The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-07 00:00:00

REV. MR. BROWN'S LECTURES.

The Rev. H. S. Brown proceeded with his course of lec-
tures upon the religions of the East last night. The subject
was a continuation of his lecture upon the Greek church.
The rev. gentleman gave a clear and concise description of
the points upon which the Greek church differed from that
of Rome—their modified acceptance of the doctrine of tran-
substantiation, their dispute about the use of leavened or un-
leavened bread, their rejection of the " filioque" clause in the
Nicene Creed, the number of holydays they kept, their bap-
tismal and dying services and ceremonies, and their reverence
for the Virgin Mary, He also dwelt upon the fact that, al-
though they refused to admit statues into their churches,
they filled them with pictures, which they held in as much
esteem as the statues of the church of Rome. They, lit wax
candles, which the pious believers purchased in the churches,
at these pictures, and to him a great part of the Greek reli-
gion seemed to consist of candles. (Laughter.) The rev.
gentleman, in alluding to this subject, said—Now, with re-
gard to image-worship, how do we ourselves stand ? We
are all innocent, of course, of the worship of pictures or
statues. Yes ; I grant that. But it is often considered
that a picture in a church, at the east end, in the window, a
picture of some Scriptural character or incident, would be a
great improvement to the appearance of the church. Ido
not know but that it is, and I should have no objection in the
world to having such a picture there. It is called by many
a decided improvement, and they think it to be desired ; but
mark you this, that the man who would give you 50 guineas
to put up in the window a picture of some Scriptural Saint,
would rather throw his money into the Mersey than give you
10s. 6d. towards a statue of John the Baptist, to be placed
there. (Applause.) Why is this ? Will any man tell
me why we might not as well have a statue of
an Apostle as a picture in a church ? Yet there
is a strong feeling upon the subject. We put up in our
churches statues, busts, relieves of statesmen, warriors,
scholars, poets, physicians. Yes, and worse than
that. Some good-for-nothing man, who never in his
life did a good turn to anybody but himself, some wealthy
old sinner who has just died—you will find this man's
features, his hard, griping, grinding, grovelling, and half-
devilish face, chiselled by the hand of Chantry, and put up
in the house of God. (Applause). I know a case in point.
I know the exact place. I knew the man. I have seen the
relievo, and know that Chantrey's immortal name was
placed upon it. And yet if, in such a case, the clergyman,
thinking that King David was quite as good a man as the
rich banker, the rich brewer, or the rich brickmaker, who
just died, proposed to erect a statue in David's honor, and
place it over against the chair, the parish would be up
directly. (Applause). You have seen St. Paul's—you
walk through that splendid edifice. Well, will you say
when in the grand gallery, walking round the base of the
dome, you could tell whether it was a Christian church or a
Pagan temple ? What do you see there ? You see states-
men, warriors, philanthropists, scholars; but you see some-
thing more. There is fame, and victory, and I know not
what other heathen deities, sculptured in marble as cold and
hard as the ideas they represent. But if the Dean of St.
Paul's, thinking that the illustrious saint, to whom the
church is dedicated, was about as good a man as Lord
Nelson, and perhaps near as great a man as the Duke of
Wellington, were to propose erecting a statue to St. Paul
himself beneath that glorious dome, the Londoners would
rebel en masse. Barclay and Parkins's draymen would seize
their whips, and every gin-shop in London would ring with
the cry of "No Popery." (Loud applause). But you observe
as you quit St. Paul's, as you come out from that majestic
area, so magnificently paved with marble, that if you look
narrowly St. Paul and other saints are to be found in the
cathedral. But they were outside. They appear upon the
western pediment ; they are ranged along in a line, perched
upon the roof almost, exposed until they are as black as the
thousand chimneys which every moment belch their abomin-
able smoke in the faces of the holy men. Yes, it is thus that
we treat the saints. We put Lord Nelson inside, and we
leave St. Paul without. (Applause.) We put a long circle
of swearing soldiers around the base of the dome, and leave
the pure and preaching apostles upon the roof. lam afraid
seriously, that this is but too true an emblem of the Chris-
tianity of this country. Apart from the consideration of the
worship of saints, I like the catholic practice much better
than this. I would rather see twelve statues of the apostles
beneath St. Paul's dome than twelve statues of warriors, of
statesmen, ay, or even of philanthropists. I know but one
man whose statue is worthy of standing in that sacred
place, and he stands in strange proximity, John Howard.
(Loud applause.) Let John Howard stand there, who would
carry him away ? If there ever was an Englishman worthy
of standing beside John the Apostle, it was John Howard
the philanthropist. (Renewed applause.) But, after all,
a great man needs no statue, graven with art and man's
device. You pay a poor compliment to a man, after all,
when you erect a statue to his memory; for a great man's
statue is his works in the world. Paul's statue is his epistles :
David's statue is his glorious psalms, and, to come to a much
lower name, Shakespeare's -statue is his plays. If a man's
deeds are not enough to command the reverence and admi-
ration of mankind, let the man and his deeds sleep in
the oblivion of death. But every great man has
his place in the temple of fame ; he is not put
