The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-14 00:00:00

Driftwood, Seaweed, and batten Leaves. By the

Rev. J. Cumming, D.D., F.R.S.E. Two vols.

Hurst and Blackett.
If Dr. Cumming had compressed the collection
of misceilaneous papers which bears this shiguial
title into at least half its present compass, the re-
sult would have been more satisfactory to his

readers : if be had likewise borne in mind that tilt

affairs of the Papacy do not occupy the same posi-
tion in very one's view that they do in his own, it

would likewise have been more creditable to himself.

Dr. Cumming is one of the many able and earnest
men who find it difficult to act up to their own

precepts. He says in his preface, "He is a narrow

minded bigot who denounces every estimate of men
and things which is not taken by his side and in

his light. What he thinks prejudice may be true
philosophy ; what he sets down as sectarianism may
be a side-light at truth." We recommend the

reverend doctor to study his own teaching, and we

shall not again meet with essays entitled,

" The

Wild Beast and his Keeper," or coarse ex-

pressions of abuse referring to eminent digni-
taries of a faith which may differ from
his own. The subject of Catholicism, or
" Popery," as he courteously designates it, appears
to possess fatal fascination for Dr. Cumming, his
second volume containing nearly thirty essays on
. •

subjects directly connected with it. We meet a ith
" The Pope in Extremis," " The Cardinal Crow-
ing," "An Imperial Penitent," "The Court of
Rome and the Jesuits," at every turn of the leaf, till

we are inclined to think the work must have been

penned for the purpose of reading over the ashes of
defunct Guys on the memorable fifth of November,

The author remarks tnat Driftwood makes it

cheery fire of a winter evening," but certainly such
driftwood as we have here can only be intended
tor the bonfires that adventurous urchirs delight
to raise to the memory of Fawkes. 'Such in-
tolerance is the more to be regretted because the
author can sometimes rise entirely above it. Thus
in a paper on India and England, he deals with
the religious difficulties of our Indian adminis-
tration in a fair, temperate, and manly spiri•.
"In India," he says, after asserting his advocacy at
home of an established Church, " we are so few, and
the tiindoo and Mahommedan population so many
—their hatred of Christianity so fierce, and their
disposition to construe the least aggressive reli-
gious effort on the part of the Government into an
assault on their superstition is so constant, that in
these special circumstances, and in the exercise of
the conciliation without compromise, we are bound
to tolerate all creeds, and at present support none,
in India, by grants from the public treasury.
Let our representatives provide abundantly
chaplains for British troops, and leave open
doors and freedom of action to the labours and
preaching of our missionaries, and suffer no man to
be injured because he holds fast or abjures his creed,
because he belongs to a low caste or a high one.
But let there be no attempt to bribe or coerce the
consciences of any ; no donations to Brahma or
Budha or Juggernaut, no insult to the greatest
superstition compatible with law and order, and yet
no concealment of our precious and glorious faith."
Just and wise as these words undoubtedly are, we
cannot but fear that had the Pope been in autho
rity in Hindostan, they would never have been
written. This inveteracy narrows much of the in-
terest of the work, which otherwise might have
been read by Protestants and Catholics alike.
Dr. Cumming writing on Ragged Schools, on
American Poets and Prose Writers, on Practical
Education, on Types of Preaching, on the Changes
of the Year and the Warnings of the Seasons, is
very different from Dr. Cumming assaulting the
Jesuits or jubilating over the anticipated overthrow
of the Papacy. There are often passages which dis
play good sense, discernment, and even eloquence,
although the latter quality has some extravagance
as a drawback. A fervent admiration of the beau-
ties of nature is also largely shown, while there is
throughout the earnest advocacy of a religious life
which might be expected from an eminent preacher
like Dr. Cumming. We cite a passage from a paper
on Religion and Public Life which affords a favour-
able specimen of Dr. Cumming's style and teaching
unwarped by religious intolerance:—
One of the fatal errors of the day- is the notion that reli
giun and politics ought to be dissociated. With the be-
lievers in this theory, religion is regarded as a nun, visible
on Sundays, but of necessity shut up in cloistral sequestra•
tion during the week. They think Christianity an outer
garment, most becoming at church, but of far too delicate
and ethereal a fabric to be worn in the trafac, turmoil, and
contentions of every-day work. In these notions there is a
fatal misapprehension. We are no advocates of a preten-
tious and Pharasaic Christianity, We suspect the piety
that cannot write an invitation to dinner without inter-
spersing it with texts, or converse on the weather without
dragging n reflections precious in themselves, but insulted
and injured by thoughtless and irrevorent handling. Re-
ligion, as the inspiration of polities, is neither heard nor
seen, but felt. It is not the electric element in the jar,
sparkling and crackling, but the same element pervading
the earth, warming and fertilising, and discovered in after
days only in the golden harvest of autumn. True religion
should regulate national policy, rule the market, preside at
the exchange, decide the vote of the citizen, and inspire the
speech of the caniidate. It should reign everywhere, In
truth, all space is temple ground, all acts worship, and all
hours divine; and everywhere, and in every relation of
social life, man is to be—not talk or pretend, but be—the
Christian. We ought to carry into all life's individucl
eddies or national cataracts—into its hidden nooks and
public places, its bypaths and common roads—the whole
force and splendour of a celestial proseenoe, evermore
striving to raise the temperature of earth to that of heaven,
and to mould the policy of nations after that of the "king-
dom that cannot be moved."
We close these volumes with regret that a man of
character and standing should have thought fit to
publish such wholesale abuse of the faith of so large
a body of his fellow-creatures, instead of inculcating
the charity that hopeth all things, the love and
forbearance which all who assume the name of
Christians were commanded to bear to one another.
Surely, it would be more consonant with the office
of a Christian minister of any denomination to
encourage that toleration which is always among
the rarest of the virtues, than to encourage those
fierce antagonisms and jealous hatreds ever too
ready to spring up betty. en those of opposing
creeds. It is not by angry denunciations that he
will succeed in confirming the waverer and detach
ing the convert. Only those who think exactly as
he does can find pleasure or profit in such discourse,
and we reiterate our regret that so large a presence
of the polemical element should interfere with the
satisfaction of the general reader who culls these
" fallen leaves,"

