The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-03-24 00:00:00

LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

airiadasts

At the Literary Institution, on Wednesday evening,
a lecture was given by the Rev. John S. Simon
(Wesleyan Minister), entitled "Leaden of Thought."
The Muir was taken by T. Anderson, Req., and the
hall was crowded. The Chairman, in opening the
said the mind wea the principal thing, as it
was mind that ruled everything, and thought, travel-
ling on the lines of truth, wouMiehanp the world. It
wee mind that ruled, that developed, all the arta and
sciences, as well as all that benevolence could do to room
sinful human nature from the miseries Into which it Ind
fallen. One person might be fitted to do some work
better than another, and some bad • greater tendency
than others for mental exertion, and when it happened
that they were lilted for any particular department of
mimes and art they would persevere until they bad
I achieved some discovery. They would bring forward
what they bad discovered in their researches, and it was
interesting to read of the of science and art in
this country, and the re es which the great and
important discoveries which marked the present day
ea been eliminated.
The lecture commenced by mottling that mutual.
not self-interest, Is the basis of society. In order to
corrosive the origin and oonstitatiou of society let no
consider the case of • ship's crew wreaked on • desert
inland; a little band of them surrounded by mew
bests; unitedly they me hold their ground, separately
they will easily be overcome. Instantly we see that an
alliance will spring up, the band will be formed into a
society for the suppression of wild buds. Not a very
chivalrous mission—and yet if you will think of it, here
we have the origin of moiety and real destiny of man.
For what is this strange unintelligible life of ours but a
battle with wild beasts The kin binding good men
together, the benevolent institutions studding the land,
the churches with their skyward pointing spires—what
do them exist for? The subjection of passions, the
control of violence, the punishment of wrong, the I
defence of purity, the vindication of justice, the
deliveriume of the souls of men. Who is to deride the
question 1111 t, the beasts against which we mast wage
wwitinual warfare? A Leader is required, whoae word
be • people's guide, because it gime expression to
its unspeatme, thoughts. Una's tastes as, nog to
guide the eotnntuniry, tie jaw., who
furth the opinione a society. Haws you sus •otised a
nano° wailing for such • one—• dumb nation—moving I
about pitifully under God's heaven, striving to articulate,
only exasperated by repeated failures. At last Mere
has arisen one, who pondering in deep 'dense, in great
anguish, has breathed forth the maximal word the world
longed for, and the tossing hearts of men have been
stilled as they sighed, "At, yes—that is the word—the
word we have broken our Marta to utter—it hes some
at last." With the deepest reverence we would
remind you of Him, who is the Incarnate
Word. Look upon the dimly lighted Pagan
nations. Like some huge hall, filled with den? shadows;
through whom broken arches and ruined corridors the
wind wails in doleful cadences. Unutterable thoughts
gathering in the minds, gleaming in the eyes of the
wanderers there—but no certain wordeto speak—only
strange unin.lligibie mouthinp at the best. And
then —why then came soft anemone music making the
rile nos live, and round the manger of Bethlehem the magic
bow, and bleu Him who is "the word of God I" Men tell
es to-day that the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth
were in part anticipated—that Snow of His theology
may be Mend amongst the writings of Pagan authors, ,
and so on I Truly. But these were as letters mattered
up
and down, wide asunder. He gathered them into
words, grouped them in sentences, rupplied the on.
attainable: and then the aceliunationv of • universe,
as the sublime lemons took form and shone out, pro-
claimed that He was the profit yearned for no long—
none other than the Messisa, the sent of GoiL
Paul's cathedral rising yonder above the din and smoke
of London, with its swelling dome and glittering moss
Is an embodied thooght. This earth, with its terror
and beauty, is it not God's thought materially
developed? A Leader of Thought is required to pierce
beneath the surface lila utter the great truths hidden
in the heart of humanity. Consider the 'abject of
, national life. Revert to the origin of eosin,; see that
man forgetting his brotherhood, striking his fallow to
the ground with chance-weapon I Follow down the
story of time and you have this development of the '
scene—the Enfield ride, the soldier's death shriek.
Nay, out of this rise all the eccompanimeots of
criminal law. Men mast not be allowed to quarrel and
avenge their own wrongs: some third piny must step
in and decide whether this thing Is worth quarrelling
about, and if so, determine the amount of quarrel to
wig,* they may proceed. A loader of Thought is
required to decide these questions. Society's thought
must nails in him or his verdict is a farce. What is
a judge's authority for passing sentence of dew* upon
• man? He is the mouthpiece of society; it has charged
upon him to eat in this manner. The question present.
