The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, ItiOVEMBER 2, 1864.

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The Archbishop of York on Works of

Fiction,

The annual soiree of the Ifuddersfield Church Institute
took place on Monday—the Bishop of Ripon in the chair.
The Archbishop of YORK was one of the speakers, and
he addressed himself to the following sentiment:—" That
Church institutes exercise more or less directly an educa-
tional influence on their members, by giving them access to

well-chosen books and periodicals." Ho said that when he

Looked at that sentiment he was somewhat troubled by the

over-goodness of his case. He did net know how to state it
in a way which should not still leave it a perfectly self-evi-

dent truth, and ho almost desired that the practice of an.

dent disputation should be revived, and that some good

member of council of the institute would stand up and sup-

port the opposite tenet, in order to give him a chance of
saying something. (Laughter.) However, he supposed
there lay in this simply the statement that good and useful

reading; whether for youths or adults, is always a means
of education, and he should take it so—that our educa-
tion goes on by means of our reading after the original

fountains from which we derive it cease for us to flow,

What did they mean by useful reading ? In a church insti-
tute they did not mean by useful reading that which would

help them in their trade or profession, that was legitimate
reading, but it was not the highest use to which reading

c3uld tend. He took it that useful study was that which

enlarged their sympathy for their fellow-creatures over the
whole world, and which enlarged their knowledge of the
world as it was governed by God. The kind of rough defini-
tion would include, of course, all history, from the great

works which hava become classical in our libraries and on

our shelves down to the newspaper of the current day ; it
would include all scientific inquiry, and it would not exclude

well-chosen works of fiction; and, glancing over the list of
periodicals which that institution patronised, he saw that
they took a large and liberal view of the purposes of instruc-
tion, and that there were something like 50 periodicals de-
voted to different branches, including all the subjects he had
mentioned. He thought this was right. He did not think
that a great institution like that, set up in one of the great

centres of industry, should take too confined and restricted a
view of what reading might safely be put into the hands of
its members, and if for no other reason, for this above all,

that there was at the present day such a spirit of inquiry

and improvement that if an institution like this attempted
to shut out from any of its legitimate channels that spirit
of inquiry, then the institution would cease to cover all the
ground, and beside it some secular institution would be sure
to grow up, (Hear, hear.) In order better to understand

what usoful reading was, he thought he might venture to
look at what was useless reading; and he supposed if in-

stitutionb of this kind were not to guide and supply the

want that working men would ba likely to fall in, no doubt,
with the newspaper for one thing, and also for another with

thoso stimulating narratives which went now by the

which took the gloomy side, would also, to a certain extent,
be false ; that was to say, there was good and evil mingled
in the world. But though neither one view or the other is
perfectly true, when they came to the kind of practical
truth with which they had t't deal, then he said the favour-
able view of society and of :van's nature was the view which
helped them most in practice, and it, and not the other,
had truth on its side, Depend upon it, they were able if
they would to draw out much that was good from those
around them, much that was good in their own minds, and
there was nothing so sure to crush, and dwarf, and wither
them, as the belief that nothing good would come, and that
they could achieve nothing gcoi for themselves and see
nothing good springing up around them. It was from the
opposite spirit that institutions like this arose, II ; took
it that the duty of every one of them was to consider his
own mind, to regard it as a great trust given him by
God. There was no greater mistake for a man to make than
to say, "My education is finished." It was never Snii,hed.
They were being taught by every day, by every book they
read, even though they did not agree with it; taught by
every social influence brought to bear upon them, and by
every opportunity of good when they made use of it. Their
education never ended, and therefore when an institute like
that prepared for its members a large amount of intellectual
food and recreation it did well. It was pointing out to its
members the duty of cultivating themselves to the highest,
It provided the proper means of cultivation, and thereby
kept reminding them to make a practical use of those powers
which God had given them. They might depend on it that
whatever was done by the school was carried on by the book
and the library, and both by the healthy food supplied and
the noxious poison it kept out, they were doing good to the
body politic and to the members of the Church of Christ.
(Loud applause.)

Artillery Experiments at Portsmouth.

The great cause of" Whitworth v. Armstrong"
entered upon a new phase on Monday in the com-
mencement of the trial of the three 70-pounder
rifled guns at Portsmouth, which have been con-
structed on the plans of Sir William Armstrong and
Mr Whit worth for competitive trial as naval ser-
vice guns. Two of these weapons have been fur-
nished by Sir William Armstrong, one being on the
wedge breech-loading, and the other on the shunt
muzzle-loading principle. The third gun is Mr
Whitworth's, on his ordinary muzzle-loading prin.
ciple, but it is fired from a rear vent leading to the
centre of the cartridge through a paper tube.
The members of the Commission appointed to
superintend and report upon the trials, which it is,
perhaps, necessary to state here are _ merely a con-
tinuation of those which have already occupied
their attention at Shoeburyness, arrived at Ports•
mouth by the early train from London yesterday
morning, and immediately embarked on board the
gunnery ship Excellent, Captain Astley, C. Key,
C. 8., on the port battery of which ship the three
guns were mounted, and whence the trials were to
commence.

of the gun's crew, and a fouling in the wedge
grooves. Changing the man's number at the gun
and washing out the grooves at once remedied the
defect, and caused the gun to work with its former
freedom.

The firing results with the 68-pounder smooth.
bore and the three rifled guns yesterday was as

follows :
Eight-inch (05 cwt.) smooth-bore gun, indepen-
dent firing, 1,800 yards range, lolb charge of powder,
hollow shot ; number of rounds fired, 20; time occu-
pied in firing, 14 min. 4 sec. Quick firing—Number
of rounds fired, 20; time occupied in firing. 9 min.
5 sees.

Whitworth rifled 70-pounder gun, rear-vent, in-.
dependent firing, 2,600 yards range, 101 b charge of
powder; number of rounds fired, 12; time occupied
in firing, 8 min.
Wedge Armstrong rifle gun, independent firing,
2,600 yards range, 91b charge of powder; number of
rounds fired, 12; time occupied in firing, 6 min.
45 sec.

Armstrong shunt rifled gun, independent firing,
2,600 yards range, 1911) charge of powder; number
of rounds fired, 12 ; time in firing, 9 min. 56 sec.
The shunt and wedge Armstrong guns the men
of the Excellent have been for some time accuse
tomed to. Mr Whitworth's gun with its rear vent
was a perfect stranger to them, and the first three
or four -rounds were fired in consequence more
slowly than they would have been had the men
firer previously from the gun, however short the
number of rounds might have been, and as a proof
of this there was a very marked decrease in the
time between each gun during the last six rounds
of the 12 fired.