1
10
33
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/4167df897e3d0a833a9effd6a9ec672e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Ls8SOkV57IdZcBRosqdJMfW7xKmZ2DLQKtv30JpvAeuqFz1mOjMo9302EFfONQF6GuMo9tATBigbO6JOJaWG2JFG-Kd5CG3u1%7EZRFLcESyal7K17hjV9HCXsWMSN-i1QZ02Fe-zTLUXl0bhSPQNSBCABHYRTgO8F6aNRLEtwF-0NpVr4-o65Rzt%7Elenxb%7E0-SBYl2Bi8tVI5s2NyuSfix14TfEV1Mj2oEEthIDABqttjndpcsMzofSV0bbSlyaY5CGDRoaJLA0hSWjFIzzmEA%7E7eNVL881tYtX9soRUv9nHS6i97kEj2eP07-iE2fQ1XtxNjsavBgk6NhI9E5jJPSg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
4d9d63a3a632046cf6fdadfbed1b4fd1
PDF Text
Text
THE
FINDING OF THE BOOK;
AN ESSAY
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE DOGMA OF INFALLIBILITY,
BY
JOHN ROBERTSON,
COUFAB ANGUS.
“ It is better to speak honest error, than to suppress conscious truth."
“ I know of but one thing safe in the universe, and that is truth; and I know of
but one way to truth for an individual mind, and that is unfettered thought; and I
know but one path for the multitude to truth, and that is thought freely expressed."
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
1870.
�' KIMJI iihwoc
�TO
f
S^taiib
Wllta
of
Whom I honour and esteem as foremost among modern
Apostles and Prophets of Divine Truth, and whom I
regard with gratitude and love, as one of those Leaders,
to whose guidance, under God, I am largely indebted
for the enlightenment of my mind, and for my estab
lishment in the Christian Faith, by my deliverance from
the darkness of that superstitious bondage to the letter,
in which I was brought up, and in which I for many
years vainly struggled to find fight, this rude essay—a first
attempt—is, without his knowledge or permission, very
humbly dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
��PREFACE.
The Brahmins, the Parsees, the Budhists, the Jews,
the Christians, the Mohammedans, and several other
denominations, have their canonical books of revela
tion, which are in each case regarded as a supreme
external authority dictated or communicated to man
by God.
Thus, for example, the “Bana,” signifying the Word,
is the sacred book of the Budhists, containing the dis
courses of their great original, Gotama Budha, who was
born, as appears to be historically ascertained, at least
624 years before the Christian era, so that he was pro
bably a contemporary of king Josiah and of the prophet
Jeremiah. These discourses, however, were not written
down in a collected form, till about three hundred
years after the death of the great teacher, and critics
have questioned the purity and genuineness of their
previous transmission, but the vast multitude of ortho
dox Budhists have never for a moment entertained
any such doubt. The degree of authority ascribed to
this revelation may be judged of from the very high
estimation in which its author is held. “ Gotama
Budha is worshipped as a divine incarnation, a god
man, who came into this world to enlighten men, to
redeem them, and to point out to them the way to
eternal bliss.”* The favourite theme of the very
numerous Budhist authors is accordingly said to be
the praise of the Bana, in the expression of which the
* “Faiths of the World,” vol. i., p. 399.
�VI
Preface.
most exalted and devout figures of speech are employed,
such, for instance, as these:—“ The discourses of
Budha are as a divine charm to cure the poison of
evil desire; a divine medicine to heal the disease of
anger; a lamp in the midst of the darkness of igno
rance ; a ship in which to sail to the opposite shore
of the ocean of existence; a collyrium for taking away
the eye-film of heresy; a succession of trees bearing
immortal fruit, placed here and there, by which the
traveller may be enabled to cross the desert of exis
tence ; a straight highway by which to pass to the in
comparable wisdom; a flavour more exquisite than any
other in the three worlds; a treasury of the best things
which it is possible to obtain; and a power by which
may be appeased the sorrow of every sentient being.’"
*
It is computed that adherence to this system of
religion is professed by no fewer than 369,000,000
of human beings in India, China, Tartary, Thibet, and
Burmah; while nominal Christians, of all countries and
all creeds, are reckoned tonumber about 256,000,000,
of whom about 60,000,000 are called Protestants.
But Budhism, though now nearly twenty-five cen
turies old, was the Protestantism of a reformation
from Brahminism, the antiquity of which is much
greater; and no less than 150,000,000 of the Hindoos
still adhere to the old religion, believing in the infal
libility of the four “ Vedas,” or sacred books, of which
it appears to be undisputed that one is at least as old
as the time of Moses, while all the four are very
ancient. “The language in which the Vedas are
written is the Sanskrit, which the Hindoos seriously
believe to be the language of the gods, and to have
been communicated to men by a voice from heaven,
while the Vedas themselves have proceeded from the
mouth of the Creator.” t
An intelligent Hindoo thus expresses his views of
* “Faiths of the World,” vol. i., p. 279.
f “ Faiths of the World,” vol. ii., p, 54.
�Preface.
vii
theology :-“We really lament the ignorance or un
charitableness of those who confound our representa
tive worship with the Phoenician, Grecian, or Roman
idolatry, as represented by European writers, and then
charge us with polytheism, in the teeth of thousands
of texts in the Puranas”—(sacred poems of the Vedas)
__ “declaring in clear and unmistakable terms that
there is but one God, who manifests himself as
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, in his functions of creation,
preservation, and destruction.”*
■ All his conceptions of God are thus moulded and
regulated by the Vedas, which contain for him the
authoritative and infallible revelation of trinity. in
unity, to doubt or deny which is for him infidelity.
He finds God in the book, and must believe that God
is exactly as there represented, or not believe at all;
for the book is to him God’s revelation of Himself.
So also the Parsee catechism teaches the doctrine
of plenary inspiration, in terms remarkably similar to
those which our most orthodox Churchmen are wont
to employ:—
“ Q. What religion has our prophet (Zoroaster or Zurthost) brought to us from God ?
“A. The disciples of our prophet have recorded m several
books that religion . . .We consider these books as
heavenly books (the ct Zendavesta ”) because God sent the
tidings of these books to us through the holy Zurthost.
“ Q. What commands has God sent us through his pro
phet, the exalted Zurthost ?
11 A. To know God as one; to know the prophet, the
exalted Zurthost, as the true prophet; to believe the religion
and the Avesta brought by him as true beyond all manner
of doubt; to believe in the goodness of God; not to disobey
any of the commands of the Mazdiashna religion ; to avoid
evil deeds ; to exert for good deeds; to pray five times in
the day; to believe in the reckoning and justice on the
* From an English lecture by a Hindoo, quoted in “ Chips
from a German Workshop,” by Prof. Max Muller, p. xvu.
(preface) ; quoted also by Dr. Norman Macleod, in “Good
Words,” February 1869, p. 100.
,
�viii
Preface.
fourth morning after death ; to hope for heaven and to fear
hell; to consider doubtless the day of general destruction
and resurrection; to remember always that God has done
what he willed, and shall do what he wills; to face some
luminous object while worshipping God,” &c.
*
If the Parsee cannot or dare not doubt nor dispute
the dogma, that the message which contains these tid
ings was communicated by God to Zoroaster, who
lived, according to the best authorities, about eight
hundred years before Moses;—if he must, per force
of religious training and tradition, believe that this
revelation comes to him through Zoroaster from God;
—then it is clear that he must accept whatever this
revelation tells him as the word of God, and, there
fore, “beyond all manner of doubt,” authoritatively
true, in the strictest and fullest sense, in every parti
cular of its contents, and in every expression which it
uses. The Parsee, accordingly, regards the Zendavesta
as the revealed will of God for his conduct in this
life, and for his salvation here and hereafter; and
he adheres to its doctrines and precepts, however un
intelligible these may be, because he submits his rea
son to the authority of the book, in which he believes
that God speaks to him. He, therefore, closes his
mind against all argument of error or imperfection in
the book; and when told of historical or other diffi
culties which stand in the way of his belief, he boldly
argues, to the complete satisfaction of those who hold
the same opinion, that faith must overcome the difficulties of reason, and that sceptical criticism is a
temptation and a snare. A confirmed belief of this
kind is proof against all the attempts of the Christian
missionary to convince the Parsee that his rites and
ceremonies and superstitious beliefs are doctrines and
commandments of men. For him they have the same
authority and certainty as the revelation of God’s
existence. He is under mental bondage to the Zen* “Chips from a German Workshop,” vol. i.,pp. 174, 175.
�Preface.
ix
dayesta in every word and letter of its contents, and
all its doctrines and laws alike command his unwav
ering acceptance and profound submission. He has
nothing else on which to trust for welfare and for
happiness, but on the doctrines and laws which are
written in that book. To deny or to cast off these, is
to him atheism and infidelity. To believe and obey
them is religion. Every ceremony and observance of
his sacred law is, therefore, to him a sacred duty. He
believes all these things, not because he discerns or
perceives their inherent truthfulness and reality, but
because they are written in God’s book. He holds
that this revelation is the authority which warrants
and enables him to believe in the existence and good
ness of God, and in the duty or privilege of worship,
and obedience to be rendered by men. If he be a
strictly orthodox Parsee, he will hold that the Zendavesta is the only true revelation, and that God can
be truly and acceptably worshipped in no other way
but according to the doctrines and observances which
it makes known. If, however, he be somewhat latitudinarian in his views, as most of the young Parsees
now are, he may, as many of them do, admit that the
Brahmins, Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews,
‘among whom he lives, may have their several revela
tions, good enough for those to whom they have been
given, and all in some sort making known the One
Great Ormuzd, but none of them intended nor suit
able for the Parsee, none of them at all approaching
in excellence to the incomparable Avesta, and none
of them possessing any merit except in so far as they
all more or less distantly resemble it.
If his mind has been still further enlightened by
education and reading, or by intercourse with edu
cated and intelligent men, of whom there are said to
be now a good many among the Parsees, he may per
haps be able to comprehend that Zoroaster must have
been a wise man, who meditated much upon God as
�X
Preface.
revealed in his own reasoning soul, and in all those
other scarcely less wonderful manifestations of creative
wisdom and power, with which God had enabled that
soul to become acquainted, especially as revealed in
the Sun, which was to him the visible and sensible
source of light, heat, motion, life, and happiness; and
he may thus see that the grand distinction of the
Prophet was only his ability to discern and to know,
more clearly than his contemporaries, those things
which every enlightened mind may and ought to infer
from its own perceptions. While profiting much by
all that is pure and good and true in the pages of the
ancient sage, he may thus feel himself perfectly at
liberty to reject any or all of those doctrines, laws, or
ceremonies which to his modern mind appear false,
foolish, evil, or unjust, however reasonable, right, and
true these may have been thought in the days of Zoro
aster, and during all the long ages of the ancient Per
sian empire. For the Parsees of our day are the descen
dants of the faithful remnant of the ancient Persian
people, who refused to be converted by the conquering
sword of Islam, and who chose rather to suffer exile from
the country than to forsake the religion of their ancestors.
We may well suppose, I think we may be sure,
that Zoroaster wrote because he believed, and in
tended thereby merely to assist or enable his disciples
and followers to discern for themselves, as he did, the
goodness and the truth of what he taught them; but
the religion of the Parsees, resting on the authority of
a book, has, like every other such religion, largely
degenerated towards a worship of the letter—bibliolatry—a faith in the book, and has served as a veil
to hinder and obscure the revelation of God in the
soul. If we have to argue with a bigoted adherent of
the conservative orthodox school, which is still the
most numerous among the Parsees, including nearly
all their priests, we may expect to find him main
taining that, apart from his book of revelation, there
�Preface.
X1
can be no sufficient evidence nor true knowledge of
the existence of God, of His character, nor of His will
concerning man’s duty.
This religion has unquestionably been useful in
preserving its votaries, through many generations,
from falling into the grosser forms of image worship,
from the extreme moral degradation with which these
are generally associated, from atheism on the one
hand, and from polytheism on the other. The Zendavesta has thus been the vehicle of light and instruc
tion to the minds of countless millions through thou
sands of years; but, however beneficial its influence
may in these respects have been, it now stands to many
as a barrier in the way of intellectual development and
mental progress, because the infallibility ascribrd to it
renders them blind to the immediate present fact that
God is in and around them, and that He their Creator
has endowed them with faculties, capable of indefi
nitely great cultivation and improvement, and exactly
adapted for the reception and interpretation of the
great revelation of Himself, which with His own
hand He hath written on man, and on every other
thing which He hath created and made. The Zendavesta is indeed a revelation in a way, for, along
with much error, it teaches great truths; but the
belief of these truths on its authority, being insepar
able from the belief of much else that it contains,
necessarily implies ignorance of that which alone
deserves the name of revelation, the realising dis
cernment that the things are true.
It is a most pregnant and wise remark, and may be
appropriately quoted here, that “ the real problem is,
not how a revelation was possible, but how a veil
could ever have been drawn between the creature
and the Creator, intercepting from the human mind
the rays of Divine truth.”* Even a belief in the
* From a lecture on the “ Science of Religion,” by Prof. M.
Muller, at the Royal Institution, as briefly reported in the
Scotsman newspaper of 1st March 1870.
�existence of God, when that belief rests on the autho
rity ascribed to prophet, priest, church, or book,
becomes a veil to obscure more or less that revelation
which may be read, in God’s own handwriting, on
every page of the great volume of Nature with which
we are surrounded, and the authentic transcript of
which is “ written not with ink, but with the spirit of
the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy
tables of the heart,"—the tablets or faculties of the
mind (2 Cor. iii. 3).
Precisely such a veil was thick upon the minds of
the Jews, at the time when Jesus of Nazareth lived
and died as a witness for the truth, denouncing and
rending the veil which concealed it, that God dealeth
with us as with sons, and that He hath abundantly
revealed Himself as our wise, holy, and loving Father.
It was precisely the adherence of the Jews to the
letter of their written revelation, which had blinded
the eyes of their minds to the spiritual light of the
truth which that revelation contained; and thus
those who were converted to Christianity are, most
suggestively, said to have had their eyes opened—to
have had their sight restored—to have been turned
from darkness to light, that they should serve God in
newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,
for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life and
light to discern our Father’s will, that we should be
merciful as He is merciful, that we should love truth,
and peace, and justice, and all our fellow-men, and
that we should do good, as knowing that we are
•“ children of the Highest, who is kind even unto the
unthankful and to the evil.”—(Luke vi. 35, 36.)
The superstitious reverence in which such veils are
held by those whose minds are obscured thereby, and
the many fond prejudices which are invariably fos
tered in the shade thereof, constitute the most stub
born and insurmountable of all obstacles to the reception of the Gospel of light. It is well known, and
�Preface.
xiii
might, if necessary, be abundantly proved, that it is
more difficult and more expensive to convert one
Brahmin, Budhist, or Parsee, to Christianity, than it
is to convert ten of the far mote degraded fetish
worshippers of Africa, or savages aind cannibals of the
Pacific; and need I say how few and far between are
the trophies of success, resulting from our missions to
the Jews and Mohammedans'?
There may be some among my readers whose minds
are blinded by such a veil, remaining, for them as for
the Jews, “ untaken away in the reading of the Old Testa
ment,'” (2 Cor. iii, 14-18); so that they regard it as
their duty to God to submit their reason to the autho
rity of that book, and to believe that its legendary
and miraculous stories, that its incongruous, inaccu
rate, and even contradictory histories, and that the
idolatrous and superstitious rites and beliefs, of which
in many passages it expresses approval, are all alike
no less certainly and infallibly true than are its decla
rations that God is good to all men, righteous in all
His ways, and holy in all His works; feeling as if
there could be no religious peace nor comfort for them,
unless they by faith be able to surmount the difficul
ties of reason, and to believe everything, which the
Book says is true, as they believe its most indubitable
verities; for, as it is written that by faith the walls
of Jericho fell down, so it is said that by faith must
all such intellectual difficulties be overcome, though
to reason they may appear insurmountable as walls
built up to heaven.
It is my solemn conviction that this notion of
Scriptural infallibility or supreme authority is essen
tially anti-christian; and that those whose minds are
fettered or blinded by any of its various modifications,
are excluded thereby from that liberating and en
lightening influence, which is again and again declared
to be the most essential and distinguishing feature of
�xiv
Preface.
spiritual Christianity (Matt. vi. 22, 23; John viii.
32, 33, 36; Rom. viii. 15 ; Gal. v. 1, 13, 14.)
My chief purpose and earnest desire is to show to
such persons that the veil, on which they look with so
much veneration, is utterly devoid of the clearness,
the certainty, and the harmony of truth, which they
persuade themselves that it infallibly presents to their
view, even in those portions of it where their fallible
vision can discern nothing but mystification, error,
injustice, or sin; that its texture, when closely
examined, is found in many parts to consist of the
most unreasonable and irreconcilable products of
human ignorance, error, and time-serving policy; and
that it is, therefore, when viewed as a whole, notwith
standing the majesty, truth, and beauty of very many
passages, entirely destitute of anything like that in
fallibility or supreme authority, which it nowhere claims
for itself, but which has been, through ignorance or
superstition, or both, erroneously ascribed to it, and
by the ascription of which it retains its false dominion
over their minds, as if it were the Word of God.
I hope, by an examination of the structure of the
veil, in the earliest stages of its development, to show
that a belief in its divine origin, authority, and per
fection, is as unreasonable and false as any supersti
tion to which the human mind has ever been in sub
jection.
Whatever opinion my readers may form, I can and
do say for myself that I have studied what I have
written with profound reverence and love for the
truth, with much earnestness of thought and purpose,
and with a feeling which I cannot better describe than
by calling it a delightful sense of spiritual guidance
and enlightenment as I proceeded with my work.
The essay was commenced without the slightest idea
of publication in February last year, for the purpose
of sifting, maturing, and linking together in my own
�Preface.
XV
mind numerous detached notes and queries, which I
had jotted down during a previous course of biblical
reading and study.
I have been encouraged to publish it by the opinion
of some friends, and by my own hope that it may be
useful and helpful to some who, like myself, are earnest
inquirers after truth.
Forfar Road, Coupar Angus,
lsi June, 1870.
�TRUTH is the “Supreme Authority,” or “ Standard”
to which, as to “ the Word of God,” an appeal is made
in this essay. The enduring power, efficacy, and
sufficiency of this standard are well described by the
poet Milton in the following extract from “the
noblest of his prose works.”
“ Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play
upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously,
by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength.
Let her and falsehood grapple ; who ever knew Truth put
to the worse in a free and open encounter ? Her refuting
is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what
praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent
down among us, would think of other matters to be con
stituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new light which
we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose,
if it come not first in at their casements. What a collusion
is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use
diligence, ‘ to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures,’ early
and late, that another shall enjoin us to know nothing but
by statute! When a man hath beeh labouring the hardest
labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out
his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons,
as it were a battle, ranged, scattered, and defeated all objec
tions in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain,
offers him the advantage of wind and sun if he please, only
that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his
opponent then, to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a
narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass,
though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness
and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not
that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty ? She needs
no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings, to make her
victorious ; those are the shifts and the defences that error
uses against her power ; give her but room, and do not bind
her when she sleeps.”
�CHAPTER I.
THE FINDING OF THE BOOK—INTRODUCTION.
b.c. 623.
*
,
2 Kings xxii. 8,10, 11.—“ And Hilkiah the high priest
said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the
law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book
to Shaphan, and he read it. . . . And Shaphan the
scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath
delivered me a book, and Shaphan read it before the king.
And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of
the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.”
2 Cheon. xxxiv. 14, 15, 18, 19. — “ And when they
brought out the money that was brought into the house of
the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the
Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to
Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the
house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to
Shaphan. . . . Then Shaphan the scribe told the king,
saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And
Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass,
when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent
his clothes.”
The discovery here recorded was a most momen
tous event, and the account of its occurrence, and of
its attending circumstances, is one of the most in
teresting and suggestive passages in the early history
of the Bible. Its happening seems to have been so
fortuitous and unexpected, and its import so over
whelming and amazing, that the king in his penitent
* The dates and periods of time, when not specially ex
plained, are all taken from or founded on the generally
accepted chronology, as given in “Bagster’s Polyglot Bible.”
B
�18
Introduction.
terror rent his clothes, and in his perplexity com
manded some of the chief priests and scribes,
saying:—
2 Kings xxii. 13.—“ Go ye, enquire of the Lord for
me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the
words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of
the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers
have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do
according unto all that which is written concerning us.”
The light of such a lamp, thus suddenly rekindled,
must have immediately thrown, as the contemplation
of it still does throw, a most peculiar and instructive
reflection upon the previous history of the nation. It
was found that God had given to their ancestors,
eight centuries before then, a miraculous, infallible
code of laws, of which no distinct trace, recollection,
nor tradition had come down to them, and of which
the true character and record had remained for ages
lost, unknown, and forgotten, until this single copy
happened at last to be turned up from under the
accumulated dust of centuries in the temple.
We should, therefore, expect to find in the writings
and histories of those preceding centuries, clear evi
dence, if not distinct record, of the sudden disappear
ance or gradual neglect of the book, and of the
consequent tendency of the priests and people, with
each succeeding wave of change, to diverge further
and further from the laws, ceremonies, and institu
tions of that Levitical code, which had now so
strangely come up as a witness against a generation
of men, to whom, and to whose fathers, it had been
unknown (Deut. xxxi. 26). We should expect to
find, in each receding period before the reign of
Josiah, clearer and clearer traces of its observance,
more and more complete conformity to its ceremonies
and arrangements, and more and more accurate de
tails regarding the classification, duties, privileges,
and provision of its elaborate hierarchy. We should
�Finding of the Book.
J9
expect to find the distinctness of this recognition
increasing with each step backwards, until we should
arrive at a point where we should discern, by the
notices and instances of its observance, or of its guilty
and known neglect, that the old law in its complete
form was then in the hands of the priests and in the
minds of the people.
If we shall find, on the contrary, that in each
receding period, prior to the alleged discovery, there
was less and less recognition of the law; if we find
that, instead of being gradually disused and lost
sight of, the law, through a series of reformations
and changes, became gradually more and more de
veloped, so that in each earlier reformation the code
of religious observances and of ecclesiastical enact
ments was notably further from being complete than
it was in each later reformation ; if we find that the
historical period which approaches nearest to the
date of Moses, to whom the authorship and promul
gation of the entire law is ascribed, is precisely the
period in which there appears no trace whatever of
the Levitical law, no record of its observance, nor re
proof for its neglect; and if we can thus trace the law
in its growth, from rude and primitive times of be
ginning, through several clearly marked stages of
progressive development, we may in that case find
ourselves shut up to the conclusion that Hilkiah’s
production was only a new, or final, phase of the long
continued growth, and that, whatever may be the
merit or the demerit of the Levitical code, it must in
its complete form stand or fall, apart from the sanction
of Mosaic authorship, and of divine inspiration through
Moses.
In order to guard against this inference, and to
evade the difficulties which to their minds it suggests,
some commentators have thought of lessening the
importance of the discovery, by assuming that the
book which was found was only that version or com-
�20
Introduction.
pendium of the law which is given in the book of
Deuteronomy; but this hypothesis cannot be recon
ciled with the account given of the celebration of the
passover in Josiah’s time.
2 Kings xxiii. 21, 22.—“And the king commanded all
the people, saying, keep the passover unto the Lord your
God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. Surely
there was not holden such a passover, from the days of the
judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of
Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.'1'
Now the laws relating to the passover in Deuter
onomy are very brief and incomplete (Deut. xvi. 1-8);
while the full instructions regarding this observance
are to be found in other portions of the Pentateuch
(Exod. xii. 1-20 : Num. xxviii. 16-25); so that the
discovery of Deuteronomy alone would certainly not
have incited nor enabled Josiah to celebrate the
passover better than the pious and zealous reformers
and kings of earlier date might and would have done,
if they had possessed the other books.
The historian in Kings makes the discovery of the
book antecedent to the reforms instituted by Josiah;
while, in Chronicles, it is represented as subsequent
thereto.
2 Chron. xxxiv. 8.—“Now in the eighteenth year of
his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he
sent Shaphan the Scribe, &c.”
If it were necessary to decide which of these is the
true account of the matter, probability would favour
the narrative in Kings; because it is more reason
able to suppose, that Josiah became acquainted with
the law, before he obeyed it, than that he so far ful
filled it first, and then discovered it afterwards.
Having been sent to “ inquire of the Lordf
2 Kings xxii. 14.—“ Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam,
and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah, went unto Huldah
the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the
�Finding of the Book
2I
son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe ; (now she dwelt in
Jerusalem in the college;) and they communed with her.”
And she commenced her reply by announcing
dreadful judgment on the people and on the place,
because of their idolatry,—even “ all the curses that
are written ip the book,” says the record, according
to which Josiah had just made an end of purging the
land from idolatry. But, as for Josiah himself, the
prophetess concluded,—
2 Kings xxii. 18, 20; and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 26, 28.—
“Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. . . . Behold I will
gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to
thy grave in peace.”
This is the only original prediction by Huldah, which
has come down to us ; and it will not stand the test,
which the Pentateuch instructs us to apply to all such
prophetical utterances.
Deut. xviii. 21, 22.—“And if thou say in thine heart,
How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not
spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the
Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the
thing which the Lord hath not spoken; but the prophet
hath spoken it presumptuously ; thou shalt not be afraid of
him.”
Instead of being gathered to his grave in peace, the
next chapter of each narrative contains the account
of Josiah's death,-—killed in battle with Pharaoh
Necho, king of Egypt. (2 Kings xxiii. 29 ; 2 Chron.
xxxv. 23, 24.)
Huldah’s reply seems, however, to have been re
ceived as a valid and sufficient confirmation of the
authenticity of the book which had been found ; and
it was accordingly publicly acknowledged as that con
cerning which—
Deut. xxxi. 25, 26.—“ Moses commanded the Levites
which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,
Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark
�22
Introduction.
of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there
for a witness against thee.”
The consultation with Huldah appears to have been
the only form of inquiry which was considered neces
sary for testing the claims of the book. No one seems
to have thought of employing the outward and ordi
nary means for ascertaining whether or not it was
what it professed to be, or rather what its promul
gators declared that it was. We have no record of
any kind of critical examination, comparison or re
search ; and, so far as we can learn from the two his
tories, there was not even a doubt nor a question of
this kind suggested by king, priests, prophets, or
people. If any one conceived a doubt about the
genuineness of the book, prudence would seem to have
counseled such a one to keep his doubts to himself;
for, if any were disposed to ask troublesome questions
instead of promptly assenting and submitting to the
new confession of faith, and to the new claims of the
ruling hierarchy, means certainly would not be want
ing to silence such presumptuous scepticism; and so.
we read that “ all the people stood to the covenant.'”
In my opinion, there is here a subject for enquiry,
too much neglected by the biblical commentators
with whom I am acquainted; and it appears to me
strange that, while so much has been written, and so
much ingenuity employed, both in the attack and in
the defence of the Pentateuch itself, so very little
attention seems to have been bestowed upon this
most suggestive and important episode in its trans
mission to us. This book, which was found, was and
is the only link, through which, at that point in its
history, the Pentateuch stands connected with our
modern systems of theology. Well might good old
Matthew Henry exclaim, in his Commentary on this
incident—“ If this was the only authentic copy of
the Pentateuch then in being, which had, as I may
say, so narrow a turn for its life, and was so near
�Finding of the Book.
perishing, I wonder the hearts of all good people did
not tremble for that sacred treasure, as Eli’s for the
ark; and am sure we now have reason to thank God
upon our knees for that happy providence, by which
Hilkiah found this book at this time; found it when
he sought it not ! ”
We are told very particularly when the book was
found-, but this immediately suggests another most
important and interesting question, when was it lost ?
and unless the clue, which this question supplies, can
be successfully followed up, the history of the book
must remain incomplete and unsatisfactory. I pro
pose, therefore, in the following chapters, to pursue
this line of enquiry, directing attention chiefly to
the Scriptural narratives, of the times preceding
the discovery. Taking the discovery itself as my
starting point, I shall endeavour to prosecute a search
backwards, so far as may be found necessary or pos
sible, for any traces in the history which may throw
light upon the question as to the time when the book
was lost; or which may seem to account for its pro
duction at the time when it is said to have been found.
In endeavouring to present a clear and connected
view of the events and characters bearing upon the
subject of inquiry, it will suit best to examine the
history of Judah alone, hoping that much of the per
plexity and confusion may thus be avoided,. which
must arise from the mixing up of two histories and
of two dynasties, (those of Judah and of Israel), and
from the alternate introduction of scraps from the one
and from the other.
It is superfluous to say, that I have no new dis
coveries to boast of; and that my desire and aim is
only to arrange and present those materials, with which
every reader of the Bible is or ought to be acquainted,
in such a manner, as to throw the greatest amount of
light upon that event which is the subject of this essay.
�24
When was the Book Lost ?
CHAPTER II.
SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE OF THE PREVIOUS EXISTENCE,
OR OF THE LOSS OF THE BOOK.
HEZEKIAH TO JOSIAH.—B.C. 726 TO 641.
In accordance with the plan which has been indicated,
our search, for such traces as may be found of the Book
which had been lost, is first to be directed to the period
which immediately preceded its alleged discovery;
commencing with the accession of King Hezekiah,
who had been the last predecessor of Josiah in the
work of reformation.
Hezekiah’s reign began eighty-five years earlier
than that of Josiah, or one hundred and three years
before the finding of the Book; and he reigned
twenty-nine years; so that, between his death and
the discovery, there intervened only seventy-four
years; and, as that was a long-living time, we may
presume that old men heard the reading of the new
found book, who in their youth had witnessed the
reforming zeal of Hezekiah. Many, at least, must
have been present on the later occasion, who had
heard from their fathers all that was most interesting
about the good old times. From this consideration,
and from the words of King Josiah—
2 Chron. xxxiv. 21—“Great is the wrath of the Lord
that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not
kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in
this book”—
as also from the surprise and dismay with which the
very unexpected announcement was received by the
king, insomuch that he rent his clothes; there seems
to be a primfr facie probability that, within the com
paratively brief and recent period which we are now
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
25
considering, we shall fail to find any traces of the
Book’s previous existence; because, if it had been
known and obeyed in the time of Hezekiah, it seems
impossible that king, priest, and people should so
entirely have lost all knowledge of it in the interval;
and Josiah’s exclamation implies that, so far as he
knew, the fathers of his generation, at least, had
known nothing of the Book. It is, however, none
the less necessary to examine this period as much as
any other; and, even should we fail to find clear
traces of the Book, we may fairly expect to notice
various things which may be useful in the further
prosecution of this inquiry.
It is interesting to observe the difference of tone
between the earlier and the later narratives, in the
accounts which they respectively give of the reign of
Hezekiah; although there is no contradiction, nor
■any discrepancy, which cannot be easily explained or
reconciled.
According to the earlier Book, which, in this part,
has much internal evidence of being written by the
prophet Isaiah, this was the very first monarch
who ventured to remove the high places.
2 Kings xviii. 4.—“ He removed the high places, and
brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in
pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto
those days, the children of Israel did burn incense to it:
and he called it Nehushtan (a piece of brass).”
It is rather startling to learn from this passage that
Hezekiah was also the first king who entirely put
down the worship of images, which would seem to
have been only partially accomplished by the reformers
of earlier times, who must, at least, have spared the
brazen serpent. But he was, notwithstanding his
piety and faithfulness, exposed to misfortune; for we
learn that he was forced to pay a humiliating tribute
to the king of Assyria.
�26
When was the Book Lost ?
2 Kings xviii. 13-15.—“Now, in the fourteenth year of
King Hezekiah, did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up
against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. And
Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria, to
Lachish, saying, I have offended: return from me: that
which thou puttest on me I will bear. And the king of
Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, three
hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And
Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the
house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king’s
house.”
In this narrative, the celebration of the Passover is
not mentioned; and, indeed, we have nothing at all
about priests or Levites; but many things said and
done by the Prophet Isaiah (chap, xix.)
In the later account, the picture has a totally
different appearance. Now we find only one in
cidental notice of Isaiah :—
2 Chron. xxxii. 20.—“And for this cause Hezekiah, the
king, and the Prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and
cried to heaven.”
But we have three chapters (xxix., xxx., xxxi.) of
purely Levitical matter, with a detailed account of
the Passover, which is here mentioned for the first
time in the whole history.
2 Chron. xxx. 21, 23, 26.—“ And the children of
Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of un
leaven bread seven days with great gladness: and the
Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing
with loud instruments unto the Lord .... And the whole
assembly took counsel to keep other seven days; and, they
kept other seven days with gladness .... So there was
great joy in Jerusalem ; for, since the time of Solomon, the
son of David, King of Israel, there was not the like in
Jerusalem.”
We have detailed lists of priests and Levites, with
many particular ceremonial observances; and, most
notably, we have here a distinct mention of tithes,
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
which we cannot find in the history of any of the
earlier kings :—•
2 Chron. xxxi. 4-6—“Moreover he commanded the
people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the
priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in
the law of the Lord. And as soon as the commandment
came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance
the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of all
the increase of the field, and the tithe of all things brought
they in abundantly : and concerning the children of Israel
and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also
brought in the tithe, &c.”
In the history of the earlier reigns, we find no
mention made of tithes \ from which it would appear
that the wealth and bounty of the kings, with the
abundance of the sacrifices, had then sufficed for the
support of the priesthood; and the only collections
from the people, which are recorded, were for the
purpose of building and decorating the temple, and
were not for the priests. In the Book of Chronicles
the humiliation of Hezekiah is not related, perhaps
because such a calamity, to such a pious king, would
not harmonize with the historian’s idea of the divine
government; but it is very interesting to _ observe
that this more recent history has a modernized ver
sion of the miraculous discomfiture of Sennacherib,
when that king came a second time against Heze
kiah, modified apparently by the information which
the scribes of Ezra’s time, to whom the authorship of
the Books of Chronicles is generally attributed, had
derived from Babylon:—
2 Chron. xxxii. 21.—“ And the Lord sent an angel, which
cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and
captains in the camp of the King of Assyria: so he returned,
with shame of face, to his own land.”
This is one of very few and similar cases in
which the later historian seems to be more credible
�28
When was the Book Lost?
than the early narrators, when the two authorities
differ:—
2 Kings xix. 35.—“ And it came to pass that night that
the Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of
the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand, and
when they arose, early in the morning, behold they were all
dead corpses! ”
In Chronicles, it is not stated, but seems to be
assumed and implied that Hezekiah destroyed the
images, and removed the high places, as, according to
this Book, two former kings had, in their respective
times, done; namely, Asa and Jehoshaphat.
We cannot learn from either of the narratives, nor from
the prophecy of the earlier Isaiah (Isa. i.-xxxix.),
that the Sabbath-day was known or observed at this
time; nor the Sabbatical year; nor the jubilee; nor
the commandment to write and read the law.
Deut. xvii. 18—“ And it shall be when he sitteth upon
the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of
this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests
the Levites.”
Deut. xxxi. 10, 11.—“And Moses commanded them,
saying, at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of
the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all
Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God, in the
place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before
all Israel, in their hearing.”
The negative proof of this ignorance is as complete
■as it could possibly be; and positive evidence of such
a negation can scarcely be expected. But, with re
gard to the Sabbath-day, we find something nearly
approaching to positive proof, that it was unknown.
2 Chron. xxix. 16,17.—“ And the priests went into the
inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and
brought out all the uncleanness that they found. . . . And
the Levites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook
Kidron.
“ Now, they began on the first day of the month to
sanctify (cleanse), and on the eighth day of the month came
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
29
they to the porch of the Lord: so they sanctified (cleansed)
the house of the Lord in eight days; and, in the sixteenth
day of the first month, they made an end.”
And there is also some positive evidence, of an in
direct kind, that the Sabbatical year was not at this
time observed, which in the reign of such a zealous
and reforming king implies that the law regarding it
was not known.
2 Chron. xxxvi. 20,21.—“ And them thatescaped from the
sword carried he away into Babylon, where they were ser
vants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom
of Persia.
“ To fulfil the Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jere
miah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths : for as long
as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and
ten years.
Exod. xxiii. 10, 11.—“ And six years thou shalt sow
thy land, and gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh
year thou shalt let it rest and lie still.”
The land had to lie desolate for seventy years, to
make up for the number of neglected Sabbatical years,
so that this neglect is computed by the prophet Jere
miah, as quoted in Chronicles, (in the book of
Jeremiah the prediction seems to have no relation to
the Sabbatical year, Jer. xxv. 12,) to have lasted for
four hundred and ninety years before the time of the
captivity, which leads us back to the reign of Saul,
the earliest period whence the continuous history is
traced : and we must infer that all the good kings,
whose piety and zeal are so much extolled, knew
■nothing about this law, or they could not have so
entirely neglected it. (Compare Nehem. viii. 14
and 17.)
1 Kings xv. 5—“ Because David did that which was
right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from
anything, that he commanded him all the days of his life,
save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”
The computation of Jeremiah receives confirmation
�30
When was the Book Lost?
from the fact, that there is not to be found in the
whole history of the monarchy any trace of the observ
ance. of the Sabbatical year, nor of the reading of the
law in that year, which proves, almost to demonstra
tion, that the existence of this law was unknown.
Hezekiah was the third of the four great reformers,
of whom Asa had been the first, and Jehoiada the
second. Each of the four arose immediately after a
period of gross declension; and, in each case, the heat
and brightness of the rising sun seems to have been
in proportion to the length and darkness of the pre
ceding night. Hezekiah succeeded Ahaz, who had
reigned sixteen years; and who had been not only an
idolater, but a warlike and vigorous king, and zealous
in his heathenish worship.
2 Kings xvi. 3 — “ Yea, and made his son to pass
through the fire, according to the abominations of the
heathen.”
And the long suppressed zeal of the orthodox party
was most vigorously displayed in the very first year
of the new king, who threw himself into the work of
reformation with all the ardour of youth.
2 Chron. xxix. 3—“ He, in the first year of his reign,
in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the
Lord and repaired them,” &c.
Not content with merely returning to the standards
of the old reformers, which .King Ahaz had set aside,
he proceeded to establish innovations, which must
have been rather startling in their time ; and thus,
while the more recent narrative attributes to him the
first celebration of the Passover, the earlier emphati
cally extols him as the first who destroyed all the
images, and took away the high places.
These two measures would naturally go together,
or at least the one must soon have followed as the
complement of the other; for, when it was forbidden
to worship anywhere except at Jerusalem, it would be
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
3l
expedient or necessary that some great festival should
be instituted, at which the worshippers from all parts
of the country might be invited to meet. Let us not
forget, as we are apt to do, that the removal of the
high places was no mild measure, but one that must
have been felt and regarded as harsh in the extreme
by those who, residing in places distant from Jerusalem, had never before been thus interdicted from
worshipping at the altar which they found in their
neighbourhood, as their forefathers had done; and
as they might plead that they were justified in doing,
by the examples of Samuel, David, and Solomon.
1 Sam. ix. 12—“ Behold he (Samuel) is before you:
make haste now, for he came to-day to the city ; for there
is a sacrifice of the people to-day in the high place,” &c.
1 Chron. xxi. 25, 26, 29—“ So David gave to Oman for
the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight, and David
built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burntofferings. . . . For the tabernacle of the Lord, which
Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering,
were at that season in the high place at Gibeon.”
1 Kings iii. 3—“And Solomon loved the Lord, walking
in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and
burnt incense in high places.”
If we only reflect on some of the hardships which
are implied in the total abolition of local worship by
the strong arm of the civil power; or, if we try to
realise the compulsory operation of such a measure
among ourselves, we shall cease to wonder that the
worshipping in high places was a sin, if sin we are to
call it, into which the people were constantly prone
to fall back. The new law most probably proceeded,
in some degree, from a real desire to maintain purity
and uniformity of worship ; but was unquestionably
also designed to magnify the office, and to increase
the emoluments of the temple priesthood.
This reign, we may rest assured, was not a time
when the book of the law could in any sense be lost;
and, if Hezekiah had such a book, it must, under his
�32
When was the Book Lost?
administration, have assumed or resumed such import
ance in the minds of the people and of the favoured
priesthood, that we cannot conceive it possible for all
trace and recollection of it to have been lost in the
two generations which intervened between his death
and the time of the discovery.
Some commentators, however, have tried to solve
the difficulty, by assuming that the wicked Manasseh,
who succeeded Hezekiah, may probably have caused
the suppression of the book ■, and, to many superficial
readers, this explanation has, doubtless, appeared
satisfactory. But Manasseh had seers (probably
Nahum and Joel) who seem to have spoken to him
fearlessly in the name of God (2 Kings xxi. 10-15);
and some considerable time before his death, Manasseh
repented, turned from his idolatry, prayed to God,
and was forgiven.
2 Chron. xxxiii. 15-17.—“ And he took away the strange
gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the
altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the
Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And
he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon
peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah
to serve the Lord God of Israel.
“ Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high
places, yet unto the Lord their God only.”
If Manasseh had been guilty of destroying or of
suppressing the book, such guilt must have been
known to the outspoken prophets, and to the ortho
dox priests of his time; and must have been indig
nantly denounced, and certainly recorded, as his other
crimes, some or all of which were of minor import
ance, have been. Restitution also would, in that
case, have been the first fruits of his repentance, and
it cannot be supposed that restitution was impossible,
or even that it would be attended with any serious
difficulty.
Twenty-three years before the commencement of
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
33
Manasseh’s reign, Samaria had been taken, after a
siege of three years, by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria,
who carried the Israelites away into Assyria, and, in
stead of them, placed foreigners in the cities of Israel.
He did not, however, prevent the Israelites from wor
shipping according to their conscience, but, . on the
contrary, sent back a priest from the captivity to
Samaria, that he might teach the foreigners located
there how to worship the true God.
2 Kings xvii. 27, 28.—“Then the king of Assyria com
manded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests, whom
ye brought from thence", and let them go and dwell
there, and let him teach the manner of the God of the land.
Then one of the priests, whom they had carried away from
Samaria, came and dwelt in Beth-el, and taught them
how they should fear the Lord.”—(Compare Ezra iv. 2.)
Even supposing, therefore, that Manasseh had
destroyed every copy of the book of the law, on
which he could lay his hands, there would still have
remained others in Samaria, and among the captive
Israelites, which must have been entirely beyond his
control; and this would have made restitution easy,
when the days of repentance and reaction came.
But of any such suppression or restoration—of any
such duty, desire, or intention to restore;—of any such
law in the hands of the captives—of the supposed or
possible existence of any other copy, besides that which
Hilkiah discovered, there is not, in the whole narra
tive, the remotest hint, nor any trace to be found.
Between the death of the repentant Manasseh, who
had reigned fifty-five years, and the accession of Josiah,
there intervened only the two years’ reign of Amon.
2 Chron. xxxiii. 22-24.—“ But he did that which was
evil in the sight of the Lord as did Manasseh his father; for
Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh
his father had made, and served them; and humbled not
himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled
himself; but Amon trespassed more and more. And his
C
�34
When was the Book Lost ?
servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own
house.”
The warnings and exhortations addressed to Man
asseh ; the influence which at length brought about
his conversion, and his actions which followed thereon;
the fate of Amon, and the training of Josiah, are all
proofs that the orthodox priesthood, the true pro
phets, and the faithful worshippers of Jehovah,
though oppressed and persecuted, had not been rooted
out; nay, the result soon showed that persecution
had produced its usual results : had deepened their
former convictions, and intensified their former zeal.
Was it in such a time that they, or their children,
were likely to lose all knowledge and all memory of
the book which they would so highly have prized and
revered ? Nay, is it not rather certain that, if they
had possessed, or had even known of the existence of,
such a book, it would in such times as these have been
their chief care to treasure and to preserve it, or, if
lost, promptly to set about recovering or restoring it
among themselves? Would it not have been be
queathed as a sacred trust to their children, as a pre
cious inheritance for the comfort, direction, and
encouragement of all the true persecuted Church ?
And would not Josiah have been from his youth
initiated therein by his pious teachers, instead of
being left to find it, as if by accident, in the twenty-,
sixth year of his age and the eighteenth of his reign?
And, even supposing that Manasseh had actually
destroyed every copy in all Judea, would not the first
righteous impulse of the young Josiah, and of those
who trained him in the knowledge of God, and who
were his advisers, have been to seek by every means
in their power to repair such a serious loss, which, as
we have already shown, could not have been very
difficult ?
In Hezekiah’s reign, several things may be noticed,
which seem to indicate that he must have been ac-
�Hezekiah to ’ osiah.
J
35
quainted with the book ; but there are also many
other circumstances and indications which are opposed
to that conclusion. If, however, Hezekiah had the
book, it must have been left by him in dignity and
safety; and we have seen that, between his reign and
that of Josiah, it could not have been lost. We are,
therefore, forced to conclude that the loss of the
book, if loss there were, did not happen during this
period, which we have been examining, but must, at
least, have taken place before the time of Hezekiah.
The reformation accomplished by Josiah, like all
the three preceding reformations of Asa, Jehoiada,
and Hezekiah, thus immediately succeeded, and may
perhaps be said to have resulted from, a reign of
■mixed worship and of heresy, which had, in this case
been both more gloomy and more lasting, than any of
the former dark intervals had been; and, as we have
seen that the reforming zeal of young Hezekiah led
him to the adoption of bolder measures than those of
the old and cautious Jehoiada had been; so also now,
when, by the accession of the pious and youthful
Josiah, the orthodox priesthood found the pressure
removed, and free scope allowed for the recoil of the
spring, that recoil was in proportion to what the pres
sure had been; their zeal went far beyond the zeal
of Hezekiah; and, instead of being satisfied with
merely restoring what had been gained in the former
reformations, they, in a few years, produced and en
acted, as derived from heaven, a code of infallible and
immutable laws, so very comprehensive and minute,
including so very much of everything which, to their
sacerdotal minds, appeared most desirable, so hedged
round with inviolable sacredness, and with such claims
to the sanction of remote antiquity, as to preclude, so
far, at least, as priestly foresight could, the desire or
the possibility of any further advance in the same
direction for all future time. The priesthood which
�36
When was the Book Lost ?
was typified in Eli and in Samuel, and which was
established by Solomon at the opening of the temple,
had now developed the wonderful extent of its arro
gance and of its claims. The tithes, of which no trace
can be found in the history of David, Solomon, or
Asa, were, in Jehoiada s tune, two hundred and fifty
years before the finding of the book, dimly fore
shadowed by a contrivance, which has often since
then been imitated with more or less success :
2 Kings xii. 9.—“ Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and
bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on
the right side, as one cometh into the house of the Lord.”
The temple at that time stood in need of repairs,
which the king was desirous should be done without
delay:
2 Kings xii. 4-8.—“ And Jehoash said to the priests:
All the money of the dedicated things that is brought into
the house of the Lord, even the money of every one that
passeth the account, the money that every man is set at,
and all the money that cometh into any man’s heart to bring
into the house of the Lord, let the priests take it to them,
every man of his acquaintance; and let them repair the
breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach shall be
found. But it was so that, in the three and twentieth year
of king Jehoash, the priests had not repaired the breaches
of.the house. Then king Jehoash called for Jehoiada the
priest, and the other priests, and said unto them, Why re
pair ye not the breaches of the house ? Now, therefore,
receive no more money of your acquaintance, but deliver it
(what they had already received) for the breaches of the
house. And the priests consented to receive no more money
of the people, neither to repair the breaches of the house.”
So that the priests would seem to have claimed and
kept all that, during many years, had been contri
buted ; and yet were not to do the work for which it
had been given; but they were to receive no more,
except
2 Kings xii. 16.—“ The trespass-money and the sinmoney was not brought into the house of the Lord: it was
the priests’.”
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
$7
-Here it is evident that the contributions of the
people were chiefly voluntary, and not at all in. the
form of tithes; and it also appears that the priests
were at that time dissatisfied with their allowances,
which they sought to increase by questionable means.
In Hezekiah’s time, as we have seen (p. 27), accord
ing to the narrative in Chronicles, the provision for
the priests is called the tithes; but the language em
ployed seems to indicate rather a discretional and
semi-voluntary contribution, than a regular impost of
the tenth part; and this view is supported by the
subsequent context:
2 Chron. xxxi. 14, 15.—“And Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, the porter toward the east, was over the
free-will offerings of God, to distribute the oblations of the
Lord, and the most holy things. And next him were Eden
(and six others named) in the cities of the priests, in their
set office, to give to their brethren by courses, as well to
the great as to the small.”
That these contributions were voluntary, is further
confirmed by the silence of the earlier historian
(2 Kings xviii.), who, though not caring to write
about Levitical matters, would certainly not have
omitted to notice the institution, or the restoration,
of such an important tax as the tithe. We may there
fore, with tolerable certainty, infer that, while Heze
kiah made some provision for the priesthood, more
liberal and more regular than that which had been
made in Jehoiada’s time, it was left for Hilkiah and
Josiah, at the time of their great discovery, to place
the matter on a thoroughly satisfactory and perma
nent footing, by what would, in our days, be called
the “ Tithes Consolidation Bill.”
Lev. xxvii. 30-33. —“And all the tithe.of the land,
whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree,
is the Lord’s; it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will
at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the
fifth part thereof. And, concerning the tithe of the herd,
or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod,
�38
When was the Book Lost ?
the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He shall not search
whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it; and
if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof
shall be holy: it shall not be redeemed.”
Num. xviii. 21.—“And, behold, 1 have given the child
ren of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for the
service which they serve.”
The violent innovations of Hezekiah for the abolition
of all local worship, heresy, and nonconformity, were
restored by Josiah with far more than their original
force.
Deut. xii. 13, 14.—“Take heed to thyself that thou
offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest:
but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy
tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there
thou shalt do all that I command thee.”
Lev. xvii. 8, 9.—“Whatsoever man there be of the
house of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among
you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and bringeth
it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to
offer it unto the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from
among his people.”
And instead of the one great festival which was
celebrated in Hezekiah’s time, the law was now to
be—
Deut. xvi. 16, 17.—“ Three times in a year shall all
thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place
which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread,
and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles:
and they shall not appear before the Lord empty: every
man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of
the Lord thy God, which he hath given thee.”
So absolutely unfettered by any restraint were the
sacerdotal party under Josiah, that, not content with
the enforcement of such practical measures as these,
they felt themselves at liberty to enact a thousand and
one other things of a vexatious and oppressive kind,
some of which were so absurd and unpractical, that
we may wonder whether they ever were observed at
�Hezekiah to Josiah.
39
nil: as, for example, the Sabbatical year? which has
already been noticed in this chapter. Of this intoler
able legislation, no words can convey a more concise
and pithy denunciation than those of the Apostle
Peter :—
Acts xv. 10.—“Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, to
put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear ? ”
We need not wonder so very much at the reception of
the book. When the priests and the king had resolved
on its enactment, the matter was settled. Of course
it contained much which the people already knew or
believed to be correct. Most of its leading features
must have had some sort of foundation, or at least of
germ, in the customs and traditions of the.nation;
and for the rest, we must remember that in those
days, and for ages afterwards, both priests, and people
were very innocent in the matter of criticism, as now
understood, and that the people had not, as we have,
the book in their hands, but only had it. read m
their hearing. Nor must we forget to consider how
very vague and superstitious were the notions of
Divine inspiration which prevailed in those early
days, when we find the more recent historian writing
: as follows:—
2 Chron. xxxv. 20-22.—“After all this, when Josiah
had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to
fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went
out against him. But he sent ambassadors to him, saying,
What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah ? I come
-not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith
I have war; for God commanded me to make haste; forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he
destroy thee not. Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn his
face from him, but disguised himself that he might fight with
him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the
mouth of God.”
If Josiah’s death, and the non-fulfilment of Huldah’s
�40
When was the Book Lost?
prophecy regarding his peaceful end are thus regarded
as a judgment on him, for refusing to listen to the
words of a heathen king 11 from the mouth of God:” how
shall we wonder that the “ book of the law of the
Eord, which Hilkiah the priest produced, which was
vouched for by Huldah the prophetess, and then
acknowledged by the king, was received by the
people with entire submission to the high authority
which its authors assumed for it ?
J
CHAPTER III.
SEARCH CONTINUED.
JEHOIADA TO HEZEKIAH.—B.C. 878 TO 726.
Continuing our search backwards, the next period
which we come to examine is that which immediately
preceded the accession of Hezekiah, and which we
shall regard as commencing with the reformation
efiected under the powerful, zealous, and orthodox
priest-regent,. Jehoiada, in whose hands the civil
and ecclesiastical authorities were united, for the first
time since the days of Samuel, having been seized by
him, after a successful conspiracy, and the assassination
of Queen Athaliah; thus clearing the way for young
Joash (or Jehoash), the rightful surviving heir, then
only seven years of age, who had been reared secretly
m the temple, and who now ascended the throne under
the tutelage of his guardian, the great priest.
2 Kings xi. 17.—“And Jehoiada made a covenant ber 6 ,Lo*d and the kLn^ and the people, that they
should be the Lord’s people: between the king also and thepeople.”
. 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, 3.—And Joash did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord, all the days of Jehoiada the-
�Jehoiada to Hezekiah.
41
priest. And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he
begat sons and daughters.”
. , , ,,
2 Chron. xxiii. 18.—“ Also Jehoiada appointed the offices
of the house of the Lord, by the hand of the priests the
Levites, whom David had distributed m the house of the
Lord, to offer the burnt-offerings of the Lord, as it is
written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing,
as it was ordained by David. ’
Here we find several things which seem to imply
that Jehoiada must have had the book of the law, if
the language does not directly assert that he had,
but, then, how can we reconcile this with the state
ment of the earlier historian ?
2 Kings xii. 2, 3—“And Jehoash did that which
was right in the sight of the Lord, all his days, wherein
Jehoiada the priest instructed him. But the Ingh places
were not taken away: the people still sacrificed and burnt
incense in the high places.”
Did the zealous Jehoiada knowingly and wilfully
transgress, or suffer others openly to transgress, the
laws regarding high places, which we have quoted
in the foregoing chapter (p. 38), the observance of
which was afterwards to be regarded as one of the
chief tests of orthodoxy, and the neglect of which was
to be recorded as a grave reproach against him and
others ? Had he never read, in the book of Joshua,
the story of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of
Manasseh, in whom the mere appearance or sus
picion of transgressing this great law was, according
to the narrative, sufficient to rouse the pious indigna
tion of all Judah f
Josh. xxii. 29.—“God forbid that we should rebel against
the Lord, and turn this day from following the Lord, to
build an altar for burnt-offerings, for meat-offerings, or for
sacrifices, beside the altar of the Lord our God, that is be
fore his tabernacle.”
Deliberate transgression, and wilful neglect of God s
law in this particular, would be quite opposed to the
�42
When was the Book Lost ?
piety and zeal which are ascribed to this reformer •
and thus we are forced to conclude that he had no
knowledge of such a law.
Jehoiada, or his pupil-king, repaired the temple
reorganized the priesthood, and renewed the covenant
to worship God alone ; but his reformation fell short
of Hezekiah’s in two most important respects, the
removal of the high places, and the institution of the
Passover; of which latter we find no trace at this
nor at any earlier historic time; and the same may
be said of the observance of the Sabbath-day, the
Sabbatical year, the public reading of the law. &c.
. We learn very clearly, from both narratives, that
m Jehoiadas time the power of the priesthood was
greatly increased or restored, and that he did his
part wisely and well, living to a very great age, and
thus contributing his full share to the elevation and
establishment of his own order, while probably adding
not a little to the fabric of Levitical law.
&
2 Chron. xxiv. 15, 16.—“But Jehoiada waxed old,
and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty
years old was he when he died. And they buried him in
the city of David among the kings, because he had done
good m Israel, both toward God, and toward his house.”
But, being an old man before he came to power,
he seems to have ventured on no such startling
innovations as those which were afterwards intro
duced by Hezekiah and Josiah. From the narrative
in Kings, we may infer that he was desirous to secure
a larger and more regular provision for the priesthood;
in which, however, he seems to have been only partially
successful; and, certainly, fell far short of establishing
anything like the tithe-law (p. 36).
King Joash reigned forty years, living twenty
years after the death of Jehoiada.
2 Chron. xxiv. 17,18.—“Now after the death of Jehoiada,
came the princes of Judah and made obeisance to the king;
then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house
�Jehoiada to Hezekiah.
43
of the Lord God of their fathers and served^groves and
idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jeiusalem fo this
their trespass.”
The earlier narrative relates the calamity, but not
the sin; and, on the death of Joash, we read :
2 Kings xii. 21.—“ And they buried him with his fathers
in the city of David.”
Whereas the later historian says :—
2 Chron. xxiv. 25.—“And they buried him in the city
of David; but they buried him not in the sepulchre of the
kings.”
Although the law of Moses is mentioned by the
later authority as the rule which guided Jehoiada
and Jehoash in their restoration of the orthodox
worship, we have found, on the other hand, muci
evidence that they did not possess the book of the
law as it afterwards came to be known; but, at all
events, if they did possess it, we are not at liberty to
suppose that it was suppressed or destroyed m their
time, whatever the sins of Jehoash may have been;
because we find it again referred to as a rule of con
duct in connection with his successor, Amaziah, m a
■passage which is nearly the same in both narratives.
“2 Kings xiv. 5, 6; 2 Chron. xxv. 3, 4.—And it came
to pass, as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand,
that he slew his servants, which had slam the king his
father: but the children of the murderers he slew not; ac
cording unto that which is written in the book of the law
of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers
shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children
be put to death for the fathers ; but every man shall be put
to death for his own sin (Deut. xxiv. 16).”
In Chronicles, this passage may be regarded as
containing a moral reflection or paraphrase, by the
comparatively recent historian; and, in Kings, as an
interpolation from the later narrative. That it is an
-anachronism, as applied to Amaziah, can easily be
�44
When was the Book Lost?
sh°wn, inasmuch as it attributes to him a higher
standard of morality than was known in his days ■
and, for which at that period, we look in vain, even
where we should most expect to find it fully displayed.
lhe account of the divine appointment of Jehu, to
destroy the family of Ahab, may be taken as a good
illustration of the real lowness of moral sentiment
which prevailed m those days.
W®, read (2 Kings ix.), that Elisha the prophet sent
one of the sons of the prophets to go to Jehu, who
was one of the chief captains of the army of Joram,
son of Ahab king of Israel, and the young prophet
delivered his message thus :—
1
Kl^GS,ixPoured the oil on his head, and
said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have
anointed thee king oyer the people of the Lord, even over
Israel. And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy
Master that I may avenge the blood of my servants the
prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord.”
In the following chapter we have some details of
the manner m which Jehu proceeded to carry out the
prophet s instructions :—
? ^I?GS X'
And Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria,
and Jehu wrote letters and sent to Samaria, unto the rulers
children” t0
elderS’ and to them that brought UP Ahab’s
^eMers were not explicit; but, when
obedience had been promised, his further instructions
were plain enough, and were promptly carried out
2 Kings x. 6, 7.—“ Now the king’s sons, being seventy
persons, were with the great men of the city, which brouqht
them up. And it came to pass when the letters came to
them, tha,t they took the king’s sons and slew seventy perJezreef”^
^eads
baskets, and sent them to
. The first idea suggested by this is one of indigna
tion against Jehu, for so horribly misinterpreting and
�Jeboiada to Hezekiah.
45
exceeding the instructions which he had received;
but we are compelled to abandon this view :—
2 Kings x. 30.—“ And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because
thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine
eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab, according to
all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth gene
ration shall sit on the throne of Israel.”
While the massacre of so many young persons and
children, for the sins of others, was thus regarded as
right in the eyes of God; it is impossible to believe
that the more humane law was known, by which
Amaziah is said to have been guided.
If he had really merited praise for the respect
shown by him to the law, we should certainly have
had some further and fuller proof of it:—
2 Kings xiv. 4.—“ Howbeit the high places were not taken
away; as yet the people did sacrifice and burn incense on
the high places.”
The very special importance assigned by the his
torians to this matter of the high places, and the
scarcity or absence of other criteria, force us to
regard it as the great comparative test of orthodoxy ;
and Amaziah’s failure on this point, with the negative
proof of silence that he knew nothing of the passover,
of the Sabbath-day, nor of the tithe-law, must be
sufficient to make us doubt whether he really had the
book of the law of Moses; even although we are told
that his leniency in punishing crime was dictated
by his obedience to that book. But, though we can
not be sure that Amaziah had the book, we may be
quite sure that it was not lost in his time; and that,
if he possessed it, it was by him safely bequeathed,
after he had reigned twenty-nine years, to his son
Uzziah or Azariah, who succeeded him :—
2 Kings xv. 3, 4.—“ And he did that which was right in
the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father
Amaziah had done; save that the high places were not re-
�46
When was the Book Lost?
moved: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the
high places.”
Uzziah’s wealth and prosperity and success in war,
are described in fulsome terms by the historian in
Chronicles (xxvi.); but only serve to magnify the
humiliation to which he had to submit, when he pre
sumed to usurp the priests’ office by entering the
temple, himself to offer sacrifice :—
2 Chron. xxvi. 16-18.—“But when he was strong his
heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed
against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of
the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And
Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore
priests of the Lord, that were valiant men. And they with
stood Uzziah the king and said unto him, It appertaineth not
unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord; but to
the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn
incense: go out of the sanctuary, for thou hast trespassed.”
Uzziah was wroth, and persisted in his purpose;
but was humbled and set aside, being miraculously
smitten with leprosy. So great had the power and
arrogance of the priests become under the fostering
influence of royal favour, which they had now for a
century enjoyed.
What would have become of the priest who should
have ventured so to oppose David when he assumed
the priest’s dress and the priest’s office ?
2 Sam. vi. 13, 14.—“And it was so that, when they
that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he (David)
sacrificed oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the
Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a
linen ephod.”
If any one, at that time, had said, ‘ It appertaineth
not unto thee, David,’ there can be little doubt that
his blood would have been upon his own head.
The good priest-ridden king Uzziah, after a long
reign of fifty-two years, was succeeded by his son
Jotham.
�Jehoida to Hezekiah.
47
2 Chron. xxvii. 2.—“ And he did that which was right
in the. sight of the Lord, according to all that his father
Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the
Lord. And the people did yet corruptly.”
It is clear
lesson which
and that in
trifled with ;
that Jotham
that he was not allowed to forget the .
had been so firmly taught to his father,
his days the hierarchy were not to be
but we are not, on this account, to infer
was a weak prince.
2 Chron. xxvii. 6.—“ So Jotham became mighty, because
he prepared his ways before the Lord his God.”
Strange, that up to Jotham’s time, and even then,
when the priesthood had so long been in possession
of power, and when the kings did that which was
right, at least so far as they knew, there is not any
recorded celebration of the Passover, but, on the con
trary, we read :—
2 Kings xv. 34 and 35.—“ And he (Jotham) did that
which was right in the sight of the Lord : he did according
to all that his father Uzziah had done. Howbeit the high
places were not removed; the people sacrificed and burnt
incense still in the high places.”
