leasing system of the old country. It is assumed that the same sort of thing is intended, that the same conditions would surround it, that the same disabilities would exist on the part of those who would hold the leases, and that the same advantages must necessarily come to the State as accrue to private owners leasing farms on the conditions which obtain at present in the old country. Now there is no similarity whatever between the two systems, except in name. Everyone who knows anything of the conditions under- which land is held at home knows that the tenants have to pay enormous rents, and that they have to make enormous impovements, which go into the pockets of the landlords. I do not pretend to say for a moment that in all the leases held in those countries all the improvements made by the tenant go to the landlord. But I say that, taking the average—and I can only deal with them in the bulk—the leaseholders in England have to leave their improvements, without any remuneration, on the land when the term of their leases has expired. If it were not so, where would be the ground for the agitation which is going on in England at present to secure a land law which will give the farmers there the three things which the people of Ireland have been fighting for, and which go under the name of "the three F's?" All over England the farmers' clubs and associations are agitating for the introduction into the Imperial Parliament of a Bill which will secure for the English tenants the same rights as the Irish tenants have obtained under the law which gives them "the three F's." One of the three F's is that they shall have their improvements, or the portion of their improvements which remains unused when their time expires; this is classed under the head of "free sale." They wish to have the power of selling freely, without let or hindrance, their portion of the improvements which remains unused when their lease terminates. On the question of the conditions under which leases are held at home, Professor Caird, who is regarded in England as one of the highest authorities on the land question, said in a recent, lecture:—
"Between the year
The attempt of honourable members in this House, and the attempt of writers for the press, who disapprove of the leasing system, to class the kind of leasing which contains conditions producing results of that sort with the proposal which I advocate is either the result of the grossest ignorance, or it is purposely done to mislead the public on the real issue. Taking the figures which I have read as the groundwork of my illustration, what would be the result if we had the leasing system which I advocate here? If this land had belonged to the Government of Victoria, instead of to the English landlords, and the increase in eighteen years had been exactly the same, the £60,000,000 expended by the State would be its own property, the natural increase from the growth of population and the construction of railways would also be the property of the State—and the increase from such causes would be greater in this colony, where we spend much more in proportion to the population on the construction of railways than they do at home—but the £136,000,000 expended by the tenants would be absolutely their own property, not to be touched by the State. Not only that, but there would be no increase in the rent for the next term of the lease based upon the expenditure of that £136,000,000. Whatever increase of rent was asked for the second term should only be asked for by virtue of the increase in the value of the land brought about by the operation of other causes—by the expenditure of the State, the landlord, on the land, or by the expenditure of the community, also through the State, upon the construction of railways, or by the increased value given to the land by the increase of population, without any effort on the part of the leaseholder. Those increases would be the fair property of the State, but the £136,000,000 of improvements effected by the tenants would be absolutely their own to sell to the next comer, if they did not get the renewal of the lease, and to keep and use without any increased rent on account of them if they themselves became the possessors of the land for another term. Are those two systems at all comparable? Is it fair, is it just, is it statesmanlike to talk as though they were the same? Does it show any recognition of the real issue at stake for honourable members to tell us that leaseholds in England, held under such conditions as I have mentioned, are not popular, and that consequently leaseholds, held under totally different circumstances and conditions, would not be popular here? It appears to me that when the opponents of the leasing system in this colony have resort to that mode of dealing with the question, it can only be because they have no real genuine argument to offer against the system on its merits, and they are driven to condemn it by a side-wind since they cannot confute it by fair, open, and straight argument. The next proposal I would make in connection with the system would get rid of another objection which is very strongly urged against the leasing system—the objection that backstairs political influence would always enable Crown tenants to obtain advantages from the State which they could not obtain from private owners. Honourable members in this House are never weary of referring to the leaseholds on the south bank of the Yarra as an illustration in support of that argument.
Mr. Bent (Minister of Railways).—Hear, hear.
Mr. Mirams.—Let me tell the honourable gentleman who cheers that statement that there is nothing in the illustration at all. In the first place, those who advocate the system of State leaseholds do not believe in leaving it in the power of any Government
An Honourable Member.—They could not do so.
Mr. "But to return to the description of tenure we would propose instead. It is necessary that the land should be thrown open freely to labour, and by giving an absolute right oyer all improvements, either to sell or bequeath them to successors, every power will be conferred which now is conferred by the fee-simple of the land itself, except that of locking it up uselessly. The title may be made good and transferred from one to another without all the legal technicality which we have adopted from a country whose lands are held under laws based on the requirements of a feudal system, and which we are foolishly endeavouring to perpetuate."Mirams.—True, they could not do so. I therefore hope that we shall hear no more about the leases on the south bank of the Yarra being a "shocking example," and a direct proof that if the Crown lands were leased, instead of being sold in fee-simple, the tenants would be sure in time to get them converted into freeholds. In connection with the details of the scheme which I advocate, there is one point to which I desire to direct the attention of the House. I have said that I would have the whole of the Crown lands placed in the hands of commissioners appointed for the purpose, who should deal with the public estate in the interests of the public—look after the interests of the public in the same way that the trustees of a private estate would look after their wards if they were placed in charge of any. I would therefore lay down no stringent unalterable conditions as to the area to be leased to any individual, the length of tenure, or the terms upon which the land should be occupied. I would leave the commissioners absolutely free, within certain bounds to be settled by the Legislature, to make whatever terms they considered best with persons who wanted to lease Crown lands, exactly in the same way that private lands are leased. Does any one suppose, for instance, that the land in Collins-street belonging to St. James' Church, which is about to be leased to private individuals, will be leased upon exactly the same terms, and for the same length of time, in every case? It might suit one tenant to pay a
Argus in Argus, one of which appeared on the
We were then told by the "The unproductive branches of the Government expenditure may be much reduced, and taxes will eventually assume the less objectionable form of rent, which every one is willing to pay for what he derives a direct benefit from. As a tenant willingly undertakes to pay his landlord a portion of the proceeds of his labour for permission to appropriate the remainder, so a tenant of the public lands may be fairly called on to contribute for the general good a portion of the produce of the land he is allowed the sole use of. Instead of a number of petty landlords exacting as much as they can from their tenants, we would have the Government, as the State landlord, managing the public property so as to yield the most benefit to the community, and only taking from the tenants what is absolutely necessary."Argus that the colony was foolishly endeavouring to perpetuate the system under which the lands were held in England. We have foolishly perpetuated that system up to the present time, and now the same journal is doing its utmost to continue a system which it then declared to be foolish, and warned the colony against adopting. The article proceeded to say—
The "If this principle is found to be the correct one and brought into operation, all other taxes for the purpose of revenue may be gradually abolished, and the rent required from the tenants of the public lands will be very much less than what is now paid to private individuals, and need be but a small percentage on the present purchase money."Argus had no doubt about the value of the leasing system at that time. Its only anxiety was that the public might not see the matter in the same light that it did. The article continued as follows:—
These statements are on the lines of what I have said here this evening, and on previous occasions, and elsewhere. On the 27th of the same month the "In a recent article under this beading we endeavoured to sketch the groundwork of a plan for the settlement of the lands of the colony, which we should very much like to see fairly tried. If one district were to be set apart for the experiment, it would soon become apparent whether or not the theory is sound and reduceable to practice. It is only by seeing it in operation that the prejudice which many are inclined to entertain against the proposed plan, merely because it savours of innovation, can be removed; and it is surely worth our taking some trouble to ascertain if it is possible to carry out free-trade in the only way in which it can be brought to perfection, and to throw off for ever a moiety of the burthen the productive interests have now to bear. By selling the land, or in any way giving to individuals the power of converting it into a monopoly, one tax is imposed on all consumers of its produce for the benefit of the landlords; and to obtain a revenue for the public service additional taxation of another kind has to be resorted to. If one of these taxes would be sufficient, why need we impose them both? The public interest requires that only one of those should be raised, and no one objects to pay a fair rent for the use of land, but there are few who will not evade the payment of a tax when possible; and this tendency to evasion (we might almost call it an instinct) necessitates the employment of a large number of officials merely for the prevention of smuggling, the support of whom consumes much of the revenue. In the possession of a public property capable of being made to yield an income much beyond our wants, for the legitimate expenditure of Government, we have the opportunity of removing for ever the second and more odious portion of this burthen, and of very much lightening the first, and at the same time of showing to the world what free-trade really means. Until the revenue is raised altogether by a system of direct taxation, this can only exist in a mutilated state."Argus returned to the same subject, and used stronger language, if possible, in advocacy of the adoption of the very system which it now cannot find words sufficiently strong to traduce and malign. On that date it made the following remarks in a leading article:—
These were the sentiments of the "Mr. John Stuart Mill, in Argus in Argus in
I admit that people who want land desire to obtain the fee-simple, but what I ask is—Are we bound to give way to that desire in order to satisfy one-tenth of the community, when by doing so the other nine- tenths will suffer? It is our duty, as legislators, to legislate for the community as a whole, and not for the satisfaction of the desire of some persons, the gratification of which may be inimical to the rest of the people. Mr. Higinbotham went on to say—
"Mr. John Stuart Mill, however, completely altered that opinion before he died. For a year and a half before his death he advocated, very powerfully and in a variety of forms, a system of leasing. He even went beyond that, for he advocated the expenditure of capital in recovering for the State in England the great bulk of the alienated lands."
Mr. Berry.—We shall have to do that here.
Mr. "And some time before his death he communicated to a gentleman in this city the opinion he then entertained that the people of Australia had a great opportunity, which Englishmen had lost, by being able to save from alienation the public lands in these colonies yet unalienated, and to preserve them for the use of future generations."Mirams.—I am sure of it; and therefore it is advisable to make the quantity of land which we shall have to repurchase as little as possible by keeping what we have got in our own hands. I am as satisfied as I am that I stand here that in the future—I don't know how long that future will be—we shall have to buy back the lands from those who have got them, and we shall have to repurchase them upon terms and conditions that the country will be ill able to afford, and that will bring down upon those who now persist in parting with the Crown lands, and thus make the repurchase more difficult, the curses of those upon whom the duty of effecting the repurchase will be imposed. Mr. Higinbotham added the following remarks in reference to Mr. John Stuart Mill:—
This, I think, disposes of the question as to whether the idea of leasing the lands is a new-fangled theory as far as other countries are concerned. But, in addition, what do I find? That there is hardly a public man in this country who has not advocated the leasing system at one period or another. The leasing theory died out for a time in the colony after "The programme of a proposed society, to be called the Land Tenure Reform League of Victoria, has been issued, and, whatever objection may be taken to some
Argus was then true to the principle that it advocated in Argus of that date said—
'The objects of the league were as follows:—
After saying that the objects of this league had "received the sanction and approval of many of the most eminent political economists of the day," the "The idea of permanently vesting the ownership of the land in the Government of a country in trust for the general community is by no means new."Argus went on to state—
I hope that after this we shall hear no more from the Minister of Lands or from anybody else about leasing being a "new-fangled theory." The next public action in reference to leasing to which I will allude is that taken by the late Mr. George Harker, a gentleman who, I suppose, will be admitted by every member of this House to have been a cute business man, a man of integrity, and a man of considerable ability. Mr. Harker for many years represented the constituency which I have now the honour to represent. In
Mr. Bent (Minister of Railways).—And he bought an estate at Healesville the next day.
Mr. "It has always appeared to me that, when we had self-government conferred upon us, all the Crown lands were virtually handed over to the whole of the people of the colony. If that be true, what right had we, as legislators, to alienate any portion of that which belonged to the whole community for the benefit of a small portion of the people? It seems to me that, in doing so, we have infringed upon a natural right. The right of the whole of the people to the lands of the colony is as much a natural right as the right to the free use of the atmosphere which surrounds us, or of the water which we necessarily require. I think I shall be able to show that the way in which we have allowed the best lands of the colony to be alienated is a policy that cannot be justified. . . . Now under what circumstances have the best lands of the colony been allowed to pass away from the Crown? Virtually the possessors of them have obtained them for nothing."Mirams.—I have nothing to do with that, and it has no relevancy to the point at issue. If Mr. Harker did what the law allowed him to do, that fact does not make the law a good one. I will read two or three extracts from Mr. Harker's speech in proposing the resolution to which I refer. He said—
Now this is exactly what I have repeated to-night, and what I have told honourable members on every occasion that I have had the opportunity of doing so. Mr. Harker further remarked—
"What I mean is that the best lands in the colony are certainly worth 2s. 6d. per acre per annum as a mere rental; and if selectors have got the fee-simple of those lands—as they have in numbers of cases—on payment of 2s. 6d. per acre per annum for eight successive years, the State has virtually passed away the freehold of the people without getting any money equivalent for it whatever."
This is exactly the ground I take. Mr. Harker went on to say—
"The principle of the State leasing the land is in actual operation in this colony
This is the view which was maintained by Mr. Harker in "For myself, however, having given the matter a great deal of thought, for some time past, I must say I entirely agree with the honourable member for Collingwood (Mr. Harker) in everything he has said. . . . The arguments of the honourable member for Belfast (Mr. Wrixon) against the State leasing the lands instead of selling them are, I think, more of a theoretical than a practical nature. . . . It might, perhaps, not be advisable to adopt the leasing principle in cities, towns, and boroughs. There the Crown might still continue to sell the fee-simple of the land as an inducement to persons to erect good buildings."
I don't agree with that, because I see improvements going on all around me on leasehold land.
"The honourable member for Belfast really admitted the point for which the honourable member for Collingwood contended when he said that alienation should be backed up by a tax. . . . It has been suggested that it is too late in the day to begin a new system when so much land has already been alienated."
And the same parrot cry is raised now, although in the meantime we have managed to get rid of 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 acres. But there was no force in the cry then, and there is, if possible, even less force now. Surely, the smaller the area of the land left to us the more reason there is why we should take care of it. The honourable gentleman also said—
"If it belonged to a private individual, and he desired to turn it to the best advantage, he would probably not sell an acre of it, and why should the State?"
I repeat that question, and I leave the Chief Secretary to find an answer to it, and to himself. Mr. Harker's resolution was negatived without a division, but Mr. Higinbotham, not content with that situation, moved a further amendment, in the shape of a string of resolutions, one of which embodied the leasing system in a modified form, and it was supported by the present Chief Secretary, the honourable member for Ballarat West (Major Smith), and Mr. Burtt, then one of the members for North Melbourne. Finally, it went to a division, and among the names of those who voted for it I find those of Mr. Bent, the Minister of Railways.
This is not the only division of the kind at the head of which I find the same name. The other names are—Mr. Burtt, Mr. Cope, Mr. Harker, Mr. Higinbotham, Mr. Phillipps, Mr. Richardson, Mr. A. T. Clark, and Major Smith. Many of these gentlemen are still in public life, and I am most anxious to see how far they retain their old principles, or how far they have been led astray by the new theories of the "He had listened with a great deal of attention to almost all the speakers during the discussion, and nothing had transpired to change the views which he expressed on the second reading of the Bill of Argus. The same question came up again in
Up to Hansard for
The next objection to the leasing system is that we shall have our population leaving us, because they cannot get a freehold here, and going where a freehold is obtainable. The first answer to that was supplied by the Minister of Lands, which I read last night. He told us that so great are the attractions of Victoria, irrespective of the land tenure question, that persons are actually coming from the other colonies to settle here. Again, if the argument I am dealing with has any power, why don't the leaseholders, who are paying from 80s. to 1s. 3d. per acre per annum for their land, clear out for the other colonies? Is State landlordism thought likely to be worse than private landlordism? On the other hand, I ask how long do honourable members suppose Victoria would, if Parliament adopted the present proposals of the Government, be able to compete for settlement with the other colonies? Why, the whole thing is an utter absurdity. It is the biggest sham ever offered to the consideration of sensible men. With our land being taken up in areas of 640 acres we could only hold our own in such competition for a very few years longer, and then we would have no territory to deal with. Instead of keeping up a rivalry with colonies whose territory is so much larger than our own, ought we not rather to face the position? Would it not be better for us to admit at once to ourselves that Victoria, not being one-fifth the size of any of its neighbours, competition for settlement on the basis of offering easy terms for the acquisition of freeholds ought to be out of the question with us? At the same time we have advantages of another kind, and these, combined with a good system of leasing, are amply sufficient to hold our present population, and also to attract more from elsewhere. Surely to make use of those advantages in that way would be infinitely better than entering upon a course of land squandering, which can only bring us in a few years into the position of having no Crown lands to deal with. It is said that a land tax would answer every purpose I have in view as well as the leasing system. If there is any truth in the statement, made by those who object to that system, that the tenants would combine to wrest from an unwilling Government the freehold of the land which they held by leasehold tenure,
Mr. Connor moved the adjournment of the debate. The eloquent address delivered by the honourable member for Collingwood (Mr. Mirams) would require a good deal of consideration, and, as honourable members appeared to be tired out, it would not be wise to proceed further with the debate that night.
Mr. Zox seconded the motion. The honourable member for Collingwood (Mr. Mirams) had delivered an excellent speech, lasting between five and six hours, and honourable members, whether they agreed with his views or not, would be willing to admit that it reflected the highest credit on him. The honourable member had taken great pains in the preparation of his address, and honourable members intending to reply to it should be afforded an opportunity of studying the question.
Mr. Walsh said that the honourable member for Collingwood (Mr. Mirams) had brought forward an aspect of the land question which might almost be considered new, and his views were not likely to be fully understood until honourable members had an opportunity of seeing them in print and carefully considering them.
Mr. Berry remarked that the speech of the honourable member for Collingwood (Mr. Mirams) was a very able one as representing certain views, but unless more rapid progress was made with the debate there would be no legislation at all. Some honourable member should have been prepared to reply to the honourable member for Collingwood.
The motion for the adjournment of the debate was agreed to.
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The people of the British colonies on this side of the world are proud of the ties that bind them to the great mother country; and in all discussions that are raised on the subject of her colonies, and her relations thereto, peculiar interest is felt. The remarkable growth and progress of Victoria—one of the youngest and wealthiest of them all—affords a gratifying proof of the superior colonizing powers of the race from which her people are descended.
This being the case, it is somewhat painful to find that not only the people, but the material resources of the colonies, are sometimes strangely misunderstood and widely misrepresented. Writers, who pay transient visits to our shores, satisfy themselves with making observations and forming opinions upon the most superficial data, return home, and write lengthy articles to newspapers and journals, to give publicity to the fact of their travels and the information which they think they have gained. These articles are generally written in support of the individual views of the author, and ignore altogether the colonial aspects of the case and the altered circumstances and conditions under which old theories have to be applied, and old axioms reduced to practice.
The misrepresentations which form the subject of complaint on the present occasion are not, let us hope, wilful; and if the writer of the article in the Fortnightly Review will study the facts and figures which we shall have occasion to produce, he must admit that his deductions have been drawn from erroneous information.
Mr. Baden Powell, the writer of the article in question, has paid two visits to Victoria, and on the strength of these visits, and the observations which they may have afforded him the opportunity of making, but which could only have extended over a limited period, he has given to the world this article, the avowed object of which is to prove that New South Wales
The secondary aim of the writer is to prove that, taking these colonies as illustrations, John Stuart Mill's admission that protection might be found under certain conditions economically defensible in a young community," is wrong in theory and unwarranted by experience.
In order to accomplish this task successfully, the first thing he should have done was to make it perfectly clear that New South Wales is a free trade colony as unmistakably as Victoria is protectionist. If he cannot do this, his premises are incomplete, and his conclusion utterly breaks down. He appears to have had a notion that his position was open to attack from this quarter, and he appears also to have been equally alive to the fact that he could not make it impregnable; for he does the best he can under the circumstances, and intrenches himself as completely as possible by saying that New South Wales "has followed an essentially free trade course." What a convenience, what a very godsend, are these adverbs and adjectives—which seem to mean so much, but which in reality commit their employers to so little—to partisan writers, who, starting with a purpose, are compelled to make the facts square with that purpose; and which, if they will not, then so much the worse for the facts! In this case the very use of this qualifying word proves that Mr. Powell knows that the policy of New South Wales is not a free trade policy; for it is unreasonable to suppose that if he could have left it out, and thereby have made his case so much the stronger, he would not have taken that advantage.
We need not rest this issue upon the negative proof which Mr. Powell himself gives us. We can supply the same positive evidence as was doubtless within his knowledge, when he judiciously guarded himself by the use of the word "essentially."
The next point which, it appeal's to us, should have been placed beyond a doubt, was the relative advance of the two colones in manufactures, that being the only real test of the superiority of either policy, and to secure which advance was the sole object of Victoria in adopting her present course. Instead of this our critic passes very cursorily over this, the only really important fact to determine, and devotes himself principally to a comparison of our condition in relation to matters which have very little, if anything, to do with the question in dispute. We are not surprised at this, because if he had rested his case upon a careful and impartial analysis of the manufacturers of the two colonies, even with the scanty information which New South Wales supplies as to hers, he
We propose to deal with these two points in the order in which we have stated, and to show that Mr. Powell either knows so little of the question upon which he presumes to instruct others, as to render his utterances absolutely valueless; or that he has suppressed the truth and distorted the facts to suit his free trade views.
New South Wales has a climate and soil suitable for the growth and manufacture of sugar, and therefore very properly assists those industries by imposing a duty of 5s. per cwt. upon raw sugar, and 6s. 8d. per cwt. upon the refined. In this way the grower is amply protected, and the refiner gets an additional protection of 1s. 8d. per cwt. If this were done in Victoria, it would be stigmatized as a shameful departure from the true theory of political economy; but because it is done by our neighbours, it stamps them as "essentially" freetraders. In Victoria we have but one duty upon sugar, and that is 3s. per cwt.; and the assistance our refiners get is the permission to refine in bond, and so to pay the duty merely upon the manufactured article. On tobacco, the protection to the grower and manufacturer is, in both colonies, exactly equal. The Victorian duty is 1s. per lb. higher than the New South Wales; but Victoria imposes an excise duty of 1s. per lb. upon the home manufactured article, while New South Wales does not, which equalizes the conditions.
New South Wales protects her carpenters and workers in timber in the same way as Victoria does, by imposing a duty upon doors, sashes, shutters, and dressed timber. She protects her agriculturists, as we do, by imposing a duty upon bacon, hams, cheese, corn-flour, dried fruits, malt, maizena, raw sugar, chicory, hops, tobacco leaf, preserved and bottled fruit, jam, and wine. She protects her biscuit manufacturers, her manufacturers of chemicals, spirits, wine, beer, sugar, molasses, cordage and rope, jams and jellies, confectionery, cigars and tobacco, bags and sacks, varnish, oils, starch and blue, candles, paper, powder and shot, pickles and sauces, and many other industries which might be enumerated did time and space permit. This list is enough, at any rate, to show that New South Wales has no more claim to be called Free Trade than we have, and that those of her public men who, on the strength of such claim, bask in the beams of the Cobden Club, do so under false pretences, depending upon the ignorance of their entertainers and their own good fortune to carry them through.
We have now to show that the Victorian policy of Protection has accomplished the object for which it was adopted; and there can be no better method of doing this than by comparing our progress in this direction with that of our neighbors. In making this comparison, it must be distinctly borne in mind that every advantage, except skill and energy, was on the side of New South Wales. She had a settled population, a long-established, self-government, abundance of raw materials for many industries, the start of us by the existence of many manufactories—boots and shoes, machinery, ship-building, to wit—and, above all, coal in abundance, which we have had to purchase from her. We were a young community with a roving population, the result of the decline of the gold yield, without any of the surroundings which New South Wales enjoyed; and if, therefore, our policy had succeeded only to the extent of enabling us to hold our own, John Stuart Mill's opinion would have been fully borne out, We shall be able to show that in every branch of manufacturing industry we have left our competitor hopelessly behind. The difficulty of showing this simply and clearly at once is very great, because New South Wales carefully abstains from publishing any set of statistics in relation to its manufactures similar to those which we publish in Victoria. For instance, we can, from our annual returns, show that the amount of fixed capital invested in plant, machinery, land, and buildings by our manufacturers has increased by nearly four millions sterling during the last ten years, the exact figures being as follow:—
Then, again, we can tell what is the result of a year's work of our manufacturers by deducting the value of the raw materials operated upon from the value of the articles produced, thus:—
New South Wales furnishes no such information, and such as it does afford is all but valueless for the purposes of comparison, because of its meagreness and the difference of method upon which it is collected. As an illustration of this difference, let us take the statistics relating to agricultural implement manufactories. New South Wales tells us that in
Victoria, on the other hand, tells us that in the same year she had 54 factories, 28 of which were worked by steam power, employing 975 hands, using materials to the value of £91,659, and turning out goods to the value of £202,535, carrying on operations with a fixed capital in land, buildings, plant, &c., of £127,380; and that she exported implements of her own manufacture to the value of £8,476, after supplying her own farmers.
If any further proof be needed of the folly of comparing or judging of the relative position of the two colonies by comparing the number of the so-called factories of the one with the number of the real factories of the other, we have it in the fact that while New South Wales, with very little more than one-third the land under cultivation that Victoria has, had to depend almost entirely upon her imports of implements to supply her farmers, notwithstanding her 50 factories. Victoria supplied her farmers entirely from her 54 factories, and had a few hundred pounds' worth to spare. The following statement will make this important point perfectly plain:—
We have gone thus minutely into this case not so much because of its own importance, as that it serves as an illustration for all; and it supplies a direct and conclusive denial of Mr. Powell's assertion that, notwithstanding the protection we give to our own manufacturers, we are "still forced to supply ourselves with these ' prohibited' or ' weighted' foreign articles;
number of which, he says, "has largely increased in both colonies."
It would be trespassing too far upon the space at my command to follow the other two—foundries and clothing factories—as we have this one; or we could show exactly similar and even more startling results. Taking for the nonce, however, the value of the exports of their own productions in these two lines for the two colonies during
These are the figures for
Mr. Powell admits that we have far outstripped our neighbors in the manufacture of cloth and woollen goods, notwithstanding that they had the start of us for years. Sydney tweeds were selling in Victoria long before we had a woollen mill in existence; now, we are driving them out of their own markets even. If this is not a proof of the wisdom of our policy, it is hard to say what it is. He attempts to detract from the evidence in our favor, which he clearly sees this fact to be, by coupling with it the statement that in the matter of sihp-building New South Wales is leaving us far behind. Now, without entering into a minute statement of the conditions and circumstances which operate to this result, as, for example, the monopoly which she has of the trade in coal, it is hardly necessary to point out that, so far from this fact assisting Mr. Powell in his argument, it has the directly contrary effect. We protect our cloth manufacturers by putting a duty of 15% upon imported cloth, and they succeed. We do not protect our ship-builders by putting a duty on ships, therefore, the
Mr. Baden Powell, as we have already noted, is very guarded and cautious in his statements, taking care to qualify them in such a way, as to make it somewhat difficult to join issue with him; and, even in those assertions which are most definite, he takes care to introduce a qualification behind which to shelter himself in the event of an attack.
Thus, when he speaks of New South Wales as being a Free Trade colony, he introduces the adverb "essentially," by which he hopes to escape the charge of misrepresentation. Then, in the two following assertions, which we are about to disprove, he introduces qualifying words which he hopes will serve him the same good purpose. He says, when speaking of our manufactures, that their development as compared with the great natural industries of the country is insignificant and further he says, "in neither colony is there any appreciable export of commodities manufactured in the colonies." The italics mark the words upon which he depends for shelter, but they will not save him. So far as New South Wales is concerned, his statement is, we believe, perfectly correct, as the examples already given amply bear witness, In the case of Victoria, on the contrary, it is utterly wrong, as we will presently show. We will prove that we have an "appreciable" export of our own manufactures, and will show what proportion it bears to the exports of the produce of what he is pleased to call our "great natural industries." The following tabulated statement of the exports of Victoria, for the years
The facts brought out by this table, compiled from the Government Statist's returns, are:—
We are aware that exception may be taken to the inclusion of tallow in the list of manufactures, but we purposely placed it there, lest we should appear to strain after effect. It is a pastoral product, and is usually considered a raw material. With us, however, it is a manufactured article, the " boiling-down " establishments being erected for that purpose alone. If we had placed it in the pastoral list, it would have reduced the increase shown on that line; while its removal from the list of manufactures would have considerably augmented the increase shown there.
For the rest, this statement speaks for itself; and the facts which it sets forth have only to be compared impartially with the position of New South Wales, to convince any one of the thorough ignorance of our critics of the entire circumstances upon which he delivers his judgment, and about which he assumes to instruct the British public. From the latest published statistics of New South Wales, he will find that the exports of their own products increased from £9,206,101, in
If any additional proof of the great and increasing development of our manufacturing industries be required, we have it in the following extract from the address of the retiring chairman of the "Manufacturers' Association," delivered at its annual meeting a few days since. Speaking on this very subject, he said:—" Manufactures especially had made wonderful strides during the last few years, but the advance made during the last year was greater than any. He would venture to say that every manufacturer present could employ many more workmen than he was doing . . . . Foundries and workshops had now more work than they could do, and their work was in every way of a greatly superior description than used to be turned out in former years."
Thus we have practically proved to ourselves as a community that protection is the "method that answers." Let us hope that, in Mr. Powell's case, it may be followed, not only by "thoughts that are true," but by words that are true also.
Will this gentleman, in the face of these facts and figures, maintain the assertions to which they supply a full, fair, and unanswerable denial? They show that, so far from the development of our manufactures being "insignificant" as compared with our "great natural industries," it has been greater than either of the other; and that the total exports of our manufactured goods have reached the very "appreciable " sum of over two millions sterling, which is constantly and rapidly increasing; and that the whole advance of New South Wales is due to its pastoral industry alone. Another fact which this statement brings out is this, that, of the £13,384,836, the value of the goods manufactured by us last year, we exported a little over two millions' worth, and ourselves consumed eleven and a quarter millions' worth. Is it any wonder, we would ask Mr. Powell, that our imports have not kept pace with those of New South Wales, seeing that we have been supplying ourselves to this enormous extent? The fact that our imports have not so increased is the very best evidence of the success of the policy which he is attempting to prove a failure.
Will he still assert that there is not much difference in the out-put of the factories of the two colonies? We venture to think not. Will he still assume that the number of factories so called, or the number of hands employed in them, in New South Wales has any real bearing upon the question? We hardly think he will, in the light of this fuller information. What has the number of hands to do with the question, unless we also know what is the extent of the power by which the machinery is worked? The work of our 32,000 employes is supplemented by machinery driven by engines of 14,502 horse-power; and unless Mr. Powell can show that New South Wales surpasses us in this respect, what purpose, but to mislead, can he serve by comparing the hands employed and the number of the works?
Having thus shown, fully and distinctly, the unfounded and erroneous nature of the assumed facts upon which the whole argument and theory of this writer rests, we might fairly leave all else that he has said to the discernment of his readers. If we adopted that course, we might be supposed to have chosen it because we were unable to reply to the other points raised by him against this colony. There are several statements, therefore, which we will proceed to answer. They are in reference to the questions of external trade, population, accumulations, and revenue.
Taking these subjects in their order, we have first to deal with the question of external trade—the imports and exports. We have already shown that the increase of exports from New South Wales, so far as that depends upon her own productions and is not simply an increase of carrying businesss, is entirely due to the enormous increase of her wool yield. This increase of wool is due to the immense area, nearly four times that of Victoria, which she has to devote to pastoral pursuits, and to the great impetus which has been recently given to that industry, largely by Victorian capital and energy. The imports have increased principally upon those items which Victoria is now making for herself, and has, therefore, no necessity to import. The figures in relation to this matter are not correctly given by Mr. Powell. He says that the external trade of New South Wales has increased £10,000,000 from
The relative increase of the two colonies, therefore, has not been as 10 to 3, as Mr. Powell states, but as 8½ to 4. Take away the increase of New South Wales' export of wool, of her own production, £5,743,373, and the total external trade of that colony would not have kept pace with that of Victoria. The surprising thing is, that with such an enormous increase in that commodity across the border, while the yield in Victoria has declined consequent upon so much land having been selected for agricultural purposes, Victoria has been able still to keep so far ahead of her rival in the matter of commerce, the difference between them still being £4,000,000, not £1,000,000 as given by Mr. Powell. In addition to the fact that our factories turned out goods to the value of 13½ millions last year, and so have rendered imports of very many articles all but unnecessary, we have no longer to import our food supplies. Ten years ago we had to depend very largely for wheat and flour upon foreign countries; now we supply ourselves, and have a large surplus to export. According to Mr. Powell's idea, this is an evidence of our failing prosperity; but we in Victoria hold a very different opinion. He is welcome to his theory, so long as we continue to reap the practical benefits of disregarding both it and him, and all who are of his way of thinking.