Itself, Who determined the right of society to proceed
thus? Our answer must be that some Leader of
Thought arose one day and said, Thus end thus—snob is
justice I And the voices of men ascended in mighty
thunder endorsing the decree. Consider also that
other scene—a battle-field, strewn with the dead.
Who said that this should be so? A Leader of
Thought, whose word society has accepted as spoken
for itself; whose word was the quintesseme of
its opinions, • man by whom it think.. It is a
different thing to end you law-giver, year
king. Here you see the origin of revolutions,
The man society agrees to call king, is one day die.
severed tab. no king at all. When next ha shall
say, "This thing is just," men shall answer, "It
is not so." Hs ceases to speak aright; other men arise
whose words society endorse, and in the Angelo the
king goes down. It is not difileelt to pensive the need
of Leaders of Thought in the axial world. Imagine to
yourself the nation as imposed of Melee. Sympathy
expansive and sympathy intense. A man's home is
dearer to him than his nation. The Leader of Thought
who one day said, " I will have a hoine"—was the
originator of homes, trade, streets, towns, law
Gouts, the Houses of Parliament, and musk
more we used not mention. Go farther into
the question of model life, mid me how it pre-supposes
Leaders of Thought. Attached to the house in whisk
'• home" is may be • patch of ironed. The questiea
arises in the town, why is it your patch? A question
out of which spring many thing. :—Lend sunray
wills and testator', quibbling. shoat real estate, finally
that Slough of Despond the High Court of Chanoery.
Why is it roy patch I Really bemuse I have taken
It, oultinted it, and above all—have it. But as we
have • quarrel, ere will refer the matter to yoader man.
His decision is given, and society cries, "This is right,
the way in which property should be maaaged; we
in coattail ametabled dealers, that from henceforth
this shall be the way; and for thy thought we thank
thee, having seemingly understanding, our law-leader."
One upset of the subject of social Leaders of Thought
is sinuing. It mime out of the fact But our home is
our Guile ; if persons enter Into it, we Impose upon
them this small metier of debt—to behave without
I offence whilst they are there. Out of this spring etiquette
' and fashion. Pinang over much that would be interest-
tiny, let us look at certain abuses growing out of
axial life. We merely mention the questions of work-
houses, debtor's prisons, 'Lola tramp-ward.- Ic them
how many muses for lament are there ; happily being
removed by the vigorous onion of Leedom of Thoegkt.
Let us dwell upon two kinds of abase in social lila.
The grit is mosey. A word as toils origin, "A simple
Invention," tort Cul7lo, i" it was in the old world
rosier, sick of Intl his slow ox about ths country
fa he got it bettered or corn or oil ; to take • nide, of
leather and thereonearetah stomp IL mere tifir-;
of
4. on (4,, poegoth iwit it into his sod it
Peemiamosey." * Uwe drover I= sell
Thwasht we
mut taws wealth with all the word Makatea.
orrof mosey, like the kitten ofa eollep degree.
ationoarable when it bee bees boasetly wee.
Reese.' a man is risk, he is not thermion wonky a
repo. W. sad •Polisib Probst Wind the Jodi&

A UAL.
hillaUrralapaipe P'°° wealth
--unless it is an of eysonal worth it is Dot
ii Itself deigning GI Mewl, 'The kindred 'object of
rink aim preesate 0â matigial for remark. Even as
wealth was once to he bonotrod bemuse it indicated
worth, so rank. For your grazier 1-484" Th"ghi
must have got his oxen togetber,and by s'mne um"...."‘"
have been able to amply their wants and km, •esel
alive ; many could ride eat on °cessions into Ilpresalag
pasture land, and capture the inkiest ball on the
and moreover could watch long nlglita, and by dint of
sword and spoor keep bock marauding neighbours the
emulsion of those pieces of leather indicated fore-
thought, wissions.pattenee, courage I It is sot an easy
thing to keep • herd of cattle, 00 00 open plain, when yoar
surrounders are panieularly ansioua to carry them off l
Cannot we me then how rank swum out this, nay,
knighthood and chivalry? That bargeman, ho, in the
Spanish arena, rides at the bull, whose eyer.giber in
arger, and whom horns are with gore, the
emblem of some fairhaired lad, wise, oosOnyond,„
plain, rods down tho savage monarch of the herd..