Jotham is the last of the good or orthodox kings,
against whom this reproach is recorded, under which
all his predecessors, without exception, lie; and when
we consider the amount of reforming zeal, and of
priestly power, often manifested in Jotham’s and in
earlier reigns, we are forced to conclude that the wor
ship in high places which had all along been prac
tised and tolerated, was not known to be sinful, and
that those kings and priests were not acquainted with
the law, by which all local worship was afterwards
suppressed as intolerable heresy.
• After reigning sixteen years Jotham died, leaving
the priesthood, we cannot doubt, in a condition of
power and of prosperity, which, for a time at least, must
have ensured for them toleration under the new king
Ahaz, who is represented as an idolater.
�48
When was the Book Lost?
2 Kings xvi. 3.—“ But he walked in the way of the
kings of Israel, yea and made his son to pass through
the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen.”
2 Chron. xxviii. 25.—“ And in every several city of
Judah, he made high places to burn incense unto other gods;
and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers.”
Isaiah, his contemporary and survivor, accuses him
only of want of faith in God, which the prophet
sought to stimulate.
Isaiah vii. 10-12.—“ Moreover the Lord spake again unto
Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God ; ask it
either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz an
swered, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.”
And, though noticing many prevailing sins, Isaiah
nowhere mentions nor alludes to the sacrifice of chil
dren, as a crime existing in his days,
But however much Ahaz himself may have sinned,
there is nothing recorded either by the historians or
by the prophet which can warrant us in supposing
him guilty of persecuting the orthodox worshippers,
or of suppressing or destroying the book of the law.
We learn that some of the priests were willing to
share in his irregular worship.
2 Kings xvi. 11, 12.—“ And Urijah the priest built
an altar, according to all that king Ahaz had sent from
Damascus. . . . And, when the king was come from Dam
ascus, the king saw the altar : and the king approached to
the altar, and offered thereon.”
But this incident, being a reproach against the priest
hood, is not noticed in the Book of Chronicles, while
for Ahaz himself the chronicler has no such tenderness,
exhibiting him in a much worse light than does the
historian in Kings.
2 Kings xvi. 7-9.—“ Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglathpilezer, king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy
son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of
Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise
up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that
was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of
�"Jehoiada to Hezekiah.
49
the king’s house, and sent it for a present to the king of
Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him :
for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took
it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew
Bezin.”
whereas, in the later narrative, we read
2 Ciiron. xxviii. 20, 21. — “ And Tilgath-pilnezer, king
of Assyria, came unto him, and distressed him, but strength
ened him not. Foi’ Ahaz took away a portion out of the
house of the Lord, and out of the house of the king and of
the princes, and gave it unto the king of Assyria: but he
helped him not.'''
And the discrepancy between the two reports of his
burial exhibits the same bias on the part of the
Chronicler.
2 Kings xvi. 20.—“ And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and
was buried with his fathers in the city of David.”
2 Chron. xxviii. 27.—“ And Ahaz slept with his fathers
and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem: but they
brought him not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israeli
After reigning sixteen years, Ahaz was succeeded
by his son Hezekiah, who, in his very first year, pro
ceeded to inaugurate the third great reformation of
the Jewish worship, so that he must have been pre
viously educated thereto by orthodox instructors;
and this consideration, taken along with the absence
of intolerance, persecution, or suppression, either im
plied or recorded during the preceding reign, com
pletely excludes the idea that the loss of the book of
the law may be attributed to King Ahaz; and we
may therefore be certain that it was not lost during
the period which in this chapter we have examined.
We have, however, discerned somewhat of the
growth of the claims, the arrogance, and the intoler
ance of the temple priests, ripening for the notable
and definite advance -which they were now about to
achieve under Hezekiah, and only the more stimulated
D
k
�5°
When was the Book Lost ?
by their sixteen years’ exclusion from the favour and
support of the civil power during the reign of the
idolatrous Ahaz; stimulated both by their zeal for the
worship of Jehovah, and by their jealousy for the
sacred privileges and the prosperity of their own order;
—which two strangely mingled motives may, and
ought to, be recognised in every step of their history.
CHAPTER IV.
SEARCH CONTINUED.
ASA TO JEHOIADA.—B.C. 955 TO 878.
As the two periods of time, which we have already
examined, commenced each with a national reforma
tion and a renewal of the national covenant; so the
third period, which in the course of our search for
traces of the existence, or of the loss, of the book, we
now come to consider, shall be regarded as commencing with the first reformation and the first covenant,
of which we have any account in the historic books.
King Asa succeeded Abijah, the grandson of
Solomon, and, like all the other reformers, he came
after a period of heresy and idolatry. It does notappear
that, in the preceding reigns, the worship of Jehovah
had ever been suppressed or abandoned; but the
laxity of mixed worship, which Solomon in his old
age had encouraged, had been continued by his suc
cessors. Yet, though latitudinarianism and general
toleration had prevailed, there is no evidence that the
temple itself, or the temple priesthood, had up to this
time been polluted with the worship of other gods ;
as they afterwards were, in the reigns of Ahaz and of
Manasseh. The high places and altars which Solomon
had built for various heathen gods, (1 Kings xi. 6-8),
were allowed to stand, and whoso would might wor
|
�Asa to Jehoiada.
51
ship there ; but such heathen worship was not allowed
to usurp the altars of Jehovah, for, in the time of
Rehoboam, we read that, when the idolatrous king of
Israel, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had cast off the
Levites in his dominions from their office of priests
unto the Lord, they left their possessions, and came
to Jerusalem.
2 Ciiron. xi. 16—“And, after them, out of all the
tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord
God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord
-God of their fathers.
So that the liberty of worshipping according to con
science, which, in the neighbouring kingdom of Israel
was denied, seems to have been extended, in the
kingdom of Judah, to all religions alike ; and this was
the state of matters, so far as can be known, up to
the time of King Asa.
1 Kings xv. 11, 12, 14 — “ And Asa did that which
was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father.
And he took away the Sodomites out of the land, and
removed all the idols that his fathers had made. . . .
But the high places were not removed; nevertheless Asa’s
heart was perfect with the Lord all his days.”
Regarding the high places, we must in this case
accept the testimony of the earlier historian in pre
ference to that of the writer of the Chronicles, because
the latter contradicts himself.
2 Chron. xiv. 2 and 3—“ And Asa did that which was
good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God: for he took
away the altars of the strange gods, and the high places, and
brake down the images, and cut down the groves.”
2 Chron. xv. 17—“ But the high places were not taken
away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was per
fect all his days.”
Although the authorities thus differ as to Asa’s
removal of the high places, and although we can,
almost with certainty, discern that they were not
removed till the reign of Hezekiah, when, for the first
�52
When was the Book Lost 2
time, the earlier book relates their removal ■ yet it is
here very worthy of notice, that both our authorities
agree in attributing to Asa the destruction of images,
and the abolition of idol-worship ; and that Asa is the
first king to whom this merit is ascribed. But we must
remember that there was at least one image, which
even Asa spared, and whose worship still continued.
2 Kings xviii. 4.—“ Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen
serpent, which Moses had made: for, unto those days, the
children of Israel did burn incense to it.”
The worship of the serpent, being in some way or
other, connected with the worship of Jehovah, was not
interfered with, while the altars and images of other
gods were destroyed. From the brief narratives of
Asa’s long reign, we learn that he was a warlike, and,
on the whole, a prosperous king; who ruled his
subjects with a vigorous and somewhat despotic sway.
So far as can be ascertained from either history, there
had hitherto, all along been some degree of toleration
for the differences of religion; but Asa seems to have
despised such weakness; and to have resolved that
all his subjects should be converted, whether they
would or not.
2 Chron. xiv. 4, 5.—“ And he (Asa) commanded Judah
to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the
law and the commandment. Also he took away out of all
the cities of Judah, the high places and the images ; and
the kingdom was quiet before him.”
And, being not only strong in purpose, but filled with
energy and zeal for the orthodox worship,
2 Chron. xv. 12-14.—“ They entered into a covenant to
seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart, and
with all their soul; that whosoever would not seek the Lord
God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great,
whether man or woman. And they sware unto the Lord
with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets,
and with cornets.”
This is the first National Covenant of which we read
�Asa to 'Jehoiada.
53
in either of the histories. There may have been
covenants in the wilderness five hundred years earlier,
as we are told in the Pentateuch ; but it may also be
that covenants are so often described in the book of
the law, just because that book was composed, or
compiled, in the later covenanting times ; and this
view is strongly confirmed by the terms of some of
those Mosaic covenants; in Jacob’s, for example, one
great feature is:—
Gen. xxviii. 22.—“ And of all that thou shalt give me, I
will surely give the tenth unto thee.”
Here we have, apparently, a very ancient sanction
for the institution of tithes, of which, however, we
have been able to trace the germ and the growth
under Jehoiada, Hezekiah, and Josiah; and of
which, in the time of Asa or his predecessors, no
trace is to be found.
At all events, this is the first time, -sincr the tribes
became a nation, that we have any record of the people
entering into a covenant with the Lord—-of the
nation becoming a church : and it is strangely in
teresting to observe, that the national covenant of
those ancient Jews produced, (or was produced by ?)
the same spirit of intolerance and notion of infalli
bility, as the national covenants of our own Scottish
reformers. Of this, it would be easy to find ample
historical illustration, but it is not even necessary to
refer to history, for we have the illustration as clear
and full, in the present day, as it was in the days of
Asa, only that happily the modern Asas cannot
enforce their doctrines with pains and penalties, as
the ancient Asas did.
The “ Original Secession Church ” is a small, but
very zealous body of Scotch Presbyterians; still
maintaining the permanent obligation of the national
covenants, which they from time to time renew; and
rigidly adhering to the doctrinal standards of the old
Covenanters.
�54
When was the Book Lost ?
From the Original Secession Magazine for January
1869, page 37, I quote the following extract of an
address delivered by a professor of theology, to the
students preparing for the ministry, and attending
the “Divinity Hall,” in connection with that Church.
“ By our profession of faith in His Word, we solemnly
declare to the world that God himself is a participa
tor in our views and sentiments, that these are de
rived from Him, and express His mind, and that He
is of the same judgment with ourselves, in attaching
importance to what we adhere to, and in lightly
esteeming what we regard with indifference.' In a
word, our profession of faith must be regarded, not
only as our declaration of our own sentiments, but also
of the mind of God.”
The only recorded fruit of Asa's religious zeal,
being the inauguration of intolerance, and the sum
mary extirpation of all heresy by the civil power, we
are very doubtful, whether such a change ought to be
styled a reformation ; and it has only been after much
hesitation, that we have felt constrained to rank Asa
as the first great reformer of the Jewish faith;—con
strained by the reflection, that so many great refor
mers, to whom the title cannot be denied, have un
happily been intolerant and persecutors.
Asa is the earliest persecutor, on account of either
true or false religion, with whom we become acquaint
ed in the historic books of the Bible. Perhaps he
had a clearer and more intense conviction of God's
unity and omnipresence, than any of his predecessors
had enjoyed ; and he acted according to his light, he
put forth all his strength in furtherance of the cause
of truth. Perhaps his own mind was so filled with
the great truth that God is One,—he had so thoroughly
cast out the idea that there could be any other gods,
that he could not admit, and would not tolerate, the
�Asa to 'Jehoida.
55
right of any other mind to entertain that idea, or to
recognise either more or other gods than Jehovah.
Psalm lxv. 2.—“ 0 thou that hearest prayer ! unto thee
shall all flesh come.”
Or was it only that he was so penetrated and pos
sessed with the conviction, that Jehovah far excelled
all other gods in majesty and power, that it was better
to worship him than any other ?
Psalm lxxxii. 1.—“ God standeth in the congregation of
the mighty : he judgeth among the gods.”
Or was it only that Jehovah was the God, whom
his chosen people, the Jews, ought to worship, while
the other nations, whose God he was not, might do
well to worship the gods whom they knew 1
Judges xi. 24.—“ Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess ? So, whomsoever the
Lord our God shall drive from out before us, them we will
possess.”
Whatever may have been the measure of truth,
which Asa was enabled to discern, it is clear that he
discerned it as the truth; and so forcibly, that he felt
constrained to exert all his energy and zeal, in the
destruction of the opposite falsehood. In Asa’s days,
the sword of the civil power was the most handy and
efficacious instrument of conversion, its arguments
not being easily resisted; and so Asa employed the
sword, probably with as good a conscience, and in as
good a cause, as it ever has been employed by any
teacher of religion; but can it be, that the interests
of true religion have ever been really and truly pro
moted by the use of persecuting power? Must we
not rather believe that, in all cases, judging of what
might have been, by comparison with what has in later
times been witnessed, the immediate gain, however
great apparently it was, could not fail to be far more
than counterbalanced by the deeper and more perma
nent loss; and that the weapons of truth alone, if left
and employed to do their own work, would, in Asa’s,
�When was the Book Lost?
and m every time, have sufficed to achieve conquests
tar more glorious, than the conversion of nations bv
the sword ?
J
In the earlier part of the history, we read of con
tentions between a proud priest and a king, in the
persons of Samuel and Saul; but, in those days, though
there were priests, there was no established priesthwd
and there is no trace of intolerance. The right to
differ, being a natural right, seems to have been gene-,
rally respected, though perhaps not formally recognised.
Saul, David, and Solomon were not over-scrupulous
a out putting men to death. All their enemies were
regarded as enemies of their God, and were to be ex
terminated without mercy; but we cannot learn, that
they ever thought of killing their friends and fellowcountrymen, merely because their religious beliefs
were wrong ■ much less did they ever make a cove
nant or law, to the effect that all heretics should
surely be put to death. But, when Asa reigned, the
temple had been open for fifty yearSj and the priests
of the temple, being an established hierarchy, had, in
that time, already developed somewhat of the doc
trine of the infallibility of the Church, which, in allits varied, forms, and everywhere, and always, has
produced intolerance and persecutions great or small;
and, while, in Asa’s reign, this notion of infallibility
already produced the covenant of intolerance, it is
three hundred years later, in the production of Hil
kiah the priest, in the book which he read to king
Josiah, that we find the legitimate outcome of the
growth of this priestly doctrine, whose influence and
power have never, from that time to this, ceased to be
felt; whether for good or evil,—who shall say ?
Who can tell, how much further or more rapidly
the progressive development of spiritual truth and
the freedom and power of individual thought might
have advanced, if their progress, which seems to have
been so far true, had not been thus early checked, by
�Asa to 'Jehoiada.
57
the counter-progress of intolerance and of submission to
authority,—had not been, so very soon, arrested in its
promising career, by the haste of the priesthood to
re-cast all that they discerned, or believed, or desired
to be truth, in the iron mould of infallibility; from
which, by the device and authority of Asas, Hilkiahs,
and Josiahs, the strange mixture issued, and strangely
has continued to issue, stamped as the word of God ?
Eabbinism, phariseeism, and worship of the letter,
dogmatism, formality, intolerance, and fanaticism
have, in various times, and in many different forms,
been the direct and immediate fruit of that same iron
mould, of which also irreligion, hatred and indiffer
ence to all truth have been the secondary, but no less
certain and natural consequences.
Without that iron mould, God alone knows what
might have been ! I dare not attempt to paint in
words the bright picture which rises before my im
agination. Perhaps those who dwell here a thousand
years hence may see it realised !
But then,—perhaps the way by which we have
been led may also have been the best or only way, by
which mankind could ultimately be brought to the
knowledge and discernment of good and evil. So
many evil things have been made the sources of good,
so altogether incapable are we of reckoning a distant
result, the means are often so very different, unlike
and remote from the ends, that we can only again ex
claim—Who can tell1? God alone knows what might
have been ; but let us beware of knowingly and wil
fully continuing in evil, even in order that good may
come.
Asa, the first orthodox persecutor, after reigning
forty-one years, was succeeded by his son Jehosha
phat, the first missionary king.
2 Chron. xvii. 7-9.—“ In the third year of his reign he
sent to his princes (five names) to teach in the cities of
Judah ; and with them he sent Levites (nine names) ; and
�58
When was the Book Lost ?
with them Eli-sliama and Jehoram, priests. And they
taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord
with them, and went about throughout all the cities of
Judah, and taught the people.”
After being converted by the sword, the people had
to be taught by the Levites and the book. Here at
length we seem to have found it; but then, what of
the brazen serpent and the second commandment I
what of the passover, the Sabbath day, the Sabbatical
year, the public reading of the law in that year, and
the tithes ? Not a word about any of these in the
reign of Jehoshaphat! And what of the high places ?
2 Chron. xvii. 6.—“And his (Jehoshaphat’s) heart was
lifted up in the ways of the Lord: moreover, he took away
the high places and groves out of Judah.”
But, alas! the same book again contradicts itself, and
is contradicted by the more trustworthy history.
2 Chron. xx. 32, 33.—“And he (Jehoshaphat) walked
in. the way of Asa his father, and departed not from it,
doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord: how
beit the high places were not taken away; for as yet the
people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their
fathers.”
1 Kings xxii. 43.—“ And he walked in all the ways of
Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that
which was right in the eyes of the Lord: nevertheless the
high places were not taken away; for the people offered and
burnt incense yet in the high places.”
It is impossible to believe the later narrative in
preference to that earlier authority, which consistently
and uniformly declares that the high places were not
removed until the reign of Hezekiah; whereas, ac
cording to the Chronicles, they were removed by
nearly every orthodox king. But, though the prac
tise of local worship was still tolerated in the days of
Asa and Jehoshaphat, and was not prohibited till
two hundred years later; we may be sure that in
those very orthodox and intolerant times the wor
�Asa to 'Jehoiada.
59
ship in the high places was the worship of Jehovah
alone, as it was in the days of Manasseh after his
repentance.
2 Chron. xxxiii. 17.—“The people did sacrifice still in
the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only.”
We cannot suppose that such irregularities would
have been tolerated by these zealous ancl covenanted
reformers, or that so many great ordinances of the
law would by them have been ignored, if they had
been in possession of the Pentateuch, as Josiah has
transmitted it to us. It would, therefore, appear that
the book which the missionaries of Jehoshaphat aresaid to have had, must have been, in these points at
least, and probably in many others, different from,
that which was produced by Hilkiah.
In connection with Jehoshaphat, an incident is re
corded which, whether or not intended to be received
as a literal fact, curiously displays the then prevailing,
notions of the moral character of God.
1 Kings xxii. 10, 12, 19-22.—“ The king of Israel and
Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat each on his throne ... at
the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before
them . . . saying, Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper,
for the Lord shall deliver it into the king’s hand. . . .
Micaiah said : I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all
the host of heaven standing by him, on his right hand and
on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab,
that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead ? . . . And
there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, and
said, I will persuade him : and the Lord said unto him,
Wherewith ? And he said, I will go forth and be a lying
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets : And he said, Thou
shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and do so.”
Jehoshaphat reigned well and prosperously for
twenty-five years, and then lived four years after
giving up the kingdom to Joram (or Jehoram) his
son, with whom commenced that period of idolatrous
�6o
When was the Book Lost ?
backsliding which preceded and rendered necessary
the second reformation under Jehoiada,
2 Kings viii. 18.—“And he walked in the way of the
kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for the daughter
of Ahab (Athaliah) was his wife: and he did evil in the
sight of the Lord.”
He reigned only eight years, during the two last of
which he laboured under a severe and incurable
disease.
2 Kings viii. 24.—“And Joram slept with his fathers,
and was buried with his fathers in the city of David ; and
Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.”
In the other account of his burial, there is a dis
crepancy, similar to that which we have in last chapter,
observed in the accounts of the burials of Ahaz and of
Joash.
2 Chron. xxi. 20.—“ Howbeit they buried him (Joram)
in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.”
Joram was succeeded by his youngest son, Ahaziah,
who also preferred his mother’s religion. When he
had reigned only one year, he went to visit his near
relative, the king of Israel, at Samaria, and, while
there, was overtaken and included in the vengeance
which Jehu was commissioned to inflict on all the
house of Ahab.
2 Kings ix. 27, 28.—“But when Ahaziah the king of
Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden-house:
and Jehu followed after him, and said, Smite him also in the
chariot. And they did so, at the going up to Gur, which
is by Ibleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there.
And his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and
buried him in his sepulchre with. his fathers in the city of
David."
But again the chronicler refuses to assign such
honour to the remains of an idolatrous king, and
gives a different account of the circumstances of his
death.
�Asa to Jeboiada.
6i
2 Chron. xxii. 9.—“And Jehu sought Ahaziah: and
they caught him, for he was hid in Samaria, and brought
him to Jehu : and, when they had slain him, they buried
him: because, said they, He is the son of Jehoshaphat,
who sought the Lord with all his heart.”
So that the heretic king is not only denied his own
place in the sepulchre of his fathers, but is represented
as indebted for even a grave in Samaria to the memory
of his grandfather, the orthodox Jehoshaphat.
It is very observable and worthy of notice, that in
such discrepancies between the twro authorities the
same orthodox or sacerdotal bias may always be re
marked in the book of Chronicles, and may be traced
in every page of that book; so much so, that we may
see in the constant manifestation of it a record, and
a very specimen of the bigotry of the Levitical mind,
with which our consideration of this subject thus
brings us literally into converse and contact.
2 .Chron. xxii. 10-12,—“ But when Athaliah the mother
of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and
destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judali; but
Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son
of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that
were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bed-chamber.
So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife
of Jehoiada, the priest (for she w’as the sister of Ahaziah),
hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not. And he
was with them hid in the house of God six years.
Athaliah thought she had obtained secure posses
sion of the throne; but she reckoned without the
wise old man who had for many years been at the
head of the priesthood, who had grown with its
growth, and who could remember the glorious days
of Solomon, before the kingdom was divided; who
had lived in the covenanting times of King Asa, and
in whose heart the faithful zeal of that covenant still
burned.
The only things recorded about Queen Athaliah, are
her bloody usurpation, and its sudden end, after six
�61
When was the Book Lost?
years,when she was assassinated by conspirators, who
were instigated and directed by Jehoiada the priest.
2 Chron. xxiii. 14, 15.—“ The priest said, Slay her
not in the house of God. So they laid hands on her ; and
when she was come to the entering of the horse-gate by
the king’s house, they slew her there.”
J
True to his old covenant, Jehoiada’s first care, on
finding himself at the head of the government, was
to have it then forthwith renewed by king, priests,
and people.
’
2 Chron. xxiii. 16, 17.—“And Jehoiada made a
covenant between him, and between all the people, and be
tween the king, that they should be the Lord’s people.
Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake
it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces
and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.”
Here we have plainly the same old covenant of in
tolerance and persecution, which seems to have been
again renewed by Hezekiah, and yet again by Josiah.
2 Chron. xxix. 10.—“(Hezekiah said), Now it is in mine
heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that
his fierce wrath may turn away from us.”
2 Chron. xxxiv. 81, 32.—“And the king (Josiah)
stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to
walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and
his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart; and,
with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant
which are written in this book: and he caused all that
were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it;
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the
covenant of God, the God of their fathers.”
Jehoiada’s zeal for the covenant, and the fidelity
and prudence which he displayed in preserving alive
and concealing the young king, and in finally restoring
him to the throne of his fathers, are sure pledges that
he had not suffered the lamp of truth to be extinguished
in his hands, and that the book of the law of the Lord
was not lost in his time; but we have, on the other
hand, seen that such germs of the book as may then
�Solomon to Asa.
63
have existed did', in this period, first receive the stamp
of infallibility, the whole nation having been com
pelled, ostensibly at least, to surrender the right of
private judgment, and to submit their understandings
and their consciences to the predominant power and
authority of the orthodox covenanters. Under such
sovereigns as Asa and Jehoshaphat, the reign of
absolute intolerance would, of course, give to the
whole nation an outward semblance of religious con
formity ; but that same intolerance most probably was
the principal cause of the subsequent backslidings.
Tending ever to become more stringent and more
arrogant the longer it was cherished, it resulted in
provoking multitudes to throw off the restraints
which they could no longer bear, as Joram the son of
Jehoshaphat did, and as did Jehoiada’s pupil-king so
soon as his preceptor was dead.
CHAPTER V.
SEARCH CONTINUED.
SOLOMON TO ASA.—B.C. 1015 TO 955.
Having now considered the three periods of time,
which respectively followed the three reformations
under Asa, Jehoiada, and Hezekiah, taking, in each
chapter, a step further back from the finding of the
book, whose loss we seek to trace, or whose produc
tion we must endeavour to explain ; we find that the
next preceding period, which presents itself for exa
mination, is that which reaches from the building of
the temple, or from the accession of Solomon, till the
first reformation under Asa.
The earlier narrative records the opposition, which
�64
When was the Book Lost ?
the succession of Solomon to the throne encountered
from his elder brother Adonijah (1 Kings i., ii.),
whom Abiathar the priest, and Joab, the veteran
commander of the forces to David, supported as the
rightful heir; but Solomon, being the son of the
favourite Bathsheba, was preferred.
1 Kings i. 30, 31.—. . Assuredly Solomon thy son shall
reign after me. . . . Then Bathsheba bowed with her face
to the earth, and did reverence to the king, and said, Let
my lord king David live for ever.” (Compare Deut. xxi.
15,16.)
And Solomon was no sooner established in power
than, notwithstanding his promised protection, he put
to death Adonijah, with Abiathar and Joab, who had
been the two most tried and faithful friends of his
father David.
1 Kings ii. 35.—“ And the king put Benaiah, the son of
Jehoiada in his (Joab’s) room over the host; and Zadok
the priest did the king put in the room of Abiathar.”
Thus asserting his ecclesiastical supremacy in the
most unmistakable way.
All the priests, Levites, and musicians, had been,
according to the later narrative, arranged and ap
pointed to their several offices in the temple-service
by David (1 Chron. xxiv.—xxvii.), while the book of
Kings gives no account of these appointments at all;
but, from it, we learn that all this multitude of nomi
nations for the temple-service, if made by David, must
have preceded the opening of the temple by cd least
eleven years.
1 Kings vi. 38.—“In the eleventh year, in the month
Bui, which is the eighth month, was the house finished
throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the
fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it.”
We may therefore regard these Levitical lists, as
apocryphal, such minute attention to ecclesiastical
details being quite opposed to the character of David,
as we shall have occasion to see in our next chapter.
�Solomon to Asa.
65
The absence from these lists of all notice of provision
for the support of the extensive sacerdotal establish
ment, is perhaps another argument against their trust
worthiness, such provision being, by the same his
torian, specially noted for the comparatively small
number of priests in the time of Hezekiah (2 Chron.
xxxi. 10-19). It is indeed very remarkable that we
have not a hint nor a trace of the tithe-law in connec
tion with Solomon's reign. Probably the numbers and
arrangements of the priesthood were nothing like so
great nor so complete as the chronicler represents them
to have been; but, whatever their real numbers were, it
would appear that the multitude of sacrifices and the
vast revenues of the king, from tribute, commerce, and
accumulated wealth, were at this time sufficient to
preclude the necessity of tithes for the priests.
1 Kings x. 14, 15.—“ Now the weight of gold that came
to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six
talents of gold (equal to £3,646,350 sterling) ; beside that
he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice
merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the gover
nors of the country.” (Read also 1 Chron. xxvi. 26-28.)
When at length the building of the temple was
completed, the ark was brought up from the city of
David, and set in its place.
2 Chron. v. 7.—“And the priests brought in the ark of
the covenant of the Lord unto his place, to the oracle of
the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings
of the cherubims.”
If we assume that the book had a previous existence, we must surely expect to find here, if anywhere,
unmistakable evidence of it. Now was the time
when the book should have been found, which Moses
wrote, and concerning which he commanded the
Levites saying:—
Deut. xxxi. 26.—“ Take this book of the law, and put it
in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God,
that it may be there for a witness against thee.”
E
�66
When was the Book Lost ?
But, for this great discovery the times were not
yet ripe: and so we have to read:—1 Kings viii. 9.—“ There was nothing in the ark, save the
two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when
the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when
they came out of the land of Egypt.” (Deut. x. 3-5.)
If the reader will compare Exod. xxxiv. and Exod.
xxiii. 10-19, he will find reason to doubt whether the
commandments on these tables were the same as our
decalogue; and this doubt is confirmed by the fact
that not until the reign of Asa, the third king after
Solomon, is there any record of idol-worship being
abolished, or of images being destroyed; and that
even Asa seems to have gone no further than the
destruction of the idols and images pertaining to the
worship of other gods, while the brazen serpent at
least, but probably also other Jehovistic symbols,
continued to be worshipped till the time of Hezekiah.
2 Kings xviii. 4, 5.—“ He (Hezekiah) removed the high
places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and
brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made:
for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense
to it: and he called it Nehushtan (a piece of brass!) He
trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was
none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that
were before him.'''
From which the unavoidable inference is, in the
absence of all evidence to the contrary, that Solomon,
even while worshipping Jehovah alone, saw no reason
why he should not be worshipped by images, whether
these were the ark, the cherubim, or the serpent.
1 Kings viii. 7.—“ For the cherubims spread forth their
two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubims
covered the ark and the staves thereof above.” (See page
87.)
Clearly the second commandment was, in those
�67
days, either different or differently understood, from
what it afterwards became.
Having thus not taken, or not fully achieved, the
first great step towards purity of worship, it is not
surprising to find that, even while his intentions were
good, he failed in many points of the law, as in later
times it came to be known.
1 Kings iii. 1, 3, 4.—“And Solomon made affinity with
Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter.
(Comp. Dent. vii. 3.) And Solomon loved the Lord, walk
ing in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed
and burnt incense in high places. And the king went to
Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place.”
But it has already been abundantly proved that the
sin of worshipping God, anywhere in his great
temple of the universe, was a sin not then known;—not
invented till, in the course of centuries, the priest
hood which Solomon established had developed much
of the dogmatism, intolerance, selfishness, and arro
gance which, unhappily, seem to have been the snares,
the misfortunes, and the sins of every priesthood
from that time to this. Nor need it be very surpris
ing to discover that, as his ideas of spiritual worship
were so imperfect, his notions of the unity of God
were equally so.
2 Chron. ii. 5.—“The house which I build is great: for
great is our God above all gods.”
These words are addressed to Hiram, King of
Tyre, and clearly acknowledge that the gods of Tyre
were real divinities, though inferior to the God of
Solomon; whereas Jephthah, at an earlier time, seems
to have recognized some degree of equality in the
God of the Ammonites.
Judges xi. 24.—“Wilt not thou possess that which
Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever
the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will
we possess.”
And this enables us to understand, what must
nsaann
Solomon to Asa.
�68
When was the Book Lost ?
otherwise be quite incomprehensible, how that Solo
mon in his old age, when the temple-service was no
longer new, and when the ardour of his youthful
zeal had abated, thought it necessary to propitiate
other gods, though he never abandoned the worship
of Jehovah.
1 Kings xi. 6, 7.—“ And Solomon did evil in the sight of
the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David
his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for
Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is
before Jerusalem; and for Molech, the abomination of the
children of Ammon.”
Concerning which sad declension on the part of
Solomon, as well as concerning his disputed succession,
the later narrative is, consistently, altogether silent.
The prowess of David had conquered and united
the kingdom, and had bequeathed it to Solomon
in the highest state of wealth, strength, and pros
perity; one natural consequence of which was the
erection of a temple in the new capital, more or
less resembling those which neighbouring kingdoms
had long before possessed in honour of the gods
whom they acknowledged. The royal temple implied
an established hierarchy of priests and attendants;
.and it is here that we find the origin of that priest
hood, of whose organization in earlier times no trace
is to be found in the historic records, excepting some
very apocryphal genealogies of comparatively recent
date (1 Chron. i.) The people who had but recently
■become a nation were as yet only commencing their
-progress from barbarism to civilization, and from
polytheism to gradually more and more spiritual
motions of the Divine Unity; and as one strong mind
.after another was led by inspiration to see and to
utter something of the higher truth, in the office of
prophet, priest, or king; the wheat that was among
the chaff, like the handful of corn on the top of a
mountain, took root here and there, and brought
�Solomon to Asa.
69
forth fruit for future harvests, and thus the whole
nation was slowly led on, towards higher and higher
conceptions of the oneness and spirituality of God.
It seems to have been among the priesthood, in a
great measure, that these doctrines had their growth.
Their jealousy for the dignity and glory of their
God, above all other gods, ripened by degrees into
faith in Him, as the one God over all.
In all the prayers and orations of Solomon at the
opening of the temple, and in the direct verbal replies
which he is said to have received from God, there is
not a single reference to Moses nor to his law; nor
do we find that there was any reading of the book of
the law on this great occasion, nor throughout the
whole of Solomon’s reign. We cannot even find that
the priests and Levites had anything wherein to
instruct the people, nor that they gave them any
instruction at all, as is first said to have been done
in the reign of Jehoshaphat, and afterwards in the
reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah.
We have indeed mention made of statutes, judg
ments, and commandments:—
2 Chron. vii. 19.—“ But if ye turn away and forsake my
statutes and my commandments, which I have set before
you, and shall go and serve other gods and worship
them.” . . .
But such expressions may, most probably, refer to
the laws which Samuel and David had instituted, at
and after the foundation of the monarchy.
1 Kings iii. 3.—“And Solomon loved the Lord, walking
in the statutes of David his father.”
Which, being divinely inspired, were of course re
garded as divine laws. The statutes referred to may
also be those which were engraved on the tables of
stone •, but that these references do not apply to the
book of the law, can be shown by evident proofs.
We learn from the earlier narrative, that Solomon
offered sacrifice three times a year.
�When was the Book Lost ?
1 Kings ix. 25.—“ And three times in a year did Solomon
offer burnt-offerings and peace-offerings upon the altar
which he built unto the Lord, and he burnt incense upon
the altar that was before the Lord.”
The later historian greatly increases the number of
times for sacrifice, but gives names to the three great
occasions.
2 Chron. viii. 12, 13.—“ Then Solomon offered burntofferings unto the Lord, on the altar of the Lord which he
had built before the porch ; even after a certain rate every
day, offering according to the commandment of Moses on the
Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts
three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread,
and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.”
The simpler and more trustworthy account would
suggest that these three festivals were the same as
those which most heathen nations, and which our own
Scandinavian ancestors observed.
Exod. xxiii. 14-16.—“Three times thou shalt keep a
feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of
unleavened bread, and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits
of thy labours which thou hast sown in thy field ; and the
feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when
thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.”
But, of the observance of the Passover and other
feasts, as enjoined by the law, we have not in either
narrative the slightest trace.
Deut. xvi. 16.—“ Three times in a year shall all thy males
appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall
choose ; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast
of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles ; and they shall not
appear before the Lord empty.”
In like manner the Sabbath is named in the later
narrative, but only named, as in the passage quoted
above (2 Chron. viii. 13); and it may well be that the
Sabbath, as a day of rest, had come down from the
earliest time.
�Solomon to Asa.
Exod. xxiii. 12.—“ Six days shalt thou do thy work, and
on the seventh thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass
may rest, and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger
may be refreshed.”
But the negative evidence is complete, that Solomon
knew nothing of the Sabbath as a day 11 holy to the
Lord,” and as enforced in the law.
Exod. xxxv. 2, 3.—“ Six days shall work be done, but on
the seventh there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of
rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be
put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your
habitations upon the Sabbath day.” (Compare Num. xv.
32 and 36.)
If Solomon had observed the Sabbath day thus,—
if those who gathered sticks on Sabbath had been, in
his days, stoned to death, it would assuredly have
been noticed in the detailed and particular accounts,
which are given of his building operations, and of the
king’s daily provision (1 Kings iv. 22-28).
We have also the fullest negative proof that the law
concerning the Sabbatical year was unknown in
Solomon’s time.
Lev. xxv. 3, 4.—“Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and
six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the
fruit thereof; but, in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath
of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the Lord : thou shalt
neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard.”
Such a practice as this, and the reading of the
law in the year of release, would surely have been
recorded in the history of Solomon’s time, if any
such observance had been then known; but the
positive evidence, which in a former chapter (p. 29)
we have adduced to prove that this law was not ob
served in the time of Hezekiah, serves equally to show,
that it was neglected or ignored, at any time, from
the commencement of the monarchy, to the Babylonish
captivity. Even during the earlier part of his reign,
while Solomon himself may have been free from the
�Jt
When was the Book Lost ?
sin of idolatry, there is not any evidence, that
it had ever, in his or in David’s times, been re
garded as a punishable offence, to worship idols, or
other gods besides Jehovah; or that the altars
and high places of other gods had ever been
destroyed, as being illegal; much less have we
any grounds for supposing, that the priests or wor
shippers of other gods, who, in those early and
tolerant times, were probably more numerous than
afterwards, had ever been put to death by David or
by Solomon on account of their religious errors; as
was done by the later reformers in the covenant
ing times.
All the evidence on record goes to prove, that not
only the worship in high places, but the worship also
of images and of other gods, was practised and toler
ated, until long after Solomon’s reign; and we may
be very sure that, if there had been any destruction
of images, or removal of high places by David or by
Solomon, it would have been recorded to their praise,
with the same jealous, and somewhat exaggerated
care, as in the histories of Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah.
From all this the inference appears to be inevitable,
that Solomon did not know the second commandment;
and that, if he knew the first, “Thou shalt have
no other gods before me,'1 he must have understood these
words “ before me ” in a different sense from that in
which we are taught to understand them.
We are not at liberty to attribute the indifference
of Solomon to stupidity, for we are told :
1 Kings iv. 29, 30.—“ God gave Solomon wisdom and
understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even
as the sand that is on the sea-shore; and Solomon’s wisdom
excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country,
and all the wisdom of Egypt.”
Solomon’s ignorance of the law, because it was not
in existence, is the only rational, and indeed the only
possible explanation.
�Solomon to Asa.
73
Exod. xxii. 20.—“ He that sacrificeth unto any god, save
unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.”
Lev. xvii. 8, 9.—“ Whatsoever man there be of the house
of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that
offereth a burnt-offering or sacrifice ; and bringeth it not
unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer
it unto the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from among
his people.”
That such kings as David and Solomon should
know these to be Divine laws, and should yet
openly violate them, and constantly tolerate their
violation, is utterly inconceivable. The very intoler
ance of the law, in these and in numerous other
passages, marks it as the product of a later time than
the age of toleration, which continued up to, and
some time after the reign of Solomon.
Thus, instead of finding, as we might reasonably
have expected, clear and abundant evidence of the
knowledge of the book of the law, at the time when
the temple was dedicated, and when the priesthood
was established; we have found, instead, in this as in
each of our former steps backwards, from the finding
of the book, that we are only the further removed
from its influence, and that the traces of its existence
become gradually less;—in other words, we find the
law in each of these periods, at an earlier stage of
its growth, and therefore, in each case, notably less
and less developed.
According to the earlier narrative, the prosperity of
the kingdom was on the wane, before the death of
Solomon. Jeroboam, the future king of Israel, was a
high officer in the service of Solomon, “Ruler over
all the charge of the house of Joseph •” and we read that
“ even he lifted up his hand against the king,” being
instigated to this rebellion by the prophet Ahijah.
1 Kings xi. 30, 31, and 40.—“ And Abijah caught th
new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces
and he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces; for thus-
�74
When was the Book Lost ?
saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the
kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten
tribes to thee. . . . Solomon sought therefore to kill Jero
boam ; and Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt, unto
Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death
of Solomon.”
But, on this subject, again the later historian is
quite consistently silent; and makes the close of
Solomon’s reign even to surpass its commencement, in
wisdom, righteousness, and triumphant prosperity
(2 Chron. ix.), reserving all the guilt and responsi
bility, as well as all the misfortune and calamity of
the approaching evil time, for his son Rehoboam, by
whom, after reigning forty years, he was succeeded.
Rehoboam was unfortunate in war, both foreign
and domestic, and in his days, the prediction of
Ahijah was fulfilled, by the separation of the ten
tribes of Israel, viewed in the earlier book as the
punishment merited by the idolatries of Solomon’s
old age.
1 Kings xi. 31, 33.—“Behold I will rend the kingdom
out of the hand of Solomon: . . . . because that they have
forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of
the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites,” &c.
Whereas the later narrative, though referring to
Ahijah’s prophecy, still throws a veil over Solomon’s
guilt.
2 Chron. x. 15.—“ For the cause was of God, that the
Lord might perform his word, which he spake by the hand
of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.”
According to the earlier narrative, Rehoboam seems
from the first to have continued the same system of
general toleration which had prevailed under his
predecessors, and which continued till the time of Asa.
1 Kings xiv. 21 and 22.—“ And Rehoboam the son of
Solomon reigned in Judah .... and his mother’s name
was Naamah, an Ammonitess. And Judah did evil in the
�Solomon to Asa.
75
sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with
their sins which they had committed, above all that their
fathers had done : for they also built them high places, and
images and groves, on every high hill and under every green
tree.”
Whereas, according to the later narrative, as
Solomon had continued to the last in the path of
orthodoxy, so Rehoboam, during his first three years,
followed the same good example.
2 Chron. xi. 17.—“ So they strengthened the kingdom of
Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong
three years, for three years they walked in the way of
David and Solomon.”
2 Chron. xii. 1.—“ And it came to pass, when Rehoboam
had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself,
he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.”
From both narratives it thus appears that the great
sin, chargeable against Rehoboam, was that he was
not intolerant; that he acknowledged and protected
the right of his people to worship according to their
conscience, a right which, up to his time, seems never
to have been called in question by the civil power,
though it does appear to have already been challenged
by priests and prophets. Rehoboam did not compel
all his subjects, by a covenant of intolerance, to
worship Jehovah alone; but, that he was not hostile
to the orthodox worship, is abundantly manifest, from
the politic fears of his rival.
1 Kings xii. 26 and 27.—“ And Jeroboam said in his
heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:
if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord
at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again
unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and
they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
Rehoboam’s good disposition may also be inferred
from the statement, that multitudes of the priests,
Levites, and devout persons, from the dominions of
Jeroboam, sought and found, at Jerusalem, that
�7&
When was the Book Lost ?
security and liberty of worship, which, in the neigh
bouring kingdom, they could no longer enjoy. (See
p. 51.)
Perhaps the political intolerance of Jeroboam,,
directed against these orthodox worshippers, may
have been the root and parent of that fiercer religious
intolerance, which, among the refugees and their
sympathizers, speedily grew so strong.
1 Kings xiv. 30.—“ And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.”
It does not appear that Rehoboam’s reign was
wholly disastrous, or wholly wicked, for we read that:
2 Chron. xii. 12.—“ When he humbled himself, the
wrath of the Lord turned from him, that he would not
destroy him altogether: and also in Judah things went well."
After reigning seventeen years :—
1 Kings xiv. 31.—“ Rehoboam slept with his fathers,,
and was buried with, his fathers, in the city of David.”
In relating which, the more rigid Chronicler shows
the same strict discrimination, as in his accounts of
the burials of all the heretic kings : but, in this case,
so mildly that it would scarcely be noticed, if not
illustrated, by the same partiality, more strongly
marked in other instances. (See pp. 60, 61.)
2 Chron. xii. 16.—“And Rehoboam slept with hisfathers, and was buried in the city of David: and Abijah his.
son reigned in his stead.”
Abijah (or Abijam) is the only king who is repre
sented as idolatrous by the earlier authority, but
whose fame is untarnished and whose piety is recorded
by the later historian doubtless because he was a
friend and patron of the priests.
1 Kings xv. 3.—“ And he walked in all the sins of his
father, which he had done before him: and his heart was
�Solomon to Asa.
77
not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his
father.”
In Chronicles the chief thing recorded is a battle
with Jeroboam, in which Judah was victorious; and
a speech which, before the battle, Abijah addressed to
the opposing army, of which the key-note is :—
2 Chron. xiii. 12.—“ Behold God himself is with us
our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to
alarm against you. 0 children of Israel, fight ye
against the Lord God of your fathers, for you shall
prosper.”
for
cry
not
not
And, as the result of such faith, we read :
2 Chron. xiii. 18.—“ Thus the children of Israel were
brought under at that time,"and the children of Judah pre
vailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their
fathers.”
From all which, two inferences may fairly be
drawn, first,—that in this, as in the former reigns,
there was no legal intolerance, nor violent suppression
of the mixed worship, which hitherto had prevailed ;
and second,—that the orthodox priesthood enjoyed
the royal favour, and had already attained to con
siderable power and influence; which, as usual, only
served to encourage them to hope and strive for
something more than they had yet achieved : even
for the entire extinction of heresy by the sword of
the law, and for the establishment of absolute intoler
ance, instead of that freedom of worship, and that
right to differ, with which no king hitherto had
interfered.
After reigning only three years, Abijah was suc
ceeded by his son Asa, under whom the priestly
doctrines of infallibility and intolerance, at length
obtained full sway.
In the period, to which this chapter has been
devoted, there has been unmistakably less ritualism,
less sacerdotalism, and less conformity to the Mosaic
law, than in any of the more recent periods, which we
�78
When was the Book Lost?
have examined ; but we have here seen the origin of
the established priesthood, consequent on the institu
tion of the temple service ; and we have seen a large
number of zealous priests, and of religious persons,
assembled at Jerusalem, in consequence of their ex
pulsion by Jeroboam. We have also already heard
the spirit of persecution, and of arrogant infallibility,
sounding in the blast of their trumpets ;—the same
spirit, the same trumpets, the same priests as those,
who, shortly afterwards, inspired and responded to Asa’s
covenanted law, that all heretics should surely be put
to death.
CHAPTER VI.
SEARCH CONTINUED.
THE JUDGES TO SOLOMON.—B.C. 1425 TO 1015.
Having traced the history of Judah through four
periods, extending from the finding of the book back
to the accession of Solomon and the building of the
temple; we now find that another step backwards
brings us to the very commencement of the continuous
history, in the time of Samuel; beyond which, the
records evidently cease to be historical in their
character, the book of Judges being undisguisedly
legendary and fragmentary ; while the assumed
authenticity and antiquity of the book of Joshua must
evidently and admittedly either stand or fall along
with that of the Pentateuch; so that, for our present
purpose, the book of Judges is the earliest source
whereto we can appeal for evidence; unless critical
and learned discrimination be employed, in which,
though I might perhaps follow, I cannot pretend to
lead.
Our earliest period must therefore be regarded as
commencing with the era of the Judges, which era is
�The Judges to Solomon.
79
variously estimated to extend from three hundred to
four hundred years, reaching from the death of
Joshua to the accession of Saul. The book of Judges
consists of a number of detached narratives of events,
to which none but the most arbitrary and uncertain
chronological arrangement can be applied. During
all this time there are only two instances, in which
priests or Levites are mentioned, and, in neither of
these, does the narrative afford the slightest support,
to the later doctrine of tribal distinction. In the
first of these cases, Micah, a man of Mount Ephraim
(Judges xvii. and xviii.), made for himself a “ house
of gods ” and images; and consecrated one of his
sons, who became his priest; but was glad, when he
afterwards had the opportunity, to secure a young
man of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and
who, for a stipulated remuneration, continued to be
Micah’s priest, until the Danites violently carried off
both priest and images, to their new possessions in
the north; and founded there some kind of religious
institution, in which the priest-Levite, of the tribe of
Judah, was succeeded by a priestly family of whose
tribe there is no certain trace, for it is not clear that
Manasseh was their tribe.
Judges xviii. 30.—“ And the children of Dan set up
the graven image ; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the
son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of
Dan, until the day of the captivity of the land.”
The only other passage, in which a Levite is men
tioned, is the story (Judges xix. and xx.) of the
barbarous outrage committed by the men of Gibeah,
on the Levite’s wife; and the bloody revenge exacted
for their crime; but the narrative throws no light
at all upon the worship, office, or tribe of this Levite.
In all this book there are only three sacrifices
described, at none of which, either priest or Levite
seems to have officiated.
�So
When was the Book Lost ?
Manoah, the father of Samson, of the tribe of Dan,
offered a sacrifice, which was visibly accepted.
Judges xiii. 20.—“ For it came to pass, when the flame
went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of
the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar.”
Gideon, an Abi-ezrite, and a mighty man of valour,
belonging to a heathen, or Baal-worshipping family,
but whose tribe is not named, was specially com
manded to offer sacrifice:
Judges vi. 26.—“ And build an altar unto the Lord thy
God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and
take the second bullock, and offer a burnt sacrifice with the
wood of the grove, which thou shalt cut down.”
And Jephtha the Gileadite in fulfilment of his
horrid vow, said to have been made under the
influence of the Spirit of the Lord, (Judges xi.
29), offered up his daughter, as a burnt-offering to
the Lord; a deed recorded without a shadow of
disapproval, and which the Jews were taught to
regard with entire approbation; if we may judge
from the reference to it in the New Testament (Heb.
xi. 32).
When we compare the sacrifice offered by Jephtha
with that intended by Abraham (Gen. xxii. 10); and
when we consider the awe with which a similar
sacrifice, though offered by a heathen king, inspired
a victorious Jewish army:—
2 Kings iii. 26, 27.—“And when the king of Moab saw
that the battle was too sore for him. . . . Then he
took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead,
and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. And
there was great indignation against Israel: and tl 2y
departed from him, and returned to their own land.”—
we are forced to conclude, that human sacrifices
were not so singular, nor even so uncommon among
the Jews, as we are apt to think; and they seem even
to be recognised by the law :—
�The Judges to Solomon.
81
Lev. xxvii. 28, 29.—“ No devoted thing, •which a man
shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man
and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or
redeemed : every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord.
None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be
redeemed ; but shall surely be put to death.'"
Num. xviii. 15.—“Everything that openeth the matrix in
all flesh, which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of
men or beasts, shall be thine : nevertheless the first born of
man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean
beasts shalt thou redeem.”
Exod. xxxiv. 20—“ But the firstling of an ass thou shalt
redeem with a lamb : and, if thou redeem him not, then
shalt thou break his neck. All the first born of thy sons
thou shalt redeem; and none shall appear before me empty.”
From all which, it seems much more than probable
that, in Jephthah’s, and even in later times, the
sacrifice of children was not very extraordinary; but
was regarded as the most acceptable orthodox worship,
and as the best evidence of sincere piety.
No candid reader will deny, that these passages in
the law, and other similar passages, must either be
founded on ancient customs, well-known before, and
only sanctioned and regulated by the promulgation of
the law; or else must be regarded as introducing, and
commanding, the practice of human sacrifice; and as
we find that such sacrifices were offered, at a time
when the Levitism of the law was wholly unknown;
and that these sacrifices were condemned and abol
ished when the Levitical law became fully developed,
it may be concluded that, in this case, the law was
founded on the custom, and not the custom on the
law. This does not, however, at all exclude the idea
that there may have been ancient laws instituting or
authorizing even the most ancient customs, and after
wards embodied, with too little discrimination, by
the compilers of the more recent code.
There is no description in the book of Judges of
any other sacrifice; and, while neither Manoah,
�82
When was the Book Lost ?
Gideon, nor Jephthah required the intervention of a
priest, it is no way attributed to them, as a sin, that
they usurped the priest’s office ; but on the contrary,
there are, in each case, manifest tokens of acceptance
and approval. Nor does there appear, either in the
parties themselves or in the narrator, the slightest
consciousness of irregularity in the circumstance, that
these sacrifices were offered at the three different
residences of the parties ; implying a total ignorance
of the law which was in later times enacted for the
suppression of the high places (Lev. xvii. 8, 9). In
the times which we are now considering, it is manifest
that no one had ever begun to think that there was
only one place in which God could be worshipped;
nor did this idea take the form of law, until the time
of Hezekiah, four hundred years after the last of the
judges.
Manoah, Gideon, Jephthah, and others are said to
have been favoured with direct guidance and instruc
tion from God; yet their manifest ignorance and
neglect of the ordinances of the Levitical law, and
the wholly unlevitical worship which they practised,
are never at all reproved. And while there is one
solitary voice raised against the worship oiother gods ;—
Judges vi. 8, 10.—“The Lord sent a prophet unto the
children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and
brought you forth out of the house of bondage. . . . and
I said unto you, I am the Lord your God; fear not the
gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have
not obeyed my voice ”—
yet the worship of God by images, though a pre
vailing custom, is not once rebuked, nor was it known
to be sinful, so far as we can learn from the narrative.
Gideon, whose piety is extolled both during his life
and after his death, while fully acknowledging the
Lord, and with the best intention, made a golden
image or ephod whereby to worship him (Judges viii.
�The Judges to Solomon.
83
22-35): and we have seen that Micah, with his Levite,
worshipped also by images: and that the Danites, who
robbed him, did the same.
As might be expected, in these rude and unsettled
times, there is abundance of evidence, that the pre
vailing notions of morality, and of the moral character
of "God, were extremely low; of which the story of
Jael and Sisera (Judges iv., v.) is a good illustration.
Sisera, whose army had been defeated by the Jews,
fled from the field, and sought refuge in the tent of
Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, a neutral, with
whom Sisera was at peace, Jael met him with offers
of hospitable concealment, and assurances of safety;
and, when she had lulled him to security and sleep,
for he was weary, she killed him by driving a nail
through his temples, and fastening it into the ground.
Deborah was a prophetess and judge over Israel; and,
in her song, inspired by the ‘Angel of the Lord,’ Jael
is praised in the highest terms, and 1 blessed above
women,’ for her cold-blooded treachery, and her mur
derous deed; on the horrible details of which, the
prophetess gloatingly dwells :—
Judges v. 24-26.—“ Blessed above women shall Jael the
wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be above
women in the tent. He asked water and she gave him milk ;
she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand
to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer ;
and with the hammer she smote Sisera ; she smote off his
head, when she had pierced and stricken through his
temples,” &c., &c.
These sentiments were uttered in a song of praise to
God, and were evidently regarded as acceptable to Him.
Judges v. 31.—“ So let all thine enemies perish, 0 Lord ;
but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth
in his might.”
The God, whom Deborah worshipped, is thus seen
to be one, whom for us to worship would be impos
sible ; his name might be the same as that of Him
�84
When was the Book Lost?
whom we adore; but God is not in a name, even as
God is not in an image.
Before leaving the book of Judges, let us pause to
reflect that the people, of whom this book is the onlyrecord, lived about six hundred years nearer to the
time of Moses, the great lawgiver, than did Hezekiah
and Josiah; and that we might therefore fairly ex
pect to trace, in their customs and in their worship,
fresh, continual, and indubitable proofs, of the exis
tence and recognition of the ‘Mosaic law;’ the pro
mulgation of which would to them have been a recent
tradition, as their fathers or grandfathers might have
been with Moses at Sinai. And let us then consider,
whether we have been, in the course of this inquiry,
approaching to, or receding from, the real date of the
law.
The book of Ruth relates to the time of the judges,
and the chief purpose of its writer seems to have been
to record and to honour the ancestry of David, whose
great-grandmother was Ruth (iv. 22).
In this book, there is nothing either prophetic or
Levitical; and, while marked by a fine religious sen
timent, it contains no allusion to priests, to sacrifice,
nor to any act of worship.
The ‘ custom,’ in accordance with which Boaz took
Ruth to be his wife, is akin to, but is quite distinct
from, that sanctioned by the law of Moses, (compare
Ruth iii. 13, iv. 5 & 8, with the precepts in Deut.
xxv. 5-10).
Neither Boaz nor the writer of the book seems to
have had the slightest idea that the marriage was
sinful or illegal; being a transgression of the law,
which forbade the Hebrews to intermarry with the
surrounding heathen nations.
Exod. xxxiv. 15 and 16.—“ Lest thou make a covenant
with the inhabitants of the land : . . . . and thou take of
their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a
�The Judges to Solomon.
85
whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring
after their gods.”
Deut. vii. 3.—“Neither shalt thou make marriages with
them ; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor
his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.”
But the conduct of Boaz, in marrying Ruth the
Moabitess, is recorded as if it were pious and unim
peachable, and as an incident honouring to the mem
ory of David’s ancestors; and the same ignorance of
this law may be traced through every stage of the
history, till after the finding of the book. David had
heathen wives, (2 Sam. iii. 3), and so had Solomon,
even while he was building the temple (1 Kings iii. 1).
Solomon’s mother was a Hittite; and Rehoboam’s was
an Ammonitess (2 Chron. xii. 13). But, in Ezra’s
times, the law was rigorously enforced; and such
mixed marriages were declared null and void, because
known to be illegal,
Ezra ix. 2.—“ They have taken of their daughters for
themselves and for their sons; so that the holy seed have
mingled themselves with the people of these lands: yea, the
hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this tres
pass.”
Ezra x. 10, 11, 19.—“ And Ezra the priest stood up, and
said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken
strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now
therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your
fathers, and do his pleasure ; and separate yourselves from
the people of the land and from the strange wives.............
And they gave their hands that they would put away their
wives; and, being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for
their trespass.”
Surely here the inference is unavoidable, that Ezra
was acquainted with a portion of the 1 Mosaic law,’
which, in the times of Boaz, David, and Solomon, did
not exist; and which was unknown to the author of
the book of Ruth.
In the book of Samuel, we have the earliest portion
�86
When was the Book Lost ?
of the continuous history of the Jewish nation ; and,
at its opening, we find the civil power in the hands
of a priest, Eli, who judged Israel forty years (1 Sam.
iv. 18.) Eli was succeeded in both his offices by the
great Samuel; in whose person the priesthood attained
to a degree of authority and influence, which seems
to have been always regarded by the later priests as
an example and a model, after which they ought to
strive whenever it was safe or possible to do so. For
us it must therefore be peculiarly interesting to note
the main features of Samuel’s career.
Samuel was a priest from his youth, having been
educated by Eli almost from his infancy, in the
Sanctuary at Shiloh, which is one of several places
mentioned in Samuel’s time as being Sanctuaries, or
houses of God; such as Mizpeh, Judges, xxi., 4, 5,
and 1 Sam. vii., 9, 11; Beth-el, (meaning house of
God) 1 Sam. vii. 16; Gilgal, 1 Sam. xi. 15 ; and
Gibeah, 2 Sam. vi. 2, 3 : all of which were most
probably included among those places of local worship,
which Hezekiah suppressed. Besides worshipping in
these, afterwards forbidden places, Samuel built an
altar at his own residence.
1 Sam. vii. 17.—“ And his return was to Ramah; for
there was his house ; and there he judged Israel, and there
he built an altar unto the Lord.”
Samuel had evidently no idea that, in thus
worshipping at various altars, he was guilty of violat
ing God’s law. (Lev. xvii. 8, 9; Josh. xxii. 29.)
In connection with Eli’s death, an incident is
recorded, which shows, in our opinion very clearly,
that the worship of Jehovah was, at that time,
scarcely, if at all, less idolatrous, than the worship of
other Gods. The Israelites had been defeated in a
battle with the Philistines, with the loss of four
thousand men; and before renewing the combat, they
said :—
�The Judges to Solomon.
87
1 Sam. iv. 8.—“ Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of
the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh
among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.”
This is the very earliest historic mention of the
ark, if we except a parenthetic clause (Judges xx. 27)
to which no importance can be attached, being man
ifestly an interpolation by some comparatively recent
hand.
Both Israelites and Philistines regarded the ark as
an idol; or, in other words, as a symbol of the Divine
presence ; for what is any idol or image, more than a
symbol of God ? The veriest idolater does not believe,
that his bit of wood or stone is God ; but that it is an
emblem, a sign, or a dwelling place of the Deity; and
that God is somehow represented by it, or present in
it. Hear what the Hindoo has to say for himself, and
it would be easy to multiply evidence of this kind,
“It is not the image that we worship as the Supreme
Being, but the Omnipresent Spirit that pervades the
image as He pervades the whole universe. If, firmly
believing as we do, in the omnipresence of God, we
behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of
an image, any of His glorious manifestations ; ought
we to be charged with identifying Him with the
matter of the image?” * In like manner, we suppose,
but only in like manner, neither did Jews nor
Philistines imagine, that the ark was God; though
both parties evidently regarded it as the visible eidolon
—symbol or idol, of God's invisible presence.
1 Sam. iv. 4, 5, 7.—“ So the people sent to Shiloh,
that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant
of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims.
.... and when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came
into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that
the earth rang again............... And the Philistines were
afraid; for they said God is come into the camp. And they
* Prom an English lecture by a Hindoo, in defence of his
religion ; quoted in “ Good Words,” February 1869, p. 100.
�88
When was the Book Lost?
said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing
heretofore.”
But the Philistines were again victorious; the ark
was taken; the two sons of Eli were slain; the old
priest himself, when hearing the sad news, fell back
wards and broke his neck; and his daughter-in-law
died, in premature labour, naming her child Ichabod:
1 Sam. iv. 22.—“ And she said, the glory is departed
from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.”
The Philistines, however, suffered various miraculous
afflictions while they retained the ark ; and were glad
to send it back with a trespass offering (vi. 3.) It
was brought to Beth-shemesh, where, for looking into
the ark, fifty thousand people were slain !
1 Sam. vi. 19, 20.—“ And the people lamented, be
cause the Lord had smitten many of the people with a
great slaughter. And the men of Beth-Shemesh said, Who
is able to stand before this holy Lord God ? and to whom
shall he go up from us ? ”
Surely it is only prejudice, confirmed by, so-called,
orthodox training, that hinders so generally the
readers of the Bible, from here discerning the merest
idolatry and ignorance of the ever-present power of
Him who dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Samuel had not a word to say against this image
worship, nor against the worship in high places ; but
he denounced the sin of worshipping other gods.
This was the great message of all the early prophets,
that the Jews ought to worship Jehovah alone—the
first step towards the higher truth, that God is One
by whatever name he may be called.
1 Sam. vii. 3.—“ And Samuel spake unto all the house of
Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your
hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from
among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and
serve him only ; and he will deliver you out of the hand of
the Philistines.”
�The Judges to Solomon.
89
Amos iii. 2.—“ You only have I known of all the families
of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities.”
We apprehend that these two quotations throw
light upon each other : and that, together, they afford
a fair criterion, by which to judge of the standard
religious sentiment of the Jews at the commencement
of the monarchy (compare Ezra iv. 2, 3, and 2
Kings xvii. 27, 28); the sentiment which Samuel,
David, Amos, and others strove to inculcate; but
which, for a long time, the people were slow to learn.
In the time of the earlier judges, the Jews were
far from being a united people; on the contrary, they
were a number of separate and independent tribes,
one or more of which, generally in a time of pressing
danger, appointed some one to govern them and to
lead their armies. Sometimes the tribes under the
judges fought against other tribes, and sometimes
against foreigners. The so-called judges were in fact
chieftains, generally selected or acknowledged on
account of their warlike prowess; and were, in some
cases, such men as would now be called freebooters or
brigands (Judges x. 18.)
Judges xi. 3, 5, 6.—“ Then Jephthah fled from his
brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob; and there were
gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.
And it was so that when the children of Ammon made war
against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah
out of the land of Tob ; and they said unto Jephthah, come
and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of
Ammon.”
And so Jephthah became “judge,” and ruled for six
years. Samson was the last of these old judges, and
• _ in his days, the Jews were subject to the Philistines.