There is another aspect of this case, which Mr. Powell in all fairness should have presented to his readers. When he was here in
The next question is that of population; and there are several very patent explanations of the quicker growth of population in New South Wales than in Victoria. The first is, that our neighbor spends large sums in importing population, while we do not; the second is in the condition and circumstances of the people themselves. New South Wales is an old-established colony, and had families of all ages gradually growing up to become parents in their turn, long before the rush of a male adult population to Victoria consequent upon the discovery of gold took place. This condition of things continued in New South Wales without material disturbance, and, as a result, its population has gone on increasing in the usual geometrical ratio which prevails under such favorable circumstances. In Victoria the case has been exactly the reverse. Our population was composed at first chiefly of adult males, who came to find gold and go away again. It maintained its nomadic character for fully ten years, say from bona fide selectors to settle as permanent farmers, has afforded a great many more adventurers and unscrupulous persons the opportunity, by taking advantage of its conditions, to take up 320 acres of land upon an annual payment of 2s. per acre for three years; at the end of that time to sell the land to the nearest squatter or large estate-bolder for some £2 to £4 per acre; to pay the Government the balance of 14s. per acre out of the money they thus received; and to pocket the difference, varying from, say, £1 6s. to £3 6s. per acre. By this process the object for which the State parted with the land upon such terms, namely, the settlement of farmers, has been defeated; and that which it desired to prevent, namely, the growth of large estates, has been accomplished. In addition to which, our population has left us and gone over the border into New South Wales, Queensland, or one of the other colonies. This has been brought about by means of our Land Act, in the following way:—It is one of the conditions of the Act that no man shall select more than 320 acres. Accordingly, any man who has gone through the above process has no further opportunity for selecting in Victoria. He consequently goes, with the money he has made by evading our land law, into New South Wales or Queensland, where, with that sum, he can establish himself in a much larger way, as the terms upon which he can get land there are more liberal as regards quantity than they are in Victoria, our neighbours having fully twenty times as large an area to deal with. The fourth explanation of this population question is the matter of area itself. New South Wales is bound to have a larger population than Victoria, if for no other reason than its larger area. This is so self-evident that one need not waste words in comment. On this point we have only further to add, that with such evident reasons for a disparity in the rate of growth of population in the two colonies, a writer must be sadly in want of an argument to bolster up a weak and halting theory
We now come to deal with the question of accumulations—the savings of the people as represented by the increase of capital. Our censor rests his assertion, that New South Wales is accumulating wealth faster than Victoria, upon two illustrations only, out of the many which are available, and which any unprejudiced and fair-minded writer, without a preconceived and preannounced theory to support, would not have failed to bring forward, Unfortunately for his character for correctness, both his illustrations are exaggerated, the first one grossly exaggerated, to suit his argument. "Rateable property," he says, "has doubled in New South Wales in the decade, and only increased by one-half in Victoria." This is absolutely contrary to the facts, as his readers would have seen for themselves if he had published the figures which he has readily done when they apparently told in favour of the position he desires to establish. The exact state of the case is as follows:—
These figures, which are taken from the report of the Government Statist of each colony, show beyond dispute that instead of the difference in the rate of progress in this particular being 50 per cent., as stated by Mr. Powell, it has been barely over 15 per cent. They also show, what it was convenient for our critic to hide, that the smaller, and younger, but Protectionist colony, has accumulated wealth in the shape of rateable property to more than double the amount of its larger, older, but Free Trade neighbour.
The other illustration is also perverted and misleading, through the absolute ignorance of the writer of the question with which he ventures to deal. He says that the number of the depositors in Savings Banks has increased in New South Wales during the decade from 21,000 to 32,000, and in Victoria from 38,000 to 76,000; and from these premises arrives at the conclusion that "wealth in democratic Victoria is accumulating in the hands of a few." It would be interesting to know the exact process of reasoning by which this public instructor arrives at the fact,—that an enormous increase in the number of persons who are in a position to open and keep accounts at Savings Banks is a proof that " wealth is accumulating in the hands of a few." We can assure him, at any
few bank deposits of large amount indicate accumulations in the hands of a few; while a large number of deposits of small amount indicate its distribution amongst many. Superior persons of the political economist class can, and very often do, see things in exactly the reverse way to that in which they appear to less exalted minds. There was no occasion, however, for Mr. Powell to go in search of any such far-fetched explanation of the facts which he sets forth in relation to this matter. There were plain and ample reasons for it close at hand, which he surely was well aware of, when he undertook to enlighten the British public upon the question; but to have used them would not have helped him to establish the position for which his article was penned. Accordingly, they were quietly ignored. One reason for the difference in the average amount of deposits, and presumably in the class of depositors, is the usually higher interest which these banks give in New South Weles than they give in Victoria. This, coupled with the other fact, that in Victoria no depositor is paid any interest upon any sum larger than £6250, fully explains why the average of our deposits is much smaller than the average in the other colony. This limitation was introduced about
There is another most important aspect of this case, which cannot and would not be ignored by any one who desires to do justice to the issues raised by this writer, and to the colonies interested, in their proper appreciation by the public which he
two only of the many and varied forms which such accumulations assume? If Mr. Powell's facts, arguments, and conclusion in this matter of Savings' Bank deposits had been all in his favour, instead of all against him as they are, it would have proved nothing as against Victorian accumulations, or the policy assumed to be involved; because in "Victoria the middle and artisan classes have a favorite mode of investment for which New South Wales has no adequate parallel, namely, Building Societies. These institutions pay their shareholders from 8 to 12 per cent., and their depositors at least 1 per cent, more than the banks; and the result is that they are enormously patronised by those who have small savings to make, and by those who build or purchase small homes for themselves by their assistance. A comparison, therefore, to be of any value, must be based upon the sum of at least all the large public forms of accumulation which are available in each colony. Unfortunately, the statistics of New South Wales are as defective in this direction as we have already shown them to be in relation to manufactures, consequently no such comparison can be made beyond that covered by the three items—rateable property, Bank capital and deposits, and Savings' Bank deposits. Taking these three, the comparison is as follows; and if Mr. Powell, or any one else, can see in it any ground for the belief or the assertion that free trade is preferable to protection as a wealth-producing policy, they have an obliquity of vision from which we can only wish they were free.
These figures show conclusively which colony has the advantage in the matter of accumulated wealth. The only lines upon which New South Wales comes anywhere near Victoria are those relating to the business of banking; and the explanation of that is to be found in these two facts that, during the late political turmoil, very large sums were said to have been withdrawn from deposit in Melbourne and sent over the border for deposit in Sydney; and that immense sums were known to have been withdrawn for the purpose of making large purchases of land from the New South Wales Government, which sums, of course, found their way into the Sydney banks. During the last year (
As a further illustration of the unprecedented progress we have made in the accumulation of wealth during this period, we may cite the following statement, in addition to the above, of some of our more prominent forms of investment.
This table shows that, in these forms of investment alone, Victoria has an accumulation of capital of over 125 millions sterling, and that nearly two-fifths of this amount has been accumulated during the ten years in question, in which, according to Mr. Powell, the millstone of Protection has been dragging us down to ruin. We are so well pleased with ruin of this description, that we shall welcome its more rapid approach. It will be seen that there is only one line in the above list which shows any decline, and that is the line devoted to the mining industry, which has fallen off consequent upon the decline in gold-mining. But this industry, even, has had a great revival during the last twelve or eighteen months, consequent upon the facilities for obtaining money at lower rates
In the face of these facts, which ought to have been known to any public writer who should undertake to instruct less informed persons, it is most unjust to malign and misrepresent Victoria for the purpose of supporting a political theory and proving some political economist in the wrong upon a question of policy.
There is only one other matter which remains to be noticed, and that is the argument founded upon the question of Revenue. It is unnecessary to dwell upon it at any length, as our critic, in his desperate attempts to make adverse circumstances prove the same point, has successfully answered himself upon this question. He first proves, to his own entire satisfaction, that our Import trade suffers terribly in consequence of our high tariff. Very good, say we; that is the best possible proof that our object is in course of accomplishment; we are supplying ourselves, instead of buying from abroad. It does not suit Mr. Powell's theory, however, to admit that such is the case—that we make our own goods; so, in another part of his article, when he is aiming at proving that our manufactures are little or no use to us for this purpose, he asserts that we have still to supply ourselves from abroad to as large an amount as New South Wales. This contradiction is so gross and absurd that, lest we should be thought to exaggerate it, we quote his own words as follow;—" If we compare the articles which are imported into Victoria under a heavy duty, and which enter New South Wales free, we shall find that, in spite of the increase in price, Victoria still is forced to supply herself with these 'prohibited' or 'weighted' foreign articles; and imports of these classes, on an annual average, about as much as the unprotected New South Wales." If this statement be true, will Mr. Powell explain how it is that our Imports have not increased as rapidly as those of New South Wales? Then will he further explain how it is that, if we import as much of these articles as our neighbours, upon which we collect heavy duties and they collect none, our Customs Revenue is, as he asserts, declining, while that of New South Wales is increasing? In the meantime, and until he determines which of these two contradictory and irreconcilable statements he intends to hold by and which he intends to abandon, we are relieved from the necessity of answering him. We are prepared to admit that our Imports have not increased so rapidly as our neighbour's, and that, as a natural consequence, our revenue from Customs' duties correspondingly lags behind theirs; but we accept these facts as the direct proofs of the success of our Protective policy, unless it can be shown that our people are less able and less
Toward the close of his article he expresses the opinion that there is in this colony a "reactionary movement in favor of a lower tariff," and gives utterance to a wish that his contribution will give fresh impulse" to this movement. We can assure him that there is no such movement as he imagines, and, further, that if there were, such articles as his, so manifestly unfair and unreliable, so easily opposed and refuted, would have just the opposite effect to that which he desires. He thinks he sees in the appointment by the Premier of a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of our tariff, of which Commission the writer has the honor of being Chairman, an indication that such a movement is going on. His opinion is based, in this case as in all those which we have alreade dealt with, upon a want of knowledge of the subject. Th Commission is appointed to ascertain what duties can be removed, if any, without interfering with the settled policy of the colony. Mr. Powell must have known this if he had even read the terms of the Commission before he ventured to publish his opinions of its purpose and scope. We may assume, therefore, that he went upon the principle that, if he knew little or nothing of his subject, his readers would know less; and that, as "among the blind, the one-eyed man is king," he might safely dare contradiction or refutation.
There is very much more evidence that New South Wales will follow our fiscal policy than there is any probability that Victoria will revert to free trade. The energy and vigor with
Before closing this reply to this travelled economist, it may be as well to say that in the statement of our accumulations no account has been taken of State property in land, railways, waterworks and public works and buildings; municipal improvements, or church and school property, all such being exempt from rates, and therefore not rateable. These items represent at least £100,000,000 more, making a total fixed capital of £225,000,000. When it is remembered that this accumulation is the work of little more than thirty years, and the result of the labour, less the £22,000,000 borrowed, of an average adult male population of less than 200,000, it will be admitted by every impartial person that the fiscal policy and political conditions under which it has been achieved cannot be so bad as they are represented. At any rate, it is essential that any man who, on the strength of a flying visit to our shores, undertakes to pose as an authority upon either or all of these questions should display at least a fair acquaintance with his subject, and manifest an impartial judgment in dealing with it. These conditions we noticed to be "conspicuous by their absence" in Mr. Powell's article. Hence we have ventured to break a lance in defence of our home, our policy, and our institutions.
Life is too short, we are too busy, and we are too accustomed to the thousand-and-one misrepresentations of all that concerns Victoria, its politics and progress, its manufactures and commerce, its social condition and its material resources, its present aims, and its future prospects, its capabilities and its disabilities, which constantly appear in the British Press, to trouble ourselves about answering them.
In this instance the case is different. Our critic is a well-known public writer, who, by virtue of his visits to this part of the world, would be accepted, in some sort, as an authority; and the medium which he selected for the dissemination of his crude opinions and incomplete facts was well adapted to bring them under the notice of the public. Under these circumstances, we could not allow him or his misrepresentations to remain unnoticed or unanswered. We shall be well rewarded if we have helped our readers to form a more correct opinion of this grand colony than any they may previously have entertained, and if we have helped to secure for the future fuller information upon our affairs, before they speak or write, on the part of those who presume to instruct us in the mode of carrying on our Government.
Griffith and Spaven, Printers, Smith Street, Fitzroy.
Whereas by "The West Coast Settlement Reserves Act,
Now, therefore, His Excellency the Governor, in pursuance and exercise of the power and authority conferred upon him by the hereinbefore in part recited Act, and by and with the advice and consent of the Executive Council of the said colony, doth hereby make the following regulations as those upon which leases of the said reserves for agricultural purposes shall be advertised, prepared, and issued, that is to say,—
In these regulations and in the Schedules, if not inconsistent with the context,—
"The Act" means "The West Coast Settlement Reserves Act,
"Substantial improvements" means houses and buildings, and includes fencing, planting, draining, and reclamation of land, the benefit of which is unexhausted at the time of valuation:
"Lessor" means Trustee as defined by the Act:
"Lessee" means any person taking a lease from the lessor under the Act:
"Reserves Trustee" means the West Coast Settlement Reserves Trustee as defined by the Act:
"Notice" means a notice given by causing the same to be personally served on any person, or by leaving the same at his usual or last known place of abode or business in the colony, or by forwarding the same by post addressed to his usual or last known place of abode or business:
"Publicly notified," "public notice," means a notice published by advertisement at least twice in a newspaper having general circulation in the district wherein the land to be leased is situated.
1. Every lease (hereinafter referred to as a "lease") shall be put up to public competition by tender, after public notice thereof, at an upset rental equivalent to five pounds per centum on the capital value as fixed by the lessor of the land proposed to be leased.
Provided that such value so fixed shall not be less than the price for which similar lands may be sold for cash under the law for the time being regulating the price of such land in the district.
2. Every tender shall be in the form in the First Schedule hereto. Forms of tender can be had on application at the District Land Offices, New Plymouth, Patea, and Hawera.
3. Every tenderer will be notified that his tender has been accepted, in the form in the Second Schedule hereto, or to that effect.
4. All tenders for any land shall be opened by the lessor or Reserves Trustee at one time as advertised.
Any such tender shall be deemed to be informal and incapable of being accepted unless closed up and accompanied by a statutory declaration in the form or to the effect set forth in the Third Schedule hereto, and also accompanied by an amount equal to six months' rent at the rate tendered, paid either in cash or by a marked cheque. Forms of declaration can be obtained at the offices before mentioned.
5. The highest tenderer for a lease, if his tender shall equal or exceed such upset price, shall be declared the lessee, and be entitled to possession of the lands the lease of which has been so purchased by him when and so soon as he has executed a lease
6. If the rent offered by two or more persons is of the same amount, and is higher than that offered by any other tenderers, then the lessor shall decide by lot which of such two or more persons shall be declared the lessee.
7. The deposits and fees paid by the unsuccessful tenderers shall be returned to them by the lessor or Reserves Trustee immediately after the tenders have been opened.
8. If any person who has been declared a lessee hereunder shall fail to execute his lease within twenty-one days from the date of the notice of acceptance of his tender in the form in the Second Schedule hereto, his deposit shall be absolutely forfeited to the lessor, and his right to obtain a lease of such lands shall absolutely cease and determine: Provided the lease is ready for execution at the office for the district of the Reserves Trustee; otherwise the lessee shall not be deemed to have committed default until the expiration of fifteen days after notice shall have been sent to him that the lease is so ready.
Provided, further, that at any time within seven days from such forfeiture the lessor may declare the next highest tenderer for the same lease to be the lessee, or, if the rent offered by two or more persons is the same amount, and is higher than the rent offered by any other tenderer save the one who has so forfeited his right to a lease as aforesaid, the lessor may decide by lot which of such others shall be the lessee, upon his again pa
And in case of forfeiture of his right to a lease by the person so declared a lessee under the above proviso, the procedure prescribed by the said proviso shall, mutatis mutandis, be continued from time to time, until the land be leased in accordance with the Act and these regulations, or until there be a failure
9. If no tender shall be received for any of the leases advertised for competition by tender prior to the time fixed for opening the tenders, any person may at any time thereafter apply for any one of such leases, and be declared the lessee thereof at the upset rental fixed, upon complying with the other conditions of the Act and these regulations prescribed as to tenders.
If two or more applicants shall lodge their tenders at the same time, the right to the lease shall be decided by lot.
10. Any one person may tender for two or more leases at the same time, but, except in the case provide:! for by clause fourteen hereof, he shall not be capable of becoming the lessee under more than one lease; and if he shall be found, upon the opening of the tenders, to be the highest tenderer for more than one lease, he shall, except in the case before mentioned, elect forthwith which of such leases he will accept, and thereupon the lessor shall, subject to the other provisions of the Act and these regulations, declare the next highest tenderer for the lease or leases which the first-mentioned tenderer has elected not to accept to be the lessee, or, if there be two or more tenderers at the same amount and higher than any other tenderers, shall decide by lot.
Provided that, in the event of any person tendering for two or more leases, the deposit of a sum equal to one half-year's rent of the tender largest in amount shall be sufficient.
Provided further that, if he be tendering for two or more leases such as he may in the aggregate become the lessee of under the fourteenth clause hereof, the deposit shall in such case be a half-year's rent, at the rate tendered for each such lease.
11. The lessor may at any time reduce the upset rental of land which he has failed to lease, subject to the proviso to clause one hereof, and may again call for tenders for the same at such reduced rental.
12. Any person of the age of eighteen years may become a lessee hereunder, and shall be as capable of executing a lease and shall be bound by the terms thereof and of the Act and these regulations as if such person was of full age.
13. No lease shall be made to any person nor shall any person be capable of becoming the lessee under a lease or a sublessee who, under the lessor, shall become either the tenant, or occupier in the whole, either by himself or jointly with any other person or persons, including the lands comprised in the lease, of a greater area than six hundred and forty acres of rural laud and forty acres of suburban land.
14. No person shall be capable of becoming the lessee under more than one lease, unless the lands comprised in the several leases adjoin each other.
Provided that lands shall be deemed to adjoin, or be contiguous to, each other if only separated by a road or stream.
15. The provisions of the last two preceding clauses shall not apply to persons who may become lessees or sublessees by marriage, or under a will, or by virtue of an intestacy.
16. Every lease shall be prepared by the lessor, and shall, as nearly as may be, be in the form and contain the powers, reservations, provisions, conditions, covenants, and agreements set forth in the Fourth Schedule hereto.
17. Every lease shall be in duplicate, and the lessee shall be entitled to the registered copy of the same, provided he shall have paid, before the execution of such lease by the lessor, the moneys payable for stamping and registering the lease, and a fee of one pound.
18. Every lease shall, after execution thereof by the lessor and the lessee, be registered by the lessor under "The Land Transfer Act,
19. Every lease of rural land shall be for a term fixed so as to expire on the thirtieth day of June in any year.
20. The lessee shall pay the rent reserved by his lease to the lessor by equal half-yearly instalments in advance, on the first day of the months of January and July in each year.
21. The lessee shall be liable for all rates, taxes,
22. No lessee, or any person claiming by, through, under, or in trust for him, shall transfer, charge, sublet, or otherwise part with the possession or occupation of the land leased to him, or any part thereof, without the previous consent in writing of the lessor, and until the transferee, sublessee, or person acquiring possession or occupation has deposited with the lessor a statutory declaration in the form or to the effect set forth in the Third Schedule hereto.
23. No trustee in bankruptcy or under a deed of assignment who as such has acquired a lease, and no Sheriff or other officer of any Court who may be entitled to sell a lease by virtue of any process of such Court, shall be capable of selling such lease until the purchaser has deposited with the lessor a statutory declaration in the form or to the effect set forth in the Third Schedule hereto.
24. All dealings with or under leases in contravention of the provisions of the two last preceding clauses shall be absolutely void.
25. Any lessee may, with the consent of the lessor, surrender the lands leased by him, and thereupon valuations shall be made, and a new lease of the said lands offered for sale in like manner as if the lease so surrendered was about to be determined by effluxion of time, save that it shall not be competent, for the period of seven years from the date of such surrender, for the lessee who has so surrendered to become the lessee of the new lease either originally or by transfer or sublease.
26. Should any part of the land so leased be taken for public purposes or resumed by the lessor, the rent payable by the lessee shall be abated in such proportion to the whole rent payable under the lease as the area so taken or resumed bears to the whole area leased, and the lessee shall, upon such taking or resumption of the whole or any part of the lands
27. If by reason of such taking or resumption any portion of the land included in the lease is so severed from the rest of the land included therein as in the opinion of the lessee greatly diminishes the value to him of the portion severed, then he shall, with the consent of the lessor, be entitled to surrender any portion so severed, and shall thereupon be entitled to a further abatement of rent and to compensation as if the portion so surrendered had been taken or resumed as above mentioned: Provided that should any difference arise in respect of any matter affected by the preceding clause or this clause it shall be referred to arbitration in the manner hereinafter provided.
28. Each lessee shall, within two years from the date of his lease, bring into cultivation not less than one-tenth of the land leased by him; within four years from the said date, not less than one-fifth of the said land; and within six years from the date of his lease, in addition to the cultivation of one-fifth of the land, shall place on such land substantial improvements of a permanent character to the value of one pound for every acre.
29. Each lessee of suburban land shall, within one year from the date of his lease, fence in all the open land leased by him.
30. Improvements to be suitable to, and consistent with the extent and character of, the holdings; and none shall be allowed for in any valuation in excess of five pounds for every acre of rural land, or ten pounds for every acre of suburban land.
31.
32. The conditions set forth in the Act and these regulations as regards leases shall operate and shall be deemed to bind the lessor and the lessee as fully and effectually as if they were set forth in every lease.
33. If any lessee hereunder shall make default in the payment of rent or in the observance or performance of any of the conditions herein contained, or which may be expressed or implied in his lease, and shall allow such default to continue for three calendar months, or shall be convicted of making any false declaration hereunder, his lease shall thereupon absolutely determine, and the lands included in the same, with all improvements thereon, shall absolutely revert to the lessor, without any payment whatsoever to the lessee, and without releasing him from his liability in respect of any rent then due.
To the Public Trustee.
I [or We], the undersigned, do hereby tender for Section, Block _____,_____ Survey District, as notified by an advertisement published in the _____ of the _____ day of, 188, and in accordance with the conditions of tender exhibited at _____, for the sum of £_____per annum for the whole term of _____ years. I [or We] enclose herewith for £, being the deposit payable as required.
Should the tender be accepted, I [or We] undertake to sign a lease of the said land within twenty-one days after receiving notice of such acceptance.
Dated this _____ day of _____, 188 .
West Coast Settlement Reserves Department, _____, _____, _____, 188 .
Sir,—I am directed to inform you that your tender of to lease, in accordance with the conditions of tender exhibited at _____, Section _____, Block _____, _____Survey District, for _____ years, at an annual rent of £ per annum for the whole term, has been accepted by the Public Trustee. A lease and counterpart will be forwarded for your perusal and signature to this office, notice of which you will receive. Should you fail to execute the lease within twenty-one days of the date hereof, and pay the sum of £ for preparing, stamping, and registering such lease, your claim thereto will be liable to be forfeited, and the land declared open for occupation.
I, A.B., of [Insert place of abode and occupation], do solemnly and sincerely declare—
or sublessee] of a lease of [Here specify land].
And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true, and by virtue of an Act of the General Assembly of New Zealand intituled The Justices of the Peace Act,
Note.—This declaration will require a half-crown stump.
Whereas a grant under "The West Coast Settlement Reserves Act, and whereas, in exercise of the powers and authorities in that behalf imposed upon him by the said Act, the Public Trustee has agreed to grant this lease:
Now, Therefore, I, the Public Trustee, do hereby lease to _____, of _____, who and whose executors, administrators, and assigns are hereinafter referred to as and included in the term "the lessee," All that piece of land situate in _____, containing, be the same a little more or less, as the same is described in the Schedule hereto, and de-lineated on the map or plan thereof drawn hereon and bordered: excepting and reserving nevertheless out of this demise unto the lessor, his successors or assigns, all mines, metals, minerals, coal, lignite, lime, slate, or freestone in or upon the land hereby demised, with power to work, use, possess, sell, and dispose of the same, or any part thereof
And it is hereby expressly agreed and declared between and by the said parties hereto that within three months before the determination of this demise by effluxion of time all buildings and fixtures, including fencing, on the land hereby demised, which shall be deemed to be substantial improvements under the regulations made under the said Act, shall be valued by arbitration in the manner hereinafter mentioned; and a fresh lease of the said land for the same period and on the same conditions as this lease shall be
And it is hereby further declared and agreed that throughout this lease, where any matter is agreed to be referred to arbitration, then such matter shall be determined by the written award of two arbitrators, one to be appointed by the lessor and the other by the lessee, and, in case the said arbitrators shall fail to agree upon an award within twenty-eight days after their appointment, then by the written award of an umpire to be appointed in writing by such arbitrators before entering upon the consideration of the matters referred to them; and if either party, after receiving written notice from the other party of the appointment by such other party of an arbitrator, shall fail within twenty-one days after the receipt of such notice to name an arbitrator, or shall name an arbitrator who shall refuse to act, then the arbitrator appointed by the party giving such notice may proceed in the reference alone, and his award on the matter referred to arbitration shall be final and conclusive on both parties; and the said arbitrator or arbitrators and their umpire shall have full power and authority to decide all questions which may arise in the course of the said reference, and in particular any questions as to what matters or things are proper subjects of valuation; and the cost of every such reference and award shall be, in the discretion of the arbitrators or umpire, and the submission hereby made on the award thereon may be made a rule of the Supreme Court of New Zealand at the instance of either of the parties hereto:
Provided always that, if the rent hereby reserved shall not be paid on the days hereinbefore appointed for payment thereof, then and in such case it shall and may be lawful for the lessor to charge to and recover from the lessee interest at the rate of fifteen pounds per centum per annum on all overdue rent from the date it became due until the date of actual payment:
Provided always that if the rent hereby reserved shall be in arrear and unpaid for the space of three calendar months next after any of the days herein appointed for payment thereof, although no formal demand shall be made for such payment, or in case the lessee shall infringe, or fail to perform or observe, any or either of the covenants, conditions, or agreements herein contained or implied, and by and on the part of the lessee to be performed or observed, then and in any such case it shall be lawful for the lessor into and upon the demised premises, or any part thereof in the name of the whole, to re-enter, and the same to have again, repossess, and enjoy, and to let, use, and dispose thereof as if these presents had not been made; and in case of such re-entry the lessee shall not be entitled to receive, nor shall the lessor be compellable to pay, any valuation or sum for any improvements whatsoever, anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding; and such re-entry shall in no wise prejudice the right of the lessor to recover any rent then due or payable, or right of distress, action, or suit that may have arisen under these presents prior to such re-entry.
The Committee beg to submit their Report on the principal subjects which have come before them for consideration during the past year.
In March last the Hon. the Minister of Justice invited by circular opinions from the various Chambers in the Colony upon the proposd alteration in the existing Bankruptcy Law. A Sub-Committee was appointed to consider them, and, by invitation, two legal members of the Chamber, Messrs. W. D. Stewart and R. Stout, were asked to take part in their deliberations. Various alterations were suggested and embodied in a report by the Committee forwarded to the Minister of Justice, copies of which were also sent to the different Chambers for their consideration and approval. The views of the Chamber were very ably supported in the Assembly by Mr. H. S. Fish. The Bill passed by the House of Representatives is, in the opinion of the Committee, a good, workable measure; likely to remove the glaring defects on the previous Law of Bankruptcy. A very cordial vote of thanks was accorded to Messrs. Stewart and Stout for the valuable aid afforded by those gentlemen in the preparation of the report of the Committee.
The following resolution of the Chamber was brought before the Hon. the Minister of Public Works in November last:—"That a deputation of the Chamber wait upon the Hon. the Minister of Public Works upon his arrival in Dunedin to urge upon him the desirability of pushing forward the works of the Otago Central Railway with expedition and despatch." This was strongly urged by the deputation who waited upon the Minister. The Committee regret that, notwithstanding the promise of the Minister of Public Works, so small a sum has been expended in pushing on this most important work during the past year. The Committee are now enabled to state that there appears to be a better disposition on the part of Government to construct a further section of the line. A sum of £130,000 has been placed upon
Several conferences with the Harbour Board have been held for the purpose of assisting the Board in the removal of the differential dues between Port Chalmers and Dunedin, for the increase of the Board's revenue by raising the rates of wharfage, and in other ways aiding the Board in obtaining additional revenue. The Committee have strongly opposed the imposition of an export rate on interprovincial cargo, believing it to be an unnecessary restriction on the coastal trade of the Province. The Committee have given their support to the Board in their efforts to give greater despatch to vessels in the discharge of cargo. A resolution of the Chamber on this subject has been energetically given effect to by both the Harbour Board and the Railway Department—and one great source of complaint by the masters of vessels visiting this Port is now in course of removal. The Sub-Committee's resolution on this subject, as also those on the proposed reconstruction of the Harbour Board, are appended.
Shortly after the last General Meeting the Committee invited the Stock and Share Brokers of the city to meet them in conference for discussion of details of the proposed Stock Exchange, the necessity for which had previously been affirmed by the Chamber. The Committee regret that nothing came of the attempt, the Brokers generally preferring a continuance of the present mode of carrying on their business to that suggested by the Chamber.
This subject has been discussed, and the general advisability affirmed that provision should be made for securing that the accounts and balance-sheets of all Public Companies and Corporate Bodies should be audited by persons duly qualified and licensed for the purpose, and that this is necessary for the protection of the general public, and that it is not adequately provided for at present.
The Committee brought under notice of the Chamber at its last meeting the excessive charge made by the Telephone Department for the use of their instruments. The Committee laid their views before the Hon. Mr. Dick, the Minister for Post and Telegraphs, strongly arguing a reduction from the present charge of £17 10s. to £10 for places of business, and £5 for private houses. In the Assembly, Mr. Fish moved for, and obtained, the appended return; and on the motion of Mr. Hurst, Member for Auckland, a Committee was appointed to consider the whole question; from the report of the Committee subscribers may confidently look for a considerable reduction At the present time Dunedin has 229 Subscribers to the Telephone Exchange.
The Resolution conveying the thanks of the Chamber to Sir Francis Dillon Bell for his services to the Colony was forwarded in a letter from the Chairman in March last. This with its acknowledgment by Sir Francis, the Committee deem of sufficient importance to embody in the Report of the Proceedings of the Chamber.
During the past year a commencement has been made of a Direct Steam Service between New Zealand and the Mother Country. Several magnificent steamers have been despatched by the New Zealand Shipping Company, to whose enterprise the Colony is indebted for the inauguration of a regular monthly line of steamers. It is to be hoped that the Assembly will offer such a substantial subsidy as will ensure the continuance of a large class of steamers, rendered more necessary now if the Colony is to attract to its shores a class of immigrants hitherto deterred by the lengthened voyages of sailing ships.
The Committee regret that the Government have not seen their way to join with other Australian Colonies in obtaining reduced and uniform postal rates, through the entrance of New Zealand with the other Colonies of Australasia into the Universal Postal Union. The loss of revenue to which the Hon. the Minister objects, the Committee believe would be found to be much less than he expects, owing to the increase in correspondence which has invariably been found to arise from a reduction in the rates of Postage.
The controversy over the custody of Average Deposits, so far as Dunedin is concerned, may now be looked upon as settled. The resolution of the various Underwriters' Associations in Australia—that the form of bond approved by Lloyds' should be adopted, has been given effect to by the ready assent of the Masters and Agents, in a recent case of general average, to the placing of the Deposits to a trust account in the names of the Master, the Chairman of the Dunedin Underwriters' Association, and one of the Consignees.
In estimating the value of our Exports it is necessary to take into consideration a fact of great importance that is very liable to be overlooked. The Committee refer to the great increase of our manufacturing industry as evinced in the returns from the Mosgiel, Kaiapoi, and Roslyn Woollen Mills, in which 5705 bales of wool have been worked up of the value of £74,800 during the past year. Of necessity, the Export Returns appear less by the value of the raw material consumed, but our local manufactures add materially to the wealth of the Colony.
The following statement shows the quantity exported and the growth of this new industry since its commencement in February of last year:—
The abolition of the entrance fee upon members joining the Chamber has fully met the expectations of those gentlemen who advocated the change. Seventy-two new members have joined during the past year. The withdrawals and removals leave a present membership of 222.
The Committee regret to state that the efforts made to establish a Daily Exchange have thus far been a failure. The large hall has been opened to the public from 12 to 1 o'clock, free of charge, a privilege which has been very slightly appreciated by the general public. The Chamber is now well and liberally supplied with Home and Colonial newspapers. The telephone has been added for the convenience of members. With all these advantages the Committee cannot close this report without expressing a feeling of disappointment with the results obtained.
Sir,—I have the honour, by request of the Chamber, to transmit to you the undermentioned resolution passed by the Chamber at its meeting held on Thursday last, the 22nd inst.
Embodying as it does the very favourable estimation in which your services as Agent General of the Colony are held, I trust you will have
Resolved—" That a cordial vote of thanks be given to Sir Francis Dillon Bell for the success that has attended the floating of the £1,000,000 loan, for his able pamphlet on New Zealand finance, and his exertions in inaugurating a direct steam service with Great Britain."
Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing the resolution of the Chamber of Commerce, and I beg to return my grateful thanks to the Chamber for the honour they have done me.
The success of the million loan very likely appeared all the greater by comparison with the last financial operation we had to make. That the Colony should have been able only three years after giving, £120 of stock for £97 10s. in cash, to place a four per cent, loan at £98 12s. 6d., shows how much its credit had risen in the time. I am very grateful for the Chamber's appreciation of my own part in the business; but you may depend upon it that the real secret of our success was the confidence of investors in our good faith, and the belief in our determination to maintain economy and sufficient taxation as the true security of our finance.
As to the steam question, I confess to having devoted more pains to it than to anything else, except finance. We can hardly measure the good that would come to us from a properly established direct line, but the indispensable condition of any permanance in such an enterprise is that it should pay, which means that we must be willing to give reasonable help to it at first, though we ought to allow no monopoly of our trade to be set up.
With regard to my paper on the public debts, I could not see without great pleasure how widely attention became attracted to the wonderful facts I have attempted to record. A few minor points were disputed at the time with some acerbity, and I was prevented by a tedious illness from defending them as I should have liked; but it will not be long before I vindicate, in a second edition, the conclusions which had been impugned.
