The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 10, 1858.

" good tidings of salvation in the simplest form"
vanishes altogether as soon as it is examined, or
at least is shown to mean something not at all
inconsistent with the most detailed and particular
treatment of social evils, their causes and their
remedies. For whatever be meant by the phrase
"simplest form," it is clear that the preacher,
according to another favourite phrase, is to "de-
clare the whole counsel of God." He is to make
it clear to his generation, as the Apostles did to
theirs, what remedy is provided in Christianity
and for what evils. He is certainly to awaken
the conscience of his congregation, to enter into
the peculiar temptations of each class, to lay his
hand on every sore, to say to rich and poor
" Thou ailest here and here," and then out of his
treasure-house to bring forth remedies new and
old. But how imperfectly must that man un-
derstand, how dimly must he conceive, those
sins of the rich which it is the special duty of
the preacher to reprove, who has not deeply
pondered the matters treated of in this volume ;
who has not studied the statistics of crime, of
gambling, of prostitution, of infidelity ! And
how much more sharply might a preacher point
his reproofs who should have at his command
such stubborn and pungent facts as those which
Mr. Meyrick has gleaned from " London Labour
and the London Poor," than he who, like so many,
has nothing to offer but generalities, or, like so
many more, conjectures ! Any one who has
closely observed the state of English society, who
has nicely weighed the crime and measured the
misery, and has traced the advance of some of
those giant vices which are known to precede the
downfall of States, will be surprised that our
preachers should seem to want matter for reproof
and practical exhortation. He might rather
expect that a time of such vast and perilous
change, of such nicely balanced hope and
fear, when so much that is old is expiring in
stench, and by the side of it the earth teems with
so much fresh-smelling and hopeful verdure,
would convert the feeblest preacher into a pro-
phet of warning and comfort.
It is perhaps hardly fair to quarrel with Mr.
Meyrick's theory of preaching, when his practice
is so much better than his theory. It is true that
he represents the sermons before us as of an ex-
ceptional kind. We are sorry that he should
do so, and think that sermons might advanta-
geously be made, as a rule, of this sort of material.
But at least we may congratulate Mr.Meyrick upon
having in these sermons, exceptional or not, told
some homely truths in homely Saxon words.
This is to " blow the trumpet with no uncertain
sound." A sermon on Costermongers and Pat-
terers is, as far as we know, a new thing. Even
those women whose generic name a prudent
preacher will suppress, but for whom, notwith-
standing, Mr. Meyrick judges, Christ died, are
made the subject of a whole discourse. We will
give a specimen of the manner in which Mr.
Meyrick turns Mayhew into sermons :
I have spoken of the poor in general. I wish to speak tl is
morning of certain classes of the poor, to whom, as Chris-
tians, we owe duties which are not performed as they ought
to he performed.
The first that I will mention are sempstressea ; and
select this class, not because there are no others who suffer
in a similar, if not an equal, manner with them, but
because thee form a large holy of sufferers, and appeal the
more to our sympathies, from not having the strong heart
and the strong arm of manhood with which to bear up
against and ward off affliction.
I do not intend to cite any special instances of oppression
here ; that they exist, is a too well known and acknowledged
fact. You know that delicate young women are being
worked fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or more hours a day,
while twelve is as much as the human frame is capable of
enduring, and ten as much as is consistent with permanent
health. You know that they ere being driven blind, old,
decrepit, while they ought still to be in the freshness of
health, with all their faculties perfect. You know that
women woi k day by day, and night by night, unceasingly,
uncomplainingly, and yet cannot earn sufficient sweep to
keep body and soul together. You know that hundreds
whose hope and effort it was to live in the fear of God, are
driven, by sheer inability to gain their livelihood by their
needle, to the streets fur their home and to despair for their
portion. You know diet associations are formed, meetings
are held, sermons are preached, even newspapers cry out,
but still the system continues, because human selfislinesa
is a stronger and more urgent motive than human bene-
volence. la there nothing that we can do to alleviate this
misery ? And if there ie anything lhat we can do, ought
we tolPt indolence or indifference proven; us from exerting
ourselves ?
Let us turn to the clans of tailors. The fair number of
hours in the week during which they should be employed
is seventy two. By working on compulsion sixteen hours
each day instead of twelve, and spending the whole of
Sunday in their labour, they frequently work for 112 hours,
thus not only ruining their own health, bat taking away

657

labour and therefore bread from others. And yet with all
this work, destructive alike of body and soul, they are not
seldom unable to keep themselves and their families from
starvation. The consequence of this is that the wife and
children at•e enployed ou the same work with the man, and
then follows the necessary result; the woman's household
duties are undone, the children are untaught and un•
schooled, and grow up, not as though they were men and
women or Christians, but simply tailors and sewers, mere
assistants to the bead of the family in his profession. Nay,
even more than this, " the wife has been made to compete
with the husband, and the datriiter with the wife." ]f the
man wilt not reduce the price of his labour to that of the
fimole, lie must remain unemployed; and if the fnll.grown
woman will not take the work at the same price as the
young girl, she must remain without any.

