The Press. — London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 28, 1857. put. The gloomy condoler, who sighs when we sigh and groans when we groan, who assures us that he never in his life saw us looking worse, really hopes we may get over it. and winds up with a condemnation o f the general management of the universe, bad as he is, is much more to our taste than the Pharisee who can hardly concea l hi s j oy th a t we are fallen so low, because pain strengthens and purifies the soul, and the enforced indolence of convalescence may give us greater oppor tunity of spiritual advancement. It is entirely in this professionally pious spirit that Lord SHAFTESBURY, as might have been expected, has dealt with the subject of our Indian disasters. His speech at Crosby hall on Thursday nigut, lauded in some q u a r t ers f or it s " s pi r it," i s full of ill-concealed exultation that such an o pp or t un ity s h ou ld h ave oc curred for the dissem inat i on in India of Ch r i s ti an ity, by w hi c h, o f course, his Lordship simply means the narrow and sectarian views of the Evangelical party. England has been terribly ill, he says, tortured by the most frightful suffering, worn by anxious watching, stricken to the very heart's core ; but we are to rejoice greatly, because now that she is a little better, she may turn her attention to Messrs. Stiggins and Chadband, and allow a little more libe r ty t o th e conven ti c l e th an she has hitherto done in the days of her health and strength. "If "we could sever the unutterable atrocities that have occurred " from the event itself," says his Lordship, in anticipation and excuse, " I do not hesitate to say that I myself " should rejoice, and I call on every one connected with the British " name to rejoice from the bottom of his soul that that fea r ful mutiny " took place." There is a little confusion here, for, in the first place, wo cannot separate the atrocities from the mutiny any more than we can separate the ruin which follows a blast of gunpowder from the keen flash which accompanies it ; and, in the second place, if we could, then the mutiny fur which our jubilations are solicited could not pro perly be said to be in any sense a fearful one. But it is evident that this hypothetical disunion of two things which it is impossible to dis unite is merely intended as a vehicle for the bitter principle which mere carnal people find such very great difficulty in swallowing with out protest, the pious principle of rejoicing over our own sufferings and those of others. Assuredly the class of professing Christians called Evangelical entertains conceptions of the Divine nature and attributes very difficult to be reconciled by uninspired common sense with anything like the reverence due to so awful a subject of thought. What FEURBACH attributes to all men is certainly true of them ; they oreate their own Deity, and by a frightful inversion of the true order make Him in man's own image, and not always, it is sad to think, in the image of the wisest or the best of men. If Lord SHAFTESBURY, in. stead of lamenting over the sad necessity of suppressing some of the most revolting details of the atrocities practised by the mutineers, and going, on the highest ground of course, as your especially pureminded people always will, just a little too near the improper, had contented himself with simply proposing a vote of thanks for the excellent lecture only, and not for the mutiny also, he would have set a good example to the party of which he is the lay head. But then he would have missed making a pious hit—he would have lost the great opportunity of putting forth another now and original explanation of the shocking sacrifice of India--he would have had to suppress those dear allusions to a new species of nastiness which seem likely to become as fashionable at Exeter-hall as the details of the Romish confessional, and even to run the Beast and the Seven Vials rather hard in popularity. What great Evangelical teacher could forego such temptations ? So let us, on our side, be also thankful, and rejoice that his Lordship did not talk a vast deal more nonsense, and that for an amateur he really, on the whole, managed to do as little damage to true religion as could have been expected under the circumstances. Our African squadron has long been an eyesore to certain persons who have no faith in abolition and a fondness for African labour. It is asserted, and with that audacity characteristic of assertion without fact, that, as we have failed to put down the slave trade, we may just as well withdraw our squadron, throw open the coast, and compete with the slave dealer by carrying free African emigrants wherever they are wanted, but particularly to our West India possessions. Now this is a dangerous theory to entertain. It strikes at the very root of our African policy since 1808, and threatens at one blow to destroy the efforts of half a century. In the first place, to say that we ha' e failed to put down the slave trade is incorrect. We have put it down, at all events in our own possessions; and we have induced France, Holland, and Brazil to put it down in theirs. That we have not suppressed it in the Spanish and American possessions is simply because those nations prefer the degradation of' maintaining, to the honour of abolish ing the vile institution. But that is no proof that our efforts have been of no avail, or that it is desirable we should relinquish the fruits of fifty years' arduous labour because entire and complete success has not crowned our exertions. The fact is that we have arrived at that point in African history when it is incumbent upon us not only to redouble our exertions, but to extend the field of operation. Hitherto we have employed, and in a limited sense, force alone to suppress the slave trade. This undoubtedly has been an error. The profits of slave traders are two hundred