Honour to him I When the leviers of black mml
appear. his arm w i
ill not be dle—he will be distinguished
by his bravery I aud we will call him • fighter, and
from him will spring knights who shall prick in jingling
amoursOd oaten, with its lance and nodding plumes
shall fill the eye of the world with wonder. An ml-
portent say.ng that of some Leader of Thought, who
yoke Ike word from which spring our fighting nobility.
per ha ps some gentle lady, Who witch ed with timorous
look, that bovine *pitted. Unfortunately • man is now
• noble who never did anything to deserve snob a title,
Here Is • man whose private character is diegisoef al,
and yet beams, his great grandfather, many times
removed, did • gallant thing, and wore his title with
honour, which gallant thing has not ono, sines been
riposted in the long list of his desosndmite, yet round
this Ignoble twig, on the most noble parent stem the
inosase of praise must rise. Such blind worship of
titled corruption mime one indignant. We want some
Wider of Tbought to arise, and in clear amente to speak
forth the mind of the nation upon this point—to attest
that virtue is the only true nobility, that rank is hut a
shadow, which, ghoit-like, shall vanish when time's night
shall end. We are not without a word to guide us bird ;
a Leader of Thought has arisen, and in tune sung thus.
He was only • ploughman, but his name was Robert
Burns :

"A man's a men for e that."
As national and social life are connected by subtle ties,
and cannot well be divorced, so, but more truly are
, mental and religions life. For in speaking of thought
we are led from step to step, until the ocean of Deity
presents Wulf, the sublime termination of oar research.
God is the mind of the universe and fills all minds with
the brightness of his radium. lien have perplexed them.
selves with else question of the oriels of thought; a
clamour is heard to-day that we hare no original
thinkers. The highest honour that con come upoo any
of as is tube • Leader of Thonght ; to interpret the
I Mire:sal couseksisame of man ; $ unanimous arising
from the presses, in em of the Father of Lights. In
order to set the question before us, let no oonsider the
me of those Hebrew prophets, who stud forth in We
obscure country to ether strange burdens. The people
are fascinated; the yearnings of their hearts find utter-
ance; but the truths are for humanity not only for
them, audio they are bewildered. "L', thou art unto
them as • very lovely song of one that bath a pleasant
voice, and can play well on an instrument; for
they hear thy words, but they do them not."
An audience with wider sympathies must be
obtained. Now the world listens 1 The instrument
anon which they played lacked many strings, they could
not bring forth the fullest measure from the clouds—
but now the heart of humanity lies before them, and as
their inspiration sweeps over it the grandest melody
bursts forth and rolls to heaven. In token of their
world-wide application we Lek, what words are so fre-
quently quoted as their.? Those Hebrew prophets in-
terpret the consciousness of mankind—speak forth in
articulate woes our thoughts. Taking them as the
highest types of Thought Leaders we enquire as to the
source of their Inspiration, and most emphstisolly they
answer, "Thu eith the Lord 1" And, in order to settle
the point, let us listen to the Christ whom we &Ore as
the troth; and what does He say of those marvellous
lessons that far transcend all other uttermost indignity,
in profundity, in power? " Tbe word which ye hear is
not mine, but the Father's which sent me." Plato has
also a word upon the matter. When dimming upon
the subjs.* of ideas he comes to this conclusion, that
God is the supreme ides, the great intelligence, source
of all other intelligences, the win whose light illumines
creation. Taking all this into consideration are we not
mounted in declaring that there is • most intimate
umuseetioe between thought end God—between mental
and religions life? If this be Ms then, the Mr argu-
ments we have to listen to at the present time as to
whether education shall be religions or not, may well
provoke our wonder. True education is like a rainbow,
Ii cannot be perfected without the presence of the sun
of heaven. Not seeking to divorce mental and Miam
life, let us look on each of thousand consider the subject
of Leaders of Thought" me applying to than. And
here presents itself the much agitated question of educa-
tion. The word signifies leading out—not putting in.
A schoolmaster &herald be • Leader of Thought. Alas,
how many of them are anything but that. It seems to
us a most difficult post that of • schoolmaster, perhaps
the most difficult of all positions to fill. To put in for
the purpose of bringing oat, all you put in of no avail
unless you by it bring out. And the instruments fur-
nished whereby to offset this are often so inadequate.