there, he goes there, and the world cannot
hinder him. (Applause.) The rev. lecturer then returned
to the subject of the practices of the Greek church, and,
passing from Russia into Palestine, proceeded to describe
the holy places, and the ceremonies performed by the priests
of that church there. He described the ceremony which
takes place in Easter eve in the church of the Holy Sepul-
chre, from which it was asserted the resurrection of our
Saviour took place. Here, amid a scene of devotion, yelling,
and confusion of all kind, which the lecturer described as
being only paralleled by the scenes of a Liverpool election ;
the priests taught the subjects of Nicholas of Russia to be-
lieve that God Almighty descended upon the tomb of the
Saviour, and the bishop, who had been left alone in the
church, was borne out in an apparently fainting state, as-
sumed to make the crowd believe that he had been over-
powered and overwhelmed by the presence of the Eternal
God. These are the ceremonies, continued the lecturer, in
_defence of which the Czar of Russia threatens to involve the
civilised world in all the horrors of war. That such blas-
phemies, which may well challenge the Vatican to show
their equal, may be more fully, freely, and unreservedly en-
gaged in is the cause which urges the Czar of Russia to make
war upon the Sublime Porte. It strikes me that it would
subserve to the interests of true religion better, if the vene-
rable edifice, from its towering dome to its basement, were
battered by Turkish cannon, than that by the barbarous
hordes of Russia such abominations should be conserved and
intensified. (Applause.) The Czar of Russia has taken
upon himself to preserve the interests of the Greek christians.
I do not think the Turks ha re ever borne very hardly on
them. You or I might live more freely in Turkey than in
Italy. Give me to live under Mahommedan rule rather than
under the true Papal rule. (Applause.) When I consider
the religious belief and views of the Turks, it appears rather
a marvel to me how the Turks have tolerated these
ceremonies so long, and that the sword of Islam has slept so
long, and not been unsheathed against such abominations.
Let no one imagine that I recommend such things ; but I
am now speaking of the professed principles of the Mahom-
medan faith, and I say the marvel is not that the Greek
church should be so much persecuted, but that it is allowed
to be so free. It is said that they suffer under disabilities,
and that the evidence of a Greek Christian will not be
taken in a Turkish court of law. This is true ; but do we
expect that the Emperor of France, or anybody else will
make war upon this country because we do not admit Jews
into the House of Commons ? And the question of these
disabilities might surely be more perfectly and satisfactorily
arranged by the peaceful interposition of the Christian
powers. It is not by the sword that the interests of religion
are to be carried out. But why argue it ? There is no man
in this assembly, no sensible man anywhere, who believes
that the Emperor cares about the Greek church._ or that i
he has any zeal for religion. It is a piece of his imperia
cant. He is clothed with zeal, but it is as a cloak. He puts
on that flimsy covering to cloak his gigantic and barbarous
ambition. If he thinks it is his mission to sustain the
church, I would remind him of the old proverb, that
" charity, begins at home." Let the bearded barbarian
go back and feed his 215,000 poor starving parsons a little
better than he does. Let him rescue his own church and
his own clergy from their intense ignorance, their awful
poverty, their miserable squalor; and when he has done
this, when he has acted decently at home, he may then
perhaps be entitled to interfere in the display of his zeal
for Christianity and the Greek Christians in Turkey. Until
that is done he stands simply forth to the world as an im-
perial hypocrite. The lesson 1 learn from the whole of this
business is just this : It would be much better if all em-
perors minded their own business, and left the churches to
settle their own disputes. It is just another illustration
of the evils of the connection between the civil and eccle-
siastical authorities. (Applause.) It is that connection
which has now disturbed Europe, which would not now
be threatened with a war upon that pretence, although
perhaps upon some other it might. When will the
kings of the earth be wise ? When will the princes of
the world consider ? When will men listen to the brief but
pregnant sentence, which if understood and practised,
would shatter for ever the idea of kings becoming de-
fenders of the faith—" my kingdom is not of this world."
The Rev. Mr. BROWN then do sed his lecture, amid
repeated bursts of enthusiastic applause.

THE TEA TRADE, DEC. s.—The deliveries in London,
made up for the week, are 607,114 lbs., being an increase of
about 41,000 lbs. compared with the previous week.
Lord Ward had an interview with the Earl of Aberdeen
on Monday, at his official residence in Downing-street.
A deputation, consisting of Mr. Charles Russell, chairman
of the Great Western railway company; Viscount Barring
ton, M.P., deputy-chairman ; and Mr. C. A. Saunders,
secretary of the company, had an interview with Sir William
Molesworth, on Monday, at the Office of Worics and Public
Bifildings, in Whitehall-place.
SECURITY FOR LIFE IN PORTUGAL. —The celebrated
guerilla chief, Galamba, who took so active a part on the
side of the Oporto junta, in 1846-47, has been murdered at
a town called Vidigueiva, in Alemtejo. He was shot dead
in broad daytime, and in the most frequented part of the
town, by a political enemy, who will probably be paid off in
the same coin by the friends of the deceased; but who, if
he only keeps out of the way for a a couple of months or so,
has little or nothing toifear from what is called justice.