THE MARCHIONESS OF QUEENSBERRY.—The
following letter appears in the Globe :—" In your
columns of the 2d or 3d inst. you inserted a statement re-
garding the Marchioness of Queensberry, which from
beginning to end was utterly false. Your correspondent
omits to state why her ladyship quitted England, so that
to people (who are ignorant of the reason, and reading
his account) it would appear that her ladyship had com-
mitted a crime, and on that account been obliged to leave
England. The crioie, if crime there be, consisted in
her ladyship having thought proper to change her views
and become a Catholic, and for fear of being deprived
of her children she went for safety to the Continent.
But the main cause of my writing to you is to contradict
entirely the statements made about the night departure,
the letter of defiance, and the change of name. Her lady-
ship started from her residence at 11 in the morning, and
not at night. Her ladyship loft no letter of defiance, and
never wrote at all till she was in France, when she wrote
to the guardians and law officers to say how sorry she was
for the trouble she wa vying them. And lastly, her lady-
I ship never went by the name of yt rs. Brown at Boulogne,
nor any other name but her own. Yout correspondent then
goes on to say that no expostulation, no offer of conciliation,
and no argument will induce her ladyship to bring her
three younger children back to Scotland. On the contrary,
her ladyship will return with them directly a promise is
given her that she may bring them up after her own

VERDICT OF WILFUL MURDEB.—It will be re
membered that a serious case of assault took place
at Berwick on the night of the Ist November, being hiring
day, when a farm servant named Thomas Hamilton was
inveighled into heavy drinking by a man of indifferent cha-
racter, named William Deans, robbed by him of his watch
and money, and kicked so severely in the back that his
spine was fractured, and he died Deo 25. An inquest has
since been held on the body, which, after repeated adjourn-
ments and a minute inquiry into the facts, terminated on
Friday evening, when the jury, altor a quarter of an
hour's deliberation, returnei
against the prisoner. 1 a verdict of wilful murder
at the sprir— , 7illiam Deans. Deans will be tried
I - assizes foi Northumberland. He has already
confessed to robbing the deceased, but denies that he
Paasaulted him,—Edtnburgh Courant,