These sermons do not indicate any remarkable
talents in their author. They do not furnish
new facts nor unfold new views of theology. But
they arc worth attention as examples of the
condescension of the pulpit to the homeliest and
most disagreeable facts, and of an earnest attempt
to solve on Christian principles the great practical
problem of the age.

advocating the union. The following passage will
show that the hotel-keepers of Bucharest understand
running up a bill as well as Mr. Cox Hughes :

The best and dearest hotel in Europe would have sup-
plied its best dinners at an infinitely lower rate than that
set down for the repast of the Commission during the first
throe weeks of its stay in Bucharest. In twenty-six days,
the table of a single commissioner cost upwards of 3001.
Of wax lights, 200 P. per night were charged for. There
was an item of 117,00) francs for small expenses, such as
lights, cabs, lamps, kitchen utensils, &c. At the time of
the installation of (Thies as caimacan, in 1850, the Turkish
envoy, Kiamil Bey, sent to invest him with the dignity,
passed a week at Bucharest, and of course was kept at
free quarters, as a guest. The honest people charged with
purveying for him, found means to make him consume
strawberries to the value of 7,000 Wellachian piastres
(nearly 1031.)! But Saafet-Effendi, the Turkish commis-
sioner in 18-57, had no reason to be jealous of the delicacies
supplied to his countryman. In the accounts of the coin-
tnissicii figures an item of 1,200 francs for " perfumes for
the use of Saafet-Effendi." The Turk must have needed
a great deal of sweetening.

"My First and Last Novel " is rather a weak story,
in the style of Household Words. " The Great
Imposture" is a facetious political article, though not
quite so good as we have seen in Blackwood. " Mr.
Dusky's Opinion on Art " is a capital paper, full of
good healthy " chaff" of Mr. Ruskin's peculiarities :

No. 18.—" A Man Washing his Hands" (J. Prig). A
step in the right direction. The painting of the nail-
brush, showing where friction has worn sway and chan-
nelled the bristles in the middle, is especially good. But
how comes it that, the nail-brush having been evidently
male use of, the water in the basin is still pellucid, with
no soap apparent, either superficially or in solution? This
oversight I should not have expected in so clever an artist.
Even granting clearness to the water, the pattern of the
bottom of the basin visible through it is of a different cha-
racter from the exterior of the vessel, which is not the case
in any specimen of that particular delf which has come
under my notice.
No. 2d.—This is directly imitative both of Titian and
George Cruikshank, with Smith's handling, and a good
deal of Brown's manner.
No. 29.—As I told this artist last year, he is deficient in
fulness of form and looseness of texture. He should,
therefore, for some years, paint nothing but mops of various
colours (without the handles), which would give him wool-
liness and rotundity. On the other hand, the painter of
No. 32 has too much of these qualities, with too little firm.
nem in his darks ; and I should recommend him, as a
counteracting influence, to study only blocks of coal—not
the common coal ( which is too dull), but the kennel or
candle coal—a perseverance in which practice he will find
attended by the happiest results.
No. 850.—This artist had better go without delay to
Venice. Ile will find in one of the vaults of one of the
churches there ( I forget which) a picture without a name,
bat which I know to be an indubitable Paul Veronese. The
whole composition is fine ; but I would particularly note
the third hair from the top in the right whisker of the cat
in the corner, the painting of which is very precious. This
he should study in a reverential spirit, and I will answer
for the result.
Fraser this month opens with a new story entitled
Hanworth." It is, perhaps, scarcet.y fair to exprass
any opinion of its merits until a larger portion of it
is before us. The first four chapters, however, read
hard. The article on churchyards is interesting and
elegant. The following remarks will, we should
think, be pretty generally sympathized with :
Speaking for myself, I must say that I think it would
cause a strange feeling in moat people to pact at the chapel-
door with the corpse of one who had been very dear, and,
after a few minutes of horrible suspense, during which they
should know that it was burning in a fierce furnace, to see
the vessel of white ashes brought back, and be told that
there was all that was mortal of the departed friend. No
doubt it may he weakness and prejudice, but I think that
few could divest themselves of the feeling of sacrilegious
violence. Better far to lay the brother or sister, tenderly
as though still they felt, in the last resting-place, so soft
and trim. It soothes us, if it does no good to them, and
the sad change which we know is soon to follow is wrought
only by the gentle hand of Nature. And only think of a
man pointing to half-a.dozen vases on his mantelpiece, and
as many more on his cheffonier, and saying " There the
wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at
rest!"

It must, however, be added that till lately our intra-
mural burial•grounds presented featureu almost as
alien to this affectionate and poetic sentiment as the
vase of ashes. But the village churchyard—where
the " long and pleasant grass " grows fresh over the
uneven hillocks, driving far away all thoughts of cor-
ruption, and affording an annual promise that the
form long hidden beneath it shall one day, too, return
—will never, we trust, disappear from our English
hamlets. From an article entitled " Delhi as It Is "
we select the following :
How was Delhi treated by the English? There are some
who declaim, and say that it was treated with shameful
leniency ; that the accursed place should have been levelled
with the ground; that a pillar with an inscription, rising
out of a desolate plain, should have proclaimed that here
Delhi was, but because it rebelled and murdered English
men and women, here Delhi is no more. But this party,
noisy as it was at first, has well-tigh had its day. It is felt
that scenic ettects of this kind, though possible nn the
stage and easy iu a novel, are difficult when they ititolvo
the extirpation of one of the largest cities in the world. In