Judges xv. 11.—“ Knowest thou not that the Philistines
are rulers over us? ”
And Samson judged Israel twenty years (Judges xvi.
�90
When was the Book Lost?
31), frequently astonishing the Philistines, with his
feats of strength and prowess, but never effecting the
independence of his people. The spirit of freedom
seems to have been quenched, and the neck of Israel
was bowed to the yoke; as shown in the passage
from which the above quotation is taken. Probably
the Philistines would not allow a warlike judge to
succeed Samson; or, perhaps, there was no such man
to be found. The people were so subdued and servile,
that they submitted, for the first time, to be governed
by a priest.
The Bible narrrative does not show the connection
between the books of Judges and of Samuel, but, ac
cording to Josephus, Eli succeeded Samson (Ant. v.,
ix. 1). From the tenor of the three first chapters of
Samuel, we may gather, that till near the close of Eli’s
long life, there had been some thirty or forty years of
peaceful subjection, during which, perhaps through the
over-confident security of their rulers, the tribes seem
to have become more united, and to have developed
somewhat of a national spirit, and of a desire for
independence.
At last they made an effort to throw off the op
pressor’s sway, their disastrous failure in which was
the occasion of Eli’s death; but the attempt was re
newed and was finally successful under the rule of his
successor Samuel.
1 Sam. vii. 3-14.—“Prepare your hearts unto the Lord
and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand
of the Philistines...............And Samuel said, Gather all
Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the Lord.
And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water,
and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day,
and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.............
And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry
unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of
the land of the Philistines............... And Samuel took a
sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering wholly
unto the Lord, and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel;
�The Judges to Solomon.
91
and the Lord heard him............. So the Philistines were
subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel.
.... And the cities which the Philistines had taken from
Israel were restored to Israel.”
Here, we have probably the very earliest distinct view
of the priest making intercession for the people—a
mediator between God and man. In the times of
Gideon, Jephthah, and Manoah, the prayer of the
suppliant was addressed directly to Jehovah; every
man was his own priest, and might build his own
altar where he chose. But, now, we have the people
confessing their sins, and expressing their penitence
to the priest, and begging him to cry unto the Lord
for them. This notion had doubtless been growing in
Eli's time, and may perhaps be traced in his inter
course with Hannah (1 Sam. i. 17), but this is the
first clear expression of it that we have on record;
and thus we first become acquainted with that veil of
separation, which has served so long to obscure and
to discolour the light of divine truth, and which has
done so much to hinder the approach of man to God.
This is the real veil of the temple, about whose rend
ing, by the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, there
can be no manner of doubt; and whether any veil ot
cloth was then rent or not is a question of small im
portance. But, though rent at that time, even from
the top throughout, and never since then thoroughly
repaired, it has been often, and in many places, won
derfully patched and mended up, and much, very
much of it, though decayed and decaying, still hangs
together, even at the present day.
I am greatly mistaken if the foregoing portion of
this chapter has not placed us in a position to discern
with clearness, that, according to our authorities, it is
in Samuel's time that we have the very first trace,
record, or evidence of the idea of a theocracy,—of
Jehovah’s direct government of the nation, in temporal
affairs, through the ministry of his vicegerent, the
�92
* When was the Book Lost?
priest. Samuel seems to have been the man who
originated also this great idea, closely akin to the
other one, that the priest was the appointed mediator
between God and man. We have seen evidence
enough, that, in the time of the early judges, no such
idea was known, but that the priest then occupied a
very subordinate position. If the theocracy had
really been established in the time of Moses and
Joshua, with the completely organized hierarchy of
priests and Levites, as described in the Pentateuch;
it must be marvellous, to say the least of it, that all
trace or record of such institutions should have, so
soon and so entirely, disappeared; and that it had
to be all reconstructed, from the very foundation bv
Eli and Samuel.
’
Samuel, combining in himself the power of the
supreme magistrate, with the office of the priesthood,
and with all the prestige of success in war, though
the first to teach this doctrine, was in a position to
assert for it a higher claim than any of his successors.
He had a great advantage over Jehoiada, in whose
days the people were accustomed to a dynasty of
kings; and had far more independent power than
Ezra and his successors, who ruled only by permission
of the Persian monarch.
Ezra vii. 12,13.—“ Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra
the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect
peace, and at such a time. I make a decree, that all they
of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites in my
realm, which are minded of their own free will to go up to
Jerusalem, go with thee. (Read also ver. 25 and 26.)
In Ezra’s time the people were again humbled and
broken in spirit, by their long captivity and by their
continued subjection to foreign power; and were
again prepared to acknowledge the supremacy of the
priesthood, by the restoration of the theocracy. In
these later times, accordingly, they endeavoured to
realize the great beau-ideal of which Samuel’s primi
�The Judges to Solomon.
93
tive example had been the prototype and germ;
growing and developing itself, in the minds of the
priesthood, through six intervening centuries, and
asserting itself, meanwhile, in various degrees, wher
ever circumstances would permit.
1 Sam. viii. 1, 4-7.—“ And it came to pass, when Samuel
was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.............
Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together,
and came to Samuel unto Ramah. And said unto him,
Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways:
now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But
the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king
to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the
Lord said unto Samuel............. They have not rejected thee,
but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over
them.”
1 Samuel x. 19.—“Ye have this day rejected your God
who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your
tribulations; and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a
king over us.”
Samuel took the highest possible ground, by thus
declaring, in the name of God, that the desire of the
people to have an earthly king, instead of being ruled
by a succession of priests, was high treason, not
merely against the priest, as God’s vicegerent, but
against Jehovah himself. Manifestly Samuel was
not aware, that the people, in desiring to have a king,
were only following out the directions of the Mosaic
law; but indeed we may perhaps be justified, in re
garding this portion of the law, as written retrospect
ively, with a view to the events recorded in the book
of Samuel.
**
Deut. xvii. 14, 15.—“ When thou art come unto the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it,
and shalt dwell therein, and thou shalt say, I will set
a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me ;
thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the
Lord thy God shall choose : one from among thy brethren
shalt thou set king over thee.”
�94
When was the Book Lost?
The people, however, seem to have been somewhat
sceptical about Samuel’s doctrine on this subject,
whether it was that they knew the law better than he
did, or that they were influenced only by a shrewd and
jealous regard for their natural rights and liberties.
1 Samuel viii. 19-22.—“ Nevertheless the people refused
to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay, but we
will have a king over us ; that we also may be like all the
nations ; and that our king may judge us, and go out before
us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words
of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord.
And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice and
make them a king.”—(Comp. 1 Sam. xii. 17.)
Samuel, after often repeated protests and protesting
to the very last, at length yielded to the unanimous
wish of the people; but still sought to terrify them
from their purpose, by telling them “ the manner of
the king ” that should reign over them.
1 Sam. viii. 14, 15.—“ He will take your fields and your
vineyards, even the best of them, and give them to his
servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of
your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants.”
This passage contains the only expression which
can be construed as an allusion to the tithe law in
the whole of Samuel’s history; which circumstance,
as well as the manner and purpose of its introduction
here, may suffice to prove that the tithe was a tax
which Samuel had never presumed to impose, and
which,' as the birth-right of the priests, was then
unknown.
By wisely yielding, before it was too late, Samuel
preserved to himself the power of choosing the new
king, and much other power; which in all probability
he would have lost entirely, if the nation had been
driven, by his obstinate resistance, to the adoption of
violent measures. Accordingly, we find that Saul
was, in the first instance, privately anointed as king
by Samuel.
�The Judges to Solomon.
95
1 Sam. ix. 27.—“And as they were going down to the
end of the city, Samuel said to Saul, Bid thy servant pass
on before us (and he passed on), but stand thou still a
while, that I may show thee the word of God.”
1 Sam. x. 1.—“ Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured
it on his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because
the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inherit
ance ? ”
And the formal election, ostensibly by God, but
practically by the mediation of the priest, took place
afterwards in public.
1 Sam. x. 19-22.—“ Now therefore present yourselves
before the Lord, by your tribes and by your thousands.
And when Samuel had caused all the tribes of Israel to
come near, the tribe of Benjamin was taken. When he had
caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families,
the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the son of Kish
was taken: and when they sought him he could not be
found. Therefore they enquired of the Lord further, if the
man should yet come thither. And the Lord answered,
Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.”
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on this transaction
is a fine specimen of orthodox interpretation, its
quaint simplicity being truly admirable :—“ He puts
them upon choosing their king by lot. He knew
whom God had chosen, and had already anointed
him; but he knew also the peevishness of that people,
and that there were those among them who would
not acquiesce in the choice, if it depended upon his
single testimony; and therefore that every tribe,
and every family of the chosen tribe, might please
themselves withjiaving a throw for it, he calls them
to the lot. Benjamin is taken out of all the tribes,
and out of that tribe Saul the son of Kish. By this
method, it would appear to the people, as it already
appeared to Samuel, that Saul was appointed of God
to be king, for the disposal of the lot is of the Lord.
When the tribe of Benjamin was taken, they might
easily foresee that they were setting up a family
�96
When was the Book Lost?
that would soon be put down again; for dying Jacob
had by the spirit of prophecy entailed the dominion
upon Judah (Gen. xlix. 10, 27). Those, therefore,
that knew the scriptures, could not be very fond of
doing that which they foresaw must ere long be
undone.” As we learn from the narrative, that
Samuel had previous and private knowledge of the
man who would, in this public and ceremonious
fashion, be chosen; so it is at least very natural
to suppose that Samuel may also have had information
as to where the man was to be found when he was
wanted. How very real and natural all this appears
if we would only read it aright!
1 Sam. x. 24, 25.—“ And all the people shouted and
said, God save the king.
Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom,
and wrote it in a took, and laid it up before the Lord. And
Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.”
Samuel wrote, in a book that which he had told the
people. Does this mean that he made a copy of the
book, which he had read in their hearing ?
Deut. xvii. 18.—“ And it shall be, when he sitteth upon
the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of
this law in a book out of that which is before the priests,
the Levites.”
Was the book of Moses that which Samuel told and
wrote ? And did he do so in obedience to this law ?
But this law is one of those relating to the conduct
of the king, when he should be chosen to rule the
people; and, as we have seen a few pages back, that
Samuel ignored the lawfulness of the people choosing
a king, and was not guided by Jacob’s prediction
that the king should be of the tribe of Judah; so we
must infer that he was also ignorant of this law, re
lating to the king’s special duties. Thus the natural
sense of the words told and wrote, in the absence of
any reference or allusion to Moses or to his law, is
�Tbe Judges to Solomon.
gy
certainly the true sense, signifying that Samuel spoke
and wrote of his own wisdom and wit, with whatever
measure of inspiration he may have, enjoyed. The
law which he wrote for Saul, was most probably the
first national foundation upon which all the subse
quent Jewish law-making was built; this very law
for the conduct of a new king, being evidently con
structed on the example set by Samuel at the com
mencement of the monarchy.
Every particular in the history of Saul brings
forcibly to view the very primitive and rude state of
the people at that time. As an illustration let us
look at the first incident recorded in his reign. When
messengers came to tell him that one of his cities was
attacked by the Ammonites, and its inhabitants
threatened with having all their right eyes thrust out.
1 Sam. xi. 5, 6, 7.—“Behold Saul came after the herd
out of the field; and Saul said, What aileth the people that
they weep ? And they told him the tidings of the men of
Jabesh. And the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he
heard those tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly; and
he took a yoke of oxen and hewed them in pieces, and sent
them throughout all the coasts of Israel, by the hands of
messengers, saying, Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul
and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. And
the fear of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out
with one consent.”
And so Jabesh was relieved, the Ammonites were
defeated, and Saul was confirmed in his kingdom. It
is clear, however, that Samuel still regarded the office
of the king,. as entirely subordinate to that of the
priest; for, in connection with Sauls next enterprise,
against the Philistines, we read, that the king himself
offered sacrifice, after waiting seven days for Samuel,
who did not come at the time appointed; and, though
the king condescended to plead with the priest, and
to state what appear to be genuine reasons, for what
he had done, yet the priest was not to be appeased.
G
�98
When was the Book Lost?
1 Sam. xiii. 11-14.—“ And Samuel said, What hast thou
done ? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were
scattered from me, and that thou earnest not within the
days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves
together at Michmash ; therefore said I, The Philistines will
come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made sup
plication to the Lord : I forced myself therefore, and offered
a burnt-offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast
done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of
the Lord thy God which he commanded thee............... Thy
kingdom shall not continue ; the Lord hath sought him a
man after his own heart; and the Lord hath commanded
him to be captain over his people.”
Saul was not now at liberty, to suppose that he
could worship or make supplication to God, excepting
through the mediation of a priest. That, which the
old judges had piously done, with clear tokens and
full consciousness of the divine approval, was now to
be regarded as a heinous transgression of God’s law.
There can be little doubt, that the exclusive rights
and privileges of the priesthood, as Samuel conceived
that these ought to be, had been, much more than the
royal prerogative, strictly guarded and provided for,
in the book which Samuel had written : and, there
fore, the king was held inexcusable.
Unconsecrated men might no longer presume to
approach within the sacerdotal veil, which had now
been drawn between them and God; and any disre
gard of the barrier thus set up, was, by the priest,
denounced as sacrilege, and unpardonable sin.
Upon another occasion, the poor king had to submit
to a similar humiliating rebuke. By Samuel’s di
rection, Saul undertook an expedition against the
A malekites.
1 Sam. xv. 3, 8, 9.—“ Now go and smite Amalek, and
utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but
slay both man and woman, infant and suckling (!) ox and
sheep, camel and ass............... And he took Agag the king of
the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people
�The Judges to Solomon.
99
with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people
spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen.”
Clemency is the noblest prerogative of the crown;
but even this was denied, and trampled in the dust,
by the haughty priest.
1 Sam. xv. 23, 28, 33.—“Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being
king............... The Lord hath rent the kingdom from thee
this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is
better than thou............ And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces
before the Lord in Gilgal.”
These are the only two faults or offences which are
recorded against Saul; unless we are to regard as
such his subsequent hostility to David and his sup
porters. He is not at all accused of worshipping
other gods, nor of any kind of immorality or excess.
He seems to have been even entirely innocent of any
such oppression and extortion as those which Samuel,
to serve his own selfish purpose, had predicted of him:
and when, in the time of his distress, at the very
close of his forty years’ reign, he once more humbled
himself to the shade of the old priest, whom he had
recalled from beyond the tomb; even then, when he
had lived his life, and when all his sins had been
committed, the ghost of Samuel, whatever or wher
ever that may have been, whether in the house of the
witch or in the mind of the historian, had none but
the same unforgiven offence, to allege as a reason for
the judgment, which was about to fall on the head of
the unfortunate king.
1 Sam. xxviii. 18.—“Because thou obeyedst not the voice
of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek,
therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day.”
Saul appears to have had a superstitious dread of
Samuel; but yet he must in some way have asserted
his rights,.in opposition to Samuel’s interference, more
contumaciously than in either of these two cases, or
�IOO
When was the Book Lost ?
else we may be sure, that even Samuel would not
have deemed him unpardonable. So far as can be
inferred from the record, the honesty and moral char
acter of Saul was not only equal, but very far superior,
to that of either Samuel or David; and his exclusive
worship of Jehovah is never called in question. But,
for whatever reason, it appears that Samuel very soon
■discovered that he had been mistaken in his choice;
and that he already contemplated the overthrow of
Saul; to make way for another more hopeful nominee,
whom he thereafter proceeded privately to anoint.
1 Sam. xvi. 1.—“ And the Lord said unto Samuel, How
long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him
from reigning over Israel ? Fill thy horn with oil, and go;
I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have pro
vided me a king among his sons.”
This purpose or prediction, however, was not ful
filled in Samuel’s time ; though he thus did his best
to secure its fulfilment by stirring up David’s ambi
tion, and though he lived eighteen years after Saul
became king, and much of that time after anointing
his successor. Saul must have given great offence, for—■
1 Sam. xv. 35.—“ Samuel came no more to see Saul until
the day of his death; nevertheless Samuel mourned for
Saul; and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king
•over Israel.”
I believe it is very important clearly to understand
the leading incidents in the history of Samuel, be
cause there is manifestly much more simplicity and
reality, and therefore much more vivid representation,
in this most ancient portionof the narrative, than in the
more artificial writings of the later historians ; and
because there is reason to regard Samuel, and the
book of laws which he wrote, as, in spirit, purpose,
and action, the very prototypes and models of the
whole Jewish priesthood, and of the far more elaborate
book of the law, which they in course of time pro
�The Judges to Solomon.
IOI
duced. The sanctimonious pride, the political
shrewdness, the strict ritualism, the grasping ambi
tion and, doubtless, also, the genuine religious zeal
of Samuel may be recognized as the most prominent
characteristics of the priests in every stage of their
history; and may be read in almost every line of the
Mosaic law. In like manner, also, the superstitious
credulity and simplicity of Saul, alternating with his
times of wilfulness and self-assertion, may fairly be
regarded as typical in a very high degree, of the
natural character of the whole Jewish people.
At the time when Saul was anointed we read :
1 Sam. x. 9 and 10.—“ And it was so, that when he
turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him (Saul)
another heart; . . . . and the Spirit of God came upon
him, and he prophesied.”
So now, regarding the anointment of his successor:
1 Sam. xvi. 13 and 14.—“ Samuel took the horn of oil,
and annointed him in the midst of his brethren : and the
Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward:
.... but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and
an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.”
There is no trace until a much later period of the
history of the notion of a personal devil, or ruling
spirit of evil; but good and bad spirits are alike
represented as directly executing the will of Jehovah,
to whom the immediate authorship of both good and
evil is unhesitatingly ascribed.
Isaiah xiv. 7.—“ I form the light and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these
things.”
Isaiah xix. 14.—“ The Lord hath mingled a perverse
spirit in the midst thereof : and they have caused Egypt to
err in every work thereof.”
Amos iii. 6.—“ Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and
the people not be afraid ? Shall there be evil in a city, and
the Lord hath not done it ? ”
Exod. xiv. 17.—“ And I, behold, I will harden the hearts
�102
When was the Book Lost ?
of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them; and I will
get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host.”
Judges ix. 23.—“Then God sent an evil spirit between
Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of
Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech.
1 Kings xxii. 23.—“Now therefore, behold, the Lord
hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets,
and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.”
It would be easy to multiply such illustrations; but
these, and others which we have previously noticed,
are amply sufficient to teach us, how very low was
the highest standard of morality among the ancient
Jews; and how grossly dark and heathenish were
their notions of the character of God. We must
observe that such sentiments as these not only show
a very low and somewhat devilish conception of God;
but that they are also indicative of a religious belief,
in which the terrors of superstition and the powers of
darkness (whatever these may be) count for more
than their share. It is not at all so difficult, as at
first sight appears, to realize how Saul, when he had
listened to the humiliating rebukes, and to the public
anathemas of the great Samuel, and when he found
that the back of his holiness was sternly turned on
him, should very thoroughly feel that an evil. spirit
from God had come to trouble him; much in the
same way as we may suppose that an ignorant but
sincere Roman Catholic might feel, if he had been
publicly cursed by his priest at the altar, and the
curses confirmed by the bishop and the pope.
When Saul was troubled with this evil spirit, he
was advised to try the soothing influence of music,
and his servants were commanded to provide a
musician.
1 Sam- xvi. 18.—“Then answered one of the servants,
and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man,
and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely
person, and the Lord is with him.”
�The Judges to Solomon. .
103
It is not easy to reconcile this description with the
account given in the following chapter of the same
book, of David's encounter with the Philistine giant.
1 Sam. xvii. 83, 42, 55, 56.—“ And Saul said to David,
Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight
with him: for thou art but a youth............. And when the
Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him ;
for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair counte
nance............And when Saul saw David go forth against the
Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host,
Abner, whose son is this youth ? And Abner said, As thy
soul liveth, 0 king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Enquire
thou, whose son this stripling is.”
It is very remarkable that David, the musician, was
a mighty valiant warrior and prudent in matters;
while David the champion was at a later time a
youthful stripling. We may also notice, that on each
of these occasions, we seem to have the account of a
first introduction of David as a stranger to Saul; and
that, on the later of the two, he was not recognized
as David, who had been musician and armour-bearer
to the king; but was designated David, the son of
Jesse the Bethlehemite (1 Sam. xvii. 58.)
David was, after his victory, received with favour
by the king, and promoted to the command of the
army.
1 Sam. xviii. 5.—“And David went out whithersoever
Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set
him over the men of war ; and he was accepted in the sight
of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.”
But this pleasant state of matters did not long con
tinue. The jealousy of Saul was aroused by the fame,
which David’s prowess had gained for him, and which
seemed to eclipse the renown of Saul’s own achieve
ments.
1 Sam. xviii. 8, 9.—“ And Saul was very wroth, and
the saying displeased him ; and he said, They have ascribed
unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed
�104
When was the Book Lost ?
but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom ? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.”
It soon became necessary for David to escape for
his life; Saul having, on several occasions, tried to
kill him, when under the influence of the evil spirit;
and, from this violence, as well as from the language
of Saul, it is manifest that some rumours of David’s
anointment, and of the ambitious views which he had
thus been led to entertain, had reached the ears of
the king.
1 Sam. xx. 30, 31.—Then Saul's anger was kindled
against Jonathan ; and he said unto him .... As long as
the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be
established nor thy kingdom; wherefore now send and fetch
him unto me, for he shall surely die.”
It would also appear that, in consequence of these
rumours, and of David’s popularity, Saul had soon
reason to suspect the loyalty even of some of his
immediate attendants.
1 Sam. xxii. 7, 8.—'“Then Saul said unto his servants
that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the
son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and
make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds;
that all of you have conspired against me, and there is none
that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the
son of Jesse?”
Even before his flight, David had a number of per
sonal adherents ; for, when Saul, in order to procure
his death, had proposed to give him his daughter in
marriage, on condition that he should slay one hundred
Philistines :—
1 Sam. xviii. 27.—“ David arose and went, he and his men,
and slew of the Philistines two hundred men .... And
Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.”
In the account of the first incident in David’s
flight, we learn that he had young men with him
(1 Sam. xxi. 4, 5), for whom and for himself, by
�The Judges to Solomon.
105
false pretences, he procured food, from Ahimelech
the priest of Nob.
1 Sam. xxi. 2.—“ And David said unto Ahimelech the
priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath
said unto me, Let no man know anything of the business
whereabout T send thee, and what I have commanded thee ;
and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.”
Saul regarded the conduct of Ahimelech and the
other priests at Nob, as evidence of their treasonable
inclination to support the cause of David. The evil
spirit made him feel or fancy, that the whole influence
of the priesthood was turned against him.
1 Sam. xxii. 13.—“And Saul said unto Ahimelech, Why
have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in
that thou hast given him bread and a sword, and hast en
quired of God for him, that he should rise against me to lie
in wait as at this day.”
And all Ahimelech’s protestations of innocence did
not save him, and eighty of his family or friends,
from being put to death at the command of Saul;
of which crime, the responsibility, in a great degree,
rests upon David, his deceit having caused Ahimelee,h’s
destruction, as was indeed clearly acknowledged by
himself.
1 Sam. xxii. 22.—“ And David said unto Abiathar, I
knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that
he would surely tell Saul: I have occasioned the death of all
the persons of thy father’s house.”
This seems to have been the turning point in the
history of Saul. The evil spirit of superstitious dread
had driven him to the opposite extreme. The threats
and curses, uttered against him by Samuel, would
naturally make him too ready to magnify the favour
shown to his rival by the priest of Nob; and, re
garding them as all combined to overturn his throne,
he now felt himself driven to bay. He must either
defy them, or else surrender the kingdom: and, having
�106
When ’was the Book Lost ?
once struck the decisive blow, his course was fixed.
We do not read of any more slaughtering, nor even
persecution, of priests; but neither do we read of
priests having, any longer, power to terrify Saul;
until, after many years, when trouble overwhelmed
him, and his spirit was again plunged in darkness.
May not this slaughter of the priests be the true
reason, why the comparatively slight offences, of
which Saul had been formerly accused, are recorded
as if they had been unpardonable 1
After David’s flight, the number of his followers
speedily increased.
1 Sam. xxii. 2.—“And everyone that was in distress, and
every one that was in debt, and every one that was discon
tented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a
captain over them: and there were with him about four
hundred men,”
who, in the subsequent narrative, are frequently
referred to, as ‘David and his men: and they con
tinued to receive accessions to their number.
1 Sam. xxiii. 13.—“ Then David and his men, which were
about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and
went whithersoever they could go.”
They were outlaws, wanderers, and rebels; and it
does not appear that there were any legitimate re
sources for the support of such a company; but there
is much reason to suppose, both from the nature of
the case, and from the story of Nabal (1 Sam. xxv.),
that they subsisted, as similar parties have often done,
on the booty of their enemies, and on the black-mail
of their friends; acting on the principle, that might
makes right. To suppress and to punish such a
rebellion as this, Saul was bound, both by duty and
by interest, to exert his utmost vigour.
It would not illustrate the subject of our inquiry,
were we to follow David through the manifold adven
tures which are recorded of him, while he fled from
�The Judges to Solomon.
107
place to place, as a fugitive from Saul: nor can we
state the duration of his outlawry; because the nar
rative furnishes no exact data for such a calculation :
but it must have continued for a good many years,
terminating only after Saul’s death. Latterly, David
found it necessary to seek refuge with Achish, the
Philistine king, at Gath; who received him with
kindness and hospitality, and gave him the town of
Ziklag, for him and his men to dwell in. (1 Sam. xxvii.)
As he had deceived the priests at Nob, so now he
deceived Achish; for, having made a raid upon the
Amalekites and other friends of the Philistines, he
falsely told Achish, that his expedition had been
against Judah; and thus he succeeded in lulling the
suspicions and the fears, which the presence of so
many traditional enemies could not fail to awaken in
the minds of the Philistines.
1 Sam. xxvii. 11, 12.—“And David saved neither man
nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest
they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and so will be
his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the
Philistines. And Achish believed David, saying, He hath
made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he
shall be my servant for ever.”
At this point the book of Chronicles takes up the
tale; and we have thenceforth, and throughout the
whole subsequent history, two very different narratives
to compare, and to contrast. We learn from the
Chronicles that David received great reinforcements
while he dwelt in Ziklag.
1 Chron. xii. 22.-—For, at that time, day by day, there
came to David to help him, until it was a great host, like
the host of God.”
While David was a fugitive, probably soon after his
flight, Samuel died. The Bible narrative does not
tell us exactly when this took place: but, in Josephus
we read, (Ant. vi. xiii. 5): “Samuel governed and
�108
When was the Book Lost ?
presided over the people alone, after the death of
Eli the High Priest, twelve years: and eighteen
years together with Saul the king.”
For a long time he had abstained from taking, or
trying to take, any prominent share in public affairs.
Finding that he could not be supreme, he had scorned
to accept a subordinate station; and, therefore, he
had held himself aloof. Saul and David, however
much, they differed, seem at least to have agreed, in
alike ignoring any such arrogant and ambitious claims,
as those which Samuel had put forward, on behalf of
the priesthood; and Samuel’s successor, if successor
he had, never had the chance of asserting such claims,
so far as we can learn. The example, which had been
set, was never lost sight of, and its influence may be
traced through the whole history of the priesthood;
but, while the monarchy lasted, these high Sacerdotal
pretensions had to remain more or less in abeyance;
none of their kings having ever been sufficiently
pious, to lay his crown absolutely at the feet of the
priests. During all the years of David’s exile,-—during all the time which intervened between the
death of Samuel and the death of Saul, there is only
one instance on record, in which the services of a
priest were employed; and this happened while David
was at Ziklag, not for sacrifice, but for divination, and
is recorded in terms, which clearly indicate the sub
ordinate position of the priest.
1 Sam. xxx. 7, 8.—“ And David said to Abiathar the
priest, Ahimelech’s son, I pray thee bring me hither the
ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David.
And David enquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue
after this troop ? shall I overtake them ? And he answered
him, Pursue : for thou shalt surely overtake them.”
Chronologers seem all to agree that Saul reigned
forty years, thus living twenty-two years after the
death of Samuel.
�The "Judges to Solomon.
109
Acts xiii. 21.—“ And afterward they desired a king: and
God gave them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin, by the space of forty years."
But of the latter portion of this long reign, there is
absolutely nothing recorded, except a few incidents of
David's history; until we come to the circumstances
which were immediately connected with the death of
Saul. From this silence, and from the fact that
David was all this time never more than a fugitive
and a refugee, we may fairly infer that Saul’s reign
was, on the whole, prosperous; and that, during all
these years, he had not been very much troubled with
the evil spirit. He seems, during these twenty-two
years, to have been endeavouring to free himself from
the dark terrors of superstition.
1 Sam. xxviii. 3.—“Now Samuel was dead............... and
Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the
wizards, out of the land.”
Upon which passage Matthew Henry’s Commentary is again well worth quoting :—“Perhaps, when
Saul was himself troubled with an evil spirit, he
suspected that he was bewitched; and for that reason,
cut off all that had familiar spirits.”
But, at length, the day of calamity came. The
possession of Ziklag had given David a fixed habita
tion, and a centre of power; and, according to the
chronicler, many of Saul’s best captains, and even some
of his kindred had gone there to bask in the rays of the
rising sun, and were now with David in' the enemy’s
country, and on the enemy’s side (1 Chrorn xii.
1-22). When, therefore, the Philistine army came
up against Saul, he found himself weakened by the
defection of those who ought to have been his most
reliable supporters; and, instead of his old warlike
spirit being roused, he felt only the sad forebodings
of defeat.
1 Sam. xxviii. 5, 6.—“And, when Saul saw the host of
�I IO
When was the Book Lost ?
the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled.
And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered
him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.”
By the visible approach of ruinous disaster, the
door was again opened for the return of superstition.
He beheld in the dangers with which he was threatened
the probable fulfilment of the curses uttered against
him by Samuel, about thirty years before; and, as
Samuel had wrought the spell, he seems to have
thought that if he could, even then, propitiate the
shade of the departed priest, perhaps the spell might
still be broken. But how should he find access to
the world of spirits, having long before renounced the
devil, and all his agents and works ! Like those
who, in much later days, doomed witches to the
stake, he had not been able to banish the belief from
his mind; although he had banished or destroyed
its professors from his kingdom : and so, in the time
of his sore distress, he managed, not without search
and difficulty, to find a witch; and, through her
intervention, he seems to have obtained the interview,
which he desired, with the ghost of Samuel. But,
by this time, no supernatural wisdom was needed to
discern the certainty of the coming destruction, as
Saul himself had already discerned it; and so the
interview only served to confirm his despair, (1 Sam.
xxviii. 7-20). On the following day, the army of
Israel was defeated, and Saul and his sons were slain,
—the victims of priestcraft and superstition ; for was
it not Samuel who had balefully instigated the am
bitious rivalry of David 1 and was it not Samuel who
had woven the mantle of gloom around the whole
life and spirit of Saul ?
1 Sam. xxxi. 6.—“ So Saul died, and his three sons, and
his armour-bearer, and all his men, that same day together.”
2 Sam. i. 19, 23, 27.—“ The beauty of Israel is slain upon
thy high places: how are the mighty fallen I . . . . Saul
and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and
�The Judges to Solomon.
111
in their death they were not divided: they were swifter
than eagles, they were stronger than lions. . . . How are
the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished 1 ”
As the result of their victory, the Philistines took
possession of some cities (1 Sam. xxxi 7); but did
not render their conquest complete : for we find that
Saul was succeeded in his kingdom by his surviving
son.
2 Sam. ii. 10, 11.—“ Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was forty
years old when he began to reign over Israel, and reigned
two years. But the house of Judah followed David. And
the time that David was king in Hebron, over the house of
Judah, was seven years and six months.”
2 Sam. v. 4, 5.—“ David was thirty years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he
reigned over Judah, seven years and six months; and in
Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years, over all Israel
and Judah.”
2 Sam. iii. 1.—“Now there was long war between the
house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed
stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker
and weaker.”
It is here that we come upon the first glaring
example of that bias and one-sidedness, which may
be clearly traced through the whole of the later
narrative in Chronicles; according to which, David
was at once unanimously chosen and accepted, as
king over all Israel. Immediately after the account
of Saul’s death, we read :—
1 Chron. xi. 1, 3.—“ Then all Israel gathered themselves
to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold we are thy bone and
thy flesh. . . . And David made a covenant with them in
Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David king over
Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.”
1 Chron. xii. 38.—“ All these men of war, that could
keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make
David king over all Israel; and all the rest also of Israel
were of one heart to make David king.”
1 Chron. xxix. 26, 27.—Thus David the son of Jesse
reigned over all Israel. And the time that he reigned over
�112
When was the Book Lost ?
Israel was forty years ; seven years reigned he in Hebron,
and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.”
In this book, we accordingly find not a word about
the long war between David and the house of Saul,
(2 Sam. ii. iii); for the same reason that it tells us
nothing about the murder and the adultery of which
David was. guilty in the case of Uriah the Hittite
(2 Sam. xi.); nor about the rebellion of Absalom
(2 Sam, xv. 14); in these points, and in very many
others, studiously hiding whatever might tarnish or
injure; and magnifying whatever might exalt the
glory and the sacerdotalism of David and of his
reign.
At length, after a long and undecisive struggle, in
the course of which Abner, the chief captain and
mainstay of the house of Saul, had been treacherously
murdered by Joab (2 Sam. iii. 23-27), who stood in
the same relation to David, the question was finally
and suddenly settled by men who, presuming on
Joab’s example, contrived to assassinate Ish-bosheth,
the reigning son of Saul.
2 Sam. iv. 6, 7.—“ And they came thither into the midst
of the house, as though they would have fetched wheat;
and they smote him under the fifth rib. . . . and slew him,
and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away
through the plain all night.”
They expected that David would acknowledge and
reward the service, which they considered had thus
been rendered to his cause; and, therefore, they
brought their own report, and Ish-bosheth’s head, to
David, but their high hopes were grievously disap
pointed.
2 Sam. iv. 10, 11.—“ When one told me, saying, Behold
Saul is dead (thinking to have brought good tidings) I took
hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I
would have given him a reward for his tidings. How much
more when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his
own house upon his bed,” &c.
�The Judges to Solomon.
113
The tribes of Israel being thus deprived, both of
their general and of their king, were now willing to
recognize the government of David, and to make him
king over them all.
2 Sam. v. 1, 3—“Then came all the tribes of Israel to
David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold we are thy
bone and thy flesh. . . . And king David made a league
with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed
David king over Israel.”
David was now firmly established on the throne of
a united nation; and his career was henceforth one
of conquest and of consolidation. His first success was
the taking of Jerusalem, which had hitherto been
occupied by the Jebusites.
2 Sam. v. 9, 10-—So David dwelt in the fort, and called
it the city of David. . . . And David went on, and grew
great: and the Lord God of hosts was with him.”
Up to this point in the history of David, we can
not find any trace of his worship, nor of his offering
sacrifice. On one or two occasions, he is said to have
enquired at God; and, in one or two cases priests
are mentioned, but that is all. David’s life had been
too restless, and too wild, for attending to Levitical
matters. But after he had fixed his residence in his
new capital; and after building for himself a house
there, with the assistance of Hiram king of Tyre;
after two successful wars with the Philistines; and
apparently after a series of marriages and births in
Jerusalem, (2 Sam. v. 11, 13, 17, 22); then David
thought of bringing up the ark of God from Gibeah,
where Saul had dwelt, (2 Sam. xxi. 6); and where,
therefore, the symbols of divinity, employed in Saul’s
worship, had their place.
2 Sam. vi. 4—“And they brought it out of the house of
Abinadab, which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of
God : and Ahio went before the ark.”
The ark was placed on a cart drawn by oxen, and
H
�114
When was the Book Lost ?
driven by Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab,
but when they had gone some distance, the oxen
stumbled, and Uzzah the driver took hold of the ark,
for the oxen shook it; for which presumption, Uzzah
was struck dead.
2 Sam. vi. 9—“And David was afraid of the Lord that
day ; and said, How shall the ark of God come to me ? ”
So he left it there, in the house of Obed-edom the
Gittite (man of Gath, 2 Sam. xxi. 19, 22) three
months; but, as no further harm came of it, he finally
brought it home, to the city of David.
2 Sam. vi. 13, 14—“And it was so, that when they that
bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed
oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the Lord
with all his might: and David was girded with a linen
ephod.”
In all this account, there is not a word of priests
or Levites, nor of anything at all Levitical; David
offered his own sacrifices, and is the only person said
to have worn the dress of a priest; but, in the book
of Chronicles, written six hundred years after the
event, we read —1 Chron. xv. 2—“Then David said, None ought to bear
the ark of God but the Levites: for them hath the Lord
chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him
for ever.”
And we have, accordingly, the whole chapter full
of Levitical arrangements; with classified lists of
about a thousand official personages, priests, Levites,
musicians, porters and doorkeepers, as these were
employed in the bringing up of the ark; and a remark
able reason for all this array is assigned.
1 Chron. xv. 13—“ For, because ye did it not at the first,
the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we
sought him not after the due order.”
By the 1 due order,’ which, according to this account
�The Judges to Solomon.
115
was so tardily remembered and observed by David,
is of course to be understood that which is described
in the Pentateuch.
Num. iv. 15—“ The sons of Kohath shall come to bear it
(the ark): but they shall not touch any holy thing lest
they die.”
Deut. x. 8—“ At that time, the Lord separated the tribe
of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to
stand before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless in
his name, unto this day.”
Of which ‘due order,’ it is certainly remarkable
that we can neither trace the observance nor the
conscious neglect, nor any recognition at all, in the
older narrative.
2 Sam. vi. 17—“And they brought in the ark of the
Lord, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle,
that David had pitched for it: and David offered burntofferings and peace-offerings before the Lord.”
1 Chron. xvi. 1—“So they brought the ark of God, and
set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it:
and they offered burnt-sacrifices and peace-offerings before
God.”
This is the earliest notice, to be found in the
historic books, of a tabernacle for the ark. When the
ark had been returned, after its capture by the
Philistines, and after it had remained a short time at
Beth-shemesh, where fifty thousand men were slain
for looking into it, we read
1 Sam. vii. 1, 2—“Andthe men of Kirjath-jearim came,
and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into
the house of Abinadab, in the hill, and sanctified Eleazer
his son to keep the ark of the Lord. And it came to pass,
while the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was
long : for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel
lamented after the Lord.”
But what practical result their lamentations had,
we are nowhere directly informed; the ark being
never again referred to, until the present occasion,
�116
When was the Book Lost ?
when David fetches it out of the house of Abinaddb.
If our maps of Palestine are correct, the house of
Abinadab at Gibeah could not be the same place, as
the house of Abinadab at Kirjath-jearim; otherwise
the ark would appear to have rested in that house
for about fifty years, having been brought thither,
before Saul was made king, and having remained
during his reign of forty years, and during the seven
years of David’s reign in Hebron ; but, as we are
told that the ark remained only twenty years at
Kirjath-jearim, and that the people then ‘lamented
after the Lord; ’ it appears almost certain, that the
ark and Abinadab had been removed together, at the
end of the twenty years, from that place to Gibeah
of Saul, in order that they might be near the royal
residence; just as David, in his turn, now brought
up the ark, from Gibeah of Saul, (2 Sam. xxi. 6), to
the city of David ; and placed it in the new taber
nacle, which he had made for it there. It thus
clearly appears, that the ark had not dwelt in a
tabernacle for fifty years ; and the building in which
the ark was kept, before its capture by the Philistines,
was not called a tabernacle, but a house or a temple.
1 Sam. i. 24—“And when she (Hannah) had weaned
him (Samuel) she brought him unto the bouse of the Lord
in Shiloh.”
1 Sam. i. 9.—“ Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of
the temple of the Lord.”
1 Sam. iii. 3.—“ And ere the lamp of God went out in the
temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel
was laid down to sleep.”
It is not to be supposed that such a man as Samuel
would, in the days of his power, have permitted the
ark to remain in an improper building, either at Kirjath-Jearim or at Shiloh, if he had viewed the
matter as the writers of the Pentateuch and of the
Chronicles did, and it cannot surely be argued that a
man who enjoyed such direct divine guidance and in
�The Judges to Solomon.
117
spiration could be ignorant of the laws regarding the
ark and the tabernacle, if these laws had previously
been given. (Num. xviii. 2, 3, &c.) We must, there
fore, conclude that neither the tabernacle nor the
laws relating to it were in existence in Samuel’s
time, and that the tabernacle which David made for
the ark was really the first of which we have any
authentic record. Having thus recalled all that can
be known regarding the previous history of the ark,
we can perhaps appreciate the significance of the fol
lowing quotation :—
1 Chron. ix. 22-24.—“All these, which were chosen to be
porters in the gates, were two hundred and twelve. These
were reckoned by their genealogy in their villages, whom
David, and Samuel the seer, did ordain in their set office.
So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of
the house of the Lord, namely, the house of the tabernacle, by
wards. In four quarters were the porters, toward the
east, west, north, and south, &c.”
A right understanding of this passage is the key to
the purpose and spirit of the whole of the Book of
Chronicles, and we trust that our readers can now
discern its true value.
According to the older narrative, the later portion
of David’s life was in all respects conformable to what
his earlier history had been—a continued series of
wars and vicissitudes, crimes and adventures, amidst
which we cannot find a single instance in which a
priest was at all employed by David, as the instru
ment or medium of his sacrifices or of his prayers.
David’s prayers and psalms were addressed by him
self direct to God, without the intervention of a
priest.
2 Sam. xxii. 1.—“ And David spake unto the Lord the
words of this song in the day the Lord had delivered him,
&c.”
In all respects David, according to this book, claimed
and exercised the right of being his own priest, as we
�11 8
When was the Book Lost ?
have seen that the old judges did, but which poor
Saul was condemned for doing; and in the old primi
tive fashion David offered his own sacrifices :—
2 Sam, xxiv. 18, 24, 25.—“ And Gad came that day to
David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the
Lord, in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. . . .
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty
shekels of silver (compare 1 Chron. xxi. 25). And David
built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered, burnt-offer
ings and peace-offerings.”
Priests, indeed, are only mentioned in two or three
passages, in all of which their position is clearly seen
to be subordinate, and their influence very small in
deed, as compared with that to which Samuel had laid
claim, and it would appear that the priests of those
days were very few, perhaps not more than two at a
time.
2 Sam. xx. 25.—“ And Sheva was scribe; and Zadok
and Abiathar were the priests.”
In a word, there is nothing at all L&vitical in the
older narrative, not a word in the whole of it about
Levites, nor about anything Levitical, but a natural
continuation of the old, simple, and personal worship
of Jehovah, as we have seen it under the judges; a
continuation also of the semi-barbarous and unsettled
state of the tribes, who were but slowly becoming
united as a nation. David’s reign was on the whole
victorious and prosperous; but as it was long dis
turbed by civil war at its commencement, so it was
afterwards rudely shaken by two other civil wars;
the first caused by the formidable and deep-laid rebel
lion of Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 10-14), and the second by
the revolt of the ten tribes under Sheba (2 Sam. xx.
1, 2, 22).
In this narrative we have also the account of a
famine, which seems to have immediately followed
these disturbances.
2 Sam. xxi. 1.—“ Then there was a famine in the days of
�The Judges to Solomon.
ii9
David three years, year after year; and David enquired of
the Lord. And the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for
his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.”
In order to atone for this old crime, which is no
where else recorded, seven grandsons of Saul were put
to death.
2 Sam. xxi. 9.—“ And he (David) delivered them into
the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them up in
the hill before, the Lord: and they fell all seven together,
and were put to death in the days of harvest.”
We must remark how nearly this resembles a human
sacrifice, the indication of the victims by divination,
the motive of the sacrifice as an “atonement” for
crime (ver. 3), to avert a great national evil, and the
“hanging up” (vulgate, “crucifying”) “before the
Lord,” in the hill or high place at G-ibeon, of which
we elsewhere read :—1 Kings iii. 4.—“And the king (Solomon) went to Gibeon
to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place.”
Strange that David’s recent crime, in the matter of
Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. xi. 15, 27), is not regarded
as the cause of the calamity, nor David’s inhuman
cruelty to the conquered Ammonites (2 Sam. xii. 31).
Strange that the famine was not attributed to the sin
or folly of the people in the two civil wars which im
mediately preceded it, and which may have even been
its natural producing cause. Strange that the nation
should now be punished with famine for the sin com
mitted many years before by Saul; but strangest of
all, that the innocent grandsons should be sacrificed
thus as an atonement for the crime of their ancestor.
We would rather not more particularly notice how
dishonouring to God was such a sacrifice; but we
must observe that in this matter David’s standard of
morality was far below that which is afterwards attrib
uted to his descendant Amaziah.
2 Kings xiv. 6.—“ But the children of the murderers he
�120
When was the Book Lost ?
slew not: according unto that which is written in the book
of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded saying,
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor
the children be put to death for the fathers; but every man
shall be put to death for his own sin.” (Deut. xxiv. 16.)
It would appear that these seven were all the sur
viving descendants of Saul except one.
2 Sam. xxi. 7.—“ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the
son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the Lord’s oath
that was between them, between David and Jonathan the
son of Saul.”
2 Sam. ix. 13.—“ So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem,
for he did eat continually at the king’s table; and was lame
on both his feet."
There is ample ground for supposing, that Mephi
bosheth may have been as much indebted to his lame
ness, as to the oath of David, for the clemency extended
to him; seeing that David’s oath to Saul was insuf
ficient to protect those who might have become David’s
rivals.
1 Sam. xxiv. 21,22.—“Swear now therefore unto me
by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me,
and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father’s
house. And David sware unto Saul.”
According to the earlier narrative, every incident
of David’s history only serves to fill up the picture of
him, as a rude, warlike, and cruel king ; whose grand
merit was that he was at length victorious over all his
enemies, and that he worshipped no other god but
Jehovah. His last dying words to Solomon, his suc
cessor, bear witness to the spirit that was in him
stronger than death.
1 Kings ii, 8-10.—“ And, behold thou hast with thee
Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which
cursed me with a grievous curse, in the day when I went to
Mahanaim : but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I
sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to
death with the sword (2 Sam. xix. 16-23). Now therefore
�The Judges to Solomon.
12 1
hold him not guiltless; for thou art a wise man, and kuowest what thou oughtest to do unto him ; but his hoar head
bring thou down to the grave with blood. So David slept
with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.”
As represented by this authority, David’s worship
was as unlevitical, and his character at least as im
moral, as those of any wicked king in the whole
history ; but it does not appear that his irregularities
were known to be defects by the historian :
1 Kings xv. 5.—“ Because David did that which was
right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from
anything that he commanded him all the days of his life,
save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”
So that, with the exception of this one great sin,
David’s life and worship, as portrayed in the books
of Samuel and Kings, must be regarded as fairly ex
hibiting the standard of religion and of morality in
his time, and in the time of the writer, or writers,
of this history. But, if we now turn to the book of
Chronicles, we find that, both with regard to worship
and to manners, the standard has become very different,
and that David’s piety and prosperity are alike greatly
magnified. Here there is no record of the civil wars
and rebellions, nor of the murders of Ishbosheth and
of Abner, nor of the sacrifice of the grandsons of Saul,
nor of the legacy of treacherous revenge which was
bequeathed to Solomon ; but the last words recorded
of David are pious and devotional (1 Chron. xxix.
19, 20), and Bathsheba is only once mentioned, not
as the adulterous wife of Urijah, but as the mother
of Solomon and the daughter ofAmmiel (1 Chron. iii. 5).
David is here represented, as reigning over all Israel,
in uninterrupted triumph, without domestic strife, or
taint of immorality, all the time from the death of
Saul to the accession of Solomon. In this account
David no longer appears ignorant or indifferent about
Levitical matters. Besides the appointment of nearly
a thousand Levites for the service of the ark, when it
�122
When was the Book Lost ?
was first brought up to the City of David, we read of
extensive preparations for the building of the temple
(1 Chron. xxii., xxix.); and of a vast multitude of
Levitical arrangements for the future temple service.
1 Chron. xxiii. 1-5.—“ So, when David was old and full
of days, he made Solomon his son king over Israel, and he
gathered together all the princes of Israel, with the priests
and the Levites. Now the Levites were numbered from the
age of thirty years and upwards; and their number by their
polls, man by man, was thirty and eight thousand. Of
which, twenty and four thousand were to set forward the
work of the house of the Lord; and six thousand were
officers and judges. Moreover, four thousand were porters ;
and four thousand praised the Lord, with the instruments
which I made (said David) to praise therewith, &c., &c.”
Tbe contrast between the two pictures, when thus
compared, is so very glaring, that it is absolutely
impossible to give both writers credit for accurate
information and fidelity to truth; especially when
we find, that their statements not only differ, but
even contradict each other. If we remember that
David was emphatically an early king ; and, if we
consider the rude material out of which the nation
was growing, as that material is shown to us in the
books of Judges and of Samuel; we cannot fail to
conclude that the earlier narrative, being nearer in
point of time, as well as simpler and more primitive
in its description, has a much greater semblance and
probability of truth, than the later one—in which we
have constantly present, a manifest partiality; and,
constantly reflected, the full-blown Levitism or Sacer
dotalism of a much later age. There is internal
evidence, that the books of Chronicles were written
after the Babylonish Captivity.
1 Chron. ix. 1.—“ So all Israel were reckoned by gene
alogies ; and, behold, they were written in the book of the
kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon
for their transgression.”
�The Judges to Solomon.
123
And so far as we know, commentators are agreed
in regarding these books as written under the direction,
if not by the hand, of Ezra the scribe ; who ruled in
Jerusalem just six hundred years after David.
Ezra vii. 10, 12.—“For Ezra had prepared his heart
to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in
Israel statutes and judgments............... Ezra the priest, a
scribe of the law of the God of heaven............ ”
On the other hand, there is both internal and ex
ternal evidence that the earlier narrative has been
compiled, not without some editorial touches, from
the successive records of contemporary prophets,
Samuel, Nathan, Gad, (1 Chron. xxix. 29), Ahijah,
Iddo, (2 Chron. ix. 29), Shemaiah, (2 Chron. xii. 15),
Jehu, (2 Chron. xx. 34), and Isaiah, (2 Chron. xxvi. 22).
Seeing that it is impossible to believe two entirely
different, and often contradictory, histories, we are
compelled either to reject them both, or to make a
selection, and to prefer that which appears to be the
more genuine ; being written nearer, in point of time,
to the events recorded, and possessing the more in
herent probability. It seems to be indubitable that the
earlier narrative contains, throughout, a much more
truthful representation than the later. But can we not
also discern the motive and purpose of the difference 1
The early writers appear to have recorded their own
impressions of events which they witnessed, or which
happened in their own time; while the later historian
had a more complicated task. He had before him a
code of laws, purporting to have come down from
remote antiquity ; with which, therefore, the ancient
history of his nation, and especially of its pious kings,
must be made to harmonize, and this is just the task
which the Chronicler, according to his lights, and to
the best of his ability, has endeavoured to accomplish.
These very discrepancies, therefore, and the uniform
sacerdotal bias, which is manifest in them all, are in
themselves proofs, that the author of Chronicles was
�124
When was the Book Lost 1
acquainted with the Mosaic law, which to the authors
of the earlier books was unknown; and if so, the law
must have been produced, or greatly developed,
between the dates of the two writings.
Neither David nor his prophets knew that it was
unlawful for the king to have many wives; or the
prophet Nathan, speaking in God's name, would not
have ignored this law.
2 Sam. xii. 7, 8.—“ Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out
of the hand of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house,
Ind thy master’s wives into thy bosom.”
2 Sam. v. 13.—“ And David took him more concubines
and wives, out of Jerusalem, after he was come from
Hebron.”
Deut. xvii. 17.—“ Neither shall he multiply wives unto
himself, that his heart turn not away.”
David must have been ignorant also of the law
that, for any one but a priest of the family of Aaron,
to presume to offer sacrifice was a crime to be
punished with death.
Num. xviii. 7.—“ Therefore thou and thy sons with thee
shall keep your priest’s office for everything of the altar, and
within the veil, and ye shall serve ; I have given your
priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger
that cometh nigh shall be put to death.”
We have direct proof that neither Samuel, David,
nor any of the kings ever observed the feast of taber
nacles, and we cannot attribute this neglect to ignor
ance of an existing law on the part of men who were
led and taught by direct communications from heaven;
nor to the wilful disobedience of those whose piety
is recorded with unqualified approbation.
Nehem. viii. 14, 17, 18.—“ And they found written in
the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the
children of Israel should dwell in booths, in the feast of the
seventh month (Lev. xxiii. 34 and 42). And all the congre
gation, of them that were come again out of the captivity,
�The 'Judges to Solomon.
125
made booths, and sat under the booths: for, since the days
of Jeshua, the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the
children of Israel done so. And there was very great glad
ness. Also, day by day, from the first day unto the last,
he read in the book of the law of God.”
We have seen that David did not know the law,
that children should not be put to death for the sin
of their fathers; and, according to the history, he
must have been a worshipper, or at least must have
allowed the worship, of the brazen serpent, to which
incense was burned, until it was destroyed by king
Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4). So far we have positive
proof that David was ignorant of the law ; but, as
might be expected from the nature of the case, the
negative evidence of his ignorance is more abundant,
and must be regarded as equally conclusive. We find
in David’s history not a single trace of the passover,
of the tithes, of the jubilee, of the Sabbatical year,
nor of the reading of the law to the people every
seventh year, as Ezra did in the feast of tabernacles,
(Deut. xxxi. 10, 11). Strangest of all, we find no
recognition of the Sabbath day, save only once, when
the word ‘ Sabbaths ’ occurs in the later book.
1 Chron. xxiii. 81.—“And to offer all burnt-sacrifices
unto the Lord, in the Sabbaths, in the new moons, and on
the set feasts, by number, according to the order commanded
unto them.”
From all this we think it clearly appears that
David, the ‘ man after God’s own heart/ so far as can
be judged from his history, was not guided by the
Mosaic Law.
There is a great difficulty in the way of adducing
evidence from the Psalms, because there is so much
uncertainty and difference of opinion, as to the various
authorship and dates of these poetical writings. It is
manifest that some of them were written after the
return from Babylon (Psalm cxxxvii. 1); so that the
times of their production must have extended over at
�126
When was the Book Lost ?
least six hundred years; and it is well known that
the titles prefixed to some of them, are in many cases
of doubtful authority; there being even internal
evidence that psalms inscribed with the name of
David were written at a much later time (Psalm xiv.
7). It is, on this account, all the more remarkable,
that in none, of the Psalms is there any allusion to
the Sabbath day; and that in none which can, on
any grounds, be ascribed to David or to his time,
is there anything at all Levitical; nor any allusion to
the manifold observances of the ceremonial law. In
a few of the psalms, to which an early date is
attributed, laws, precepts, and commandments are
referred to (Psalm xix. 8 and 9); but, when we con
sider how very indefinite these expressions are, and
how uncertain is the authorship or date of any
particular psalm, it must be felt that such instances
have no weight at all against the mass of historical
evidence which we have reviewed. We are informed
that Samuel wrote a book of laws, which David would
doubtless regard as divine. We may assume that
David also had the two tables of stone, which Solomon
afterwards found in the ark. We cannot doubt that
David himself felt or believed that he enjoyed direct
guidance and instruction from God; and these con
siderations may sufficiently explain his devotional
admiration for God’s law; but we think it is clear,
beyond the possibility of doubt, that David had not
that book of the law which Hilkiah discovered, which
Ezra obeyed, and which has been transmitted to us.
It is, however, abundantly evident, both from the
history and from the psalms, that David worshipped
and promoted the worship of Jehovah alone; and
that by his example and influence in this respect; by
his bringing the ark to a temporary building in his
new capital; and by leaving his son Solomon in wealth
and prosperity; he prepared the way for the building
of the temple, for the institution of the temple service,
�Summary and Conclusion.
127
and for the establishment of the hierarchy of priests
and. Levites; who, to magnify their office, to increase
their emoluments, to extend their power, and, in a
word, to imitate Samuel, began immediately to build
that edifice of sacerdotalism, which we now have
before us in the ‘ Mosaic Law.’
I trust that I have been able to lay before my readers
such a view of the history of Samuel and of David, as
is fitted to throw no small amount of light on the ques
tion as to the alleged early date and Mosaic authorship
of the book which Hilkiah discovered or produced.
CHAPTER VII.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
Having now passed in review the history of Judah
anterior to the finding of the book, through all its
stages, extending back to the pre-historic and legend
ary beginnings of the national existence, we have
only briefly to retrace and summarize the argument,
in order that we may the more clearly discern the
conclusion to which it points. In the earliest period
which preceded the opening of the continuous history,
and which lay very near to the ostensible date of the
great lawgiver, we should naturally expect the book
of the law to have occupied a prominent place, and to
be recognised by the notice of its observance, or else
of its guilty neglect, in every incident recorded; in
stead of which, it is precisely in this period that no
trace whatever of the law can be found, not even in
its germ. There is in this long time not the slightest
suggestion of the exclusive right of the family of
Aaron to minister at the altar, nor any trace of such
a right having ever before been asserted. The wor-
�128
Summary and Conclusion.
ship which the religious men of that age offered to
God with manifest and conscious acceptance was the
very same as that which the law afterwards de
nounced as impious, and as meriting the punishment
of death.
So far as we can judge, this primitive worship seems
to have been purer and more spiritual than that by
which it was succeeded. The judges did not dance
before the ark, nor offer their sacrifices to it; images
or symbols were not always employed ; no special
worthiness was ascribed to any one particular image,
nor was it considered necessary to bring the sacrifice
before any image, nor to any particular place.
What the distinctive office of the priest was in
those early times, the history does not show, and
therefore it can only be surmised. Clearly it was not
strictly peculiar nor exclusive, but probably consisted
in offering combined sacrifices for people who were
too poor, or too ignorant, or who otherwise felt them
selves unworthy or unfit to approach God on their
own account; but certainly it did not at all exclude
nor supersede the right of every man to be his own
priest, and to worship God when, where, and how he
chose, without the intervention of any mediator.
In all probability, however, the exercise of this
natural right was generally confined to the chieftains
or leading men, or to a few of the bolder or more en
lightened minds, while the common people would, as
a rule, resort to the ministry of the priests. Both
priests and people in such a case would almost
inevitably regard the independent worship of the
few, with some degree of jealousy, as savouring of
presumption. Now, what changes might naturally be
expected to follow when the priest’s office became
combined with that of the supreme magistrate?
Exactly those which the history records. The ex
clusive rights and privileges of the priesthood were
then asserted and vindicated, and the superstitious
�Summary and Conclusion.
129
veneration for the particular symbols or images
employed by the priest in his worship was greatly
increased.
When the monarchy was instituted a conflict was
unavoidable. It was simply impossible for Saul to be
king, and to submit to the insolent arrogance of
Samuel; but the people were determined to be
governed by a king, and so the proud priest was
compelled to submit, but submitted under a solemn
and vigorous protest; and though the high aims and
claims which had been asserted for the priesthood
had long to remain in various degrees of abeyance,
they were never abandoned nor lost sight of by
Samuel’s successors in office. Neither David nor
Solomon yielded anything like the same degree of
submission to the priesthood, as that which had been
yielded by Saul and rejected as insufficient by Samuel;
but the building of the temple and the establishment
of its regular priesthood laid the foundation of a new
power, whose progress and growth through many
vicissitudes coincided exactly with the gradual de
velopment of the Levitical law, as may be clearly
traced through the several stages of the history.
We are far from supposing that the policy of the
priests was instigated only by their desire for the
aggrandizement of their own order. Doubtless they
had also a zeal towards God, and believed sincerely
that His honour and glory were bound up with their
own dignity and prosperity as a church, and that He
could be truly and acceptably worshipped only through
their ordained ministry, and only by the rites and
ceremonies of the temple service at Jerusalem.
Strange as seems the combination of human pride
with religious zeal, it has been far too common to be
surprising. So far, indeed, from being extraordinary,
it has been exemplified in every age, and in every
country, varying only in degree, according to the
ignorance or enlightenment of the people, and accordI
�i jo
Summary and Conclusion.
ing to the various predominance of independent
thought or of superstitious credulity.
We are thus restrained from utterly condemning,
and even from greatly wondering at the course taken
by the temple priesthood, in teaching first, that God
could be worshipped under no other name, and by no
other symbols than those which they employed;
second, that they, the priests, were the mediators
through whom alone God could be approached with
acceptance; and third, that their temple at Jerusalem
was the only place in all the world where acceptable
worship could be offered to God.
These doctrines were not of simultaneous growth.
The first was undoubtedly believed by David, while
the other two were unknown or disregarded. Al
though the second had been held and maintained by
Samuel, it was manifestly set aside by all the early
kings, and the first clear instance of its resuscitation
is not found till the reign of Uzziah, when the priest
again rebuked the king for presuming to offer sacri
fice. The third must have been entirely unknown
even to Samuel, by whom it was habitually trans
gressed. It seems to have been very long a matter of
zealous and jealous ambition to the priesthood, be
cause in each successive reign we are told that even
when the king was pious and orthodox in other
things, “ Nevertheless, the high places were not
taken away;” and as this occurs chiefly in the earlier
narrative, we may, perhaps, infer that the advocates
of this new doctrine had very long tried to obtain for
it the sanction and authority of the civil power before
they were able to succeed. It was not till the third
reformation under Hezekiah that this doctrine became
law. When local worship was prohibited the high
places were destroyed, and the people were compelled
to bring all their sacrifices and offerings to the temple
at Jerusalem. These three doctrines may be regarded
as the heads under which nearly all the minor provi-
�Summary and Conclusion.
131
sions of the Levitical law may be distributed. From
the first it followed, as a matter of course, that to
worship or acknowledge the God or gods of any other
nation in the world was rank heresy and idolatry.
From the second, it necessarily resulted that as the
numbers and needs of the priesthood increased, a per
manent and liberal provision must be made for their
support in dignity and independence. The third led,
in the first place, to the legal institution of the great
national festivals at Jerusalem, and afterwards to the
enactment of a multiplicity of sacrifices, ceremonies,
and observances, in order that each of the many
priests employed about the one temple might have
some appointed duty or position, that their sacred
office might in all respects be magnified, and that
they might have as frequently as possible occasion to
receive contributions from the people, no rule being
more frequently insisted on than that none should
appear before the Lord empty. Whatever the priests
taught, it was, of course, condemnable heresy to
doubt; but it does not at all follow that they formed
either for themselves or for others any such theories
of plenary inspiration as those which have been
applied to their writings by modern divines, nor can
we suppose that their infallibility was at any time
during the monarchy undoubted, though it may at
times have appeared irresistible. Absolute intolerance
seems to have produced submission and external con
formity, and must have also tended to weaken the
very faculty of private judgment in the people. But
the fact that so many were always eager to throw off
the yoke of orthodoxy, whenever the liberty to do so
was accorded them, proves undeniably that, though all
open heresy or dissent might be effectually smothered
or crushed by intolerance, yet private scepticism and
differences of opinion must always have been very
widespread and lively.