per cent ; consequently, casual cap tures and pecuniary loss will not affect them much. They can afford to lose ; but make slave trading piracy, or spoil their hunting ground by introducing legitimate commerce, and by teaching the tribes that the worst use to which they can put their domestic slaves is to sell them to the foreign trader, and you will put down that foreign trade effectually. We must not withdraw our African squadron for a moment from the coast. Brazil is passing through an abolition crisis ; slave labour is dying out and free labour has not yet come in ; she thirsts to revive the slave trade, and both her coasts and those of Africa must be narrowly watched. Meanwhile, let us try what persuasion will do in the interior of Africa, and for this purpose we should encourage legiti mate trading. establish factories, and, while we strictly blockade the coast, use every effort to open up the country to commerce and Chris tianity. But, above all, we must at present discountenance any free emigration scheme, from whatever quarter it emanates. It is altogether premature, and fraught with the greatest danger. The sentiments of this country towards that nation of traitors and villains who have banqueted on the blood and the shame of English gentlemen and ladies, are too manifest, too vehement, and too general to allow, we should hope, of any doubt or misrepresentation. We shall therefore offer a few comments on the speeches lately de livered at Willis's-rooms, in the full confidence that our motives will not be misinterpreted. In the first place, then, is it or is it not true that the alienation of the native race has been caused by our own religious backslidings ? On the assumption that it has, what, we would ask, is to be our conduct for the future? And more especially during the critical period between the cessation of armed resistance and the complete pacification of the country ? Are we to inaugurate a more truly Christian regime by the violation of the spirit of Christianity. or are we to let our enemies see that even their worst atrocities cannot drive us out of ourselves, or make us depart one inch from our accustomed formalities. When NELSON, in the heat of the fight at Copenhagen, wished to send a letter to the Crown Prince, some one offered him a wafer to fasten it. " No," said he, calling for sealing wax, " it must not be imagined at such a moment as this we were too " flurried to stand upon ceremony." Such ought to be the spirit in which we deal with the mutineers. Whatever effort it may cost us to punish them, let it be made to appear that we " take it in one stride," and are not so flurried or discomposed as to forget our usual noncha lance and rigid observance of law. Let us think rather of what is due to ourselves than of what is due to them, and so shall we strike the greatest terror into their hearts, and estab lish the surest safeguard against a recurrence of the like horrors. We cannot quit the subject without entering a protest against the language which is now too often indulged in on the subject of heathens in general. We now see, it is said, what even refined heathens are at bottom, and how worthless' is human culture separate from Divine truth. Worthless in one sonse no doubt it is; but we cannot allow that NANA SAHIB and the Princes of Delhi shall be classed with SOCRATES and CICERO as "refined heathens." The difference of race and circumstance is entirely overlooked by those who make this assertion ; and we sincerely hope that our missionary exertions for the future will not be conducted in any such spirit as this. FALL OF DELHI. To arms ! to arms ! once more the cry rolls round our island world ; To arms ! to arms ! once more we wave the flag so lately furled. The temple gates were scarcely closed, the sword had yet its stain, When, rudely shook, the glass of time ran crimson sands again. No despot on his polar throne now throws the challenge down, The breath of battle on his lips, the blood upon his crown ; The sun-god dies a ruddier death, the moon sheds warmer light, Where under mosque and minaret the turbaned traitors fight. The stillness of our summer life a shameful whisper stirred, The lightest-hearted hushed their laugh, and shuddered as they heard ; And as each fearful fortnight flashed its message through the land, Men griped and drew their sabres with a firmer, fiercer hand. The dusky chiefs of Hindostan had blown the trump of war, And sworn by all the gods they serve to bear our yoke no more— To lift the Crescent o'er the Cross triumphant in the fight, And set once more on swarthy brows the Diadem of Light. Their thousands to our hundreds—yet our England kept her fame, In those nine immortal onsets which are stars round Havelock's name , On that day of great deliverance, when the British guns at noon Seemed to beleaguered Lucknow sweet as wedding bells in June. Delhi fallen ! peals the triumph, floats the banner from the keep ; Delhi fallen ! gleams the wine-cup, shoots the beacon from the steep Women read with leaping pulses all they did that fighting week, When through the streets together swept the Saxon and the Sikh. Home and Salkeld at the gate—a sudden crash, a sudden glare ! Up the ramparts, on the bastions, die the tigers in their lair! Six days shall see the dark Moglee before the Frank go down — Six days shall Vengeance slake her thirst on his accursed town. The Gieour treads his jewelled courts—imperial now no more — The British cheer rings through his halls—the Ghoorka spoils h • store; Tho glare of hate, the steam of blood, the wild despairing yell, Have turned his "earthly Paradise " into an earthly hell. " Remember us—revenge us "—was written on the room Where mothers, maidens, children lay waiting death and doom ; And in the breach of Delhi's walls, by sword and shot and shell, Avenged were Cawnpore's slaughter-chamber, Cawnpore's crimson well R. f. S. r M .+ - '77 II