The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-19 00:00:00

TEE DAY OF HUMILIATION.

(Front the Examiner.)
We certainly are a people much given to the observ-
ance of precedents. We lose an army, and precedent
consoles us ; it always happens in the first campaign.
Why does it always happen? we are strongly disposed
to ask ; but we ere told there is no precedent for such
an inquiry. We nominate unproved men to important
employments, we retain proved inefficient men in high
offices, and ample precedent justifies the proceeding.
And now, according to precedent, we are to pray and
fast on Wednesday Next.
We are informed, indeed, that this 21st of March is
not to be a fast-day. We have abandoned that Popish
superstition—by no means let us fast. Well, to those
who are in easy circumstances this may be a gra-
cious dispensation. Our statesmen who have bungled,
and who now bid us all humble ourselves to depre-
cate the consequences of their bungling— they cer-
tainly will not fast. The 21st of March will be to
them as other days, excepting only that it will be a holi-
day. No office, no committee, no House of Commons ;
only attendance at church in the morning to hear Mr.
Melville, and, that Popish superstitions may not be
countenanced in high places, dinner as usual in the
evening. But there are some in this country upon
whom that law is enforced which says—a" He that will
not work, neither shall he eat." There are some to
whom daily labour is daily bread, and to whom a com-
mand to be idle is, indeed, a command to fast. This
seems hard. If Ministers, or even if a member of Par-
lisment, were to be mulcted a day's pay, the inconve-
nience would not be great—the injustice perhaps still
less. But those sheep—what have they done ? Their
part was to pay taxes, and they have paid them ; was
to send forth soldiers, and they have sent them. Their
work, one would say, has not been done ill or
grudgingly. A severe winter has combined with the
war to increase suffering ; an unusually long frost has
combined with a dull trade to diminish employment,
and so multiply hardship ; and what religion is that
which, when all this has been so patiently and bravely
borne, steps in and says—" Humble yourselves ; give
up another day's work, another day's ahopkeeping,
another day's wages, another day's profits ; for this will
be pleasing in the sight of Heaven, this will prove
that the nation is lowly and penitent, this will perhaps
avert some misfortune, perhaps win some favour for us
—eves the taking of Sebastopol ?"
What religion, we repeat, is this that presses thus
elcyonwsceienacree
Sartehe Crimea ?
The lines at Sebastopol—the harbour of Balaklava—the
will stir in us
jsyeestpeemrdiztreidedie
the
ed
sight
tnedf
alreadyehs
ufacrthdh leyde
ropsinteohhrtseh/ A
oeyf poor,hshuanimd baelywe
dha.esi
of
et
iiNhi
yetu
hmmlaeiatl
letters
tasbeuts:e
e summons
from
00l dell
sr a th
i—a
Europe, a national prestige departing from us—if the
tary rempiultiatatrioyn
thought of these things do not humble us, would a whole
month of fast-days avail to do it ? A year ago we fasted
and prayed by precedent ; we went to church ; we
heard sermons ; but we came away, and we went en as
graves
wanting, o
aSmcuitlari
usual writing, and reading, and talking of the glorious
army, our unequalled meets, and the magnificent spec-
tacle
which we presented to the nations. Alas ! if the
Privy Council Day of Humiliation could not keep us
from boasting then, who will say that it is wanted to
make us humble now ?

A Day of Prayer—it is a solemn phrase, not to be
spoken of irreverently ; but of all things reverence is
most opposed to cant. We have starved an' army—
therefore let us fast ; we ban found our vaunted sys-
tem worthless—therefore let us humble ourselves ; we
have taken all measures to insure disaster, aad disaster
has attended our efforts—therefore let us pray ! But it
is not reverence to be cowardly, and it ig not piety to
be superstitious. Laborare est orare. The gods help
those who help themselves ; but never did the gods lend
a pitying oar to those who in the hour of peril, when the
ship was drifting towards breakers, left the ropes and
betook themselves to easy prayers. Oar Puritan ances-
tors fought with sword in one hand and Bible in the
other ; but the Bible was not in the wrong hand: The
sGihhfiri
eeeppar;eth,
eocisapsi Apostle
precaution
ion ril
up
andthai
tedudoidebne:en:
atn
deemed
lan;
edodnets:a:tr.kr desire
wasen
et
mh wel
seemly
1 iti sailorsQorh till
peventually
o those
u of
t ag rceresources
I 0 suuarp disabledovceends_