After all, the object of education is to teach • boy to
think—to reason about matters—to understated principles
—if you can obtain this result you gooier a prissiest
boon upon him. Your success will be but superficial if
you do not also lead him, by means of his studies, to
reeognise the Creator's presidia and life filling the
universe. Another type of the Thought loader to the
ouversationalist. It is a great gift some men possess,
the power of talking so u to elicit the opinions of others.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge may be taken se an
Jostens* of the conversationalist Leader of Thought;
he deserves the name of the Highgate Seer, for
his glance pierced through all sembl•noes ; he
saw the living soul that 'nimbi creeds, Marches,
leirri.!°, I.:ll,ne.:..uluiTntrilf.lourtrumterdat, T,T;err,
i against his theories you may protest, you may
adopt them as yours—yet the bent fit he confers upon
you is priceless—he teethes you the alphabet of the book
over which immortals bend in heaven—he evokes from
your shattered nature the likeness of God. If a Leader
of Thought is one whoolothes in words the unutterable
ideas of society, then our LW; will be blamably incom-
plete if we exclude therefrom our poets The poet is
one of the truest thought evoker' or representing : he
interprets the mystery of our existence; takes the most
refined sensation of our nature and gives it form—brinp
out the full powers of the heart. He possesses the key
admitting him into the inner chamber of our spirit,
where our most sacred treasure is annotated; he can
lay his hand upon the chord we think to be for ever
dumb; the chord we hide most piously from view, and
guard from every wandering breeze its voices should
waken ; he can Mann forth the vague thought that
dashed for a moment upon us and then fied into
impenetrable darkness, a thought that shall follow him,
sot only to the verge of the titygian night, but into the
sunshine and freedom of day. In addition to society,
another, whose &irate are hard to understand, glans
articulate utterance through hies. What • strange
world this must have been without posts. Nature
dumb for poets have changed this. Shakespeare
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, have interpreted
her mystic speech. For this service she rewards them
with immortal fame. Her beauties are thole tablets;
she stands, • majestic monument, inscribed eith their
names. We claim nature as one of our "Loaders of
Thought." Has she not • voice? What is that power
streaming forth from a beauteous landscape, cussing
delicious pesos to fill the hurt, and lifting it with its
cares to heaven? Consider the infirmness of uterine and
suit, springtida end autumn. Nature is • true Leader
of Thought carrying us onward to God. We cannot toe
highly regard our poses ; neither can we too signally ,
exclude pretenders to the title. A poet is not formed I
In the midst of sunshine, The daring bird is Wight in
the darkened cage ; the gloom renewed Agin and again
I until the song Is perfect. Many of our poets names are
typical of suffering TIN song that touches society most
keenly is one sung by white and quivering lips. A post,
to fathom uude wart, most be in terrible earnest. It
is one thing to be wide se humanity, quite another to
be as deep. Passing over other Iseders of Thought in
the metal world, ear lei selection shall be the man
who once combined in himself the priffities of the
legislator, lawyer, man of letters, and man of religion.
Ones the Gall Thought Leader, now shred of much that
made his psalm did. We mean the descendant of
he monk—the theologian or preacher. After spukin g
of his former grestnems and its decay, the lecturer
remarked that we have to look noon the other extreme
to-day. The position mitered by the presider now
Is very trying. He stands between two great parties:
one says to him "You must be. Leader of Feeling!"
The other, "You ought to be a Leader of Thought, as
you are not, the world has dons with you." We
submit that he should be both. The mental and
religions life must not be divorced. Science is
supposed to be opposed to our greed. No true soignee
can be opposed to God—for He is the Infinite Truth.
The theologian takes up the task where the
saissW the literary ma lays it down, and carries it
to its sublime gmedantios. Whilst they, by pen or
lip, being out the Meet thoughts in the hurt of
humanity—he gives them an upward flight, and urges
them onward until they stud before tbe throne of
God. The time is surely coming when priestly
bigotry shall ems—when the fairy march of seines
shall be hailed with delight; and when, no Meer in
derision es our Calvary's cross, bet in accents of pro-
foundest love, learning shall darken in her grandame
tongues Vaal the 'reified is king ever all, blessed for
weer. We shall have failed altogether in our work if we
We not mile it weirient time God is the foundation upon
thinfsdatativa. which ell rost--that He is the lensinatios of
thought. All that tab exist arise oat of Him.
Like the spirit on so does the mind of humanity
brood over the deep el • and forth front it eines
all that k good and beau • Nothing is lasting but
that which is evoked therefrom. Men brine lest,
ogeiceial, social, and religiose Injustices esdtiliels
they try to write upon them "iverlsetireg;" bat the
waves es time rash by sod owerwhelst them in forget-
fulness. All that Is Wee end tyrennkels lell that is not
God-buile and God-Alied—eburnity Via bury without
hops of resamisidon. We look around us now and see
musk i thee esanot hays sprung frost the divine Ware.
, The /my wellingt ;Lira.' the victims of nations', soand,
mistel, sad wrongdoing is " Whet' ghat
thus thine • I" Let us not despair I Over this
world soon Mall billow the fires of the jadgmeot day;
and the cry shall fade away, as from their midst,
by the acclaim of • universe, shall rise the now
greeted
heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteous-
-01/111".
At the cosithion • cordial vole of thanks was pined
to the rev. theisrer.