Historical accuracy and critical analysis are entirely
�I 32
Summary and Conclusion.
modern acquirements; and are still, with very rare
exceptions, only beginning to be understood. That
a historian is guilty of dishonesty, in colouring, or
concealing, or adding to the ascertained facts, is an
idea, such as would probably never be conceived, by
priests or by people, among the ancient Jews, nor
among the ancient Britons. We suppose that the
priestly historian would not only consider himself to
be at liberty, but would even regard it as his duty,
so to write, as to magnify the goodness and the glory
of the orthodox kings, priests, and heroes, to confirm
and illustrate the doctrines taught by himself and by
his order; and to exhibit all that might be unfavour
able to these worthy ends, in the smallest or most
adverse light.
It would be difficult to find, anywhere, a clearer
example, or a more conclusive proof of this want
of the notion of accuracy, than is to be seen in the
placing of the books of Chronicles, side by side
with those of Samuel and of Kings, in the sacred
canon; and in the fact that both narratives have
been read by millions, and read many times, without
any discernment of their incongruities and contra
dictions ; either by the Jewish Priests and Babbis
who included them both in their Bible; or by the
vast majority of readers, ancient and modem. These
considerations may help us, in some measure, to
understand how it was, that, when Hilkiah announced
his discovery of the book, containing, as it did, many
old and well known laws, legends, customs, and
religious rites, combined with many new additions
and enlargements, a critical examination was not the
test, which, even ostensibly, it was thought necessary
to apply to his production; and how the oracular
deliverance of Huldah the prophetess, being declared
sufficient, by the king and by the priests, was
by the people received as infallible and conclusive
proof, when backed by such authority, that the book
�Summary and Conclusion.
133
which had been found was indeed what it professed
to be, “ the book of the law of the Lord given by
Moses.”
I have a strong conviction that the arguments deduc
ible from the historic books, which I have endeavoured
to lay before my readers, are amply and alone
sufficient to prove that the so-called Mosaic law had
its growth under the monarchy; and that it was
not completed before the reign of Josiah.
*
If my
exhibition of these arguments has failed to produce
conviction; the fault, I believe, must lie in the weak
ness and inefficiency of my statement, of which I am
deeply conscious. It may, however, be necessary to
remind some of my readers, that, in the testimony of
the prophets, and in the contents of the Pentateuch, other
fields lie open, yielding, even without the aid of
Hebrew scholarship, evidence, at least as strong and
as abundant, as that which has been here considered,
and all pointing to the same inevitable conclusion,
that the belief, hitherto regarded as orthodox, in the
Mosaic authorship, and early date of the Levitical
law, has been, after all, a popular delusion.
The immediate effect, and much of the purpose
of Hilkiah’s discovery, was greatly to increase
and to confirm the power of the priests; and to
multiply their exactions from the people. Tithes,
first-fruits, trespass-offerings, thank-offerings, and
others, were now enforced by the law. The first
born son, and the first-born of all cattle, were either
* I have not at all entered upon the question, as to whether
not the finding of the book was the final and complete de
velopment of the Levitical law, as it has been transmitted
to us. The dogma of infallibility may not even then have
been so clearly conceived and defined, as to prevent the possi
bility of later alterations and additions. Some of the evidence
here adduced, (for instance the quotation from Nehemiah on
page 124), seems to suggest this; but at present I express no
opinion on the subject, further than that the Pentateuch as we
have it was not completed before the reign of Josiah ; and this
is what I hope that I have demonstrated.
or
�134
Summary and Conclusion.
to be given up, or else to be redeemed with money,
according to fixed rules and rates (Lev. xxvii. 3); and
innumerable ceremonial observances and purifications
were made legally binding, in most of which the
services of the priesthood were indispensable. Life
would thus be rendered intolerable to any man who
should forfeit the favour of the priests; and we can
understand how the apostle Peter appealed only to
the well-known and universal sentiment of his hearers,
when he described the whole system as an intolerable
yoke, which neither they nor their fathers had been
able to bear (Acts xv. 10); and how the apostle Paul
referred to the same as a “ yoke of bondage ” (Gal.
v. 1-3).
Doubtless there would be sceptics when this law
was promulgated; but we should scarcely expect
their scepticism to be recorded by the orthodox
historians, or motives of prudence may have sufficed
entirely to prevent them from uttering their doubts.
Those were not the times for asserting with im
punity the rights of private judgment, and of
religious equality. Small chance for dissenters when
the priests were in power, and when the covenant of
intolerance was to be renewed !
Yet we may hear the voice of at least one bold
Protestant sounding still, over the long intervening
ages, if we will but listen to distinguish what he says.
Jeremiah was a prophet in Judea, if not in Jeru
salem, at the very time of Hilkiah’s great discovery.
Jerem. i. 1-8.—“ The words of Jeremiah, ... to whom
the word of the Lord came, in the days of Josiah, the son
of Amon, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also
in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah.”
And, surely, lie was no enemy of the truth; but,
in Jeremiah’s prophecies, we find not the slightest
recognition, much less any triumphant proclamation,
of the sacred treasure, the book of the law, which
was in his days brought to light. On the contrary,
�Summary and Conclusion.
135
we may learn, from the scorn and indignation with
which he
speaks of the priests, his contem
poraries, that he was utterly opposed to the policy
of ambition and selfish aggrandizement, which seems
to have been a large ingredient in their religious zeal.
In other words, Jeremiah was a Protestant.
Jerem. i. 18.—“Behold, I have made thee this day a
defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against
the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes
thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people
of the land.”
Jerem. iii. 15, 16.—“ I will give you pastors according
to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and
understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye be
multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith
the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant
of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind, neither shall
they remember it, neither shall they visit it, neither shall
that be done any more. {Marginal reading, Neither shall
it be magnified any more.)”
Jerem. vi. 13.—“ From the least of them even unto the
greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness ; and
from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth
falsely.”
Jerem. vii. 4,11, 21, 22.—“ Trust ye not in lying words,
saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The
temple of the Lord are these.
“ Is this house, which is called by my name, become a
den of robbers in your eyes? Behold even I have seen it,
saith the Lord.
“ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put
your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For
I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concern
ing burnt-offerings or sacrifices.”
Jerem. viii. 8.—“How do ye say, We are wise, and the
law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly the false pen of
the scribes worketh for falsehood." {Marginal reading.')
Jerem. xviii. 18.—“Then said they, Come, and let us
devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish
from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from
the prophet; come, and let us smite him with the tongue,
and let us not give heed to any of his words.”
�136
Reflections and Inferences.
Jerem. xx. 1, 2.—“Now Pashur the son. of Immer the
priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord,
heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then Pashur
smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that
were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house
of the Lord.”
Jerem. xxiii. 11.—“For both prophet and priest are
profane ; yea, in my house, have I found their wickedness,
saith the Lord.”
Lam. iv. 13.—“ For the sins of her prophets, and the
iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just
in the midst of her.”
From this constant antagonism it is clear that Jere
miah would not expect himself to be regarded as be
longing to the party of the priesthood; and we can well
understand the reason why he was not so regarded by
them, and why they did not think of asking for his
opinion or suggestions on the subject of their great dis
covery. Or perhaps Jeremiah was not then at Jerusa
lem, and his absence would be most opportune; but
with Huldah the case was different, and her counsel
might be relied upon. With Huldah the prophetess
they communed, when sent by the king to inquire of
God. Jeremiah, however, gave his opinion unsought;
and happily it remains on record, to open our eyes,
even at the present day !—
Jerem. v. 30, 31.—“A wonderful and horrible thing is
committed in the land ; the prophets prophesy falsely, and
the priests bear rule
their means; and my people love
to have it so : and what will ye do in the end thereof ? ”
CHAPTER VIII.
REFLECTIONS AND INFERENCES.
The evidence from the historical books of the Bible,
which in the foregoing chapters has been collected
�Reflections and Inferences.
137
and compared, exhibits, unless I have greatly failed
in my presentation of it, how utterly false and
unworthy of an enlightened people is the superstition,
that the entire Bible is the Holy, Authoritative,
Infallible Word of God.
Training, tradition, custom, and prejudice are
powerful influences, and the sentiments which are
nourished and appealed to by these are proverbially
difficult to overcome; but no one can doubt or refuse
to admit that the love of truth is infinitely nobler and
purer than any of these, and that this ought to be
our supreme rule and guide, never outrivalled nor
controlled by any other sentiment, in moulding our
intellectual conclusions. The vast majority of men, how
ever, seem to have been so trained as to make the love
of truth entirely subordinate, in their minds, to various
other sentiments. Multitudes are thus so blinded
with the veil of emotional attachment or traditional
submission to a standard of supreme external
authority, as to put darkness for light and light for
darkness,—calling evil good, and good evil,—false
hood truth, and truth falsehood; being all the time
wise in their eyes and prudent in their own sight.
(Isaiah v. 20, 21.)
The possibility of honestly and sincerely yielding
this submission of the intellect is not easily realized
by those whose minds are free, but, having long
experienced it, I know that it is a reality ; and there
fore I am very far from thinking that all who still
acknowledge the veil are dishonest or insincere in
doing so.
Micah vi. 8—“ Godhath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good:
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? ”
All real instruction, in the Bible and out of it,
proceeds on the assumption that we have the faculty
given us by God, but like all our other faculties
�138
Reflections and Inferences.
requiring cultivation, of judging for ourselves what
things are honest, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, and
of good report; else it would be useless and absurd
to bid us think on these things, (Phil. iv. 8). It
must, therefore, be either hypocrisy or delusion to
profess a belief that God is infinitely perfect in power,
wisdom, justice, goodness, holiness, and truth, while at
the same time, or even in the same breath, thoughts,
words, and actions are attributed to Him, which, if
we dare to weigh them in the balance of our reason,
God’s gift for our guidance, are necessarily judged to
be of an entirely opposite character.
To believe the written or spoken assertion of
prophet, priest, or layman, ancient or modern, that
God has willed or said or done anything which to
our reason appears false, evil, or capricious, is to
believe man rather than God,—it is to put darkness
for light, and light for darkness,—and it is directly
opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, even when it may
seem to be in accordance with its letter-, for it upholds
bondage, and darkness, and fear, instead of liberty,
light, and love; and renders impossible the worship
of Our Father in spirit and in truth.
God is not a man that He should lie. He abideth
faithful, and cannot deny Himself. It must be
instructive, it can do no harm, and cannot be wrong,
to search out, to consider, and to compare whatever
men, in any age, have seriously thought or said or
written concerning God and His dealings with our
race. But to believe that God has left us to grope for
all our knowledge of Him among the Biblical records,
various, incongruous, and often contradictory, of
ancient oriental opinions and superstitions, savours
quite as much of anti-christian infidelity as does the
creed of the Parsee, the Brahmin, or the Budhist;
because all these alike involve ignorance or disbelief
of the direct and immediate revelation, which God
is ever making to and in ourselves, of His constant
�Reflections and Inferences.
139
presence, power, goodness, and truth, in and over all
His works.
The Roman Catholic is required, and professes to
make an entire surrender of his private judgment to
the authority of the church or of the Pope. For him,
the question, What is truth ? is only another form of
expression for, What does the Pope teach ?
The very orthodox, among those who call them
selves Protestants, yield the same submission to the
doctrines of the Bible; and, with them, the question,
What is truth 1 is reverently made subordinate to
the enquiry, What does the Bible teach ? If the
utterance of the Bible is regarded as clear and
indisputable; then, beyond controversy, and without
further search, that is the truth. But, when the
teaching is obscure, or variously interpreted; when
conflicting views of the same passage have to be
compared; or when apparently conflicting passages
have to be weighed against each other; to what
tribunal must we appeal ? Let us take for example
the teaching of the Bible on the subject of slavery.
Lev. xxv. 44, 46.—“ Both thy bondmen, and thy bond
maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that
are round about you ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
bondmaids. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for
your children after you, to inherit them for a possession :
they shall be your bondmen for ever ; but over your breth
ren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another
with rigour.”
So far from being repealed in the New Testament,
this law receives everywhere confirmation.
1 Tim. vi. 1—“ Let as many servants (slaves) as are
under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all
honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not
blasphemed.”
Recognizing the right of Philemon as a slave-owner,
Paul sent the converted fugitive Onesimus back to
his master; and, in accordance with the law, thus
�140
Reflections and Inferences.
confirmed and illustrated, the whole Christian church
continued, for many centuries, not only to tolerate,
but to practise and to encourage slavery as a divine
institution. The church all along read, just as we
do, that other law :—
Mat. vii. 12.—“ All things, whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is
the law and the prophets.”
But no difficulty was experienced in so explaining
this precept that it should not interfere with the old
law. Until modern times, the church had no conscience
of the sin of enslaving the heathen. What, then,
enables us to say that the church was wrong ? Upon
what authority have we condemned and abolished
slavery, notwithstanding the express terms of the
old law, the apostolic sanction, and the example of
the early church 1 *
Again let us consider those passages, where it is said
that evil spirits, or lying spirits, were sent forth by
God, with the direct commission to lead men into sin
and misery, (see pp. 101, 102) as compared with the
New Testament doctrine :—
James i. 13, 14—“ Let no man say, when he is tempted,
* A venerable and learned friend, to whom the manuscript
of this essay has been submitted, says in his remarks on this
concluding chapter :—“ The only view which I do not quite
accept, is that of St. Paul’s dealing with slavery. Slavery is
primarily a political institution, as much as despotism. Both
are infringements on the rights of man, and contrary to pure
morality. But it was not St. Paul’s duty, and it would have
been very wrong of him, to have inculcated a doctrine which
would have led to a civil war, or one that would have excited
a rebellion against Casar. His office led him to implant and
foster those moral principles, which in time would undermine
both slavery and tyranny. The kidnapper av^pairo^urT^ is
classed by him amongst the vilest of the vile.” (1 Tim. i. 10.)
The truth and justice of these observations I most cordially
admit, assuming, as I suppose my friend does, that the
Apostle was merely a wise, good, earnest discerner and
teacher of the truth as applicable to his own generation;
�Reflections and Inferences.
141
am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with
neither tempteth he any man ; but every man is
tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
enticed.”
I
evil,
And let us ask ourselves what guide we follow in
determining that the older views are dishonouring to
God, and must therefore be rejected, explained away,
or ignored as much as possible.
How is it that Christians can contemplate with
credulity the frequent commands said to have been
given by God to his ancient people, to massacre and
destroy, without mercy, man and woman, young and
old, infant and suckling, while they would not only
regard it as heathenish and blasphemous to attribute
such doings, at the present day, to the command of
God, but would denounce the spirit of such deeds as
diabolical and inhuman 1 (1 Sam. xv. 2, 3; Josh. x.
28-40, &c.)
Is there any reason why the song of Deborah, or
the 109th Psalm, can be read with a kind of mistily
explanative approval, having been written three
thousand years ago; while the same sentiments,
uttered by a poet of to-day, would be condemned
with horror and disgust ? In such cases—and they
or as he describes himself,—“ an able minister of the New
Testament, not of the letter but of the. spirit, for the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. iii. 6.) But if the
letter of his writings be regarded as, in every word and
sentence, infallibly expressing the mind and will of God,
then it appears to me that the apostolic sanction and example
may, till the end of the world, be logically quoted, as in fact
they have long and largely been, in support of the sinful and
accursed institution, and against those who labour for its
overthrow, or who encourage and aid the escape of run-away
slaves.
My controversy is not with Paul, but with those who
place him and other writers of the Bible in a false light, by
erroneously ascribing to the language of their writings
attributes of infallibility and enduring authority, which
they do not claim for themselves, and which belong to God
alone.
�142
Reflections and Inferences.
are very numerous—what is it that enables us to
decide that this is right, and that that is wrong?
When two opposite standards thus seem to be set
up; or when the doctrines of the Bible are explained
in two or more contradictory senses, by different
ages, by different churches, or by different men;
what is it that enables us to make our choice ?
Many there are, as has been said, who have never
made any such choice at all, who have never felt
themselves called upon to choose, for whom the
choice has been made by others, and who are content
to receive their faith at second or third hand from
those who happen to be their parents, pastors, or
teachers, without any question or doubt. In such
persons the faculty of private judgment has either
never been aroused, or else has been deliberately
surrendered at the feet of those believed to have
authority. That this submission is not yielded to
authority, but only to superior knowledge, is no real
distinction, but one which only serves to blind the
mind to the fact of submission. The submission of
the Roman Catholic, so far as it is genuine, and not
merely external, is also rendered to superior know
ledge—to that combination of divine and human
wisdom, which he is taught to recognize in the
Church, or in its Head. The infallibility of the
Pope may be a delusion; but then so may be the
superior enlightenment ascribed to other teachers or
churches by those Protestants who are content to
hold fast that which they are taught, without caring
to prove all things for themselves. Even supposing
that all Protestant Churches were united into one
church of uniform doctrine, such passive submission
to its teaching would not, on that account, be the
less foolish and injurious; but, when we consider how
many and various are the sects and denominations in
this country and elsewhere, all calling themselves
Protestant, and all professing to derive their doctrines
�Reflections and Inferences.
143
only from the Bible; when we reflect that there is
not one, even the most fundamental doctrine of the
Christian faith, about which earnest and learned
Protestant men have not greatly differed; it becomes
indeed amazing, to behold with what assured com
placency the adherents of each particular creed,
church, or party, cherish the conviction that the
teaching of their teachers alone is right; and that
all others are wrong; or only right in so far as
agreement or resemblance to their own can be traced.
When a man leaves the duty of proving all things
to his church, or to his teachers, and rests satisfied,
for his own part, with holding fast those things
which they tell him are good, then we have the very
spirit and essence of Popery; and, though far from
being confined to the Roman Catholic Church, those
who are thus described are, in no degree, entitled to
the noble name of Protestant. To such men this
argument is not addressed.
But to Protestants, to men who admit and assert
the right of private judgment, we repeat the question,
When the doctrines or statements of the Bible seem
doubtful, incongruous, or contradictory, or when its
sentiments appear to be unworthy, what is it that, in
such cases, enables you to decide that one idea is to
be cherished, and that another is to be rejected; that
when the most obvious interpretation is dishonouring
to God, it must be set aside for another more worthy,
and therefore more true; that the law of mercy ig a guide
which we should never cease to follow, while treachery
and cruelty are examples to be shunned; that there
must be some mode of explaining away the evil
spirits whom God is said to have sent forth to deceive;
and that nothing inconsistent with perfect goodness
and holiness can, with truth or propriety, be attributed
to God 1 Those who regard the Bible as entirely
infallible, must look in vain to it for a settlement of
these points. No part of it can reasonably be em-
�144
Reflections and Inferences.
ployed by such persons to cancel another part. No
higher authority can consistently be ascribed by them
to one passage than to another. Everything contained
in it must be alike true; and a true representation of
the mind or will of God, must remain for ever true of
Him who is unchangeable.
How, then, does the Bible-Protestant deliver him
self from the necessity of believing that God is likely
to send forth lying spirits, specially commissioned, to
lure us to destruction ; that Deborah’s inspired song
should be our standard of morality, being a picture
of such conduct as God looks on with approval; and
that slavery of the heathen is a divine institution ?
These doctrines are not rejected on the authority of
the Bible ; but are brought by the Protestant before
an independent tribunal, where, being weighed in
the balance, they are found wanting. What tribunal
is that ? Where is the court of appeal ? The ques
tions are settled: they do not remain open: the
replies are not given doubtfully, but are very decided,
and are felt to be true. Whence do they cornel
Where does this authority reside, whose teaching is
so clearly beyond all dispute ? Beyond all controversy,
this revelation of God’s eternal unchangeable law
can only be read in the moral sentiment of each
individual Protestant, in that consciousness of the
Divine to which his mind has attained, in his faculty
of discernment, sharpened and quickened by the love
of truth, or blunted and crippled by its neglect—enlightened by knowledge, or darkened by ignorance.
James i. 16, 17.—“Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
What dark superstitions, what innumerable deeds
of horrid cruelty, done by sincerely pious Christians,
have had for their voucher and warrant the law,
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” (Ex. xxii.
�Reflections and Inferences.
145
18.) Why do we not still burn witches ? Why have
they become so rare among us? Why do we no
longer believe in the reality of their power ? The
answer is not to be found in the Bible; and the Bible
did not produce the change of opinion. The answer
is, Because superstition is the sister of ignorance; and
the change has been produced by the diffusion of
knowledge, elevating so far the faculty of discernment,
that men have seen, and do see, clear over the top of
the old law, “Put them to death.”
I have referred only to a few of those old errors,
from which the veil of authority, which sheltered and
maintained them, has already been removed, and to
the corresponding truths which, by this removal of
the veil, have been clearly revealed to us as a
nation, so that about them there is now among us
scarcely any doubt or difference of opinion; although
the agreement was formerly at least as unanimous on
the wrong side, the errors having been taught as
truth by the clergy and the Church, because appar
ently sanctioned by the Bible. I think, however,
that a little self-examination will convince every
Bible-Protestant that his own conscience or moral
sense must sit in judgment on every doctrine of the
Bible, before that doctrine can be truly and intelli
gently believed; and that, when the verdict is
adverse, as it sometimes is, the doctrine in question
must be rejected, reduced, or turned aside, by some
more or lfess convenient explanation. This is the
test which everything, to be believed, must pass,
before it can be accepted as true. The sharpness
and completeness of the test must, of course, depend
upon the degree of enlightened discernment which is
exercised by each individual. The faculty of dis
cerning what we may, and what we may not believe,
like all our other faculties, may be cultivated or
neglected; and we cannot think that it was ever
K
�146
Reflections and Inferences.
possessed by any man in such a perfect degree as to
be incapable of further cultivation.
This, then, is the final tribunal, to which the BibleProtestant must constantly, though perhaps uncon
sciously, appeal; and surely the integrity and accuracy
of its jurisdiction ought ever to be jealously guarded
and cultivated, with a view to its further improve
ment and extension. We believe it is fair and correct
to say that the Bible-Protestant considers it his duty
to believe any doctrine or statement so soon as he
believes that it is taught in the Bible, except those
which he may discern to be in themselves false or
unworthy, or to involve contradictions, and which
must therefore be set aside or explained away.
From this degree of submission, it would seem to
result that, while the doctrine or doctrines, the faith
of which constitutes the religion of the soul, are really
discerned to be true, the Spirit of God, bearing wit
ness with the human spirit, so that the truth is not
only believed but felt and realized, there are, at the
same time, many other doctrines, laws, and historical
statements, which lie remote from the centre of reli
gious life, and which, being more or less consciously
regarded as non-essential, receive at best a hazy and
passive assent, very different indeed from discerning
belief. While some have, doubtless, fully realized
this distinction for themselves, and while we may be
sure that in the faith of very many pious and simple
believers, who have been awakened to spiritual life,
this distinction is unconsciously drawn, it cannot be
doubted that, for multitudes far more numerous, no
such distinction exists. In their case the haze of
uncertainty, which encompasses the manifold outlying
stories, doctrines, mysteries, and explanations, com
pletely envelopes and obscures the brightness of the
central truths, which might be the sources of light
and life, but from which the soul is thus excluded
and cut off.
�Reflections and Inferences.
147
This I take to be the commonest of all cases,
among nominal Christians of the age in which we
live ; persons who acknowledge the authority of the
Bible, and who assent to its doctrines, because they
are its doctrines, without ever having felt the truth in
their hearts; without knowing what it is to be led by
the Spirit to the discernment of spiritual truth. Such
are the persons who suppose they believe, who hope
they believe, who wish to believe, who struggle to
believe, who pray for grace to believe, and who some
times even believe that they believe, while all the time
there is no light, no shining of the truth in its bright
ness and power, to regenerate, while it subdues the
soul. The numerous and complicated mass of nonessentials, claiming to rest on the same authority as
the one or two essential truths, become woven to
gether with these into a tangled web, where the
threads of gold are inextricably lost, while, but for
the multitude of cloudy twisted threads, they would
shine with unmistakable clearness.
It is difficult to imagine that any sane man believes
absolutely nothing about God, or about our relations
to Him; and yet, unless I am greatly mistaken,
there are very many who will experience a strange
and surprising difficulty, if they will set themselves,
earnestly, to find an answer to the question, which
I beg every reader to put to himself, who has not
already done so: What do I truly believe, exclusive of
all that I merely wish or hope to believe ?
So many things, of equal authority, have all along
been assented to, that, in all probability, no such dis
tinction has ever been drawn; and, in the case of
thousands, the one general belief, which is really
something more than a passive assent, on the subject
of religion, is, that all its doctrines and histories are
entirely beyond human comprehension, and that, there
fore, their truth cannot, without Divine assistance, be
discerned, but that we are, nevertheless, bound to
�148
Reflections and Inferences.
believe them all because they are in the Bible, so that
we are guilty of sin if we fail or refuse to do so.
I am greatly mistaken if I have not fairly de
scribed the most common of all experiences, at the
present time, among those whom, as defined above,
I have designated Bible-Protestants. These are
Protestants with a limitation, semi-Protestants, Pro
testants subject to authority—the authority of the
Bible. They understand the precept, “Prove all
things,” to mean, “ Prove all things according to the
Bible,” or, “ Prove all things except the Bible; ” or
“ Prove all things for yourselves, except those things
which the Bible has proved.”
True Protestantism, however, being a wide and
noble sentiment, cannot long rest satisfied with the
mere exchange of one standard of authority for another.
Protesting, against all recognition of authority in
matters of faith, it must proceed to declare the impos
sibility of faith being rendered as an act of obedience,
and to condemn the apparent or attempted degrada
tion of it as such. Proclaiming the sacred right, and
the solemn duty, of every man to prove all things for
himself, it must vindicate this right, in matters of
religion, against all limitation, by any authority what
soever. Kelying on the Spirit of Truth alone for
guidance and enlightenment, while nourishing himself
with the best available instruction or spiritual food, the
true Protestant refuses to believe, because it is abso
lutely impossible for him to believe, any doctrine or
statement of religion, except those which he, for him
self, discerns to be true, and, for all the rest, he answers,
“I do not know,” or otherwise, according to his lights.
If any man, even a truly pious man, who has not
already tried it, will earnestly set himself to ascertain
how much of his religious belief will bear this test,
how much of it he really discerns and feels to be true,
he will probably find it, at first, to be a rather puzzl
ing question, and, if he does succeed in giving to him
�Reflections and Inferences.
149
self a clear and definite answer, he will most likely be
surprised at the simplicity and brevity of the result.
This result, whether it be anything or nothing, is all
that to him is religion. The man who does not know
what it is to discern the truth, and to feel its power
in his heart, has no religious faith, and is still blind
to spiritual light, although he may be all the time
assenting to the most orthodox creed in Christendom.
The man who has religious faith, who does discern
the truth, and who feels its power in his soul, to
whatever Church or creed he may belong, will find,
if he succeeds in drawing the distinction which I
have indicated, that the truths, which he has thus
made his own, for the support of his spiritual life, are
few, grand, simple, and quite apart from the mani
fold outlying narratives and opinions of his creed;
about which, at the same time, perhaps he has no
active doubts; or, perhaps, though he may have such
doubts, they do not disturb his faith.
The creed of the true Protestant is limited to that
which he, for himself, can discern to be true, inform
ing and improving himself by the use of guides and
instructors, but allowing no kind of authority to be
interposed between his spirit and the Spirit of God,
whose teaching he recognises in the very power with
which the truth, when discerned, is brought home
to his soul, and whose sympathy he realizes in that
strong love of truth which he thenceforth cherishes
and enjoys.
It is truly lamentable to reflect that such multi
tudes on all sides are shut out from the knowledge of
God and of truth, by those very formulas and stand
ards of religion, which profess to be the vehicles, or
even the only vehicles of truth; but which carry their
precious cargo, so mixed and concealed, amidst a mass
of confused incongruities, that only one here and
there can discover and experience its regenerating
power. To the dogmatism of theology, which has
�150
Reflections and Inferences.
always been excessive, I unhesitatingly attribute the
appalling and unnatural prevalence of indifference
and hatred to all religious truth. The discernment
of truth is to the, soul what sight is to the eye.
Neither faculty can be exercised without light, of
which God has provided everywhere abundance; but
the highest capabilities of either faculty cannot be
developed,—its finest perceptions, and most exact
discriminations cannot be realized, unless each faculty
be trained and strengthened by suitable culture and
information, and unless each faculty be kept in con
stant and vigorous exercise. Either faculty may be
perverted, discoloured, or obscured by clouds, veils, or
obstacles interposed to modify or to exclude the light.
The mode in which God reveals himself to the
human soul has been well described by a recent com
mentator as follows :—“ The great and eternal One reveals himself through
and by man, in conformity with the gradual develop
ment of the human mind. The growth of man’s ap
prehension of God marks the progress of revelation.
The divine in man,—that which allies him to the om
niscient—unfolds itself in harmony with the law of
its nature, giving expression to itself in sensuous
forms. God speaks to man, or man speaks of God,
agreeably to the era described or the idiosyncracy of
the writer. A knowledge of the Supreme more or
less imperfect characterises such communications. The
communications are human ; but they are also divine,
as being the utterances of the divine in man at the
time. They are, in short, a divine revelation. . . .
When it is taught and received for orthodox, that
God only revealed himself to men in former times, by
certain occasional and external miracles, and that our
knowledge of Him is limited to what has been written
down of such communications, we have reason to fear
that we have too little sense that God is always actively
�Reflections and Inferences.
151
present with us now, and to suspect that our belief is
mechanical, sceptical, and superstitious at once.”*
When rationally considered, it is nothing short of
an absurdity and a contradiction of terms, to say that
faith can be rendered as an act of obedience to any
authority whatever. Faith is the free exercise of the
mind, resting only on the discernment of the truth;
just as sight is the free exercise of the eye, resting
only on the discernment of light; and no man can
possibly believe, in submission to authority, that
which he does not discern to be true, any more than
he can behold the sun at midnight in obedience to
an external command. A man may, indeed, be taught
to keep his eyes shut, and by discipline and training
may be brought not only to say, but even to fancy
that he sees whatever he is told ought to be seen,
distrusting his own natural perceptions. A man may
also be trained to look only and always through lenses
of a prescribed colour and form; ancl so to disuse and
to supersede his unassisted vision. So also may men,
yea nations and generations of men, be kept in more
or less of ignorance, distrust, and neglect of their own
faculty of discerning what is true ; and thus be made
to surrender, or never to know the right of private
judgment; so that even those things which are most
thoroughly believed by such men, are believed not
because they are conscious of their truth, but because
they have the sanction of authority.
This way of regarding faith or belief as an act of
obedience, or of submission to authority, is utterly
and entirely opposed to the spirit of the Gospel and
of Protestantism. The authority of the Church or
of the Pope may be denied ; but another authority
has been set up instead. No living standard of in
fallibility is recognised; but infallibility is ascribed
to a book. The teaching of the Church is no longer
s “Introduction to the Old Testament,” by Samuel David
son, D.D., vol. i., pp. 234, 239.
�152
Reflections and Inferences.
received, as the end of all truth; but only as a useful
aid toward the knowledge and understanding of that
which the Bible teaches. The Bible has for three
hundred years been the Pope of those who have
called themselves Protestants.
All our knowledge is built upon the foundation of
all past ages, its elements having been transmitted to
us by history, tradition, and records of all kinds.
Without this instruction, derived from our fathers,
none of us could for ourselves have attained the
knowledge of any kind which we now possess; but,
though our knowledge comes to us, in great measure,
by transmission, it never rests alone, nor even chiefly,
on the authority by which it is transmitted to us.
We might never have discovered the laws of gravita
tion, or the principles of astronomy, if we had not
been taught them ; but so far as any one really knows
these things, he believes them, not because he has
been taught them, not in submission to the authority
of his teachers, but because, and in proportion as, he
discerns that they must be true.
So is it also with religion and morality. Our con
ceptions of God, and our notions of right and wrong,
are probably very different from what they would
have been, if we had been left to discover, and to
evolve them for ourselves, from a state of blank ignor
ance ; but, in so far as these can be called our own,
in so far as we feel that they must be true, they do
not rest upon the authority which has transmitted
them to us, but upon our own discernment of their
truth.
We have said that knowledge never rests alone, nor
even chiefly on the testimony of those from whom we
receive it; but there is here an apparent exception
or rather a class of apparent exceptions, in which our
knowledge seems at first sight to have no other founda
tion on which to rest but the testimony of our in
structors. This is the case, for example, with history,
�Reflections and Inferences.
153
and especially with ancient history, for our know
ledge of which we must often depend entirely upon
the writings of historians. Yet even here, the in
quirer after truth must use instruction with discern
ment ; must make allowances for party spirit, for po
pular delusions, for national or peculiar habits of
thought, or forms of expression. He must, moreover,
be acquainted with all the histories in any degree re
lating to the subject of enquiry; and must scrutinise,
test, and compare these authorities with each other,
in order that he may, from a comprehensive view of
the whole evidence, form an impartial judgment.
The judgments, so formed, vary from total uncer
tainty or mere probability, to a strong presumption
or absolute conviction, according to the nature, cha
racter, and amount of the evidence.
The result is at best a judicial decision, and must
in every case be consciously held subject to modifica
tion or reversal by the always possible discovery of
further evidence. So far as the decision becomes
knowledge to the inquirer, it rests upon his discern
ment of its truth. He believes not in obedient sub
mission to any nor to all of his authorities, but in
accordance with the independent judgment of his own
mind, and may very often have good reasons for re
maining doubtful and incredulous, even when there
is no conflict of authority. All history remains con
stantly open to revision and correction, so that it has
of late become a proverb, that history requires, from
time to time, to be re-written. Hence there are, and
always have been, great diversities of opinion regard
ing it; the same evidence being very variously esti
mated or interpreted by different minds.
It seems like a mere truism to say that history
cannot be religion; that even the history of religion
cannot be spiritual truth, and that spiritual truth
cannot be proved in the same way that historical
facts can, just as the reverse would be equally true.
�154
Reflections and Inferences.
No amount of historical evidence would now suffice
to prove that witches rode through the air on broom
sticks ; that they and all heretics ought to be burned;
that finger-bones or napkins from the body of a saint
had the power of working miracles (Acts xix. 12); or
that the earth is a flat extended fixture, over which
the sun daily moves;—for all of which, and for many
other such things, there was abundant evidence to
satisfy our forefathers.
All our sentiments and faculties may be crippled,
or largely developed, according as they are neglected
or cultivated. The sentiments of liberty, of beauty,
and of music, have varied much in strength and
character from age to age, and their growth or
decline may be traced, not only in persons at differ
ent times, but through the history of nations and of
centuries. The enlightened views of justice, and
the refinements of taste and skill, which one age
may attain to, are ever owing, in a large degree, to
the culture, knowledge, and many other circumstan
ces, inherited from the preceding ages. So is it with
the sentiment of truth. For its cultivation instruc
tion is required, and can only be derived, as in other
matters, from teachers of various kinds, or in other
words, from the transmitted wisdom and attainments
of the past.
Our knowledge of religious truth comes to us partly
by transmission, as does our knowledge of scientific
truth; but in the one case, as in the other, it does not
become knowledge by virtue of the authority which
transmits it, but only by our own discernment of its
inherent truth. The faculty of discernment in art,
science, and religion, alike, may be sharpened and
strengthened, perhaps without limit, certainly without
known limit, by diligent exercise, and by the cultiva
tion of the corresponding sentiments, which, again,
are nourished and increased by each new acquisition
of knowledge.
�Reflections and Inferences.
155
There is nothing so well fitted to stimulate and
elevate the artist’s ideas and conceptions of the beau
tiful and the excellent in his art, as an intelligent
acquaintance with its history, and a correct apprecia
tion of the various stages of progress or of decline
through which it has had to pass before reaching its
present condition. The comparative estimate which
this historical knowledge enables him to form of the
merits and influences of different ages and of different
schools, will, more than anything else, assist him to
discern the elements of perfection after which he
strives. He derives inspiration from history.
The statesmen, who has made politics the study of
his life, and who seeks to discover the wisest and best
measures of legislation, must be very ill prepared for his
work, unless he is able to scan, with intelligence and
discrimination, a wide horizon of the history of nations.
The sentiments of beauty in the artist, and of jus
tice in the statesman, must either be formed on older
models, or else be rude and primitive; but it does not
at all follow that any one model, nor that all of them
put together, should be regarded as a standard of
perfection. Their light and assistance, as guides and
instructors, may be invaluable, or even indispensable,
while they are never thought of at all as infallible
authorities, even though, perhaps, their excellence may
defy imitation.
Such lessons from the past are the groundwork and
the spring of all our present attainments, of all that
distinguishes an educated man from an untutored
savage; but every one must be conscious that all the
knowledge which he can truly call his own, rests not
upon the authority of any teacher or teachers, but
upon his own discernment of its truth, being always
arrived at by a comparison of different teachers, and
of his own observations and experience, whose lessons
must be sifted and weighed against each other before
the bar of his own private judgment.
�156
Reflections and Inferences.
It cannot be otherwise in the matter of religion.
Spiritual truth, much more than any other kind of
knowledge, must be discerned before it can be believed.
Our knowledge of spiritual truth is, in a great measure,
founded on. the Bible, because it has been the teacher
of our teachers for eighteen hundred years, and its
doctrines are those which have been transmitted to
us, variously modified by ancient and modern inter
pretations. To the Bible, in the first instance, and
chiefly, we owe the vantage ground on which we
stand. The Bible, and its history, are the history of
our religion, from which we can best learn the various
stages through which it has passed, in its progress
from the rudest idolatry among the ancient Jews
down to these days of enlightenment.
If our conceptions of God and of truth are nobler
or clearer than those of the heathen, we are indebted
for that to the Bible, because it is the vehicle by
which the light of other days has been transmitted
to us. Our lamps have had almost no other kindling.
When viewed as the vehicle and history of religion,
the Bible is invaluable, and never can cease to be
studied with interest and with advantage; but to set
up the history as an infallible standard, and as an
authority commanding absolute submission, is a mon
strous absurdity, which Protestants are now rather
generally beginning to perceive, and which cannot
much longer be continued.
Protestantism must at length be consistent, and
the necessity of this becomes daily more felt. A
house divided against itself cannot stand. Of two
antagonistic principles, one must be false. Freedom
of opinion and submission to authority cannot be re
conciled. One or the other must prevail.
Protestantism ! What does it mean ? A protest
against the shackles of authority in matters of religion.
It must become, and is rapidly becoming, a protest
against all such authority, a vindication of man’s
�Reflections and Inferences.
157
inalienable right, and of his most sacred duty, to dis
cern spiritual truth for himself, and to believe only
that which he has so discerned.
A new reformation is needed, and has already
begun; another reformation from Popery—the Popery
of the Bible. The Bible has been made to us what
Samuel was to Saul, has been set up to supply the
place of the old temple-veil, separating between man
and God, mystifying and obscuring the Divine light,
instead of preparing us for its direct reception; and if
it has in many cases also done the latter, there can,
on the other hand, be no manner of doubt that the
preposterous claims made on its behalf have repelled,
and are repelling, many thousands from the search
after truth, and driven them to indifference or in
fidelity. This we believe to be the principal, if not
the only cause of the wide-spread aversion and hos
tility to religion, which is the most melancholy
characteristic of the age in which we live. Hence
the universal complaint that the churches are para
lysed by the rarity of faith, or of spiritual life, even
among their members and adherents. Hence the
reason why the so-called revivals of religion, whether
among ritualists, methodists, or others, have become
so far an offence and a reproach in the opinion of
most men of judgment and understanding; and why
they are almost entirely confined to the weak, the
simple, and the superstitious, whose emotional senti
ments are not directed nor controlled by their intel
lectual discernments.
I look forward to a genuine spiritual awakening,
greater than any which the world has yet seen, of
which all past reformations and revivals have been
but the harbingers and pioneers. The barriers are
already crumbling, and must ere long be swept away.
The veil has long been rent, and must soon be entirely
and for ever torn down. The usurping claims of
authority shall not for ever, nor for long, continue to
�158
Reflections and Inferences.
darken the souls of men. Protestantism shall assuredly
accomplish the triumph of its work, which meantime
remains incomplete, and must so remain, until it is
universally proclaimed that all religious books and
teachers are of use to men only in so far as they serve
to develope and to cultivate the sentiment of truth,
and to awaken the desire for the knowledge of God,
and for communion with Him,—a sentiment and a
desire which the Spirit of God alone can satisfy, by
that quickening and enlightening influence and sym
pathy, for which the earnest inquiring soul never yet
has thirsted nor prayed in vain. No real benefit can
accrue to us from the inspiration of ancient priests,
prophets, and apostles, until we have each of us some
measure of inspiration for ourselves; and, having that,
all questions regarding the various measures in which
the gift has been bestowed on others must be of small
importance. For my part, I am firmly persuaded
that inspiration has never been withheld, and that,
like all other divine gifts, its nature is unchangeable,
while its degrees are infinitely various, depending,
under God’s providence, upon many circumstances,
foremost among which are the presence or absence of
intervening obstacles, and the true or false preparation
on our part for its reception.
1 Cor. ii. 14, 15.—“ The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto
him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet
he himself is judged of no man.”
Verily God is not far from any one of us, and He
does guide with His counsel now, as truly and as
surely as in the days of Samuel and David, every soul
of man that seeks in earnestness and simplicity to
know what it is to know God. This is the one great
source and spring of all true religion or spiritual life
-—the sympathy of the pure and perfect God with the
soul of every faithful worshipper. The record of this
�Reflections and Inferences.
159
may be read in the Bible, or in the experience of any
man whose spiritual life has been awakened. This
doctrine is the grand good thing which beyond all
else it behoves us to hold fast. This, we believe, is to
be the living principle of the new reformation, which
shall extend and apply to every creed and to every
nation under heaven.
The Bible is indeed our teacher, when cross-examined,
sifted, and compared, as all our teachers ought and
need to be; but it has been foolishly set up as our
idol, has been made to usurp the place of God, and to
bar the way of approach to Him. As Samuel tried to
impress upon the Jews and upon Saul that the rejec
tion of the priest was the rejection of God, so have we
been assiduously taught and trained to believe that if
we refuse to receive the whole Bible as a revelation of
the mind and will of God, we cannot escape the guilt
of rejecting God, and of rebelling against His revealed
Word. It is not wonderful that many of us have, like
Saul, been troubled with an evil spirit, seeing that our
Samuels have assured us that in refusing absolute
submission to their idol we are departing from the
only living and true God.
All idols must be utterly abolished; and when we
have purged ourselves from idolatry, we shall under
stand much better how to deal with the idolatry of
the heathen. When we have taken the beam out of
our own eye, then shall we see clearly to pull the mote
out of our brother’s eye.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The finding of the book; an essay on the origin of the dogma of infallibility
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robertson, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: xv, [2] 18-159 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "John Robertson, Coupar Angus'. [Title page]. Dedicated to the Rt. Rev. John William Colenso, Lord Bishop of Natal. Includes bibliographical references and index. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5495
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The finding of the book; an essay on the origin of the dogma of infallibility), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Authority
Bible
Conway Tracts
Infallibility (Philosophy)
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c5d0d3e0056c4680a16583a872f05327.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=tNjl5NJh0jcYmmBdzo4txEndZZlMp7aj3-pMCRKVnCs8ymyrPqCLWOUf77AA5fJNQHFnyKZNFTKYD5pFKRooLU6KLERhpMh93KfPoP3gilazG8mm484ZAWnLIP9u1OS6eEGGLilDalDw2KBI5qcKPOPrbB0O2w4n51nq1%7EkFg2efBJjkDkeCxdMquwnWRG4bUL96oskonyTpbHALUqtqXbcJPYwN0Xlnzgxc2BM5btKazICAJpHceC7fzFljL3FHnTSy9pL4mUpffHmqnhQLWVl4MzcrtTbClaYFVO1I0EbQRc8IP2BhnKBririUnt2uPmsC0FUCiASbAgKhlb87dg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
29c1e821c233ee65078c4847d52f4b14
PDF Text
Text
V E R B A TI Al R E 1'0 RT
OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF A
DEPUTATIOA
THE RIGHT HON. AV. E. GLADSTONE, ALP.,
(First Lord of the Treasury,)
THE RIGHT HON. EARL DE GREY AND RIPON,
(Lord President of the Council,) (hid
THE RIGHT HON. AV. E. FORSTER, ALP.,
(Vice-President of the Council,)
ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 1870.
BIRMINGHAM.
PRINTED FOR THE NATIONAL EDUCATION LEAGUE.
Offices:—No. 47, Ann Street.
�4
resolutions to Mr. Gladstone, with a view of impressing upon the
Government the objections entertained by the League to the Bill.
In accordance with this resolution, a request was addressed to
Mr. Gladstone, asking him to receive a Deputation. The right
bon. gentleman consented to do so, and appointed Tuesday, the
Dtli of March, to receive the Deputation, at his official residence in
Downing Street.
Arrangements were consequently made for the representation of
the 'Branches of the League on the Deputation, and on the day
above named the following Members of Parliament, the Executive
Committee, the Officers of the League, and the undermentioned
Delegates from the Branches, met at the Westminster Palace
Hotel, and proceeded thence to the Prime Minister’s official residence
in Downing Street, where they were received by Mr. Gladstone,
who was accompained by Lord de Grey and Mr. Forster:—
Anstnrther, Sir IL, M.P.
Armitstead, G., M.P.
Carter, R. N., M.P.
Cowen, J., M.P.
Beaumont, II. F., M.P.
Brogden, A., M.P.
Bright, Jacob, M.P.
Dalrymple, Donald, M.P.
Dilke, Sir C. 3V., Bart., M.P.
Dixon, George, M.P.
Eykyn, Roger, M.P.
Fawcett, Henry, M.P.
Forster, C'has., M.P.
Harcourt, Vernon, 31. .
Herbert, Hon. A., M.P.
Hoare, Sir H. A., M.P.
Howard, James, M.P.
Illingworth, Alfred, M.P.
Johnson, Andren, M.P.
Kirk, William, M.P.
Lawson, Sir Wilfred, M.P.
Leatliam, E. A., M.P.
Lewis, J. D., M.P.
Lush, J. A., M.P.
Melly, George, M.P.
Miall, E., M.P.
Parry, Love Jones, M. P.
Philips, R. N., M.P.
Potter, E., M.P.
Rylands, Peter, M.P.
Samuelson, B., M.P.
Samuelson, H., M.P.
Simon, 31 r. Serjeant, M.P.
Shaw, IL, M.P.
Sartoris, E. J., M.P.
Sherriff, A. C., M.P.
Stepney, Colonel, M.P.
Stevenson, J. C., 31. P.
Sykes, Colonel, 31. P.
Taylor, P. A., 31.P.
Villiers, Right Hon. C. P., M.P.
AVedderburn, David, 31. P.
AVlialley, 31r., M.P.
White, James, 31. P.
AVhitworth, Thos., 31. P.
Weguelin, T. 31., M.T.
�5
DELEGATES FROM THE BRANCHES.
Ashton-under-Lyne—
Green, Thomas, M.A.
BathDalrymple, D., M.P.
Edwards, R. P.
Maenaught/Rev. J., M.A.
Mureh, Aiderman Jerom, J.P.
Banbury—
Tin* Worshipful the Mayor
Brookes, R. H.
Carter, Rev. L. G.
Griftin, Dr., J.P.
Turner, Rev. J.
BedfordHill, Rowland
Ransom, Edwin
Belper—
\
Cox, J. Charles, J.P.
Birkenhead—
Billson, Alfred
Cooke, Bancroft
Cowie, Alfred
Stitt, Samuel
Birmingham—
The Worshipful the Mayor
(Thomas Prime, Esq.)
Dixon, George, M.P.
Bunce, J. Thackray, E.S.S.
Brown, Rev. J. J.
Chamberlain, Councillor Joseph
Collings, Councillor Jesse
Clarke, Rev. Charles, F.R.L.S.
Dawson, George, M.A.
Field, Alfred
Hadley, Felix
Harris, Councillor William
Hayes, E. J.
Jaffray, John, J.P.
Lloyd, Councillor G. B.
Martineau, R. F.
Middlemore, Win. J.P.
Osler, Follett, F.R.S.
Philli] is, Aiderman, J.P.
Timmins, Samuel, F.R.S.L.
Vince, Rev. Charles
Wright, J. S.
All Saints’ Ward—
Pay ton, Henry
Rolason, Councillor
B 3
Birmingham (Continued)—
Deritend Ward—
Eliaway, H. H.
Griffiths, Thomas
Hawkes, W. C.
Dviideston Ward—Ingall, George
Hampton Ward—■
Barratt, Dr. A.
Biddle, J.
Mills, W.
St. Martin’s Ward—
Bennett, W. P.
Gosling, Wm.
St. Pavi/s Ward—
Edwards, Mr. Councillor C. H.
Manton, Mr. Alderman
St. Peter’s Ward—
Adams, Francis
Deykin, Councillor
Gosling, Alfred
Whitlock, H. J.
Sr. Thomas’ Ward—
•
Baker, George
Mann, Robert
Brown, Charles
Bai.sall Heath—
Holland, Aiderman
Flint Glass Makers’ Associa
tion (T. J. Wilkinson, &'.'.)
Bolton
Lee, Henry
Winkworth, Stephen
BradfordHolden, (’ouneillor Angus
Illingworth, Alfred, M.P.
Brighton—
Burrows, J. C., J.P.
Creak, A., M.A.
Clark, A., B.A.
Davey, Councillor
Mackenzie, W.
Pettitt, W.
Tapper, Rev. Dr.
Wood, Councillor
White, James, M.P.
�c
Bristol—
Darwen-
Caldicott, Rev. J. W., M.A.
Gotch, Rev. F. W., LL.I>.
James, Rev. W.
Pease, Tlios.
Thomas, Herbert, J.P.
Baron, Joshua, J.P.
Dunmock, James
McDougall, Rev. James
DenbighWright, Robert
Bromsgrove—
Derby—
Macdonald, A.
Seroxton, Mr.
Beswick, G.
Brown, William
Renals, Aiderman J.
Burslem—
Devonport
Woodall, Wm.
The Worshipful the Mayor
(J. Rolston, Esq.,'M. DA
Lewis, Mr., M.P.
Bawling, S. B.
BuryPhilips, R. N., M.P.
Canterbury—
Dewsbury—
The Worshipful the Mayor
(Henry Hart, Esq.)
Brent, Aiderman
• ’ooper, John R.
Cromwell, Rev. Dr.
Hamilton, R.
Joyce, James
Peirce, J. H.
Clarke, John
Kilner, William
Dukinfleld Bucklev, N.
Marshall, William
Dudley—
Cochrane, Aiderman, J.P.
Robinson, Rev. Wade
CarlislePotter, E. Esq., M,P.
Howard, Hon. George
Sutton, William
Edgbaston—
Kenrick, Timothy, J.P.
Carmarthen
Exeter—
Sartoris, E. J., M.P.
Stepney, Colonel, M.P.
Bowring, Sir John
Norrington ('ouncillor
Carnarvon—
Falmouth—
Evans, Rev. E.
Fox, Howard. J.P.
M illmore, Arthur
Cheltenham—
Halifax
Onley, Samuel
Bubb, J.
Hutchinson, Alderman, J. D., J.P.
Shaw, Aiderman, J.P.
Scarbrough, T. S.
Chesham—
Carr, Rev. John
Cave, James
Hawkes, C.
Plato, C.
Rose, D.
Rose, G.
ChesterBeckett, Joseph
Parish, W.. ex-Sheriff
CoventryBray, Charles
Cash, Councillor John
Handsworth—
Ann, Rev. Robert
Harborne—
Newey, C. J.
! Hastings—
I
Banks, John
Hinckley Atkins, John
Atkins, Thomas
Burrows, Rev. Mr.
Davis, Samuel
Perkins, Rev. Mr.
�Huddersfield—
The Worshipful the Mayor
Dodds, John
.Mellor, Wright, J.P.
Skilliek, R.
Huntingdon—
Millard, Rev. J. IL, B.A.
Hyde—
Adamson, Daniel
Dowson, Rev. H. E., B.A.
Hibbert, Edward
Hibbert, John
Robinson, Rev. T., B.A.
Herefordspem-er, Philip Russell
IpSWichJones, Rev. E.
Maude, Rev. F. H.
Notcutt, S. A., jun.
Rees, Ml’.
Zincke, Rev. F. Barham, M.A.
Kendal—
Busher, Edward
Russell, Rev. John
Swinglehurst, Henry
Thompson, William
Leeds—
The. Worshipful the Mayor
(W. G. Joy, Esq.)
Barran, Aiderman
Clarke, F. R.
Crowther, William, J.P.
Lupton, Joseph
LeicesterTim Worshipful the Mayor
(G. Stevenson, Esq.)
Coe, Rev. C. C.
Harley, Rev. Robert, F.R.S.
Hodges, T. W., J.P.
Paget, T. T., High Sheriff
Walker, William Henry
LondonAllan, William
Alder, T. P.
Applegarth, R.,
Atkinson, Rowland
Beales, Edmond, M.A.,
Bennett, W. C., LL.D.
Botlv, William
Bovill, W. J.
Brenehley, Julius
B 4
London (continued )—
Buekmaster, T. C.
Chunrock, E. J., M.A.
Church, R. H.
Clayden, Rev. P. W.
Courtenay, J. 1.
Cremer, W. R.
Crompton, Henry
Cunnington, John
Dilke, Sir C. W.. Bart., M.P.
Dodds, George Will.,
Edwards, J. P.
Emerson, F. R.
Evans, Howard
Fooks, W. C., jun., LL.B.
Fry, Herbert
Goodwin, Rev. Dr.
Galpin, T. 1).
Guile, Daniel
Hill, A. H.
Hoare, Sir H. A., Bart., M.P.
Hole, James
Holyoake, G. J.
Hoppus, John, LL.D., F.R.S.
Howell, George
Herbert, Hon. A., M,P.
Hodgson, Dr.
Hansard Rev. S.
Hales, John
lerson, Rev. IL, B.A.
Jones, Lloyd
Levi, Professor, Leone
Lushington, G.
Mackay, C., LL.D.
Middlemore, J. T.
Miall, E., M.P.
McClelland, Janies
Moore, S. P., LL.B.
Motterslmad, T.
Nasmith, I)., LL.B.
Odger, George
Pare, William, F.S.S.
Parry, L. J., M.P.
Payne, J.
Pennington, Frederick
Price, Richard
Rawlinson, Sir Christopher, C.B.
Robson, John, B.A.
Robertson, Professor C.
Russell, R.
Sliaen, William
Shortt, John, LL.B.
Slack, H. J.
Stanesby, H. J.
Somes, George
Taylor, P. A., M.P.
Varley, C.
�8
London (eoìithiucd)—
Webster, Thomas, Q.C.
Williams, Robert
Worley, A. E.
Bloomsbury—
Johnson, E.
Miller, Rev. AV.
Young, Sir George, Bart.
Camden—
Bottomley, J. F.
Shoveller, John
Chelsea—
Armstrong, IT. Stephen
Beales, Edmond, M.A.
Boyd, John
Davis, .Mr.
Finch, AV. Newton
Jet! lies, John
Jones, P.
Liggett, Mr.
Pite, H. G.
Sellis, Win.
Symes, Chas.
Deptford—
Smiles, R.
Matthews, A.
Greenwich—
Bell, John, M.A.
Bennett, AV. C., LL.D.
Goodwin, Rev. Thomas, LL.D.
Hackney—
Aspland, Dr.
< Tennell, Air.
Fretwell, J., jun.
Green, C. E.
Aliali, Rev. William
Hiding, B. S.
Pieton, Rev. J. A., ALA.
Kensington—
Gladstone, Dr. J. IL, F.R.S.
Heywood, James, ALA., F.R.S.
Lobley, J. Logan, F.G.S.
AleClelland, Jas., J.P., F.R.A.S.
Osborne, John
Reade, Rev. C. Darby
Lambeth—
Alder, T. P.
Emblin, R.
Greenstreet, T.
Gibbons, G.
Hearson, Rev. G.
Mottershead, T.
Sayer, AV.
I London (continued}—
Stainsby, D.
Silvester, H. R.
Taylor, S. S.
Wèrley, A. E. T.
Marylebone—
Guedalla, J.
Pratt, Alagee
North London—
Bartram, Richard
Clarke, T. C.
Geikie, Rev. C.
Glover, R. R.
Hooper, AV. B.,
Hickson, G.
Lueraft, B.
Freedy, A.
Preston, J. T.
Sinclair, R.
Spicer, Henry, jun., B.A.
Tit ford, A.
AVade, J. M.
AVright, G. W.
AVilson, George
Peckham—
Yeats, Dr.
Westminster—
Beal, James
Carr, J. T.
Courtney, G. J.
Ely, Air.
McDonald, C.F.
Alilligan, Air. '
Noble, John
Tufnell, Air.
West Ham—
Johnson, A., ALP.
Godlee, L.
Woolwich, Plumstead, and
Charlton—
Noble, John
Pike, Rev. J. B.
Richards, Rev. J.
Wates, Joseph
AVliite, George
Lichfield—
< hawner, R. C.
< ïosskey, Rowland, ex-Mayor
Al<• Lean, J. C.
Liverpool—
Frange, Councillor F. G.
Sinclair, Air.
Thomas, John
�9
Manchester—Bazley, C. H. J.P.
Alathews, Rev. E., M.A.
Rumney, Alderman
Steinthal, Rev. S. A.
Middlesborough—
Jones, John
Williams, E.
(Rover, R. R.
N ewcastle-on-Tyne—
( 'owen, J., M.P.
Cowen, J., jun.
Hengel], Win. M.
Rutherford, Dr.
Street, Rev. J. C.
Newport—(Isle of Wight)
< 'olman, Alfred
Pierce, John
Norwich-
Cooper, R. A.
NorthamptonHarris, Henry
North ShieldsHudson, Thomas
N ottingham—
Cox, Sami.
Ellis, Edward John
Eelkin, William, F.L.S.
Felkin, Fredk.
Clipper, Edward
Hollins, Mr.
Paget, Charles, J.P.
Rothera, G. B.
Oldbury—
Jubb, Rev. W. W.
Stableford, W.
Wheeler, John
OxfordHarcourt, Vernon, M.P.
Peterboro’
Taylor, Benjamin
Plymouth—
Anthonv, Rev. F. E., M.A.
Collier, W. F.
Reading—
'Elie Worshipful the Mayor
(T. Spokes, Esq.)
Culpin, Thos.
Stevenson, Rev. F.
Rochester—
The Worshipful the Mayor
Aveling, Thos., ex-Mayor
Aveling, Dr.
Belsev, J.
Belsey, F. F.
Boon, James
Bullbrook, Councillor
Coles, Aiderman
Edwards, Mr.
Fond, J. R.
Hanhain, C. F.
Jellie, Rev. W. H.
Knighton, Dr.
Naylor, Aiderman
Steele, Dr.
Warne, T. S.
Wyles, Thomas
SalisburyJones, Rev. W.
Short. Geo., B.A.
Williams, Charles
Sheffield—
Allott, Councillor
Beal, Councillor
Bragge, William, F.R.G.S.
Drontield, Mr.
Griliitlis, Dr.
Knox, G. Walter, B.Se.
Short, Rev. J. Lettis
Shrewsbury—
Stephens, R.
Southampton—
Maxse, Captain, R.N.
South ShieldsCowen, .Josh., jun.
Edgar, John
Stafford—
The Worshipful the Mayor
Stockport—
The Worshipful the Mayor
Black, Rev. James, M.A.
Coppock, Major
Howard, Alderman
The Town Clerk
Walthew, Aiderman
Stourbridge—
Maginnis, Rev. D.
StroudCooper, Wm.
�10
Tipton—
Blackburn, Rev. F. <'.
Tynemouth
Hudson, T.
Walsall—
The Worshipful the Mayor
(AV. B. Duignan, Esq.)
Cotterell, G.
Holden, E. T.
Warrington—
'file Worshipful the Mayor
(C. J. Holmes, Esq.)
Long, William, jun.
Milner, Edward
Rylands, Peter, M.P.
West Bromwich
Jukes, .1. G.
Kerni< k, J. Arthur, J.P.
West Kent—
Bird, G.
Bedell, Mr.
Coombs, Rev. J. Wilson, B.A.
Howard, James, M.P.
Miall, Edward, M.P.
Offor, George
< )utram, G. E.
Thomjison, C. W.
Todd, AV.
Whitehead, James
Winchfield Kingsley, Rev. Canon
Wolverhampton—
The Worshipful the Mayor
(Thomas Bantock, Esq.
Eelkin, Robert
Glittery, Rev. Thomas
Horton, Rev. Tlios. G.
Hatton, William
Loveridge, H.
Mander, S. S.
’Walton, Frederick
Wiguelin, T. W., M.P.
Worcester—
Airev, J. F.
MacLean, Councillor
Sherritf, A.
M.P.
Woodward, Francis
Williamson, Count illor
WindsorBrowning, Oscar, M.A.
Chamberlain, T., ex-Mavor
Grove, H. J.
Harris, AV. H., B.A., F.G.S.
Platt, J.
The Deputation was introduced by Mr. Dixon", M.P., Chairman
of the Council of the League, who spoke as follows :—Mr.
Cladstone, my Lord de Grey, and Mr. Forster,—The Deputa
tion which I have now the honour of introducing to you
consists of about four hundred gentlemen collected from about
seventy different localities, and including thirty Members of Par
liament and twelve Mayors. These, sir, are the representatives
present here to-day of the National education League, a body
which has been in existence only a very few months ; but. during
that time it has grown into an organisation of unusual magnitude
and power, such as will be described to you by the Chairman of
the Executive Committee, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.. It is about
twelve months since this organisation was projected by a few
gentlemen in Birmingham, unknown beyond their immediate
locality, and who were mainly distinguished by their earnest
perseverance and by their strong conviction of the importance of
the principles that they entertain. (Applause.) Those principles
�were, that it was the duty of the State to see to the education of
every child in the country, and that that was to be effected by a
combination of rates and taxes administered by local management,
with central executive inspection, and strong control. (Applause.)
It was believed that this could best be carried out by making the
schools both free and unsectarian—(hear, hear, and applause)—and
requiring that attendance at these schools should l)e made com
pulsory on the children. (Cheers.) 1 may mention, sir, that the
.Executive Committee of the League, upon its formation, was over
whelmed by applications from all parts of the country to attend
meetings, and explain more particularly the objects of the League.
I myself attended upwards of twenty of such meeting's in the most
important localities in the country, and it will be interesting to
you, sir, to know that, although it is true that at those meetings
I did not find myself surrounded by many Conservatives—they are
generally adverse to great changes—(laughter)—though I. did not
find myself accompanied on to the platform by many members of
those Churches whose vested interests seemed to be attacked, yet 1
did find that those meetings were thronged by three important
classes. The Nonconformists were always there in great force—
(applause) those leaders of the great Liberal party, who on all
great occasions make themselves prominent, were never found
wanting ; and behind those bodies we found the working classes
assembled in constantly increasing numbers. All this led me to
the conclusion that, if this agitation were to he continued for
another twelve, months—(cheers)—it would be more than probable
that in all the Liberal boroughs of the empire we should find that
the majority of the voters would be associated with this great
organisation, in carrying out what they conceived to be, not merely
the question of the day, but the greatest one that has ever occupied
the attention of the people. I ought perhaps to say that upon one
point—that of free schools—the Leaguers are not quite unanimous;
but the people everywhere Lave endorsed the opinion of the
League; and also, 1 would say in addition, that with reference, to
the religious question, there is only a section of the League that
has any difference of“ opinion, and this section takes up a still more,
advanced opinion than the great body of the Leaguers. (Applause.)
I have now the pleasure to call upon Air. Joseph ('hamberlain, the
Chairman of the Executive; Committee of the League, who will
address you upon the general question.
�12
Mr. Chamberlain : Mr. Gladstone, my Lord de Grey, and Mr.
F,,rster,—It is part ot‘ my business to make myself acquainted
with the general work of the League, to estimate its real strength,
and to study opinion throughout the country, as far as I can
correctly gather it from the reports of our branches. Now, of
those branches we have already established 114, and I believe
there is not a single important town in the kingdom which is not
in this way represented.
In connection with almost everyone of
those branches we have held large public meetings ; and, as I
have seen it said that a public meeting may be held on either side
of a great question, I should like to point out that our meetings
have been almost entirely open meetings, at many of which
amendments have been moved ; and 1 may also remark that many
of them have been town’s meetings. For instance, of this nature
was the large meeting which was held in the great Hall in
Birmingham, on Monday night, at which a resolution was almost
unanimously carried in favour of the points which I am about
to urge, and the Mayor of the town was requested to attend and
form part of this Deputation. There are two considerations to
which I should like to call your attention, as showing the strength
of this movement. In the first place, there is that point to which
Mr. Dixon has made allusion—namely, that this agitation is of
very recent and rapid growth. I should say that the League has
been officially constituted only live months, although the question
was first agitated in Birmingham twelve months ago ; but T am
quite sure that, if the Government entertain any doubt as to the
opinion of the country, and will give us a little time, longer—(loud
applause)—we will make that opinion sufficiently manifest. The
second point is, that this agitation is almost entirely voluntary. 1
say that, because I do not believe there is a man connected with
the League who has made one penny by his services in connection
with it. Almost the whole of the work—the work of speaking,
and an immense deal of secretarial work—has been done by
volunteers, and oidy for some of the clerical work have we paid,
and in the case of poor persons only have we made some compen
sation for the services which they have rendered ; but never more
1 believe, and in many cases much less, than they would have
earned in any other sphere of work. Now, we have received in
the course of our agitation the co-operation of the great trades
unions, and of almost all the leaders of the great trade societies in
�13
the kingdom ; and 1 believe I may say that there has never been
a meeting of working men called to consider this question at
which resolutions have not been passed in favour of the scheme
which we urge upon you. Also, we may fairly claim to represent
the great bodies of Nonconformists in this country ; but inasmuch
as they have established a separate organisation, I feel some
delicacy in speaking for them. Now, I will state very briefly the
points upon which we are agreed in dissenting from the principles
of the Government measure. The day after the Bill was intro
duced, the Officers issued a circular to all our branches, asking for
their opinions upon the subject, and the replies disclosed an
almost unanimous concurrence upon certain points. The earnestness
of this concurrence is manifested by the fact that not seventy, as
Nir. Dixon stated, but ninety-six branches are represented in the
present Deputation. They have come from as far north as Newcastle,
as far south as the Isle Of Wight, as far west as Falmouth, and as far
east as Ipswich. (Applause.) In the first place, we object to the
year’s delay. We think this would be merely to give twelve,
months to the Denominations to run a race of wasteful expenditure,
and to increase sectarian bitterness of feeling. Our remaining
objections may be almost summarised in a sentence. Wé object,
sir, to the permissive recognition of great principles; we ask that
the Government should decide those principles for the country ;
we ask that they should not leave them as controversies of annual
recurrence, and subject to varying, and sometimes contradictory,
conclusions. (Applause.) We object to the retention of school
fees ; we think that a free school is a necessary corollary to the
compulsory attendance of children ; we believe that it is impolitic
to ticket one class on account of their poverty—(applause)—and
we believe that it will be absolutely impracticable to define the
limit at which payment should properly be made. (Applause.)
But the strongest objections which we entertain are on the subject
of the permissive compulsion, and what I must be permitted to
call the permissive sectarianism of the Bill. ()n these points there
is an absolute unanimity of opinion. We object to permissive
compulsion, because we say that the measure would only be
efficient in large towns, and that in other places it would not be
enforced—not because there is any sort of opposition to the
principle, but on account of a fear which many persons entertain
of any measure which in the slightest degree may increase the
�14
burden of the rates. Sir, we say that such Acts as Denison’s Act,
which lias been an utter failure, and the Free Libraries Act, which
has only been applied partially, are illustrations of the results of
such legislation. (A Voice : The Baths and Wash-houses also.)
Then, with reference to this permissive sectarianism, the Town
Councils object to it, and regret the importation of a new element,
causing their election to turn upon religious opinion, and not upon
personal fitness; and, when they are elected, dividing them into
two hostile camps. The Dissenters object to this measure, which
they conceive will hand over the education of this country to the
Church of England entirely in many parts of the kingdom,
especially in agricultural districts; and they think that it must
necessarily be followed by a measure which will hand over the
education of the people in 1 reland to the Church of Borne—(loud
applause)—and that in this way the influence, social and political,
of those two Churches will be unfairly increased. (Hear, hear.)
Further, we consider (that this Conscience Clause which is con
tained in the proposed Bill, or any Conscience Clause, will be
absolutely unsatisfactory. (Applause.) Where it is not needed,
there, Sir, it will be absolutely nugatory, because the parents will
not dare to make use of it; they will be afraid of placing
themselves, by signing such a document, under the ban of the
Squire and the Parson. (Cheers.) Besides, sir, we say that a
Conscience Clause of any kind does not touch the hardship of
which Dissenters complain—that the minority will in many
districts be taxed to pay for the support of schools which arc1 part
of the machinery for perpetuating doctrines to which they have a
conscientious objection. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, in conclusion,
1 have been instructed tn express a very earnest hope that the
Government, which secured the cordial and unwavering support of
the great majority of Liberal ('hurehmen, and of all the leading
Dissenting bodies in this country, in their effort to carry out the
principles of religious freedom and religious equality in Ireland
— (applause)—will not reject our petition for the application of
those principles to England and Wales, and that they will consent
to remove from what we all think otherwise a noble measure,
those, clauses which we conscientiously believe will inflict an
intolerable hardship and oppression upon a large class of the
community. (Loud applause.)
Sir Charles W. Dilke : Air. Gladstone, my Lord de Grey,
�15
and Mr. Forster,—The point which has been entrusted to me to
bring before you to-day is that of permissive compulsion—of
the conflict between the principles of permissive and of direct
general compulsion. Now, the fact of Mr. Chamberlain having
so fully stated the views of the League upon that point, and also
the fact that you have thought it right, and the Cabinet have
thought it right, to insert a principle of direct compulsion in
some shape in the Bill, clear my task is so considerably that I
think it will be necessary that I should speak only upon the per
missive character of the compulsion which is proposed. It will not
be necessary that I should say anything with regard to the neces
sity, or with regard to the justifiableness, of compulsion in general,
because those, are admitted by the insertion of the principe in the
Bill. But what I would wish, on behalf of the Deputation, and on
behalf particularly of the London Branch, in whose name I speak,
to call your attention to is, not that we feel, or are able to say, that
it might not have been right in the Government to insert some con
dition with regard to compulsion—we feel it might be proper, in
the state of public feeling on compulsion, that some condition
should have been inserted by way of a test which should be prece
dent to compulsion being required ; but we feel (and 1 think 1
speak the opinion of the whole Deputation on this point) that the
condition which is made precedent to the application of compulsion
is a condition which is wholly a bad one. Compulsion is a
matter which concerns attendance and attendance only, and the
conditition by which, under tlie Bill, compulsion is to be applied
is one which concerns not attendance, but school accommodation.
You make, in this Bill, one condition hinge upon another; you
say that where there is a deficiency of school accommodation, and
there only, you will have permissive compulsion. Well, even in
that case, the compulsion is permissive—and permissive with
whom ? It is permissive in the country with Boards which will
be chiefly composed of farmers. (Hear, hear.) That is to say,
Boards composed of persons who have a direct interest in seeing
that the compulsion is not applied. In the towns those Boards
will be Boards which, whatever their merits or demerits may be,
are bodies which very naturally have a strong opinion against any
temporary increase of the rates, and thus you give permissive
powers to Boards who will consider less the ultimate decrease of
the rates than the immediate increase which will result upon the
�1G
principle of compulsion being applied. Well, but we go much
farther than this, and we object altogether to the permissive
legislation of which this Bill is full. As Mr. Chamberlain has
pointed out, the Deputation, and the League generally, object
not merely to permissive compulsion, they object to permissive
free schools and to permissive religion—(applause)—as well as
permissive compulsion. We feel that either compulsion is right
or wrong. By putting it in the Bill you have acknowledged it is
right. If it is right, then, it should be declared to be right by
the Imperial Legislature, and if it is wrong it should not be
placed in a Government Bill. What we ask is, that compulsion
should not be left to Local Boards of any kind or however con
stituted, but that if you are to have compulsion at all, it should
not depend upon local bias, but it should l>e imposed upon the
people by the act of the Imperial Legislature. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Mundella (M.P. for Sheffield): Mr. Gladstone, my Lord
de Grey, and Mr. Forster.—The few remarks which I shall detain
you with will have reference to the effect of compulsion as an
educational power. In the first place, I believe that it is the
experience of all those who have seen the influence of education
abroad, that without compulsion nothing like a good education is
secured. However much you may cover the land with schools,
however ample, the provision may be that you may make for those
schools, as in Ame rica, as in France, indeed, and as in Holland,
the results will be altogether inadequate to your efforts unless you
make it the absolute duty of the parent that the child’shall be in
attendance, regularly and consecutively, for a certain number of
years. My attention was first drawn to this by reason of the fact
that I am an employer of labour abroad, that I have seen the
working of this system in Switzerland and Germany ; and I have
seen its contrast, too, in Holland and in France. I am conscious,
also, of what is going on in America, and I am bouud to say that
although America has made the most ample provision of any
country in the world for schools, yet American education, instead
of progressing, is on the decline. I received only a few days ago
a report from the State of Massachusetts. Compulsion may be
practically said to be, in America, permissive, as it would be under
this Bill. In the city of Lowell, the compulsory powers aie carried
out as effectually as they can be : 90 per cent, of the children are
in school. Tn the city of Fall Biver. on the other hand, in the
�17
same State, tlie compulsory powers have been altogether neglected,
as the School Boards confess, and the result is that 50 per cent, of
the children are out of school. (Cheers.) Now, I am sure it
must have been said to you often, and you must have often read
it, that we exaggerate the educational destitution of this country.
Sir, I believe it is impossible to describe it, much less to exag
gerate it; and I believe those reports which we are all anxiously
looking for from the Privy Council, on the state of education in
the four largest cities in the M idland Counties and the North, will
more than corroborate what 1 say, and that when the} arc pio
duced they will be the most black and appalling page in the
history of our country. So far from education progressing in this
country, I believe it is not progressing in the same ratio as the
population, and that we are raising around us a mass of ignorance,
pauperism, and crime which is a disgrace to us as a Christian
people. (Loud applause.) I am glad to say that this is not
exclusively a Liberal question—(hear, hear)—or a Dissenters
question, for 1 have in my possession at this moment some dozen
letters from clergymen of the Church of England, managers of the
largest schools in England—one of whom has a school of 1,-00
children—and they all, with one exception, say to me: “Me
agree with you: we must have compulsion, or we shall have
nothing effectual ; and we are quite prepared for a separation of
the religious teaching.” (Loud applause.) Now, if we can only
introduce that sort of kindly spirit into this controversy, that ve
are all willing not to urge the teaching of those things on which
we differ, but those on which we agree—(applause)—and to insist
upon the attendance of children; if you, sir, will only make it
absolute that it is the right and the appanage of every child in this
country to receive the highest education that can lie gii en
(applause)—because, Sir, we must set up a high ideal ; we mud
not compare ourselves with ourselves, but we must compare ouiselves with those great nations that for thirty or forty years hare
adopted compulsory education, and have thereby produced the
most marvellous and extraordinary results. We must not, as
Englishmen, be content with anything short of wliat they have
attained.
Mr. Gladstone : Which nations, Mr. Mundella ?
Mr. Mundella : Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemburg, Switzerland.
Baden Baden.
�18
A Voice: Holland.
Mr. Mlndella : No ; Holland is not' compulsory. But I will
speak of the great North German Confederation as affording the
model-tlie high ideal-of what we must and ought to attain to in
education
Sir 1 have wandered from one end of Saxony to.
another, I have been through Prussia and in many of its latest
departments, and I could not find an ignorant child, go where I
might (Loud applause.) It is not only that they are not ignorant,
or that, hke our own children, they have attained to the readin" of
a signboard or the scrawling of a name-that is not education—
that is not the education which they have enjoyed; but it is an
education that is useful to them in its culture and in its assistance to
them m acquiring knowledge in every relation of life. (Loud
applause.) Sir, I say if you confer that blessing upon English
children great as have been all the works that you have done
before-(loud and prolonged applause)-great as is the promise
and the hope of what you will do-(cheers)-vour name will be
associated with a still greater work-with the greatest blessinwhich can descend from generation to generation upon the people
of this country. (Loud and prolonged applause).
Mr. Robert Applegarth : My only desire for troubling you
with any remarks on this occasion is on account of the great de
termination there is on the part of the working classes to speak for
emselves on these great questions. (Hear, hear). They feel that
hitherto the upper and the middle classes have spoken on their
»‘half, perhaps too much, and that they have said too little for
enise ves. Me hold that on the education question we have
been grossly misrepresented. Lord Robert Montagu has spoken
m the name of the working classes, the Archbishop of York has
spoken, Lord Marlborough has spoken, and many such gentle
men—(laughter and applause)—whose good intentions 1 do not
questson, but whose knowledge of our wants and requirements I
do question very much. (Hear, hear). They have said we wanted
what we do not want, and they have said we are satisfied with
what we are very discontented with. (Laughter and applause),
he Kev. Canon Beechey says—speaking of the miners of this
country-that they would strike against compulsion. Now, against
that statement I protest as a falsehood. (Laughter, and cries of
) \\ ell, that is a strong word to use., I admit ; but it is un
true, and the truth should be spoken. (Laughter and applause).
�19
The miners of this country have met in conference by their dele
gates, and they have declared—not that they wanted more wages,
not that they wanted shorter working hours, or any special remedy
of that sort ; but the lirst and most important tiling they have de
clared is, that they must have compulsory education for their chil
dren. (Loud applause.) Sir, the working classes throughout the
country have long declared in favour of compulsory education, and
I should be sorry to be regarded as speaking in the name of those
that I know little about; but my claim in speaking for the work
ing classes is that 1 have worked with them and tor them all the
days of my life, and I would not for one moment say on their be
half what 1 did not conscientiously believe they would desire me
to say. (Hear, hear.) Perhaps Mr. burster will tell me, as he
has told me before, that there is a large class in whose name the
representatives of our class generally cannot speak. M ell, I can
only say that, having worked for and with the better part of my
class all my life, I am in at least as good a position as Lord 1\obert
Montagu, or the Duke of Marlborough, or the Archbishop of < can
terbury, to speak on behalf of that class ; and I say that from the
miners up to the most skilled artisans of the country, they have all
declared in favour of compulsory education. As an instance, I may
mention that, last Thursday, I was in Glasgow ; there were 1,000
men crowded into a large room, and they were drawn together
under circumstances of a most unfortunate kind, because they were
engaged in discussing the whys and wherefores of a strike not the
best circumstances under which to take into consideration the ques
tion of education. Hut having been invited to speak to them, and
having said what I had to sayr with reference to their dispute, I asked
permission to turn that strike meeting into an education meeting.
(Loud applause.) It was unanimously' accorded, and, after having
spoken to them, I asked them if they' would embody their opinions
in the form of a resolution, and the following is the resolution that
was passed :—“ That this meeting of operative carpenters and
joiners, of Glasgow, expresses its cordial sympathy with the work
men of England and Wales in their efforts to obtain the establish
ment of a compulsory, secular, and free system of National
Education, and we hereby pledge ourselves to use our influence to
assist them in their endeavours.” Well, now, that is the way’ in
which the working classes have spoken, to my certain knowledge,
for the last fourteen years. It is now some fourteen years ago that
�20
1 first ventured to speak to a body of workmen on the question of
education ; and, I care not whether it has been in connection with
strikes or with any other business, I have always endeavoured to
put in the thin edge of the education wedge, and I have been con
tinually driving it home ever since. (Laughter and applause). But
the one question upon which they have been unambiguous is this
question of compulsion. (Applause). It is no answer to our ap
plication, to our appeal, to tell us that the Union, on the other
hand, has made a counter demand; I submit that such a list of
names as the. Union musters in their sheets, is not an answer to the
demand on the part of the working classes of this country. It
may be well for the Archbishop of York, or the Duke of Marl
borough, or Lord Robert Montagu to say we do not want compul
sion ; but what do we say for ourselves ? We say we want it, and
what is more, I mean to say, with all respect, that in the end we
will have it. (Laughter and applause). We intend to agitate until
we do get it, and, further, we think we have a lair claim upon the
present Government. (Loud applause). During the last election
we lent our best exertions to move the public and to get that noble
majority from which we hope so much in the present and in the
future—(applause)—and we hope to get in return the best assist
ance from the Liberal party to obtain for us that which we require.
On these grounds, I say, we have a claim that the present Govern
ment shall do something in the way of granting what we ask for.
In conclusion, I would simply say again what I have already stated
before, that hitherto our names have been used by those who
know too little about us to be able to state what our wants are;
and in that view we have made up our minds, upon this and every
other great question, to speak for ourselves. (Loud applause).
Rev. S. A. Steixtiial (of Manchester) : I represent the branch
of the League in Manchester and the neighbourhood, embracing
nearly the whole of the manufacturing district of South Lancashire,
and including a considerable portion of Cheshire and other districts
in that neighbourhood ; and I have to speak, sir, upon one point
on which Mr. Dixon has told you there exists some difference of
opinion amongst the leaders of the League. I happen not to be
amongst those, but I represent those who follow, and amongst
them there is no difference of opinion on the subject of the
freedom of schools. 1 have had an opportunity, as Secretary of
our Manchester District Branch, to address a large number of
�21
meetings, comprised, generally speaking, ol‘ the working claesss of
our district, and everywhere there has been the strongest feeling
that the plan suggested by the Government is a dangerous method
of meeting the difficulty with regard to the payment of fees. It
has been felt that, by the plan proposed in the Government Bill,
there would be the greatest danger of introducing a pauper spirit
where it does not yet exist—(applause)—while if the schools were
opened free to all classes of tin1 community, and all were placed
upon an equal footing, there would be no danger of sapping the
independence of the community. But, on the other hand, if you
do make it compulsory upon those whose circumstances are poor to
come before a Board and show their poverty, and prove it, in order
to escape the payment of as small a sum as sixpence per week, you
have certainly done that which will undermine their sense of
independence, and teach them to apply to Boards for help in
matters connected with their personal expenditure. (Applause).
And, sir, as we believe that independence of the population
will be best preserved by putting the maintenance of the schools
upon the local rates and upon the Government taxes, and as we
find the people nowhere averse to an increase of the rates in this
direction—for they are well aware of the economy that it ■will be
in so many others—we claim that, as these schools should be
entirely supported by public money, the public should be entitled
to their free use at all times. (Applause.)
Mr. Illingworth (of Bradford, M.P. for Knaresborough, : Air.
Gladstone, my Lord de Grey, and Air. Forster,—I have been
deputed to speak to the mode in which it is proposed to deal with
the religious difficulty in this Bill, and I believe I am giving
utterance to the convictions of the great Nonconformist bodies in
this country, and not of them only, but of all that worthy section
of Episcopalian and other Churches who join with us in all
Liberal movements, when I express a strong feeling of regret that
there, is not a clear enunciation of sound principle in the Bill upon
ecclesiastical and religious matters, when the groundwork which
was laid down in the last session of Parliament seems to have
been forgotten both in its inception and in its results ; and that,
further, between the two parts of the Bill—one part having refer
ence to existing schools, and the other to the schools to be created
by public money, and to be directly under public control—there
ought to have been a greater distinction drawn than that which
�oo
prevails in tlie Government Bill. Dissenters will be disposed to
recognise rights in existing schools on the part of a class which it
would be impossible they could consider for one moment in ratecreated and publicly-managed schools ; but, so far as the existing
schools are concerned, the universal feeling is that nothing of the
character of a Conscience Clause, according to its present or almost
any possible, acceptation, will be of the slightest use. (Hear, hear.)
I wish to draw attention to this fact, that there is in existence
what is called a national system of education in Ireland, governed
by national conscience, and that in that system the religious rights
of the minority have been protected. And why ! Because the
minority of Ireland happen to be connected with the governing
body in England, and therefore it is that their rights have been
thought of and effectually guarded. Now, we ask a reference on
the part of the Government to the working of that measure, and
to the particular provisions of the Irish system; and we say surely,
after having done, as Nonconformists, what we did last session
towards the bringing about of that happy condition in Ireland in
which the State minds its own business and leaves the religious
bodies to manage theirs—(applause)—we ask that in England equal
rights may be conceded, and that not suing in forma pauperis—
(heai1, hear)—nor any longer accepting the crumbs that fall from
the table—(applause)—but as sitting ourselves at the table, we
claim equal rights. (Loud applause.) 1 have the honour of being
one of tin* constituents of my right honourable friend Mr. Forster,
and no one can have a higher regard for him than I have, and,
indeed, for all the members of the Cabinet. I believe they are
about the best men that ever a party was asked to follow. (Loud
applause.) But, at the. same time, that does not exclude us from
stating with great respect, but with great candour, our demands
upon this question, and we say it is impossible for any satisfaction
to ensue from the carrying of this measure, because it does not
provide for that separation of religious teaching which I have
before pointed out. With that the demands of the Dissenters will
cease. They will ask equal rights with all other religious bodies,
and they look forward to a time when a. controlling national
system of education shall educate all the children of the land.
(Loud applause.)
The Rev. F. Barham Zincke (Chaplain to the Queen) : Mr.
Gladstone, my Lord de Grey, and Air. Forster,—Mr. Mundella
�23
says that this is not a Nonconformist question. I rise as a member
of the Established Church, and as the Chairman of the Ipswich
Committee, upon which two other clergymen of the Established
Church sit, to state that it is our opinion that the time lias now
come when the question of religious teaching should be settled in
a different manner from that by which it is proposed to be settled
in this Bill. We think that that time has come, because to
whatever part of the country we look we see indications in favour
of our opinions. (Applause.) 1 need not enter into particulars.
We know that it is so in Wales, we know that it is so in Scotland,
we know that we must do nothing in this country which will
endanger the national system in Ireland—(applause)—we know
that large bodies of the inhabitants of this country, such as
Nonconformists and the artisan class, whom we have represented
here to-day, are in favour of dealing with the religious question in
a manner different from that in which it is dealt with by this Bill.
We know that if it is dealt with in the manner proposed, a
variety of great evils will immediately follow ; we know that it will
produce an enormous amount of animosity—(hear, hear)— and of ill
blood in every borough and in every rural district in the country.
We know, too, when we look at what is passing in our great
English Universities, and what we have lately heard coming from
Trinity College, Dublin, that people’s minds are changing upon
this subject; and with reference to my own mind, speaking as a
member of the Established Church, I should feel no fear for the
cau^e of religion or for the cause of the Established Church, not
merely if we went as far as it is proposed to go, but even if we
went further—as far as appears to be required by the principality
of Wales. (Applause.) I think that the strength of the Church
does not consist in arrangements which were made centuries ago,
and have come down to us from a time when the political situation
was very different from that of the present day, and when all the
conditions of the question were very different. But it must
depend upon the estimate in which the Church is held by the
people; and if religious teaching is separated from secular, then
the country will feel that there is a great work to be done by the
clergy, and I believe that in the present temper of the clergy they
would do it heartily. What would be the result ? Why, then
the people would feel more respect and more gratitude and more
affection for the clergy than they do at the present. That would
�form a secure basis on which to rest the Establishment, ami that
is the only basis upon which, 1 think, in these days it can stand.
(Loud applause.)
The Rev. Charles Vince (Nonconformist .Minister) : Mr. Glad
stone, Mr. Forster, and Lord de Grey,—I should like to say that
the treatment of the religious difficulty has been put as the last
point to be spoken upon to-day, not because we consider it the
least important, but because we consider it the most important.
Many of us feel that the proposed treatment of the religious
difficulty is so unsatisfactory', that even it the other matters we
object to were adjusted to meet our wishes, we should still be
constrained to deprecate the passing of the Bill. (Applause.) I
should like, further, to say that our position of antagonism to Her
Majesty s Government is one that we did not anticipate, and now
we are forced into it we deeply lament it. Nothing, indeed, but
the strength and depth of our convictions as to the mischievous
results which will follow if this Bill becomes law in its present
form, would have induced us to come here in opposition to a
Ministry' whose advent to power was with some* of us the greatest
political joy' of our life. (Applause.) I would respectfully urge
that the religious difficulty is not met in the Bill, but is practically
ignored. The Imperial Parliament is asked not to decide the
matter, but to pass it on to a number of local Parliaments, in
which probably it will be perpetually discussed, but never finally
settled. (Applause.) AVe cannot see that there is the slightest
restriction put upon the power of the ►School Boards. They are at
liberty7, in establishing schools, to make them of what theological
colour and complexion they please, provided there is a Conscience
(Clause ; and, having determined to establish schools of such a
sectarian character as they deem fit, they have power to rate all
the inhabitants of the district for the maintenance of the schools.
The School Board in each district will be a Convocation—not
with the semblance of power, but with the reality of power.
(Applause.) It will be an ecclesiastical council, with authority to
determine what particular creed shall be exalted and endowed as
the creed of the State school in that particular district. I would
submit that no municipal or parochial body' was ever before
entrusted with such powers. A body invested with these preroga
tives by’ the Imperial Parliament cannot be annually elected
without strife and bitterness. It has been said that this will be
�the Church-rate contest over again. It will be so, with a very
important addition. The vestries in the Church-rate, contests had
to decide nothing about the services to be performed or the
doctrines to be taught; they had only to decide whether the
parish should be rated for the maintenance and repair of the
fabrics of the Episcopal Church. The School Board will have to
decide what doctrines shall be taught, and, therefore, it is the
Church-rate contest over again, with more important issues to be
determined, and, consequently, with greater danger of party strife
and bitterness. (Hear, hear.) We feel, sir, that our fears cannot
be denounced as chimerical. It cannot be said that we are going
simply upon conjecture, because there is the history of the past to
guide us. It has been well said that “ History is the Statesman's
book of prophecy.” With the history of the Church-rate contest
in our hands, one needs far less than a Statesman’s sagacity to
foresee what must be the issue of these contests for the election
of a body invested with the extraordinary functions which T think
I have fairly described. (Applause.) We feel, sir, that the
Conscience Clause does not meet the difficulty. There is one most
important class for whom no Conscience Clause is proposed.
There are two parties to be affected by these schools—the children
who will go to them, and ihe ratepayers who will have to support
them. Now, there is no Conscience Clause provided for the
protection of the ratepayers; and if, as is extremely probable
in certain districts, the rate-supported school should be a
sectarian school, then, as Mr. (’hamberlain has said, the
minority will be taxed to support the teaching of the religion
of the majority.
It is very certain that, if that state of
things is brought about by an Act of Parliament, we shall have
■distraints for school rates as we used to have distraints for (Ihurcli
rates. I fear there are many who would feel bound to take that
determined stand, because it is generally considered that the time
is passed by for ever for any man in England to be directly taxed
for the teaching of another man’s religion. (Applause.) I would,
moreover, respectfully submit that it is not merely contests between
Nonconformists and Episcopalians that are to be dreaded. I need
not say that the differences of opinion which have always been
more or less latent in the Episcopal Church are now developed
into great prominence, and are held and maintained with great
•earnestness. It is quite likely that, in certain districts, in the
�26
election of a Hoard there will he contests between different parties
in the Episcopalian Church, as well as contests between Noncon
formists and Episcopalians. (Laughter and applause.) English
(Christendom dees not increase in uniformity of opinion. (Laughter.)
I believe it does increase in unity of spirit. It seems to us that
the- proposal of Her Majesty’s Government for the treatment of
the religious difficulty will aggravate the evils incident to diversi
ties of opinion, and will aim a deadly blow at that charity of
spirit which increasingly prevails amongst all religious parties in
this country. (Loud applause.)
The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone: Mr. Dixon and gentlemen,
—On behalf of my colleagues, Lord de Grey and Mr. Forster,
and on my own behalf, I wish to say that I have had great
pleasure in receiving, from so many sources, gentlemen of so
much weight and ability, and so various (if I may so say) in
colour upon many matters, and hearing from them the expression
of their views. You are much too well aware of the gravity of
the question at issue, and of the necessity of weighing with very
great care every resolution of the Government upon them, to
complain, I am quite sure, if I say that I think our business on
this occasion is to take the expression of your views for careful
scrutiny and consideration. (Applause.) But I should wish to
he quite sure that, as far at least as you are disposed to carry the
matter, 1 understand the nature of them; and I admit that
nothing can be clearer than that you take great objection to
several of the provisions that are contained in the Government
Bill. (Laughter.) But at the same time, I listened with great
comfort and satisfaction, not only to the general expressions of
good-will which you gave us—I am sure beyond our deserts—
(cries of “No”)—hut likewise to the declaration of Mr.
Chamberlain, who I may consider as in some sense being your
chairman—the representative of you all—who did not hesitate to
state that he thought in other matters, outside the limit of your
objections, the Bill may fairly he regarded as “ a noble measure.”
That admission on the one side—or rather that avowal, for I
won't call it an admission—together with the frank statement of
your difficulties upon the other, affords, I think a basis upon which
we cannot but hope that by our united efforts, and by a spirit at
once of firmness and conciliation in all quarters, we shall be able
to work out a result of which I won’t anticipate the precise con
�27
dition and details at present, because you know very well that we
have other matters in hand—(laughter)—which for the moment,
and for a few weeks to come, perhaps, will afford us plenty of care
and occupation. But now, with regard to your particular views
upon the points that have been raised, there are two upon which
I should, for the satisfaction of my own mind (I don’t know
whether Lord de Grey and Mr. Forster would like to put any
other question), like to be clear as to what your views are. I have
not quite distinctly gathered the manner in which you would
propose to deal with existing schools. You have stated, I think,
very distinctly, through the mouths of several speakers, that you
do not approve of the Conscience Clause inserted in the Bill;
not so much on account of the particular form of that clause, but
because you mistrust altogether, and are inclined, I think, almost
to repudiate—(applause and laughter)—anything in the nature of
a Conscience Clause. (Applause.) Now, if that be so, do I
understand that you, Mr. Dixon, or Mr. Chamberlain, as far as
you can venture to speak, wish me to understand that in dealing
with existing schools all through the country, your term of dealing
with them would be that they should receive no aid from rates—
(a voice, “ Or taxes ”)—or from the Privy ('ounc.il—(cries of “ No,
no ”)—that they should receive no aid from rates excepting upon
the terms of conforming to your basis ; so that the basis of all
schools aided by rates should be one and uniform throughout the
country I (Hear, hear.) Do I understand that to be the opinion
of the meeting generally?
Mr. Dixon : 1, perhaps, had better tell Mr. Gladstone what, so
far as I know, is the prevailing sentiment with reference to the
existing schools. It is, that there should be separate religious
teaching, as a condition of the further grants which it is proposed
under this Bill to make to them; and that with reference to th«
new schools which may be provided out of the rates, those schools
shall be entirely unsectarian. (Applause.)
Mr. Gladstone : Then the existing schools might differ from
the new schools, in respect of their having separate religious
teaching ?
Mr. Dixon : ()f their own denomination.
Mr. Mvndella : At separate hours.
Mr. Gladstone : I understand that: but that teaching must be
confined to particular hours. (Applause.) Then, with regard to the
�28
power of the Local Boards as to religion : certainly, I think if any
one objection has been taken more strongly and broadly than
another, it has been both to the amount and the kind of that
power. That has been made perfectly clear to my mind. But 1
have not gathered with equal clearness what it is that you would
substitute for it. The principles are, as 1 understand, that educa
tion is to be free, or. for the sake of avoiding ambiguity of words,
gratuitous. (Applause.) I understand from Mr. Dixon there is
some difference of opinion, but that the bulk of you are united
upon that subject. (Applause.) But with reference to the com
pulsory principle, T have not understood from ATr. Dixon or any
speaker, that then* was a difference of opinion among you. (Cries
of ‘‘None.’’) With respect to the question of the power of Local
Boards as to religion, what am 1 to understand would be your
basis I Where would you draw the line between the school that is
secular and the school to which you would object on the ground of
its being what is now termed sectarian ? Would anything what
ever in the nature of religion he permissible in your schools, or
would it not ! The reason 1 put the question is that I think it
one of very great importance, because it has been stated that the
view of the League (I do not pretend to be accurately informed,
and 1 only ask for information) is that the Holy Scriptures might
be read in the schools provided they were not explained. Now,
only for the sake of greater clearness, I will put it according to the.
old story of the three courses. Here are Holy Scriptures read and
explained; Holy Scriptures read and not explained; and simple
secular instruction, without any reading of the Scriptures at all.
(“ The last ! the last ! ’’ and loud cheers). I do not know whether
Mr. Dixon or Mr. Chamberlain is authorised to speak upon this
point in the name of the League; but, if they were, I think it
would be of advantage to us to know. In stating those three
courses I have not at all wished to preclude him or any other gen
tlemen from stating any other. 1 only state those as being what
have prominently occurred to myself. With regard to what might
be, called theological or religious instruction, I have begged the
question so far—I have assumed that you would include that; but
with regard to any of those particular methods which it may be
(or by some may be thought to) fall short of denominational in
struction, it would be an advantage to us to know whether the
League have an article of its creed if I may so call it, upon that
�29
subject; and, if so, which of those three courses it is disposed to
follow.
Mr. Chamberlain' : Sir, in the draft of a Hill which was
prepared on behalf of the League, in order to put in the clearest
form their views before the country, and which was passed by the
Executive Committee, subject, however, to further revision, there
occurs this clause, which, to a certain extent, answers your ques
tion :—“ That in the national rate schools no creed, catechism, or
tenet peculiar to any sect shall be taught in any national rate
school, but the School Board shall have power to grant the use
of the school rooms out of school hours for the giving of
religious instruction, provided that no undue preference be
given to one or more sects to the exclusion of others.
But the rooms shall not be granted for the purposes of
religious worship. The School Board shall have power to permit
the reading of the Scriptures in the schools, provided that no child
shall be present at such reading if his parents or guardians dis
approve. That the time for giving such reading be before or after
the ordinary school business, and that it be so fixed as that no
child be thereby in effect excluded directly or indirectly from the
other advantages which the school affords.” I may point out that
that clause does not say anything about the explanation of the
Scriptures. It was thought that was sufficiently provided for in
the first part of the clause, which says that “no tenet peculiar to
any sect shall be taught; ” and it was considered, therefore, that if
the reading were allowed in the schools, it must be of a perfectly
unsectarian character. It is, however, only fair that I should say,
before I .sit down, that although that was the clause as adopted
provisionally by the Executive Committee, yet there is a Aery
strong feeling amongst the members of the League that for that
clause should be substituted one requiring that secular instruction
alone should be given in the schools which are aided by the rates.
(Applause.)
Mr. Gladstone : It would seem to me to follow that if that
clause were acted upon, something in the nature of a Conscience
Clause is introduced into flic basis of your own Bill.
Mr. Chamberlain : What is called the “time-table Conscience
Clause ” would have to be introduced with regard to the Bible
reading, to meet the difficulty of the Iloman Catholics, who use a
different version of the Scriptures, as in Ireland.
�30
Air. Gladstone: Then with reference to the power (one cannot
mistake the object of it) of the Board to permit the use of the
room for denominational instruction out of school hours, have you
no tear at all that that would introduce into the vestries the same
element of religious contention which has been so vividly described
by Mr. Vince ?
Air. Chamberlain : The clause only permits the use of the
school rooms for such purposes “provided that no undue preference
be given to one or more sects.”
Air. Gladstone : I have not, as I have said, the least doubt
about the object—it is that perfect impartiality should be observed;
but with regard to the administration of the matter under the
clause, it occurs to me that the very conditions of time and light
available, in a district where there might be a variety of sects claim
ing the room, would make a considerable amount of practical diffi
culty ; and I only ask whether you apprehend that with reference
to the administration of that portion of the clause, if it were
carried, you might not be open to a portion of the very same evils
as those that have been foreshadowed by Air. ATnce.
Air. Chamberlain : That was apprehended by many members of
the League.
Air. Gladstone : Then 1 do not think there is anything more
that I need troAle you upon. Gentlemen, I am much obliged to
you.
Mr. Dixon : On behalf of the Deputation, Air. Gladstone, I
tender you our most gratefid thanks for the patience with which
you have received us.
The Deputation then withdrew.
I
�NATIONAL EDUCATION L E A G U E.
O EJECT.
The establishment of a system which shall secure the Education
of every Child in the Country.
J/AIA A’S.
1. —Local Authorities shall be compelled by law to see that
sufficient School Accommodation is provided for every
Child in their district.
2. —The cost of founding and maintaining such Schools as may
be required shall be provided out of Local Rates, sup
plemented by Government Grants.
3. —All Schools aided by Local Rates shall be under the
management of Local Authorities, and subject to Govern
ment Inspection.
4. —All Schools aided by Local Rates shall be Unsectarian.
5. —To all Schools aided by Local Rates admission shall be free.
6. —School"Accommodatian being provided, the State or the Local
Authorities shall have power to compel the attendance of
children of suitable age not otherwise receiving education.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE LEAGUE.
George Dixon, M.P., Chairman of Council.
Joseph Chamberlain, Chairman of Executive Committee.
John Jaffray, J.P., Treasurer.
Jesse Collings, Honorary Secretary.
Applegarth, Robert, London.
Bazley, C. IL, J.P., Manchester.
Booth, Charles, Liverpool.
Bragg, William, Sheffield.
Brown, Rev. J. Jenkyn, Birmingham.
Bunce, J. Thackray, F.S.S., Birmingham.
Caldicott, Rev. J. W., M.A., Bristol.
Chamberlain, J. H., F.R.I.B.A., Birmingham.
Chamberlain, Joseph, Birmingham.
Cheetham, William, Manchester.
Clarke, Rev. Charles, F.L.S., Birmingham.
Collier, W. F., Plymouth.
�Cowen, J., jun., Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Crosskey, Rev. H. W., F.G.S., Birmingham.
Dale, R. W., M.A., Birmingham.
Dawson. George, M.A., F.G.S., Birmingham.
Dilke, Sir 0. W., Bart., M.P., London.
Fawcett, Professor, M.P., Cambridge.
Fawcett, Mrs.
Ferguson, Major, Carlisle.
Field, Alfred, Birmingham.
Fry, Herbert, London.
Harris, William, Birmingham.
Herbert, the Hon. Auberon, M.P., London.
Hodgson, W. B., LL.D., London.
Holden, Angus, Bradford.
Holland, Henry, ex-Mayor of'Birmingham.
Howell, George, London.
Huth, Edward, Huddersfield.
Kenriek, William, Birmingham.
Kingsley, Rev. Canon, Eversley.
Kitson, James, jun., Leeds.
Lloyd, G. B. Birmingham.
Macfie, Rev. M., F. R.G.S., Birmingham.
Mander, S. S., Wolverhampton.
Martineau, R. F., Birmingham.
Mathews, 0. E., Birmingham.
Maxfield, M., Leicester.
Maxse, Captain, R.N., Southampton.
Middlemore, William, Birmingham.
Osborne, E.
Birmingham.
Osler, A. Follett, F.R.S., Birmingham.
Prange, F. G., Liverpool.
Rothera, G. B., Nottingham.
Rumney, Alderman, Manchester.
Ryland, Arthur, Birmingham.
Steinthal, Rev. S. A., Manchester.
Timmins, Samuel, F.R.S.L., Birmingham.
Vinci1, Rev. < ’hartes, Birmingham.
Webster, Thomas, Q.C., Loudon.
Winkworth, Stephen, Bolton.
Wright, J. S., Birmingham.
Zineke, Rev. F. B., M.A., Ipswich.
FINANCE COMMITTEE—Chairman, William Harris.
PUBLISHING COMMITTEE—Chairman, J. Thaikray Bunce.
BRANCHES COMMITTEE—Chairman, R. F. Martineau.
Francis Adams, Secretary.
Central Offices, 47, Ann Street,
Birmingham.
THE “JOURNAL” PRINTING OFFICES, NEW STREET, BIRMINGHAM.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Verbatim report of the proceedings of a deputation of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, M.P., the Right Hon. Earl de Grey and Ripon, the Right Hon. W.E. Forster, M.P. on Wednesday, March 9, 1870
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
National Education League
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Birmingham
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Aims and objectives of the League and committee members listed on unnumbered pages at the end. Includes list of delegates from the branches.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
National Education League
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5207
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Verbatim report of the proceedings of a deputation of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, M.P., the Right Hon. Earl de Grey and Ripon, the Right Hon. W.E. Forster, M.P. on Wednesday, March 9, 1870), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Earl de Grey and Ripon
George Forster
Religious Education
State Education
W.E. (William Ewart) Gladstone
William Edward Robinson
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a5313c39a8fc8bc5663b99ff5d28c6cb.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=V9apBiPLueAtIwz7kbcLSOw0jL1jc1WOJ1LVMG7AA54sAjh2Ag%7Eqi8kP-Etfca1-okS7Q7YQYLvjMip8zWz7CT2IV6GS-0CJPgi9RMnZ1TrWOS750jKLVvZ9POyJ-nphv3cWhrtH%7EB8so1sGIF1QtBygNZO7xLDad6QhspK7oME8SVMvKTJ9ILcgY-M4e0U-03Z505sUOeGm99mekUFBOxWgYzQYu1cuOnnK4UdmrCreLRUUMrYN2QcWsVkWwJlhUVIR4VZVaWw65BhkKn-p9nX9T5fgv5f97kSxEn-tjm1DsJcuAjZ7wU05jCywdmjbfuK3zxvHbXq5322VuuNG9Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
53231c32e5b76c9b24fb7ccf13c43b24
PDF Text
Text
t |Jl,
Cannon
ife
Nu&f
I A FREE STATE
AND
FREE MEDICINE.
BY
JAMES JOHN GARTH WILKINSON.
LONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.O.
GLASGOW : JOHN THOMSON, 39, JOHN STREET.
1870.
�“ New foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.”
Milton.
�I.
A FREE STATE, AND FREE MEDICINE.
The pages headed Medical Freedom, appended to this
Essay, formed a postscript to a small work of mine on a
new Treatment of Small Pox, written some years ago.
*
Their re-publication has been undertaken because it has
been thought that they have work to do at the present
time. I wrote them in good part from the theoretical
side, having a clear certainty that the separation of medicine
from government, and from power, and the dischartering
of all medical corporations, would confer upon medicine
and the community the greatest benefits. I foresaw that
freedom had a future here of which protection could give
no inkling; and that Art, Science, Service, Healing, would
live anew from it upon a hitherto unknown scale. I
pleaded gently in the interest of medicine and the com
munity.
The pages are reprinted as they stood, with some medical
topics adhering to them.
But now in the face of recent acts and facts, I plead in
the name and interest of the community alone : of the
consumer, not of the producer: of the British people
struggling with bonds, not of the banded and enthralled
medical corporations and profession. The medical pro
* On the Cure, Arrest, and Isolation of Small Pox, by a New Method ; and
on the Local Treatment of Erysipelas, and all Internal Inflammations; with a
Special Chapter on Cellulitis ; and a Postscript on Medical Fkeedom. London :
Leath & Ross, 1864.
�4
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
fession has crept into the Government, and is inciting it to
breaches of most sacred freedom, and thus is virtually at
war, and dreadful to say is influencing the Liberal and
Freetrade Gladstone Ministry to war, with the nation.
The particulars are not far to seek, and need not detain
me long, especially as I am about soon, in a larger Essay,
to treat of them severally. Suffice it now to say that,
I. War is levied upon the population by the Parlia
mentary Jet of Compulsory Vaccination. Vaccination may
be bad or good in its results; so may aconite, or arsenic,
or the sword; but no goodness of it justifies the violation
by it of unwilling families. Parliament has no excuse for
it. If Vaccination be protective, whoso will can be pro
tected by it; and leave those who do not choose to be
vaccinated, to their own freewill, to bear the risk. A large
and increasing body of the population hates the name and
thought of Vaccination; numerous cases are extant in
every considerable town of deterioration of health, injury,
and death from it, inflicted upon little children; and
coroner’s inquests return verdicts of “ died from the con
sequences of Vaccination;” and yet Parliament arms the
medical man with a right of virus against the babies next
born to those who have thus been slaughtered, and sends
the fathers or mothers who cannot pay continual fines, to
prison. In this Act Parliament commits a breach of the
peace as wide as Great Britain and Ireland, for it directly
incites to violent retribution. It is obvious that riot may
come of it. And it is equally obvious that if a mother or
father can say to the virus-man, “ Sir, I believe in my soul,
from dire experience in my own family, or my neighbour’s,
that what you are bent upon doing to my baby will pollute
its health, and probably take its life, and I will resist it to
the death, and rouse my neighbourhood to resist it,”—it is
obvious that whatever weapon that woman or that man
uses to protect, not only his fireside, but the very blood of
his race; and whatever arousing of the passions of his
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
5
commune he may cause against his poisoners, the public
opinion of the world will justify him, as much as if he
shot down a midnight assassin from his wife’s and child’s
bedside.
Yet Parliament has sanctioned this perpetual felony and
occasional murder in this compulsory Act; and Parliament
will now have to unsanction the Act, and to destroy it.
Nothing of this would have happened if medicine had
had no more to do with Government than any other calling
has; but medicine has got into the State, and instead of
being called when wanted, it is itself ensconced in office;
the State has lost its service, and got its impertinence, and
any foothold of power, or patronage, or pay, that it has, it
will by no means surrender. Old Physic, thus officialized,
revels in the application of the Compulsory Vaccination
Law, and hunts out the children of those who are known
Anti-vaccinators with especial zest. Nor does it forget
that hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling are the
reward of what so many now regard as the pollution and
slaughter of the innocents. The pressure of the despotism
is so urgent, that Vaccinators will not listen to medical
certificates against Vaccination, on the score of skin disease,
whooping cough, or the like : fine, imprisonment, or sub
mission, are the unconditional demand of the Government
doctors.
And this for a disease which killed eleven people in
London last week, while scarlatina killed more than a
hundred.
I am not now arguing against Vaccination, but against
Compulsory Vaccination; but I am prepared to argue un
reservedly against Vaccination itself when the occasion
arises. I know that it is a delusion and an evil, and I have
done with it. But my point here is that chartered medicine
has polluted and endangered the State with it, where un
chartered medicine would have had no chance of doing so;
and that hence arises a mighty practical reason why the
�6
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
State should discharter all medical corporations, withdraw
all royal patents from them, and leave physic, like other
businesses, to its own unaided work; calling it in for
an opinion when necessary, but judging that opinion by no
professional standard, but by wide and high common sense;
and being entirely free to act upon it or not when the
opinion is delivered, and the doctor gone from Downing
Street.
The plainest medical reason, or medical truth, may not
be expedient or good for a statesman to carry out. If
Jenner or Watson could prove ever so clearly that by dis
secting alive the vilest felon some desired medical light
would shine forth, it would still be competent for the
Home Secretary to say, 11 No, gentlemen, wait for that!
A generation had better die without benefit of illuminated
doctors, than that its life should be bought in the coins of
hellish cruelty. That vile man is my brother, and the State
stands in the interest of a higher light and life against the
pretended medical good that is to come of disembowelling
him.”
And so the State shall say one day, better let epidemic
smallpox sweep our towns, than Vaccination outrage hearts
and homes under the pretence of abating it. Not that
epidemic smallpox will do it, dear reader, for epidemic
smallpox is for the most part a panic ; though when it
does occur in a bad form, Vaccination has no power to
protect against it. But better the desolation which medi
cine and sanitary action could grapple with at last, than
the moral and personal violation of the homes and children
of our commonwealth.
II. This, then, is the first battleground between the British
Nation and the Chartered Medical Profession.
*
The
* I refer the reader to the Essay on Vaccination, by Chas. T. Pearce, M.D.,
Loudon, 1868; to the Essay of Dr. Bayard; to the Anti-Vaccinator; and in
general to the publications of the Anti-Vaccination League, for full information
against the Utility of Vaccination, and about the injuries it causes, and the
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
7
second and equally serious, but not more serious, battle
ground, is in the Contagious Diseases Act, lately passed
by Parliament, for districts where soldiers are housed, and
now proposed for extension to the whole civil community.
This Act too, passed surreptitiously under a misleading
name, would not have become law but that chartered
medicine was at the ear of the central Government as its
only adviser. The process evidently is, to send for “ the
most eminent medical men,” and be bound by their advice.
This course is both misleading and servile; and the mis
direction and the servility both depend upon royal charters.
Thus, “ the most eminent medical men,” to a Minister of
State’s apprehension, are inevitably at the head of the
orthodox corporations; and hence the minister gets arrant
orthodoxy, whose power of poohpoohing is its supreme
faculty, in place of wide and varied experience. He gets
infallibility instead of heart and brains. And instead of
getting orthodoxy as an opinion, he receives it as a com
mand ; and if he must have medical action at all, he has
nothing to hold orthodoxy in check as the agent. Even a
Gladstone can call in nobody else but these pampered and
easily incensed Mandarins. Our ministry, methinks, should
be the highest present jury of the country, giving its inde
pendent verdict after patiently hearing professional judge
and professional advocates ; but in such cases as these it is
hopelessly charged and commanded by the bench, and the
barristers are with the bench in overruling its twelveman
common sense, and forcing the verdict against it.
This is well divulged in a paper by an eminent orthodox
medical lady, Miss Elizabeth Garrett. “ Is legislation
increased death-rate that coincides with it. By this practice the medical
profession has introduced a new disease into the human race; and by the two
Acts under question, two new tyrannies are added to the evils of our country.
And in the case of Vaccination, from a practice not a hundred years old, but
which the doctors seen! to think is as durable as the rock of ages, though the
counter-experiment of letting Vaccination alone has not been tried ; and, con.
sequently, there is no test of its value in any sense, excepting as a fee-field of
the doctors.
�8
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
[about syphilitic diseases] necessary ? ” she asks, and
answers, “ This is strictly a professional question, upon which
the opinion of trustworthy medical witnesses ought to be
accepted as final. It is enough if unprofessional persons
know what that opinion is, together with some of the prin
cipal facts upon which it is based.” We have heard of
the Rule of the Monk, in Rome, and here is the parallel
Rale of the Doctor in Britain. You are no longer to call
in the doctor, and employ him as long as you like his
treatment, and judge with your own common sense every
serious proposal in that treatment; but he, or she, by
Heaven, is to call you in, and do what he likes with you !
You are his bond slave, and his word is, Flat experimentuni
in corpore tuo—vilissimo.
“ Is legislation necessary ? ” Who is to answer that
question, Miss Garrett ? Who calls in legislators, who are
a high order of professionals ? The people of course.
Air. Gladstone is where he is because the household suff
ragans have placed him there, and keep him there so long
as they have confidence in him. He is bound to consult
with his employers upon all matters pertaining to their
own bodies and fortunes. He has to legislate in their best
interest. On medical questions he avails himself of or
thodox eminent advice; he calls the doctors in as the
householders have called him in. But he is to legislate;
they are not to legislate. The opinion they give is strictly
a professional one; but the question of whether, or how, it
shall be carried out is not professional, excepting so far as
statecraft is a profession; it is a legislative question ; and
the settlement of it lies in the will of the people, and then
in the derivative wise will of the ministry. If the opinions
of callings were to be converted into the immediate volitions
of the State, we should have a pretty time of it. The
State would be garrotted by a hundred small ruffians of
professions. “ Nothing like leather” would be the rallying
cry of every cobbler’s onset on his premier. Miss Garrett’s
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
9
baker would force her into vegetarianism, for the food of
the people is strictly an eminent baker’s question; and the
chief of the bakers must be “ accepted by her as final.”
A homoeopathic premier might call in homoeopathic emi
nence, and converting his eminence’s answer into an edict,
forbid her salts and senna and blue pill for the rest of her
orthodox days.
A professional opinion, however eminent, is not then a
legislative question at all, but a mere suggestion, unless a
legislator takes it up ; and moreover, the whole unprofes
sional mass of the country is the permanent jury which
gives the verdict of To do, or Not to do, in every case.
What are the grounds upon which a legislator as distin
guished from “an expert” or professsional specialist must
act ? The expert, you will observe, merely takes his own
medical view of the case, modified of course by his good
sense, and moral and spiritual capacities ; but the medical
view is central. The statesman—I do not accept him as
“ final ”—-is distinguished from the lesser professional man
in this chiefly, that he has all the interests, not merely the
sanitary interests, to help and not to harm. First of all,
the interest of impartiality ; that is the justice-rock on
which he stands. Then, co-extensive with the common
wealth, social interests, spiritual interests, humanitary
interests, bodily interests, moral interests. The order and
poise of all these together in his mind, each like the organs
of a sound body pressing the rest into shape and function,
is the ground of the wisdom of every special action of the
statesman; and makes him neither a philanthropist, nor a
divine, nor a philosopher, nor a sanitarian, nor a moralist;
but a legislator, and a professional statesman. His will is
never reached by any other one profession separately.
Woe be to him if ever he allows that will to be first
violated and then traversed by any doctor or specialist who
represents one partial interest where all interests should
�10
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
be most generously constellated, and a love and wisdom
above interest itself should reign.
The obverse of this, the position assumed by Miss Garrett,
that the people have nothing to do with her foul physic
but to shut their eyes and take it, is the common stupidity
of chartered and collegiate bodies. I leave it to the reader
to imagine whether such dense darkness against human
right, and the human mind, and the all prevalent good
sense of mankind, is a favourable atmosphere for scientific
studies, or the prosecution of the most free and instinctive
of all the arts, the Art of Healing. For my own part I do
not doubt that the conceit and love of power bred of
charters and patronage rob medical men and women of
their best inspirations, and reduce to a minimum the
humane vigour of their lives.
But to return to the Contagious Diseases Act.
As some of my readers do not know what it is, I will
tell them.
First, it is founded on the present fact that the most of
soldiers must be unmarried ; and secondly, on the pre
sumed fact that unmarried soldiers must have women for
their gratification; and thirdly, on the fact that if their
women are diseased, they disease the soldiers, and cause
added expense for the army. Wherefore, it is expedient
to keep the women well for use, which can only be done
by compulsorily examining them at short intervals, and
when needful, compulsorily curing them. For this purpose
they are summoned from very wide districts, one and all,
and come in crowds, to the place of inquisition, the wallow
ing with the tidy, the vilest with the neatest; and they are
examined, very often (I do not know how often, but it
ought to be tabled) with large steel tubes, called specula, and
if diseased, sent to hospital, and if healthy, let back to whore
dom. Purer women may be brought by the police, by
mistake, or by the plotting of villains by design, into the
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
11
same category ; and if they do not take care, or, as Miss
Garrett says, are “ helpless,” which a good many good
women are, they may become liable to fortnightly exposure
and looking at, and steel entry, for one twelvemonth ; and
their husbands have no remedy, because the Act has con
doned the police mistake, and probably veiled the villain’s
plot, by anticipation.
This system, its advocates say, has diminished venereal
disease in array districts, and also the number of pros
titutes ; where it has been applied with the utmost strin
gency, as in the little island of Malta, it has “ stamped
out ” the disease ; and it only remains to apply it to the
whole of Great Britain and Ireland, to extinguish this
disease altogether. Let, then, every common woman in
the three kingdoms be inspected fortnightly—police super
intendents being the judges of who are bad women—and
let hospitals, big enough to take in all who are diseased,
be erected from one end of the land to the other.
A tall medical vision ! Building contractors who could
get on that shoddy Pisgah, would give a handsome per
centage to chartered and patented physic for the admin
istration of the vast disbursement. They need only read
Mr. Simon’s clear'pamphlet to estimate the amazing carcase
to which they would be fain eagles.
But if you can desyphilize little Malta, till a new regi
ment, or a new ship of war comes, it does not follow that
you can do the same for Greater Britain. When I was a
boy there was a current saying, “ Naturam expellas furca,
tamen usque recurret” You may drive out nature with a
pitchfork, but she will always come back again. If you
could clear all prostitution from the streets, so that the
sharpest police superintendent should not know who is
who, you might only, I will say at present you would only,
drive immorality out of sight, and lodge it higher up in
the community. I should like to know if Devonport,
endorsed by Miss Garrett’s “ clergy,” is more moral
�12
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
because its 2000 inspected prostitutes have diminished
from 2000 in 1864 to 770 in 1870. I should like to
know from the dissenting ministers of the district the state
altogether of the 770 who do the work of the former 2000.
It strikes me forcibly, that you may scare prostitutes away
at the expense of bringing up servant girls secretly into
their ranks. And these, being uninspected, all the in
fection begins over again in your own kitchens. And as
masters are often immoral with their servants, and innocent
wives and children must be protected, all you can do then
is to suspect every woman below your own rank, and to
have her inspected ; and presently you will find the old
hospitals bursting with their contents into new ones:
bursting, not like Aaron’s rods, but like spawning serpents.
Truly the medical plot thickens. We have got our reward
for protecting physic ; for adopting Miss Garrett’s principle
that the first topmost medical opinion should be taken, and
that then it should override every other faculty and concern,
and be converted into direct and universal legislation.
Out, I say, upon a protected orthodoxy which would
introduce such a horrid tapeworm into our national con
stitution ; if for no other reason, then for this reason, of
saving bodies and souls, give us freedom from State medi
cine, and let medicine herself be remitted to her own
resources, and have a conscience void of public offence,—the blessing in the humility of freedom.
Could Miss Garrett’s orthodoxy be carried out, Great
Britain would swarm with a vermin of pensioned venereal
doctors more than Spain, or Italy, or Turkey, ever swarmed
with beggar priests. Great Britain would have syphilis
with a vengeance.
But, reader, it cannot be carried
out. The Dissenters will not have it, because they can
scarcely understand the vice of which the diseases in
question are some of the plagues, and they will never
sanction the endowment and establishment of the pre
tended cure of those plagues in the interest of the vice.
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
13
The Municipalities will not have it, because they have
great radical works of good needing all their monies and
means, and they do not hold these to be spent on stopgaps
of an evil which in its retreat will more deeply and des
perately defy them. The public exchequer will not have
it (on its own shoulders), because the prostitutes and their
medical bishops, many tens of thousands strong in London
alone, would devour the treasury. The Married will not
have it, because they see that its tendency is to drive
prostitution, and whatever disease adheres to it, from the skin
of the streets, inwards into homes, and upon the vital parts
of the community. The vast Working Classes will not have
it, because their daughters are those in the main who will
first be invaded by the inspreading of the surgeons and their
poxes. Common Sense will not have it, because common
sense seeks cure and not suppression; and common hope,
which is the sister of common sense, knows that cure is pos
sible ; and that necessity of fornication is a chimera which
has no existence, but is merely the horrible shadow pro
jected before the eyes of a chartered and decayed society,
and cleared at once from the heart and brain of a loving,
an ennobled and a progressive society. The statesmen of
these advancing times will not have it, because it has
nothing to do with statecraft; and because they will see
that they are only general managers for the nation, and that
if in the interest of special people they were to undertake
a special stamping out of evils ; a special hospitalling of all
broken and ruined people, the ground would be cumbered
with a Bedlam-city of hospitals, medical, legal, clerical,
*
commercial, legislative, royal, and the only two classes left,
* Dr. Dalrymple, M.P., is moving in this direction, and asks the State to
erect pillars which will hold all drunkards upright, and Mr. Bruce, the Home
Secretary, instead of teaching the lion, member that the State will be happy
to do this as soon as any great wit shows how the State, which finds it hard
itself to be upright, can hold everybody upright—advises him “ to try his
hand at a Bill on the subject.” Mr. Bruce ought to bo moro merciful to
retired physicians.
�14
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
besides statesmen, would be inspectors, and patients.
This, the logical carrying out of the Act, would be hell
realized upon earth, with the Inquisition for its portico.
And last and first, the awakened Womanhood of the
land will not have it. I dare not know, Why, in the
woman’s way, because I am not a woman ; but I do
know that they will not because they will not. Their
reasons are made of fire in such a case, and could burn
up a household parliament which is made of parchment
presently. They will not have troopers fed by govern
ment on the carcases of their sex ; on carcases stamped
with the government permit; they know all over that
state prohibition and non-prohibition are the two halves
in all licensing. They will feel with those eyes of the heart
which see and more than see, which are all senses in one
touch, that the shame days of the state are their shame
days, and that fortnight by fortnight common modesty is
being effaced from the lowest women to the highest ; and
that purity is freshly trampled every time in the slums
of the filthiest rumour. They will know by the heart
the secrets of the prison-house ; the surgeons and the
unwilling women’s bodies ; the struggle and the steel,
office and agony ; the fairest searcht the foulest. They
will hate men while they love them, till men, public and
private, leave bad womanhood unworsened. They will
hate a government which crowns the infamy of prostitu
tion with the last ignominy and wrong, of public state
ravin and state rape. They will hate the medical govern
ment dogma which lies to mothers and sisters and
affianced brides of the necessity of prostitution, and proclaimes it as a natural office of the community, young
and old ; the dogma which postpones love to lust, which
it is woman’s severest mission to correct in man. They
will quell and choke the medical assertion that their baby
boys are born whoremongers, and that some poorer mother’s
baby girls are their predestined skittles in the game of
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
15
ruin. They will believe that God is love, and that Christ
is incarnate love, and that love is the Creator, and love
is the hope, and love is the Redeemer; and they will have
nothing licensed but love which is the licenser. None of
these are dead men’s reasons; but men’s best reasons
unloved and unaccepted by women, will be poor stubble
in the days of fire which are coming, in the days of
woman which are coming, in the holy days which are
coming.
