Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

And yet such was the position which the nation chose to take during the earlier part of the Crimean war, that comparatively little attention was paid even to some important measures brought before parliament, and other equally important occurrences in society.

Our soldiers and sailors deserved all the honour that they received, for they were actuated by a simple desire bravely to do their duty, and they did it nobly; but the war fever had hold of the body of the nation. People suffering from its delirium, would talk of little else than the Crimea and Sebastopol. Lord Palmerston had, as he was sure to do, made a distinct reputation as home secretary. He gave his mind to the work with his usual originality and blunt determined common sense, and he was as indifferent as ever to opinions with which he had no sympathy. Yet by his never-failing bonhomie and shrewd wit he contrived to avoid making enemies. Only very earnest and deeply serious people, who would not accept his worldly philosophy for true wisdom, were long at variance with him, and even these could scarcely be proof against his inveterate good humour. Between him and Cobden and Bright, and men of their school, there could be no real agreement, and Palmerston himself did not pretend that any such agreement was possible. He seems almost to have gone out of his way to make himself appear as flippant and irreverent as he was accused of being, for the purpose of showing how little he cared for the remonstrances and the opposition of Mr. Bright; and though during his home secretaryship he said and did things which were afterwards incontrovertible, he contrived to say them in such a way as to appear to carry a contemptuous expression to strait-laced and orthodox persons who (as he clearly saw) regarded him with suspicion, while they sought to influence his proceedings. In cases where most other ministers would have thought it prudent merely to make a brief statement or to give a simple reply, Palmerston could not refrain from giving his reasons, for the sake, as it would seem, of challenging an adverse opinion. There was an Irish side of his character which constantly

came uppermost; and his humour, the quality which made him popular, and often not only saved him from defeat but secured his success, had in it much of the Irish quality. It was amusing, although it is somewhat painful, to note the thrill of aversion with which people holding certain dogmatic opinions were affected by some of Lord Palmerston's sayings, that were uttered in perfect good faith as maxims of practical experience and without any reference whatever to so-called religious doctrines. This of course does not wholly apply to his answer to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, who had written to be informed whether it was proposed, on account of the epidemic of cholera, to appoint a day of national fast and humiliation. His reply gave great offence at first, and it was probably designed as a smart rebuke. "There can be no doubt," it said, "that manifestations of humble resignation to the Divine will and sincere acknowledgments of human unworthiness are never more appropriate than when it has pleased Providence to afflict mankind with some severe visitation; but it does not appear to Lord Palmerston that a national fast would be suitable to the circumstances of the present moment. The Maker of the universe has established certain laws of nature for the planet on which we live, and the weal or woe of mankind depends upon the observance or the neglect of these laws. One of these laws connects health with the absence of those gaseous exhalations which proceed from overcrowded human beings, or from decomposing substances whether animal or vegetable; and these same laws render sickness the almost inevitable consequence of exposure to these noxious influences. But it has at the same time pleased Providence to place it within the power of man to make such arrangements as will prevent or disperse such exhalations so as to render them harmless, and it is the duty of man to attend to these laws of nature and to exert the faculties which Providence has thus given to man for his own welfare. The recent visitation of cholera, which has for the moment been mercifully checked, is an awful warning given to the people of this realm that they have too much neglected their duty in this respect,

THE "ADVANCED" SCHOOL IN THE CHURCH-MR. MAURICE.

and that those persons with whom it rested to purify towns and cities, and to prevent or remove the causes of disease, have not been sufficiently active in regard to such matters. Lord Palmerston would therefore suggest that the best course which the people of this country can pursue to deserve that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed, will be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present time and the beginning of next spring in planning and executing measures by which those portions of their towns and cities which are inhabited by the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, most need purification and improvement, may be freed from those causes and sources of contagion which, if allowed to remain, will infallibly breed pestilence and be fruitful in death in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation. When man has done his utmost for his own safety then is the time to invoke the blessing of Heaven to give effect to his exertions."

Of course this was not an exhaustive answer, and a good deal might reasonably have been said against so rough and ready a way of reply; but it was not an irreverent one, and there were but too many obvious proofs in the streets that the Scottish as well as the English municipal authorities had not faithfully attended to their immediate duties. There was an outcry against the letter, of course, and while some of the religious sections of the community denounced it from their point of view, it was made use of by unscrupulous satirists as the foundation for a jest to the effect that the ex-foreign minister treated Heaven itself as a "foreign power;" but the jest was a very poor one-so poor that its want of reverence was not to be excused for its wit.