I thank the Chamber heartily for a recognition which has now to be added to the generous support and confidence I have always received from the Government. The time of my engagement is passing fast away, and my successor will soon be chosen. I trust it may be his good fortune, as it has been mine, to get, in what must always be a difficult and laborious work, not only the approval of the Ministers, but kindness and encouragement outside the official circle such as the Chamber has extended to me.—I have, &c.,
The President delivered the following Address:—
It now becomes my duty to move the adoption of the Report, and in doing so it will be expected that I should make some allusion to the numerous topics upon which it touches; I wish it to be understood that the Committee are in no way responsible for the opinions I am now expressing. I have given much time and thought to the business of the Chamber since the last meeting, and though I cannot congratulate Members upon an improved state of business, I see no reason for alarm. There is no doubt about the Colony having taxed its powers to the utmost extent—both by public and private borrowing—and as a matter of course the ill effects of this will have to be borne for a time. It is impossible not to feel the pinch arising from payment of large sums of money for interest on borrowed capital. But we can do this—we can hold our hands, borrow no further, and in the meantime manfully restrict our wants to our means of paying for them. If we do this we shall soon surmount our difficulties, and the cloud that now hangs over New Zealand will pass away, and we shall, be both better and wiser for the lesson we are learning. Our securities are good—we want time for the development of our resources, and, above all things, we want, a steady flow of the right sort of immigrants to utilise them; and these, I hope, we shall attain by the direct Steam Communication which has been so successfully inaugurated by the enterprise of the New Zealand Shipping Company. Bearing on this subject I would refer Members to the letter of Sir Francis Dillon Bell which is printed with the Report, and I would express the hope that such a subsidy, or such assistance by way of freight and passage money, will be offered by Parliament as will ensure a continuance of the service which the enterprise and liberality of the New Zealand Shipping Company have furnished to the Colony, or of some equally satisfactory line. If two can be supported, so much the better. We must have no monopoly. The Company that offers the best class of vessels suited to the wants of the Colony should receive the support of the Government. I hope we shall not see it defeated by a repetition of that misplaced economy, which for party purposes interfered with the appropriation Government proposed for the service last session.
In my former address I touched upon the depression that then existed in business circles. Trade has not improved since that time. I am sorry to say that I think it worse. The Treasurer in his Financial Statement drew attention to the large increase in our imports as one of the disturbing causes. That is an evil which will cure itself. Already the published statements show a decline, and from inquiries I have made, I look for a great diminution in our imports during the present financial year. We must not shut our eyes to the changes that are working amongst us. Large Joint Stock Companies are gradually absorbing or extinguishing the middle-men. Merchants, individually, are passing away, and their places are being taken by Joint Stock Companies possessing large capital, borrowed in the London market at one half the rates of interest our Bankers charge for the use of their
A large amount of public attention throughout the neighbouring Colonies has been given to the annexation of New Guinea and other Islands of the South Pacific. This question, which has been warmly taken up in Australia, is one that requires careful consideration by all who are interested in the spread of civilization and the growth of commerce in the Pacific. I am not prepared to discuss this question to-day, but I do ask you to watch with interest the progress it is making in Australia, and to be prepared to give a support to any Ministry who may advocate its adoption by the Parliament of New Zealand. The wider question of Federation is receiving much attention in the Home Country. Whether we shall form an integral part of that great Empire, or become an independent Federation of Australian States—that Greater Britain of the South which writers like to depict—time and experience will settle. In the meantime there is a subject that concerns us all, and which the various Colonies of Australia and New Zealand can arrange amongst themselves—and that is a Customs' Union by which the free interchange of the natural products and manufactures of each Colony may circulate freely between each State without the obstruction of Custom houses. I see no difficulty in carrying such a Customs' League through. We have the lines of the German Customs' Union to follow, and it is a matter of history that that great nation owes its formation to the successful carrying out of the scheme by which all intermediate Custom houses were swept away, and merchandise and manufactures within the States comprising the Union passed freely from one to the other, free
I must congratulate you on the success that has attended the shipment of frozen meat to Europe. We cannot but appreciate the labours of those amongst us, especially Messrs. It. Campbell, W. J. M. Larnach, and Jas. Shand, to whose efforts in carrying through the New Zealand Refrigerating Company in all its preliminary stages New Zealand is largely indebted, and whose services have been overlooked in the success of the enterprise. Since the initiation of this trade Otago has exported 62,167 first-class sheep, other Provinces have shipped 4-4,345, making a total of 106,575, and this without any appreciable rise in the prices obtainable for fat sheep in the open market, thus plainly showing the large stock we have to draw upon. With the experience gained, and with ordinary care in keeping up the standard we have attained, there is no placing limits at this time to the extent to which this trade may ultimately grow—or to the benefits likely to flow therefrom throughout New Zealand to all engaged in pastoral pursuits. I hope every effort will be made by those engaged in the trade to uphold the high character which has been secured for New Zealand frozen meat in the London market. In connection with this Export of Frozen Meat, I may mention the very satisfactory progress our Woollen Factories are making, and whose consumption is already affecting the export of wool. From returns obtained I find that during the past year 5605 bales of wool of the value of £74,800 have been worked up by the Kaipoai, Mosgiel, and Kaikorai Mills, and the value of the goods manufactured may very fairly be estimated at £250,000.
At our last Meeting I called attention to the high rates charged by the Telegraph Department for the use of the Telephone. So excessive did the Chamber think the rate, that they took steps to bring it before Parliament at the earliest possible period of the session, and I have to thank Mr. Fish for the energetic manner in which he took up the business. The question was referred to a Committee whose Report fully bore out the statement of the Chamber, and the result has been a recommendation in favour of the reduction
I cannot close my remarks without referring to the heavy losses sustained by the agricultural interest during the past season. Over a large portion of this and the neighbouring Province of Canterbury heavy and continuous rains during the harvest spoiled a great part of the abundant crops which were gathered, and which have now been rendered unfit for consumption or for shipment to other markets. My own experience has shown me that we cannot always escape these visitations, but we can make better preparations for meeting them than were made last season, by greater care being given to stacking and thatching, and by a more generous use of the labour which is available at harvest time, and which, I fear, was not resorted to during the late harvest. There needs also some provision for drying damp grain to fit it for shipment.
I shall not weary you with a mass of statistics. You will find a number of returns bound up with the Committee's report, which have been carefully compiled from official sources, and to which I would refer members desirous of comparing our present progress with that of the past year. But I may refer with pride to the increased settlement that is taking place throughout this Province under the deferred payment and perpetual leasing of the amended land laws Acts of the colony, now being wisely and liberally administered by the present able Minister of Lands, Mr. Rolleston; under whose fostering care we may rest assured that full effect will be given to the leasing and sale of our remaining public estate. I may also refer to the large increase of our local industries, to the establishment of new mills and manufactories, and to the enlargement of others, and to the various occupations that have opened and are opening up for the employment of skilled labour. I sincerely trust the colony will continue to progress in all its material interests, that the difficulties which at present surround us may be surmounted, and that we may turn to good account the lessons of thrift which they are teaching us just now.
I now beg to move the adoption of the report.
Seconded by Mr. W. D. Stewart and unanimously adopted.
Examined and found correct,
Being an increase of 136,562 tons on the year.
Exported for the year ending
The following statement shows the quantity exported and the growth of this new industry since its commencement in February of last year:—
During the past year 3,180 Bales of Wool, of the value of £42,800, were consumed by the Mosgiel and Kaikorai Woollen Mills. These added to the quantity exported raise the production of Otago for
Exports per head of Population, including Wool and Gold for
From which, deducting cost of construction of Railways, £10,478,898 from the total indebtedness of £27,729,535, leaves £17,250,637 as the national debt of the Colony at the present time apart from Railways.
Railway Revenue over Expenditure is approximately estimated up to 31st March last at £360,526. The amount realised on the estimated cost of the Railways is £3 8s. 10d. per cent, per annum, and there are evidences of improvement in that direction.
Being an estimated Increase during the year of 16,797 on total Population of Colony.
The Maori Population is 44,000 in addition to the above.
Being a decrease of £548,464 on the Year.
Advances £14.556,525, being an increase on the year of £674,660.
Total Amount of Deposits in the Colony at the end of Year
Assessment capital value of real property under the Property
Exclusive of exemptions of £500 and under in value.
Note.—The returns of personal property are not yet complete. Some alteration was made in the Property Tax Acts last year which made foreign capital employed in the Colony liable as well as local capital.
Return showing the. Total Amount in Money remaining secured by Mortgages under the Land Transfer Acts on the st March, 1883
In Otago the average reached 28.94 bushels Wheat to the acre.
In Otago the average reached as high as 29 bushels Wheat and 37 bushels Oats to the acre.
Whilst Victoria grew 9 bushels wheat, New South Wales 15 bushels, Queensland 8 bushels, South Australia 4½ bushels, Western Australia 7 bushels, Tasmania 18 bushels, New Zealand grew 22 bushels to the acre. In Potatoes New Zealand produces nearly 5½ tons to the acre—the average for Australia is 3 tons.
An analysis of the imports of the past two years will be found of interest to the trading community, as showing some of the main items which made up the large increase in
showing an excess for last year of rather more than a million. The following figures account for the greater part of this excess, and show that more than half of it is represented by softgoods and hardware. Let us first take
Excess in
Excess in
Excess in
This would account for the whole excess, but there are a good many articles of which we imported less last year than in
Decrease in
In
In
In ; the exports, gold and wool, £2,329,127.
In
In Otago Daily Times, Sept. 27, 1883.
he Committee of Management have much pleasure in laying before Members the Annual Report of the Institute.
The subjects brought under the consideration of the Committee during the past year have reference to matters which concern teachers generally.
The resolutions from the Annual Meeting respecting the formation of a New Zealand Institute, were fully considered. The question of establishing a New Zealand Institute has been before the Committee on several occassions; indeed, it was part of the original intention in founding the Otago Institute, that, as soon as similar organisations were started in the other Provincial districts, it would then be desirable to have a
A circular, containing the resolutions referred to, was sent to all the Teachers' Associations in the Colony, inviting them to send representatives to Christchurch for the purpose of drawing up a constitution for the proposed Institute. Nineteen representatives met as appointed, and discussed the subject at length. Your Committee nominated Dr. Macdonald, Messrs. Park, Fitzgerald, and White to represent Otago. The delegates report that the meeting was very successful; this was mainly due to the great interest manifested in the movement by the Canterbury and North Island representatives. The proposals adopted by the Conference are attached to this report.
Tour Committee have had under review the Regulations of the University permitting teachers to proceed to the B.A. examination. Members are doubtless aware that, according to existing statute the privilege would have been withdrawn this year, but the Senate having been memorialised on the subject, agreed to extend the time to
The Inspectors recently reported to the Otago Education Board on the requirements of the Syllabus, and suggested that amendment should be made in respect to (a) excluding History from the Third Standard; (b) fixing number of attendance necessary to qualify for examination; (c) treating History, Geography, and Grammar as class subjects. Your Committee cordially concurred in the course of instruction recommended, and expressed a hope that the suggestion would be given effect to.
The Southland Branch has seceded from the Institute.
A Branch has been established at Tapanui, which, although small, gives promise of increased membership.
Your Committee are of opinion that a Branch might be started at Palmerston as a centre, and will be glad to see the subject, taken up at the Conference of Teachers, resident in and around that district
It is gratifying to the Committee of Management to find that the University has made provision for another course of Lectures, to be given by Professor Shand, on "Mechanical Physics."
The Treasurer reports a balance in hand of £24 13s. 2d., a satisfactory sum, seeing that one of the Branches has failed to pay up, and another has seceded from the Institute. It must be remembered, also, that the annual subscription is now only five shillings per member.
The Education Board having sent out circulars to Committees advising the closing of the schools, it is confidently believed that all who wish to be present will be able to attend. The arrangements with the railway authorities are the same as those of last year. The Committee desire to record their appreciation of Mr. Pryde's services in carrying out arrangements necessary for the success of the meeting.
The following is the Constitution adopted by the representatives at Christchurch:—
It will be part of the business of the forthcoming meeting to discuss the Constitution, and elect representatives on the General Council.
The following are the resolutions adopted by the Committee appointed to report on this subject:—
We beg to submit the Sixth Annual Report of the Balclutha Branch of the Educational Institute.
During the past year the membership of this Branch has slightly increased. Three members have removed from the district, while seven names have been added to the roll. Up to date, 9 members have paid their subscriptions, the amount of which comes to £3 7s 6d; while our annual expenditure amounts to 9s 8d.
The Branch has met five times during the year, but we regret to state that the attendance has not been so large as in former years. Papers have been read on the following subjects: "Knowledge is power" by Mr. Renton; "The average age at which a child should be presented for the 1st Standard" by Mr. Nicholson; and "The relation of Inspectors of Schools to the Education Department." by Mr Waddell; and various subjects of educational interest have been discussed at our meetings. The following is an extract from the minutes:—"It was agreed unanimously, on the motion of Mr Waddell, that the following motion be proposed at the Annual Meeting of the Institute, 'That the General Committee of Management be instructed to take all lawful means, by petitioning the House of Representatives or otherwise, to have Inspectors of Schools placed under the immediate control of the Education Department.'"
This Branch of the Educational Institute of Otago has held nine meetings during the year, viz.—One annual meeting, seven monthly meetings, and one picnic. During the year there have
Mr. Jas Lindsay and the Rev. Dr. Macgregor, both of this Branch, read papers at the General Conference.
I have the honour to report for the year
Seven meetings have been held during the year, which have been fairly attended. The following papers were read and discussed Mr Selby on "Reading," and Mr Alnutt on "Leading and Driving." The papers were usually read one day, and the discussion took place the following meeting.
Several interesting subjects were taken up for discussion, and, on the whole, the members have taken a lively interest in the meetings.
I have the honour to submit our First Annual Report.
Four meetings have been held during the year, which have been fairly attended. We have as yet only six members, but anticipate an increase. Our schools being much separated interferes with the attendance at our monthly meetings.
I have the honour to submit the Annual Report of the Milton Branch for the year ending
During the year several members left the district, and their successors have not yet joined our Branch, consequently our roll number is lower than formerly.
On the
The annual picnic was held in February at the Taieri Beach. We were joined by several members of the Dunedin and Lawrence districts, and spent a most pleasant day.
Meetings—In all, eight regular meetings were held during the year, the attendance'of members at each being fairly satisfactory.
Papers, &c.—Fewer papers were read this year than in any other, a circumstance attributable mainly to the want of a fixed system of securing contributors. In September the President introduced for discussion a system of "Mutual help in schools." November 4th: Mr. Jas. Jeffery read a paper on "The English Language." March 3rd: The Secretary introduced for discussion the Otago Pupil Teachers' Regulations. June 2nd: Mr. Jas. Rennie read a paper on "The Insecurity of Teachers' tenure of position in New Zealand."
Membership.—The question of membership came on for consideration at the last meeting of the Branch, when it was unanimously resolved to issue circulars with a view of securing the countenance and active assistance of the many teachers in our midst. This step has resulted in a substantial addition to our membership roll.
Dunedin:
Collls, Colling, and Co., Printers,
Crawford Street.
Pursuant to notice Sir George Grey addressed the citizens of Auckland in the Theatre Royal, upon the subject "The principles which should guide the citizens in founding a Free Public Library." Every part of the theatre was densely crowded. The doors were to have been open at half-past seven, but as early as seven o'clock crowds had assembled at all the entrance doors to the theatre. It was deemed expedient, in order to prevent obstruction of the footpaths, to open the doors at an earlier hour. The public were therefore admitted to the theatre at a quarter-past seven o'clock. In less than ten minutes the dress circle was crowded with ladies and gentlemen. In an equally short space of time the pit and stalls were densely packed with auditors. The stage, which served the purpose of a platform, was also thronged.
In order to prevent over-crowding, cards of admission were issued to the following, among others, the greater portion occupying seats on the stage:—Bishops Oowie and Luck, Honorables Henderson, Dignan, Williamson, Chamberlain, T. Russell (O.M.G.) and Mr. Swainson, A. J. Cadman (M.H.R.), George (M.H.R.), Moss (M.H.R.), Dargaville (M.H.R.), Hurst (M.H.R.), Tole (M.H.R.) Mitchelson (M.H.R.), Harris (M.H.R.), Hobbs (M.H.R.), Hamlin (M.H.R.), Peacock (M.H.R.), Sheehan (M.H.R.) Whyte (M.H.R.), McDonald (M.H.R.), Whitaker (M.H.R.), Professors Thomas, Brown, and Tucker, Revs. Buddie, Walpole, Paul, Pritt, Baker, Carrick, Evans, Dudley, Munro, Reid, Whewell, Spurgeon, Parsonson, Robertson, Runciman, Macnicol, Lenehan, Purchas, M. Fynes, Maunsell, O'Gara, clergymen Ponsonby Wesleyan Chapel, and Grafton Road Wesleyan Chapel, Vaggioli, Tebbs, Downey, Bates, MacDonald, Hamer, Bruce, Kidd (Registrar of the University College), O'Hara, Gould, Mackay, Nelson, Burrows, Mayors of Auckland, Parnell, and Onehunga, Drs. Hooper, Richardson, Philson, Goldsboro', Dawson, Kenderdine, Harrison, Mrs. Dr. Potts, Drs. Moore, Lee, Stockwell, Mr. J. E. McDonald (Chief Judge Native Lands Court), Colonel Lyon, Mr. Theo. Kissling (District Land Registrar), Mr. T. Macffarlane (Trustee in Bankruptcy), Major Green (Sheriff of Auckland), Mr. H. S. Smith (District Judge and Resident Magistrate), Messrs. W. S. Wilson, J. L. Wilson, Furby (Telegraph Department), T. T. Masefield, Stephenson, Bums, Cousins, Atkin, J. L. Campbell, Dacre, Pond, G. P. Pierce, Battley, Montague, Levi Coupland, Harper, McDonald (Harbour Board), John Abbott, C. A. E.
Herald, Star, Freeman's Journal, Lance, Observer, Free Press, Hon Colonel Haultain, Kissling (Manager Bank of New Zealand), D. Hean (Manager National Bank), J. Lawford (Manager Bank of Australasia), T. H. Ivey (Manager Bank of New South Wales), Grierson (Manager Union Bank), Burton (Manager Colonial Bank), R. Cameron (Savings Bank), Tyler, E. Hesketh, Hughes, Brewer (Registrar Supreme Court), Kummer (Danish Consul), J. B. Russell, G. Aickin, A. Boardman, T. Cooper, F. D. Fenton, Laishley (Chairman Board of Education), Brigham (Secretary Harbour Board), President Auckland Club, Thomas Buddie, Rose (Vice-President Noi'thern Club), Cheeseman (Secretary Auckland Institute), Governor of Mount Eden Gaol, Young (Medical Superintendent Lunatic Asylum), Resident Surgeon Provincial District Hospital, Stone (Chairman Auckland Harbour Board), P. A. Philips (Town Clerk), Fraser and Tinne (Chairman and Secretary Chamber of Commerce), William Coleman, A. Devore, Coupland, Williamson (Crown Prosecutor), Henry Keesing, J. P. King, Mackechnie, Murchie, Harper, James (Secretary Auckland College and Grammar School), G. A. Buttle, J. King (Bank of Australasia), Mowbray, Giblin (Accountant Bank of New Zealand), Butler (Accountant Bank of New South Wales), Glover, G. M.
On his appearance on the platform, Sir George Grey was received with great enthusiasm, the entire audience rising to their feet.
On the motion of Rev. C. M. Nelson, seconded by Mr. J. M. Shera, the Acting Mayor (Mr. Waddel) was called to the chair.
The Chairman, having read the advertisement, briefly introduced the speaker, and in the course of his remarks said: It seems most opportune, at least to me, that an address on this subject should be delivered at this time, especially when such a gentleman as Sir George Grey, presents himself to instruct you. It is also opportune for a more satisfactory reason, and that is, as I believe I may state, the City Council is in a position, from the funds they have in hand, and the munificent bequest of the late Mr. Edward Costley, to take steps for the erection of necessary buildings for the Free Public Library and Art Gallery. (Cheers.) I sincerely hope that at no distant date you will be called upon to take part in laying the foundation stone of an institution that will be worthy of the munificent gifts which are given to the public by the citizens of Auckland. (Cheers.)
Sir George Grey, who on rising to address the meeting, was received with loud applause, spoke as follows:—Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: In addressing you to-night upon the principles on which your Free Public Library should be established, I shall embrace under that heading your Art Gallery, your Institute, and the other kindred institutions, which must form part ultimately of one great establishment. Now what I would remark to you first is this: that we should consider what should be the peculiar characteristics of a great institution of that nature founded in this town.
Probably you will all admit that the main incentive to the progress in any nation as a separate people is the rivalry, and the desire to surpass others, which may prevail amongst its citizens; and that, in the same manner, a rivalry between nations is what tends most to the advancement of all. For example, if you will look at Great Britain. It lies separated from France by hardly a greater interval than separates this island from the Middle Island of New Zealand. Then, immediately joining France we have Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway—all the
But what took place? Great tracts of public lands of a very
All may aid in this undertaking, and I will show you, by-and-by, a way in which many of you who little think of it, may have the gratification of so doing. Well, what further have we to consider next? What is the population we have to provide this Library for? Why, we who stand here are amongst that vast population, who, in the present century, moved by some mighty impulse, have quitted their homes in England, Scotland,
What do I hold then to be the first characteristic of this Library? If it is a proper one it should be such as to compel persons to resort to Auckland who wish for information on a great variety of subjects. (Hear.) If we can accomplish that; if in our isolated position, separated far from other nations, we can compel the learned of those nations to come here for information, then that knowledge which the ocean puts far from us we shall, by what we offer, bring to our very doors. Already you may see the spread that learning has taken in this country. You have now an important Grammar School; you have now a University established amongst you; you now bring the learned from Europe here to instruct your youth, and you may soon have the command of all the best intellect in Europe for the purpose of instruction if you follow on in the course in which you have entered. But by the choice of the materials which we place in this Library, we can
" Inutilis servus Dei," unworthy servant of God that I am to have done so little. Let them look at the manuscript Bibles which this city may possess, written also by patient monks in the scriptorium, by which a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures was through those dark ages brought down to the present generation. (Applause.) Let them look at the manuscripts in Greek, which, in the very earliest periods of Christianity, were painfully compiled, written in a minute but exquisite handwriting. Let them look at the beautiful missals which you will be possessed of, in which artist and writer alike did their best to hand down to future times the prayers in the liturgies of most of the Christian races. Let them consider how much we owe to the men who devoted their lives to industry of this kind. (Applause.) Then, again, let them look—and this, I hope, all of you will have the pleasure of doing before long—let them look at the manuscripts of the classical authors, which in the same manner were copied and re-copied in those monasteries that future generations might be in possession of the masterpieces of elocution and literature of that great nation called the Roman people. (Applause.)
Perhaps the weakest point in your Public Library will be the number of classical authors you will have. There will be a perfect set of the Latin classics, some few of the first Greek authors, but still my own library was formerly stripped of the finest editions of those authors that they might go to another colony; and in that point there will be a certain degree of weakness. But let me add a few words now of my own thoughts on this subject. They may be weak thoughts, but they are convictions I firmly entertain, and I should like to impress one of my ardent wishes upon your minds. Remember that the great Latin writers had in their boyhood no ancient language to study. The years that are passed by our youths in some of the colleges and universities, in studying dead languages were, by the great Latin writers and the great Greek writers given to the study of their own languages; and if the Romans learned Greek they learned it as we learn French—they learned from the mouths of their living slaves, from the mouths of their living friends, from frequent intercourse with Greeks, and thus principally studying their own language they arrived at a per
I pass on to other things. I have said this:—" We must have
Then, what else ought we to do to render Auckland a place of resort to people generally? Evidently this; you should have here in your Library the key to all the languages of the Pacific and Australia; and I venture to say it will be admitted no man can write truly upon the languages of Australia without coming to Auckland; that here will exist in manuscript the works which will
I did not know until lately that your Public Library is open on the Sunday, but I had taken means to compel you to open it upon the Sunday. (Cheers.) A gentle pressure was put upon you, because in your Library there will be large portions of the Scriptures, often the whole, in at least 120 languages or dialects. (Cheers.) Could you, if your port is resorted to by sailors from all nations—would you dare to shut out from men, from every nation and clime, the power to go and read the Scriptures in their own tongue— (cheers)—when you might afford them an opportunity of so doing? I thus put a gentle pressure upon you which would have compelled you to open the Library on the Sunday, but the Corporation, I find, have already taken a step which I think wise, and have without delay afforded that facility to the public. (Cheers.)
In this I may be wrong, but I appeal to all of you, is it not something to be able to say the people of the city of Auckland, have in our possession, as our property, a Library, such as, in one respect, nowhere else exists, in which all men may come and read the Scriptures in their own tongue— (cheers)—because even the great Bible Societies have nothing of this kind? Many of these portions of Scripture are in manuscript, never having been published; many of them have been printed in distant islands which the Bible Societies know nothing of; and the Bible Societies themselves have been careless in keeping copies of their own works, and are now with difficulty trying to recover works they have printed but have sold the whole of, and can hardly obtain copies of; and you here will have in your possession that which any one of these societies would give much to obtain for its own library. If I were to name any great glory of a particular public library which would be likely to endear it to all men, it would be to state that it is the one library in the world in which the Holy Scriptures may be read in more languages than in any other library upon the face of the earth. (Cheers.) All these various points give your Library an extreme degree of interest.
I will now pass to other points. I wish to impress upon your particular attention,—because all may aid in this—the letters which your Library will contain. The collection has been formed upon this principle. As far as I know there is but one scurrilous production in the whole collection, I think, and that one was printed in New South Wales; and on account of its extreme ferocity I kept that one as a specimen. (Laughter.) No other work has been admitted which was evidently written for the purpose of wounding and doing harm. Many works are written pro-
I think it would be interesting to you to know how your Queen in her private life deals with men of science. (Cheers.) We know but little of the reign of Elizabeth, a sovereign of say about six million people, but the little we do know betokens a haughtiness with those about her, and the gracious acts performed for her were to such acts of subserviency, as that of Sir Walter Raleigh, who threw down his cloak to prevent her treading in the mud, but there was nothing in that Queen's condescension which would make a man of science feel as if his knowledge rendered him in the Queen's estimation her equal in that respect. I will read two letters of Sir Charles Lyell in illustration of this subject. The first letter is without date, but that does not matter, because the second gives it. It is as follows:—" My dear Grey,—If you are not too much engaged, will you be my guest at the Geological Society Club, on Wednesday next, and go to the Society's meeting after it if so disposed. We dine very punctually at half-past five o'clock, in order to be in time for the early meeting, where I expect a good discussion. We meet at Clunn's Hotel, Convent Garden, in morning dress. I enclose a card. You need not reply.—Ever
Chas. Lyell." But he had an invitation himself, and for another day and so this comes:—"53, Harley-street,
I am anxious furthermore, to mention to you one other subject in reference to your Queen. I told you that I thought you would all like to know something of your sovereign. I will tell you what occurred on the day after her accession, and show you what curious work her Ministers first put before her to do. There are some duties which one can conceive the monarch of a great Empire has to perform on such an occasion. Here was a young girl, almost a child, ascending the Throne. There must have been certain things of great importance to which her attention should have been drawn. Immediately after her accession to the Throne, there was a letter to which the Royal sign-manual was attached, and which signature was most beautifully written—the handwriting almost of a child, and very different from her present signature—but written with the greatest care, her desire evidently being while making this her first signature to public documents, to give her subjects a good impression of their sovereign, to show them that nothing was done carelessly by her that was a public duty, although it might only be attaching a signature to a document. She had to write her signature probably to some hundreds of copies of this paper. You may guess the time that would be occupied in signing such a number of documents. And what was this document? It was one in which certain terms in the prayers, collects, and liturgies, customary to be used for the sovereign thoroughout her vast dominions, were to be altered. For instance, wherever the word "King" was used "Queen" was to be used, and wherever the word "William" was used, "Victoria" was to be used. These were directions which every one of her subjects had complied with before this letter could reach the various authorities,
Lord Nelson, being on board the Captain, in Gibraltar Bay, Horatio Nelson." Well, then, you see the generosity and the promptitude of this great man's action. His wish was first to wipe off decisively and plainly the aspersions which rested on his sovereign's character of dislike and hostility to the American people, and to make Great Britain serviceable to all nations that were on friendly terms with his country. If you will look to other letters of Lord Nelson, you will see how this great man was equal in all other respects to great occasions, when they arose. You will be able to ascertain why it was that men who were considered to be great men by their country, had also a claim to be considered great by other nations, and no nation would have considered a man great who was not prepared to act with promptitude, sincerity, and generosity at such periods of time.
I would allude, now, to another subject. I have recently read about what are called practical men. When a man says "I am a practical man," and he says so continuously, it is very generally found that such a person is an ignorant man on many subjects. I read this of a man who thought himself a very good man and a very great writer. He said that "the sublime science of astronomy lifts our minds to the consideration of the entire universe, and leads us to view with contempt this little planet to which we are attached, and to despise the momentary life which we spend here." I have heard that even quoted; I have lately seen it printed. Now, I hold in my hand a letter written by the late Sir J. W. Herschel, the greatest of astronomers, who achieved not only an English but a European reputation, and a reputation which will last for centuries of time. This letter shows that when he ceased from his severe studies of astronomy he could sit down and write a letter such as this, full of suggestions for the good of this "little planet," in which we are living; full of thoughts for the happiness of his family, and never lost an opportunity to do all the good he could for every part of the world, spurring me and others to do all the good we could in the position in which we were placed. He says:—"Collingwood,
Those who know anything of me will know that I have, throughout my life, adhered to this sage counsel regarding the preservation of languages. I have, from the earliest time to the present, done my utmost to preserve and record the languages and dialects of each of the nations amongst whom I have lived. It was in this manner that this great man stirred me up to do things which should be of benefit to these colonies. I have done my best to get these things done here, and in other colonies, especially attending to the subjects of weights and measures, believing that a uniform system of weights and measures prevailing throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon speaking race would tend greatly to extend its weight and influence in every part of the world, and would draw more closely together the bonds of amity which unite the several nations who speak that language.
I should also like to tell you, in connection with the letters you will have, that you will also find letters from the most celebrated travellers—indeed, you will be able to travel with them so to speak—men such as Livingstone, Speke, Sturt, and others. I think I may assure you that it would be impossible to write a complete account of the travels of any of these eminent men without having access to these letters. Those who would desire to
Even in New Zealand you may take in your hand the book which belonged to the first native martyr here. That man attempted to preach the Gospel near Hokianga. He was told that any man would be destroyed who should make the attempt, but first writing in pencil a devout prayer in the book which you can still read, he went unarmed amongst these people. They attacked him, they beat him down with the butt end of their muskets, he having this book alone as his defence. He raised it to protect his head, and you will see the indentation of the butt end of the musket which drove the book into his skull, which is still stained with his blood and brains. It will be something to look upon 100 years hence, and I cannot but think that every one who does look upon it will feel reverence and admiration for the man who, as yet little more than barbarian, conceived it to be his duty, at the risk of his life, to do what he could for the benefit of his countrymen. We are indebted to Mr. John White of Hokianga for this book, and a narrative of the transaction which he has written on the title page. You will also find there a little manuscript in the Australian language. You will find that an Italian nobleman determined to take priest's orders, in order that he might be instrumental in converting the natives of Australia. He was taken from a ship and landed on an inhospitable shore, but sometime afterwards a little colony was established there for the purpose of giving refuge to people wrecked from ships in Torres Straits. That man was carried by the natives to this new settlement. He was in need of medical assistance, being weak from bad food and long privation. He was in a desperately declining state. In a few days he died. His only property was the manuscript which will be in your possession. It was a manuscript in the language of the people amongst whom he lived.