And ah ! later than last, the slow Manhood of the
country will rise upon these Acts, and their authors. The
chronic meanness of the State, which has confiscated
woman to man, which has made the huge freedom of
marriage into the gulf and abyss of her person and her
property, will begin to be avenged from the ground up
wards, and the sexes will tear up this lowest wrong with
even hands. We men in truth have not known what we
were doing. All uncorrected, unchastened, unmated, in
our public conscience, we have been cruel and greedy as
impuberous boys, and have ravaged the holdings and
trampled out the capacities of woman on the floors of long
parliaments. We have been a sour and an unmarried
country. We are awakening and ripening at last. The
scorn of women is awakening us ; the new power of women
is awakening us; the fiery justice of women is awakening
us; the angry commonweal and coming democracy of
women is awakening us; and we are going to help our
mothers and wives and all our sisters out of the State
chains of unrighteous laws and customs. Out of sex
legislation, and sex-oppression. Out of one morality for
women, and another for men. Out of the household
political Mahometanism that women to the State have no
separate souls. Out of the claws of chartered surgery.
Out of homes that are prisons, and out of brothels that
are graves.
It is now no digression to see that the questions raised by
�16
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
these two seemingly small acts of parliament directly move
the issue of Woman’s Universal Suffrage. All women have
the offices, of protecting their babes, and of caring for their
own sex to whatever deep depths its unfortunates may
have fallen. The public will of woman is summoned forth
by God’s providence when she is publicly assailed in her
womanhood and her home. That which is coming to
answer the call, is not female household suffrage, for that is
another enchanter and chaunter of property, but true univer
sal suffrage, which is the Word of all Souls ■ truly, I will
say, the voice of God more and more audible in progressive
nations. And these Acts of Parliament, if women will
but speedily stamp them out, will be the beginning of the
dav when not woman’s dishonours, but her soul of honour
will be public; when the State in its coldest departments
will begin to know the beating of her heart.
I have now told you faintly some of the reasons why
this Act shall not be extended, and who those are that will
not have it; and I find on carefully looking round that,
judging by the past, the only things that will have it, if
they can, arc the church and the state, including chartered
physic.
So much then for the extension of the Act. But now I
will say further that the present Army Act will not be kept
on the statute book. In the first place, the army which is
said to necessitate it, must go, and give place to an army
which docs not require an episcopacy of prostitution, or to
no.army at all. We are in profound peace, are giving up the
defence of our colonies from home, and there is no disaffec
tion within our borders which a larger commonwealth-heart
would not appease. Gibraltar, and Malta, and Aden, and
the islands of the sea, ought to belong to themselves first,
and next, to the whole world. Excepting for India, where
a humane system of mounted police in plain clothes may
protect the real interests of the country and our own plant
of railway and other property there, we have no need of a
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
17
standing army. We have less need of an army than the
United States has. But as for the graduation of dis
banding, and putting all the remaining men into plain
policemen’s clothes—the symbols of peacekeeping, whereas
the red coats are the symbols of the glories—of slaughter
of males, and seduction of females—as for the disbanding,
the unmarried men, after the horrid treatment they have
survived, should be paid off handsomely, and sent if they
wish it to Canada, or in the “ flying squadron ” to any
other part of the world ; and the married ones, as a
nucleus to national volunteers, should receive a large incre
ment of pay ; <£300 a-year income will be little enough, and
a farm apiece on the crown lands, or in the ducal deso
lations of Argyleshire and Sutherlandshire; for there is no
more reason why an army should be a cheap thing, than
why a Queen should be cheap, or why an Archbishop of
Canterbury should be cheap, or why a Marquis of West
minster should be cheap. This simple plan will render the
Contagious Act unnecessary.
I object, then, to the present Contagious Act, because it
would bolster up our present bestial system —our Sodom
*
* See what the Government and the household suffragans of this country,
the bishops and clergy, and all the classes whose wealth and state are supposed
to be protected by the army, in short, all but the lower classes and the women,
are responsible for in regard to their army. Dr. Stallard says, in the Sessional
Proceedings of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science,
‘ My attention was first directed to the subject by making an attempt to
determine the most convenient number of soldiers who should be accommo
dated in one room. As to the opinion of the commanding officers, I found it
on this subject in general opposition to that of the soldiers. They advocate
large rooms containing not less than eighteen men, and they prefer those with
twenty-five. They do this on the ground of supervision being more easily
exercised, for, with but few exceptions, they are in favour of complete publicity.
There must be no cupboards, no lockers. If the soldier has any money, or
articles on which he sets store, he must keep them in his pockets since he has
nowhere else to put them; and if he keeps over, from time to time, some
portion of his midday meal, he must expose it on the shelf, where it will soon
be covered with dust and dirt from the sweepings of the floor. But as regards
the men, without exception, they prefer a room for eighteen to one for twenty,
five, a room for twelve to one for eighteen, a room for eight to one for twelve,
B
�w
18
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
and Gomorrlia system—with our poor army; because in
so far as it maintains prostitution healthy, it must make
a room for four to one for eight; and those soldiers who have been quartered
in an old prison, now used as a barrack in Dublin, testified that they were
never so comfortably lodged.
*
*
*
The first and great objection
felt by the decent soldier is the entire absence of privacy. From the time of
his enlistment to the date of his discharge there is not a moment or a place
which he can call his own in the fullest sense of the term. He washes, dresses,
eats, drinks, and sleeps in public. Let me try and represent what this publicity
really means. Of his twenty-four comrades it will be absolutely certain that
two or three will be habitual drunkards, and one or two will have been in
prison for some crime. Some commanding officers expressly order the worst
characters in the company to be quartered with the best, with the view of
reformation; indeed this is one of the great arguments used in favour of the
congregation of so many men together.
“ But, as one black sheep infects the flock, so, instead of improving, the bad
soldier often makes the others worse. Naturally, and unless modified by the
presence of a very superior non-commissioned officer, the moral standard of a
barrack-room is that of almost the worst man in it. The more men the worse
and more extensive is the mischief, and the greater is the discomfort inflicted
upon a really decent man. No doubt the presence of a good barrack-room
corporal modifies the evil; but even the power of the best is limited. He is
only a step above the rest, and his life would be unbearable if he were to be
very strict. He is obliged to wink at a great deal which it is his duty to report.
It is well known, for example, that drunkenness escapes report. A man died
of delirium tremens, at Portsmouth, who had gone to bed drunk every night for
more than twenty years, and yet that man had never been convicted, and held
a good conduct medal. There is also a great deal of behaviour which ranges
between fun and torture, of which the non-commissioned officer in charge can
take no notice.
“ An old soldier informed me that he has frequently known a recruit to go to
bed night after night in his clothes, in fear of the remarks and ridicule which
the act of undressing would certainly give rise to. And the public use of that
military institution called the urine tub, is the moment chosen for remarks and
practical jokes of the most disgusting kind.
“ Woe be to the recruit who has any personal defect or peculiarity, and,
above all, to one who has any religious feeling. The attempt to read his bible,
or say his prayers, will be the signal for an onslaught of bread crusts and
slippers. True, it may be, and doubtless is, that the man who firmly persists
in the performance of his religious exercises eventually is let alone, nay, is even
respected by his comrades ; but how few possess this moral courage, and how
many sink before the shafts of ridicule. Moreover, let the man fail to maintain
his own standard for a single moment, and the last discomfort will be greater
than the first, and his difficulties in maintaining his position will be im
measurably increased. And, whilst speaking of the religious life, I have found
that one of the greatest annoyances arising from the publicity of barrack life
is difference of belief. Episcopalians, Methodists, Independents, Baptists,
Roman Calholics, are mixed up together, and with men who scoff at them all.
A Roman Catholic has no opportunity of performing his religious exercises, and
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
19
into shamelessness hard as steel the womanhoods of its
*
base episcopate; and in so far as it scares prostitution
away, it must drive the foul soldiery in upon our houses;
because the fortnightly ripping open of the moral sore and
sewer is an outrage upon the community, and a day of
sour shame and filthy jeering to the thoughtless crowd;
because it embrutes the sacred medical office, and pays it
for pretending to give away the power of sin and wicked
ness ; and because it is the germ of a system which would
debauch and infect the general public. I object to it also
because it sullies the Government of the country with the
responsibility of finding clean prostitutes for the army, and
spends governmental action upon the diseases of one vice,
which itself is but a disease of the hopelessness and drunk
enness which the present Government army system perwhen in a barrack-room with Protestants his position is often most uncomfortable.
A sergeant informed me that, night after night, there used to be controversies
in his room, lasting through half the night, and terminating, not unfrequently,
in blows. He said officers had no conception of the religious quarrels which
ensued, since they were hushed in a moment if an officer came in.
“ Nor is it possible to get a good night’s rest. Out of so many men some
are sure to be noisy and sleepless; and scarcely is the room quiet when some
drunken or noisy person comes in from leave, disturbing all the sleepers. It
not unfrequently happens also, that some one is ill, either from his own fault or
otherwise, and the atmosphere is rendered unbearable by the occurrences
which unavoidably take place. Nor is the urine tub, which appears to be
considered as the only practicable institution of this nature, conducive to the
comfort of the men. If placed inside the room it is most offensive, and is
occasionally used for most improper and disgusting purposes, and if outside the
door, although less objectionable, it‘is often knocked over by the men who
enter in the dark, and the use of it involves the disturbance of all the sleepers
by the opening and shutting of the door. Another objection to a large barrack
room is the impossibility of warming all alike. One fire is quite insufficient for
twenty-five men. Those placed near it are too hot, those at a distance too
cold. This difficulty can only be overcome economically by having a com
bination of fires and hot water pipes; the fires being central, so that the
soldiers may sit around them.”
* Our lady holds that periodical examination by surgeons does not deaden
but increases honest shame; that the violet, modesty, might even root it
were good at least, she thinks, if it did root—on the hot cinder-hills of lust
with the wind of publicity blowing over them. Who else in the world thinks
this ? Or how could such lack of sympathetic knowledge in a woman exist
exoept by royal charter.
�20
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
petuates in the land and in the regiment. I object to it
in the interest of the bad women, whose persons are
violated fortnightly by State interference, and who are
unjustly selected as the mark for medical legislation, while
the corresponding class, the male whores, whose barracks
are the obverse brothels, are left free to emit infection.
And I recall finally that all this comes of taking not the
opinion of “ experts,” but their domination, and of allowing
them to build place, and power, and pelf, where the most
sacred liberties have dwelt, and where the governing will
of the country, founded on the common sense of plain
men, has been hitherto exercised in the righteousness of a
large impartiality.
Only one condition should justify these acts of a despair
ing and witless legislature: the universal female and male
suffrage of the towns and the large surrounding districts
concerned; a majority of 99 hundredths of the population en
dorsing the inspection under much restriction, which would
leave the prostitute population alone against the commu
nity. And even then the commune should give them the
option of handsomely assisted emigration to some of those
new lands where women are wanted. That would have
some fairness in it. And the vote universal which settles
this, including the prostitute vote, should be taken every
three months, that the working of the base, unhoping, un
curing system might be watched and worried continually ;
and that no settlement and medical plant might grow out
of such a polluted pot. And such examination, for sack
cloths’ sake and ashes’ sake,—for we are all “ fallen,” and
the state and the church are prostitute here in their inward
minds more than the street-walker,—should be transacted
in the cathedral or principal church of the district, except in
cases where the whole of its clergy have petitioned govern
ment weekly for the repeal of the act; and in case of such
petitioning, the examination should be done in the officers’
head quarters ; if in London, in Westminster Abbey, in the
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
21
Houses of Parliament, or the Horse Guards; and the
state surgeons should moreover be attended, for indignant
human nature’s sake, by a stout Vigilance Committee of
self sacrificing women, of pure martyr women, chosen by
universal female vote; and this stout Vigilance Committee
should assess drumhead damages for any injury done
by steel or forcings on the examined bodies. Woman
will so be some safeguard to woman. But as at present
administered, the Act is an unrestricted and condoned
male handling by a small household hard-handed minority,
who have no charter but force, of the secret woes of
human nature, selected promiscuously from many woes;
and the sense of the women of the country upon it is
utterly ignored and despised. I am not a jurist, but I
know by heart that there are rights of the person which
precede and tower over the church and the state ; and
that the parliament which breaks them, is out of all law,
and openly invokes on both sides might against right; and
in so far, proclaims the dissolution of society.
Passing now from the patronage which chartered me
dicine gives to one virus, and the public war which it
moves the State to wage upon another virus, I arraign
its mental sanity in the case of the Welsh Fasting Girl.
Here it undertakes by self elected dictatorship to lay
down the final laws of physiology and psychology; to fix
what is possible, and what impossible, in the period of
abstinence from food ; and to rule the press and the people
by its own sick experiences. It undertakes to immure
the people of these islands in its own narrow materialism.
On this I shall not dwell now, having already shewn in
my brother’s pamphlet on the subject, that old physic has
*
no special lights here, and has very special prejudices and
limitations; and is the worst judge of al!, while common
* The Cases of the Welsh Fasting Girl and her Father, by W. M. Wilkinson ;
with Supplementary Remarks, by J. J. Garth Wilkinson. J. Burns, 15
Southampton Row, 1870.
�22
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
experience interpreted by open common sense is the best.
But I will notice, that this arrogance of chartered medi
cine has been displayed on various other subjects ever since
I entered the profession. When Mesmerism came up,
and nobody knew anything about it, and a few wished to
learn something by experiment, chartered physic appeared
upon every mesmeric scene, and attempted by violence to
foreclose the experiments. It swooped with a royal patent
swoop down upon the people who were investigating;
it knew that the whole exhibition was humbug and im
posture ; and it comported itself with an enormity of con
ceited ignorance such as no one can command or contain
unless he has a permanent conceit pipe running into
him directly from a royal college. And yet, reader, the
subject was new: these little men knew nothing about it
but that they hated it; and they hated it because it en
larged the domain of physiology and psychology beyond
their possession; and their possession was narrow, their
heart was narrow, and their mind was narrow, and their
spirit was not, because their calling was no creation of
God, but a manufacture of state colleges.
*
Oh ! but they ought to pray to be drawn up from this
* On the theoretical side, of science and free thought, Lord Bacon saw
clearly the dwarfing of mankind produced by colleges and academic institutions.
I do not know whether his great perceptive observation was ever directed to
the practical working of the same, or to the public conceit and attempted
despotism which the dwarfs would inevitably seek to exercise over peoples in
the last and expiring days of institutional rule. But what Lord Bacon says is
well worth reading still :—“ And he thought this, that in the customs and
institutes of Academies, Colleges, and similar bodies of men, which are designed
for the assemblage and co-operation of the learned, all the elements are found
which are adverse to the ulterior progress of the sciences. For in the main,
the resort is first professorial, and next for honour and reward. The lectures
and exercises are so managed, that it is not easy for anything different from
routine to get into anybody’s mind. And if it happens to any to use liberty of
enquiry and of judgment, he will at once feel himself dwelling in a mighty
solitude.
*
*
*
In the arts and sciences, as in the shafts of metal
mines, all parts should resound with new works and advancing pickaxes.
And in right reason this is so. But in life it has seemed to him, that the polity
and administration of learning which are in vogue, press and imprison most
cruelly the fertility and development of the sciences.”— Coaitata et Visa.
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
23
poisonous well of establishment and patronage, at the
bottom of which, not for truth, they are lying.
And yet, as is always the case with the eaters and
drinkers of evil, they want more of it. They are now
moving Sir John Gray and Mr. Graves to pass a bill to
“ establish one uniform and practical test of efficiency for
all medical practitioners in the United Kingdom,” in order
that “ patients may be enabled readily to distinguish
between qualified and unqualified practitioners.” Uniform
and practical! The pope’s triple hat and Garibaldi’s red
shirt worn by one sentence; high priests and pharisees,
and Lord Christ, at one table. Procrustes cut off heads
and feet, certainly for uniformity, but he did not pretend
to increase either the practicality, or efficiency of his
graduates; or to make their qualifications more dis
tinguishable by an ignorant public. His simple object was
to make men of all sizes fit his bed. The game of life
and death, the grappling with diseases, the cheering of
lengthened sickness, the calm confronting of pestilence,
the promulgation of sanitary rules to sweeten homes and
villages and towns, the private and the public healing,
seem to me to depend all upon the love and life and spirit
and fearless mind of the healers: the education, at this
stage of the world’s books and scientific accomplishments,
is a thing that can be got anywhere; provided you do
not kill the life, by fixing and instituting and endowing
and chartering and deadening the education ; or to sum
up all, by legislating it uniform.
*
And the public has no
difficulty excepting what one uniform diploma and brass
* The following sentences are by one of the greatest men of modern science:
“ Why do candid physicians every now and then astonish casual hearers by a
hint of the very small progress which therapeutics have made since the days of
Calen ? Why does poor little Medicine, stunted and wizened, cast so wistful
an eye at the strong limbs and bouncing proportions of cousin Chemistry ?
Simply because the unhappy child has been brought up on little but main
tenance of truth, while her relative, lucky in not being committed to the care
of royal colleges, has been brought up on progress of science. Go for progress,
and let truth maintain herself.”
�24
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
plate creates and throws in its way, in discerning between
qualified and unqualified practitioners : every neighbour
hood knows its own men; but then the real qualification
lies in the fact that a medical man known otherwise as a
worthy citizen, cures many people, and can probably cure
me, and certainly will if he can : there is no other qualified
practitioner than this; the school gives the schooling, and
certificates the school-success; but the man’s townsmen
give him the seal of qualification.
The struggle for this uniformity where all diversity
would be more to the purpose, because more living, is
another step in the medical plant for power; another
stride into the state ; and another cogent reason for the
dischartering of all medical corporations. If the uni
formity is gained, the people under its regiments will
have a stupider set of men to doctor them for another
quarter of a generation.
I shall now notice one or two reasons alleged in favour
of medical protection, which are not perhaps touched upon
in the following pages. One is, that medical men are so
received in families, are so deeply entrusted, and so re
sponsible, that unless they are good by Act of Parliament
they cannot be up to the mark of their high calling. This
I confess had not occurred to me until I read it in The
Times of last Saturday (art. Medical Education). It would
be a reason for incorporating under the state all catholic
priests, dissenting Ministers, and in general everybody
who has any work of honesty to do for other people. But
the endowment and establishment of everybody is not
likely to be carried in these ways. The other reason was,
that sanitary work, belonging to the public sphere of
action, and comprising towns and districts in its design,
can be carried on only by public medical officers, who can
come only out of royal colleges, which can be created only
by the State. In the first place, this department belongs
more properly to surveyors and engineers; though the
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
25
occasion of it may now and then be suggested by medical
men. But any one with a nose and eyes can generally
tell whether the house-drains, and the drainage of the
neighbourhood are efficient; and where the outward
senses are not enough, other experts, chemists, and not
practising medical men, are usually called in.
In all
general sanitary improvements, engineering talent em
ployed by the municipality through a Board of Works,
is the agent; and medical opinion is for the most part
nothing in regard to such large and obvious uses. It is
but one little nose, and often not the keenest or most
interested nose, among tens of thousands of noses.
These reasons for medical protection are therefore no
reasons, but the animus which they show in the direction
of getting into official place and power by means of fresh
and more centralized chartering, is again another reason for
severing medicine from the State.
If old physic gained nothing from the change but
good manners, the benefit to itself would be great. At
present, all who dissent from it are quacks and impostors;
or as one good man said of homoeopaths, either fools or
knaves. All who die away from it are victims ; and those
who die (the “ peculiar people ”) refusing medical advice,
lay-expectants, we may call them, must be opened after
death by a regular practitioner, who has to decide if they
would have died had they had proper attention and
medicine from old physic.
One would have thought that
the revelations of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, of out
patients treated each in a consultation of 35 seconds, and
then drugged out of one of six bottles, would have kept
down the crest of pride and self applause from the
medical head centres. That such blatant scandals have
not had any effect of the kind, is a proof that the pride
lies deeper than, and out of, the very worthy men who are
so disfigured by it: and I beg to suggest again and again,
that their unhappy inflation, and proved public inefficacity,
�26
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
are due to their royal laurels, which poison their humane
minds, while they seem to decorate their worldly persons.
The present Government, like its predecessors, is not
distinguished for consistency of legislation. Its chieftain,
the most able actuary and accountant mind for assessing
and winding up the failing estates of our societies, that we
have had for centuries ; who knows well how many shillings
in the pound a bankrupt church can pay to its creditors ;
and who apparently can wind up anything, and bring out
comfortable figures ; that great appraising mind has leisure
to write Ecce Homo, Autobiography, and Juventus Mundi,
in addition to the particulars of the numerous State
properties which he is bringing to the hammer. I wish he
would rather spend his leisure in codifying in some manner
the various subjects which all belong under the class of
freedom, free trade, and free competition. I wish he would
hold councils to look all round, and see how many things
the Government can let alone with clearance to itself, and
with advantage to the public. He might draw up for
the guidance of Parliament a schedule of subjects with
which his Government will not meddle, and the control of
which he expressly repudiates. For it is a disgrace to the
mind of a party that they should be increasing freedom of
competition in some departments, and increasing bureau
cracy in others; that they should stand upon the platform
of civil and religious liberty with one foot, and upon that
of medical despotism with the other: that they should
foster all denominations in civil education, and lend their
aid to extinguish all but one denomination in medical
education : that they should leave the bread of the body
free, and let the nation draw upon the fields and granaries
of the whole world for it; and yet confine the growth and
supply of the bread of healing to the sterile field of one
small artificial corporation, where it might be brought
from all ranks and classes, from all men and women, and
the manifold famines of now incurable things be fed into
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
27
health by it. If our great appraiser does not move in this
direction, I shall be forced to think that he has ulterior
objects ; that he is about thoroughly to endow and establish
poor old physic, in order to purchase, I will not say plunder
it at last; and that when it is bureaucratized from top to
bottom, and all colleges are compact as jails, with one big
donjon over all, and the appraiser in the very midst,—
Mark that, old physic ! the appraiser in the midst!—and
the whole profession rigidly fixed in place and power, and
planted like iron upon towns and villages and rustic disstricts, just when that whole profession says, I am all
official and everlasting now, he will step up and say:
“ Gentlemen, you are sold; the State buys you out: you
“ can stay where you are if you like, by paying such or
“ such a per centage, or by purchasing the goodwill of
“ your own practice,—my practice, I mean,—for so many
“ years; but failing this, as your position is an official one,
“ I shall at once appoint your successor, who will comply
“ with ray conditions. In the eye of the State, and in the
“ millennium of Sir John Gray’s uniformity, one medical
“ man is as good as another: they all come from the State
“ brass plate office ; and the public will be satisfied with
“ any change which includes no variety; for I shall be
“ able to remit public taxation out of the annual millions
“ which accrue from my general practice.” Depend upon
it the great appraiser is going to say this, and Sir John
Gray is preparing it: and other callings and professions
may expect to be sold in their turn. This is indeed a
reason why old physic should throw Sir John Gray over
board as soon as ever they can get a cork jacket on him ;
and pray to be dischartered, disendowed, disestablished,
disroyalized, and to have anything on earth done with
them which will take away the great appraiser’s pretext
for buying them at his own probably very low valuation.
The reader will notice that over and over again I have
returned to the assertion that compulsory bills would not
�28
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
have come from Parliament unless privileged medical cor
porations had possessed it. This by no means implies that
the body of the profession is in favour of these Acts : the
crowned head of the profession, perverted by alliance with
the State, acts without caring about the body, and per
suades the State to follow it. The opposite counsels to
these, lie in the absorption of medical sense in common
sense, thereby raising both into powers serviceable to the
community ; not in the calling in of heterodox instead of
orthodox physicians, for then still you would be in the
hands of specialists, and often of very exacting and narrow
specialists, but in the calling in of the nation, which at
present cannot get near to its life, because all the pro
fessionals and experts have closed round that life, and
monopolized it. “ Come let us reason together,” is the
voice of justice on both sides in all propositions affect
ing the people. Whatever clique hinders this, must be
cast out. But this “ reasoning together ” means universal
suffrage, for what else can it mean ? We are living in
great problems of freedom and compulsion ; and we are
bound to reconcile between those opposite ends. Their
meeting point lies in the coming up of the national free
will, which can compel a free nation, as a man’s free will
compels a man, though nothing less than this self com
pulsion can rightfully compel it. The voice of that national
free will is mere universal suffrage. We have a right to
anticipate what the verdict and execution of that suffrage
would be upon these Compulsory Acts ; we know that
they could not subsist one day in any municipality under
that suffrage; we know that that suffrage would not hold
any parley as the Government has done, with these schemes
of chartered physic. As I said before, the absorption of
all professionals into the general voice, and the issue of
measures from none but the chieftains of that voice, are
the only solvent of the case.
My present word is done, though I hope to come forth
�A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
29
again soon on the greater subject of The Commonwealth and
the Godwealth. For thirty years I have been actively con
vinced of the inestimable benefits to be derived from
medical freedom. The results of all legislation towards
freedom during that time have deepened my conviction.
Many years ago I translated Swedenborg’s Animal King
dom, a work in which a free layman demonstrated by light
and life that the psychology and physiology of the body of
man are opened up by God to free thought where they are
closed against professional thought. Next I wrote a tract
on the subject of Unlicensed Medicine After that, a little
work called The Ministry of Health. And lastly, the pages
which now succeed under the special name of Medical
Freedom. As I have said at the beginning of these
remarks, the Medical Freedom was designed to show that
medicine would gain everything by being moveable in
itself, and distant from the State ; by being independent,
and internally various and competitive: in short that
medicine ought to stand clear of Government. Otherwise,
uniformity, livery, dwarfing, arrogance, and contempt of
the laws and light of nature and revelation; in short, social
and scientific materialism. And now I have completed
the globe of fact, and given two hemispheres to this free
dom, in demonstrating that the State and the Government
ought to be quite free from and independent of medicine.
Otherwise the legislative and executive will both be played
upon by the perpetual opinions of “experts;” the rule of
philosophers and scientific men will be forced upon the
bodies of Englishmen ; and the Government will be hated
and despised for essaying to carry out greedy theories and
experiments upon the whole people; and for creating an
official army of apothecaries to superintend the costly vio
lation. The latter half of the proof has been in part
practically furnished by the two heinous Acts of Parlia
ment, the Compulsory Vaccination Act, and the Compulsory
Prostitutes Examination Act; two pestilent diseases in the
�30
A FREE STATE AND FREE MEDICINE.
State which it owes to its unloyal yokefellow, chartered
physic.
I owe it now to all my medical brothers and sisters to
say, that though I have spoken hardly of their corporations
as they at present stand, I desire to speak and think
reverently and lovingly of themselves. For I am one of
them, on board their own boat. I am an old medical
practitioner, forty years at the work; I delight in the
calling, and honour it; and hope to die in the life giving
harness of it. And especially do I desire to see us all more
free and open in our hearts and minds; less fearful and
less unbelieving ; looking less to the past, than to God and
the future ; and praying for His inspirations, while we scan
*
all nature and art and books for His instructions. And I
have learnt very deeply from no man, that the way to
advance to all this is by going out of royal swaddling
clothes, and under heaven winning for ourselves freedom
of medicine in the greater freedom of our country.
�II.
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
It is my intention from time to time to offer cases with
remarks, as an easy means of bringing new treatment
and occasional thoughts before the public.
The time is to come when general medical education
will surround my profession so closely, that its narrow
ness and exclusiveness, and its cliques, will give way
under the pressure of the public common sense; and no
authority will be left but the authority of facts. I
have a great hope in me to hasten that desirable time.
For it is evident that the simpler medical truth can
become—by medical truth understand truth in practice,
the only test of which is, success in practice—the more
must enlightened public criticism come upon the doctors,
and give them their qualification in every separate case. A
man’s or a woman’s repute will be his or her sole
authorization to practice. For instance, in the treatment
of small-pox as I have now made it public, any mother
or grandmother may demand the remedies which ensure
the benefits recorded in my book, and if the doctor is not
acquainted wth them, and will not employ them when
pointed out, then such mother or grandmother can take
away his diploma in the case, and either confer it upon
herself, or provisionally upon any other person whom she
may appoint to conduct the precious interests of the family
health. There can be no wise authority beyond her, or
above her.
For competition will be the soul of success here, as it is in
�32
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
every other case. Given any field of nature or experience
to be explored, and all the faculties of man are wanted
for it; all the chances of birth are wanted for it; all the
gifts of God are wanted for it; all the developments of time
are wanted for it; all the freedom of society is wanted for
it; all absence of fear of man, and fear for position, is
wanted for it; all good genius and good ambition is wanted
for it; in short, numberless men are wanted, each mind of
them free, and original, and inspired, as if there was
nobody else in the world; yet each instructed in his lower
walks by the labours of the rest; and all animated by a
common faith in the inevitable co-operation of good with
good, and the inevitable consentaneousness of knowledge
with knowledge, though independence and freedom be
the only law and bond for each.
Free societies, free institutions will necessarily arise out
of this new medical humanity: order most punctilious and
most exacting will arise; but freedom will be the king upon
its throne.
But now we see the reverse of this, and health contracted
and eclipsed in the prisons of medical establishment.
The maintenance of this present condition lies in the
Protection of Physic by the State. Continue this, and an
external and well-nigh irresistible aid is afforded to the
existing general condition of medical art and science, as
against anything which would considerably enlarge it; still
more, which would revolutionize it ever so benignly; and,
most of all, against anything which tends even remotely to de
professionalize it, publicize it, and humanize it. Continue this,
and an art and science which depend upon the natural truths
of God, the capacities of nature, and the genius of mankind,
and which should be nourished most intimately of all on the
One Exemplar of Revelation, and the fact of Redemption—
that art and science are commanded to eat the dry crusts of
Parliament, instead of the manna of heaven and the bread
of the earth; and lawyers and the magistracy stand with a
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
33
ferule of penalties to rap the knuckles and break the explor
ing fingers of discoverers who dare to discover out of
accord with colleges, or who dare to discover at all if they
are not cloister-vowed, and cloister-bred. Out upon such
public insanity. Any other art, similarly narrowed, would
be similarly strangled. Engineering or chemistry, in their
existing condition in April, 1864, protected—or what is
the same thing—arrested by the State, would stiffen into
Chinese imitation, and their soul, which is invention,
would be lost; their worldly motive, which is ambition,
unbounded by other men’s power, would be lost; and their
huge sense of freedom, in which they live and move and
have their being, would be exchanged for the degrading
consciousness of the powdered head and well-fitted livery of
the kitchen of the State.
But medicine must be emancipated, and as the public,
directed by God, will have to do the work, I address my
medical life and thought to the public; and not specially
to the people in bonds.
Yet would I willingly calm the apprehensions of all
professional brethren.
1. Not a college, sect, or diploma will perish when
physic is free from State patronage and protection; that
is to say, unless public bodies choose to disband themselves.
The only power they will lose will be the power of
harming other bodies, or other people not of their way
of thinking. They will gain the power of emulating in
good works and open-mindedness all the useful people
whom they have called quacks, and imposters, and un
qualified practitioners, and who have been the moving
wheels of practice in all ages of the world. They will
gain the humanity of learning from the dog, when he
cures himself with grass, without practising the now
ordinary ingratitude and inhumanity of kicking the dog
that is their teacher.
They will sympathizingly learn
from the North American Indian, and the poor Hindoo,
c
�34
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
the traditional healing virtues they have known since the
earliest ages; and their own old pharmacopeias will be
enriched, not then without acknowledgment, with the
sweet beginnings of simplicity, of nature, and of health.
Nay, the certainty is, that the existing colleges, owing
to the decrepitude of the public mind, always induced
by being protected, will be too enduring.
2. In the new time coming, when Parliament will no
longer prescribe a medical profession, and force the
British people to take the dose, the public will be more
apt than they are now to send for regular and collegesanctioned practitioners; provided the colleges give them
selves no airs, but compete fairly in the medical race.
For the colleges have the start and can enter the
course with many chances of success; provided, again, they
can take to their hearts the new fact of freedom, and love it
as they ought.
At all events we may say it will be their own fault if
they are not the chief ministers at the public bedside.
This, however, will again depend upon the progress of
the art of healing; and institutionally upon other colleges
quite diverse from themselves coming upon the scene, to
enrich medicine, enflame competition and emulation, and
extend the boundaries of that large kind feeling which alone
can melt away professional jealously, and which is the only
climate in which all that is liberal and humane can live.
But would I commit the lives of the community to the
possible intervention of uneducated men ? That, I answer,
is the very thing which has taken place at present, and
which I would invoke freedom to help me to avoid. The
education of the schools cannot fit men for curing the
diseases of their fellows; it is only one way of launching
them towards professional, but not necessarily, healing
life. A man of no Latin, no anatomy, no physiology, is
every now and then a good physician, though he sits on the
lowest forms of society. He is educated for that use,
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
85
though he cannot write his own name. By freedom, bring
him into rapport with the light of learning, if you can; but
at all events kill not the Divine power which is in him of
doing good, because he is not educated up to your bench.
Perhaps you are confounding education, which is the
accepted art of making gentlemen, with that grander
education, or leading forth, which every man can have,
and which consists in giving him freedom and a career,
that his orginal gifts may be led forth by their own way and
his own way, into each one’s promised land of a useful and
associated life. To confound these two educations were a
mistake; for the great physician, look you, may come in a
beggar’s guise. There are no uneducated men save the
men that cannot do their life-work. Their success in that
gives them their diploma of knowledge every day. And
no college can take it away from them. And none ought
to have the power of obscuring it, by insisting that it shall
be pasted over with an artificial document of State paper.
Want of skill and want of care in medical practice
amount to so much unjustified death per annum; but
who supposes that state protection of physic can in
crease the amount of skill in the medical community ? The
State, it is true, can exact from everyone, that he or
she shall pass through a curriculum of preparatory studies
and hospital attendance, to fit him to enter upon practice.
But of the studies, many may be useless, except as
accomplishments. From the studies, many useful ones
may be left out, owing to the bigotry of the elders. The
diploma may be sought as the shield of protection to the
doctor rather than as the shield of health to the patient.
Numerous men naturally qualified for medicine, born
doctors, may be, and are, shut out from their life-work,
by the expense which confines the practice of physic to
the abler classes. All the State licentiates leaning upon
their diplomas, are apt from the very security of their
position to be mastered by a conceit in which natural
�36
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
skill must languish. To be built up against freedom, to
be privileged, is to be built up against nature ; and gifts
of God, which in this case are given first in the heart,
will be small where the receivers of them deny the exer
cise of them to their fellows. To be inhumane to your
brother man, to be chartered against him, is a bad pre
paration for ministering to the sick, or the departing.
The root and basis of medicine is the love of healing in
the universal heart and mind; the stem of it is the in
stinctive perception and light which is born to penetrate
into health and disease; the branches, and the twigs and
the leaves of it are the specialities of perceptions from the
nature and the spirit of mankind; which become special
in the course of experience; the love of healing reigning
and animating in every one of them. Mere experience in
its widest range is the soil the tree grows in, and the
climate in which it lives. You may garden, you may deepen,
you may purify and enrich this experience as you like; but
the tree grows through all the world, and sciences, and
societies, and states have nothing to do but first not to
define it, not to hinder it; and second, to help it if they
can.
If it wants pruning, the force of public opinion
and public criticism, and the pressure of public safety,
are the only instruments that can lop its sacred life; and
all these will play an immeasurably greater part when
State patronage has passed away.
And now suppose you had broken your leg, and it was
badly managed by a regular doctor, a surgeon by Act of
Parliament; and that I had broken my leg, and it was
badly set by an unlicensed bonesetter; would not your
bad man, in an action at law, be far more likely to escape
from you scot free than my bad man? You know he
would; because he would be in the fortress of legality in
the first place; and because he belongs to a powerful
clique which will gather round his incapacity, and stand
up and speak for him; and unless it be a very gross case,
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
37
say they could have done no better, and that his ante
cedents are perfect. The pressure of public safety towards
each individual is therefore greatly diminished by official
izing a medical profession; thus causing them all,
army-wise, to support each other, and giving them official
irresponsibility toward the suffering and the sick. And
if you could take away bonesetters and quacks altogether,
the medical profession would be utterly uncriticised and
unamenable. We may sum up this branch of the subject
with the axiom, that the more medicine is under the
protection of the State, the less can its practice be subject
to public opinion, or be under the correction of the law.
An impression has been sedulously culivated, that
anatomy and physiology, pathology, and various other
branches of science, are the healing virtue in the world,
and that they, and written Practice of Medicine, con
stitute positive faculties in man; whereas they are mere
books, or at the best outlying experiences. Not one of
them has any direct relation, any ride of thumb, to a single
case that will hereafter occur. In every instance they
require to pass through a living medical perception to
be of any use. That perception and all that belongs
to it, is, as I have said before, a spiritual thing, and
must only be fed, but not substituted or overlaid, by
knowledge. It is an appetite for doing good and
working cures, and experience and knowledge must
feed it; and this must take place upon true social con
ditions ; that is to say, all the men who belong natu
rally to the calling, must be encouraged by the absence of
State interference, to take their places at the Board of
Healing.
For, mark you, all science and experience depend for
their cultivation upon numbers of the right men: so many
earnest men to the square mile of medical truth, and
you will have greater crops of knowledge than if only
half the number were employed. And if you take away
�38
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
protection from this medical corn of humanity, you will
have more colleges to grow it; waste lands of many
minds, never cultivated before, sown with it; more
sciences, more extensive anatomy, physiology, pathology,
pharmacy, rising up from the new interest and curiosity
of the enfranchised medical masses; a greater closeness
of these sciences to the matter in hand; and a quantity of
non-medical minds, who have been forced by mere birth,
parentage, and genteel education, against their grain, into
the cultivation of healing, will be unable to stand the
natural rivalry of born doctors of all classes, and will
betake themselves to other callings. In the meantime,
there will not be more medical men, unless society re
quires them, but there will be a constant tendency ever
increasing, that there shall be none but truly medical men
associated with the medical wants of the people.
This flush and influx of spirit and nature into the call
ing, will greatly—nay, incalculably—alter the spirituality
and naturalness of the art and its ancillary sciences. Much
will then be able to be done by genius and instinct, which
is now only vainly attempted by the cruel senility of an
effete profession. For the matter stands thus:—Nature
and its sciences must be cultivated, according to the
present exigency and mission of the human mind ; for these
are the natural and scientific ages. Medicine must be
extended, falsely or benignly, from the pressure of the sick
upon the sound. The world of work revolving with giddy
velocity, brain and heart, and man and woman, call aloud
for central power to enable us to stand upright in the
rapid revolutions. If the medical faculty — I mean the
cohort of healers out of all men—is only one-tenth nature’s
strength, and nine-tenths noodledom from one class only,
the one-tenth must cast about savagely, and most arti
ficially, for the missing nine-tenths of their natural mind
and their natural array. Failing to combat disease on
such unequal terms, they must endeavour to generate
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
39
power, which is another name for inspiration, instinct, and
genius, out of mere sciences ; and these very sciences per
petually disappointing them they must necessarily cudgel
until there is nothing left but analysis and detail. Woe
then to the bedside when knowledge itself is dust and
ashes; and woe to nature and her feelings when the rack
and the thumbscrew are applied as the only known means
of eliciting her loving, and on any terms but love’s, impe
netrable secrets.
All this has gone on in our time and for ages past, but
now to clear understanding. If the medical calling had
been true to nature, and to human nature, in which free
dom and the order that springs from freedom are abiding
facts, the monstrosity of vivisection, of cutting up live
animals, never could have been thought to be a means to
the healing art. The great gorilla of cruelty could never
have been regarded as an ally of the Great Physician.
Perception, instinct, genius, the inspiration of Christianity,
which by making men love each other is the heart and soul
of all human arts, would have had it given to them to heal
diseases without the need of any suggestion from a torture
in which the demons must rejoice. It would have been
seen at once that to lay one knife edge upon a living
creature was to cut the supreme nerve that carries the
emotion of humanity right out from religion into the
medical mind. It would have been known instinctively
that the power of healing, coming as it should do from
Christ direct, is from that moment paralytic; that the
steady will can no longer lift it, and that the good it still
does is in momentary spasms from the lower emotions of
the man. How different from the river of power, pro
ceeding down the Divine steeps, terrace by terrace, to
humanity at large, through faculties which are essentially
humane.
And this horrible vivisection is a type of the other
distorting arts and sciences which the false cramping of
�40
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
medicine into a State-built profession is one active means
of producing.
Chemic, static, and material reasoning
have as little to do with restoration of health as physiology
founded upon the cutting up of living animals. Observe,
I do not deny that vivisection may, as other analytic
methods have done, contribute hints, in the ages while
man is still cruel to man, to practical medicine; but I
deny our right, even with chloroform to stupify animals,
to gain knowledge in this way. There are robberies and
murders in nature, and science has no more right to live
upon their spoils, than citizens have right to retire into
comfortable drawing-rooms for life upon the proceeds of
daggers and dark lanes. There are better riches for man
and science than these, and immeasurably better ways of
acquiring them. Time was when the cutting up of living
criminals did contribute to the progress of physiological
knowledge. There is no doubt of that; but even Dr.
Brown-Sequard would scarcely advocate the practice as
legitimate at the present day. And now the feelings of
every one of his cats and his crows is worth more than all
the science which their maltreatment has ever brought
into his store.
Before quitting this branch of the subject, let us notice
that the State also lends a heavy pressure to discourage
the introduction of women as medical practitioners. This
it does by chartering irresponsible public bodies, such as
the colleges of physicians and surgeons, who deny the
right of examination to women, however gifted or accom
plished they may be; and these brave women, few at
present in numbers, and with no public support, are
obliged to submit without appeal to this corporate des
potism which has grasped the keys of the door of medical
practice. Surely here, as in all other human things, the
law is freedom and experiment. If woman aspires to try
her hand in healing the sick, what is the justification of
that power which would deny her the trial? You think
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
41
she had better mind her own business, and attend to her
house and its concerns; but why then do you not mind
yours, and leave her to herself? If she has not tried the
medical life, how is it possible to know what will come of
her trial? You cannot penetrate a chemical, or a fact in
anything, by thinking; you must have experiment, which
has made all the difference between the dark ages of
knowledge and the light ages. Especially in human capa
cities you must have experiment: and without freedom,
which State patronage inevitably destroys; you cannot have
experiment. True, woman may be altogether unfit for
this work, but let her try, which is the one only way to prove
her unfitness. Do not with your State sword of ungal
lantry cut her down in her first exercises, because you
think she ought not to succeed. I do not know whether
she will succeed or not, and that is clearly no affair of
mine; but J do know that if I deny her the right to her
experiment, besides being guilty of the most cowardly
meanness and unmanliness, I am denying in the highest
instance the divinely ordained and only successful principle
of all the arts and sciences — I am crushing the very
masterpiece of experiment.
In short, medical social science reposes on the ground
of medical social experiment, just as natural science reposes
upon the ground of natural experiment.
Instead then of cutting up living animals, favour by free
dom the putting together of living humanities; favour
in this way at once the highest synthesis and the highest
experiment; and be assured that if no other good comes
from it, disburdened and leisure-gifted human nature will
become the vehicle of a spirit and a fire, of a generosity
and an insight, of a thankfulness and a penetration, of a
love and of a life, before which Isis will let drop her veil,
and the artificial difficulties which have barred and frozen
out the long lost way to the positive ages will be melted
�43
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
from before our advancing feet by the smiles of nature
herself.
Bnt besides excluding without trial one half of the
human race, and perhaps the better half, from the inspired
pursuit of healing, State interference also confines the cul
tivation and practice of medicine virtually to the middle
classes. That is to say, it ordains that the genius of the
physician is only to be found in one rank of society. It
erects a property-qualification for exercising the gifts of
God in the chief of the inspirational arts supported by the
chief of the sciences. Apply this all round, and how
absurd it grins upon us. Imagine that Parliament should
insist that no painter, sculptor, poet, or musician should be
born in the upper or the lower ranks ! What a belief
in caste, and Chinese artificiality would this imply; and
what an atheistic denial of gifts, of genius, and of the
mission of Nature’s noblemen, wherever they may be.
And yet Parliament, without intending it, virtually does
all this for the medical estate, by interfering to give privi
lege to colleges of the middle class, which thenceforth
inevitably proceed by financial arrangements, and enforced
studies, to make a man first a gentleman in accomplish
ments, and afterwards to let him be a medical man if his
gifts lie that way; and to dub him so in any case. This,
too, is against social experiment, and affronts nature in her
scientific regard. It is the great source of quacks among
the poorer classes ; the said quacks being evidently persons
with some gift for medicine, but with no means of an
education.
Emancipate medicine from State-trammels,
and poor men’s medical colleges would arise, and compete
not ignobly with the other colleges. The poor could then
be attended by educated people of their own sort, at small
expense, and the masses generally would be raised by
having their own unscorned natural professions, and a new
class of bluff honest common senses and artisan ways of
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
43
natural life and thought would be added to these noble
arts. The medical instinct and inspiration of humanity
shall stand upon their feet in the masses.
Nor, then, would medical nature be cashiered, as she
now is, of the splendid culture and chivalric honour and
insight of the upper men and women.
What Lord
Napier was to logarithms; what Lord Rosse is to astrono
mical experiments; what the Duke of Sutherland is to
rescue from fire ; what Wellington was to war; and Prince
Albert to the republicanism of the arts and sciences,
that might other lords and ladies be to practical medicine,
and the inventions which it so much needs. But make
it essentially a middle class affair, and the lower classes
cannot bring their gifts into it, and the upper classes
will not. Yet it is against all reason to suppose that
the noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain do not
include a per-centage of medically gifted men ; and also
that the same is not true of the people. The fact that
as a rule they yield no recruits to the divine mission of
curing disease, is of itself sufficient to show that some
devouring artificiality is preying upon them; and that a
huge injustice is done to gifts for which we are heavily
responsible before God, and to our fellow men.
The
protection of medicine by the State is that artificiality
and that injustice. Remove it, and with it you begin
to remove the baneful belief—now all but universal—
that medical men can be created by culture; that real
culture can come from without, and that the nature and
gifts of the men are of second-rate importance.
Nay,
in the very act of removing it you reverse that creed,
and make the gifts primary, and set the culture in the
second place.
Will you have less culture for that?
Oh! no, infinitely more! The gifts will become then so
sacred, and the responsibility of them so exacting, that
the sharp and genial powers will raise colleges before
which the existing ones could pass no examination, but
�44
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
great and corporate though they be, would inevitably be
plucked. Where there is a will there is a way. And
the great way is natural knowledge; but the will in
its purest manifestation is only another name for the
determination of our gifts.
And now, to turn the tables, having shown the
blighting and vitiating influence of State patronage upon
medicine, there is another branch of despotism quite
of an internal kind, which deserves to be recorded and
protested against. There is the attempt to subject me
dicine, not to State law, but to scientific law; the aim,
as the phrase goes, to make it into a positive science.
The truth is, as I have stated before, that medicine
is not a science at all, although nourished and fed per
haps out of all sciences; Medicine is an Art, and an
art reposes upon a gift of God, and according to the
intensity of that gift it is called genius, and according to
its native and willing openness to the powers above it
becomes inspiration. And that art summons and em
ploys all the faculties for its furtherance; among them, all
the scientific faculties, and seeks instruction and advance
ment from them all. But because it is an unquestioning
rush of instinctive life from the man into his world and
his calling, it cannot be dominated by any rule or
principle whatever less than the love of medical good,
and subordinate^ and as a means the love of medical
truth. No doctrine or rule must ever be allowed to
invade that centre, any more than the geography of the
earth must be palmed upon the sun. If you attempt
to work it by rule, some one ambitious principle will
extinguish all the much needed others, and you will have
war first, and then inconceivable narrowness in your mind.
You will fall into sects, and at the entrance to each Mrs.
Grundy will stand doorkeeper in your soul. You will
not venture to prescribe what you know would do good,
because it is not of your self-chosen rubric; and because
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
45
your fellows will call you to account for a breach of your
bond. You will cease to look all round for means, and
will wear the blinkers of so-called principle where the
precipices of your own and your neighbour’s danger de
mand the foot of the chamois, and the eye of the eagle.
Heaven help you, you will be accoutred for blindman’s
buff when you ought to be king of the terrible Alps.
And all for what ? that you may pretend to an exactness
which nature disowns; and may enthrone the tiny frame
of material science upon the colossal ruins not only of art,
but of faith.
It cannot be done; there are no positive sciences but
those of man’s own making—the houses which he has
built, and in which therefore he can be supreme—the
rest are all fluctuating, and so full of mystery before
and behind, so meant also for usefulness and not for ab
soluteness, that careful and humble science may indeed be
a positive ship, made in excellent human docks, but
the great, and desiderated, and unattainable knowledge
is the sea itself, and God is in that sea. The bark rocks
and floats, and the further it voyages, and the more it
moves, the less likely is it to founder in the inscrutable
deep. Let it not want to become more positive than
speeding flight can make it; let it not attempt to drop
the anchor of conceit in the unfathomable places. Let it
not dare to say of any spot in the Divine ocean—This
is mine, and here I will abide !
These matters may sound abstract, but they are of
immense practical significance, and play an important
part, for good or for ill, at the bedside. For if you find
a practitioner who has a doctrine which he considers ab
solute, and who derives his art from that doctrine, two
bad consequences will follow. In the first place, he will
set an overweening value upon the science, pure and simple,
of the case he is treating : the exacting doctrine in him
will have an unnatural appetite to be fed out of that
�46
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
science; and the regard of the cure as an end will be
perpetually confused by the regard of the science as an
end.
I have felt this so strongly myself in practice,
that I have been obliged to put it down: and to tear up
in my mind all magisterial doctrines and principles, and to
rewrite them on neutral and subservient parts of myself
in a humble and ministerial capacity. By this means,
however, I hope I am attaining to a wider as well as
exacter science in the end: a science which radiates from
the conscious intellect of cures. But in the second place
the doctrinaire practitioner will be bound, or greatly
biassed,—by his own mind; by the surveillance of his
doctrinaire patients, whom he has helped to make into
pedants; and by the medical clique to which he belongs—
not to do anything which outlies the doctrine which is
his creator. Suggestions apart from that doctrine will
tend to reduce him to a chaos. What treble fear all this
implies ! What a slender exploration of the means of
nature ! What a regard to a centre of the fancy, when
sad and bleeding facts lie calling for pity, and ought to
avail to take one quite out of oneself, and to make one
gather succour from all things. Instead of this, the first
care is to practice within the doctrine, and to use no
weapon but what the armoury of the doctrine contains.
It is true you may have the highest confidence in the
doctrine, and may believe it is a universal rule, but the
universality is only a belief, and not an established fact;
and no number of human lives can make it more than
a belief; that is to say, a probable, and in the ratio of its
probability, a growing and a useful science. Neverthe
less, you have no right to limit your powers of doing
medical good to such a belief or such a science. Observe,
it is not the science but its mastership that I impugn.
And I do impugn it, because it limits you with no com
pensation ; and because in a vast number of serious cases
it does not succeed; and because where it does succeed,
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
47
you have ever a duty to demand a greater success, in
greater rapidity and perfectness of cure. But here again,
your masterful doctrine tells you that when you have
served it faithfully you have done enough.
It will easily be seen that all this applies with force to
Homoeopathy, a doctrine to which I owe so much; in
which, so far as it goes, I thoroughly believe; and which,
whenever the supreme end of cure and my means of know
ledge allow, I unreservedly practice. I regard Homoeo
pathy as the grandest natural and material feeder which
has yet been laid down by the genius of a man from the
nature of things into the spiritual body of the healing
arts. Yet Homoeopathy is but a doctrine, a science, and
a rule, and I will not derive medicine from a science,
or confound it with a science; on the contrary, the science
of Homoeopathy itself is a beautiful child and derivation
of an advancing medical art. Let it occupy a central,
a solar place in the science of therapeutics by drugs.
There it can subsist. But no man can do good by ig
noring any of the wide realms which lie around it and
beneath it, and which are the domain of the collective
medical mind.
I have been allowed to discover that certain formidable
diseases, small-pox to wit, can be treated tuto, cito et
jucunde, with a safetv, rapidity, and absence of suffering
hitherto unknown, by simple external applications. In
the first place, I had a powerful desire to cure my patients
well, and a dissatisfaction with the present standard of
well, in all schools. This desire in its measure is the
natural heart of healing. Then, in the next process, I
knew that Hydrastis soothes irritated mucous surfaces,
and sometimes skin surfaces, and I thought I would try it
on the face of small-pox. The only science here involved
was an acquaintance with the drug, and a little reasoning
by analogy. I tried it, and it succeeded marvellously.
And since then I have the art of applying it correctly,
�48
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
increased by the experience or knowledge of several cases.
And I have faith and confidence in its being a future
blessing to the public; a saving of innumerable healths,
and faces, and lives.
But where is the positive science in all this ? A little
good knowledge suffices for a great deal of good practice.
It strikes me that I have been as little scientific as a
skilled blacksmith who makes a horse-shoe in a given
number of strokes. Of course he knows what he is about
with great accuracy; but that is all you can say of his
knowledge. The rest is educated instinct, and excellent
smiting. He may read about iron and heat, and the
biceps and triceps muscles of his arm, in over hours ; and
he will better his mind by it, and not hurt his strong
sinews ; but the science of his art must not intrude itself
book-wise into his forge, unless as fuel, or he will soon be
a bad professor and spoil horse’s hoofs.
Take the obverse, and suppose that I had enthroned
the Homceopathic principle above my mind, and that I
had to grapple with dreadful small pox. The exigency
then becomes, to cure with a medicine which will produce
symptoms as nearly similar as possible to those of the
disease. I know no drug which will do this except tartar
emetic in one case which I have seen. I should therefore
have had to cast about through the whole of Pharmacy
for the drug in question; to reason by analogy from small
symptoms to great ones, and perhaps I should have reasoned
wrong; and after all I might never have found what I
wanted. And when I had found it, I should have lacked
precedent for applying it externally. In the meantime,
what patients unrelieved and unsaved might be waiting
at the doors of my positive science before I could throw
them open and invite the sufferers into relief and into
health ! Perforce, I must have hardened and narrowed
and thus satisfied my heart, to let such sad waiting go on.
And at the best where would be the gain to science ?
�MEDICAL FREEDOM.
49
Science is but the register of success ; and 1 should have
had no science of shortening the disease, no science of
curing the disease, no science of anything, but the worst
sort of expectancy; the science of contentment with bad
things, and the science of waiting for science. In the end,
not Homoeopathy, but the small-pox would be my king.
To obviate this I stood upright, as I have been grad
ually for some years now endeavouring to do, and regarded
Homoeopathy, and all other means and pathies whatever,
as my appointed servants, and myself as the servant of
healing. And now I had no jealousies among the servants,
because I gave no privileges to any; and I could pick
and choose from all means, regardless of the overweening
ness of science, of the sectarianism of patients, and of the
despotism of medical cliques. In short, I essayed to be
free in my art; to wait upon Heaven, and to use all
ministers and faculties in their degree of service. Feeling
the blessed power of this position, in contradistinction to
the cramp and weakness of my old one, I am in duty
bound, even against the charge of egotism, to impart it to
my fellow men.
What then, it may be asked, becomes of Homoeopathy ?
I answer that it takes its place exactly according to its
proved services, and stands upon the irremoveable foun
dation of its cures. It will be all that it ever was, the
most suggestive thing in the round of Pharmaceutical
science. Its dogmatism and its hugeness of minutise will
be cashiered, and Homoeopathy will be the stronger for
losing them. It will be girded afresh for a magnificent
servitude to the ends of healing. Its martyrs will still
prove medicines on their own bodies, but with an almost
exclusive attention to cardinal results. Its registers of
symptoms, curtailed by good sense, will be mastered by
those who court intimacy with drugs, and studied con
tinually afresh where the art of the physician requires it.
The only difference will be, that Homoeopathy will become
�50
MEDICAL FREEDOM.
enormously progressive, because it will have no authority
and no privilege, and will be obliged to subsist upon cures.
Reduced, so far as authority goes, to equality with other
medical sciences, it will become primarily ambitious of
suggesting remedies, and cease from provings which leave
out the human memory, and constitute a new matter and
faculty of absolute dust. But it will no more quarrel with
other means than the mariner’s compass quarrels with
the sextant, or the sails with the steam-engine of the ship.
Above all, mere instrument that it is, and mere instrument
that all science is, it will never go mad again, and believe
that it is the captain of the medical crew; for that captain
is the Great Physician Himself, and all His sons and
daughters in the plenary freedom of His art.
�As a record and a protest I here reprint a Letter on
Vivisection, which appeared in the Morning Star of the
20th of August, 1863. See p. 40.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “STAR.”
Sir,— From my heart, and also from my head, I thank
you for your leading article on Vivisection in to-days
paper.
I hope and trust that through the subject of
vivisection now publicly opened, and the controversy
going on, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals will become affluent enough to have special
correspondents and reporters wherever vivisection is prac
tised under medical sanction. If the horror is to be, let
us know it, and let us judge of it.
If science is to be
born from the throes of animal life, let us also be duly
horrified and agonised, and suffer with the sufferers.
I have long been of Sir Charles Bell’s opinion that
vivisection is a delusion as a means of scientific progress.
Of course its results, like any other set of facts, constitute
a science in themselves ; so do the results of murder,
and so do the results of picking pockets; an exact science,
if you like; and the earlier parts of the science will of
course be subject to correction by the later; and thus
vivisection may show, and has shown, truths and errors in
the special walk of vivisection. The science of animal
agonies, like all sciences, can be corrected, eliminated, and
completed by experiments of fresh and ever-fresh agonies.
But it has been a mistake to suppose that we were in the
path of the humane sciences — in natural physiology,
natural symtomatology, or within millions of leagues of
medicine, when with rack and thumbscrew and all torture
we were the inquisitors of the secrets of animal life.
Under such circumstances nature is inevitably a liar, and
an accomplice of the Father of Lies. I know that her,
�52
VIVISECTION.
and his, very lies are a science ; but then they are not the
science we take them for, nor the science we want. They
are not mind-expanding, heart-softening, or health-con
ferring science.
Vivisectional anatomy has contributed to medicine—
meaning by medicine the healing of diseases—virtually
nothing, but false paths and wrong roads.
Morbid
anatomy has contributed marvellously little. Anatomy
has done far less than is supposed, though it keeps the
eyes of the physician’s imagination open, and enables him
to tally conditions and symptoms somewhat with parts and
organic structures. If the internal parts of the human
frame were a closed page to-morrow, so to remain for the
next half-century, and if the symptoms and results of
disease, and what will mitigate and cure them, were the
only permissible field of experiment, the art of healing
would lose nothing by ceasing to hold intercourse with the
sciences of structure and function—at all events, for a
time.
For example, I assert that the whole science of tubercle
is trivial and valueless in its results upon the curing of
consumption ; and equally inefficient in showing the cause
of consumption ; and that cod liver oil and general régime,
which have no logical or real connection with the morbid
anatomy of consumption, are the present important me
dical agencies for the treatment of that condition. And I
assert that the whole science of the vivisectional and
morbid anatomy of diabetes ; the artificial production of
it by lesions of the nervous system ; the conditions of it in
the liver, the lungs, and the kidneys, have nothing to do
with its cure, and throw no light upon its cause ; and that
the fact that in some instances it can be cured by the
Hydrastis Canadensis, the Leptandria, and Myrica cerifera,
has never yet been pointed to by any scalpel ; and is
likely to be resisted by the men of the scalpel longer than
by many others. What has the grand experience that a
�VIVISECTION.
53
certain herb or drug will cure a disease, to do with a
knowledge of the particular wreck that that disease
has left in the organisation after death?
Pathological
anatomy, except in surgical cases, never suggests cure.
Now then, sir, let us take stock in this great assize of
humanity and the healing art versus the cutting up of
live animals. Let us have tabulated statements of the
discoveries and results, and of the gain to man, which have
accrued from the introduction of vivisection. The great
facts, the benign arts that have been drawn out of the
intestine agonies of animals, can be easily stated in lines,
and columns of lines, if they exist. Let us have them.
We have had vivisection enough. Whole menageries have
been kept here and in Paris, and all over Europe, to have
their brains sliced and their bodies mangled. It has gone
on for hours a day, and year after year. What is the
stock in hand of results to humanity, to healing, or even
to permissible science?
For, good doctors, there are
sciences, and you will find it out, that are not permissible.
It would not be permissible to suspend a man or a woman
by a hook, to know ever so exactly how they would
writhe; no, not even if you were a painter.
And
therefore, I use the word, “ permissible ” science.
And I
say, that if you cannot show some mighty results, far
greater than the discovery of cod liver oil, and of the
circulation of the blood, your persistent vivisection leads
only to abominable sciences, and to the blackest of all the
black arts, the art of turning the human heart into
stone; after which the gutta serena of cruelty will soon
obliterate the poor eyesight of medicine.
Your constant reader,
J. J. Garth Wilkinson.
Brettell, Printer, 336a, Oxford street.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A free state and free medicine
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Wilkinson, James John Garth
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London; Glasgow
Collation: 53 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Inscription on front page: 'M.D. Conway Esq. from the Author'. James John Garth Wilkinson was a homeopathic physician, social reformer, translator and editor of Swedenborg's works. Includes a letter on vivisection by the author to the editor of the Morning Star 20th August, 1863. Includes bibliographical references. "The pages headed Medical Freedom, appended to this Essay, formed a postscript to a small work of mine on a new Treatment of Small Pox, written some years ago [1864]" [Page [3]. Printed by Brettell, London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
F. Pitman
John Thomson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5385
Subject
The topic of the resource
Health
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A free state and free medicine), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Health Services
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Smallpox
Social Medicine
Vaccination
Vivisection
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e2c4c269a190d408e288709dc191203b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=gX%7E3k-RhDgj5apPQ4l7N9v5oKhEDU6G%7EyNZUSOtQUI90N6M-SBBEfJi9L8yt5Hc7G1yKW7vMz-7eAxzxMi5iAAVZb4ugXtM9IS857jHAagKw7xS-LmvYZRe6opUZTtUvW98uFzA2l0Pdyx%7EVhZ6JFOfR7iXBcKEjpFHf3PHX%7EqLnVWGv-g60zF3gcEuW7uPINjjgGfYYhqUQL0IDz-ANiOFIAqpFcLV7mbuu18kb1a4hB04rDe4H7A9vGjgKW0sENryHfnuNt7n0XE2F1zPYlf%7EXrkWDTP2%7EzQl%7EwR9nmOV4d-zZ6UjaeLK0L0173G5J5sEuHEmaKxz8WNsBnx2M9Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ee26bf562dee0b2075580cf2aa0321cb
PDF Text
Text
������������������������������������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
National life: a lecture read at the Manchester Friends' Institute on the 22nd of fourth month, 1870
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Duncan, David
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London; Manchester
Collation: 33 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Pre-title page headed National Life with a quotation from Joseph Mazzini, 'The Duties of Man'. Pre-title page is marked from adhesive tape.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
F. Bowyer Kitto; Hale & Roworth
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5205
Subject
The topic of the resource
Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (National life: a lecture read at the Manchester Friends' Institute on the 22nd of fourth month, 1870), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Society
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/477f53f566efbd9c582a3c2bce40a7a5.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=QW2c-ONGeg9Aeoz1ayW-iLdi34cxmTDZ0qa8wzzHMuBJZY9b6qX2pZCnDnUs4YAn2YYSSNUG%7Ew-oonVTUUE65Lfwpv-rcJAx5fOKqetRHiqkEAfrCkyl-Fo8XZVP28k48f-7BJzNiCkw2iGC8lnGPDrHJSx0swaGsk%7ElSyssMaKTAXXACLyjXcsmH8ZywdjoFqanFo4hlLRt1i2ltU3X4usvwvZ13W2BNxlNvhScIiEwbThMNoukqoITjtVX22K0QaeLVr12XL8Tvo3LuKaoeA4dY45eIc4DSZ-By%7E%7E6v295FMGV5kSGZHCva44KW3VxLQuZqLmbW8%7E1ewI-22CssQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
75307ca4c6c2d011b4aa20c985a721e3
PDF Text
Text
►
DU CONCILE.
' Non moriar sed vivam —
Ce n’est pas la mort quo j'attends
•c’est la vie — Isaie.
MtTNCHEN 1870
H. Manz’sche Hof kunstliandluug- & Buchh auditing.
��Non moriar sed vivam.
Ca n’est pas la mort que j’ attends,
c’est la via — Isait.
. <
.
4 'TTWJQ'
'■'■■■
Ainsi done la discussion sur l’infaillibilite Pontificate est cldse —
La derniere periode de la lutte vient de s’ouvrir; a qui demeurera la
victoire ? Dieu seul |e salt.
Quant a nous, des & present nous pouvons dire & qui sera la
gloire. Oui, nous savons qui a lutte pour le droit et la liberty; nous
savons qui a sacrifie, aux graves obligations du devoir E une brillante
,popularity, le repos du present et peut-etre la tranquillity de l’avenir;
nous savons qui s’est genereusement efforce, sans jamais se decourager,
d’asseoir au sommet de la montagne le rocher qui redescendait sans
cesse, et aujourd’hui nos coeurs em|Ouivent de loin ces quelques
hommes heroiques pour qui, si souvent, nous avons prie. Que notre
cri d’ admiration leur arrive, au moins la veille de la bataille, pour
rehausser leur triomphe ou venger leur defaite.
Quelle force d’ ame il leur a fall JH durant sept mois, pour ne
jamais se lasser de toimgdufeo de tout tenter, sans parvenir a eloigner
le scandale! Un regteilW^impos^^wro^yngoits les plus evidents
du Concile, des commissions choisies d’avance, des votes illusoires, une
tutelle oppressive, des discussions sans ordre et sans but, des modifi
cations reglementaires aussl arbitrages que multipliees, ils ont tout subi,
esperant, par leur longue patience, faire accepter un jour leurs argu
ments <- Les calomnies publiques ne leua| ont pas ete epargnees, et
pourtant leur voix ne s’ est pas elevee, bruyante et indignee, dans cette
meme assemblee ou on les appelait heretiques et courtisans — Leurs
orateurs ont du, plus d’une fois. quitter la tribune sans pouvoir meme
expliquer leur pensee, encore moins defendre leurs convictions, tandisque
la majorite gardait sans cesse le droit de multiplier impunement ses
exagerations outrageantes et ses coupables allusions. Des le principe,
on s’est cru le devoir de prendre invariablement les raisons de la minorite pour des injures et de lui rendre des injures pour des raisons
— Ses protestations elles-memes, si dignes, si humbles et pourtant si
tegitimes, contre de tels abus, ne sont pas settlement demeurees sans
effet, mais encore sans reponse.
1
�2
Et, tandis qu’au sein du Concile l’illegalite ecrasait ces ames
genereuses, tandis qu’on leur disputait ouvertement le droit de rep^ter
a toute pretention despotique: non licet, et a toute sollicitation imprudente: non possumus, au dehors un parti terrible soulevait contre elles
le clerg6 du second ordre et bouleversait les dioceses. Le Pape IniM
meme, nul ne 1’ignore, donnait publiquement la main a cette re vol J
tion si strange et si inattendue dans l’Eglise. Il multipliait, contre
toutes les regies de la hierarchic catholique, les encouragements les plus
flatteurs et il louait, dans toute la France, ce qu’il condamnait si
fortement, et a la meme heure, a Constantinople, dans la douloureuse
affaire des Arm&iiens. Il accordait, au nom de l’Evangile, ce que
l’Eglise de tout temps, au nom de ce meme Evangile, avait refuse S
quiconque n’ avait pas la plenitude du Sacerdoce, la mission de temoigner
parmi les eveques et contre eux, le droit d’ intervenir, avec autorite,
pour la solution des questions dogmatiques les plus embarassantes.
Dans un siecle moins trouble que le nbtre, et dans une Societe ’
Chretienne moins bouleversee, il y a long-temps qu’ on eut fait justice
d’une telle intrusion, en imposant de force le silence a ceux d’en bas
et en rappelant le droit et le devoir a ceux d’ en haut.
Jusqu’ a cette heure, la voix de 1’indignation publique n’a su rien
dire et les eveques ont tout subi.
Cependant on comprendra aisement combien cette pression du
dehors, saisissant 1’ eveque dans les parties le plus vives de son ame
et de son coeur, a du, non seulement entraver les developpements de la
minorite, mais quelque fois aussi amoindrir ses forces. Tandis, en effet,
que le grand nombre de ses prelatl demeurait inebranlable, sous le coup
de la tempete, realisant ainsi T heroisme de 1’ homme fort, vante par
le poete, tenacem propositi virum, du juste impassible sous les mines
du monde detruit, quelques simes faibles, ou plutdt ou plus tard, ont
timidement courbe la tete et accepte le joug, laissant ainsi le troupeau
se transformer en pasteur, tandisque le pasteur se resignait & pratiquer
1 obeissance du troupeau. Nous ne jugerons pas ces faiblesses, mais,
simples fideles, nous avons le droit de nous demander si le vote de tels
t^moins sera libre, et si leur parole demeurera la tranche expression de
la vie doctrinale de F Eglise ?
Au reste, toute la question Conciliaire menace de se reduire &
celle-ci: a-t-on reellement voulu savoir la pensee du Catholicisme, ou
lui imposer celle qu’ on avait pr^paree d’avance ?
Si on a voulu interroger sincerement sa foi, pourquoi lier par tant
d entraves illegales ceux qui pouvaient le mieux parler au nom des
generations presentes, ou de la tradition des siecles passes? Pourquoi
fermer violenament fcs bouches les plus autorisees et les plus £loquentes ? Pourquoi enfin, en face de cette courageuse minorite, chargee de
chaines et comme desarmee, avoir convoqu^, si p^niblement, une majorite
qui devait rester fatalement immobile et comme inexpugnable, une majorite
non seulement pr^paree d’avance, mais surtout rendue incapable de jamais
sortir du cercle protecteur ou on 1’avait enfermee?
�Cette majorite, en effet, se compose sourtout d’eveques timides,
d’hommes en sous-ordre, d’esprits ardens et exageres. Les premiers aiment
a etre avec la force et le grand nombre, afin de ne pas courir de dangersV*ils suivent aisement le fleuve qui les emporte et trouvent moins
dangereux de descendre toujours que de lutter pour remonter le courant
qui mene aux abimes. Les seconds sont tous ces prelats sans diocese,
issus de la seule volonte Pontificale, relevant du Pape et du Pape seul,
revocables ad nutum pour la plupart, simples officiates, comme disent
les Canonistes romains, ou, si vous l’aimez mieux, dans notre langue
franfaise, bommes-liges de la Papautejj Enfin les derniers ne sont ni
indifferents, ni timides, ni victimes de leur position subalterne, ni flatteurs
par temperament, mais, dans une nature bouillante, ils portent des aspi
rations d’une autre epoque, de^ desirs irrealisables, des illusions, le plus
souvent des prejuges pieux que les misonnements theologiques n’ont
jamais dissipes — De ces categories, la premiere ne desire pas se convertir, la seconde ne peut pas, la troisieme ne doit pas.
Elie ne doit pas, parce qu’elle considere deja la question comme
jugee et que, tenant le Pape pour infaillible, elle condamnera d’ avance
et fatalement quiconque se levera pour essayer de douter. Roulant dans
un cercle vicieux perpetuel, avec un courage qui etonne, elle refuse
obstinement d’ accepter une loyale discussion; a toute proposition raisonnable elle repond: je vois la lumiere,j’ entends le cri de la verite
qui monte de toutes parts, laissez moi don©? dans mon extase, ellen’est
pas une illusion. Et elle s’enivre de son entbousiasme sans vouloir
s’assurer s’il est logiquement fondlE
C’est qu’ en effet un long et babile travail a prepare dans l’Eglise
cette exaltation morale qui ie.ut supprimeF la raison,, ce pietisme qui
supplante la theologie et desormais c’est le coeur qui devrait remplacer
la doctrine.
Ici il faut reconnaitre qu’une grande ecole a sp6cialement travailld
a cette dangereuse transformation. Dans quel interet? nul ne 1’ignore
Avec quel succes? Helas! l’histoire du present ne l’a que trop revele.
Quand Laynez, a Trente, se retirait vaincu par l’energie d’eveques
qui cqnnaissaient leur droits et savaient les defendre, j’ignore s’ il se
*onsola de sa defaite en donnant a l’episcopat, qu’il voulait decouronner,
un nouveau rendez-vous dans l’avenir. Ce qu’il y a de sur, c’est qu’
apres trois siecles de treve feinte, les deux adversaires se retrouvent
incore, mais cette fois l’un a tout prepare pour la bataille,, 1’autre n’a
rien prevu. Aujourd’hui ce n’est plus l’episcopat qui refuse d’entendre
le P. Laynez, c’est le P. Laynez, qui, maitre du terrain, ne daigne
pas meme ecouter l’episcopat et lui annonce que depuis longtemps la
question est jugee.
Et de fait, la Compagnie de Jesus n’a rien epargn£, pour faire
rcroire au monde que l’infaillibilite Pontificale ne pouvait plus meme
souffrir la discussion. Elle l’a d’abord soutenu dans les discussions
privees de 1’ecole, puis elle l’a hasarde dans quelques livres, insinue
dans l’education de la jeunesse, murmure dans la direction intime des
�4
>
consciences, enfin elle l’a apporte un jour dans la chaire evangdlique,
et sans crainte elle a ose l’imposer au Concile.
Cette fois, je le repete, elle avait tout prepare pour la victoire.
La pensee du Pape, elle 1’avait transformee patiemment; ses ambitions,
elle les avait excitees d’abord et serieusement sondees ensuite; sa con-1
fiance, elle 1’ avait saisie par ces mille liens que sa main mysterieuse
saura toujours reunir, sans qu’on la soup^onne, et le jour ou Pie IX a
dit: il y aura un Concile, la compagnie de Jesus a dit: le Concile, ce
sera moi.
En effet, nous avons vu trois de ses docteurs resumer tout a la
fois et la puissance doctrinale, et le droit d’initiative de l’auguste assemblee. Les deques ont et^ apples a sanctionner ce que les Jesuites avaient ecrit, voiU toute 1’ histoire du Concile.
Et quand des amelilibres se sont revoltees, quand les bouches
Episcopates ont voulu discuter la pensee et la doctrine de ces hommes,
& qui Dieu n’a pas donne mission pour enseigner infailliblement dans
1’ Eglise, on a entendu ce cri s’ elever, de toutes parts, car on le provoquait partout«la question est jugee, la cause est finie, ja’i jure de
croire
1’ infaillibilite Pie IX.» Je ne recbercberai pas maintenant si
les dioceses les plus. bouleverses ont ete ceux-la meme ou l’action des
Reverends Peres etait le plus considerable, l’histoire le revelera unjour.
Qu il me suffise d’avoir observe qu’ ils ont opere une immense pression
dogmatique au sein de 1’ Eglise, tandisque, a Rome meme, par d’ autre
instruments, ils»w etaiewt menage une action plus irresistible encore sur
le grand nombre des Peres du Concile.
En effet une institution tbute puissante, tient sous une meme tutelle tous les vicaires apostoliques et la plupart des eveques orientaux.
Quelques amEricains, , quelques anglais n’echappent eux-meme a son
influence que , par 1’ energie du caractere et 1’ independance naturelie
de leur temperamem. (Jltte institution, c’est la Propagande. C’est
elle qui, abusant de ses droits, se prEvaut de ses aumones annuelles. pour agir efficacement sur les Prelats qu’elle soutient et leur communiquer chaque semaine, l’impulsion speciale qui fait le Concile. '
C est elle qui,. cet hiver, surveillait la porte des pauvres eveques.'
orientaux opprimes et les obligeait a fermer leur cellule aux freres
compatissants qui venaient les visiter. C’est elle qui mandait le patri
arch0 Jussef, comme le Pape avait deja mande le patriarche Audu,
pour savoir de quel droit il osait temoigner des croyances de 1’Orient, .
sans soumettre prEalablement son discours au controle de la censure.
Mere de presque to us les vicaires apostoliques, elle se croit aussi le
devoir d etre leur maitresse et de regler leur opinion comme elle regie
leur budget. Or sa pensee, a elle, s’identifiant avec celle du Pape, il I
ainve fatalement que la parole de deux cents Peres de l’assemblee
oecumEmque demeure toujours la parole du Pape seul.
Et de fait, il est inoui encore qu’un seul de ces Prelats, fils de
la Propagande, ait eu le courage de parler devant le Concile ou de
voter autrement qu’on ne le voulait. Ce seul argument demeure d’une
�puissance demonstrative incomparable contre leur liberty rdelle, car,
K> tandisque toutes les Eglises, sans exception, ont eu quelques voix independantes, l’Eglise que j’ appellerai de la Propagande, n’en a encore
K produit aucune.
Au-dessus de cette surveillance d’une institution, les Jesuites en
. ont menage une autre qui se montre plus rarement et se reserve pour
Rs grands coups. Celle-ci atteint les plus hautes tetes, quand elles
|
sont levees, et fait trembler malgrd eux ceux qui se sentiraient des
F- . velleites d’ independance. J’ ai nomme 1’ autorite supreme de Pie IX.
Trop longtemps on a essaye de releguer son action au second plan,
dans l’histoire privee du Concile, en laissant dans 1’ombre une figure
gt qui a droit au plus grand jour. Les historiographes, jusqu’ a cette
heure, se sont contentes de dire, a chaque nouvel incident conciliaire,
_ Best l’oeuvre de la cour romaine. Eh bien, la cour romaine c’est
Pie IX, et 1’ histoire dechirant, quand le moment est venu, les voiles
vtu mystere, doit laisser a chacun la responsabilite qui lui revient. Elle
doit dire que c’est Pie IX qui a voulu le concile, malgre les Cardinaux,
qui veut encore, malgre eux, son infaillibilite personelle. C’est lui qui
a exig£ cette salle conciliaire ou 1’ on ne s’ entend pas; c’ est lui qui
L
s’taite contre Audu et lui arrache 1’abdication de ses droits; c’est lui
qui refuse de recevoir le postulatum ou la minorite demande a ecarter
iA des debats malheureux; c’est lui qui introduit la question brulante,
contre toutes les regies; c’est lui qui etouffe subitement la discussion,
L.. quand elle devient mena^ante pour ses pretentions; est lui qui exige,
K
des cures de Rome, l’adresse qu’ils avaient d’abord refusee; c’est lui
‘depossede le P. Theiner pour recompenser M^. Cardoni; c’est lui
■S-J qui afflige, par des classifications regrettables, les prelats qui, au jour
anniversaire de son election, sont venus le feliciter; c’est lui qui appelle
Kruidi appres son discours, pour contrister son ame independante; c’est
lui qui exige du Concile ou son infallibility personelle ou le courage
B de mourir sous le soleil et dans la fievre; c’est lui qui veut etre tout,
A . la foi universelle et la Tradition: la Tradizione sono io!
Jamais on n’avait vu l’absolutisme de si pres, dans une institution
V que J. C. avait fondee libre et inddpendante, malgre son unite monarchique et indivisible.
Les Papes du moyen age avaient sans doute, plus d’une fois,
" exagere leurs droits et leur pretentions, mais cette exageration meme
pouvait, a tout prendre, donner comme excuse le bien des peuples qu’
k. . on se proposait, ou la gloire de l’Eglise qu’on voulait defendre. Aujourd’
hui nous sommes en face de la Papaute luttant, non pas contre les
princes, mais contre l’episcopat, comme si Pie IX pouvait trouver sur
^a ruine de ses freres un trone plus dleve, ou, dans leur aneantissement,
une forteresse plus inexpugnable. 0 malheur des temps et abus des
B ■ plus saintes institutions! on ne veut plus qu’un seul eveque veritable
dans le monde, le Pape, un seul docteur infaillible et autorise, lePape!
Que toute voix se taise, si ce n’est pour dire ce qu’il aura dit, que
B,A toute action ne s’ exerce plus que sous sa jurisdiction dpiscopale, uni-
,. ..
v
X
�6
verselle, immediate, qu’ils renient leurs droits imprescriptibles, ceux
qui ont .ete etablis de Dieu pour gouverner, qu’ils dechirent les pages de
l’Evangile ou ces droits sont graves; il ne faut plus qu’une bouche,
une main, un monarque absolu, alors, dit-on, alors seulement nous
aurons l’ordre universel. Ainsi il y a 40 ans, un ministre parut, a la
tribune fran^aise, pour dire: l’ordre regne a Varsovie. Oui, mais
c’etait l’ordre que cree la mort; on avait tue la Pologne. L’ordre
qu’ on veut, c’ est la mort de 1’ Eglise.
Je sais bien qu’elle ne peut pas mourir cette Eglise, et cette foi
console mon ame, mais elle peut souffrir et elle souffrira, par la faute,
des siens. Malheur a ceux qui, par leur connivence, aident le scandale
et s’appretent a le multiplier.
Ils demandent ail petit nombre de rendre les armes, comme si
l’amour de la paix pouvait decider l’honnete homme, le chretien, l’eveque, a fouler aux pieds ses droits et a jeter, a toutes les ambitions,
les prerogatives inalienables que Dieu lui a confiees. Ils orient a l’aulicisme, comme s’ils pouvwnt impunement ddcerner a autrui le titre
qu’ils gagnent par leijJyfliblesses et leurs adulations quotidiennes.
Aujourd’hui, les Cesars s’eclipsent visiblement, et partout; j’ai beau
chercher Louis XIV, ou Joseph II, les gouvernements sont radicalement
transformes et se confondenfc desormais avec la patrie, qui, elle, au
moins n’a jamais eu de courtisans. Il ne demeure en realite qu’un
vrai Cesar etant, a lui seul, tout dans le spirituel et le temporel, distribuant ses faveurs a ceux qui le defendent et faisant sentir sa colere
a ceux qui le contredisen|, celui-la ne s’ appelle ni Francois-Joseph, ni
Napoleon III.
Et tandis que cette fois iMtes les puissances temporelles ont
scrupuleusemet respecte la liberte Au Concile, une seule 1’ a genee de
toute maniere, 1’ a redoutee, 1’ a aneantie. — Je n’ ai pas besoin de
la nommer — Ainsi F Eglise qui avait fourni aux societes civiles le
modele d’une monarchie, ou 1’ Element aristocratique et populaire temperaient efficacement les exces de la puissance supreme, 1’ Eglise qui
avait, la premiere, donne au monde moderne 1’ exemple de ses grandes
assemblies, discutant, dans la liberte, les droits de la verite et de la
justice, cette Eglise nous presente aujourd’ hui le spectacle d’ un con- 11
cile sans liberte et la menace d’ un absolutisme sans contrdle.
Esperons que 1’ exces du mal provoquera le retour du bien. Ce
Concile n’ aura eu qu’un heureux resultat, celui d’ en appeler un autre, . ’ ■
reuni dans la liberte, ou l’on admettra une discussion veritable, ou
chacun pourra penser tout haut et sans crainte, ou la vie de F Eglise
s’epanouira spontanement et pour le bien universel. Le Concile du
Vatican demeurera sterile, comme tout ce qui n’est pas eclos sous le
souffle^ de 1’Esprit Saint. Cependant il aura revele, non seulement
J
jusqu’a quel point 1’absolutisme peut abuser des meilleures institutions
etudes meilleurs instincts, mais aussi ce que vaut encore le droit, alors
meme qu’il n’a plus que le petit nombre pour le defendre. Quelle
belle page dans l’histoire pour cette minorite qui s’est maintenue huit
�I mWjsans avoir une heure de decouragement et qui, au dernier moment,
Unit par un coup d’ audace heroique !
La discussion est devenue plusque jamais impossible; on ne veut
plus la souffrir. Les meilleurs et les plus moderes des orateurs ne
peuvent se faire entendre qu’a travers des interruptions continuelles.
La majorite vient de renoncer en masse a la parole. Les presidents
la felicitent de sa resolution. Que faire alors? Les chaleurs obligent
les vieillards a fair le champ de bataille pour se r^server, comme les
temoins du passe, dans des temps meilleurs. Le nombre des courageux
opposants diminue par ces departs de chaque jour. Il faut absolument
accepter la derniere bataille. Pour hater 1’heure des non placet, la
minorite, en masse, a cesse de parler.
Quelques ames effrayees auront cru tout fini. Non. Le silence
de la minority est devenu, pour les plus clairvoyants, une affirmation
de sa dignite et de sa force, et lorsque quelques uns ont semble lui
dire: rendez les armes, elle a repondu, comme Leonidas: Venez les
prendre.
Elle les apportera le jour de la session, si ce jour doit luire, en
d6posant ses non placet. Nous verrons alors si la masse aura le cou
rage d’ecraser 1’intelligence, la liberte et la valeur.
Si la multitude passe quand meme, nous lui predisons qu’elle
nrira pas loin. Les Spartiates, qui etaient tombes aux Thermopyles,
pour defendre les terres de la liberty, avaient prepare au hot impitoyable
du despotisme la defaite de Salamine.
�Hso^fe nfr
5!«F H ■ ;Ufv,^
'
Uf'/'Z.
•'
ij^-’
Iflt
■Hl
. o ,‘or*'t
■ iJ .
.'c'.’A^f a
4 llp-■:
/■h.
‘Hm
ftr:
ooil"r.u. >
ic'Ot)
oiikOj
;-;ab
.iiiiid
M ><1
tfh H.u.vitVM.
.h!.■
■;^i
!*»«
Hwb*
^jLW
i
.’ ■ ■ ’
"Hi!
: ■ itfriiioM
■
!
/'•■ ' i’1.(•
SJ}|
i’-L'i: X'U'^
'r **
J
r
wini 4i 00 (TOj; 00 ib
j .
/ /~Lx Ula'--' ’ i I i
r
"• “•*'
<*/ ' ;*p; ■ 1K*/
fl i.
"•' ■:
Mot fife ■’
••’}’('o‘yti ±
H’5*: ■''>«'
, i IH /
Jft
'!,)[ ttlffl'Oi’-' :
ifio iAi n
UtHc-
«h?!».»
■■^1‘
ii.oM.UiOf/'. r*
mi ><11 'U
'jcfoot
'•' wrt\y
oj
iw j
'• • .tf ■•' !•■
,;W-. •W*
rf;-.
itK
owMbA$&■
yJhnWj I ' jj <. i';! i i
1*^'
<'. n -. .‘it
o iltoo
.
Hl '
W?
'■
affifi....
■...vaPMBl*t>‘ *»!
'l
”- !u
»g
JO ‘
-Hf
, dp-*$
V'
I•
Hi
��■iStncbaV'-
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
La derniere heure du concile
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Darboy, Georges [1813-1871]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Munich
Collation: 7 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Inscription on front cover: Presented to M.D. Conway by Dr. Dollinger: a letter written by the Archbishop of Paris who was shot by the Communists. Georges Darboy was a French Catholic priest, later bishop of Nancy, then archbishop of Paris. He was among a group of prominent hostages executed as the Paris Commune of 1871 was about to be overthrown.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
H. Manz'sche
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5408
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (La derniere heure du concile), identified by <a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
French
Subject
The topic of the resource
France
Catholic Church
Conway Tracts
France
France-History-Third Republic
Paris Commune
Revolutionary Movements
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d7fabba33d420f3b21b52a83c00b9e9f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=dlB7OnSoFqeL71nb%7Eq7DZ2uaokcviJ6Zrn9vSBlCjGyVx08zyOEFdwEWmmBF%7ENHng3m4%7E%7E7lOyj%7EFUWfPNn%7ExTVY3gvOhBazhpnArTseK0prntDrj9bi4vB1HJcUXtBDElU4JJ2NoR3JpctDFvmV77Cz87i8EQdg1zeTP0%7E5oc5gCK26gBReuk7Dx%7EszNsJab9QIfY5N%7EtWr%7ErRNY2KDPNV2gT%7E9xQXZE2Hhy78DxkXvV6gD694SjIimuJnjxAdkDmZ4P%7EvEvFtmRsUFP8tMfkqhG9fep219YR-fUFYTLBlcx18n558d-32y-mUL4oL5-HspquY5gmtL6kHrRjsvUw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
9877653859fc94ca5edecb2cd871bac2
PDF Text
Text
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
False divinities or, Moses, Christ & Mahomet
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A Foreign Theolologist
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 83, [1] ; p. 22 cm.
Series number: no.7
Notes: Annotations in ink. Donated by Mr Garley. Published anonymously by 'A Foreign Theologist'.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
F. Truelove
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5082
Subject
The topic of the resource
Atheism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (False divinities or, Moses, Christ & Mahomet), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Atheism
Deism
Jesus Christ
Moses
Muhammad
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/660ebb71e8e170dff6c84c7510ac38fe.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=mnZQRNrhX7B9KyK4mqeci-WOP87V30xETtUmoKW5ulAZkuQAn5dIH2jCVe%7EpPgKahSg8rVDohr03RjN8rJ7xb%7ECdHImwtBYSwjGtgWmA8RGvN%7EoBi5%7EF83O0LYHfrBAUB3afobUzuunHdW-CdPtxqT-BegzS%7EHm66uoPZ0GPeAjjktpcDhl5xqSrsz7pCUsBS00iaxeTp62R8%7Edxfaf42Ntk622gjhW-Lfsf-ezEFL7ef6Pp2eKZuA2BjjZFvIsDr5tw-U0nDaHOnJ0GdR-Tw41P7uB09DTlepUHvxy3YgDJpk5GhN-GMGb5U0nsHyxpP-yOfrMDla2xqLb3vVqkkQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c1a09d467bca4b46f445c034c71e74eb
PDF Text
Text
�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Abbey of Saint Alban, some extracts from its early history and a dedication of its conventional church
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 3rd ed.
Place of publication: London; Saint Albans
Collation: [10], 98 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes prefaces to the first and second editions. Intended chiefly for the use of visitors to the Abbey. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Whittingham and Wilkins, Chancery Lane, London. Includes list of original manuscripts and printed histories.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nicholson, Henry Joseph Boone
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Bell and Daldy
William Langley
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5168
Subject
The topic of the resource
Churches
History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Abbey of Saint Alban, some extracts from its early history and a dedication of its conventional church), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Cathedrals
Conway Tracts
St Albans Cathedral
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d19d5fde2c9fea7a6a74dd56095bbffe.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=QPxKpOD1fQtnw6PE0FgZ%7EdG-TByFDj3H4W%7E3-tUIaLfqS9vt8V1OTjv7atCz8VFURFjsADbIfN29X4MxbNg3suKbWgtBEsdnNltUx9sa77KUbUf4sM%7EQvqdkI9FFYjAwCwG2bxl1CprTLkhtSazyWMuY0SyS0v1z1ixtXiGxW--DtTz97JjTs7v7%7Ei7Rsp143%7EX9oJ2BzCC%7EQFpocRx61v9%7EBqYKdbwHYY0CvQZOFEMZdbHzH5abzPYvhDTpS1pTg7E6vHTftCK93OQTYNqwbVXnJrSBzLXU6R9-52dpH1Gdp44tQmdZB-3CdrC1WX5qWo3ClMdo2brZ1g-wUM5exQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
58943ba82f323d48f00837847442d178
PDF Text
Text
£6^
THE
SOCIAL QUESTION.
y
'
•
•
A SPEECH DELIVERED BY
Deputy
JOHANN JACOBY,
TO HIS CONSTITUENTS OF THE SECOND ARRONDISSEMENT
OF BERLIN, ON THE 20th JANUARY, 1870
■“ Men shall not be masters and servants, for all are born to liberty.”
Abraham Lincoln.
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.
1870.
��OmL QUES TIO N.
T
Dear Fellow Citizens and Friends,
The mandate you have confided to me expires with the close of
the present session of Parliament. I am happy that this meeting
of my constituents gives me an opportunity of thanking you
once more for the confidence you have so faithfully and truthfully
continued to place in me at a time when political convictions are
vacillating in the extreme.
The last time I addressed you from this tribune, I essayed to
n . t
xi.„ —n—„„„
w
.Xgtuiwh'A
bpd J1 ftk tyd
twfil
nj.
M VA ..rt'ioi’ixj 'ifcbVi-M
4‘'-5luofi OS jrp’/,
.Axniii'c*
M>i
/’ ,
'
<fv
>1
■! b/ir*
-.■ii
WP
■■
‘ .
’^301.8W»j MfuJl
* ww
*•
«w‘t '< ♦
“ ini r.tAjitiru 'i-
■’ M0
tfii.ll id "
M JjW ln-i’
'**
l
jaeailBd.Ktoui Li ■>'
' •*»»»<> »•■)-H-sn* *n few’ ■'1 ■
nut you ail Knowxnavcms-wonuei-xia-s
git«o
«
been realised, without the aid of the gods, in the most natural
manner in the world, namely, by insight into the laws and by em
ployment of the forces of nature; that which appeared formerly
impossible to the wisest of the Greeks, is realised daily under
our eyes. But how has this miracle come about ? How has this
happy result been brought to pass, which Aristotle anticipated, of
such a state of things ?
Experience teaches us that by the grand mechanical discoveries
which have been made in our time, national riches have imEneasurably increased, but that the unfortunate and painful lot
of the laborious classes has been at best but ameliorated.
’
�ERRATA.
Page 1, last line, for “ laborious,” read labouring.
Page 5, line 14 from bottom, for “ restoring,” read restricting.
Page 7, line 20 from top, after “ credit,” put a comma.
Page 7, line 3 from bottom, for “ gem,” read germ,.
Page 8, line 22 from bottom, for “ only,” read on.
Page 10, line 14 from top, for “ these,” read other.
Page 12, line 10 from top, after “ does,” put ratf.
Page 12, line 2 from top, for “verum,” read rerum. Same page
line 2 from bottom, for K law ” read labour.
Page 16, line 13 from bottom, after the word “ majority,” insert
—of mankind as wage-labourers.
�TH E
S 0 C I A L QUESTION.
Dear Fellow Citizens and Friends,
The mandate you have confided to me expires with the close of
the present session of Parliament. I am happy that this meeting
of my constituents gives me an opportunity of thanking you
once more for the confidence you have so faithfully and truthfully
continued to place in me at a time when political convictions are
vacillating in the extreme.
The last time I addressed you from this tribune, I essayed to
explain to you the end which the radical German party had in
view, and above all, its position with regard to the working men’s
agitation; permit me to-day to take as the subject of my deli
beration, this working men’s movement itself, or, as it is
ordinarily termed, the social question. The political and social
conditions of a country being intimately allied, every elector has
a right to demand a declaration of social as well as political faith
from his deputy. I shall endeavour to answer this question with
entire frankness. Aristotle, one of the greatest thinkers of
humanity, divides mankind into two classes—free men and men
born for slavery. He pretends that the Greeks, thanks to their
independent character, were called to dominate over other nations,
whilst the barbarian races were destined either to be governed or
for slavery. He sees a social necessity in this institution—he
considers it as an essential and indispensable basis of the State
and of society; for supposing that free citizens should find them
selves under the necessity of providing by their labour for the
needs of life, whence could arise the desire to form their intellect,
and the leisure to occupy themselves with affairs of State ? And
yet, gentlemen, we find in Aristotle a remarkable passage con
cerning the possibility of a state of society without slavery. If
there were animated instruments (automatons) he says, capable
of rendering us those services now performed by slaves; if each
of these instruments, comprehending or even acting in advance
of the wish of man, could execute the labour confided to him
after the manner of the Statutes of Daedalus and the tables of
Hephaestus, which, according to Homer, entered of their own
accord into the chambers of the gods; if the shuttles could
weave alone, and guitars could perform melodies without musi
cians, then weavers would have no need of workmen, nor masters
of slaves.
But you all know that this wonder has in great part already
been realised, without the aid of the gods, in the most natural
manner in the world, namely, by insight into the laws and by em
ployment of the forces of nature; that which appeared formerly
impossible to the wisest of the Greeks, is realised daily under
our eyes. But how has this miracle come about ? How has this
Bappy result been brought to pass, which Aristotle anticipated, of
such a state of things ?
Experience teaches us that by the grand mechanical discoveries
which have been made in our time, national riches have immeasurably increased, but that the unfortunate and painful lot
of the laborious classes has been at best but ameliorated.
�4
Permit me now, in conformity with, enlarged experience, fur
ther to develop the dream of Aristotle. Let us suppose that in
some distant future of the human race, the entire soil of the
globe shall have passed into a state of private property, and that
man, by the progress of science, shall have acquired the mastery
of nature, that the inventions of mechanism shall have attained
such a state of perfection, that machines shall be constructed,
and shall practise by means of other machines, so that all phy
sical labour shall have become superfluous, . or that at least its
necessity shall have been reduced to a minimum. What would
be the result of such a state of things ?.
It will then naturally happen that in virtue of the force of
attraction, which the greater capital exercises upon the lesser,, a
relatively small number of rich persons will find themselves in
the possession of all the machines and all the means of labour;
it is to this small number alone to whom the common revenues of
the country will accrue, as well as all the wealth which is neces
sary for the wants and the pleasures of life, and that from a
point of view now admitted as just.
But what would happen under such circumstances—and granted
the complete depreciation of labour—what would become of the
disinherited mass of the working proletariat, if the charity of
the possessors of capital did not come to their rescue ?
What other resource would remain open to these unfortunate
people, but the alternative of dying of hunger, or modifying
in their own favour the existing relationships of society and
of property, either by force or by fraud ?
It will be said that this is a vain phantom, proposed to frighten
us, and that a similar state of society will never be realised,
either in the present or in the future. I admit this—not how
ever, because the thing in itself is impossible—but because it is
impossible that intelligent men will allow matters to reach such
a point. But can we hide from ourselves the fact that existing
social life, based as it is upon the domination of capital, and upon
the system of wages, tends to such a direction, that unless
obstructed, it would lead us nearer every day towards a state like
that we have just described ? Must we not acknowledge, that
even at the present time, the distribution of the common revenues
of the country is made in such a manner that, at least, a part
of the working proletariat is exposed to the distress we have
depicted.
In such a condition of things, it is the incumbent duty of every
honest and thoughtful man, to put to himself the following
question:—
How can we modify the present relations of society and
property, so as to realise a more equitable distribution of the
common revenue, and to obviate the distress of the working
classes, which daily assumes more extended proportions ?
In examining more closely the problem, the solution of which
we seek, there are two principal features which characterise the
economic relationships of the existing order of society, and which
�5
distinguish it from those of the past—the system of wages and great
^collective industry.
In the past, the social labours were executed in a great measure
by slaves or serfs; since the great French Revolution, there have
no longer existed seignorial rights of man over man.
By right, that is to say legally, every workman is free and dis
poses of himself, but in the fact, he is anything but independent.
Deprived of the necessary means and conditions of labour, with
out any other property but the faculty of labour, he sees himself
[under the necessity of working in the service of another foi'
|c wages,” and for wages which scarcely suffice for the bare
maintenance of life. If he finds no demand for the sole mer
chandise he has to dispose of, that is to say, for his labour, he
falls with those depending on him into extreme misery. Not
withstanding this painful and precarious situation, a labourer
■could with difficulty be found, who would return to the ancient
social state; what he wants is an existence worthy of a man, and
he knows that it is in liberty alone that he can attain it.
As the French Revolution declared the labourer free as regards
his person, it also delivered property from the fetters of the
middle ages; without regard to primitive obligations and destina
tions, it gave him who was then in possession the absolute right
to dispose of his property.
This liberation of property, the employment of steam which
soon followed, and the general introduction of machinery into
workshops, introduced great and weighty changes into economic
End social relations. Trades and small commerce were more or
less driven into the background: commerce upon a large scale,
End great industry, that is to say, production by capital, took
their place. Nevertheless, painful as became the situation of the
poorer workman and of the small dealer by this change, the
Advantages of great collective industry are too important with
regard to the development of civilisation for society ever to forego
them. A return to small commerce and to small trade is for the
future as impossible as a return to statute labour.
In consequence, we must confine our question to the following
■Propositions:—
How can we, without restoring the liberty of labour, and
without prejudicing the progress obtained by industry (on a large
scale), realise a more equitable distribution of the common
revenue, and one more suited to the interest of all ?
The answer for us at least cannot be a doubtful one; there is
■but one means which can lead us to this end : The abolition of the
wage-system and the substitution in its place of co-operative labour.
Whoever can read the signs of the times, will not deny that
this is the thought, which more or less consciously is at the
bottom of all working men’s movements in every country of
Europe. Just as slavery and serfdom, which were also formerly
held to be necessary social institutions, have everywhere given
way to the wage-system, so impends to-day a revolution of the
same kind, and not less important; namely, the transition of the
�wage-system to labour, and labour free and equal in the right of
association. It is needful so to act, that this revolution be effected
in the most peaceful manner, which cannot happen except by
the unanimous concurrence of all the social forces interested in it.
The question which now occupies us should therefore be thus
stated:—
What must (1st) the workman, (2nd) the manufacturer—the
possessor of capital, (3rd) the State do, to advance the transition
already commenced towards production by association, and to
conduct it to a good issue in the interests of the community ?
We see that, to answer this question, we have nothing to do but
review the facts which are occurring before us, a certain proof
that we find ourselves at present in the midst of a social change.
(1.) With regard to the workman himself, it is needful, above
all, that he should have a clear idea of his position, and that
he should learn to know and to respect the noblei’ side of human
nature that is within him.
We have already said that, in general, the wages of the labourer
suffice only for the miserable support of himself and of his
family. If any one doubts this pitiful condition of wages, we
would refer him to the testimony rendered some time back by a
Commission of the Customs to Parliament, in a report upon the
estimate of the wages of workmen; it is written in striking terms.
“ We cannot allow the assertion that there is a sensible differ
ence between the wages of the workman and the means necessary
for his bare maintenance to pass unnoticed. The amount of
wages is precisely the point around which the whole of the social
question practically moves. Workmen affirm the insufficiency of
wages, the employers do not contest this in principle, but they
declare the amount of wages to be a fixed link in the chain of
economic phenomena, and that under the control of the market
in which they find themselves, they cannot arbitrarily change it
without breaking the whole chain. As long as this contest is not
decided, and we fear that it may be eternal (sic), we must rest
ourselves as being the sole point of any real solid foundation
upon the opinion that the two terms, ‘wages’ and ‘means of
indispensable existence,’ generally compensate each other.” “ The
indestructible chain of economic phenomena!” Really one could
scarcely find a more striking expression ! Doubtless, the lords of
capital and the dispensers of labour will not be impeded in the
accumulation of capital upon capital; but very heavily does this
“ chain of economic phenomena ” weigh upon the working classes.
And yet here again the saying of the poet confirms itself—
“ There dwells a spirit of good even in that which is evil! ”
The dominant industrial system whilst necessitating the
assemblage of large masses of labourers in the same locality,
furnishes at the same time the first step for doing away with the
evil it engenders. As man learns from a glass the knowledge of
the features of his own face, so the salaried workman attains to a
complete acquaintance of his situation only by perceiving his own
�7
•condition reflected m the common misery of his companions in
suffering. In common with his equally ill-favoured and equally
oppressed companions, by constant intercourse and exchange of
ideas with his equals, by the mutual co-operation of reciprocal
assistance and of defence against the common danger, there is
developed by degrees among the workmen a bond of brotherhood,
which supports individuals, educates them, and urges the whole
body to struggle for their social rights. It is a singular occur
rence that it should be production by capital that itself assembles
and disciplines the forces destined to put an end to the domination
of capital and of the classes which represent it.
It is from these great industrial agglomerations that the work
ing men’s movement has arisen, which for this last ten years has
spread itself from England to France, to Belgium, to Germany,
to Switzerland, and has acquired by the foundation of the International Association a precise form and a positive power. On all
sides we find societies taking root, whose object is the amelioration
-of the material condition of the working classes; societies of
bartizans and of labourers, associations for instruction, for assist
ance, for consumption, for advances, and for credit unions for
manufacture and production. It is to be foreseen, that under the
pressure of prevailing financial and economical relationships,
all these institutions proceeding from the workman alone, and
founded upon the principle of “ self-help,” will prove insufficient
in the face of the common wants. But their services will have
been considerable in aiding the intellectual and moral development of the working class and in starting a serious reform in the
condition of labour. The true meaning of the inappreciable value
of these associations consists in that, irrespectively of their spe
cific end, they form a school for the members of the Association,
and render them capable of managing their own affairs as well as
of co-operating efficaciously with others. By education, by pro
gress in the knowledge of affairs, and by the development of a
friendly lien among the workmen, they prepare them insensibly
to pass from the wage-system now in vigour to the system of
production by association, which is that of the future.
It was the spirit of association which elevated the laborious
citizen class, in the middle ages, to such a high degree of civiliza
tion, of well being, of power, and of importance. The awakening
of this spirit of association, will lead us in our own days to
■results, similar, yet more fruitful, not for a single state, but
for the entire human society.
The labour question, as we understand it, is not a question of
mere bread and money ; it is a question of justice, of civilization,
and of humanity. Our pretended saviours of the State and
Society, “ the glorious conquests of politics by blood and iron,”
will long, like a superannuated legend, have fallen into the profoundest oblivion, when it will be accorded as a merit to our time
to have awakened and fostered the spirit of association, the gem
■of human virtue and greatness. By this means, our epoch will
have laid the foundations of a new social life founded upon the
�8
principles of equality and fraternity. The creation of the mosh
insignificant working man’s association, will be to the future his
torian of civilization of more importance than the sanguinary
day of Sadowa 1
Let us proceed now to the second question.
(2.) What ought the manufacturer, the enterprising possessor!
of capital, to do ?
All we ask of him is simply to consider in each workman, “ the
man; ” we ask of him to recognise, and to treat the hired man
he employs as a being who has exactly the same rights as him
self—in one word, as his equal.
Every medal, it is said, has two sides; in this saying there is a
good deal of populai' good sense; the most difficult problems of
science and of life find therein a satisfactory solution. Just as
the medal, man also has two sides: the one peculiar to
him as an individual; the other general, stamping him as
a member of a great community. In fact, these two sides are
inseparable and without a defined limit, for it is but in their
entirety, and in their unity that they constitute man; but it is
nevertheless possible that one of these two sides, temporarily or
lastingly, may manifest itself in excess, and thus exercise a decisive
influence upon our thoughts and upon our actions.
Let us suppose, for example, that it is the more particular or
individual side, which allows itself to be felt and becomes pre
ponderate in the conscience of a man. First of all, there will
result a more exaggerated appreciation of personality, a deeper
sentiment of his personal value and a greater confidence in self.
“Aid yourself! man is his own architect.” This is one man’s
motto, the rule of his thought and his actions. If he preserves at
the same time his sentiment on the other side, that is only the
general side of his existence, if he does not lose sight of the
entirety, which binds him to his equals, he will say, that his own
isolated forces will not suffice to procure for himself a life worthy
of a man; that man can only live and prosper in the society of
his fellow creatures, and that a fraternal co-operation with others
is his interest if well understood.
Reverence for others, the sentiment of community and the
spirit of fraternity, will constitute the necessary counterpoise to
his egotism and self-confidence. But the case is quite different
when this personal egotism develops itself to excess. Even
then he will doubtless not overlook the insufficiency of his
isolated individual power, for the consciousness of the general
and universal side can never be completely stifled, but it is th J
consequences which he therefrom deduces, which are quite
different; he will consider other men not as beings who are his
equals, not as members of a great whole to which he himself
belongs, and in which they have all equal rights with himself, butas members subordinated to his individual self, as simple instru
ments, destined to the satisfaction of his own wants and desires.
It is thus that the personal feeling, so laudable in itself, degene
rates into egotism—confidence in self into arrogance. Cupidity*
�9
pride, ambition, will decide him to make of his neighbour a
servant of his will, and of that which he deems his own interest.
What we have just said of each, man in particular is true also
of man in the abstract; the same forces which act upon the
mind of the individual, act also upon the life of peoples, and
upon the history of the human race.
Domination of man over man, right of the stronger, exploitation of the weaker, these are the characteristic features, which,
distinguished alike the history of antiquity and that of the middle
ages. Is it otherwise at the present time ?
Does not social ordei’ even to-day, notwithstanding our boasted:
progress, repose upon the same principle of human servitude ?
Has the present epoch, in truth, a right to contemplate with,
pride and satisfaction its present state in contrast to the social,
relations of pagan antiquity, and the Christianized middle ages ?
With a frankness which cannot well be surpassed, a statesman
of the nineteenth century, Count Joseph de Maistre, thus ex
presses himself. “ The human race has been created for the
benefit of a few. It is the business of the clergy, of the nobility,
and of the high functionaries of state, to teach the people thatwhich is good or bad, true or false, in the moral and intellectual
world. The rest of mankind have no right to reason on such
subjects, and must suffer all things without a murmur.”
If the style is somewhat highly-coloured, the portrait is taken
from nature. As long as the leaders of the people “ shall make
war without consulting the people; as long as ecclesiastics shall
unite in council or] in synod to give judgment under the auspices
of the Holy G-host, upon the false science of man,” we shall have
no right to give a denial to de Maistre. His error consists alone
in approving a similar state of things, and of supposing that such
a state can and ought to last for ever.
Allow me to cite another testimony. From this double view
the truth will be elicited.
Robert Owen, the founder of the co-operative system in Eng
land, meets one day in the house of a Frankfort banker, therenowned statesman, Frederick von Gentz. Owen expounded his
socialistic system and displayed its excellence; if union could,
but replace disunion all men would have a sufficiency. “ That is
very possible 1 ” replied von Gentz, “but we by no means wish that
the masses should become at ease and independent of us, all
government would then be impossible.”
This, gentlemen, is in two words the social question of the
present time ! For Owen the enigma of the solution is, “union.”
Gentz indicates the source of the evil which opposes this
solution, “ the spirit of domination among the privileged classes.”
Aristotle, you will remember, also divided mankind into two
classes: the one destined by nature to dominion, the other
to servitude; but this difference was to be attributed to nation
ality, and it was the character of the Greek or the barbarian,,
which was the basis of his distinction. De Maistre and Gentz,
Hon the contrary, established a distinction in the same race,
�10
between a limited aristocracy called to power and well being,
and the rest of the masses condemned to be governed and to
suffer want.
If we consider the relationships of the Church, the State, or
of society in general, everywhere, we cannot conceal from our
selves the fact, that the domination of classes and the system of
tutelage, such as it existed in the middle ages, are to be found.
The only difference between the present and the past is that,
thanks to the reform in Germany and the revolution in France,
these convictions penetrate daily into lower and lower strata of
society, and this state of things cannot last long.
It is now understood that man is not born to be governed,
lorded over, condemned, and despoiled by his fellow-men; it
is now exacted in fact, from the State and society, that these
doctrines be seriously applied.
There was a time, and the oldest among you may remember it,
when he who placed a doubt upon the right of absolute rule
was declared a “ rebel.” In the same manner is treated in the
present day, whosoever dares to shatter the chain of economic
relations. Endeavour to attack the privileges of the well-to-do
classes, the abuses of power of the great capitalists, the dominant
system of credit; or only to talk of a more equitable distribution of
material rights, in a certain sphere, you will be at once condemned
as an enemy of all social order, as a heretic towards society and as
a communist. But do not let this impede us from frankly and
openly recognising this truth—that all individual property,
material no less than intellectual, is at the same time the com
mon good of society. Just as man, so has the property of man
also its particular side, which makes it the property of the in
dividual, and its general and universal side, upon which the
community have positive claims. That the State and the com
mune levy rates and taxes upon the fortune of each in di vidua,!,
that the law should limit the disposal of property in each, is
legitimate in the eyes of all.
But we demand, has not the proprietor other duties besides
those which the law of the State prescribes, and when necessary
imposes ? Has he not duties towards society, as he has towards
his family, the community, and the Church ?
Is the sum total of what each man possesses in goods, real or
personal, the product of his own activity ? Is he not indebted
for the greater part of it to the co-operation of others, to the
common and social labour of his predecessors and his contem
poraries ? As the individual cannot attain property without the
assistance and succour of others, so neither can he enjoy its
fruits without the assistance and succour of others. It is only in
society that property can have any value, it is only in society that
man can enjoy his property. The moral duty of every proprietor is
therefore to make such a use of his property, as shall profit not
himself alone, but also the community at large, and especially
that part of it less liberally endowed than himself.
“ Riches are the wealth of all, when it is a man of worth who
possesses them.”
�11
The remarkable working-men’s movement of the last forty
years has produced excellent results in this respect. It has
awakened in the workman a sense of his social rights, and in the
well-to-do classes a sense of social duty. We willingly acknow
ledge this; there are manufacturers to whom the workman is not
a machine to be bought, like any other merchandise, at the lowest
possible cost, in order to make the greatest profit, and then to be
got rid of.
In England, France, and with us also in Germany, there are
manufacturers, enterprises, commercial men, and great landed
proprietors who make it a duty to ameliorate the hard lot of the
workmen they employ, by raising their wages and reducing their
hours of labour, by organising savings’ banks, benefit societies
for succour and for old age, by procuring healthy habitations
for their workmen, and, at a small cost, asylums, hospitals,
schools, &c. We designate in particular the system known
under the name of participation in benefits (industrial partner
ship), by which the workman, besides his wages, obtains a share
in the profits arising from his labour. In England alone,
more than 10,000 workmen find themselves in this position with
regard to the manufacturers, and the two parties have reason
to be contented with the result.
But let us not forget that here again, all depends more or less
upon the good will of the employer, and that under the most
favourable supposition, only isolated workmen or groups of workmen find their condition ameliorated. However profitable these
efforts may be as a means of education and preparation, they
are not less insufficient as a remedy for the social evil arising
from the system of wages, than the efforts made by the workmen
themselves. To obtain this remedy another power is needed,
that shall act in a general manner and upon all points.
And this leads us to our third question:—
(3.) What is to be done by the State to obtain a peaceable
solution of the labour question ?
The new Constitution of the Canton of Zurich, of the date of
“the 18th April, 1369, gives us the following answer:—■
“ Art. 23. The State promotes and facilitates the development
of Association founded upon the efforts of individuals (self-help).
It decrees by the agency of legislation all the necessary measures
for the protection of the workman.
“Art. 24. It institutes a Cantonal Bank, with the object of
developing a general system of credit.”
The primary drawing up of this project was yet more precise :
it ran as follows :—
“Art. 23. It is the duty of the State to protect and to further
the well-being of the working classes, as well as the free develop:ment of Associations.”
Art. 24. As above.
Protect and further—these two expressions clearly and precisely
denote the end of the great Association termed the State.
But what are we to understand from this direct protection and
furtherance by the State ?
�12
The despot also terms himself the protector of the people, and
war is extolled as a means for advancing civilization. Vera verum
vocabula amisimus. “ The real sense of words has been lost to us.”
It is all the more necessary to explain the sense attached to these.
The protection of the State means to us, the duty incumbent
upon each community constituted into a State to procure for each
individual, in the free development and manifestation of his
faculties, a sufficient protection, in so far as it shall not militate
against the liberty of others.
Protection alone, however, does constitute the entire duty of
the State; notwithstanding, that certain politicians limit it tothis, the mutual advancement of the members of the State must
necessarily be added.
“ By the advancement by the State ” we understand, the duty
of the community to interfere by every means in its power wherethe providence of the individual will not suffice to ‘procure him an
existence worthy of a man.
As the protection of the State answers to the principle o£
“ liberty,” and the advancement by the State to that of “ frater
nity,” it results that protection and advancement become at the
same time, and according to their respective needs, the lot of
each, and that thus the principle of equality is satisfied.
You see, gentlemen, that the social doctrine I have put forward
is the same as that which I summarised, upon a previous occasion,,
in the following formula:—
Each for all—this is the duty of man.
All for each—this is the right of man.
But what, some one will ask, if protection and advancement by
the State is to be equally the lot of each, why is the working class
specified in the Zurich Constitution ?
The working class—is it to be a privileged one on the part of theState, and favoured at the expense of the others ? This objection;
is a specious one at first sight, but it will not sustain a closer
examination.
Let us recollect, first of all, that the equality of all consists in
that each is protected and supported according to his wants, and
who can deny that in our time, it is exactly the wage-receiving
class who have need of protection and support ?
Moreover, allowance being made for the most pressing needs,,
another circumstance here presents itself, which for the present,
as well as for the impending future, imposes the duty upon theState of having especial regard to the situation of the working
classes, in order to hasten the advent of the justice which
equalises and reconciles.
Consider only the origin of what is ordinarily termed “ capi
tal,” and you will at once understand what I mean.
However different may be the ideas formed of capital, all theworld agrees in considering it as an economised labour, accumu
lated and destined for productive purposes. But who, we ask,
has furnished this law ? Is it those who possess the capital ?
Do the manufacturer, the merchant, and the great proprietor owe
�13
pffeir capital, this accumulated labour, to their own activity and
to that of their ancestors ?
On the other hand, is the want of capital, the poverty of the
labourer, and the proletarian, merely the consequence of his own
faults and of those of his ancestors ? No one will dare aver this ?
If, therefore, the actual inequality in fortunes is not alone the
result of the economic system of those who possess, and of the
anti-economic system of those who do not possess, to what other
cause must we attribute this inequality?
How does it happen that, day by day, capital accumulates in
the hands of a small minority, whilst tbe majority of the wages
scarcely suffice, notwithstanding the labour, for the needs of the
masses ?
It is evident that one must seek the solution in the iniquitous
redistribution of the return of labour in respect of the labour
provided.
Listen to what one of the most celebrated political economists
of England says upon this question—
“ The produce of labour,” says Stuart Mill, “ is redistributed
.at the present time in an almost inverse ratio to the labour sup
plied: the greatest return falls to the lot of those who never
work: after these, to those whose work is only nominal, and thus
in a descending scale, wages are reduced in proportion as the
labour becomes more onerous and more disagreeable, until at last
that which is the most fatiguing and pernicious to the body can
.scarcely secure with certainty the acquisition of the immediate
necessities of existence.”
We will not inquire by what concatenation of historical events
the labourer has been by degrees deprived of the means of labour,
and how the disproportion which exists between wages and labour
has been brought about. The question before us is the following:—
What has the State done to obtain a more equitable distri
bution of the products of labour ?
Has it ever tried either by laws or by other institutions to pro
tect the labourei’ against the preponderance of capital and to
place a limit to the social inequality which daily increases ?
If we examine the history of all States, we shall find that up to the
latest times, nothing or nearly nothing has been done in this respect.
The nobility, the clergy, or the higher civic class have exercised
for centuries, one after the other, or at the same time, an almost
exclusive influence upon public affairs; they have never hesitated
to employ the power and resources of the State which ought to
be the inheritance of all for themselves and for their particular
interests. Legislation itself, far from producing equality in com
petition and in economic relationships, has contributed by con
ceding privileges on the one side, and by limiting liberty on the
other, to enlarge the social gulf between those who possess and
those who do not.
How can we then be astonished that working men, having at
last attained the consciousness of their rights and of their
strength, exact from the State that it shall take into particular
�14
consideration their interests so long neglected? If the Con
stitution of Zurich accords to the labourers alone the protection
and assistance of the State, it is not a violation of the principle?
of equality. It is not a question here, as some timid minds fear,
to maintain the needy workman at the expense of the well-to-do
citizens; much less is it a question to create, by a lasting
assistance on the part of the State, a kind of labour feudality |
the legislator was only desirous to recognise in a frank and loyal
manner, that a duty was incumbent upon the State to make
amends for the past, to efface the injustices committed, and to
remedy the social evil it has contributed to produce. It is merely
a question how to realise what we have called the demands of an
equalising and reconciling justice.
The Constitution of Zurich does not content itself, it is true, by
proclaiming in general terms the duties and obligations of the
State; it indicates at the same time, in clear terms, the means by
which we can come to the aid of the working class.
“ The State must favour and facilitate the development of
association founded upon personal effort.”
The final end of this development is the cessation of the wage
by the insensible transition of the wage-system to that of free
labour through the means of association.
Let us now survey, one after the other, the exigencies which are
imposed upon the State, that is to say, on the body of the citizens.
In the first place, is the absolute liberty of manifesting one’s
opinion and the unlimited right of meeting and association. We
must renounce all limitation or, according to the usual term,
regiementation (organisation) of liberty.
Hence the equal right of each to participate in political life,
whence results universal and direct suffrage, and, as a necessary
consequence, the direct and universal participation of the people
in legislation and in administration.
We ask, moreover, gratuitous instruction in public institutions
which should be independent of the Church, and the establish
ment of a popular militia in the stead of permanent armies. We
combine these two propositions, the one with the other, for the
instruction and the military training of the people find them
selves in mutual relationship; to make war, above all, money
is needed, and capable soldiers, and both are obtainable by
means of good schools. The wealth of a country depends upon
the productive labour of its inhabitants, and labour is the more
productive, in so far as the labourer is able to calculate the pro
duct of his own activity, that is to say in proportion to his
intelligence. And as the labourer, so also does the soldier by means
of education become more able to perform his task, which is to
defend his country. With us, and with the majority of European
countries, nearly half the revenues of the State are expended in
preparations for war, whilst insignificant sums are awarded to
educational instruction. Reverse this order of things, and the
public income will be increased tenfold, without the respective
value of things diminishing.
�15
A minister of instruction, who understands his business, is at
once the best minister of war and of finance.
For the working classes in particular, and that having in view
the general interest, we ask—
Seduction of the hours of labour, and a fixation of the day’s
work.
The paid labourer (or receiver of wages) must also have time
and the leisure to form his mind and watch the affairs of the
State. The congress of the English Working Men’s Associa
tion, which was held in the month of August last year, at Bir
mingham, advises a period of eight hours as a common measure
for all trades and expresses the conviction that by this means,
will be fortified the physical and intellectual energy of the work
man, and we shall thereby further morals, and diminish the
number of the UnemployedProhibition of the employment of children in manufactories,
and an equal rate of wages, both for women as well as for men, are
necessary steps to prevent the diminution of wages, and to
the decline of the rising generation.
Furthermore, we desire the abolition of indirect contributions,
and the establishment of a tax progressive and proportional to
the fortune of the individuaL
Every tax upon consumption, is a tax upon the strength of
the labourer, and consequently, an impediment to the production
of wealth, and a prejudice to the well-being of the people.
Finally, reform of the system of credit, and the furtherance of
associations, both industrial and agricultural, by the means of
the institution of credit, or by the protection of the State.
It is necessary to lay open the road to credit to the work
man. What the State has done hitherto, and to such an extent
directly and indirectly for the support and protection of capital,
it must now effect, and that in its own interest, for the advance
ment of the working classes and working men’s association.
Nothing is so advantageous to the community as justice in all
thin gs.
These are the first conditions of the reform of labour. Work
men have been advised, perhaps with good intentions, to keep
themselves aloof from all politics, and to concentrate all their
attention on their economic interest, as if we could separate
economic and political interests, as we cleave wood with a hatchet.
W'hoever has followed the course of our considerations will not
doubt, I hope, that it is just the working classes whose interest
it mogt imports to modify public relationships on the side of
liberty’ The assistance of the State, no less than that of the
individual, is necessary to secure to each workman the complete
and intact product of his labour, that is to say, the possibility of
an existence worthy of a human being. The State alone can
come to the workman’s aid, and the free State alone will do it 1
Let us now briefly summarise what we have said:—
The wage-system answers now as little to the exigencies of
'ngficc and humanity, as slavery and serfdom in former times.
�16
Just as it was with slavery and serfdom, the wage-system was
formerly a progress by which society has derived incontestable
^advantages.
. The social question of our times consists therefore in the aboli
tion of the wage-system, without prejudice to the advantages
resulting from the common labour of great collective industry.
There is for this but one means, the system of free labour by
association—the co-operative system. The present time is a
transition period from the wage-system (system of production
by means of capital) to the system of labour by association.
In order that this transition may be effected in a peaceful
manner, it is requisite that the workmen, employers, and the
State act in common.
It is the duty of workmen to unite, in ordei* to resist the
oppression of capital and to raise themselves by education to
moral and material independence.
It is the duty of the employer to engage himself in the cause
•of the workman’s well-being in a philanthropic spirit, and espe
cially to accord to him a share of the profits of labour.
Finally, the' State, by the protection of association, by fixing
the hours of labour, and by giving gratuitous instruction, ought
■to further the efforts of workmen towards civilization. Upon
the State devolves, at the same time, the duty of protecting the
system of production by association on a large scale, of a reform
in the system of banks of credit, and of the institution of State
Credit ?
As such help can only be expected from a free State, it is clear
that the workmen and their friends must, before all, procure for
themselves political liberty.
Political liberty, social liberty, liberty of the citizen, without
sacrificing the majority, this is the problem of our era.
The conquests of the blood and iron policy, the din of arms,
which has reverberated in our day, the struggles and the combats
which occur for the sake of dominion and power, for fortune and
for advancement—these are but ripples on the surface of the
stream of time; in the hidden depths, slowly but steadily
advances the science of nature and of mind, and with this
science, the consciousness of the independence of man — the
world-moving idea of the Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity of ali.
Years and years may pass away, and still that saying of the Scrip/ture will be fulfilled—that joyful message which the electric-wire
brought as a first greeting from free America to Europe encum
bered with arms : “ Peace on earth and good will towards men.”
THE END.
Printed by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The social question: a speech delivered by Deputy John Jacoby, to his constituents of the second arrondissement of Berlin, on the 20th January, 1870
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jacoby, Johann [1805-1877.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Printed by Austin & Co. for private circulation
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5243
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The social question: a speech delivered by Deputy John Jacoby, to his constituents of the second arrondissement of Berlin, on the 20th January, 1870), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Labour Movement
Socialism
Conway Tracts
Equality
Labour Movement
Political reform
Social Policy
Socialism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a674fb3541105f99a40db85742c41b4b.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=rMP1b8OdEnEe-j44Lpt4Wxw1e1ftljB%7Eihu0YHVBFhfQUDRLm7sN-1xGV4z0suXKBDYrPEZRwXx5fvGTTTfX4TH1i7zEawCWZtWDXllTl0X-1gu1tiMst6oe5XE7d2nBZYtCJ6XgJCRpkRwCzc09KHG3QvvMAYJFdMs31RAV1EcZXzKsb3zuctb3z6HxgQU1bXh8kqlY82Mdl1qaQUyI-7aMv4Tsv8xzyQYce8rHXW6285gZ5umOdbhas5wCbWdyyGa64M8f5VMawwAsMHyaIavgD26Eoct2Y1JgT8TK6LNZ7pGZZXUa3n%7E1zLYbOjY5JSMYw9VwkTMzefAh91Ss6g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8e1795c949d9ada6d68187ea01cac7bd
PDF Text
Text
VOL I., No. 3.—JULY, 1870.
CHRISTIANITY —LECTURE BY WENDELL PHILLIPS.
The Sunday afternoon course of
lectures at Horticultural Hall, in
Boston, was closed by a lecture by
Mr. Phillips, entitled, “ In Chris
tianity, no Substitutes, and no Mus
tering out.”
I choose this subject, said Mr.
Phillips, because there seem to me
to be very many grave issues, critical
and important questions, looming
over the horizon, which the purpose
and intelligence and virtue of the
community are to grapple with in the
next ten or twenty years ; and it be
comes every man interested in the
prosperity of our civil -government, or
in the purity of our social state, to ex
amine as accurately as he can, and to
bring forward as fully as he may, all
the reserve forces of social science and
religion which can by any possibility
help us to deal with these great ques
tions.
It seems to me that we have
reached a certain epoch in the deve
lopment of our social theory. In a
certain rude sense, we have come to
the end of what may be called the
mechanical philosophy of social sci
ence. We have put in train at last—
if we have not accomplished, we
Vol. 1.—9
have put in train—all the great prin
ciples which underlie the mere me
chanical civilization of to-day. We
may expect more in quantity, but we
have no right to expect any thing fur
ther in quality, unless we invoke some
new elements. Social science is a sort
of wise selfishness ; it is an enlighten
ed selfishness. It sets on foot the great
principles which mould human na
ture, which protect one man in his
rights, and unfold the capacities in
another; and to a great extent our
form of society and our form of go
vernment have perfected these. We
are tending—if we have not reached
wholly, we are tending—to the go
vernment where, as freely as possi
ble, every man is left to the exercise
of his own powers. We have flung
away the narrow and faithless curbs
which, in former times, a timid disbe
lief in human nature afflicted the
world with. If you trace the civiliza
tion of three hundred years ago—five
hundred—it is a civilization of timid
ity. It seems to have imagined that
man was a wild beast; that God cre
ated him utterly unmanageable, with
nothing inside his own nature that
had any tendency even to make hi1U
�130
Christianity—Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
a useful tenant of the powers and
body God gave him. The conse
quence was, that education, and
wealth, and strength—otherwise go
vernment—busied itself entirely with
keeping this unmanageable, untrust
worthy wild beast in curb ; piled all
sorts of obstacles, burdened him
down with all sorts of restraints;
imagined that government was never
perfect while this man was out of
leading-strings — this wild beast.
Gradually, very slowly, after the
lapse of centuries, men woke up to
the idea that there was something in
human nature itself that could be
trusted. The border chief of the
Rhine, when he set up his castle and
plundered every passer-by, imagined
that that was the only way in which
he could make use of his fellows—
had no idea except absolute compul
sion, with no consultation of the
other party to the bargain. He gra
dually found that if he placed his
robber hand too outrageously on the
traveler, the selfishness of man would
devise another way, instead of pass
ing under his bridge ; and so gradu
ally he consented to levy a well-recog
nized toll as a sort of compensation
for the privilege of his road and the
safety of his neighborhood, over
which he took care. That remained
awhile, still compulsory—a tax. Fi
nally, one day, civilization woke to
the idea that, after all, a free road,
welcoming every body, and every bu
siness, and every kind of occupation,
¡through it, had within it finer and
richer sources of prosperity for the
¡rich and able who presided over that
section, than any compulsory tax.
That is, at last, taking off the iron
curb, the man trusted his interests to
the mutual advantage of himself and
his neighbors. That is modern civi
lization, grown up very gradually.
Social science affects to carry out
that principle to its extremest result—
not to force, but to win, not to put a
curb outside, but a motive in, to con
sult the laws which God originally
laid down for the government of
mind and of matter, putting yourself
in a line with which, you are certain
that they are safe, and gradually
learning that they are the most pro
fitable.
Here is the laboring mass of
men, two thirds of the race—three
quarters of the race—the men that
wake only to toil, lie down only to
rest. We had an idea that we could
preach them into morality, that we
could sermonize them into thrift, that
we could bring to bear upon them a
certain weight of example, moral in
fluence—all excellent—all with a
certain effect. But that method
lacks behind it the motive principle.
Lord Erskine said once that all
the machinery of the British govern
ment was only a cumbrous arrange
ment to put twelve honest men in a
box. If I were to define our state,
I should say that commerce and
sovereignty, and State governments
and nationality were only a cum
brous machine to put an indepen
dent, an intelligent, and a well-pur
posed man at the side of a ballotbox. That is the final result, the
sheet-anchor, the nucleus of the civil
government under which we live.
We have tried pulpits; we have
tried journals ; we have tried all
sorts of outside moral influence. So
cial science says to-day, “You must
now begin at another point; you
must give that man so much leisure
that his moral and intellectual na
�Christianity —Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
ture will wake up to a comprehen
sion of his relations. Again, you
must give him such a fair share by
some arrangement of mutual profits,
resulting from skill, and capital, and
labor—such a fair share that he shall
feel constantly that he has no wrong
done him. You must put him into
equitable relations, according to his
own consciousness with things about
him. You must make him feel natu
ral—not only give him what is just—
you must awaken his nature to such a
comprehension that he must see it
to be just. And in that conscious
ness of justice, and in that opportu
nity of development, you restore the
man—and in the man the mass—to
that relation to our own day which
makes him the stable corner-stone of
civil institutions like ours.”
Look at the city of New-York.
You can not govern it; it is an in
famy to our civil theory. The native
American gives it up. The foreign
Tory points to it as the cancer, as the
complete reply to the Declaration of
Independence. Europe says to us,
“ You have a very good theory; it
sounds excellently well; it appears
perfect on paper. We see that it
grapples with the problems of small
towns and sparse population; but
you have never yet governed half a
million men gathered into one mass.
You have never yet grappled with
the problem of bringing under selfgovernment half a million of men
with the natural amount of crime,
and property pandering to crime,
always to be found, inevitably to be
found, in such an aggregation.”
Well, we have tried all sorts of pal
liations, of alleviating influences, and
yet to-day there is not a great city in
the United States that is not govern-
131
X
ed by its criminal classes, whose civil
machinery is not each year set up
and in the popular phrase “ run ” by
its criminal classes.
In every community, since history
scrutinized it, you find two classes
of men, the conservative and the pro
gressive, the timid and the bold, the
satisfied and the unsatisfied, the
man that never looks with any com
fort on the new moon, out of regret
for that venerable institution the old
one, the man that is never satisfied
unless there is a change every week—
inevitable differences of mind. In
dispensable also, because they seem
to be the methods by which God lifts
forward the race. Between these
two honest, perfectly honest, ideas,
stand ever, in a great mass of a mil
lion men like New-York, or a quar
ter of a million men like Boston, five
or seven thousand men interested in
the vices of the community. Behind
them some portentous array of capi
tal pandering to their object. Two
hundred millions of dollars in the ci
ty of New-York interested in drink ;
seventy millions in the city of Bos
ton. This solid square has no
ideas that are not common—ideas
that have an object. With iron con
centration, under keen resolution,
like the solid square on which Well
ington leaned in the centre of Wa
terloo, they hold both the sides, and
the result is—it could not be other
wise in the present arrangement of
civilization ; it is nobody’s fault—
they dictate the civil arrangements
of the state. They must control it.
Neither the one side nor the other can
afford to disregard them. The best
man in either rank is not available,
if he has eyes so wide open that he
can see the crime purposed by this
�13 2
Christianity—Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
central power. Now you may talk,
preach, sermonize, as long as you
please. Until you bring some new
element into line; until you lift the
masses of men from subjection to
this temptation, you can not make a
state; it is impossible. I affirm in
all sincerity that if there is no states
manship in this country that can
deal with the great question of in
temperance, except as it has been
dealt with, the statesmanship of this
country must surrender the govern
ment of great cities to a despotic
theory; it never can grapple with it.
The only remedy is some remedy,
for instance, that takes up the labor
ing masses of men, and lifts them
into an intelligence, and a purpose,
and a disinterestedness, and a devo
tion, that shall be superior to this
temptation. If you can find it in
the labor movement, well; if not, find
it elsewhere—find it you must, or give
up the theory. Take another kin
dred vice—take the social evil, as it
is called, of great cities—the immo
rality of the sexes. We have dealt
with it in every form for a thousand
years; we have marshaled against
it science and morality, shame and
civilization, and it lifts its head as de
fiantly, spreads its toils as deep and
as wide as ever, and, as Macaulay
says, “ The influences of these social
vices are, that on ordinary occasions,
in the common years, they demora
lize a large mass, which skulk and
hide themselves at those times from
the notice of society. But in critical
moments they emerge, and in the
hands of bad men are forged into
weapons to beat down order.” Now,
we have done every tiling in the
world but one. We have sacrificed
money, and effort, and influence.
At last, social science says, “ I will
establish a breakwater, I will get a
motive inside the lines. The fort
shall betray itself. I will open to
woman so wide, so profitable, so di
versified a field for her exertions that
all the rewards and luxuries of socie
ty shall be as fully and as promptly
within her reach as they are with
in the reach of her brother. I will
take this curbed energy which frets
against its barrier, and I will give it
free course. I will take these chill
ed and dwarfed powers ; I will awak
en them into full activity, and they
shall in their turn dwarf the animal
propensities.” Man lifts himself by
ambition, girdles the globe with his
commercial enterprise, takes the
finer and larger powers of his brain,
and with them grasps the possibili
ties of his powers, and in their pre
sence all mere bodily temptations
chill and dwarf into comparative in
significance. On the contrary, the
other sex, once fallen, have no such
resource. Ninety-nine Vermont boys
out of a hundred, if you will give
them the first opportunity to achieve
the great prizes of life, will disdain
to steal. Ninety-nine women out of
a hundred, if you will put within
their reach the honors and comforts
and luxuries, the travel, the oppor
tunities, the wealth, the world, as free
ly as for their brothers, will disdain
to gain them by vice. (Applause.)
Social science says, “ I will still con
tinue the efforts of Christian exhor
tation ; I will melt away opposition
by entreaty; but, at the same time,
I will take from under this vice the
large and lavish opportunity that it
has in the prejudices of society.”
Social science says to you, We don’t
want your dollar; we don’t want
�Christianity—L ecture hy Wendell Phillips.
your earnest effort; or rather, yes, we
want them, but we want something
else. We want all that, lay it libe
rally on the altar; but what you
must lay there liberally also, if you
would grapple with this great evil,
lay your prejudices there ; lay your
disbelief there ; lay your narrow, big
oted, contracted, bald, mechanical
attachment to old theories there.
You have given us your gold ; it has
done its utmost. Give us now your
ignorance. Give us now your anta
gonisms. Stand out of the way.
So we go to politics. The range
of our political life is all low, dis
honorable. If I were to use the pro
per phrase of olden time, I should
say that in the caucus of American
life there never yet was seen the fla
vor of a gentleman, with his delicate
sense of self-respect, the keen, vivid,
fastidious spirit of modern honor to
which we give the name—we used
to give the name—the “ spirit of a
gentleman.” The god of the caucus
is availability. No matter what the
means, if you compass the end. Sink
the method out of sight, no matter.
The god of our social life is honor,
an indescribable, an impalpable
something that exacts fastidiously
the utmost self-respect, and says to
the man that travels as far as he can
guarded by a statute, “You are a
foolwhich says to the stupid bigot
that does even what the church
allows him, “ You are a criminal.” It
arraigns both before its tribunal, and
says, if you hide yourself behind the
law, or if you shelter yourself even be
hind church organizations, we remind
you that the delicate sense of pride
and honor which lives in social life
cries out to you, “ We condemn you
for a thousand things that both al
133
low.” Where did you get this socie
ty ? We got it by taking man and
woman, and linking them together
according to the laws of God, and
that is the result. Now, there is no
other force left for society or for po
litics, except to bring in this reserve
power of womanhood. Put yourself
into line with that law of God which
has given us modern civilization •
lift the caucus to the level of the
parlor. It is one of the laws to
which social science tells you to lend
your attention and sacrifice your pre
judices in order to bring in this new
force. I don’t care what you think
of it, I tell you in front of us lie the
great questions of governing cities,
dealing with intemperance, grappling
with immigration, understanding the
putting on its feet the great question
of labor. I want every moral and pu
rifying force known to the nineteenth
century; I don’t care where I get it.
If there is any thing in womanhood,
I demand it, because the country is
sailing close to the wind. The seas
are high, and rocks are on each side.
The best statesmanship of the day is
confused and doubtful. The immi
gration of the surplus of four hun
dred millions of Chinese has frigh
tened yonder republican Senate—
one half of it—out of its faith in the
Declaration of Independence. I am
only asking you, to-day, as republi
cans, to consider the weapons you
have got to fight with.
Now, that is all social science.
It is all wise selfishness. It don’t
teach religion. It don’t begin even
to approach the hem of the garment
of moral and religious reform or pur
pose. It is nothing but a prudent,
wise, cautious, intense selfishness,
which undertakes to make these
�134
Christianity —Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
streets safer, free speech a possibili
ty, progress probable, and republi
canism perpetual with this forty mil
lions of people. What I want to add
to it is a second and a much higher
lesson.
Let us take Clarkson or John
Howard, as an illustration of this
higher lesson. A hundred years ago,
Clarkson represented the thought
that there ought to be in the civiliza
tion of ages no distinction of race ;
the black man should be as good as
the white. It has taken a hundred
years, and it is not yet accomplished.
All over the islands, far down into
other continents, it is not yet accom
plished. The Saxon race has mea
surably accomplished it. We boast
that we have a Christian civilization,
and yet it has taken a hundred years
to incorporate measurably into the
thought, and habit, and law of a
Christian race such a self-evident
proposition as that. Why was it? It
seems to me it was because it was
left for one man, and then a dozen
men, and then a hundred men, and
then a thousand men to represent the
effort. Nobody denied it, no intelli
gent person ; nobody denied that it
was a Christian tendency. Nobody
doubted that it had within it the in
spiration and the purpose of really
a Christian idea—nobody. But it
was left to a certain agency, was left
to a few men, was left to a compara
tively small minority to fight it out, to
represent it, to enforce it, to argue it
to the rest of the world. Now, my
idea is—and this is my text this af-.
ternoon—that in a really Christian
civil ization, when such a man as John
Howard, or such a man as Clark
son appears, we have a new thought
inspired of God. It would have been
natural, and it ought to have been,
that all that considered itself Chris
tian, instead of being engaged in a
hundred different ambitious and sel
fish channels, should have turned a
fair share of its attention, not by de
puty, but in person, not by substi
tutes, but actually, toward the imper
sonation and the defense, the ad
vancement and the realization of
that idea. Had there been any re
cognition of that duty, it would not
have taken twenty years to get it ac
complished ; that is, the only thing
to have dealt with would have been
the ignorance—nothing else—of the
surrounding community.
And it
would not have taken twenty years to
do what now it has taken a century
to accomplish. I claim, therefore,
that in a truly Christian civilization,
no man has the right to devote his
life to study, to art, to money-making,
to material development. There can
not be a Christian scholar. There
can not be a Christian millionaire—
it is a contradiction in terms—in the
circumstances of the day. If the re
sponsibilities of man and his duty are
fairly multiplied into each other, it is
not possible. I don’t mean to say—
understand me—that there can not be
luxury. The stately palaces of Fifth
Avenue are not what I am attacking.
There will be just as stately palaces,
and just as gorgeous—but there will
be a thousand instead of one. But
there never will be one of them—not
one will ever lift its marble walls from
its foundation, while there is the filth,
the demoralization of Five Points
within half a mile. It will come in
due time; it is all before us. The
race has never reached yet the
luxury, nor the refinement, nor the
splendor, nor pomp which its ultimate
�Christianity—Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
development will accomplish. I don’t
war against that. I only say that
while there are such influences to
grapple with, a Christian man never
can turn his energy, his disciplined
and trained intellect and skill toward
the rolling up of forty or sixty mil
lions of dollars. I claim that from
the very moment of his adult life he
owed so much of his waking hours
personally to his fellow, and then
that iniquity would not have been
possible. I do not want his wealth;
I want him. I do not want his
contributions; I want his counte
nance.
Now, I will carry you up to the
legislature, perhaps to-morrow, and I
will show you a code of laws applica
ble to wine. It is infamous. I will
take you down into the byways of the
city, and I will show you here and
there perhaps a score of standing and
terrible instances of suffering. You
shall listen to the story until your
heart bleeds, and every word shall be
true, and every technical objection to
a remedy brought by lawyers and
business men shall be sound honest
opposition. It can’t be otherwise:
every one of them. I will walk
through the streets of this city, and I
will show you perhaps one hundred
instances, and we might count up
more than one hundred instances, of
extreme suffering, of terrible agony,
of absolute sacrifice of wife and child
to the law; but there it stands on the
statute-book with one hundred men
working against it. The legislature is
full and the community is full of
heedlessness ; one is making money,
another is studying Greek sixteen
hours a day; another is finishing a
picture that shall rival Raphael’s ;
another is writing poetry whose me
135
lody and pathos shall touch our
heart; another is planning a machine
that shall carry a million of men
twice as fast as the railroad and
twice as cheap; and you say to every
one of them, Here is a case of atro
cious suffering. “ Well,” they say,
“ undoubtedly, but the general rule is
good, the general law is all right;
this is an exceptional case; in the
average, society is wise.” I say,
Christianity knows no average of in
justice. I don’t want your general
laws; I don’t want your atheistic
Lord Coke telling me it is better a
law should be certain than that it
should be just. I say, in the pre
sence of the New Testament, every
human being is sacred and infinitely
precious. And the intelligence, the
sagacity, and the Christianity of this
community, instead of building more
railroads, painting more pictures, and
piling up more millions, is bound to
find out a way by which this general
law shall not result in individual
agony. (Applause.) I don’t believe
in general averages ; I don’t believe
in grinding up ten men in order that
nine hundred and ninety may be very
happy. I don’t believe in a general
rule that may be good, and may be
bad ; and in the mean time there are
one hundred terrible sufferings. What
I allege is, that Christianity has no
right to be making money, getting
wfise, and getting refined ; art and
the other achievements of the human
intellect are all good, I have nothing
to say against them ; but I had a
mortgage on you before ; you were
bound to me before you studied
Greek ; I have a mortgage on you in
the name of your Creator, and the
mortgage is that suffering brother
who does not know how to walk.
�136
Christianity—Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
Let us take another illustration.
There are some children ; they are
wandering through the streets ; they
are not brought up, they are dragged
up ; they are ignorant and filthy;
they are half-clad and neglected.
You take them and put them into so
ciety; you shield them, hide them in
homes of good influence. I protest
against it. If it was a poor and nar
row or limited community just grap
pling with the means of support, I
would say, “ Ah! you did your best.”
But here are a quarter of a million
of men and women ; they are all
comfortable, all intelligent; they are
most of them in easy circumstances,
and a large portion don’t know what
to do. I will tell them what to do.
They should not break up that fami
ly ; they are bound to go to that un
worthy home; they are bound to put
those children right under the hands
of father and mother. God meant
to have them there as the best motive
to elevate that father and mother and
hold on to them. They should never
shield them by deputy; they should
shield them, and the father and
mother too. They have no right to
abstract that element of the family’s
growth, to save that portion and let
the rest float where it pleases among
the refuse timber of society.
Here is another illustration. There
is a lot of young men strolling up and
down the town, floating this way and
that, with no purpose, and very little
to do, with little helm and no sheet
anchor—a few public-spirited men
club together, raise $100,000, and
they build a gorgeous building and
call it a Young Men’s Christian Insti
tution. They fling open its doors,
and they say, Here is gas and fire, and
shelter, and books, and companion-
ship and prayer. This is the way in
which we are going to catch hold of
this floating mass and save it. That is
Christianity. It has funded $100,000
in the effort. It has set up a banner,
and said, “ Come here, come to this
point, and I will help you.” Selfish
ness sets up a grog-shop at the corner
of every street, lights its gas, and can
dles, and its fire, provides its room,
and arrays its liquor. It does not
set up any banner, and say, “ Come
here;” it goes to them. It gets as
near to them as possible ; it sets up
so many open doors that the blindest
man could not help stumbling into
some of them. Selfishness says, “ I
will make money; I have got seventy
millions of dollars behind me ; I will
open a pitfall that shall bring these
means of coining gold out of vice in
to my hand ; it shall be impossible
that a young man shall take a step
that shall not step into my toils.”
Christianity says, “ Don’t you see how
I have got him ; don’t you see what
a sufficient standard I have set up ?
I have built a costly hall in a single
spot, and I have put an advertise
ment into the newspaper, and any
man that wants to can find out that
there is a hall lighted and warmed.”
Pshaw! do you call that Christian
wisdom ? I call it a sham and a skulk.
I want seventy millions of Christian
dollars that shall put an open house,
full of light, comfort, and companion
ship opposite every grog-shop in the
city. I want seventy millions of
Christian dollars that shall open a.
dance-house opposite every dance
house in Ann street, and make it a
moral and Christian, a saving and
refining roof, so that a boy shall not
be able to step his foot without as
equal chance of entering a Christian
�Ch ristian ity—L ectnre by Wendell Phillips.
refuge, as he has of entering a refuge
of the devil. Seventy millions of
dollars contributed in Boston by the
devil to open a house on every cor
ner, and $100,000 contributed by
Christianity to open one !
What made the civilization of to
day ? All the forces of human nature.
We have energy, and thrift, and am
bition, desire of wealth, desire of
comfort, desire of display, the wish
to show our ability—all that make
human nature ; and they have run
in the direction of material develop
ment. One man says, “ I will coin
increase out of goodanother says,
“I will coin it out of vice.” You
can not help it; you need not preach
to it; you might as well go and talk
to Niagara. Two hundred millions
of dollars in the city of New-York
standing behind ten thousand open
drinking saloons, brothels, and gam
bling hells, and you say, “ We will
publish tracts, we will preach in pul
pits, we will put half a million of dol
lars into the hands of patient men
and women, and they shall go round ;
meanwhile I, with sixty millions, will
build a railroad to San Francisco, and
double it, and I will build another to
the South Pole, and double mine
again ; and I will give you $100 to
establish a prayer-meeting at Five
Points.” You can’t fight the devil
with prayer-meetings ; because all
human nature is not covered by
prayer-meetings. It is good. Don’t go
away and say I said any thing against
prayer : I don’t; it is a good thing.
All is, the parchment is not broad
enough to cover the necessity.
Men say, “ There is the theatre ;
some of its employees are immoral;
and its lobbies are filled with tempta
tion and vice ; intemperance stands
137
on one side, and degradation on the
other; shut up your doors, and preach
against theatres.” Never! Give me
a million of dollars, and I will build
you a theatre that shall be pure from
corner-stone to cap-stone; there shall
be nothing in it but honorable and
healthful and indispensable contri
bution to the love of human nature
for imitation, for acting, for tragedy,
and comedy. If the genius of Booth
makes $100,000 by acting on a pol
luted stage, I will give him $200,000
to come and act on mine. (Applause.)
There is a newspaper. It us the
New-York Herald; it panders to every
low vice. You will exclaim against
it, but you waste your words. The
merchant says, “ The best news on
stocks I can get is here ; the keen
est insight I can get into politics
is here ; the most instinctive saga
city and judgment of American life
is hereso he swallows the immo
rality, and buys the intelligence.
Give me ten millions of dollars,
and let me countercheck the Herald
by columns which no business man
will dare to enter Wall street without
reading. And give me the Christian
men of Wall street. One man knows
railroads; another man knows cop
per ; a third knows Nevada; a fourth
knows cotton ; and a fifth some other
specialty, each one indispensable in
his own department. Does he make
$100,000 by hoarding his sagacity?
I will pay him $200,000 for putting
it into my columns. I don’t wish
to abuse the Herald; I don’t wish
to abolish immoral papers by sta
tute ; I will provide you one so
infinitely better if you will give
me this $200,000,000 of reserved
Christendom. The devil pours out
$200,000,000, and gets it; you don’t
�138
Christianity—Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
bid high enough; it’s a pity you
don’t.
If you understand me, I claim that
all the moral, intellectual, material,
pecuniary forces in the hands of
Christianity should be brought into
an equal fight. Give up New-York,
and send a message to the powers at
Moscow for despotism to come and
rule the great city ? No! I send
word to the $500,000,000 in the
hands of Christian men, hoarded
up for their children, and I say, Give
me these ; and then I say, Give me
your personal presence. Your mil
lions are not enough. I want you ac
tually at the legislative lobby ; I want
you to go down with me into that
suffering street. But you say that
can’t be. It can. In the war time
you did it; every woman of you
either went down into the hospitals
or staid behind and held up the
hands of those who did. What
made the soldier so uncomplaining
who was clutched from this very
class that you can do nothing with
in the city ? You can not hold him
back from the State prison ; you can
not hold him back from the grog
shop ; you can not keep him back
from vice ? The testimony is, from
the lip of no wounded man was there
ever heard a curse in the presence of
woman ; from no agonized heart was
there ever heard a complaint. What
lifted that common humanity into
such a level ? Because all Christen
dom bent in the presence of that
nursing person over his crib. (Ap
plause.) Because he felt it was no
substitute that came down, paid to
do an agent’s work, to give him cha
rity. Because he felt that laid on
the same altar whpre he laid his
ife, was all the wealth and all the
heart of the broad North that he
left behind him ; that every woman’s
nature was working, every heart was
feeling, and every foot was swift to
come to his bedside. You left a
virtue, a self-control, an enthusiasm,
a self-devotion and purity, such as
other years can not equal. Go to
him in his own hut here in the same
way, not as a paid agent, but as a
Christian feeling just as much for
him who is the victim of a fiercer
war than the South ever waged, who
is wounded under a battery more bit
ter and destructive than General Lee
ever marshaled ; who needs just as
much your sympathy and your Chris
tianity to help him.
What I propose is, that you should
supplement law with all these great
forces of Christianity which are now
dissipated in every direction. I claim
that if you use them you can grapple
with this great social disorder; and
you can not grapple with it in any
other way. Social science will never
solve the problem. If you scrutinize
the elements that make up our life,
it has no panacea to offer you; the
only panacea is, that you have got to
fight the devil with his own weapons.
Suppose General Grant had said,
when Lee marshaled his troops from
Charleston west to Vicksburg, “ That
is very bad fighting ground; I am
not going down there ; I shall sta
tion myself at Chambersburg in
Pennsylvania, or I shall encamp
on the level prairies of Illinois;
and if General Lee comes up here,
I shall whip him.” We should have
said, “ That is not strategywe
should have said, “If you want to
crush the rebellion, follow it; if it
encamps at Vicksburg, confront it
there; if it exists in the marshes of
�Christian ity—L ecture hy Wendell Phillips.
Carolina, meet it there ; if it sur
rounds the rivers of Tennessee, as
sail it there. Wherever it goes, go
there to meet and fight it. Now,
here is the devil who is encamped
everywhere; he has got genius and
painting; he has got the press and
the theatre; he has got the dance
house, and he has got amusements ;
he has got every thing in his own
hands, and Christendom says, “What
a portentous power 1” with hundreds
of millions of dollars in his hands.
Christendom says, Here is a sys
tem of railroads, which cobwebs the
continent, marries the ocean; we
can’t do without it. The civiliza
tion of the nineteenth century de
mands it; the empire can not go on
without its facility. At the same
time, there is not energy and brain
and discipline and business talent
enough to run it in the service of
the church. The church has not
bred virtue enough to run it; only
the devil has bred brains enough
to run a railroad system. The
consequence is—and every busi
ness man within these walls knows
it—that there is not integrity and
virtue enough in this -American
people, bred of its present phase of
Christianity, to run its railroads ho
nestly. That the men at the head
of the great movement, at the focus,
with hand firm enough, and brain
strong enough to guide the machine,
are not contented with salaries, they
must steal. It can not be hindered.
It is a demoralizing example, and its
influence radiates into all quarters.
Social science says enlightened self
ishness dictates honesty. New-York
replies, “ That may be true, when you
take in the breadth of a century; but,
to-day, enlightened selfishness, mea
139
sured by thirty years in this metro
polis, dictates rascality; we can make
more money by that, gain more es
teem, stand on a higher pedestal,
can mould our time more certainly;
hereafter, in the long run, measuring
humanity from Luther into the next
century, honesty may be the best po
licy, but to-day rascality is the best.”
What will you do ? You may wait a
century or a century and a half, and
the gradual unfolding of the moral
sense of forty millions of people may
elevate human ability up to the level
of honesty enough to grapple with
the concentrated capital of the day.
I have no lack of faith that it will
be so. But if you want it before that
time; if you want it to-day; if you
want these examples removed from
the contemplation of your children,
you have got to find somewhere
Christian men, religious men, men
with moral purpose, able men, her
culean in brain and hand, who will
be ready to say, “ I see that sink, I
see that portentous example, I see
that cancer spreading its rottenness
through the whole business body;
and I will undertake to manage this
great forty millions of railroads for
nothing; I give you my ability for
the sake of the example; I contri
bute that to the Christian influences
of to-day.”
You disbelieve in it; you are smil
ing at it. Why, George Washing
ton did that, and he was not a model
Christian. He managed thirteen
States in a great war, and he never
took a penny of pay. A mere French
patriot said of the moral sense of his
day, “I lay myself on the altar of
three millions of people in order to
teach you how the public may be
served.” Then I say to you there
�140
Christianity—Lectiire by Wendell Phillips.
ought to be a Christian millionaire
to-day, who, stepping out of the ranks
of private emolument, should say to
the forty million power, “Give me
those funds, and I will return you
every penny. If the way opens for
ten millions of development, it shall
be all yours. I serve you, not from
ambition; I stand there, not from
greed, but simply to show you that
there is a power in Christianity that
is ready to make a sacrifice, as there
is in the devil’s ranks.” You disbe
lieve it. That is the chill of the hour.
You don’t even believe in the possi
bility of virtue. You can not con
ceive of a man thirty years old going
down into State street, who, after
spending two days for himself, being
what is considered a childish old
woman philanthropist, spends the
other four in serving his kind. You
don’t believe it. The men who have
done it in our day, and I could name
half a dozen of them, you know were
called weak-minded and bettyish, and
contempt has covered their memory.
You not only want one, you want the
whole; you never will grapple with
your day until you do it. Under
neath you is surging this immense
power of human vice; all the hither
to uncalculated and uncalculable
energies of the human race in this
utterly unfettered stage of its de
velopment, are turned into the great
channel of each man doing the best
for himself materially; and then men
open their eyes wide and say, I am
astonished ; how rotten our civiliza
tion is. What did the Master mean
when he saw the tax-gatherer, and
said, “ Come, follow me;” when one
brother came and said, “ Let me go
and divide the possession,” “ Come,
follow me;” and when another said,
“ Let me go and bring my father.”
“ Come, follow me” ? It didn’t mat
ter, the necessity nor the exactness
of the demand, it was, “ Come, fol
low me.” Running through the stu
dio and study, through office and
mart, through legislative hall and
the streets, is still that cry, “ Come,
follow me.” I want not your “ Amen,”
I want not your substitute, I don’t
want your ten per cent—I want you.
Go up to yonder legislature in a man
ner that will sweep away injustice in
a moment; let the whole community
stand in front of the court and say,
You can not decree injustice. You
must fight the devil with his own
weapons. Don’t let him put a pick
et down there, unless you put one
right opposite to him. If he sets
up one establishment, set up another.
Don’t retire before him; don’t be
frightened; don’t say we have not
enough; you can outbid him, you
can overwhelm him. You can gather
round you such attractions that, in
ninety-nine cases out of one hundred,
you will carry the day; the one hun
dredth you must leave to God. But
in the vast majority of cases you will
carry the day. Don’t fight him by
force of arms; don’t make laws
against him; don’t abuse him; don’t
endeavor to curb him ; give him the
greatest freedom possible ; fight him
with ideas; fight him with attractions;
fight him with greater inducements ;
meet him, and stand toe to toe, hand
to hand; if he pours out a dollar,
pour out two; if he sets up a dance
house at Five Points, don’t set up a
prayer-meeting next to him, set up a
dance-house next to him. Meet him
with the same weapons; address your
selves to the same element of human
nature, grapple with the same power
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Phillips, Wendell
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [129] -140 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Standard, vol. I, no. 3, July 1870. Article incomplete. Printed in double columns.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
The Standard
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5836
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Christianity), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Christianity
Conway Tracts
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/004fee512c6813e9a9f90affb25593d3.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=EnBO4kO-XjbwpqpjkrSaTJZQZBlbgilKWi8P7ifXe5PKh5E3b-CRuIRNL409h%7EALKKF46mSfvR0sRMlyZWVyuddjr0%7EREzzgTgLOk49F0CgLrxxLTEge5P-BHGjmgU4opjFShHD9qeWAEqqsazzCsom-c%7Eu8V4K6n-25suMwbY9D-UVFThxFtPgezW%7EvoAFdeRPab7rPyMg7EfsCPejMk-1VoieB-2MJR-ZaO6T2TpdOXmSMEISk3XzxGxdD5tuBNEviA5X3TpI84B1MvPuPXgbH62B0idTBFxXpAIylCXmVnNay%7ElSieS%7E5XcCSkCzZYv8uIePzIYPQbJv0QezHNQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
fa9e9cc799443428ee9fd3f0c9ff1212
PDF Text
Text
1870.]
THE PRIMA DONNA.
213
THE PRIMA DONNA.
F the reader happened to be so giunge 1" sung with such freshness
journing at Malta during the win and brilliancy as Malta had never
ter of 1855-6—fourteen years ago theheard before, the fervor of the demon
, present season — he did not fail to be stration was something wonderful to
a tolerably regular attendant upon the behold. It was a downright, unequiv
only respectable theatre of the city, ocal success; even the wisest (or the
where the amusement season was, most phlegmatic, which is much the
as usual, devoted to Italian opera. same thing) owned that the girl had
I If, moreover, the already-mentioned done well, and would, if not spoiled
reader chanced, like some British by flattery, make an artist. (As if a
army officers with whom I have girl with forty operas in her head,
talked (and the audience was made a fiery ambition in her heart, and a
up, one might say, of British army dozen years of instruction in her
officers and their families), if he had throat and lungs, could be spoiled!)
chanced to be present on a certain
But who was the lean girl with the
night near the opening of the season, straight bust and the marvellous
he would have witnessed a debut larynx ?
which it were well worth his while to
No more, no less, than the same
see and remember.
stout but stately and beautiful woman
The opera is the “Sonnambula,” who sang to us a month or more this
and the Amina of the occasion is the winter, at the head of her own oper
young debutante to hear whom these atic company, as Norma, Leonora,
seats and lobbies have been filled so Agatha, etc.; the same whose name,
full.
Parepa Rosa, the world has learned
Ah! she appears—shot upon the to pronounce, and whose notes the
stage, apparently against her will, by world has learned to follow. What
the strong arm of the old baritone do you say to a little inquiry into the
who is playing Count Rodolpho; a history of, this prima donna ?
movement which was, of course, only
The lady whom we now know as
witnessed by the occupants of the left Madame Parepa Rosa was born in
stage boxes, and not perceptible to the Edinburgh, in 1839; her father being
audience at large—which saw only the Baron Georgiardes de Boyesku, a
a girl of sixteen or seventeen years, gentleman of Wallachian birth, whose
with a rather pretty face, but with a rank, I take it, by far transcended his
{ form thin and like a boy’S, and move wealth. He had been captivated by
s' ments embarrassed by extreme bash the beauty and accomplishments of
fulness, advancing toward the foot Miss Seguin, sister of Edward Seguin
lights. She sings! and the voice, a the renowned basso, and herself a
fully developed soprano, charms every prima donna of considerable reputa
body at once. The audience testifies tion. She accepted the hand of the
its admiration by frequent applause, Baron, became the sharer of his title,
and by calling out the young debu and ultimately the mother of his
tante after every act; and finally, offspring, Euphrosyne — the subject
when the last trying scene comes on, of this sketch. These facts, together
and the fair sleep-walker goes through with the early death of de Boyesku,
the touching and brilliant scena end the return of his widow to the stage
ing with the electrical air "Ah, non under her maiden name, and her
15
I
�«'.cv;/r' yr<?
j"J:
214
y4??
THE PRIMA DONNA.
adoption of Parepa (after a castle, or
something, in the estate of the Baron’s
family) as the surname of her daugh
ter—these facts, together with same
points in the professional career of
Euphrosyne, are pretty well known
through the medium of the news
papers. Some other facts in the life
of the great cantatrice are not so well
known ; and I shall take the risk of
their proving dry reading to you.
It is, I think, an interesting fact
that Euphrosyne’s immediate ances
tors embraced representatives of al
most every civilized nationality of
Europe. Thus, her maternal grand
father was French; his wife was Welsh,
while his mother, the great-grand
mother of Euphrosyne, was a thor
ough-bred Muscovite. On the father’s
(de Boyesku’s) side, again, Euphro
syne’s grandmother was the daughter
of a Turkish grand-vizier, who had
the honor of being strangled by his
sublime sovereign the Sultan. To
this mixed origin, and to her much
travel, one might attribute the prima
donna's facility in modern languages
and her entirely cosmopolitan tastes.
But her father was himself a cosmop
olite, and spoke nine languages and
dialects with perfect fluency. Mad
ame Parepa Rosa herself speaks and
writes five European languages with
an elegance and exactness not usual
among those whose single specialty is
music. So far as musical genius is
concerned, it does not usually extend
through more than two or three gen
erations ; and in the case of the Seguins, it did not extend back in any
eminent degree farther than to the
grandfather of Parepa.
The early manifestations of musi
cal genius in our subject were very
marked and promising. You will
hardly believe that when two years and
a half old this child was able to sing
such airs as the rondo of Amina in
“Sonnambula,” and that she used to
entertain musical people with such
exhibitions, being placed standing on
a table for the purpose. The pigmy
[Marc™
prima donna, however, always mani
fested much reserve upon such occa
sions, and if any strangers were pres*
ent she would only sing when screened
in some manner from view. Like
many others who have distinguished
themselves in the musical worlc^?
Euphrosyne showed a wonderful fac
ulty for retaining in the memory every
melody and theme which fell upon
her ears. Although her mother re
sisted for some years the temptation
to fit her promising daughter for the
stage, she did not fail to lay out the
ground-work of a most thorough vocal
training, exercising, herself, the fun®*
tions of a teacher. Indeed, she was
well qualified for that office, having
studied incessantly for four years
under such masters as Crescentinjh
Panseron, and Bordogni. The training of a vocalist for the stage in
Europe is something so severe in
self that if a public had a heart not
made outright of stone, it ought to
accord a success to every blessed
warbler of them, if only for the
heroism of the effort they have made*
The girl of whom we are talking was
no exception—notwithstanding the
wonderful precocity of her musical
intellect and the phenomenal forma
tion of her vocal organs made hei*,
like Jenny Lind, a prima donna by
intuition. Drill was necessary, how
ever; and at last, when, at fifteen, it
was decided to bring her out as an
operatic soprano, she was made to
undergo a course of vocal gymnastics
before which the most of our sopranos
who sing “^Zith verdure clad” and
“ Una voce" at our amateur concerts,
or even many who travel about the
country with their "Luce di quest"
and their “Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye,”
would quail in abject terror. For
eight months previous to studying her
operatic repertory, Euphrosyne-fivas
allowed to sing no note of anything
but exercises -— exercises—exercises.
But the reader must understapdphe
had plenty of them, so that she did
not at all suffer for musical pabulum!
�1870.]
THE PRIMA DONNA.
Before she made her debut, she had
acquired (memorized) the melodies
of forty principal operas. I mention
these facts, not only because they are
remarkable as naked facts, but because, first, they account for the won
derful vocal execution, the resources
never at fault, which this artist pos
sesses ; apd second, because they may
serve to deter some ambitious maiden
who thinks that, with her deficient
(training of a few months, and her
habits of indulgence, she may storm
the ear of the public and conquer
success from the first note of her ini
tial recitative. No! the triumphs of
the prima donna are not thus lightly
won. What with the trials of train
ing, the doubt and dangers of a debut,
the routine of rehearsal, and the tug
of travel, the life of an opera singer
is anything but one of ease or of unElloyed happiness.
The 'debut resulted as detailed at
the beginning of this sketch. The
season continued successfully, the
young soprano singing the leading
rt>le$ in “Barber of Seville,” “Bea
trice,’t “Crispino,” “Il Giuramento,”
Ricci’s “Brewer of Preston,” and
other operas. By and by it came
raiphrosyne’s turn to have a benefit;
and she sat in her sedan at the en
trance, as is the custom in that queer
Maltese theatre, and received the vo
tive offerings of her now familiar
public. (Actors and singers of a lower
grade, on their benefit occasions, ac
tually pass around a hat among the
boxes, after the manner of a country
deacon.) The proceeds were flatter
ing to the little artist, and the score or
more of presents, beyond the odd
crowns and unchanged sovereigns,
doubtless went far toward “spoiling”
the blushing recipient—for anything
but a prima donna.
The season at Malta being over,
BWepa readily obtained an engagement at Naples, where she sang, as is
customary, both in grand opera at the
San Carlo and in comic at the Fonda.
Here, in “Sonnambula,” “Orphan
215
of Lorena,” etc., she had Mongini for
a tenor. Returning to Malta, our
heroine made her reappearance in
“Traviata,” which had been finely
cast and mounted, and which ran
forty nights. Tamaro, a singer well
known in America, was the principal
tenor in this opera.
In the following season —1857 —
after a short season at Florence, where
she sang with Giuglini and Antonucci,
Mlle. Parepa entered upon an engagemerit at Lisbon, the terms of which
were that she was to receive 10,000
francs for the first three months, the
manager having the privilege of re
engaging her for the six months fol
lowing, at 4,000 francs per month, if
he should elect. She sang the whole
nine months.
Proceeding in 1858 to London, on a
short engagement at Covent Garden,
she sang in “Puritani,” with Berdoni and Georgio Ronconi, and in
“Zampa” with Tamberlik and Mme.
Didier. After a tour through the
provinces, Mademoiselle emerged
from her ?*teens” into the twenties
while performing an engagement of
nine months at Madrid, conjointly
with such artists as Badiali, the bari
tone; Mme. Madori, contralto; and
Naudin, the famous tenor. This sea
son was followed by another of three
months in London. The winter of
1859-60 found our prima donna at the
Carlo Felice, Genoa, where, in a three
months engagement, she sang sixtytwo nights — a rare achievement for
an assoluta in a city like Genoa. Be
ing in Italy, Parepa must needs go to
Rome; and going thither, she did
Desdemona for Pancani’s Otello,
and charmed Cardinal Antonelli into
a floral acknowledgment—some rare
camellias which, I have heard her say,
she could never forget—their deep
carmine tint was so like the eyes of
the crafty Cardinal. (This in no un
grateful spirit, for she regards the in
tellect of Antonelli with great rever
ence. As for his general loveliness of
character?—the reader may conceive
�2l6
THE PRIMA DOHNAi
a pair of very broad, plump shoulders
as being expressively shrugged at this
interrogatory.)
Up to this time, Parepa had been
singing in Italian opera only, holding
it, doubtless, in that high and exclu
sive esteem which the devotees of the
Italian have for that school of opera.
But a pecuniary inducement, or some
other, took her to London, where,
early in i860, she made her first ap
pearance in English opera, under the
Pyne and Harrison administration.
Santley, the baritone, made his debut
on the same night, the opera being
“Trovatore.”
The opera season
being over, Mademoiselle sang on
Ash Wednesday in Howard Glover’s
concert (the same Glover who now, a
red-nosed, shiny-pated veteran, plays
a second violin in Madame Rosa’s
orchestra.) The summer was devoted
to concerts, oratorios, and festivals in
the metropolis and in the provinces.
In fact, three winters passed away
with Parepa still the soprano of the
Pyne and Harrison troupe, and the
varyingly successful opera seasons
alternating with the more remunera
tive concerting and oratorio business.
Costa (now Sir Michael) was usu
ally the conductor on large occasions.
Once, during the performance of
“ Elijah,” Costa, having Meyerbeer in
his box, called in his big soprano and
the tenor, Sims Reeves, and introduced
them to the famous composer. Mey
erbeer was very deferential, and on
being asked why he did not try his
hand at oratorio, gallantly responded:
“If I could be sure always of such
soloists as we have here [bowing to
Parepa], I should certainly attempt
an oratorio.” Somewhat of this may
be set down to the credit of the com
poser’s gallantry. At any rate, a truer
excuse would have been found to lie
in the organization of Meyerbeer’s
genius, which, fertile as it was in mel
ody and prolific in the invention of
effects, had not the breadth of concep
tion necessary to success in oratorio
composition.
[March,
In 1863, Mlle. Parepa sang in the
Gewandhaus concerts at Leipsic —
an honor much coveted among solo
ists of all classes. Following this
was an operatic tour through Wiesba
den, Homburg, Frankfort, Erfwth,
and Berlin, singing in the latter city
the songs of the Queen of Night, to.
the “Magic Flute,” in the key in
which they were written—a fe'at which
had not for many years been accom
plished in that great musical capital.
This German tour, like all her pre
ceding ones, was highly successful,
pecuniarily and artistically. The
prima donna, having by this time
accumulated quite a little fortune, was
induced to invest some of it in an op
eratic venture at London, known as
the “ English Opera Association (lim
ited),” in which several leading artists
were interested, and which com
menced operations in 1863, Mlle.
Parepa filling the principal soprano
roles.
English opera never had—nor has
yet—proved steadily remunerative J
and I regret to say that this venture
was no exception to the general rule.
But the success or failure of our prima
donna's interest in the limited com
pany’s speculation was soon super
seded by other interest^ of greater
moment; for right here intervened a
domestic episode, the most momentous
in her history,—when, during the
brief space of eighteen months, she
passed through the experiences of the
lover, the betrothed bride, the wife,
the mother, and the childless widow J
the vicissitudes of easy affluence and
of embarrassed poverty. In 1863 she
married Captain Carvill, an officer of
the East Indian service, just retired.
He was brilliant and promising, and
most respectably connected. The
venerable Edward Seguin, Parepa’s
grandfather, then in his 85th year,
gave the bride away. Carvill, unfor
tunately, soon developed an uncon
trollable passion for speculation! and
in a short time had sunk nearly
^25,000—the whole fortune of the
�1870.]
THE PRIMA DONNA.
pair-—in some Peruvian mining
shares. Indeed, he betook himself to
Lima after living seven months with
■his bride, and she never saw him
more. He died in April, 1865. Their
child, too, was buried; and the doubly
Bereft young widow soon returned to
the stage, both to repair her shattered
fortunes and to divert her active mind
from her domestic griefs. Soon there
came an offer from Mr. Bateman,
who, scouring Europe for “stars,”
beard Madame Parepa sing in a con
cert, decided at once that there was a
fortune in her, and induced her to go
to America for a concert tour. Carl
Rosa, a well-known violinist, and
James Levy, the celebrated player of
the cornet-a-piston, were engaged for
the same tour. It was a short one,
and proved immensely successful.
Parepa became at once the favorite of
the American public, the furor created
by her vocalization being only second
to that caused by Jenny Lind under
the skilful manipulations of a BarEiim. “Papa” Bateman would fain
have held his artists longer; but no,—
they had engagements across the
water which must not be broken.
They recrossed; .and within fortyeight hours from the time of setting
foot in Liverpool, Parepa was singing
in London.
Next year she came back to
America, according to her contract
with Bateman. Somewhat suspi
ciously, Carl Rosa was along, too;
and within a few months, in February,
1867, after the completion of the con
cert season, the twain were made one
flesh,-—whereat, I remember, the flippant paragraphists of the press all
had their laugh, because she was a
big frima donna and he a little fid
tiler. But I happen to know that it
Was not only a rarely good match for
two musicians to make, but an un
commonly happy one altogether. Pa
repa got, in Rosa, to be sure, a good
violinist for her concerts, and, as has
since turned out, a capital conductor
for her operatic seasons; but does
217
that convenient fact prove that it was
not a love-match at the outset? So
did you, my carping friend, get a good
housekeeper in your spouse (if you
are well married); and so did she get
a good purveyor and custodian of her
family (we will courteously admit as
much, at least) — but does that rule out
Cupid from the case ? Absurdest of no
tions ! I could, if it were not a matter
with which we have legitimately no
business, recite many incidents to show
that this pair of artists are a happy
pair; and that she is much happier
in her helpmeet, of like tastes, condi
tion, and antecedents with herself,
than Miss Foote with her Earl of
Harrington, Miss Balfe with her Lord
Crampton, Miss Patti with her Mar
quis de Caux, or any of the other am
bitious prime donne with their stagestruck grandees of husbands.
But we were following up the pro
fessional, not the domestic, career of
Madame Parepa. Directly after con
tracting her matrimonial engagement
with Rosa, in February, 1867, the
two entered upon a professional one,
in an Italian opera company man
aged, if I recollect rightly, by Mr.
Harrison, which set out very aus
piciously in New York; the receipts —
$33,000 for nine nights—being the
highest ever known in this country.
Brignoli was in this company. Their
visit to Chicago will be well remem
bered. “Norma” and other standard
Italian operas were given, Parepa
taking the principal roles. The career
of this company was brought to a
sudden and stormy finale, while in
the full tide of success, by a railroad
accident, which left Brignoli with a
broken arm, and others of the com
pany seriously damaged. The best
tenor being disabled for the season,
the company was disbanded.
Next followed a season of Italian
opera and concert in San Francisco
—the first which had ever been made
remunerative in that cold-blooded
metropolis. Maguire had just before
lost $60,000 on a single season. Laden
�218
THE PRIMA DONNA.
with the plaudits of the San Francisco
public, the Rosas—with Ferranti, the
buffo, and Brookhouse Bowler, the
tenor—set their faces toward the rising
sun, and commenced the overland
journey to “the States,” having a
schedule of seventeen concerts mapped
out for them between the Golden
Gate and Chicago. At Wadsworth,
California,—the terminus at that time
of the western portion of the over
land railway,—they chartered an entire
coach of the Wells-Fargo line. How
much was the fare, do you guess, for
these five (including Madame’s maid)
from Wadsworth to Salt Lake City-—
a small segment of the journey?
Only $2,080, besides the charges for
over-weight! If you have ever en
joyed the hospitality of one of these
overland stages, on a through trip,
night and day, over alkaline deserts
and under an unchanging canopy of
blue, burning you by day and chill
ing you to the marrow by night, you
do not need to be told that the trip
was anything but a pleasant one;
that Carl became very tired and
worn, and fidgeted constantly about
the integrity of his violin ; that Mad
ame blessed, for once, her good pil
low of adipose, which secured her com
parative immunity from the thumps
and thwacks of the stage; that the
British Bowler became disgusted with
this blasted wilderness of a country;
and that the rheumatic Ferranti, far
from being the boisterous buffo of the
Largo al factotum, was one of the
most lugubrious of victims. As the
coach plodded and the day dragged,
they counted the telegraph poles for
incident, and thanked Heaven for
these kindly reminders of civilization.
Sometimes a wild beast or bird con
sented to enliven the monotony of
the journey. I have heard Madame
relate with great gusto how the party
came upon a large eagle sitting upon
a telegraph pole, within a stone’s toss ;
how Bowler, who claimed to be a
good deal of a sportsman, had the
stage detained while he could shoot
[March*
the national fowl; and how, when he
blazed away with all his chambers*
the bird sat unmoved through it all,
never so much as winking’ at the
marksman—whose failure must have
reminded him, by contrast, of his
easy success, as Max in the “Freischutz,” in bringing down a similar
bird from the clouds.
But more amusing was an episode
at Salt Lake City. Brigham Young
had but recently completed his theaJ
tre, a really very creditable structure!
and was unspeakably anxious that it
should be honored by a bit of genu
ine Italian opera. Negro minstrelsy
he had enjoyed to satiety, and over
melodrama his numerous wives had
wept in the aggregate enough tears to
account, almost, for the saltness of
“Zion’s” wonderful lake; but a gen
uine gem from Verdi or Donizetti
would be worth them all. What was
to be done ? There was not an oper
atic score within two thousand miles.
"Don Pasquale,” that premier resort\
of small troupes, was considered, of
course; but it was too light and tri
fling—not sufficiently characteristic
of the Italian school; besides, it was
not familiar enough for performance
without a note* of the score at hand.
No; there, was plainly but one course.
The Prison Scene of “Trovatore”
would be the only thing suitable to ex
hibit to the Saints the spirit of Italian
opera par excellence. They could all
sing it from memory, of course. The
Prison Scene, then, it should be. The
announcement was duly made in the
Church organ (by which, though writ
ing of musical subjects, J mean to
designate a newspaper, not an instrul
ment of worship,) that the celebrated
Prison Scene frcfrn Giuseppe Verdi’s
renowned opera of “III Trovatore
would be given at the close of the
concert at the theatre that night,
by special request of President Young,
with the following cast:
Leonora............................ Madame Parepa Rosa
Manrico...................... Mr. Brookhouse Bowler
Chorus of monks, etc.’’
�4870.]
THE PRIMA DONNA.
Behold, then, gathered at the concert, the ton of Salt Lake—her people
and the strangers within her walls,
with a liberal delegation from the
Lion House. Whatever may be said
relative to the dramatic effect of a
performance, there is no doubt what
ever that its most curiously interesting
phase is to be observed from behind
the scenes. Knowing, then, the little
side-door that leads from the street to
the green-room, let us avail ourselves
of it and witness the thrilling per
formance from the labyrinth of lum
ber and canvas which constitutes that
mysterious precinct known as “be
hind the scenes.”
The Leonora
has prepared for the occasion by don
ning a white muslin wrapper, high in
the neck, and by no means regal in
the train. Bowler has been carefully
perched upon an apparatus which,
for charity’s sweet sake, we will de
nominate a tower. To give pictur
esqueness and romance to his cloth
coat and paper collar, the black shawl
.of Anna, the maid, had been thrown
over both; and the part of Manrico’s
body that appears above the tower’s
wall may be either the head and
■Shoulders of a troubadour, or of a
monk, or a warrior of the chivalric
ages, or an ancient Roman — one of
Caesar’s assassins, perhaps. So Manrico is all right—if he doesn’t forget
his notes. But the interior chorus of
[monks and their miserere are the
most imposing. The whole consoli
dated force of the company was
brought to bear upon this important
accessory, viz.: Ferranti, as the bass
monks; Carl, with his squeaking
■voice, as the second tenor and bari
tone monks; and Anna as the first
tenor monks. Carl also officiated at
the melodeon. Such was the mag
nificent tout ensemble of the occasion.
One has but to recollect the extremely
lugubrious character of the music in
this scene—the most concentrated
anguish embodied in the sweetest of
music—to realize the extremely ludicrous aspdct of the situation, as it ap
219
peared to the artists themselves. But
they got through it with the utmost
apparent empressement, and the house
shook with the plaudits of the Saints.
This was the first, and to this date
the last, performance of Italian grand
opera in Great Salt Lake City.
Pushing their way eastward, the
company was joined by Levy, the cornetist, at Chicago, and proceeded on
an extended tour, interrupted the next
spring by an accident which disabled
Madame Rosa for several months,
and cost her $50,000. Then came
the engagement at the Boston Peace
Jubilee last summer, where the great
prima donna eclipsed all her former
laurels by filling with the mighty vol
ume of her Voice the vast shell of
a Coliseum, and by rendering those
grandest airs, “Let the bright sera
phim,” “The marvellous work,” and
the “ Inflammatus ” from Rossini’s
Stabat Mater, with such breadth
of conception and such largeness of
style as befitted the occasion, and as
no other living artist could have at
tained. Of course this event was
vastly more important than some of
the incidents which I have detailed
before, but it is more recent, and it
was described over and over again by
newspaper reporters; so we will dis
miss it, and follow Parepa right on to
the formation of her present English
opera troupe and the inauguration of
her season at New York, on the
eleventh of September last—the fourth
anniversary of her first appearance in
the same city or in America.
In the organization of her com
pany, on a very liberal scale and also
with excellent calculation in the dis
tribution of strength and the supply
ing of every necessary accessory,
Madame Rosa has done'a signal ser
vice to the struggling cause of opera
music in America, — a service which,
I am glad to say, is being liberally
rewarded in the lawful currency of
the land. The only question on this
score at the outset was whether the
expenses of a company so large as
�220
THE PRIMA DONNA.
was considered necessary for firstclass performances would not eat up
the large receipts which the immense
“ drawing ” power of theprima donna
insured. With salaries of sixty or
more persons, ranging from $300 gold
per week for the light soprano, and
nearly as much for the tenor, bari
tone, and basso, to $24 per month for
the poorest chorus singer, and the
travelling expenses of all to pay (in
cluding, for a single item, thirty or
forty dollars per week for carriages for
the alternate soprano), it can readily
be seen that the outgoes of such an
enterprise are enormous, and that the
receipts must be heavy and steady-—
much heavier and steadier, in fact,
than our fickle public has usually been
willing to bestow—in order to bring
the balance upon the right side of the
ledger. Ruin was freely predicted by
many a wiseacre in the amusement
line; and ruin to this enterprise would
probably have marked the fall of re
spectable opera in this country, for a
period of years at least. The venture
has already succeeded, however, be
yond the anticipations of even its
most sanguine friends — (at Boston
the enterprise cleared $70,000 in three
weeks); and it is the success of Mad
ame Rosa in naturalizing upon our
soil and vernacular some of the best
classical operas of Europe, which has,
as much as any of her previous tri
umphs, entitled her to this particular
sketch in an American magazine not
specifically devoted to music.
What is the secret of Parepa’s suc
cess? Not the absolute tones of her
vocal organ—for, though of wonderful
volume, and usually of a timbre as
sweet and full as it is unique in its
quality, her voice has sometimes a
hardness which is by no means de
lightful to the ear. Not its extraordi
nary range upward or downward; for
there are many sopranos who reach
as far and with as little effort, and
yet who are only classed as clever executantes. Not her dramatic power;
for, though always exceedingly appro
[March,
priate and usually artW8^n^®l acl
tion, she would never win distinction
by that alone. Not her person; for,
though beautiful in feature and regal
in form, her stoutness is so marked as
to be a considerable drawback to suc
cess in dramatic personation, til is
not to any one, but to all, of the mer
its which I have enumerated^ com
bined in a-rare manner, that we may
look for the cause of Parepa’s suc
cess. The salient characteristic of
this woman’s character is largeness
largeness of body, giving lungs f<w
singing, a frame for enduring the fa
tigues of travel, and a throat of ex
traordinary calibre for the compass
of tones; largeness of heart, giving
the emotional organization essential
to the good artist; and, above all,
largeness of brain, which imparts to
her singing and acting an intellectu
ality, and enables her to bring to her
work a fulness of general under
standing, which are rarely seen in per
sons of her class. One can hear in
every tone of her simpler music not
only the born lady, but the catholic
cosmopolite, the well-bred dame, and,
above all, the true woman, imbued
with hearty impulses of human fel
lowship, understanding and interpret
ing every essential gradation of pas*
sion or of sentiment, and feeling
them, too, with a breadth of aesthetic
perception which never fails to excite
in the intelligent listener an active
feeling of satisfaction, even though
he may not stop to analyze the caused
of the effect. The singing of an air by
Parepa bears the same relation to the
same act by an unintellectual singer
that harmony does to naked melody.
Though Parepa sings the
diva?' or the prayer of Agatha, or the
“Tacea la notte" of Leonora, with a
skill and pathos which are rarely
equalled, it is unquestionable that her
power shows still more admirably in
the more sober and trying airs of Han
del’s, Haydn’s, and Mendelssohn’s
oratorios; and yet I think that she is
greatest of all in the simple and una-
�1870.]
THE PRIMA DONNA.
domed ballads of the concert-room.
As the production of an elegant figure
by the modiste is a less achievement
than the moulding of a perfect nude
statue by the sculptor, so is the con
quering of popular admiration in an
prnate cavatina a less achievement
than the captivating of the universal
heart by the soulful, and at the same
time intellectual, rendering of a sim
ple, genuine song.
Whatever may be said against the
private life of some prime donne who
shine upon the stage but darkle off it,
Madame Rosa is entitled to this testi
mony : that-her domestic and social life
adorns her character as the diamond
Clasp of her necklace adorns her per
son in the concert-room. If you had
gone to London a few months or a
few years ago, you would have seen
an exemplification of her filial affec
tion in the comfortable state in which
her mother—the teacher and guard
ian ofwher childhood, of whom she
has but lately been bereft—was
maintained, with carriage and serv
ants, from the earnings of her daugh
ter. She proved to me on one occa
sion, too, what has often been denied, that woman can be magnani
mous. It was at the time of a bene
fit to Lablache, the old teacher and
basso. Jenny Lind Goldschmidt had
promised him, while under his teach
ings, that whenever he took a benefit
she would assist at it. Well, six or
seven years ago the old man got
tteady for his benefit and drew upon
his celebrated pupil, who was reluct
ant to comply—having already lost
her voice and retired. But she loy
ally kept her promise, and sang some
thing— I think it was the prayer from
“ Der Freischutz,” which she still
could sing without any painful evi
dences of weakness. Parepa was
tzl
asked to participate, with the privi
lege of selecting her air; when, in
stead of choosing some brilliant aria
which would have shown off her su
periority to the vaunted “Nightin
gale,” she took a little English ballad
of very moderate scope; a delicacy
which Madame Goldschmidt warmly
acknowledged, and which the jour
nals properly commended. It was, I
regret to add, in strange contrast to
the prevailing practices of prime
donne, whose jealous bickerings over
such matters, though proverbial, are
still not fully realized by those not
behind the scenes.
If Madame Rosa knew she was at
thi|| moment being ‘ ‘ written up ’ ’ for
a public journal, I am sure she would
insist upon an equal space being given
to her husband, Mr. Carl Rosa, who is,
to say the truth, well worthy of such
mention. Though not yet thirty, he
has already a brilliant record as a
violipist, now culminating in a high
reputation as a conductor. Born in
Hamburg in 1840, he was already
while only eight years old, travelling
over the British isles as an “infant
prodigy” upon the violin. After an
adventurous career of this sort, and a
term of years in school at Paris, he
blossomed out as Concertmeister at
Wiesbaden, and afterwards as a trav
elling artist, with only one or two
acknowledged superiors in Europe.
His career in America having been
merged with that of his wife, has al
ready been briefly related; and I have
only space remaining to say that, as
a conductor, in the San Francisco
season and during the present season
of English opera, he has—mainly by
dint of indefatigable energy—achieved
results which entitle him to rank
among the foremost of the wielders
of the baton in America.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Prima Donna
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [California]
Collation: 213-221 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publication information from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1870
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5736
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Theatre
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Prima Donna), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Theatre