This was in the autumn of 1853, and there were at that time other symptoms of orthodox significance, one of them being the dismissal of the Rev. Frederic Denison Maurice from the professorships of ecclesiastical history and of English literature in King's College. Mr. Maurice had long been as remarkable for his piety and simplicity of character as for his attainments. He was perhaps not so much

43

the head of what was known as the Broad
Church, as the leader of those young and
generous enthusiasts who desired to make
their religion a living power, and who there-
fore advocated what has been called Christian
socialism. We have already glanced at the
position taken by Charles Kingsley and others
in relation to the often painful and always
solemn social problems of the time. It is
enough here to say that Mr. Maurice was the
master to whose pure and unselfish teaching
they had listened, and by whom their religious
opinions had been greatly influenced. Mr.
Maurice made no secret of his views on the
subject of the professed doctrine of eternal
punishment, and it was to a correspondence
on this subject, as it was treated in his Theo-
logical Essays, that the attention of the
council of the college was directed by Prin-
cipal Jelf. The council came to the conclusion
that the opinions set forth and the doubts
expressed in the essay were of a dangerous
tendency, and likely to unsettle the minds of
theological students; and that the continuance
of Mr. Maurice's connection with the college
would be seriously detrimental to its useful-
ness. It was in vain for him to remonstrate,
calling upon the council to state which of the
articles of faith condemned his teaching.
"I cannot, my lords and gentlemen,” he said,
"believe that, great as are the privileges which
the right reverend bench has conceded to the
principal of the King's College, their lordships,
the bishops, ever intended to give him an
authority superior to their own, superior to
that of the articles by which they are bound.
I cannot think that they wish to constitute
him aud the council, arbiters of the theology
of the English Church. Such a claim would
be as alarming, I apprehend, to the public as to
our ecclesiastical rulers. If some parents have
been suspicious of the influence I might ex-
ercise over their sons, I believe that there are
few parents in England who will not complain
that the college has departed from its original
principle when it gives such a scope to the
private judgment of its chief officer, or even
to the judgment of the body which manages
its affairs.
If I have violated any
law of the church, that law can be at once

pointed out; the nature of the transgression | letter under his administration of the homecan be defined without any reference to possible tendencies and results."

These representations were of no avail; the council "did not think it necessary to enter further into the subject." The two chairs held by Mr. Maurice were declared vacant, and were filled respectively by Dr. A. M'Caul and Mr. G. W. Dasent, whose orthodoxy was presumably unquestioned, or who at all events. may be supposed to have said nothing to lead to its being suspected. But the dismissal of Mr. Maurice from the professorships made him none the less a professor. The men who had been his pupils remained his friends, and he remained, until his too early death, the recognized leader and teacher of a "school" of religious thought which included many of the best and noblest of the large number of those who have since, without rebuke, openly avowed opinions for holding which he was deemed unworthy to be recognized as Christian teacher.

a

It may be worth while here to note that only a month after Mr. Maurice had been discharged from his appointments at King's College Dr. Colenso was consecrated Bishop of Natal by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Lincoln. At the same time Dr. Armstrong was appointed to the other new see of Grahamstown, and the Bishop of Oxford preached the consecration sermon, taking for his text the words, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul." He spoke with such positive intensity of the certainty of the call to the sacred office to which both the new bishops had been appointed that the sermon on this occasion, the demands of a declaration of orthodoxy, and the limits of the articles of profession of faith with regard to certain supposed dogmas, all became significantly prominent topics of discussion when, nine years afterwards, Bishop Colenso, the heterodox, was prohibited from preaching in the churches of most English dioceses.

It might have been thought that Palmerston had enough to occupy even his untiring industry in carrying out the sanitary measures which he was determined should be no dead