The first Maori grammar was written by a Professor Lee, who was assisted by a missionary; you will see in a letter of his which I had bound into the volume, the great difficulties he had to contend with. The second one was published about the same time that Dr. Maunsell's was published. That was a grammar by Dr. Norris. Only one copy was printed; by some mistake the type was lifted, and no other copy could be taken off; it thus became what is called a unicum. This gentleman gave the grammar to a professor in Germany who was a great friend of his, and who had written very much upon the subject of language. I was very anxious that Auckland should have a copy of every grammar that had ever been published in reference to New Zealand. "When asked for this book, the gentleman said that a unicum was of great value, and he did not wish to part with it; but it was suggested to me that it might be obtained through the influence of friends of both parties. I found that I had certain German friends, and amongst them Bunsen, who was German Ambassador in London, some of whose letters to me you will also find in your library. Now, this German professor who possessed this unicum was not only a singularly learned man, but a cheerful one. He said if Sir George Grey would send him a little Cape wine, which he could place on his table whenhe gave dinners to his friends and tell the story of how he had parted with his book, he would be disposed to give it up. When I heard that I told him that I would send him some of the best Cape wines that could be procured. I had a selection of such wines made and forwarded to him. He sent the book to me, beautifully bound in red morocco. Some time afterwards I was informed that he had been made rector of his university, and that in that capacity it was necessary that he should give a series of official dinners. I received information some afterwards that the wine I had sent was most excellent. (Laughter and cheers.) I have put this letter
At a place in Africa, immediately under the Line, two fragments of remarkable books were picked up. They were written in Arab characters, but the language was native. They had reference to the proceedings of the armies of the Emperor Heraslius in Africa, and narrated a series of events of which we have no other records. When I read the account of these fragments, I endeavoured to obtain similar manuscripts. I had a sort of ambition to become possessed of books of this description, which I imagined might contain information of extraordinary historical interest. I thought the best chance of getting them was by writing to Livingstone and Speke. I wrote to them, and both of them promised to do what they could to assist me, and to spread the intelligence amongst any Arab traders they met that I wanted such books. Speke came back, but was unable to get any books. Livingstone did not come back. Some time afterwards I became Governor of New Zealand, and after I had been here a few months a case arrrived from Captain Crawford, of Sidon. He said in a letter which he wrote to the Colonial Secretary of the Cape of Good Hope, which is in your library, that when he was at Zanzibar, a very respectable old Arab gentleman called on him and gave into his charge a case which he understood contained a very valuable manuscript, which the old gentleman, after much difficulty and research, had procured at a great distance in the interior of the country. The case, however, contained several beautiful manuscripts written in Arabic characters. The gentleman made Captain Crawford understand that the case was for Sir George Grey. I had, however, left the Cape at that time, and they were sent on here. You will be in possession of those manuscripts. Now, I don't know that Arab gentleman who procured them from the interior, and I have never been able to thank him or make the slightest return for his generosity, or in any way to show my gratitude. I do not know the Arabic characters, and I am afraid they must lie unread with you until some man amongst us shall solve the difficulty, and lay open the treasure of history which the manuscripts may contain. You will find amongst the letters some from colonists worthy of the greatest attention, military officers, naval officers, and men of great distinction in every walk of life. You will, in examining these letters, be able to judge of many things that have taken place here by a much better light than you at present possess. And I will ask you while you are judging the actions of men who were here in the early days—those military, naval, and civil officers whoever they may
I thus conclude,—let us attempt to found here such a great institution as I have shadowed forth—an institution possessing such advantages as I have pointed out. Let us separate ourselves—in one important respect—from the instincts of an old country. There the rule is to try and found families, and aggrandise them by their surroundings. All those precious documents which are called family archives pass into the family chest and are locked up. They are shut out from public view; great libraries are collected, shut up for a century or two in cases defended by wire lattices, and are exhibited on a certain day in the week to crowds of excursionists, who pass through the family library ignorant of its contents and astounded at its extent. It is useless to its owner, and of no benefit to the nation. Too often it happens that the descendants of those families are landed in circumstances which in some way detracts from the glory of their ancestors. When that happens these treasures are dispersed, and thus having been shut up from the public, kept useless while they are held by the family, they are comparatively useless when broken up. Great reservoirs of knowledge, which, as a whole, would have
circumspice—these works of art, these treasures of literature, are the statues which our founders have set up for themselves." Let them mention in subdued voices, and in reverent tones, the names of such benefactors of the people of Auckland, as I have named to you this night, and let whole groups of families, and not only an eldest son say,—" An ancestor of of ours was one of those to whom these treasures belonged, and who did such great things for his country, thinking of its welfare and not of the maintenance of a family name."
Sir George Grey resumed his seat amidst loud and prolonged applause, a large proportion of the audience waving hats and handkerchiefs.
His Lordship Dr. Cowie, Bishop of Auckland, moved the following resolution:—"That this meeting tenders its sincere and hearty thanks to Sir George Grey for the eloquent and instructive address just delivered, and for the interest he has taken in the Free Public Library since its establishment; also, it takes this opportunity of recording its high appreciation and deep gratitude for the munificient gift of his valuable library to the citizens of Auckland." He would merely express the hope that the munificent example of Sir George Grey would be followed by his fellow-citizens who possessed the means, both now and in the years to come.
Mr. J. C. Firth said it would be impossible to add anything to the instructive and interesting address which had been given by Sir George Grey. He had listened to it with the greatest pleasure. It was unnecessary to ask the favour of that vast assemblage for the resolution which had been proposed by His
Sir George Grey proposed a vote of thanks to the Acting Mayor, who had so efficiently presided over the meeting.
The motion was carried amidst loud cheers.
Three cheers were given for Sir George Grey, after which the meeting separated.
Wilsons & Horton, Printers, Auckland.
Ladies And Gentlemen,—The honour of occupying the position of President of the Educational Institute of Otago is one which I neither expected nor considered myself worthy to receive. The chair has already been filled in succession by three of our University Professors, and a gentleman who is considered to be no mean representative of the legal profession in Dunedin. It, therefore, behoves me, as the first of your own body, on whom you have conferred this honour, to tender you my grateful acknowledgements for your kindness and consideration, and at the same time, to express a hope that I may be able, with your indulgence, to discharge the duties of the office to your satisfaction and my own credit. But anything I have to say on the present occasion must come far short of the able addresses of my learned predecessors in office. Still my remarks, connected with the work in which we are all engaged, may contain a few truths, though trite or commonplace, not unworthy of our earnest consideration.
Before proceeding to the main subject of my address, permit me to say a word in reference to the advantages which may be derived from an association such as our Institute. These seem to me to be two-fold. First, the members are afforded opportunities for meeting together for the purpose of discussing questions in connection with their profession. Papers are read and freely commented on, in which the various experiences of teachers in the discharge of their duties are enunciated, and thereby fresh ideas are received, or old ones confirmed. In this way, effort for future work is strengthened, and the liability of falling into mistakes considerably lessened; besides, improved methods of teaching are almost certain to be the result of such procedure, if persistently and judiciously pursued. But perhaps I may be pardoned for remarking here that there are many teachers among us who seldom or never attend our meetings, to their own loss and disadvantage, which is greatly to be regretted. I am sure there is not a teacher in Otago, who has any regard for his profession, but would be the better for taking a part in these meetings. The second advantage of such associations, though it may not bulk in importance with the first, is still as necessary. For however exalted our aims may be to reach a high degree of excellence in the performance of our work, we cannot ignore the fact that what we have to do is considered simply work, and, whatever a few enthusiastic writers on the noble calling of the
Trades Unions. Allow me to say a word here in reference to the unfairness of this charge, at least so far as our Institute is concerned. In what may be termed the commendable anxiety of popular educationists to bring primary instruction to the door as it were of even the humblest member of the community, the teacher, who ought to have some consideration, is apt to be over-looked, or at least considered of hardly equal importance with the school buildings and their appliances, and is consequently the first to suffer on the slightest financial emergency. In proof of this I may remind you that, when the state of the colonial revenue lately necessitated a reduction of ten per cent, in the salaries of all Government employes, schoolmasters acquiesced in the inevitable without a murmur. Such, however, was not the case with the other members of the civil service. Their condition was so loudly bewailed, that Government was constrained to restore to them their ten per cent. But, so far as I am aware, not one voice, either in the House of Representatives or out of it, has been once raised for the restoration of the ten per cent, to the poor defenceless dominie. Perhaps the reason is, that teachers are not recognised by Government as civil servants, and never were. Now, had our Association partaken of the nature of a trades union, we would have petitioned, memorialised, agitated, struck for our just rights. But we did nothing of the sort. "We are a law-abiding body—long-suffering class. Nay, more, I believe the subject was never specially dealt with by any branches of the Institute. A glance at the Report will show that the subjects of debate at the several branch meetings were those exclusively connected with the first series of advantages already spoken of, viz., the best means of reaching a high standard in our profession.
With these preliminary observations, allow me now to proceed to the main subject of my address. The Teacher viewed in relation to his work and to society. My remarks, though specially intended for our younger brethren, may not, I trust, be
1. Mathew Arnold's conception of a man of culture is, "That he strives to humanize knowledge, to divest it of whatever is harsh, crude, and technical, and to make it a source of happiness and brightness to all." Now, I think this should be the aim of every teacher of youth, and in striving for its accomplishment, his own moral, intellectual, and physical capacities should be cultivated as far as circumstances will permit. But I am afraid that culture, that is the culture of the whole man as an immortal being, responsible to a greater than himself, is scarcely the thing demanded by some, at least, of our advanced thinkers of the present day. Utility, in their estimation, is the be all and the end all of human life; and education that is not utilitarian in its aim has to them little to recommend it. If such be the prevailing belief of any considerable number of modern scientists, we have certainly some reason to be alarmed for the consequences. Man is above, or ought to be above, feeling satisfied with enjoyments that are merely sensuous. If the happiness and brightness of life spoken of by Mr. Arnold were secured by the gratification of the senses alone, then utilitarianism might claim our supreme regard. But the moral and religious instincts of humanity are nobler in their aims than to be bartered for, or set on one side by cold sensuous utilitarianism. When a teacher of youth is not guided by a keen sense of his moral responsibility, not to man only, but to One who claims and demands the homage and righteous obedience of all men, his work, in my opinion, may be performed in a manner so heartless and perfunctory as to be worthless, or vicious, or both. There must be no dubiety in his moral perceptions. Truth with him must not only be admired for its own sake, it must also be supremely loved and scrupulously obeyed, because it is the Divine basis of all true manhood.
The aphorism that "virtue is its own reward" is only true in a certain sense, for, as Dr. Newman well puts it, "Though it brings with it the truest and highest pleasure, they who cultivate it for pleasure sake are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because they can never have the virtue." The teacher, then, if impressed with this high conception of the unselfishness of the true moral character, cannot fail to be successful in the best sense of the term. He works not as the mere hireling. He feels in his inmost soul that he has to a certain extent the moulding for good or for evil the plastic minds of immortal creatures; and doubtless has found that the mere love of any moral virtue for its own sake has lamentably failed to support him in the irritating and arduous struggle. No, the source of his support springs from a nobler fountain head—the solemn conviction that he is responsible to a Power neither of man, nor in man, but above man. Whatever would tend to blunt his
that education who denies his moral responsibility to this Being.
A man may have a highly cultivated intellect, and be able in an eminent degree to impart his intellectual knowledge to others, but lacking this moral culture, he must fail as an educationist in the full meaning of that term. If such is the case, you will allow that the teacher who has a true sense of the importance of his work, must place supreme value on moral culture. The various virtues that combine to make a perfect moral character are not to him mere abstractions. Charitableness, forgiveness, gentleness, not a namby-pamby amiability, truthfulness, patience, and all the other moral virtues are to him as real as his own existence. He may come far short of a consistent exhibition of them in his own character, but, having the true ideal before him, and having been long accustomed to exercise another powerful moral virtue—self-control—he will never go far astray.
But to proceed. There is also intellectual culture. An ignorant teacher is an absurdity. For how can a man teach to others that of which he himself is ignorant? Every teacher must be a student. When he leaves the Normal School or the University, his education is not finished, it is, strictly speaking, only begun. He may have acquired a good deal of technical knowledge. But how is he to make this knowledge a source of happiness and brightness to the young? This is a question of such profound meaning and far-reaching consequences that a whole treatise would be required for its satisfactory solution. I can only throw out a few meagre hints, which I hope may not be considered wholly valueless in helping to a correct answer.
We are told that there are two sorts of people in this world, those who go through life with their eyes open, and those who perform the same journey, but have their eyes shut with regard to all that is worth seeing. The former are observant of the varied phenomena brought under their notice, and seemingly without any special effort, note whatever is worth retaining, make it their own, and lay it past to be brought forth as occasion re-
It has been said that much study is a weariness to the flesh; but the culture of which I am speaking can be obtained at a less painful sacrifice. It is within the reach of any one to a greater or less extent who is willing to continuously and systematically employ the spare hours of his life. Spare hours did I say? Great things have been accomplished by the systematic employment of the spare minutes of even an active life. The pages of biography are full of examples confirmatory of the statement, and if we study them aright we shall strive to do likewise. I have just said that it is the pretentious smatterers in knowledge, or, as they might be termed, the skim milk philosophers of our day, who do mischief. The thorough student is not pretentious. He is no mere retailer of other men's literary wares. He knows that intellectual culture depends more on the quality of a man's mental attainments than on the amount of book learning with which his memory is charged. And herein, it seems to me, lies the difference between intellectual culture
If all writers of books produced only what they gathered from other books there could be no intellectual progress. The teacher of youth, to be a man of fair culture, must, in the language of the prayer book, "read, learn, and inwardly digest;" and exercise a wise discrimination between the really useful books, and those, however entertaining, that are frivolous. He must also be a careful student of that book, one or two pages of which I have just named—the book of nature, the glorious panorama of vegetable and animal existence, created not only for man's special use and benefit, but also for his pleasure. The man of culture sees a beauty and adaptation in all nature's works, from the humblest to the most exalted; and in the contemplation of them, sensations of the purest enjoyment fill his soul; and he feels himself ennobled, lifted up, as it were, to a higher state of existence, and blesses the Creator of all, that He has endowed him with the capacity for such enjoyment. In short, wherever harmony exists, be it in colour, in symmetrical form, in musical sounds, or in the beautiful consistency of a noble life, each and all when brought under his observation, he can appreciate and admire.
Intellectual culture when rightly directed has thus both a refining and an ennobling tendency; and the greater interest a teacher takes in such culture, the better must he be fitted for his work. His mind expands, but it is not with the knowledge of facts only but with a sympathy for, and an appreciation of the beautiful and the good in whatever God has created.
But there are other books which the schoolmaster has, the living books that are before him in the schoolroom; and they afford him objects of study more wonderful, more diversified, and more entertaining, if he will only study them aright, than all the books that ever were written. In one word then, it appears to me,
But there is physical culture. The health of the body must not be sacrificed for either moral or intellectual culture. Indeed, it is only when all the bodily functions are in a healthy and vigorous condition that moral and intellectual culture can be safely and satisfactorily prosecuted. The laws of health, therefore, are of primary importance to all, but more especially to those who are engaged in sedentary pursuits; not as laws in the abstract, but as laws that must be intelligently obeyed, or violated at our peril. Nature is patient and long-suffering; but if we persistently ignore its legitimate demands, we must sooner or later pay the penalty. A schoolmaster whose physical frame is feeble from over-study, or from an indolent regard for the ordinary laws of health, is very unfit for the tear and wear of the schoolroom. "The sound mind in the healthy body" is of all things to be devoutly wished for, and sedulously sought after by every teacher who would perform his duties with that manly vigour which robust health alone can command.
It is somewhat remarkable that so many students who ought to know, and who generally do know something of the marvellous structure of the human body, should so recklessly disregard its necessary claims. There are, I think, few things more deeply to be deplored than the conduct of the sickly and laborious student who year after year sacrifices his health at the shrine of learning. He may, after long toil, have just finished his collegiate course, and carried off the highest honours; but he has also carried with him the passport for another world. And what renders his case all the more regretful is, to use the language of the poet—
"He nursed the pinion that impelled the steel,"
and sinks into an early grave; while all his varied and brilliant acquirements are lost to the world for ever. There are few, if any, seats of learning but have their yearly victims. Able, bright, intellectual fellows, foolishly throwing away their lives, whereas, with a little prudential care they might live to a good old age, and materially promote the advancement of sound learning. Let every young ambitious student be advised in time. To such I would say—Your health is of the first importance; for what avails the highest intellectual culture if the body is a wreck?
The great cry of modern educationists is that elementary science should find an important place in our schools. Well, it seems to me, that before all the sciences that can be taught
2. I now proceed to offer a few remarks on the teacher as an educator. "We all know the difference between teaching and educating. But it should not be forgotten that though we may teach without educating, we cannot educate without teaching. Pacts must first be imparted to the pupils; but the teacher must possess a thorough knowledge of the facts. And herein I think lies the advantage which the cultured schoolmaster possesses over any other. His perfect knowledge of his subject enables him to present it to the minds of his pupils in a way most suited to their respective capacities. He has long since learned that no man can with any degree of success teach all he knows to children; and he, therefore, has always a reserve fund far in advance of what his pupils require at their age to know, or even can learn. It is a great mistake to imagine that we can get on swimmingly at our work if we can manage just to keep ahead of our pupils. A teacher who is not master of his subject is hesitating and hazy in his explanations; and his pupils soon lose confidence in him as a teacher and respect for him as a man. But further, the teacher who educates does not rest satisfied with even a lucid explanation of facts. He makes his facts, so to speak, the foundation on which to build up and strengthen the gradually developing intelligence of his pupils. He makes them feel dissatisfied until they can perceive the why and the wherefore of things; in other words, he compels them to think, and whenever a teacher succeeds in making his pupils think, from that moment he is more than a teacher, he becomes an educator.
There is one point in which we teachers often err, and err grievously, and that is in not making sufficient allowance for the difference between our own minds and the immature minds of our pupils. We may have a clear understanding of a subject,
But the public school teacher's work now-a-days has become such a terrible race for results, and so deep is the rut in which he is compelled to run, that his mind has no elbow room. There is no time for thought. Such at least is the general complaint; and I am persuaded that any man of ordinary intelligence who examines the syllabus will say that the complaint is just. Even our school inspectors are raising their voice against the folly of attempting to teach such a multiplicity of subjects to young children. In last year's report Mr. Petrie speaks out with considerable emphasis regarding the barren results of the education in our public schools, blaming, perhaps unwittingly, the teachers more than the system under which they have to work. The minds of the pupils are not acted on; the teaching is too mechanical; the memory has to do all the work. In short, the education in our schools is degenerating "into a worthless process of cram." Now, I make bold to say that all this is only the natural outcome of the system. No better could be expected from it. No sane man will sow tares and expect to reap wheat. And if those who frame codes for elementary schools expect to obtain results completely at variance with what these codes indicate, they betray lamentable ignorance of the human mind.
The general experience both in the Home country and in the colonies, regarding codes and syllabuses as hitherto constructed, has been that they are detrimental to education. Sir John Lubbock, speaking of the Home system, says, "Our present methods rely too much on memory and too little on thought; make too much of books and too little of things; sacrifice education to instruction, and confuse book learning with real knowledge." It is well known that our educational syllabus is based on the Home system, or rather what was the Home system, for the old codes
It is to be regretted that such a liberal system of education as ours should be so ineffective from the unworkable nature of its details. But, defective as these details certainly are, still I do think that better results should be obtained from them. The temptation, however, to secure a high percentage of passes seems to have been too strong for all to resist; and, since the syllabus demands the facts and all but ignores thought and intelligence on the part of the pupils, teachers, to save themselves, have stuck to the syllabus; and last year's report proclaims to syllabus makers, and all concerned, the lamentable result.
The true educator would doubtless be satisfied with a lower per centage of passes than the public demands, provided he could secure greater intelligence in his pupils. But here is the difficulty. The public judges of the quality of a school only by the large number of children that can obtain a pass; and some committees have been foolish enough to publish in the local papers the high percentage of passes made in their schools, and commend their teachers accordingly. But neither the public nor committees have hitherto proved themselves to be infallible judges in these matters; and it is only such reports of the weak points in the system, as that given by our Inspectors, that will let them see the error of their ways, and lead them, we hope, to demand from those whom they have entrusted with the framing; of laws for the education of our children, a system based on reason and common sense. In the meantime, however, we have our syllabus, and till we get a better are bound to make the best of it. I would, therefore, strongly recommend that while we strive to secure as high a percentage of passes as possible, never to neglect our higher functions, that of educators.
It is generally allowed that the most difficult part of a teacher's duty is to get his pupils to give a reason for what they say or do, or in other words, to make them think. Some writers on education strongly object to teachers putting questions to pupils that can be answered by Yes or No, as not being educative. Of course, such answers are worthless if the examiner stops there. But if he, as the lawyers would say, cross question them, he may find that instead of being non-educative they will lead to very important results. For example, a teacher asks a pupil any simple question, such as, Does the sun rise in the east? Of course he will answer, "Yes, sir." But if the teacher im-
I have already referred to the influence that every teacher has or should have in forming the character of his pupils. It has been well said that "we teach not only by what we say and do, but very largely by what we are." This influence, therefore, will depend in a great measure on the uniformity and consistency of our demeanour in school. All know that moral education can be better promoted by example than by precept. No teacher of experience needs to be told that children are keenly observant. To excite youthful curiosity, then, in proper objects, and to direct and guide it in the right way, is the responsible but difficult duty of every schoolmaster. But if he has any peculiarity, either in manner or dress, he may rest assured that such peculiarity will only weaken his influence, by lessening the force of his wise precepts and faultless examples. Moreover, the teacher who would successfully inculcate sound moral principles in his pupils (and he cannot thoroughly educate without doing this) must not only be impressed with his own moral responsibility—he must also believe that there is a something in every human soul when rightly directed, that inclines to righteousness.
No doubt we have all heard often enough of the depravity of the human heart, but I fear you will never make either child or man good, wise, or lovable, by continually dinning into his
I daresay we all know well enough that a teacher's influence over his pupils is considerably strengthened by the consistency of his own conduct towards them. Writers on education are strong on this point. But though it may not require many gifts and graces to put together finely-turned sentences embodying the noblest sentiments regarding teachers' duties in the abstract, no one knows so well as the teacher himself how terribly difficult it is to put them into practice. We are told to be kind but firm—a notable advice, and worthy of all consideration. But alas for the best intentions of frail human temperaments, the advice is often forgotten in the worry of our daily work. Still, if it is next to impossible for a teacher never to get angry without showing it, he should nevertheless strive against fickleness of temper—one of the weakest points in any teacher's character. To be severe against offences one day, and almost apologetically gentle with similar offences on another, betrays a mind wholly unfit to educate children. No, however difficult it is to maintain equanimity of temper on all occasions, he must seek after it, and the very efforts he makes are in themselves educative; and, moreover, while he is using his best efforts to discipline his own mind, he is acquiring additional fitness to bring into subjection the erring natures of his pupils.
Every teacher requires moral power. It is a mightier influence with children than the fear of punishment; and this moral power is always strongest in the man who has no obliquity in his own moral character. When a teacher stands before a class to teach a lesson which he himself has thoroughly studied, he has not only acquired the knowledge to teach it properly, he has also acquired the moral right to demand from his pupils careful and honest preparation of it. I fear that many teachers are not sufficiently alive to the influence which a thorough knowledge of their subject gives them over their pupils. Let any man try to teach a subject which, by previous thought and study, he has made his own, so to speak, and afterwards attempt to give one which he only thinks he
3. Permit me now to offer a few remarks on the teacher as a member of the community. I approach this part of my subject with considerable hesitation. I feel less at home in speaking of the teacher out of the schoolroom than I do in speaking of him in it, so I hope that those who know better than I do what the responsibilities of the schoolmaster are to society and what society owes to him, will pardon me if I under-estimate the former or over-estimate the latter.
As a citizen the teacher is neither above nor below his fellow citizens. Whatever opinion he or his pupils may entertain of his own importance in the schoolroom, to the larger world outside of it he is just an ordinary man. When mixing in society he must conduct himself according to the ordinary usages of society, or take the consequences of any deviation from them. I need not remind you that it is not so much what any man thinks of himself that determines his true position in the community, as what his general behaviour induces others to feel what he is. The battle for position, I suppose, goes on wherever a number of civilized human beings have to live and act together; but, perhaps, in colonial society this battle is waged more openly, and with less consideration for the feelings of others, than is the case in older-settled communities. Still, here as elsewhere, "worth makes the man." The schoolmaster and the humblest handicraftsman may both elbow their way and command respect, not in consequence of, but in spite of their avocations.
All are recommended to magnify their office, whatever it may be; an advice, however, not unfrequently reversed: the office has to magnify the man. But whenever this is the case, you may be sure the man is beneath his office, and is sure to be considered a nincompoop if he feels above it. It is a common saying that the man is like his work. I daresay the most of us have observed the influence that certain kinds of work have over those who have been long engaged in it. A sort of congruity seems to grow up between them and it, so that when you see the work you are reminded of the worker, or you no sooner see the worker than you
But the schoolmaster is not the only one who is liable to acquire this habit. It is the natural outcome of the manner of life of all mere specialists as a rule. Take them out of their rut, so to speak, and they are of little account; their conversation is either connected with their speciality, or what they can do or might do were it not for some hindrance or another that we, of course, can neither appreciate nor understand. In short, the pedagogue and the specialist who keep themselves to themselves are the greatest bores in creation, and are only matched by the female specialist, popularly called a blue stocking. The chance entrance of any of these three characters into a mixed company is like throwing a wet blanket over it. An eminent professor in one of the Scotch universities, writing on the same subject, says,—"The merely professional man is always a narrow man; worse than that, he is in a sense an artificial man, a creature of technicalities and specialities, removed equally from the broad truth of nature and from the healthy influence of human converse. In society the most accomplished man of mere professional skill is often a nullity; he has sunk his humanity in his dexterity; he is a leather-dealer, and can talk only about leather; a student, and smells fustily of books, as an inveterate smoker does of tobacco. So far from rushing hastily into mere professional studies, a young man should rather be anxious to avoid the engrossing influence of what is popularly called Shop. He
There is another failing that we schoolmasters are sometimes accused of, and that is being somewhat pretentious of our little Latin, or Greek, or mathematics. O, how it offends one's sense of propriety to hear your would-be learned dominie quoting Latin in general company, or using big unpronounceable words to explain simple subjects in the hope, I suppose, of being thought educated. Such conduct must lower him in the estimation of every sensible person, weaken his influence as a teacher, and make ordinary people think that though he may pretend to much learning, he has little common sense. Pedantry in any man, however highly he may think himself educated, betrays a weak point somewhere in his character; and in the newly-fledged dominie, particularly if he is a young man, it is simply contemptible. That manliness and uprightness of character which command respect everywhere are really little affected by mere technical knowledge. But if teachers generally have little social intercourse with any outside their profession, this and other peculiarities are sure to cling to them and lay them open to be made the butts of every small wit in the community. The schoolmaster of superior education will soon let the fact be felt by those with whom he associates, without unnecessary pedantic displays of it. He is a good listener rather than a big talker; but when he is called on for an opinion, he is not afraid to give it, but never ostentatiously. I think that the best proof a schoolmaster can give of the benefit he has derived from education is never, either by word or deed, to let even the humblest of his acquaintances feel that he is in presence of the dominie, and must therefore be on his guard.
Whether it has been the peculiar nature of his calling or the usages of society that have hitherto prevented the schoolmaster from taking an active part in social or political questions, I need not stay to determine. That he does not take any such part is well known. Now, one would naturally suppose that the opinion of any man on a subject with which he was well acquainted, whether he happened to be a schoolmaster or a ploughman, if he had a good education and possessed average ability, would be of more value than the opinion of another man who lacked the education, though he might possess the ability. But there is what is called official etiquette; and I suppose that no opinion, however valuable in itself, can be publicly offered by any teacher, even as a citizen, to his official superiors in the face of
Young men of ability are asked to enter the profession. Why? Because it is an honourable profession, and demands the highest talents in those who would successfully follow it. But what young man possessing the instincts of a free man would be willing, think you, to become a public school teacher if he had to surrender any of his rights as a member of the community? We hear a great deal of talk about the status of the schoolmaster; in certain important points he could have no status, if shut out by official or any other kind of etiquette from taking his rightful position among his fellow citizens.
In the old days of Provincial Governments when the Education Board was a political body, that is the Ministry for the time being, one of our schoolmasters advertised a lecture on a certain historical subject which he wished to deliver with the object of raising funds for school purposes. The then Provincial Secretary, whose name I need not rescue from oblivion, having seen the advertisement, thought, so far as I could learn, that the title of the lecture had a dubious ring about it, and sent a peremptory order to the offending dominie to withdraw the advertisement, and stop the lecture. I mention this circumstance to show how far a small-minded man can go when dressed in a little brief authority. I am not aware whether he consulted his colleagues or not, but this I do know, the teacher had to succumb, swallow the affront as he best could, and make no public complaint. Of course those days have gone by; and the schoolmaster, it is hoped, has a little more liberty of speech and action now. Still, I fear, the old influences yet cling to the skirt of what Carlyle calls officialdom; and until they are
Now I cannot see how any man should be expected to teach better by being restricted in the judicious exercise of his privileges. But perhaps public opinion is against me in this. I must, however, maintain that, in my opinion, this cramping of his energies has a deleterious effect on him both as a citizen and as a teacher of the young. I would say—give him free scope for the exercise of all his privileges, and if he is a fool and abuses his privileges, the profession and his official superiors will soon get rid of him; but if a wise man, this liberty of action will enlarge his views of things in general, draw out his social sympathies, and, in a word, make him more manly, and consequently better fitted not only to be an educator of youth, but also an able coadjutor with his fellow colonists in all that concerns the best interests of society.
In conclusion, as a man's actions determine his worth, let the schoolmaster show by his actions that he is able not only to teach children well, but also to lend a helping hand, when opportunity offers, in every good work that calls for help. There is in all communities work to be done apart from the ordinary avocations of its members. Is the schoolmaster to be shut out with his books and his pupils and leave others to do that which it is both his right and his privilege to do? People who look on the schoolmaster as fit only to teach children, and restrict him to this, commit a mistake, for they deprive society of what might be his valuable co-operation. He is supposed to be fairly educated and to have some knowledge of human nature; why then exclude him from taking his fair share in objects that demand these very qualifications for their attainment? In country districts, perhaps more so than in towns, the schoolmaster has opportunities for the exercise of such qualifications, that is if he possesses them. There he ought to be not only a kind of attractive centre to which every young enquiring mind might gravitate, but also the helper and adviser of all his less informed neighbours, and the able coadjutor with those who may even be considered his superiors in social standing. In one word, I would say to all teachers now hearing me, that the effectual way to magnify our office and secure an honourable position in society is to perform our school duties faithfully and well, and to exhibit in all our intercourse with others, whether social or official, suavity of manners, and respectfulness of demeanour, combined with true manliness of character, and leave the results to the decision of public opinion.
Before sitting down, I beg to remark that my address was written before the late unfortunate rupture between the Education Board and one of the teachers culminated; or before I had seen or read the letter or letters that caused it. But,
free man; I have bartered my liberty for my office, and as long as I hold it, I must be a cipher in the community, so far at least as the expression of my opinion on such matters is concerned. And, if the public or the school committees which are the exponents of public opinion in the management of our educational system are satisfied that I should be gagged, I must submit, or leave the service; but if they are dissatisfied with such highhanded officialism, they have a remedy in their own hands—they elect the members of the Board.—(Loud applause.)
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he Committee of Management have much pleasure in laying before Members the Annual Report of the Institute.
The subjects brought under the consideration of the Committee during the past year have reference to matters which concern teachers generally.
The resolutions from the Annual Meeting respecting the formation of a New Zealand Institute, were fully considered. The question of establishing a New Zealand Institute has been before the Committee on several occassions; indeed, it was part of the original intention in founding the Otago Institute, that, as soon as similar organisations were started in the other Provincial districts, it would then be desirable to have a
A circular, containing the resolutions referred to, was sent to all the Teachers Associations in the Colony, inviting them to send representatives to Christchurch for the purpose of drawing up a constitution for the proposed Institute. Nineteen representatives met as appointed, and discussed the subject at length. Your Committee nominated Dr. Macdonald, Messrs. Park, Fitzgerald, and White to represent Otago. The delegates report that the meeting was very successful; this was mainly due to the great interest manifested in the movement by the Canterbury and North Island representatives. The proposals adopted by the Conference are attached to this report.
Tour Committee have had under review the Regulations of the University permitting teachers to proceed to the B.A. examination. Members are doubtless aware that, according to existing statute the privilege would have been withdrawn this year, but the Senate having been memorialised on the subject, agreed to extend the time to
The Inspectors recently reported to the Otago Education Board on the requirements of the Syllabus, and suggested that amendment should be made in respect to (a) excluding History from the Third Standard; (b) fixing number of attendance necessary to qualify for examination; (c) treating History, Geography, and Grammar as class subjects. Your Committee cordially concurred in the course of instruction recommended, and expressed a hope that the suggestion would be given effect to.
The Southland Branch has seceded from the Institute.
A Branch has been established at Tapanui, which, although small, gives promise of increased membership.
Your Committee are of opinion that a Branch might be started at Palmerston as a centre, and will be glad to see the subject, taken up at the Conference of Teachers, resident in and around that district
It is gratifying to the Committee of Management to find that the University has made provision for another course of Lectures, to be given by Professor Shand, on Mechanical Physics.
The Treasurer reports a balance in hand of £24 13s. 2d., a satisfactory sum, seeing that one of the Branches has failed to pay up, and another has seceded from the Institute. It must be remembered, also, that the annual subscription is now only five shillings per member.
The Education Board having sent out circulars to Committees advising the closing of the schools, it is confidently believed that all who wish to be present will be able to attend. The arrangements with the railway authorities are the same as those of last year. The Committee desire to record their appreciation of Mr. Prydes services in carrying out arrangements necessary for the success of the meeting.
The following is the Constitution adopted by the representatives at Christchurch:
It will be part of the business of the forthcoming meeting to discuss the Constitution, and elect representatives on the General Council.
The following are the resolutions adopted by the Committee appointed to report on this subject:
We beg to submit the Sixth Annual Report of the Balclutha Branch of the Educational Institute.
During the past year the membership of this Branch has slightly increased. Three members have removed from the district, while seven names have been added to the roll. Up to date, 9 members have paid their subscriptions, the amount of which comes to £3 7s 6d; while our annual expenditure amounts to 9s 8d.
The Branch has met five times during the year, but we regret to state that the attendance has not been so large as in former years. Papers have been read on the following subjects: Knowledge is power by Mr. Renton; The average age at which a child should be presented for the 1st Standard by Mr. Nicholson; and The relation of Inspectors of Schools to the Education Department by Mr Waddell; and various subjects of educational interest have been discussed at our meetings. The following is an extract from the minutes :It was agreed unanimously, on the motion of Mr Waddell, that the following motion be proposed at the Annual Meeting of the Institute.
That the General Committee of Management be instructed to take all lawful means, by petitioning the House of Representatives or otherwise, to have Inspectors of Schools placed under the immediate control of the Education Department.
This Branch of the Educational Institute of Otago has held nine meetings during the year, viz. One annual meeting, seven monthly meetings, and one picnic. During the year there have
Mr. Jas Lindsay and the Rev. Dr. Macgregor, both of this Branch, read papers at the General Conference.
I have the honour to report for the year
The lectures in Dunedin during the winter months interfered seriously with the meeting of this branch.
Seven meetings have been held during the year, which have been fairly attended. The following papers were read and discussed Mr Selby on Reading, and Mr Alnutt on Leading and Driving. The papers were usually read one day, and the discussion took place the following meeting.
Several interesting subjects were taken up for discussion, and, on the whole, the members have taken a lively interest in the meetings.
I have the honour to submit our First Annual Report.
Four meetings have been held during the year, which have been fairly attended. We have as yet only six members, but anticipate an increase. Our schools being much separated interferes with the attendance at our monthly meetings.
I have the honour to submit the Annual Report of the Milton Branch for the year ending
During the year several members left the district, and their successors have not yet joined our Branch, consequently our roll number is lower than formerly.
On the
(3) The Preparation of Teachers, a paper by Mr Reid. The Rev. Mr Chisholm agreed to read a paper at the Annual Conference.
The annual picnic was held in February at the Taieri Beach. We were joined by several members of the Dunedin and Lawrence districts, and spent a most pleasant day.
Papers, &c.—Fewer papers were read this year than in any other, a circumstance attributable mainly to the want of a fixed system of securing contributors. In September the President introduced for discussion a system of Mutual help in schools. November 4th: Mr. Jas. Jeffery read a paper on The English Language. March 3rd : The Secretary introduced for discussion the Otago Pupil Teachers Regulations. June 2nd: Mr. Jas. Rennie read a paper on The Insecurity of Teachers tenure of position in New Zealand.
Membership.The question of membership came on for consideration at the last meeting of the Branch, when it was unanimously resolved to issue circulars with a view of securing the countenance and active assistance of the many teachers in our midst. This step has resulted in a substantial addition to our membership roll.
Dunedin:
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Education as a University Subject.
The total unacquaintance with the science of pedagogic, and with all that has been written about it, in which the intending schoolmaster is, in England, suffered to remain, has, I am convinced, injurious effects both on our schoolmasters and on our schools.—
To those who maintain that schoolmastering wants no theory, and can have no science, the true reply is this: The old system of use and wont—the "blind hands" system, as we may call it—has broken down. A theory we must have, and if it turns out that we can have no science, this will be a very bad business for everybody. Those who now oppose themselves to scientific inquiry, are no more to be accounted of than so many Mrs. Partingtons trying to sweep back the Atlantic.—Rev. Mr. Quick in opening lecture of Cambridge Course for Teachers.
At the late Educational Congress in Aberdeen
1 January 4th, 1883
Aberdeen Congress.
"That this meeting considers that there ought to be "instituted Chairs of Education in the Universities of "Aberdeen and Glasgow, and that a Faculty or Sub-Faculty of Education, with powers to give a Special "Teachers' Degree, should be constituted in all the "Scotch Universities." A full discussion elicited but very slight divergence of opinion as to the details; on the main point all the speakers were agreed. Among those who spoke were two clergymen of different denominations, a University Professor, two Principals of Training Colleges, the Rector of a Grammar or Higher Class Public School, and two old parochial schoolmasters. On any other educational question of importance it would, I think, be difficult to secure unanimity in a group so heterogeneous, its members having in some respects interests so diverse. It may, therefore, be accepted that the University recognition of Education carries with it many advantages, some of which influence one party and some another. For a detailed account of these advantages Professor Laurie's new volume on The Training of Teachers may be consulted, especially his inaugural address delivered on the
Edinburgh Review. July, 1834.
Meanwhile plans first adopted to meet the educational Education Department
In Educational Institute of Scotland, college of
In accordance with these views a memorial Universities Commissioners, Ferguson Bequest.See Appendix A.Professor Bain in Educational News of 24th Feb., 1883.
See the interesting account of "The Ferguson Scholarships," just published by the Secretary, Mr. M. S. Tait, p. 4.
Whitehall Certificates.
But there were not wanting among us, even in these dark years, true educationalists, who kept the lamp alive, and by whose light we have been guided so far out of the Whitehall dungeon. In Museum a remarkable paper by "An Edinburgh Graduate," on "Training Schools in Scot-land," which attracted no little attention at the time. It set forth the anomalies of the system, its peculiar unsuitableness for Scotland, especially in its ignoring the Universities, the relation between which and teachers had formerly been so intimate and so beneficial. From this paper, even after the lapse of twenty years, it is still pertinent to quote the following passage—"The special or professional training [of teachers] "might be provided by adding to the Faculties of Arts "a Chair of the Principles and Practice of Teaching, "and connecting it with a model or practising school "outside the University walls. During two full sessions the student would give his attention to classics, "mathematics, and the English language and literature (his familiarity with the ordinary subjects of "instruction in an elementary school being secured by "the bursary entrance-examination); devoting the "summer session of each year to attendance on the "Chair of Education, and a study of organization and "methods in the model school."
The scheme thus formulated attracted the attention Prof. Pillans and Mr. Lowe.no science of education." Thus the project failed; and just as under Mr. Lowe's direction public education was reduced to dull and mechanical routine, so did his cold rebuff delay for a decade the smallest recognition of education as entitled to professional rank. Valuable years were lost in desperate struggles to show the hollowness of Mr. Lowe's scheme, and the necessity for higher aims in education, and the highest training in the educator. In the Dick Bequest Report of
Dick Bequest Report.Pp. 15-17.
In direct opposition, also, to Mr. Lowe's declaration that there was no science of education, we have the testimony of the highest educational authorities, as in the following passage from an address on Professor Donaldson.Teaching as
a Profession, delivered by Dr. (now Professor) Donaldson at Stirling in April Museum, June 1867.
In Assistant Commissioners.
Dr. Fitch.Report to Schools' Inquiry Commission on Schools in the West Riding of Yorkshire.Museum for
The vigorous discussions caused by the Education Bills, which were at this period annually introduced into Parliament, did not wholly absorb the attention of schoolmasters. In an address by Dr. Barrack, of Dollar, we find the following passage:—"Why should not the schoolmaster have a profession Dr. Barrack.
In the presidential addresses to the Institute constant reference is made to education as a subject worthy of University recognition. Thus in
At the conference of headmasters of English public English Headmasters,
Dr. Abbott, of the City of London Schools, said, "Personally, I feel that by some kind of professional training I should have been saved from many mistakes." Dr. Butler, of Harrow, expressed a similar opinion, and this conference and subsequent ones urged the Universities to remedy the defect.
Mr. Jolly, H.M.I.S.
A Committee of the Institute was appointed to report on the best steps to be taken to secure" the establishment of a Chair of Education in the Scottish Universities, with its complementary training machinery."
Meantime Mr. Jolly, who was most enthusiastic in the cause, advocated it with great ability; and his writings did much to remove misconceptions, and to give definite shape to the scheme. By articles in The Press.The Fortnightly Review and The Schoolmaster, by pamphlets, and by notices in his annual reports, he secured for it attention in the highest quarters. All interested in the question are advised to study two most able contributions by Mr. Jolly on "The Professional Training of Teachers," for which see The Fortnightly Review of
Transactions of the Social Science Association, which met at Glasgow in the same year. Similar views were urged by Professor Hodgson at the Norwich meeting of the Social Science Congress, and by Mrs. Gray and others at the Belfast meeting of the British Association. The press declared in favour Scotsman, Courant, Daily Review, and Glasgow Herald, the last-named then under the direction of Dr. (now Professor) Jack, a high authority in all educational affairs. Everywhere the educational atmosphere was rife with the cry of "Chair! Chair!" and a response was soon forthcoming.
The Bell Trustees intimated their intention to give Bell Trustee.Address to Graduates' Association of St. Andrews in London, Dec., 1872.
The Bell Trustees, after formal promises of aid from the Government, found that certain Scotch members of Parliament, who ought to have known better, had come under the evil influences of the system propagated by Mr. Lowe, had unfortunately imbibed his spirit, and become afflicted with the craze for mechanical results. These were not confined to one political party, or to one religious sect, but combining to resist any grant they rendered futile the attempt to secure provision for Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and indirectly they caused the two other Universities to be left unprovided for. Though thus abandoned to their own resources, the Trustees persevered with their scheme, which resulted in the happy selection in
Dr. Macdonald.
Professor Hodgson.esprit de corps, supply a basis of organisation; and induce a large number of men to look
Faculty of Education, equal in "dignity and completeness to that either of medicine "or of law."
And at the Annual Congresses of the Educational Institute of Scotland (which include not teachers only, but all whose interest in education induces them to attend) the same opinions have been expressed and approved of again and again. At the very first of these Congresses, held in Glasgow in Prof. Black.
During Universities Commission, Report, Vol. I., p. 63.
Professor Black of Aberdeen, in recommending the revival of the degree of B.A., or as the Commissioners prefer a certificate in Arts, says—
Prof. Black. Report Univ. Com., Evidence, 6366 and 6388.
These, be it remembered, are the words of one who had for years, as an Inspector of Schools, unequalled opportunities of observing Aberdeen graduates at work, in elementary and superior primary schools, in the Dick Bequest counties, so peculiarly the home of graduate teachers.
Professor Geddes thinks "that it is with teachers as Prof. Geddes. Ibid., 5301, 5337.
Professor Struthers declares that "a Chair for the Professor Struthers. Ibid., 7834.
Prof. Pirie.
Report Univ. Com., Evidence, 2659-2673.
Professor Crombie.Ibid., 3588.
Sir Alex. Grant.Ibid., 150.
Professor Calderwood thinks it of great importance Professor Calderwood.Report Univ. Com., Evidence, 7092, 7096.
In the University of Glasgow, the evidence of Principal Caird, and of Professors Ramsay, Veitch, and Caird, is in favour of restoring for teachers the B. A. degree; while Professor Young complains that Prof Young.Ibid.,
Space will allow us to add only the testimonies of Dr Bryce.
"No measure," he says, "would tend more to raise "the status of the teachers than the certificate of "the Professor of Education for knowledge of the "science and skill in the art of education." Dr. Macdonald, Ayr.Report Univ. Com., Evidence, 9116.Ibid., 5493.
Alford Association.alumni, and three-fourths of them graduates in Arts of the University of Aberdeen. The possession of the coveted degree of M.A. did not reconcile these teachers to the relation of the Universities to their profession. The Secretary to the Board of Examiners was requested to "draw up a scheme for" accomplishing the object desired." But in consequence of discussions on the mode of electing the General Committee, and on tenure of office, the subject was not proceeded with.
Stirling Congress.
On the Finsbury College.Appendix E.
At the Aberdeen Congress in January last the Rector Aberdeen' Congress, Mr. Moir.
The history of the movement for the recognition of education as a University subject has thus been traced to the present time. It is not a movement of recent date. In Scotland it has been advocated for more than fifty years. The profession has ever sought to realise the ideas of Professors Pillans and Ferguson. They and most of the early leaders have now passed away, and have left for this generation the sacred duty of completing a work which the labours of half a century have done much to advance, and for the accomplishment of which the present seems a favourable opportunity.
We now proceed to consider How far has University recognition of Education been conceded, and to what extent has the Profession benefited thereby?
It has been urged that in the Bell chairs at Edin Bell Chain St. Andrei
In his evidence before the Faculty of Arts, representing various branches of modern investigation, thought, or culture. There are now in Edinburgh no less than eighteen chairs in the Faculty of Arts, yet of these only seven qualify by attendance for graduation. Why are the eleven others thus ignored or despised? Because of mediaeval traditions regarding the trivium and quadrivium of the old curricula.Lingua, Tropus, Ratio; Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra.Universities Commission in
The Chair of Education has suffered greatly because attendance on it conferred no academic distinction. Now to teachers, the class for whom the chair is specially designed, academic distinction is of the first moment. From its foundation, therefore, this chair has laboured under a disadvantage relatively greater than that of any of the other unrecognised chairs. Whatever excuse may be found for such treatment in the well-known conservatism of a University, there can be none for a disability to which the chair has been subjected by the Education Department. For some years the Education Department has recognised the Education Departmen and Chairs Education. It was also pointed out that the Chair of Education, while adapted to secondary teachers, formed an advanced class in education for the Training College students. Access of tinburgh air.
See Calendar of the College of Preceptors. See also University London.Appendices D. and H.
The Committee got reports on these points from many authorities, Rev. Dr. Abbott, Prof. Laurie, Mr. Quick, Mr. Philip Magnus, M. Duruy, Minister of Education in France, Professor Meiklejohn, Mr. Isbister, Principal Faunthorpe, Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Oscar Browning, &c., &c. See Report to Convocation. degree in Education, but the Senate resolved to begin by issuing a certificate only, to be called "The Teachers' Diploma." The first examination has been held this month—Appendix G.
Meanwhile the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge University Cambridge.Teachers Training Syndicate," which arranged for three courses of lectures followed by examinations for diplomas. The first lectures were delivered in Appendix F.
See School Management. Their programme is "the training of the "senses and of the memory; the processes of reasoning; "the order in which the faculties of children are developed; the formation of habits and of character;—all "considered in their application to the methods of teaching and of moral discipline." The lecturers in Training Blue Book for last year, with the intimation that "most of these questions "should not be beyond the reach of the average student "if the subject has been steadily taught throughout his "training." As shown by the questions set in December lastAppendix K.
In the preceding pages it has been shown that four University recognition of, Education. University of Glasgow. Bell Fund in Glasgow.Education as a University subject, and it would be folly were she to let slip the occasion of the present movement, and not assume her proper position regarding it. golden an opportunity as is now afforded to the University of Glasgow.
It has been stated that a Professorship of Education is not enough in any University. More is wanted: the recognition of education as a subject in which academic distinction can be attained. At present Diploma in Education. See Professor Laurie's Inaugural Address. See also the Inaugural Address before the Cambridge Syndicate, The Schoolmaster Past and Future, by Rev. R. H. Quick, M.A.
Degrees in Education have been objected to because Objections-Too many Degrees. In Regent, conducted his class in successive years through the whole of the University curriculum? Division of labour, here as elsewhere, has led to advance, and further division is quite inevitable, and must be provided for. The English Universities, ignorantly supposed in Scotland to be so unprogressive, are alive to the necessities of the age. The University of Cambridge, for example, has just sanctioned a special examination in Modern Languages, and the Board of Studies is now engaged in arranging for a Modern Language Tripos. When shall we reach so liberal a scheme in Scotland? The objection to a multiplicity of degrees could come only from a Scotchman; for in Scotland alone has it been the practice for the majority of students to leave the University without graduation. Twenty years ago the Scotch degree of M.A. was so little valued that it was seldom taken even by excellent students.Univ. Com., Evidence, 304.
Practising schools.Matthew Arnold—Higher Schools and Universities in Germany.
But such wants are easily met. Hardly have the Universities of Cambridge and London shown the need for such schools, when one is opened by private effort, under distinguished patronage, and a handsome sum subscribed to maintain it during the initial struggle necessary to secure a permanent self-supporting basis. See account of Finsbury Training College—Appendix E.
Of the Glasgow C. of S. Training College, Dundas Vale. G. Combe's i.e., Universities] rather than the establishing of "distinct Normal seminaries."Notes on the United States, Vol. III., p. 444. See also Mr Jolly's Education, G. Combe, pp. 649-650.all kinds, and are connected "with the Universities, and under the supervision of "their authorities." Similar views were expressed in
The Education Committee of the Church of Scotland, in their Report to the General Assembly in Report,
On the other hand the present partial union of the Universities and the Normal Schools has been found to work well from the University point of view. Since the course for Normal students was satisfactorily arranged for, three years ago, Professors Ramsay, Jack, Jebb, and Veitch have been loud in praise of the methodical habits and careful preparation of these students. Similar testimony comes from Edinburgh.
Strange to say the greatest anxiety to prevent the Universities from trespassing upon and injuring, as is alleged, the Normal Schools, is displayed by those who have done little, if anything, to aid Normal Schools in the struggle which they have made for years to keep advancing and worthily to meet the progress of the age. It cannot be too soon explained to these pretentious friends that it is high time they were showing the value of their approval by the amount of their support. The University training of Normal students to be efficient entails a large outlay, an additional source of expnese, without any corresponding source of income beyond partial aid from the Education Department, which takes much credit for the good results, but is jealous of the expenditure. Perhaps it may just be as well to tell the whole truth—which is, that the combined Normal and University training of male students is now so very costly that no Normal School for males can be carried on except at a large yearly loss, which is met in Training Colleges for Males costly.
Some have advocated the institution of a minor Minor Degree for Teacher
Some inquiry among Scotch graduates has satisfied the writer that the project of a minor degree in Arts will receive little support from them. In the dearth of graduates some time ago, it was proposed to revive the B.A. degree to prevent the General Councils from extinction. But graduates are now more numerous, and it is averred that improved and cheap text-books, cheaper secondary education, improved University teaching, more numerous and more valuable bursaries, and Training College subsidies, now render it easy for
Report on Education, Ibid., p. 130.
"Nothing in Education."nothing in it, say these critics; the history of education can be read and studied without aid, and method can only be learned in the schoolroom. In like manner it might be urged (indeed it has been urged), that there is nothing in engineering but mechanics and physics applied, and that practical skill
The contrary opinion rather is the true one. It is Much in Education.nothing in education," it is true that there is much, very much, in it. In their memorial to the University of London, the College of Preceptors say:—" Their own experience, extending over "a quarter of a century, in the examination of teachers "for diplomas, has satisfied them that the range of" knowledge and independent reflection that might "fairly be included in an examination for an educational "degree is quite equal to that required for degrees in "medicine and law; while the amount of intellectual "effort required for a mastery of the subjects coming "within its scope is certainly not inferior. . . . The "logical and necessary corollary is the institution of a "degree in education, which will gather up and give "unity and consistency to various independent lines of "preparatory study, and at the same time, by giving "it an academical stamp, impart a new aspect to the "teacher's calling, and endow it with fresh claims to "public recognition and respect."
And hence we are not surprised to find an objection Educational Faculty. The Chair of Education in Edinburgh is recognized as qualifying for the L.A. Certificate.
Higher Degree.
The present M.A. degree need not be interfered with.
In every country the teaching profession is that to which the country must look not only for the diffusion of existing knowledge, but for original investigation, and patient research. Without justification, a cry has been raised that scholarship in Scotland is on the decline. Probably at no time had we so many or so distinguished scholars, the product of our University teaching as now. But if the advance is to continue and to be encouraged as it ought, no means can better attain the end than specialization and academic distinction such as sketched above. It is well known that the great subdivision of the field of knowledge, and the minute research which succeeds the admirable general training of the gymnasiums, are potent causes of progress in the German Universities. During the present winter session no less than fifteen courses of lectures are being delivered in these Universities on various branches of Pädagogik, Didaktik, and Propädeutik. See Deutscher Universitäts-Kalender,
Certificates of practical skill, or of experience in selected and approved schools, could be demanded from candidates for graduation in Education, just as now similar certificates are required of medical students. The actual graduation as M.E. might be deferred until after two or three years' practice, just as M.D. now follows M.B. And if a thesis were then demanded, its preparation would form the habit of that continuous study of education which is so desirable in the educator, and which is all but unknown in our country.
In Graduate Teachers.Appendices B to K a detailed account is given of the manner in which education is treated as a subject of study examination and certification by those public bodies which have made provision for it. An inspection of these Appendices and of the evidence before the late Universities' Commission will lead the candid mind to acknowledge that any difficulties in the way
rari nantes "in gurgite vasto. For the teachers of the future will "meet everywhere their fellow graduates—men whom "no occupation can degrade, men who turn all trades "into professions."
In Appendix A there is reproduced an important document in which the teachers of Scotland, a quarter of a century ago, formulated their claims regarding the University recognition of education. Appendices B, C, D, E show how education is treated as a subject of study by the various bodies which provide for instruction therein. And, lastly, Appendices F, G, H, and K exhibit the various examination schemes now in operation in this country. The whole forms a brief guide to the present state of the question.
To the Right Honourable and Honourable the Commissioners under the Universities' (Scotland) Bill, the Memorial of the Educational Institute of Scotland, humbly showeth:
May it therefore please the Universities' Commissioners to take the above premises into consideration; and in the exercise of the powers vested in them for extending and improving the Scottish Universities, to establish a Professorship of Pedeutics in each, or in such of them as to their wisdom may seem expedient.
Signed in name and by appointment of the Institute,
The End of Education.
Physical Conditions.
Psychology in Relation to the Science of Education—
The Intelligence.
Conclusions from the Intellectual Nature of Man with reference to his Education.
Unfolding of Intelligence; or, Periods of Growth.
Conclusions from the Periods of Growth with reference to Education.
The Ethical Nature of Man.
Conclusions from the Ethical Nature of Man, with reference to Education.
Auxiliaries of the Processes and Growth of Mind.
Conclusions from Mental Growth with reference to Education.
The Science of Education as founded in the preceding Analysis.
The Educative Process in General from the Ethical Point of View.
Collection of the Principles and Rules of Method in Instruction.
The Application of these Rules to Real Studies, viz.—
Intellectual, Naturalistic, Humanistic, and Ethical.
Motives and Punishments—
End of the Art of Education.
School Rooms, Furniture, Apparatus, Text Books, System of State Schools, Technical Schools, Girls' Schools. The Teacher and his Education.
Early Education, China, India, Persia; Greek and Roman Education; The Renaissance; Erasmus, Colet, Luther, Melanchthon; Montaigne; Ascham, Sturm; Bacon and Realism; Ratke and Comenius; the Jesuits; Milton, Locke, Rousseau, Bassedow, Campe; Pestalozzi, Jacotot; Bell, Lancaster; Frobel, Richter, Diesterweg; Arnold, Spencer, Bain. History of Education in Scotland; Primary Schools, Gymnasiums, and Real Schools in Germany.
Arrangements have been made whereby the following Schools may be visited with a view to the observation of school-organization and methods, viz.:—The Infant and Junior Departments of the
Church of Scotland Normal School, Johnstone Terrace.
Free Church of Scotland Normal School, Moray House.
George Watson'S College Schools.
The School Board Schools, viz.:—West Fountainbridge, New Street, St. Leonard's, Leith Walk Dean, Causewavside, North Canongate.
This Chair contemplates the instruction and training of teachers in the Science and Art of Teaching; and the subject is divided into Three Parts:
Art, and History of Education. These lectures, founded in the year
Course of ten lectures on Mental Science for Teachers, by James Sully, M.A., Examiner in Mental and Moral Science in the University of London.
Course of ten Lectures by Oscar Browning, M.A., Lecturer on the History of Education in the University of Cambridge.
The lecturer proposes to trace the growth of educational ideas and practices, and thus to contribute to the clear understanding of our present position of the principles already established. Attention will be directed chiefly to the great educational theorists and inventors of methods, who have lived since the revival of learning, and have had the greatest influence on practice.
By the Rev. Canon Daniel, M.A., Principal of the Training College, Battersea.
This College has been established for the purpose of providing a sound, practical, and scientific training for those whose intention it is to become masters in middle and higher schools. The Council have obtained the City of London Middle Class School as a practising school. The course of study in the upper division of the College is of one year's duration, and is specially arranged to meet the requirements of the teachers' examination of the University of Cambridge and the London teachers' diploma. It includes practical work in school classes; the physiological basis of education, especially in relation to health and to the development of the mental faculties; the elements of mental and moral science in their application to the education of children; the history of education; and the examination and criticism of various methods of teaching school subjects. Technical lectures on school management, organization, apparatus, &c., are provided. The students spend some hours every day, during the course, in teaching or observing lessons given in the practising school, under the constant supervision of the Principal. A lower course is organised for students under eighteen.
The Council includes among others the following gentlemen:—Rev. Dr. Butler, head-master of Harrow School; Rev. G. C. Bell, M.A., head-master of Marlborough College; Rev. W. Haig Brown, L.L.D., head-master of Charterhouse; Oscar Browning, Esq., senior fellow of King's College, Cambridge; The Very Rev. the Dean of Westminster; H. W. Eve, Esq., M.A., head-master of University College School, London; J. G. Fitch, Esq., H.M.I.S.; Rev. F. B. Guy, D.D., head-master of Forest School, Walthamstow; Rev. T. W. Jex-Blake, D.D., head-master of Rugby; Rev. Brooke Lambert, vicar of Greenwich; Samuel Morley, Esq., M.P.; Frederick Pennington, Esq., M.P.; Rev. Canon Percival, D.C.L., president of Trinity College, Oxford; Rev. G. Ridding, D.D., head-master of Winchester College; Rev. T. W. Sharpe, H.M. Inspector of Training Colleges; Henry Sidgwick, Esq., Trinity College, Cambridge; F. Storr, Esq., chief-master of Modern Subjects, Merchant Taylors' School; Rev. E. Thring, M.A., head-master of Uppingham School; Rev. J. M. Wilson, M.A., head-master of Clifton College; R. Wormell, Esq., D.Sc., head-master of Middle Class Schools, Cowper Street, E.C.
Further information may be obtained on application to the Principal—H. Courthope Bowen, Esq., M.A., The Schools, Cowper Street, City Road, London.
Candidates must be (1) Graduates, or (2) have passed the Higher Local Examination, or (3) have matriculated at the University of London, or (4) have passed the L.A. Examination.
The subjects of examination are—
—Practice of Education: (a) Method—Order and correlation of studies, oral teaching, exposition, text-books, note-books, questioning, examining, special methods for various subjects, (b) School Management—Structure, furniture, and fitting of school-rooms; books and apparatus; visible and tangible illustrations; classification, time-tables, registration, warming, ventilation, and hygiene, &c., &c.
A special paper will also be set containing a small number of questions of an advanced character on each of the above three subjects.
A fee of £2 10s. shall be paid by each candidate. Application should be made to Mr. Oscar Browning, M.A., Kings College, Cambridge.
No candidate shall be admitted to this examination unless he shall have previously graduated in the University, nor unless he have paid a fee of £5.
Candidates shall be examined in the following subjects:—
Observation, and the Training of the Senses—Association: Memory—Reasoning—Imagination—The Will, and how to Train it—Habit and Character—Authority and Discipline—Rewards and Punishments—The Conduct of the Understanding.
The Structure Fitting, and Furniture of School Buildings—Sanitary conditions of Effective Teaching—Physical Exercises, Drill, and Recreation—Books and Apparatus—Registration of Attendance and Progress—Organization of Schools—Classification of Scholars—Distribution of Duty among Assistants—Apportionment of Time—The Co-ordination and Division of Studies—Examination, Viva voce and in Writing—The use of Oral Lessons and of Book Work—Methods of Teaching and of Illustrating each of the Subjects included in an ordinary School Course—Preparation of Teaching Notes—Tests and Records of Results.
In addition to a good general knowledge of the History of Education, special books and subjects will be announced from year to year. The special subjects for
Roger Ascham—The Schoolmaster.
Locke—On the Conduct of the Understanding.
Arnold—Higher Schools and Universities in German.
The examination shall be both written and practical, and shall extend over three days. Candidates shall not be approved by the Examiners unless they have shown a competent knowledge in all the subjects of examination, and have given satisfactory evidence of practical skill in teaching. A certificate, to be called the "Teachers Diploma," under the Seal of the University, and signed by the Chancellor, shall be delivered at the public presentation for degrees to each candidate who has passed. Application should be made to the Registrar, University of London, Burlington Gardens, London.
The Diplomas are of three grades: Associate, Licentiate, and Fellow, for which candidates must have taught at least one, two, and five years respectively. The fee is one, three, or six guineas.
Candidates who are not graduates of a British University must he examined in certain general and some selected special subjects, and all must be examined in the following subjects:—
Application should be made to the Secretary, C. R. Hodgson, B.A, 42 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London.
—"One may be a poet without versing; and a versifier without poetry."—Sir Philip Sydney.
Suppose, in giving an "English" lesson to your highest class, you wished to make the meaning of this sentence clear, what examples and explanations would you give?
The historical portion of this pamphlet, having been read at Educational meetings, has attracted the attention of the Rev. Dr. R. J. Bryce of Belfast. In a letter which appeared in the Educational News of the 24th March, he gives some most interesting notes of his share in the early attempts to found Chairs of Education in the Scottish and Irish Universities. With his kind permission, the greater portion of the letter is here reproduced.
"In Sketch of a Plan for a System of National Education for Ireland; including Hints for the Improvement of Education in Scotland. By R. J. Bryce, A.M., Principal of the Belfast Academy. 128.
"About the same time another friend, Mr. James Emerson (afterwards Sir J. Emerson Tennant), to whom I had given a copy of my pamphlet when published, wrote me that he had shown it to Mr. Wyse, M.P. for Tipperary, who was preparing a bill to establish a system of national education for Ireland, and who earnestly desired my remarks, and would send me the bill when printed. He did so; I criticised it freely; and the correspondence soon led to an intimate friendship. Before Mr. Wyse could get his bill through the House of Commons, Mr. Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby), then Chief Secretary for Ireland, established, by an Act of the Executive, without waiting or asking for the consent of Parliament, the so-called ' Irish National System of Education,' and Mr. Wyse dropped his bill.
"An essential part of my scheme was the establishment of two or three new Universities in Ireland, each of which should have a Chair of Education. (In that portion of the pamphlet which dealt with education in Scotland, I proposed the establishment of Education Chairs in all the Scotch Universities, and that a ticket for that class should be required for the degree of M.A.) Mr. Wyse cordially and enthusiastically adopted this idea, and persistently advocated it in Parliament for more than twelve years; and in every speech he made on the subject, honourably acknowledged the source from which he derived his ideas—a rare thing for statesmen to do. During all this time he and I were in constant communication, and working together for our common object. At length the late Sir Robert Peel, to escape out of a political difficulty in which he was placed by the pressure brought to bear on him by two hostile sects (each of which wanted money for a college to suit its own views), established, not the three Universities we wanted, but three provincial colleges, without the power of granting degrees, and without Professorships of Education. The fact is, Peel was not looking to the interests of education at all. His one object was to satisfy, as cheaply as he could, the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic clergy. The whole scheme of education in the colleges was arranged with all the absurdity that might have been expected from the ' meddling and muddling' of people who undertook a business which they did not understand. Afterwards the three colleges were bound together by an examining board (absurdly called a University), and thus their students were enabled to obtain degrees.
"Had Mr. Wyse remained in Parliament, something might probably have been done for Education Chairs; but soon afterwards he was sent out to Greece as British Ambassador, and there was no one to take up his mantle."
For the sake of comparison with the Course of Lectures detailed in Appendices B, C, and D, a statement is here given of the professional course of study in Training Colleges under the New Syllabus of the Education Department. The course annexed is that given in the Glasgow Church of Scotland Training College during the sessions
All the lectures are reproduced by the students, and carefully examined and corrected. Test examinations are held quarterly, and oral examination is frequent. The lectures are fully illustrated in a way which is as yet possible only in Training Colleges.
A specimen of the Examination Paper set by the Education Department will be found in Appendix K.
2.—The objects of the Society shall be to prevent cruelty to animals by enforcing, where practicable, the existing laws, by procuring such further legislation as may be found expedient, by exciting and sustaining an intelligent public opinion regarding man's duty to animals, and by all such further and other ways and means as the General Committee may deem expedient.
3.—The Society shall consist of all persons who shall contribute to its funds an annual sum of not less than five shillings; of life members who shall pay a sum of not less than five pounds; and of honorary members elected by the General Committee from amongst persons who have evinced marked sympathy for the cause at home or abroad.
4.—Children under the age of sixteen shall be admitted as associates of the Society, on the payment of one shilling annually.
11.—The Secretary shall call a general meeting of members at the request of the Committee, or on the written request of twenty members.
On the
This Provisional Committee reported to an adjourned meeting on the 13th July, when the Society was organised, and rules were adopted, and a General Committee was appointed.
The Committee advertised for a suitable person to act as inspector and collector, and out of a number of applicants, several of whom appeared to be well fitted for the office, selected Mr. Robert Thomson Aitken, who had been in the employ of a similar Society in Glasgow. Mr. Aitken entered on his duties on the 1st October, and was subsequently, at the request of the Committee, sworn in as a constable, thus having the same status and power to deal with offenders as a policeman. Mr. Aitken has shown himself zealous and intelligent in the discharge of his duties, and has given perfect satisfaction to the Committee. His time has been wholly devoted to the work of the Society, principally in Dunedin and suburbs; but he has also visited Waikouaiti, Milton, Mosgiel, Toiro (near Clinton), &c.
Knowing that cruelty is often the result of ignorance and stupidity, the Committee instructed the inspector not to prosecute at first except in flagrant cases or where his remonstrance was disregarded, and consequently he only prosecuted in seven cases, and in each case obtained a conviction. Ninety-six cautions were administered to various persons for illtreatment of horses and other animals, with, it is believed, very good effect. Four horses unfit for work were destroyed at the request of the inspector. During the same time four cases of cruelty have been prosecuted by the police, who have acted most harmoniously with your Society.
At the suggestion of Mr. Slesinger, V.S., notice has been given to farriers to discontinue the cruel practice of burning horses' mouths for lampas.
In one case where a horse died, as it was suspected, from overdriving, the driver absconded, apparently from fear of prosecution, but the fact that the matter was taken up by the Society will probably cause others to be more careful.
The thanks of the Society are due to Messrs. A. Bathgate, F. R. Chapman, and R. Stout, your honorary solicitors, for their ready and gratuitous services in advising the inspector and conducting prosecutions; to Messrs. Douglas, Durham, Farquharson, and Slesinger, your honorary veterinary surgeons, who have given much valuable information, and also to Mr. Weldon and the Police Department generally for their most ready assistance and advice.
The income of the Society for the past year has been £159 6s., and the expenditure £116 16s. 6d., leaving a balance of £42 9s. 6d., but from this the cost of printing and circulating this report will have to be deducted.
The present number of members is 317, and the Committee earnestly hope that very many more will be induced to join as the Society becomes better known. From a desire to interest children in the work, special provision was made for their admission as associates on payment of one shilling, but up to the present time none have availed themselves of the opportunity. This is much to be regretted, and also that so few ladies have joined the Society. In England it is not so; there the majority of the subscribers appear to be women. The Committee, however, admit that they have not brought the subject very prominently forward, and recommend it to the careful consideration of their successors, feeling sure that such a work of kindness—so essentially woman's work—only requires to be placed before ladies to ensure their sympathy and support. In reply to a letter written to the Education Board of Otago, asking for its countenance in bringing the objects of the Society before the children attending the State schools, an answer was received expressing the sympathy of the Board with the objects of the Society, and its hope that the teachers will forward those objects by all means in their power. This also will require the attention of the incoming Committee.
Overtures have been made to several municipalities with a view to the establishment of branch societies, but the only satisfactory reply yet received has been from Gore. Since this Report was adopted a favourable reply has also been received from Palmerston.
During the present year a much larger expense must be incurred for printing if the Society is to take its proper position as a factor in the education of the people. To do this adequately a much larger income will be necessary, and the Committee most earnestly seek the sympathy and assistance of all lovers of animals—of all, indeed, who have any feeling for their poor dumb fellow creatures.
7 persons were prosecuted, convicted, and fined for cruelty to horses.
4 Horses unfit for work were killed at the request of the Inspector.
96 persons were cautioned for various offences as under:
By the request of the Inspector, tar or paint is now used at the Burnside Sale Yards for identification.
The first Annual Meeting of the Otago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was held in the City Council Chamber on Friday, the
The President called upon the Hon. Secretary (Mr. E. Quick) to read the Report and Balance-sheet as printed in preceding pages.
The President: I think, ladies and gentlemen, that you will agree with me that the Report shows the Society to have done some good in a quiet way at a very moderate expenditure. What the Society asks from the public is a comparatively small amount of money; but what it really wants is more precious than money—viz., sympathy and active assistance in securing its objects. I will now call upon Bishop Nevill to move the adoption of the Report.
Bishop Nevill said: Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen, although I have consented to move the adoption of the Report just read, I must say that I wish this Society could, within the shortest possible time, "execute the happy despatch," or in some way get rid of its own existence. I do not say this in any disparagement of its work, which, alas! is too evidently needed; but because it does seem to me to be a blot upon our civilisation that there should be in this nineteenth century any necessity for the existence of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.—(Applause). I therefore only hope that the time will shortly arrive when such a Society will not exist. But unhappily it is proved by the work of last year that this time has not yet arrived, and we have therefore to support an instrument such as this, which states as its object the putting it out of any man's power to be guilty of any offence so disgraceful to humanity as cruelty to animals. This can be done in two ways. There is such a thing as prevention by coercion, and there is also prevention by the spread of educational influences. As shown in the admirable Report we have heard, prevention by coercion has on some few occasions been resorted to, but I am also very glad to perceive that the other point has not been lost sight of by this Committee, who have shown a desire to operate rather in the direction of educational influences than to exercise those powers conferred upon them for the punishment of wrongdoers. It is more to the former part of the subject that I wish to address myself just now. It is too evident by the very circumstances that caused this
The Mayor (Mr. J. B. Thomson) had much pleasure in seconding the adoption of the report. He felt considerable satisfaction in the establishment of such a society in our midst. Its existence, and the knowledge that it had an officer going about for the prevention of anything in the shape of cruelty, was to a very great extent a preventive in itself. There were things in the report and balance-sheet worthy of notice. There had seldom been a society established for a philanthropic purpose such as this, undertaking its work voluntarily, which could at the end of its first year not only say that it had existed and done its work, but also that it possessed a credit balance.
The report was unanimously adopted.
Mr. G. Fenwick said: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, it has been, no doubt, observed in the report that special mention is made of the thanks due to those gentlemen of the legal profession who by their advice have aided us both at committee meetings and when actions for cruelty have been brought before the Court; also to the veterinary surgeons of the city, who have each and all come forward and given us their very valuable advice at our meetings, and have shown anxiety that the work of the Society should be carried on successfully. So far as both these branches of special knowledge are concerned, we have received great benefit from the gentlemen engaged in them, and our thanks are certainly due. I do not know that it is necessary for me to say anything more upon this head, as the report will sufficiently commend itself to your notice. I may, however, digress for a moment to express the gratification I feel as one of the promoters of the Society that it is able at the end of its first year to appear in such a creditable position. Our difficulties have not been small, nevertheless. The Mayor remarks that we come forward with
Mr. H. Benjamin seconded the resolution, which was carried unanimously.
Dr. Coughtrey moved:—" That the Hon. Officers and Committee be re-elected as follows:—President, His Honor Mr. Justice Williams; Vice-Presidents, Hon. T. Dick and Mr. E. B. Cargill; Committee, Messrs. R. Wilson, R. Glendining, George Fenwick, T. S. Graham, R. Ewing, E. E. C. Quick, S. Barker, H. Benjamin, G. P. Clifford, J. W. Jago, J. A. Torrance, Keith Ramsay, W. H. Taggart, James Barr, Rev. J. Niven, and Rev. B. Lichtenstein; Hon. Solicitors, Messrs. R. Stout, A. Bathgate, and F. R. Chapman (Mr. Donald M. Stuart's name was added, on the motion of the Secretary); Hon. Veterinary Surgeons, Messrs. S. Slesinger, J. G. Douglas, R. C. Farquharson, and S. Durham; Hon. Treasurer, Mr. Robert Wilson; Hon. Secretary, Mr. E. Quick. These gentlemen had voluntarily given their services, and had exercised such a wise moderation in the past year that they might well be elected for the ensuing one. That point of wise moderation was one which should not be lost sight of, and the speaker enumerated the numerous instances during the last year in which persons had been cautioned, &c., by the Officer of the Society.
Mr. Gourley seconded the motion, which was unanimously carried.
The Secretary (Mr. E. Quick) took the opportunity of remarking that although the Society had a credit balance to show at this their first Annual Meeting, their expenses only commenced nine months ago, and
The President intimated that the business was now concluded. He hoped that next year the Committee would be able to give as favourable an account of their stewardship as those present would agree they had done that evening. The proper exercise of the functions of the Society required considerable care and discretion at the hands of its officers. As Dr. Coughtrey had said, what was most needed was a wise moderation, in not interfering save where absolutely necessary. If they wished to gain the confidence of the public, they would respect the feelings and prejudices of an Englishman which led him to object to unnecessary interference with his private affairs.
The Meeting then closed with a vote of thanks to the President.
I, the undersigned, being authorised by the Privy Council to give to persons whom I have instructed in the practice and principles of Vaccination, such certificates of proficiency as shall qualify them, if otherwise eligible, to be contracted with by Guardians and Overseers for the performance of Public Vaccination, do hereby certify that Mr. W. M. Stenhouse has under my direction, at my appointed Vaccinating Station, duly studied the practice and principles of Vaccination; and that I having from time to time enquired as to his progress therein, do now believe him to be skilful and well-informed in all that belongs to the duties of a Public Vaccinator
Three or four years ago, when vaccination was being vigorously discussed in the Home Country by both lay and medical journals, and a great cry was raised for the introduction of animal lymph, as preferable to the humanised lymph till then exclusively used in Great Britain, it seemed to us that the subject was not unworthy of the attention of practitioners in New Zealand. Accordingly a supply of pure calf lymph was furnished us from home; and, after a careful study of the whole question, our views were embodied in a paper read before the August meeting,
This has, therefore, appeared to us a favourable moment for educating public opinion in favour of vaccination, which after all is a mother's question, rather than a medical or state one; for, however unanimous medical opinion may be in its favour, or however strict legislation may be in its enforcement, the nation will never reap the full benefits thereof until mothers give an intelligent assent to the operation. To awaken the interest and excite the confidence of parents in cow-pox inoculation is therefore the object of this little work, which, if it succeeds in its mission will, we take it, be of some slight service to the cause of humanity.
We flatter ourselves also that some of its pages may be found useful to our fellow practitioners, who may not .have given the subject the same thoughtful consideration as ourselves; and that some of its suggestions may be thought worthy of adoption when next the Government of New Zealand legislates in this direction.
here is nothing new under the sun, we are told on the highest authority, and the modern discovery of vaccination gives countenance to the proverb; for though popularly supposed to have originated with Dr. Jenner, in the end of the 18th century, it is now known to have been understood and practised in the earliest ages by the natives of India and Persia, and other countries of the East. Not only so, but Humboldt found during his researches in South America, that there prevailed among the inhabitants the belief that the eruption on the udder of the cow preserved them from small-pox. This in no way, however, detracts from the merit of Dr. .Tenner's discovery, which was arrived at without any knowledge on his part of its early history, and was the fruit of acute and accurate observation, patient investigation, careful experiment, and brilliant deduction. By this discovery Dr. Jenner immediately became the foremost benefactor of his age, and indeed we question if any single discovery ever conferred such a blessing on suffering humanity. His own generation, which had too often witnessed the ravages of small-pox, gave him his full meed of praise, and if we are less sensible at the present day of the benefits of vaccination, this is the strongest proof that could be adduced in its favour, as our indifference arises chiefly from the circumstance that few of us have ever seen, much less suffered from this dreadful disease. As, however, a knot of ignorant and presumptuous busybodies has of late attempted to destroy public faith in vaccination, and so far succeeded in evasion of the vaccination laws as to have made small pox endemic in London, we think we shall be doing the State some service by narrating in popular form the story of vaccination, proving its successes, and refuting alleged objections to the practice. We do this all the more readily from our knowledge that vaccination is constantly evaded in New Zealand, and very often imperfectly performed, so that should small-pox ever get footing amongst us, its effects would undoubtedly be most severe.
In order to convey to our readers some adequate notion of the ravages committed by small-pox before the era of vaccination, we may be permitted a quotation from the late Lord Macaulay's history. This historian describes it as "the most terrible of all the ministers of death. The havoc of the plague had been far more rapid; but the
The asylums, workhouses, and hospitals of Great Britain were crowded with the victims of this loathsome disease, for its effects on the living were indeed fearful to witness, and we are told that two-thirds of the applicants for relief at the Hospital for the Indigent Blind owed their loss of sight to small-pox.
And although small-pox had thus raged for centuries among civilised nations, as yet no means had been found to cripple its power or mitigate its effects. True, Lady Mary Wortley Montague had introduced the practice of inoculation from Egypt, by which the disease was artificially produced in a modified form. But this, however advantageous to the individual, was undoubtedly inimical to the common weal, for it so multiplied the foci of contagion, the artificial being as contagious as the natural disease, that it rendered small-pox more prevalent than ever, and hence its effects became most disastrous, as it was seen that the general mortality from small-pox had greatly increased since the adoption of this practice.
The time was therefore ripe for the discovery when Dr. Edward Jenner hurried from his native Berkeley to London, and published in true cow-pox, the other the spurious. He then gave himself up to an exhaustive investigation of the qualities of true cow-pox, during which he ascertained that it underwent progres
If Dr. Jenner expected that his discovery would be immediately welcomed, and he himself hailed as on of England's foremost sons, he must have been grievously disappointed, for his work was received with marked hostility. The moth-minded and hollow-hearted men of his own profession—for many such, alas! then as now, disgrace this noble calling—were foremost in the attempt to run him down, lending the weight of their influence and reputations to crush this obscure country practitioner. Not a single medical man could be induced to make a trial of vaccination. It appeared for a time as if the discovery were to be lost to the nation. The comic periodicals of the day, taking their cue from the leaders of the profession in London, published the grossest caricatures of this great and good man. He was represented as attempting to bestialise his species by the introduction into their systems of diseased matter from the cow's udder. It was gravely asserted, and received a ready credence, that vaccinated children became ox-faced, that abscesses broke out to indicate sprouting horns, and that the countenance was gradually transmuted into the visage of a cow, the voice into the bellowing of bulls. Not only did his enemies attack his professional reputation, but they assailed his moral character, and the pulpit fulminated its anathemas against him, and denounced his discovery as diabolical. Indeed, so violent was the opposition at this time to the operation, that several persons who had sufficient courage to undergo vaccination were set upon by a mob, pelted with stones, and driven into their houses.
At length, having spent three fruitless months in London, Dr.
When the success of his discovery had made Tenner famous, his conduct was marked by a degree of modesty and self-denial which invariably accompanies true goodness, an example which it would be well for physicians in our day to imitate—many of whom, apparently pursuing their high vocation with the sole object of gain, reduce their profession to the low level of shoddy manufacturers, huckstering merchants, and pettifogging lawyers. On being urged to quit his native village, where he practised as a physician, to settle in London where fame and fortune where within his reach, he thus wrote to a friend:—" Shall I who, even in the morning of my life, sought the lowly and sequestered path of life—the valley, and not the mountain—shall I, now my evening is fast approaching, hold myself up as an object for fortune and for fame?"
If the experience of nearly eighty years has not justified Dr. Jenner's expectation that smallpox would be extinguished by his discovery, the results have been sufficiently striking, as can be conclusively proved by statistics. The apparent failures are due, in our opinion, to no inherent defect in the principle of vaccination, but to the simple operation being too often carelessly and inefficiently performed, and to the constant evasions of the Vaccination Acts which take place in spite of the most stringent regulations. A. careful study of the whole subject has convinced us, and
Look we now to the statistics of the disease. In
Table showing the average of deaths from small-pox out of every 1000 deaths from all causes during the half century preceding vaccination.
Table showing the same during the half century succeeding the introduction of vaccination.
In regard to other countries it is shown in Mr. Simon's blue-book that the fatality of small-pox in Copenhagen is but an eleventh part of what it was before the introduction of vaccination; in Sweden little over a thirteenth; in Berlin and in large parts of Austria but a twentieth; in Westphalia but a twenty-fifth.
The decline in the death rate from small-pox is even more conspicuously seen by the following table:—
Facts equally conclusive are derivable from the health statistics of Her Majesty's troops. From
In the West Indies, although several epidemics of small-pox had ravaged the islands within these years, not one person died of the disease among the British or white troops, out of an aggregate strength of 86,661 and a total mortality of 6,803; while among the black troops (who had all been thoroughly vaccinated on enrolment) numbering 40,934, with a mortality of 1,645, there was not even one case of small-pox.
At Bermuda, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape of Good Hope, and the Mauritius, not a single death from small-pox occurred during those 20 years, and even the white troops of Western Africa wholly escaped this disease which was carrying off hundreds of the black unprotected population. But the strongest evidence of the protective power of vaccination is derivable from the experience of our troops in Malta from
It cannot be a matter of surprise, with such statistics before us, that vaccination gradually entered into the life of the nation, became highly popular, and formed a part of the daily routine of family life. If there were any objectors to the practice, their complaints had not
The attention of the legislature and of the public was first forcibly attracted to the subject of vaccination by a severe outbreak of smallpox, assuming an epidemic type, which took place in London in
vaccination is at present carried out far more faithfully and efficiently in Great Britain than at any former period of its history.
1. Vaccination alleged to be a failure.—A favourite cry of anti-vaccinationists is that vaccination has been a failure, that after an experience of more than half a century, small-pox still does its deadly work in our midst. In answer to this objection we have only to point to the statistics already adduced. We freely admit that vaccination has not quite realised the reasonable expectations of its discoverer; but that it has been to some extent a failure is an excellent argument for its more efficient performance—none at all against the operation. In a word, small-pox still exists because vaccination is sometimes wholly neglected, sometimes imperfectly performed, and in most cases too long delayed. But of this more anon.
2. The second objection we have to notice has more weight with parents than every other consideration; and if it can be shown that it is a groundless one, we shall have gone a great way in repopularising vaccination. Diseases, it is said, foreign to the infant's constitution are introduced along with the vaccine virus. If this were true to any appreciable extent, it would be necessarily fatal to the operation, for no parent would be justified in exposing his child to an immediate urgent danger for the sake of preserving it from a remote and casual one. Happily this question has been searchingly investigated by the most eminent medical men everywhere, and they are quite unanimous in deciding that the objection cannot be sustained. Moreover, every alleged case in which disease or death has been attributed to vaccination has, on strict investigation, completely broken down. Our own experience confirms these views. During three months that we attended the Faculty Vaccination Station at Glasgow, where we performed or saw performed many hundred cases of vaccination, in not a single instance did we see evil result. Our experience in Dunedin, where we have vaccinated hundreds of children, has been equally favourable. But let us see what men of the largest experience believe regarding this objection. Dr. Seaton says that although he has investigated many of such alleged cases, he has never yet in a single instance found that the child from whom the lymph was taken was suffering from the disease it was said to have imparted. Mr Marson states that in the performance of 40,000 vaccinations, he had never seen any other diseases communicated with the vaccine virus, nor did he believe in the popular reports that they are so communicated. Sir W. Jenner, at University College Hospital, London, in six years, in 13,000 cases, and Dr West in seventeen years, in 26,000 cases, both say that in no single case
Finally, actual experiments have been made with a view of testing if disease is really communicable through vaccine virus. Persons suffering from constitutional diseases in an active state have been vaccinated, and with the lymph taken from them healthy individuals have been vaccinated, and in no single instance has it been found that the disease was so communicated from one to the other. It must therefore be considered proved, both by experiment and authority, that the danger of communicating infection through vaccine virus is so infinitesimally small as to be practically non-existent.
3. As a third objection, it is urged that erysipelas frequently results from the practice of vaccination. We have to reply, that although some cases of erysipelas, and even fatal cases, have followed vaccination, they have been so few in proportion to the millions of vaccinations that have been performed as hardly to deserve notice. Besides, the erysipelas is not due to the vaccine virus, but to the slight scratches or wounds that are made with the lancet. It is well known that this disease, in a fatal form, sometimes follows the most trifling surgical operation. We have seen erysipelas and death result from the amputation of a finger, in the practice of one of the best surgeons in Scotland, and we have seen tetanus follow the removal of a toe nail. But would any reasonable man argue that, because surgical operations sometimes eventuate untowardly, all surgical operations should be condemned? We have shown that thousands of lives are saved annually by vaccination, and millions protected from unseemly pitting. Is it reasonable to expect that this great result can be gained without here and there a child getting erysipelas from its vaccination? Even this, in our opinion, can be prevented by adopting a method of vaccination which we shall recommend below.
4. A fourth objection we have to notice is, that a skin eruption frequently breaks out subsequent to vaccination, which is therefore considered by the parents the fons et origo mail In most cases, our experience has taught us that the vaccination and eruption are not even remotely connected with one another, the latter being due to dentition or disorder of the stomach, liver, or kidneys, or inherent defect in the constitution. Even when no other cause can be assigned for the eruption than the vaccination, parents must not hastily assume that the vaccine lymph employed has been bad. No
5. Anti-vaccinationists have strongly urged in late years that although the mortality produced by small-pox has been reduced, yet the infantine mortality of other diseases has increased, so that no real gain of human life has followed from vaccination. We notice this objection only for the sake of exposing the disingenuousness of the opponents of Jennerism. For if these gentry had only consulted statistics before committing themselves to such a statement, they would have found, as has been conclusively shown by Mr Simon, that the mortality of measles, scarlatina, scrofula, and other infantile diseases has really diminished since the introduction of vaccination. And this is what scientific deduction would have led us to expect, because thousands of children who happened to survive smallpox had their constitutions so weakened that they fell ready victims to the next disease which attacked them.
Other objections still more absurd have been put forward by zealous anti-vaccinationists. For instance, vaccination has been said to have produced mental and physical degeneration of the human species, to have evolved diseases before unknown, to have diminished men's stature, to have rendered them incapable of supporting the same fatigue and exposure as their ancestors; and, let teetotallers mark this, to have driven men for consolation to dram-drinking and tobacco-smoking. All such objections have been gravely put forward from Jenner's time downwards. They prove the weakness of the case they are designed to support, and are so palpably false and inconsequent that we shall net stop to refute them, but merely leave them to the intelligence of our readers.
The prevalence of small-pox in London for some years, and its present attack on the good people of Sydney, point to some defects in the existing machinery which it is of the last importance to the health of the community should be discovered and remedied. It is vain to expect that we in New Zealand can always enjoy immunity
1st. It is essential that the penal clauses of the Compulsory Vaccination Act be strictly enforced. Every child on the register of births should, within the period prescribed by the Act, be registered as vaccinated, as dead, or as insusceptible of vaccination. Should every birth registered not be so accounted for, the Registrar should take steps to trace the child, and compel compliance with the Act.
2nd. The Vaccination Act in the Colony should be amended so as to restrict the period within which primary vaccination must be performed to three months There are serious objections against prolonging the period to six months. Parents, as a rule, delay getting their children vaccinated till near the expiry of the period. It then often happens that it has to be delayed owing to illness from dentition, diarrhoea, or mal-nutrition, all which ailments are more prevalent during the later age. It will thus be seen that by delaying the operation until the sixth month, there remains in the community a large number of unprotected infants who, were smallpox once in our midst, would become a standing menace, since through their agency small-pox would probably become epidemic. In every populous country there are many thousands of children under six months old. In Dunedin and suburbs there must be about 500, while at three months there would be but half that number. Statistics lend weight to our argument, as it has been proved in recent epidemics in London that 11 per cent, of the victims of small-pox die before their fourth month. Moreover, by reducing the period to three months, we are sure that a serious objection to vaccination—noticed by us above—would be almost entirely removed, inasmuch as it has been found that eruptions on the skin rarely follow vaccination when performed in the early weeks of infancy, and thus vaccination would be freed from the unjust imputation of having caused such eruptions. Three months of age is recommended by the principal vaccinators in Great Britain, and many practitioners perform the operation much earlier than this. Having performed
3. Uniformity of Operation.—Steps should be taken by Government to insure as far as possible a fixed standard of successful vaccination, anything short of which would not be recognised as vaccination in the sense of the Act. At present, the manner of performing the operation is left to the fancy or discretion of the operator. Under this system, or rather want of system, it happens that the vaccination of one man is something quite different from that of another operator. One surgeon scratches the arm; another punctures, but at his option puts two, three, four, or more punctures. The same rule prevailed at home before the Commissioners' report, after which Government adopted a uniform system for all public vaccination. That this is not a matter of indifference has been proved by recent observations in several epidemics of smallpox. According to these vaccination is efficient as a protection from smallpox in proportion to the number of sores produced on the arm. Of the patients admitted into the London Small-pox Hospital in the two last epidemics the great majority had never been vaccinated, and the rate of mortality was high. Next to the unvaccinated came those who had been vaccinated in infancy, and whose arm bore only one scar. In this class the mortality was still high, but very much less than in Class 1. The third class bore two scars, and amongst these the disease was greatly modified, and the mortality small. The fourth class bore three or four scars; the disease ran a mild course, there was no pitting, and a death was very exceptional. Lastly, none were admitted whose arm bore six good scars, thus showing that such persons enjoyed an absolute immunity from smallpox.
It has been our frequent practice to employ six punctures, in this respect following the practice of the Faculty Hall Vaccination Station at Glasgow, where during a three months' apprenticeship, we witnessed or performed many hundred operations, all by six punctures, not one of which was followed by a bad symptom.
Mothers often object to this number, but when it is explained to them that there are less risk and suffering from six small punctures than from two or three large blotches, and that the former method gives absolute immunity, their scruples usually give way. No. 2 of the Instructions for Vaccinators, issued by Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, recommends:—In all ordinary cases of primary vaccination, if you vaccinate by separate punctures, make such punc
at least four separate good-sized vesicles; or, if you vaccinate otherwise than by separate punctures, take care to produce local effects equal to those just mentioned. This rule we beg to recommend in the strongest terms for adoption in New Zealand. If Government would insist on all public vaccinators operating by four—or, better still, six—separate punctures, the practice of this method would soon extend to private practitioners, and there would be thus secured a uniform standard, which could not fail to produce good results in the course of time.
4th. A supply of pure vaccine lymph should be provided by Government for all regular medical practitioners. A consideration of this recommendation opens up a vexed, but highly important, question, on which the highest authorities differ. The question is this: Does vaccine lymph, after being repeatedly transmitted from one human being to another, lose any of its prophylactic power? As early as
On the other hand, Mr. Simon, who will be recognised as the highest authority on the subject, came to the conclusion "that the occasional impermanence of protection may depend upon impairment in the specific power of vaccine contagion, an impairment arising in the transmission of that contagion through many generations of men." M. Brîsset, in France, as early as
According to the testimony of many vaccinators, the proportion of unsuccessful to successful vaccinations is every year increasing. Dr. Gregory and Mr. Estlin, in England, have adduced similar facts in evidence that the vaccine lymph, by passing through the bodies of many persons, loses in process of time some essential part of its activity.
The experience furnished by the Prussian Army shows very clearly that vaccine lymph undergoes a gradual deterioration. It appears that where vaccine supply has seldom or never been renewed from the cow, the proportionate resusceptibility of vaccine disease at a given age has undergone a progressive increase. "And (in the words of Mr. Simon) it is difficult to conceive how the infantine generations of a country could, crop by crop, successively derive less permanent constitutional impressions from vaccination, unless the efficient causes of those impressions—the vaccine contagion itself—had year by year undergone enfeeblement of its powers."Moreover, the statistics of the Prussian Army in regard to revaccination of its recruits tells the same story. When the system of re-vaccination was adopted in
Mr. Marson's (the highest authority in England) testimony agrees with this. According to him, vaccine lymph becomes humanised, and consequently weakened as a prophylactic, by passing many times through the human body; the scars are not so good as they were formerly; and the mortality after vaccination, estimated on a large scale, shows a considerable increase.
All which consensus of opinions points to the desirability of renewing the supplies of vaccine lymph directly from the cow.
Having more than three years ago recognised the desirability of introducing an entirely new supply of vaccine matter into our practice, we made application for a supply of pure calf-lymph, such as is used in Germany under Government supervision. This we obtained through Messrs. Hilliard and Sons, Surgical Instrument Makers, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Since receiving which we have operated with it in several cases with the result:—1st. That the percentage of failures is higher than with ordinary lymph. 2nd. That the vesicle produced in successful cases differs materially from the common vesicles in being smaller and less active, and leaving a deeper scar. 3rd. That after this calf-lymph has passed once or twice through the human system, its great superiority to old humanised lymph becomes apparent, as it shows
The advantages of having a lymph supply free from all suspicion of taint or impairment of energy will be admitted by all, and are simply incalculable at a time when the growing distrust of human lymph threatens to oppose a serious difficulty in the proper enforcement of the Compulsory Vaccination Act. Meanwhile we are content to claim for ourselves the merit of having, as far as we can ascertain, successfully introduced into this Colony a new supply of lymph derived directly from the original source.
5th. Re-vaccination.—The question of re-vaccination crops up ever and anon, as often as the public mind takes alarm at a threatened invasion of small-pox. Of its utility there cannot be a question, as the statistics of the British Army and Navy adduced by us in a previous page abundantly testify. Tn some Continental States re-vaccination has been made compulsory, and the results have been highly satisfactory. Indeed we have no hesitation in affirming, that were re-vaccination thoroughly carried out, in two generations small-pox would only be known from historical records. Apart from the question of the deterioration of the lymph now in use, it has been satisfactorily established that while one primary vaccination in infancy protects the great majority of individuals throughout life, there still remains a numerous class who become resusceptible to small-pox. As these individuals cannot in any way be distinguished from protected persons, it is necessary to re-vaccinate the entire population. This secondary vaccination ought to be performed about the age of puberty, with pure calf-lymph or with humanised infantine lymph, never with lymph drawn off are-vaccinated person.
As in all probability the country is not ripe for compulsory re-vaccination, the way might be paved for its becoming general by its being made compulsory in the case of every candidate for the public service, including teachers and railway officials.
6th. We have, lastly, to recommend that Inspectors of Vaccination he appointed, whose duty should consist in visiting the different public vaccination stations throughout the country, watching the Public Vaccinator's mode of operation, inspecting the results attained as seen on the arm on the eighth day, examining the cicatrices, testing the quality of the vaccine lymph, and taking measures to correct whatever might appear to him faulty. This has been carried out in Great Britain for several years, and has resulted in a vast improvement in the quality of the vaccination. In connection with this inspection a system of extra payments by results was introduced, which has had the desired effect in reconciling public vaccinators to the inspection, and has stimulated them to obtain the best results possible. These extra payments take the form of grants, and do not interfere with the regular remuneration per head, which is paid to all public vaccinators alike.
Medical men have been long familiar with the fact that one disease often expels another from the system, temporarily in most cases, the old disease returning after the cure of the new one, but in many cases effecting a permanent cure. But although in vaccination a ready means of introducing a new disease, viz., cow-pox, has been long available to the profession, this aspect of vaccination has attracted very little attention.
Having had the advantage of attending the lectures and clinique of Professor McCall Anderson, the celebrated Dermatologist, at the Glasgow Dispensary for Diseases of the Skin, we had our attention directed to this means of curing chronic diseases which refused to yield to the ordinary remedies. Ever since this has been a favourite subject of investigation to us, and has yielded us remarkable results. We were therefore much gratified lately when we came to know that this use of vaccination had not escaped the acute penetration of Dr. Jenner, who writes in his original essay, "Cow-pox inoculation holds out the prospect of great benefit to those who are labouring under chronic forms of disease, in which counter irritation is desirable."
Remarkable cases of the cure of old disease by means of vaccination have been published by Dr. McCall Anderson, Mr. Lawson Tait, and others; but there is nothing more striking than has occurred in our own practice, as a single example will show. In eczema impetiginodes. Prom the history of the case as given us by her mother, we learned that she was a perfectly healthy child up till her fourth month, when the eczema attacked her face and head in the usual manner. She was immediately put under treatment,
For upwards of six years we have had recourse to vaccination as a regular part of treatment in many morbid states of the constitution, particularly in mal-nutrition of infancy, in which it is undoubtedly of great value. In epilepsy, scrofula, syphilis, and in the gouty and rheumatic diathesis, we have tried it with considerable success. But this is not the place to enter at length into this aspect of' vaccination, and at present we take our leave of the subject. We must express the hope, however, that the therapeutics of vaccination, if it be permitted us to coin a phrase, will now receive a candid and unbiassed investigation from all medical men. We venture to predict as the result of such trial, that vaccination will establish itself as a valuable addition to a physician's armamentarium, and thus acquire a new claim to the gratitude and confidence of mankind.
The End.
Printed by John Mackay, Moray Place, Dunedin.
The Right Worshipful Brother Thos. Sherlock Graham, District Grand Master.
Worshipful Brother E. Nathan, Deputy District Grand Master.
Worshipful Brother Robt. Stout, District Grand Senior Warden.
Worshipful Brother C. De L. Graham, District Grand Junior Warden.
Worshipful Brother W. Ronaldson, District Grand Chaplain.
Worshipful Brother Jno. A. D. Adams, District Grand Registrar.
Worshipful Brother Sydney James, District Grand Secretary.
Worshipful Brother D. Cameron, District Grand Senior Deacon.
Worshipful Brother T. Proctor, as District Grand Junior Deacon.
Brother R. Mckenzie as District Grand Pursuivant.
Brother A. J. Barth, District Grand Steward.
Broter J. M. Hunt, District Grand Steward.
Brother A. Westwood, District Grand Steward.
Brother H. W. Meyer, District Grand Tyler.
Minutes of last Quarterly Communication read and confirmed.
Roll of Lodges called :—
The following Lodges under the sister constitution were represented :—St. Andrew's, Thistle, Otago Kilwinning Scottish Constitution, St. Patrick's Irish Constitution.
The Roll of Officers was called, and responded to by those present Apologies were received and accepted from Brothers Hyman, District Grand Treasurer; De Leon, Director of Ceremonies; and Horsburgh, Steward.
The audited balance-sheets of the General Purpose and Masonic Benevolent Funds, as below, were read and adopted.
Dues during the Year from Lodges as under—
We have examined the books of the District Grand Lodge, compared the vouchers, and find the receipts and expenditure correct.
Treasurer.—Letter read from Brother Hyman, thanking the D.G. Lodge for having elected him for the last two years, stating that he did not wish to take office again.
Resolved—"That Brother H. Eldridge, P M., Lodge 844, be elected Treasurer for current year.
The District Grand Secretary reported :—
Number on the roll of Lodges as per last return rs under :—
The Right Worshipful District Grand Master then addressed the D.G. Lodge upon the state of Masonry in his District, and upon the Masonic circumstances which had occurred during the past year, especially alluding to the opening of the Hiram Lodge, No. 2003, Green Island, and thanked the officers for their regular attendance, and for the support which had been accorded to him in the chair.
The District Grand Secretary read the names of the officers that the Right Worshipful District Grand Master had been pleased to appoint for the current year as follows :—
The officers appointed for the year were then conducted to the throne, addressed by the Right Worshipful District Grand Master, invested with their collars and jewels of office, and their patents of appointments handed
Board of General Purposes.—Upon the motion of the Worship ful Deputy District Grand Master, Brother R. Stout, seconded by District Grand Secretary, Brother James, the following brethren were elected members of the Board of General Purposes for the year :—
C. De L. Graham,A. H. Burton,J. A. D. Adams,D. Cameron.
The District Grand Master, Deputy District Grand Master, and District Grand Secretary being ex officio members of the Board.
The Right Worshipful District Grand Master, in accordance with the bye-law 21, has granted to Lodges Southern Cross, St. George, Ophir, and Hiram, the privilege of selecting a Brother as their representative on the Board, and has appointed Brother A. H. Burton President.
Board Of Benevolence.—The undersigned were appointed members for the year :—
A. H. Burton,B. Lichenstein,R. Ritchie,E. W. Cochrane.
The District Grand Master, Deputy District Grand Master, District rand Treasurer, and District Grand Secretary being ex officio members.
Correspondence read as under :—
The D.G. Secretary read letters which he had sent, by command of the Right Worshipful District Grand Master, to Brother Sir W. J. Clarke and Brother Lempriere, expressing the regret of the D.G.M. that he would be unable to accept the kind invitation congratulating Brother Sir W. J. Clarke on being appointed to so high and important a position and the Brethren of Victoria in having so worthy a head, and that he had deputed Brothers H. F. Dench and W.G.M. Mackenzie, two past officers of the D.G. Lodge at present in Victoria, to represent this District Grand Lodge at the installation ceremony.
Prospectus of an intended publication (to be issued at Wellington) called the "New Zealand Craftsman and Masonic Review."
The D.G. Secretary reported that, by command of the R.W. District Grand Master, he had applied to Brother C. J. Toxward, R.W.D.G.M. for the North Island, at Wellington, to know if the intended publication was issued with his cognizance and support, and had received a reply to the effect that it was not so issued, consequently the D.G.M. had refused his sanction to the issue of the same in the Lodges of his district.
On the motion of Brother Stout, D.D.G.M., seconded by Brother James, D.G. Secretary, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded, and ordered to be recorded on the minutes, to Brother Nathan, Past Deputy District Grand Master, for his services during his term of office and to Masonry in general for a lengthened period.
Brother Nathan feelingly returned thanks.
Nothing further offering, the D.G. Lodge was closed in peace and harmony and with solemn prayer at 10 p.m.
17. Every private Lodge shall four times in each year transmit direct to the District Grand Secretary a list of its members and of the brethren initiated or admitted therein since the last return, with the dates of initiation or joining, and when passed or raised, the dates of those degrees respectively, together with the ages, titles, professions or trades of such brethren, and the name and number of the Lodge to which a joining member belonged, and at same time remit all monies due to the District Grand Lodge; the return shall be signed by the Master and Secretary.
21. The Board of General Purposes shall consist of eight members and the District Grand Secretary. Four of the members to be elected by the District Grand Lodge, and four to be elected by the country lodges as their representatives, in such manner as the District Master shall deem fit.
35. Each private Lodge subscribing five guineas per annum to the Fund shall have power to nominate a member to the Board of Benevolence.
(Psalm cl.)
It is incumbent upon us to praise the Lord of all; to magnify the Creator of the beginning; for he hath not made us like unto nations of other countries, nor disposed of us in the manner of other families of the earth; neither hath he appointed our portion like unto theirs, nor our lot like all their multitude. For we bend the knee, worship, and make our acknowledgments to the presence of the supreme King of kings! the holy and blessed Being; he who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, the throne of whose glory is in the heavens above, and the residence of whose might is in the celestial heights. He is our God, and there is no other. Our King is truth, and there is none besides him; as it is written in his law, "Know, therefore, this day, and reflect in thine heart, that the Lord he is God, in heaven above, and on the earth beneath: there is none else."
We will, therefore, place our hope in thee, O Lord, our God! speedily to behold thy glorious power; removing the abominations out of the earth, and causing all the idols to be utterly destroyed, that the universe may be established under the Almighty government; all flesh invoke thy name, and all the wicked of the earth turn unto thee: then shall all the inhabitants of the world know and acknowledge, that unto Thee every knee must bow, and every tongue swear: before thee, O Lord, our God! shall they kneel and fall prostrate: they shall ascribe honour to thy glorious name, and all shall take upon themselves the duties due to thy dominion : and thou wilt speedily reign over them for ever and ever. For the kingdom is thine, and in eternal glory wilt thou reign; as it is written in thy law, "The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." And it is also expressed, "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth," on that day will it be acknowledged that the Lord is One, "and his name One,"
May he who blessed our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless the Wardens and Members of this Congregation, and all who have brought their offerings for the building of this synagogue. May he bless them, their wives, their sons, their daughters, and all belonging unto them. May he preserve them from distress and sorrow, may he prosper the work of their hands, and vouchsafe unto them length of days in joy and happiness. Amen.
May he who dispenseth salvation unto kings, and dominion unto princes: whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; who delivered David his servant from the destructive sword; who maketh a way in the sea, and a path through the mighty waters: May he bless, preserve, guard, assist, exalt, and highly aggrandize our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the royal family. May the Supreme King of kings, through his infinite mercy, grant her life, preserve her, deliver her from all manner of trouble and danger; subdue people under her feet, make her enemies fall before her, and cause her to prosper in all her undertakings. May the Supreme King of kings, through his infinite mercy, incline her heart, and the hearts of her counsellors and nobles, with benevolence to act kindly towards us and all Israel. In her days, and in our days, may Judah be saved, and Israel dwell in safety; and may the Redeemer come unto Zion; O that this may be his gracious will! and let us say, Amen.
And when the Ark rested, he said, Return, O Eternal! to the myriads of thousands of Israel! Arise, O Eternal! unto Thy resting place, Thou, and the Ark of Thy strength. Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and Thy pious ones shout for joy. For the sake of Thy servant David turn not away the face of Thine Anointed, "for I have given you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law; it is a tree of life to those who take fast hold of it, and the supporters thereof are happy; its ways are pleasantness, and all its paths are peace."
Do Thou turn us unto Thee, O Eternal! and then we shall return. Renew our days as of old.
The Scrolls of the Law are then, placed in the Ark.
The Minister Then Preaches a Sermon, and offers up a Consecration Prayer.
The Ark is opened, and the Reader and Choristers chant:
Previous to the Consecration, Afternoon Service will be read in the Temporary Synagogue at 3 o'Clock.
The Minister, the Wardens, and other Honorary Officers of the Congregation, bring the Scrolls of the Law to the door of the New Synagogue, when the Minister exclaims in Hebrew:—
Open unto me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them, and praise the Lord.
The doors being opened, the Minister and others enter in procession, with the Scrolls in'their arms, when the Minister and Choir Chant:—
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! thy tabernacles, O Israel!
O Lord! I have ever loved the habitation of thy house, and the dwelling-place of thy glory.
We will come into thy tabernacles, and worship at thy footstool.
The procession then passes up the Synagogue, under the Canopy, until it arrives at the Ark; during its progress the Minister and Choristers sing :
Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is our God; the Eternal is One.
Our God is a Unity : great is our Lord, Whose name is the Most Holy.
The procession then passes round the Synagogue seven times; during each circuit one of the following Psalms is chanted by the Minister and Choristers.
This is a delightful book of 224 pages, profusely illustrated, by B. Francis. The Pacific Ocean is said to cover nearly half the globe, and sketches of its emerald isles set in azure are always attractive. New Zealand engrosses 100 pages of the work. This is the most remote corner of the British Empire, and still the most nearly resembling England, in respect to its climate, atmosphere, and productions. We "have completely filled it with our own people, plants, and animals, and built towns and villages almost like those in our own land. The climate, too, is in some respects like our own, but warmer and finer, and the atmosphere is clear and bright, and the sky very blue. There is a slight dampness in the air, owing, it is thought, to the vast tracts of water by which it is surrounded, but which keeps the foliage and the grass as green as it is in England. Of all the islands in the world, New Zealand is surrouded by the largest extent of water." The natives of these isles of New Zealand are "a fine, intelligent tribe of men." Captain Cook "found them living in villages, in huts made of wood and reeds. They wore clothing woven from the native flax, and dyed with bark, and they made stone weapons, and instruments of various kinds, and cooked their food. They also cultivated their land, and made laws about property, and stored provisions against bad times. Being much given to fighting among themselves, they made forts and defences of the most ingenious kind. Though they had no written language, they had all sorts of songs and proverbs, handed down from generation to generation; and they knew and had named every bird, plant, and insect in their island. They had also names for the stars, and called the constellations from
We are told that "the fruits and flowers of New Zealand are endless in variety and beauty." Roots and seeds imported from England flourish here in great perfection. In the Northern Island, "the myrtle and scarlet geranium bloom unsheltered all the year round; and grapes, figs, and melons ripen perfectly in the open air, and oranges, bananas, and pine-apples."
Currants, gooseberries, strawberries, potatoes, grow in great profusion in the South Islands. Our flowers—"roses, honeysuckle. lavender, mignonnette, snow-drops, crocuses, and daffodils blossom luxuriantly; also, the oak, elm, and other English trees. A New Zealand forest in its native wildness is a most beautiful sight, with its infinite variety of pine trees, evergreens, creepers, and shrubs. Many of the large trees bear lovely flowers, and the ground is carpeted with them. Among the most beautiful plants are the tree-fern and the cabbage-palm; the commonest is the manuka scrub, which grows all over the island. It is something like a myrtle, and has white, and sometimes pink, blossoms. All the native trees, with one or two exceptions, are evergreen."
The Maoris ornament their heads with feathers, combs, and pearl shells. "In their ears they wear pieces of jasper or green-jade, and sharks' teeth. The women adorn their necks with strings of sharks' teeth and a particular kind of berry." New Zealand is rich in " a great variety of birds; green parrots and pigeons of various kinds; the bell-bird, with its sweet, dreamy note; the iris, or parson-bird, who wears a glossy black suit; and the New Zealand robin, who is no robin at all, but has a yellowish-white breast." We have wood-hens also, and several species of the kiwi. They have neither wings nor tails, and are covered with hair. The moa is extinct. The Maoris—a tail, well-built race—with coarse black hair, large noses and mouths, "tattoo their faces most elegantly and elaborately." They, also, " smear their faces with oil and red ochre." With respect to their superstitious rites, the tapu and muru are very singular. The tapu means that a thing is sacred and not to be touched. With regard to the muru, " if any one has an accident or affliction, it is thought a compliment and a token of sympathy to
Like the Homeric heroes, "when a chief died, it was con-sidered right and proper to kill a slave immediately, in order that the great man might have a spirit to attend him into another world. One or more of his wives would always make an end of herself, that she might accompany her husband."
Of course these rites are now discontinued. However, "the wives content themselves with covering their heads, howling and lamenting for days together." These lamentations and certain ceremonies and a great deal of feasting always accompany the death of a chief, and constitute a Tangi."
Samuel Marsden was the first missionary to the Maoris. "In
On Christmas Day,
The New Zealand Company was formed, "and sent out settlers, under the guidance of Colonel Wakefield, to buy land from the natives—to be paid for in all sorts of things which the Maoris valued more: tools, seeds, looking-glasses, clothing, muskets, gunpowder, &c." Land enough was bought in a year,
Troops were sent from Sydney to put down the rebels. But from this time we must really date "the beginning of the New Zealand war." True, there were a few years of peace, but "the seeds of the terrible wars of more modern times were sown" then and there. A Land League was created, "to prevent the settlers getting more land into their hands, and in kapu or hawk, " which hovered over head, and though a bird of prey still could always be seen." Whereas, Sir George Grey was compared to the Mori or rat, " which worked underground, so that it could not be told where it went in or where it would come out." Striking comparison and true to the core; as subsequent events proved. " In Christianity, Love, Law. Like Cassandra, his counsels were not heeded—else there had been no wars at all.
New Zealand is famed for its beautiful scenery, fertile soil, and genial climate. Lady Baker's "Station Life" gives us "delightful pictures of the free, open-air life of the farmers and their families settled there." The forests, ferns, and mountains are splendid, so also are the lakes, hot-springs, baths, rivers, streams, plains, glens, and gullies.
"Fully a quarter of the Canterbury Province is one enormous plain of 3,000,000 acres, all divided into sheep runs, and covered with flocks and herds. The principal city, Christchurch, is built on the banks of the beautiful river Avon."
Otago was founded by the New Zealand Company, and colonised by the Scotch, on the
Dunedin is now the first city in the Colony, and "one of the finest of colonial cities."
The Maoris are dying off in obedience to a strange law of nature, which decrees that in whatever land the white man settles the dark native race diminishes, and as it were melts away before him."
The most southerly of Melanesia, is 240 miles long, very mountainous and barren. The bread-fruit grows here. Plan tains, sugar-canes, and cocoa-nuts are to be found. The natives use spears, darts, slings, and clubs, and Tomahawks. They are good fishers, and catch sardines, eels, cray-fish, mullet, shell-fish and molluscs. The chiefs hold absolute rule, and have the power of life and death. Their ancestors are their gods, whose relics are carefully kept, and to which they pray before fighting, fishing, planting, feasting. The spirits of the dead go to the bush, where, periodically, feasts are spread before them. As in New Zealand, the first Christian worship was held on Christmas Day. "In a temple of waving cocoa-nut trees, with the blue sky for its roof, and the singing of birds in the branches, and the gentle murmur of the waves on the beach supplying the place of the solemn strains of the organ," the first act of public devotion was performed, We read of "the beauty of the scenery, the glorious mountains grand and bare, and the green valleys, and broad rivers often forming cascades." They are now comparatively civilized. Such is the marvellous influence "of the Gospel in taming the ferocity of savages and paving the way for the advance of civilization. It not only teaches them what is right and just, but wins their hearts to approve it; and thus prepares them to yield a willing obedience to fair and equitable laws."
Sandal-wood forms their staple article of barter. "They are the most civilized of the Melanesian race, and nearly all Christianized. There is a certain resemblance in all the languages of the Pacific Islanders, though there are an immense variety of them, all totally distinct." The Fiji group numbers 150 islands of all shapes and sizes. The largest is Viti Levu. Levuka, the
Twenty years ago—
Produces cocoanuts, oranges, guavas, bread-fruit, banana, &c. It is "crossed on all sides by splendid mountains, of which the highest is 7000ft. All these mountains are surrounded by a belt of land, which is inhabited, and skirted by splendid forests." Tahiti has been called the Queen of the Pacific. In
Fishing lines are made of nettle, nets of grass, and hooks of mother-of-pearl. They have also stone hatchets, chisels of human bone, and rasps of coral. Now they get plenty of European tools. The general complaint is "that the missionaries give them plenty of word, talk, and prayer, but very few knives, axes, scissors or cloth."
The Tahitian tongue was "the first Polynesian language reduced to writing." At first they were "in a deplorable condition of ignorance and superstition. They worshipped idols, killed their own children, and offered human sacrifice to their gods, especially to their principal deity, Oro, who was nothing but a straight log of hard wood, six feet long, and decorated with feathers." The king, Pomare, was first converted, then a powerful priest, Potu, and at last, in the year
An aged chief confessed at a meeting of missionaries that he had murdered his 19 children on the very spot where they were gathered together. "What a contrast between his present moral state and the black ignorance of crime that formerly reigned in his heart!"
Are 2350 miles from San Francisco, and the same distance from Japan, the Marquesas, the Samoa Islands, and the Alentian Islands. "They are only connected with the other Pacific Islands by bare coral reefs, the nearest of which is 700 miles off." They are civilised and Christianized, with an educated king. They are seven in number; besides four rocky and uninhabited islets. Hawaii, the largest, is 70 miles across. It has vast volcanic mountains, some 14,000 feet high. "Hilo, the principal town in Hawaii, is one of the most delightful places in the world. The crescent-shaped bay is fringed with cocoanut and palm trees, and the town beyond looks from the sea like one mass of greenery, for white houses are half burried in the rich, luxuriant vegetation." The people are indolent and voluptuous. They are passionately fond of flowers. "The girls and women are constantly employed in making wreaths and necklaces of every description, with which they adorn themselves." The taro or kalo, a sort of arum, forms the principal article of diet. They are famous bathers and swimmers. Molokai Island is reserved for lepers. "Father Danneus, a man of education and refinement, has chosen to give up all the comforts and enjoyments of life" in order to minister to the wants of his afflicted
Dimensions 6x3 miles. Shores rocky. Water around it deep. "But within the rocky precipices round the coast are lovely valleys with palm-forests and groves of cocoa-nut, bread and fruit-trees. The climate is delicious and the soil rich. It is the scene of the story of the Mutineers of the Bounty. Life here in the open air among flowers and cocoa-nut trees is Elysian. "The little village of Pitcairn stands on a rock, in the midst of bananas and banyan trees, and surrounded by glorious scenery. The women wear a loose bodice and skirt down to the ankles, and their long black hair twisted into a graceful knot, without any pin or fastening. Their food was pork or fowls, baked between stones, bread-pudding, made of the Taro root, fruit, and vegetables."
In
The Marquesas—a group of islands discovered in
Their idols are rough, clumsy, possessed of great power, but often treated disrespectfully. They are splendid swimmers.
Is thirty or forty miles in circumference. Its natives "live on yams, pototoes, and sugar-cane, the soil being so fertile that three days' work is sufficient to provide sustenance for a native
"Towards the sea there are high walls built of immense stones most ingeniously fitting into one another without cement, and stone platforms and terraces have been levelled with large slabs which had been pedestals for the images. Most of those slabs were 15 or 18 feet high, and some 37 feet. The figures are human bodies without legs, the heads being flat to allow of crowns being put on; these crowns were made of a red material found only at a crater three miles from the stone houses. The houses are built on regular lines, with doors facing the sea, the walls are 5 feet thick and 6 feet high, built of layers of irregularly-shaped flat stone, and lined inside with upright flat slabs. These are painted with figures of birds and animals, and geometrical figures. Quantities of a particular shell were found inside the houses, and in one of them a statue 8 feet high. Near these houses the rocks on the brink of the sea-cliffs are carved into all sorts of strange shapes, sometimes like odd human faces, and sometimes like turtle."
Was there once a civilisation over the Pacific Isles? Was this isle the Delos of the great Archipelago? Who can tell? The whole is enveloped in a mysterious shroud. So much for the Isles of the Pacific by B. Francis. It is a charming book, and will well repay the cost of purchase and the labour of pe rusal. It is full of illustrations, and fraught with wisdom.
T. S. Hudson, in this book of 289 pages, records daily the incidents and impressions of a voyage over 15,000 miles of sea and land, accomplished in 60 days. He left Liverpool on Good Friday, unprecedented travelling. Prefixed to the book is a table of daily contents, of 22 pages. There are several typographical, and some orthographical errors. The work is distributed into 60 divisions, e.g., Day one, &c. At Day ten, Mr Hudson records his impressions of New York. He is sadly annoyed at the American "vexatious operation of protectionist imposts." The street cars, and the crude telegraph poles, and the dingy lamp posts "would have disgraced the smallest English towns." The hotels presented "a mixture of splendour and coarseness." He considers that "the officials and waiters are repulsive, rude," as their "filthy national habit" of smoking. Politeness is not in the Yankee market at any quotation. Courtesy there is none, and the "meals are bolted" down like pigs. At Day eleven we read that "if you are so confiding as to run the risk of theft by putting your shoes outside of your bed-room door to be cleaned, and you should be so fortunate as to get them back again, a charge of ten cents appears in your bill." The charge for carriages is almost prohibitory. "The vestibules of these palatial buildings are crowded by sitting and moving groups of male persons in an everlasting buzz of conversation, or chewing or smoking for ever." The "sallow complexions of the people " and their insane "advertising enterprise" are held up to merited condemnation. The landscapes are "blurred by huge letters painted upon rocks and trees." Boston is characterised as the Edinburgh of America. The scenery on the Hudsoe, after leaving Hudson town, "was quite equal to the Rhine, and in one part almost as grand as the Iron Gate of the Danube." The trams and roadways of Philadelphia were "more rugged and uneven than those of New York, there being holes in the middle of the best streets, and the crossings were very bad." Philadelphia is "the largest city in area " in America, with a million citizens. Brook Street is 23 miles long. But "the other streets are poor, and have all the objectional points of American cities—open drains, filthy and rotten wooden shades over the footpaths, rough telegraph posts, &c."
Fairmount Park is "the largest city park in the world, being 14 miles on both sides of the river Schuylkill, which is crossed by elegant bridges."
The American railway stations are the veriest hovels. In that land of pseudo-freedom the coloured people are not allowed to worship with the whites in churches and chapels. In "Washington "the lamp-posts which adorn the steps and balconies" of the Capitol "would be put to shame by an ordinary gin-palace lamp; and in front of the building is a dirty pool of water containing a few hungry gold-fish, and surrounded by a rusty iron paling." What could we expect from the capital of Mobocracy? Certainly not Attic taste. The vulgar representatives and senators smoke in their legislative halls. "We heard on every hand regret expressed at the decadence of the House, owing to universal suffrage having placed the seats in the hands of men who pandered to the mob, the result being that the best men kept aloof from politics."
The ascent of the Alleghany Mountains is a matter of some engineering ingenuity. "For 17 miles the train, drawn by two powerful locomotives, pursued its serpentine and upward way, the most of the time on the brink of deep gullies, where, hundreds of feet beneath us, the swollen mountain torrents rushed along their rocky beds, fed every few yards by foaming cascades which dashed under or over our very cars, as we sped along. At the extreme summit of the range, 2,800 feet above the sea, we noticed the waters hesitate which way to flow, and then exhibit a tendency to run in one direction, until very quickly the little rills united into the impetuous stream which formed the upper waters of the Youghiogheny river. Descending by heavy cuttings, embankments, and tunnels, for 20 miles, we reached the end of this mountain section at Grafton."
The Southern Hotel at St. Louis "is not behind any in Europe for any one thing excepting situation; and for grandeur, size, and comfort combined, is not eclipsed in either continent. The Palace at San Francisco beats it for size, and the Windsor at Montreal for luxurious elegance; but the other three monster hotels of the world—the Baldwin at San Francisco, the Palmer House and Grand Pacific at Chicago, do not excel it in any material particular."
Fancy a bridge of 3,000 yards spanning the Missouri river! Advancing Westward Ho, one can see trains of emigrant waggons, drawn by mules—"the straggling succession of bullock-drawn waggons that wended in long trains up the course of the Platte in pre-railroad days, sometimes for miles actually in the shallow water or dry part of the bed of the stream." The town of Cheyenne is 6,041ft high, with a population of 6,000. It has two daily newspapers. "Endless and poor-looking prairies surround it." Coming in sight of the snow-clad Rocky Mountains, "for
During the afternoon of Day 25, they reached Sherman, 8,242 feet above the sea—"the highest railway station in the world." On the whole route there were 250 stations, traversed in six days and nights from ocean to ocean. But for the long stoppages, the journey could be done in four days. America is greatly over-rated. "Even in the most favoured parts very little greenness ever refreshes the eye." Much of it is a region of desolation—"where the lack of moisture and the prevalence of alkali which covered the face of the earth like dirty snow—debarred the possibility of any vegetation whatever, excepting the pertinacious and useless sage-brush—a poor-looking, scentless shrub not unlike the fragrant plant from which it derives its name."
The western States and territories—parts of California and Texas excepted—"already supported as many people' as could find subsistence." No rivers and no moisture to grow cereals. In Nevada, there is only a rainfall of three inches annually. Utah is in the same parched state. The land is fitted for pasturage only, as in Australia. "The Mormon capital is well laid out There are 260 blocks, each one-eighth of a mile square, sub-divided into eight lots, each containing one and a-half acres. Trees and running water line each street, and almost every lot has an orchard of pear, plum, peach, and apple-trees. The houses are mostly of one storey, with separate entrances where the proprietor has more than one wife. To the north the mountains are close up to the city, while to the south are 100 miles of plains, beyond which rise, clear-cut and grand, the grey range whose peaks are covered with perpetual snow." The Tabernacle is seated for 12,000 persons. Its interior elevation is 60 feet. It has 20 large doors—through which in a minute and a-half it can be emptied. " Polygamy should be stamped out as the plague."
At Wells Station, there are 20 springs—5 or 6 feet in diameter, nearly round, apparently bottomless. "After passing Be-o-wa-we Station, we observe jets and columns of steam rising in a line from a barren hill-side. From this line boiling, muddy, sulphuric water descended, desolating everything in its course, and escaping through the bogs of the plains."
A whole day was spent traversing Humboldt Yalley, through which the Humboldt river flows, until it empties itself into Humboldt Lake. This, and smaller lakes, appear to have no outlets
The Navada Plains, for hundreds of miles of lava and clay, are, indeed, dreary deserts. " No green thing meets the eye as it roams over thousands of acres covered with dirty white alkali. The sun's rays fall glaringly upon the barren scene; burning and withering and crushing out any attempt of Nature to introduce life."
Day 29—"Having left Reno in the early evening, our train had proceeded along the bank of the Truchee River, and ascending 1,060 in 26 miles, passed out of Nevada into California." After emerging out of a 28 mile snow-shed, "we were tearing along high up on one side of a deep valley. No more snow; but the hills covered with tall pines, and far, far down at the foot of the precipice spread luxuriant verdure. A short stoppage was made at Summit, 7,000 feet above the sea, and 240 miles from San Francisco. We wended round the brow of the mountain where the track is cut in a sharp descent out of the very-front of the precipice. An enchanting occupation it was to gaze perpendicularly down upon the tree-tops and streaks of river below." And now "from the desert of Nevada we descended into the fruitful plains of California"—which is 1,800 long and 200 broad on an average. The Palace Hotel covers three acres. It is seven stories high—the lowest being 27 feet—and the highest 16. "Five elegant elevators, constantly ascending and descending, convey 1,200 guests to and from the rooms."
Chinatown—the Chinese quarter of San Francisco—" is the dirtiest and most densely populated mass of buildings under the sun." Here are 20,000 pagans. Congress has passed an Act " prohibiting further immigration from the Flowery land for ten years."
What a travesty on freedom! But "the American statesman is the slave of the lowest of the population." Such a law is at variance with "the very foundations of universal liberty upon which its constitution is framed." San Francisco is made of wood. Whole blocks can be removed at will by house-removers. The telephone is greatly utilised. The traveller gives us a minute description of the Safe Deposit Block. Its name indicates its use. The tramway system is good. "On California Street there are four lines of rails." In the hilly parts "dummy cars are employed, drawn by an endless rope enclosed in a casing level with the roadway, a slit in which admits a lever worked by the conductor of the dummy, by which the starting and stopping is accomplished with great ease. The motive power is a stationary engine of 500 horse-power."
The Americans, it is said, evinced "an unmistakeable feeling of satisfaction at the dastardly murders in Phoenix Park, Dublin." The expression of a gentlemanly-looking American to the expressed horror of the writer, on hearing the sad news, was—"Wal, you Britishers have used Ireland tarnation badly." Travelling in California is no child's play—but the drivers are said to be very expert Jehus. Sometimes, they attained a height of 6,300 feet above sea level. Down beneath was the wondrous Yosemite Valley. The Yosemite Fall "takes a vertical leap of 1,500 feet, and then an unbroken fall of 600 feet to the bottom of the chasm. The bed of the valley, through which the river Merced flows, receiving the waters from all the falls, is 4,000 feet above sea level." The Bridal Veil—30 yards across—"drops clean over a ledge 900 feet high. The Virgin's Tears Creek makes a fine fall of 3,300 feet enclosed in a deep recess of the rock. There are six other falls of similar dimensions, and innumerable ribbon falls, whose fantastic motions, as wafted by the wind over the face of the smooth granite, form an interesting feature in a Spring inspection of this enchanting gorge." Sunrise and sunset in California are said to be very good, "the orb of day rising and setting clean against the horison of sea or land, without any traces of haze or cloud." California is a farmer's paradise. "The regularity of the seasons being such that his operations can be carried on with the minimum of uncertainty as to results."
On Day 39, they passed through the Loop Tunnel, where, "to suit the exigencies of the construction of the line, the road is made to describe a circle and go under and over itself." We have a picture presented to us of the orange groves and rose gardens of Los Angeles—The city of the Angels—which lies at the southern base of the Sierra Santa Monica Mountains—" is completely embosomed in foliage; being irrigated from the Los Angeles river by windmills, vineyards, orange and lemon orchards, and lovely gardens and groves meet the eye at every turn, while magnificent plantations stretch away as far as sight can ken." South California excels Greece and Italy in point of climate. "Yuma has 300 cloudless days in a year, Los Angeles 260, New York 120, London 60! "
Tuiscon—the capital of Arizona—is said to be the second oldest town in America.
Day 38 was, also, "through wilderness, the chief production being cacti of every shape and size," there being 150 varieties. The Indians are called by the Yankees vermin, which is ruthlessly killed by the soldiers. Santa Fé is reached in Day 39 — the city of the Holy faith, 700 feet high. At Las Vergas are
Day 42, the train swept through waving cornfields and rich pastures fenced in, as had not been the case previously for thousands of miles. In a few years the city of Kansas has sprung up rapidly, having 60,000 citizens. American liberty is only a name—considering the treatment of the Indians and Chinese. Theories as to equality of races and nations are all very fine; but let our friends practise first and boast afterwards." The writer speaks of the enormous strikes of the Americans! Those Trade Unions threaten to be dangerous, "if free-trade in labour is to be prevented by Acts of Congress." Chicago "is a veritable Phœnix begotten of the ashes. Paving here is on an enormous scale—" huge blocks of stone, 12 x 10 feet and a foot thick, securely set and needing no curbstone. Book-shops, on a great scale, abound in the city. Lake Michigan is 400 miles long and 100 miles wide. It waters the city. The City Hall is the third grandest in America—"the Capitol at Washington and the State House at Albany ranking before it. Thirteen swivel-bridges, revolving on piers in the middle of the river, connect the principal streets, and are opened and closed with great ease and rapidity by hydraulic machinery." The American women are, in a word, blue-stockings, "one could admire, revere, worship; but love them, never."
The influences of Puritanism and Boston are everywhere felt. Except Scotland, "the Sabbath is better observed than in any other country." In shooting the rapids, before reaching Montreal, is somewhat perilous. " The Windsor Castle at Montreal is one of the chief glories of Canadians. The city lies in a plain, immediately to the rear of which rises a hill 700 feet high. Along the river for four miles stretch the streets and buildings, reaching inland about two miles." From Mount Royal the panorama is splendid. The numerous islands and rapids of the river and the monster railway bridge nearly two miles long, are visible. "The mountains of St. Clair, Belleisle, and Busheville, rise against the eastern horison, and to the northward is a fertile country melting away to bleak-looking hills in the direction of Labrador. The whole of the ground for many miles, particularly along the banks of the river, is covered with habitations, which, being whitewashed and standing amid plots of well-cultivated land and trees, give an idea of prosperity and happiness that is everwhere evident in Canada. The solid grey limestone presents a display of continuous substantial masonry unequalled on the North American Continent; and fountains and statues are not wanting to testify to the successful efforts of the citizens to maintain the reputation of Montreal as a model city for construction and embellishment. Notre Dame is an old and spacious cathedral, and strange, " the whole space was covered with pews." The Cathedral of St. Peter—after the model of the Roman—"was in course of construction. Its design included five domes and twenty chapels. The Episcopal Cathedral is a unique specimen of English Gothic, and is surmounted by a spire 224 feet in height."
The voyage through the Atlantic Ocean, with 190 icebergs in sight, on Day 55, may have been picturesque, but it was perilous with the temperature as low as 39 degrees Fahrenheit. After leaving the Banks of Newfoundland, the sailing was delightful. As the steamer passed into Lough Foyle at dawn of Day 60, they were delighted with "the ever-vaunted verdancy of the Irish vegetation." Such greenness is not to be seen in American landscapes, "even in the choicest spots of the American Continent." In that respect the British Isles beat America, and New Zealand beats them. They " crossed the Mersey bar within an hour of 60 days from the commencement of our scamper of close upon fifteen thousand miles."
The story of their wanderings by sea and land is well told, and is pregnant with thought, and suggestive of reflections of the great strides of progress and civilisation achieved in
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The name is written Hardicanute, Hardecanute, Harthacnut, Hardeknut. At the present time the spelling of Saxon names in works of English literature is in a transition state. It may be advisable to give the different modes so as to prepare the general reader for a future fixed and definite one. I am personally inclined to favour the current method, and to write Ædward, Edward; Ælfred. Alfred; Ædgithra, Edith; although coins and ancient charters give the first forms. The early writers appear to have delighted in using a perfectly unnecessary dipthory—ex. gra. Æthelred for Ethelred. Again, the word Swegen was most certainly pronounced Sweyn, as the Latin, Florence of West., p. 142.In A.D., on March 17th, Harold I. died and was buried at Westminster. "After his funeral the nobles of almost the whole of England sent envoys to Hardicanute Suanus, will testify. Some writers spell it Sveyn. The "g" appears to have been silent. I think, therefore, that the safest rule for modern writers is to adopt the simple form, and not to follow the method pursued at a time when reasonable spelling was misunderstood. This matter is of importance, if we desire to impart a general knowledge of our Saxon History.
When Harold was elected in A.D. 800-839), but it took two centuries to completely consolidate the crown upon one single head, and A.D. saw the last division. Our ancestors jealously guarded their right of election to the throne, and it was found necessary to divide the crown so late as that year. Since that time England has remained one kingdom, this moreover, absorbed the independent sovereignties of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, which shows that civilization tends to bring about consolidation, and not disintegration. The English crown has often been competed for by different parties, but it has always remained a single crown.
Before A.D. for a period of nearly six centuries, there was constant strife among the different Saxon kingdoms, and it is interesting to note this, and to compare it with the wonderfully peaceful progress inter se of the present British colonies, notably of Canada and Australasia. The Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Danes of England, were people speaking almost one language, whose habits, manners, and customs were alike. Quite similar are the circumstances of, say, the Australasian Colonies. The march of civilization does not impress the tendency above referred to, so much upon young as upon old communities, for the common language, habits, manners, or customs of neighbouring communities do not save them from war. Witness these old English troubles, or the present troubles in Chili, Peru, and Bolivia. Was it that our ancestors possessed sovereign powers in their local dominions? and does it follow that the want of sovereign office in young communities is almost a blessing? The tie which binds the different colonies to England may be a far more important one, (if their own peace and welfare for many years to come are considered,) than colonists are inclined to believe. Sacrifice that tie! Erect independent Legislatures possessing sovereign power, and war most assuredly will follow. It is almost a historical maxim, that the more legislatures the more war. Thus in Saxon England, under the Octarchy or Heptarchy, strife was constant and incessant. Less so under the three great Earldoms of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria; and still less so under the single crown. In further proof, it may be said that war has entirely ceased between England and Scotland since the union. Whether English statesmen acted beneficially in granting so many almost independent legislatures to the colonies, is uncertain. But having them, it becomes Colonial statesmen to act as Earls Godum and Leofire acted, in that wonderful spirit of conciliation with one another which brought about so many years of domestic peace. Even Siward—Warlike Siward—felt himself controlled by the conciliatory and merciful spirit shown by the two southern Earls. In this, Godwin was eminently the chief. Both he and his son Harold, as will shortly be seen, were conciliatory men. Leofrie fell into Godwin's way of thinking, and Siward followed Leofrie. Thus, England became united into one single crown. The very accidence, the very grammar of the word Federation is conciliation, and this conciliation must be displayed by leading public men. Quarrelsome, rash, or compulsory statesmen generally bring danger and trouble upon a community.
"Having given this example of vengeance and barbarity against one dead brother, the new King, with a great show of fraternal affection, commenced an extensive judicial enquiry into the murder of Alfred. He himself, being a Dane, no man of Danish race was cited by him to appear before the justice seat, and Saxons were alone charged with a crime, which could only have been useful to their masters. Godwin, whose power and doubtful designs inspired great fears, was the first accused; he presented himself, according to the English law, accompanied by a great number of relations, friends, and witnesses, who with him, swore that he had taken no part, directly or indirectlly, in the death of the son of Ethelred." (The oath of numerous friends and witnesses "that a prisoner was innocent" was the highest form-of Saxon defence. It was apparently the basis of the jury system; for in those times, as indeed in the present day, in sparsely populated countries, a man's neighbours, and dependants, can best judge of his guilt or innocence of a particular crime. The Anglo-Saxon Race is not an impulsive race. If numerous friends and witnesses state that a man is innocent of a crime, we may accept, the statement as correct, as the statement would not be made at all, if doubts existed.)" This then perfectly legal proof was not sufficient to satisfy a King of foreign race; and in order to give it value, it was necessary for the Saxon chief to back it with rich presents, the details of which, if not wholly fabulous, would lead one to believe that many of the English assisted their countryman to buy off this prosecution, instituted in bad faith. Godwin gave King Harde Knut a vessel adorned with gilt metal (gold), and manned with eighty soldiers, each with a gilt helmet, a gilt axe upon his left shoulder, a javelin in his right hand, and on each arm bracelets of gold, weighing six ounces. A Saxon bishop, named Leofwin ("Lyfing"), accused of having assisted the son of Ulfnoth in his alleged treason, like Godwin, cleared himself by presents. Thieny, Vol. I., p. 119. This vessel must have been a very large one, as the ordinary vessel of the time, only carried twenty men. Thus the Royal dues fix m the town of Dover were twenty vessels of twenty men each, for fifteen days' service in the year.
Florence of Westminster states : "Moreover, he (Godwin) made oath to the King, with almost all the chief men and greater Thanes in England, that it was not by his counsel, or at his instance, that his brother's eyes were put out, but that he had only obeyed the commands of his lord, King Harold." p. 143,
King Harthacnut's actions are scarce worthy of notice. He heavily taxed the people, and two of his collectors (Feader and Thurstan) were killed by the citizens of Worcester. Whereupon Leofric, Earl of Mercia; Siward, Earl of Northumbria; and Godwin were sent against the city to waste it with tire and sword. They duly carried out the king's commands, although Godwin appears to have privately sent the inhabitants notice to leave the city and save their lives. Worcester was not in his earldom, but doubtless it was with a heavy heart that Godwin saw an English city given up to tire and sword to please almost a foreign prince. But this was the manner of the times, just as afterwards Edward wished Godwine to punish Dover. These two earls, Leofric and Siward, are important men in our history; stout men and true each of them, and contemporaneous with Godwin. The three ruled England for Edward,—but Godwin as chief,—and they ruled their respective divisions well. Leofric was the husband of Godgifu, the Lady Godiva of legend, a remarkable historical event concerning which the chroniclers say exactly nothing. Earl Leofric appears always to have been a peaceable, easy-going, conciliatory man, (slightly, but only slightly jealous of Godwin,) and his wife was a sensible Englishwoman. There is about as much truth in the story of "Peeping Tom of Coventry" as there is in all the nonsense Shakespeare wrote about Macbeth's wife Gruach, or in the legend of King Knut and the sea waves. Earl Siward is the Siward of Shakespeare,—"Warlike Siward,"—Old Siward,—the protector of Malcolm (the son of the murdered Duncan),—the father of young Siward who perished in the battle wherein Macbeth afterwards fell. This famous King Macbeth appears to have been a good ruler in Scotland just as Edward happened to be in England. Duncan's death was decreed by his own subjects, if indeed they did not murder him. The removal of an obnoxious ruler in those days was commonly by assassination. Of course the blame fell upon Macbeth, and Shakespeare has very graphically entombed the legend in his verse, but both Shakespeare and our school histories give us a very faint idea of the mode of life and ways of our Saxon forefathers. It is important, however, to notice how strongly the men living in this particular time have impressed themselves upon our history.
In Florence of Worcester.A.D. Edward came over from Normandy, and was well received by Harthacnut, and remained at his Court. On the perhaps, may have caused the prince's death. They were arraigned only for " putting out his eyes." The chroniclers are silent as to the exact cause or manner of Alfred's death.
Thus, at the accession of Edward, Godwin held command of the greatest earldom of the South,—Wessex, including Sussex and Kent, Dover being esteemed his town, as will soon be seen when we come to the matter of Count Eustace of Boulogne. What is now termed the Goodwin (properly Godwin) sands, doubtless formed portion of the earl's estate, Pevensey (his residence) was looked upon by Saxon England as the seat of Saxon justice. His two sons,—Harold (who afterwards contested with William the Norman for the English Crown), and Sweyn, the eldest,—commanded large tracts of country in central and western England. Harold, indeed, almost reduced Wales to the state of an English province. His daughters were also well married. We may say that Godwin and his family had the command of the richest half of England. The other sons were Tosty (or Tostig), Gyrth (or Gurth), Leofwin and Wulfnoth. The daughters, according to Freeman, were Eadgyth (Edward's Queen), Gunhild (properly Gunnilla), and A'Efgifu Norman Conquest, App. F., Vol. 2,
Ingulphus, the Monk of Croyland says of her in a Latin hexameter "As the thorn is the parent of the rose, so is Godwin of Editha" Knight Hist, Vol. I, p. 162. Mr. Knight evidently thought poorly of the character of the Earl. Dr. Lingard says: "The character of this powerful Earl has been painted by most of our historians in colours of blood. They describe him as a monster of inhumanity, duplicity, and ambition." Hist., Vol. I, p. 288.(Sicut spina rosam. genuit Godwinus Editham), and he adds, " I have seen her many times in my childhood, when I went to visit my father, who was dwelling in the King's palace. Oftentimes, when I was returning from school, would she question me in my grammar, or my verses, or my logic, in which she was skilful; and when, after much subtle argument, she had concluded, she would by her hand-maiden give me some pieces of money, and send me for refreshment to the buttery." This rose never saw another rose bloom from her tree. Her husband, with the superstition of the cloister, first neglected her. Then came a time when he persecuted her. She was forced upon the King, a mature man of forty, say some of the chroniclers, and they put these words into Godwin's mouth, "Swear to me that you will take my daughter for your wife, and I will give you the Kingdom of England. According to others, Edward was as unwilling to receive the Kingdom as to be encumbered with a wife.
We will not search too closely into Edith's character, but content ourselves with the opinion of Ingulphus concerning her. Edith is charged with many things by late historians, but no object can be served by repeating them. As Freeman says: "That she looked carefully after her rents in money, kine, and honey, and after the man who stole her horse, is no blame to her." We should like to see stronger evidence before condemning Edith, and any lady is to be fully excused for looking carefully after the loss of a favourite horse. I am sorry Tennyson has accepted the modern dictum touching Queen Edith.
It has before been said that William of Malmsbury, like the other Monkish historians of the Norman time, were prejudiced against Godwin, but this is Malmsbury's account of the succession of Edward the Confessor, to the throne :
"Edward receiving the mournful intelligence of the death of Hardecanute, was lost in uncertainty what to do, or whither to betake himself. While he was revolving many things in his mind, it occurred as the better plan, to submit his situation to the opinion of Godwin. To Godwin therefore he sent messengers, requesting that he might in security have a conference with him, Godwin, though for a long time hesitating and reflecting, at length assented, and when Edward came to him, and endeavored to fall at his feet, he raised him up; and when relating the death of Hardecanute, and begging his assistance to effect his return to Normandy, Godwin made him the greatest promises. He said : "It was better for him to live with credit in power, than to die ingloriously in exile; that he was the son of Ethelred, the grandson of Edgar : that the Kingdom was his due : that he was come to mature age, disciplined by difficulties, conversant in the art of well-governing from his years, and knowing from his former poverty, how to feel for the miseries of the people : if he thought fit to rely on him. there could be no obstacle; for his authority so preponderated in England, that whenever he inclined, there fortune was sure to favour. If he assisted him, none would dare to murmur, and just so was the contrary side of the question; let him then only covenant a firm friendship with himself, undiminished honors for his sons, and a marriage with his daughter; and he who was now shipwrecked almost of life and hope, and imploring the assistance of another should shortly see himself a king."
"There was nothing which Edward would not promise, from the exigency of the moment; so pledging fidelity on both sides, he confirmed by oath everything that was demanded. Soon after, convening an Assembly at Gillingham, Godwin, unfolding his reasons, caused him to be received as king, and homage was paid to him by all. He (Godwin) was a man of ready wit, and spoke fluently in the vernacular tongue; powerful in speech, powerful in bringing over the people to whatever he desired. Some yielded to his authority; some were influenced by presents; others admitted the right of Edward; and the few who resisted in defiance of justice and equity were carefully marked, and afterwards driven out of England."
[Continued on Page 13.]
"Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived notions : having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it could have been in the water but a very brief time; the journal goes on to say:
"'All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if let alone.'
"These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris, with the exception of The " N.Y. Commercial Advertiser," edited by Col. Stone.Le Moniteur. L'Etoile. But there is something excessively unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to rebut the general assertion of L'Etoile, by a citation of particular instances militating against that assertion. Had it been possible to adduce fifty instead of five examples of bodies found floating at the end of two or three days, these fifty examples could still have been property regarded only as exceptions to L'Etoile's rule, until such time as the rule itself should be confuted. Admitting the rule (and this Le Moniteur does not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions), the argument of L'Etoile is suffered to remain in full force; for this argument does not pretend to involve more than a question of the probability of the body having risen to the surface in less than three days; and this probability will be in favor of L'Etoile's position until the instances so childishly adduced shall be sufficient in number to establish an antagonistical rule.
"You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be urged, if at all, against the rule itself, and for this end we must examine the rationale of the rule. Now the human body, in general, is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine; that is to say, the specific gravity of the human body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of fresh water which it dis-places. The bodies of fat and fleshy persons, with small bones, and of women generally, are lighter than those of the lean and large-boned, and of men; and the specific gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced by the presence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this tide out of question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink at all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one, foiling into a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the specific gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison with his own—that is to say, if he suffer his whole person to be immersed with as little exception as possible. The proper position for one who cannot swim, is the upright position of the walker on land, with the head thrown fully back, and immersed; the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Thus circumstanced, we shall find that we float without difficulty and without exertion. It is evident, however, that the gravities of the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate. An arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of its support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the whole head, while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us to elevate the head so as to look about. Now, in the struggles of one unused to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown upwards, while an attempt is made to keep the head in its usual perpendicular position. The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the lungs. Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole body becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of the air originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid which now fills them. The difference is sufficient to cause the body to sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the cases of individuals with small bones and an abnormal quantity of flaccid or fatty matter. Such individuals float even after drowning.
The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will there remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes less than that of the bulk of water which it displaces. This effect is brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The result of decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which is so horrible. When this distension has so far progressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased without a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at the surface. But decomposition is modified by innumerable circumstances—is hastened or retarded by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold of the season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by its depth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the temperament of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease before death. Thus it is evident that we can assign no period, with anything like accuracy, at which the corpse shall rise through decomposition. Under certain conditions this result would be brought about within an hour; under others, it might not take place at all. There are chemical infusions by which the animal frame can be preserved for ever from corruption; the bi-chloride of mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition, there may be, and very usually is, generation of gas within the stomach, from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other cavities from other causes) sufficient to induce a distension which will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by the firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may either loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is embedded, thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have already prepared it for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity of some putrescent portions of the cellular tissue, allowing the cavities to distend under the influence of gas.
"Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we can easily test it by the assertions of L'Etoile. 'All experience shows,' says this paper, ' that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if let alone.'
"The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that ' drowned bodies ' require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both science and experience show that the period of their rising is, and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it will not 'sink again if let alone,' until decomposition has so for progressed as to permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call your attention to the distinction which is made between ' drowned bodies,' and ' bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.' Although the writer admits the distinction, he yet includes them all in the same category. I have shown how it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at all, except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the surface—gasps which only by water supply the place of the original air in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur in the body ' thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.' Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule, would not sink at all—a fact of which L'Etoile is evidently ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent—when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones—then, indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse.
"And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found could not be that of Marie Roget, because three days only having elapsed, the body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman, she might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have re-appeared in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she might have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever.
"'But,' says L'Etoile, 'if the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' Here it is at first difficult to perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate what he imagines would be an objection to his theory—viz., that the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid decomposition—more rapid than
might have appeared at the surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such circumstances it could so have appeared. He is accordingly in haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for if so, 'some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' I presume you smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply traces of the assassins. Nor can I.
"'And furthermore, it is exceedingly improbable,' continues our journal, 'that any villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.' Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one—not even L'Etoile—disputes the murder committed on the body found. The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner's object merely to show that this body is not Marie's.he wishes to prove that Marie is not assassinated—not that the corpse was not. Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if anything is. The question of identity is not even approached, and L'Etoile has been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted only a moment before. ' We are perfectly convinced,' it says, ' that the body found was that of the murdered female.'
"Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject, where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. His evident object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as possible, the interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the corpse. Yet we find him urging the point that no person saw the girl from the moment of her leaving her mother's house. ' We have no evidence,' he says, 'that Marie Roget was in the land of the living after nine o'clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second.' As his argument is obviously an ex parte one, he should, at least, have left this matter out of sight; for had anyone been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday, the interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to observe that L'Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief of its furthering its general argument.
"Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference to the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the hair upon the arm, L'Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M. Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, in identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is without hair. The generality of the expression of L'Etoile is a mere perversion of the witness's phraseology. He must have spoken of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity of colour, of quantity, of length, or of situation.
"'Her foot,' says the journal, ' was small'—so are thousands of feet. Her garter is no proof whatever—nor is her shoe—for shoes and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the flowers in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is, that the clasp on the garter found had been set back to take it in. This amounts to nothing; for most women find it proper to take a pair of garters home and fit them to the size of the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to try them in the store where they purchase.' Here it is difficult to suppose the reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais in his search for the body of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted (without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy mark. If the feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body was that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely aritithmetical, but in one highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add to all this shoes such as she had been known to wear upon the day of her disappearance, and, although these shoes may be ' sold in packages,' you so far augment the probability as to verge upon the certain. What, of itself,
"A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics in reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that, when law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion to one flower, we seek for nothing farther—what then if two or three, or more? Each successive one is multiple evidence—proof not added to proof, but multiplied by hundreds or thousands. Let us now discover, upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters are found to be tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner as her own had been tightened by Marie shortly previous to her leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What L'Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the garters being an unusual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is self-demonstration of the, unusualness of the abbreviation. What is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the tightening described. They alone would have amply established her identity. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the garters of the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her genneral size and appearance—it is that the corpse had each and all collectively. Could it be proved that the editor of L'Etoile really entertained a doubt, under the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case, of a commission de lunatico inquirendo. He has thought it sagacious to echo the small-talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part, content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For the Court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence—the recognised and booked principles—is averse from swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long sequence of time. The practice en mass, is therefore philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders vast individual error.principles of classification has led the common law, will be seen by observing how often the legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost."—Landor.
"In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busybody, with much of romance and little of wit. Anyone so constituted will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real excitement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part of the over-acute, or the ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it appears from your notes) had some personal interviews with the editor of L'Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion that the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in sober fact, that of Marie. 'He persists,' says the paper 'in asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented upon to make others believe.' Now, without re-adverting to the fact that stronger evidence 'to make others believe,' could never have been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second party. Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man recognizes his neighbour, yet there are few instances in which anyone is prepared to give a reason for his recognition. The editor of L'Etoile had no right to be offended at M. Beuvais' unreasoning belief.
"The suspicious circumstances which invest him will be found to tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busybodyism, than with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the 'Marie' upon the slate; the 'elbowing the male relatives out of the way;' the 'aversion to permitting them to see the body;' the caution given to Madame B—, that she must hold no conversation with the gendarme until his return (Beauvais'); and, lastly, his apparent determination 'that nobody should have anything to do with
L'Etoile, touching the matter of apathy on the part of the mother and other relatives—an apathy inconsistent with the supposition of their believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl—we shall now proceed as if the question of identity were settled to our perfect satisfaction."
"And what," I here demanded, "do you think of the opinions of Le Commerciel ?"
"That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from the premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in two instances, at least, are founded on imperfect observation. Le Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang of low ruffians not far from her mother's door. 'It is impossible,' it urges, ' that a person so well known to thousands as this young woman was, should have passed three blocks without someone having seen her.' This is the idea of a man long resident in Paris—a public man—and one whose walks to and fro in the city have been mostly limited to the vicinity of the public offices. He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance with others, and others with him, he compares his notoriety with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no great difference between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself in his. This could only be the case were her walks of the same unvarying, methodical character, and within the same species of limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals who are led to observation of his person through interest in the kindred nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of Marie may, in general be supposed discursive. In this particular instance, it will be understood as most probable, that she proceeded upon a route of more than average diversity from her accustomed ones. The parallel which we imagine to have existed in the mind of Le Commerciel would only be sustained in the event of the two individuals traversing the whole city. In this case, granting the personal acquaintances to be equal, the chances would be also equal that an equal number of personal recounters would be made. For my own part, I should hold it not only as possible, but as very far more than probable, that Marie might have proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many routes between her own residence and that of her aunt, without meeting a single individual whom she knew, or by whom she was known. In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion between the personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.
"But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take into consideraton the hour at which the girl went abroad. 'It was when the streets were full of people,' says Le Commereiel, ' that she went out,' But not so. It was at nine o'clock in the morning. Now at nine o'clock of every morning in the week, with the exception of Sunday, the streets of the city are, it is true, thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are chiefly within doors preparing for church. No observing person can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as that designated.
"There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of observation on the part of Le Commerciel. 'A piece,' it says, 'of one of the unfortunate girl's petticoats, two feet long, and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.' Whether this idea is, or is not well founded, we will endeavour to see hereafter; but by 'fellows who have no pocket-handkerchiefs,' the editor intends the lowest class of ruffians. These, however, are the very description of people who will always be found to have handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts. You must have had occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years to the thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handherchief."
"And what are we to think," I asked, " of the article in Le Soliel ?"
"That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot—in which case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his race. He has merely repeated the individual items of the already published opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry, from this paper and from that. 'The things had all evidently been there,' he says, 'at least three or four weeks, and there can be no doubt that the spot of this appalling outrage has been discovered.' The facts here re-stated by Le Soliel are very far indeed from removing my own doubts upon this subject, and we will examine them more particularly hereafter in connextion with another division of the theme.
"At present, we must occupy ourselves with other investigations. You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of the corpse. To be sure the question of identity was readily determined, or should have been; but there were other points to be ascertained. Had the body been in any respect despoiled? Had the deceased any articles of jewellery about her person upon leaving home? if, so, had she any when found? These are important questions utterly untouched by the evidence; and there are others of equal moment which have met with no attention. We must endeavour to satisfy ourselves by personal inquiry. The case of St. Eustache must be re-examined. I have no suspicion of this person; but let us proceed methodically. We will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the affidavits in regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits of this character are readily made matter of mystification. Should there be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache from our investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis.
"In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises from the seemingly irrelevent. It is through the spirit of this principle, if not precisely through its letter, that modern, science resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a portion of the substructure We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined to the mathematical formulœ of the schools.
"I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance with the spirit of the principal involved in this fact that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto untruthful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far, we have only reconnoitred the field of investigation; but it will be strange indeed if a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of the public prints, will not afford us some minute points which shall establish a direction for inquiry.'
In pursuance of Dupin's suggestions, I made scrupulous examination of the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction of their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St. Eustache. In the meantime my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed before me the following extracts:—
"About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the present was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Rogêt, from the "N. Y. Express.parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc in the Palais Royal. At the end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her
comptoir, as well as ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether usual. It was given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merely been on a visit to some friend in the country; and the affair was speedily hushed up. We presume that the present absence is a freak of the same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or perhaps of a month, we shall have her among us again "—Evening Paper—Monday, June 23.
"An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious disappearance of Mademoiselle; Rogêt. It is well known that, during the week of her absence from Le Blanc's "N. Y. Herald."parfumerie, she was in the company of a young naval officer—much noted for his debaucheries. A quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led her to return home. We have the name of the Lothario in question, who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons, forbear to make it public,"—Le Mercurie—Tuesday Morning, June 24.
"An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and daughter, engaged about dusk, the services of six young men, who were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to convoy him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far, as to be beyond the view of the boat when the daughter discovered that she had left in it, her parasol. She returned for it, was seized by the gang, carried out into the stream, gagged, brutally treated, and finally taken to the shore at a point not far from that at which she had originally entered the boat with her parents. The villains have escaped for the time, but the police are upon their trail, and some of them will soon be taken."— "N. Y. Courier and Inquirer."Morning Paper—June 25
"We have received one or two communications, the object of which is to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais " Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence. " N. Y. Courier and Inquirer."Morning Paper—June 28.
"We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of certainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a victim of one of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is decidedly in favour of this supposition. We shall endeavour to make room for some of these arguments hereafter." " N. Y. Evening Post."—Evening Paper—Tuesday, June 31.
"On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service, saw an empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the bottom of the boat. The bargemen towed it under the barge office. The next morning it was taken from thence, without the knowledge of any of the officers. The rudder is now at the barge office." "N. Y. Standard."Le Diligence-Thursday, June 26.
Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me irrelevent, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for some explanation from Dupin.
"It is not my present design" he said "to dwell upon the first and second of these extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show you the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with any examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet it is mere folly to say that between the first and second disappearance of Marie there is no supposable connection. Let us admit the first elopement to have resulted in a quarrel between the lovers, and the return home of the betrayed. We are now prepared to view a second elopement (if we know that an elopement has again taken place) as indicating a renewal of the betrayer's advances, rather than as the result of new proposals by a second individual—we are prepared to regard it as a 'making up' of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a new one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom proposals of elopement had been made by one individual, should have them made to her by another. And here let me call your attention to the fact, that the time elapsing between the first ascertained, and the second supposed elopement, is a few months more than the general period of the cruises of our men-of-war. Had the lover been interrupted in his first villany by the necessity of departure to sea, and he seized the first moment of his return to renew the base designs not yet altogether accomplished—or not yet altogether accomplished by him? Of all these things we know nothing.
"You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was no elopement as imagined. Certainly not—but are we prepared to say that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St. Eustache, and perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honourable suitors of Marie. Of none other is there anything said. Who, then, is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at least most of
them) know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in her confidence, that she hesitates not to remain with him until the shades of the evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barrière de Roule? Who is the secret lover, I ask, of whom at least most of the relatives know nothing And what means the singular prophecy of Madame Rogêt on the morning of Marie's departure?—'I fear that I shall never see Marie again.'
"But, if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained by the girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that she was about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Drômes, and St. Eustache was requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first glance, this fact strongly militates against my suggestion;—but let us reflect. That she did meet some companion, and proceed with him across the river, reaching the Barrière du Roule at so late an hour as three o'clock in the afternoon, is known. But in consenting so to accompany this individual, (for whatever purpose—to her mother known or unknown,) she must have thought of her expressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise and suspicion aroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St. Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the Rue des Drômes, he should find that she had not been there, and when, moreover, upon returning to the pension with this alarming intelligence, he should become aware of her continued absence from home. She must have thought of these things, I say. She must have forseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicion of all. She could not have thought of returning to brave this suspicion; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to her, if we suppose her not intending to return.
"We may imagine her thinking thus—' I am to meet a certain person for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of interruption—there must be sufficient time given us to elude pursuit—I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes—I will tell St. Eustache not to call for me until dark—in this way, my absence from home for the longest possible period, without causing suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time than in any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for me at dark, he will be sure not to call before; but, if I wholly neglect to bid him call, my time for escape will be diminished, since it will be expected that I return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety. Now, if it were my design to return at all—if I had in contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question—it would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for, calling he will be sure to ascertain that I have played him false—a fact of which I might keep him for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of my intention, by returning before dark, and by then stating that I had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But, as it is my design never to return—or not for some weeks—or not until certain concealments are effected—the gaining of time is the only point about which I need give myself any concern.' "
(To be continued.)
With great pomp Edward was crowned at Winchester on Easter Day, and held the sovereignty for nearly twenty-four years,—viz., from P. 215. Looking at the light of events then and since, there could have been no possible objection to his having assumed the Crown for himself, and, had he done so, England might never have been subjected to a Norman Conquest. Freeman, in his History of the Norman Conquest, considers this a "wild suggestion," but we cannot overlook the evidence of the chroniclers. The English nation did not care for Ethelred's Norman children, and it was Godwin's loyalty to the House of Cerdic that was the cause of Edward being chosen king by "all folk." The chroniclers distinctly-enough state that Godwin would not entertain the thought of the Crown for himself. Mr. Freeman depends a little too much upon his imagination, although generally correct in his deductions,A.D.
In the great hall at Pevensey we can imagine these powerful young nobles,—Sweyn, Harold, Tosty, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Wulfnoth,—discussing the matter, and proffering the assistance of the districts over which they ruled to their father Godwin. For as we have before said, Harold and Sueyn ruled in Central England, and Tosty had friends in the North. Cousins and relatives from Denmark (and, doubtless, the Earl of the East Angles married to Elfgifu (or Elfiva), Godwin's youngest daughter,) joined in the discussion,—powerful young earls in their own land,—the commanders of many ships and many Norsemen. Anxiously all awaited the decision of the head of the family,—Godwin,—who, walking to and fro on the green sward beneath the walls of the castle,—now looking out to sea where now lie those treacherous sands, now over the pleasant landscape, revolved the question over in his mind, and came to the determination already stated. No murmur of discontent appears to have arisen. His sons and relatives greatly respected him. What he said to them was law. Edward was to be king, not their father. Their duty was to obey, and when Godwin announced his determination, each returned to his district, regretting perhaps the decision, but cheerfully obeying it. This filial obedience, from so powerful a family, forms a pleasant picture in our history, and a bright example to children of the present day. Godwin, and his wife Gytha, were wise parents. Their sons and daughters England may well be proud of. As to Sweyn's folly in carrying off the abbess and his subsequent misdeeds, who can say now the extent of his crime? It may have been but a lover's quarrel, in which the maiden took the vows. Hence the sacrilege. Consequently all the powers of the Church were exerted against Sweyn. With regard to Harold's bringing over the Danes from Ireland to assist in his father's restoration, or Tosty's afterrebellion, we must remember that these young men lived in somewhat barbarous times, and that their violence was mild in comparison with the violence of our subsequent kings and great barons. What a different tale does history tell of Queen Emma's children by her two husbands, Ethelred and Knut.
Godwin appears to have been the principal sufferer by the course he adopted, for no sooner was Edward firmly seated upon the Throne, than his Norman favourites began to flock over in numbers and naturally commenced to undermine the influence of Godwin's family. One historian fairly sums up the statements of the old chroniclers, although we have already warned the reader to be careful in accepting those statements, Knight, Vol. I., p. 164.
(To be continued.)
Here is an interesting statement by the Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A., who is admittedly a high authority upon a question of this nature, he estimates this loss as follows:—
First—Loss of wealth annually incurred in the production and retailing of intoxicating liquors.
Second—Expenses and burdens annually arising from the use of intoxicating liquors:—
This, of course is simply an estimate, but nearly all competent authorities deem it an under, rather than an overestimate. Mr. Hoyle's opinion, possibly our highest authority, is that the last two items could safely be made £10,000,000 more, and that if a proper allowance were made for the lost labour of our paupers, criminals, vagrants, thieves, lunatics, &c., it would amount to at least £20,000,000 more.
Take another particular. It is admitted that the value of every industry to a community is determined by the amount of labour it employs, or its wage fund.
The accumulations of the products of industry depend upon the right application of labour. If directed to produce useful articles, and these in their turn are rightly employed, it is rapid. If wrongly employed, the accumulation—if there be any—is slow and unsatisfactory.
When we buy any article, we simply pay for the labour expended upon it. So just as a community accumulates wealth—is its power to employ labour. This question has been almost entirely overlooked by our economists. Yet there is none of greater moment.
If the influence that a proper or improper expenditure of money exercises upon the demand of labour was realized, we would readily see the value of the drink trade to the country. Let us ask, how does the liquor trade stand when brought to this test? Mr. Hoyle in "Our National Resources" illustrates this matter by the
In the Bury Union there are 205 public-houses, and 295 beershops, or a total of 500 places where intoxicating liquors are sold. While since
But the spending of £375,000 upon intoxicating chinks involves also the destruction of at least 250,000 bushels of grain, which, if converted into bread, would make 3½ millions 4lb. loaves, and would provide sustenance for the whole year for at least one-fourth of the population of the Union.
To show that substantially the same results always attend the presence of this trade, we append two or three tables from Dr. Hargreaves, United States, " Our Wasted Resources." Table IX., page 85, shows the number of persons employed, the wages paid, value of materials used, the capital invested, etc., by expending but little more than half of what is paid for intoxicating drinks in Pensylvania
By this table it will be seen that by expending for useful and necessary articles of our manufactures, only 41,660,666 2/3 dollars, or little more than half of what is spent for liquors in Pensylvania, it would give employment to 28,650 hands, pay 9,710,000 dollars in wages, use 21,500,000 dollars worth of raw materials, and find an investment for 18,750,000 dollars of capital in the manufacture of the articles named. What the result of that on the happiness, comfort and general prosperity of the State would be is incalculable.
Among the manufactures of Pensylvania, as given in the Census Returns of
Let us now compare the totals of Tables IX. and X. and see how the question stands:—
By the difference of totals we find that the money, if spent for useful articles, would employ 26,540 more hands; pay 8,716,616 dollars more for wages; pay 15,087,977 dollars more for materials; and invest 9,178,777 more capital to produce 41,666,663 2/3 dollars' worth of useful articles than it would to produce 11,692.528 dollars' worth of liquors at the places of manufacture.
We think statements such as these show beyond question that the existence of the liquor traffic is destructive of the best material interests of a community, and is the real cause of bad trade, and the commercial disasters, which recur periodically while they are the fons origo of pauperism and vagrancy, to say nothing of the social and moral ruin wrought by their use.
Our space is exhausted, and our tale but half told. We had hoped to have referred to the address of Mr. George, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, some time since, when he availed himself of his position to commend the interests of the liquor traffic of the district to the tender consideration of the community. But that must be deferred for some other occasion. In the meantime, we ask our readers to apply the conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing statement to the state of this City of Wellington. We gather from Mr. George that there is about half a million of capital invested in Wellington in this trade, that taking the consumption of the city to average the rest of the colony, there is £100.000 spent here in intoxicating liquors annually. What we wish to be considered is this: supposing this capital was diverted from the trade, and employed in some other, which would use more raw material, and expend a vastly larger wage fund. What would be its effect on the trade, and the social life of the city? If this £100,000 swallowed annually by the inhabitants was diverted to the channels of productive and legitimate trade, the cry of depression and hard times would pass away, never to return.
And herein lies the remedy for the pauperism, which Major Atkinson is so laudably desirous of preventing. If he would apply his mind to this question and grapple with it, as he is doing with his National Insurance scheme, which even if he could carry it, would be at best, but a palliative, leaving a cause which in spite of any, and all such nostrums, would unfailingly produce a poverty so dense, as would practically enable the people to contribute the premiums necessary to insure the benefits sought. We venture to commend this matter to the honorable Ministers serious attention, as that which will be a radical cure, not only of the poverty, but largely of the vice and crime of the New Zealand which he loves, and of which he is so distinguished a son.
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