office. He had spoken pretty plainly to the Edinburgh corporation, and in London the provisions of the public health acts were being enforced in a very practical fashion. Foul neighbourhoods were being destroyed or disinfected; the smoke of factory chimneys was abated, churchyards were being closed and sealed with cement, and he declined even to exercise the right of making privileged exceptions to the law against intramural interments. In answer to Lord Stanley of Aldersley, who had written for special permission for the interment of the remains of a church dignitary beneath the sacred edifice, he said: "The practice of burying dead bodies under buildings in which living people assemble in large numbers is a barbarous one, and ought to be at once and for ever put an end to. . . . And why, pray, should archbishops and bishops, and deans and canons, be buried under churches if other people are not to be so? What special connection is there between church dignities and the privilege of being decomposed under the feet of survivors? . . As to what you say about pain to feelings by shutting up of burial-grounds, that is perfectly true. I am quite aware that the measure is necessarily attended with pain to feelings which excite respect, as well as to pressure upon pecuniary interests which are not undeserving of consideration. But no great measure of social improvement can be effected without some temporary inconvenience to individuals, and the necessity of the case justifies the demand for such sacrifices. To have attempted to make the application of the new system gradual would have reduced it to a nullity. England is, I believe, the only country in which in these days people accumulate putrefying dead bodies amid the dwellings of the living; and as to burying bodies under thronged churches, you might as well put them under libraries, drawing-rooms, and dining-rooms."

Such language as this would have been cynical if employed by most men; but it was a part of Palmerston's " common seuse" relieved by a jaunty expression. It is astonishing how few people were offended by plain utterances which, though they read somewhat

SCANDALOUS CHARGES AGAINST PRINCE ALBERT.

coarsely, lost much of their offensiveness because of the peculiar humour which gave them a different effect; and even the reader of a letter like this would recall the familiar manner of the writer. Palmerston as the "judicious bottle-holder"--Palmerston as the keen-faced, wide-awake sporting man, biting a straw or a flower stem, as he appeared in the caricatures of Punch-was the popular favourite, and hundreds who were not among the populace believed implicitly in the ready wit and consummate tact, which, combined with the practical staightforward temper that is prompt to act and refuses to acknowledge the probability of failure, was regarded as peculiarly “English." But it was doubted by people of greater penetration whether the noble lord was quite so straightforward as he pretended to be. He had given his advice to the prime-minister, he was hankering after the power if not the place of minister of war or of foreign minister, and was urging that the allied fleets should be sent at once to the scene of conflict. The cabinet hesitated to accept his dicta, enforced though they were by letters and circulars, and it was suddenly announced that Lord Palmerston had resigned. It will be remembered that on a former occasion (in 1851), when he had relinquished office, his resignation had been preceded and accompanied by a number of rumours almost amounting to deliberate accusations against Prince Albert, charging him with using his influence to control the government and to turn its policy towards the advantage of foreign interests. The position of the prince consort was assailed, and it was insinuated that he used it for the purpose of sending despatches and tampering with foreign affairs to the detriment of British independence. It was an unfortunate circumstance that the same or similar insinuations reappeared at this juncture, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that Palmerston was suspected of having some hand in them either directly, or by recklessly giving expression to his opinion that the opposition with which his proposals were received by the cabinet was to be attributed to the influence of the prince, and through him of the queen. It is plain

45

enough from his letters and speeches that Palmerston had very little of the reticence supposed to be essential to a responsible minister, and that he was in the habit, to use a common expression, of "letting his tongue run" when it would have been more discreet if he had been silent. Whether he was responsible for it or not, no sooner had his resignation been rumoured than those newspapers which supported his foreign policy recommenced their scarcely veiled attacks upon the prince. He was represented to be the chief agent of "the Austro-Belgian - Coburg-Orleans clique, the avowed enemies of England and the subservient tools of Russia, he was present at the conferences between the queen and her ministers, the queen herself discussed with him the foreign as well as the domestic policy of the country, and her opinions were perpetually subject to his influence, was that influence not exercised to defeat a foreign policy which would be national and patriotic, for the purpose of advancing that of foreign rulers with whom he was in constant correspondence, to whom he could reveal the secrets of her majesty's council? Of course these insinuations-and they sometimes grew to the proportions of direct allegations-need now only to be examined for their absurdity to be discovered. It would have been little to the advantage of the prince to diminish the prestige of the British government and to injure the interests of the queen for the sake of foreign rulers or distant family relations, with whose opinions he had over and over again emphatically shown that he was at variance. Amidst all the imputations that were made not a single fact was adduced that had the least weight; nor did any of the political leaders on either side pay any serious regard to such charges, though they must have known, and some of them would surely have resented any such actions as were made the subject of these scandalous suggestions. There is no need at the present day to enter into any vindication of the prince; his letters, speeches, conversations of that time have been published, and the refutation of the calumnies to which he was subject has long been completed in the story of his life and of the true rela

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »