The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-12 00:00:00

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S ADDRESS AT TAMWORTH

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Now, independent of all other considerations, the great
difference in a piactical light, between the objects of Chris-
tianity and of heathen belief, is this—that glory, science,
knowledge, and whatever other fine names we use, never
healed a wounded heart, nor changed a sinful one ; but
Christ's word is with power. The ideas which. Christianity
brings before us are in themselves full of influence, and they
are endowed with a supernatural gift over and above, in order
to meet the special exigencies of our nature. Knowledge is
not " power," nor is glory " the first and only fair" • but
" grace," or " the word," by whichever name we call it,
has been from the first a quickening, renovating, organizing
principle. It has new-created the individual, and diffused
and knit him into a social body, composed of members each
similarly created. It has cleansed man of his moral diseases,
raised him to hope and energy, given him to propagate a
brotherhood among his fellow-men, to form a large family
or rather kingdom of saints all over the earth, and with won-
derful vigour prolonged its original impulse down to this
day. Each one of us has lit his lamp from his neighbour,
or received it from his fathers, and the lights thus kindled
are to-day as strong and as clear as if 1,800 years had not
passed since the original of the sacred flame. What has glory
or knowledge done like this ? Can it raise the dead ? can it
create a polity ? can it do more than testify man's need and
typify God's remedy ?
And yet, in spite of all this, when we have an instrument
given us, capable of changing the heart, great orators and
statesmen are busy, forsooth, with their heathen charms and
nostrums, their sedatives, correctives, or restoratives ; as
preposterously as if we were to build our men of war, or con-
duct our iron works on the principles approved in Cicero's
day. The utmost that Lord Brougham seems to propose to
himself in the education of the mind, is to keep out bad
ideas by good—a great object, doubtless, but not so great in
conception, as is the destruction of the appetency for bad in
Christian fact. " Every one," he says in his Discourse upon
the Objects and advantages of Science, " is amused with
reading a story, a romance may please some, and a fairy tale
may entertain others ; but no benefit is derived from this
source ; the imagination is gratified. Accidents, adventures,
anecdotes, crimes, and a variety of other things' amuse us,
independent of the information respecting public affairs, in
which we feel interested as citizens of the state, or as mem-
bers of a particular body. Most persons who take delight in
reading tales of ghosts, which they know to be false, and feel
all the while to be silly in the extreme, are merely gratified,
or rather occupied with the strong emotions of horror excited
by the momentary belief, for it can only last an instant.
Such reading is a degrading waste of precious time, and has
even had effect on the feelings and the, judgment. But true
stories of horrid crimes, as murders, and pitiable misfortunes
—as shipwrecks, are not much more instructive. It may be
better to read these than to sit yawnine and idle, much bet-
ter than to sit drinking or gaminK, which, when carried to
the last excess, are crimes in 'themselves, and the fruitful
parents of many more. But.this is nearly as much as can
be said of such vain and unprofitable reading. If it can
be a pleasure to gratify curiosity, to know what we were ig-
norant of, to have our feelings of wonder called forth; how
pure a delight of this very kind does natural science hold out
to its students?.... Akin to this pleasure of contemplating
new and extraordinary truths is the gratification of
.a more
learned curiostiy, by tracing resemblances and relations be-
tween things which to common apprehension seem widely
different." And in the same way Sir Robert tells us of a
devout curiosity. In all cases curiosity is the means, diver-
sion of mind the highest end ; and though of course Y will
not assert 'that Lord Brougham, and certainly not that Sir
Robert Peel, denies any higher kind of morality, yet when
he rises above Benthamisni, in which he often indulges, into
what may be called Broughamism proper. be commonly
gras.ps at nothing more real and substantihl.than these Cice-
ronian ethics.

In morals, as in physics, the spring cannot rise higher than
its source. Christianity raises mewfroin earth, for it comes
from Heaven ; but human morality creeps, - struts, or frets
upon the earth's level, without wings to rise. The Know-
ledge School does not contemplate raising man Above him-
self;. it merely Aims at disposing of his existing powers and
tastes, as is most convenient or practicable under circum-
stances. It finds him, like the victims of the French Tyrant,
doubled up in a cage in which he can neither lie, stand,---sit,
nor kneel, and its highest desire is to find an attitude in which
his unrest may be least. Or it finds him, dike some musical,
instrument, of great power and compass, but imperfect ; from
its very structure some keys must ever be out of tune, and
the object, when ambition is highest, is to throw the fault
of its nature where 'least it will be observed. It leaves
man where it found him—man, and not an angel—a sinner,
not a saint; but it tries to make him look as much like what
he is not as ever it can. The poor indulge in low pleasures ;
they use bad language, swear loudly and profanely, laugh at
coarse jests, and are rude and boorish. Sir Robert would
open on them a wider range of thought and more intellectual
objects, by teaching them science ; but what warrant will be
given us that, if his object could be achieved, what they
would gain in decency they would not lose in natural humility
and awe? If so, he has exchanged a gross fault for a more
• subtle one. " Temperapce topicsp, stop drinking ; let us
suppose it ; but will much be gained, if those who give up
spirits take to opium'? Naturam expellas furcd, tarnen
usque recurret, is a heathen truth, though a Christian fable;
and universities and libraries which recur to heathenism may
reclaim it from the heathen for their motto. Nay, every
where, so far as human nature remains hardly or partially
Christianized, the heathen law remains in force ; and is felt

in a measure even in the most religious places and societies.
Even there, where Christianity has power, the venom of the
old Adam is not subdued.. Those who ave to do with our
colleges give us their experience, that in the case of the
young committed to their care, external discipline can but
change the fashionable sin, but cannot allay the principle of
sinning. Stop cigars, they will take to drinking parties ;
stop drinking, they gamble ; stop gambling, and a worse
libense follows. You do not get rid of vice by human expe-
dients ; you can but use them according to circumstances,
and in their place. You must go to a higher source for
renovation of heart and will. You do . but play a'sort of
" hunt the slipper" with the sin of our nature till you go to
Christianity.

I say, you must use human method in this place, and there
they are useful ; but they are worse than useless out of their
place. I have no fanatical wish to deny to any subject of
thought or method of reason a place altogether, if it chooses
to claim it, in the cultivation of the mind. •Dr. Bentham
may despise verse making, or Mr. Dugald Stewart logic, but
the great and true maxim is to sacrifice none—to combine,
and therefore to adjust all. All cannot be first, and there-

fore to adjust all. All cannot be first, and therefore each has
its place and the problem is to find it. , It is at least not a

lighter fault to make what is secondary first than to leave it

out altogether. Here then it is that tbe.Knowledge Society,
Gower-street College, Tamworth Reading-room, Sir Robert
Peel, and Lord Brougham, are all so deplorably mistaken.
Christianity, and nothing short of it, must be made the ele-
ment and principle of all education. Where it has been laid

as the first stone, and acknowledged as the governing spirit,
it will take up into itself, assimilate, and give a character t•
literature and science. Where revealed truth has given the
aim and direction to knowledge, knowledge of all kinds will
minister to revealed truth, The evidences of religion, natu-
ral theology, metaphysics,—or, again, poetry, history, and
the classics,—or physics and mathematics, may be grafted
into the mind of a Christian, and give and take from the
grafting. But if in education we begin with nature before
grace, with evidences before faith, with science before con-
science, with poetry before practice, we shall be doing much
the same as if we were to indulge the passions and turn a deaf

ear to the reason. In each case we misplace what in its place
is a divine gift. If we attempt to effect a moral improvement
by means of poetry, we shall but mature into a mawkish,
frivolous, and fastidious sentimentalism—if by means of ar-

gument, into a dry unamiable longheadedness—if by good so-
ciety into a polished outside, with hollowness within, in

which vice hadlost its grossness, and perhaps increased, its
malignity—if by experimental science, into an uppish super-
cilious, temper, much inclined_to scepticism. But reverse
_ _

the order of things ; put faith first ana knowledge second;
let the university minister to the church, and then classical

poetry becomes the type of gopel trnth,:and physical science

• d
a comment on Genesis or Jo and Aristotle changes into
Butler, and Arcesilas into Berkeley.
Far from recognising this principle the teachers of the
knowledge school would educate from natural theology up to
christianity, and would amend the heart through literature
and philosophy.
_Lord Brougham gives out that " hprce,

forth; notbirig shall prevail over Rs to praise or to blame any
one for" his belief, " which he can no more change than he
can the hue of his skin or the height of his stature." And
Sir Robert, whose profession and life give the lie to his phi-
losophy, founds a library into which " no works of contro-
versial divinity shall enter," that is, no doctrinal works at

all; and he tells us that "an increased sagacity will make
men not merely believe in the cold doctrines of natural re-

ligion, but that it will so prepare and temper the spirit and
understanding that they will be better qualified to compre-
hend thegreat scheme of human redemption," And again,
Lord Brougham considers that " the pleasures of science

tend not only to make our lives more agreeable but better ;"
and Sir Robert responds, that " he entertains the hope that
there will be the means afforded of useful occupation and

rational recreation; that men will prefer the pleasures of
knowledge above the indulgence of sensual appetite, and that
there is a prospect of contributing to the intellectual and
moral improvement of the neighbourhood."
Can the 19th century produce no more robust and creative
philosophy than this ? CATHOLICUS.

CHURCH EXTENSION IN THE METROPOLIS.--White's-
row Chapel, Spitalfields, for the last thirty years a Dissent-
ing' meeting-house, and late in the occupation of the Rev.
Robert Aiken, M.A., who has so recently conformed to the
government and discipline of the Church, was opened last
Sunday, by virtue of a license from the Bishop of London,
as a district chapel, in connection with the parochial church,
and three sermons were preached, by the Rev. Mr. Stone,
the Rector of Spitalfields ; The Rev. Mr. Taylor, of All-
Saints, Mile-end, New-town ; and the Rev. J. Jackson, of
St. Peter's, Globe-fields. No stated minister is yet ap-
pointed ; but the duty at this chapel will at present be per.:
formed by the ministers of the various district churches in
the neighbourhood, who have agreed to divide the labour be-
tween them. The building has undergone a complete re-
pair and alterations necessary to the observance of the forms
and ceremonies of the Church. The sittings, which are cal-
culated to afford accommodation for upwards of 700 persons,
are mostly free, the opening of the chapel being principally
for the benefit of the poorer classes in this crowded neigh-
bourhood. The want of church accommodation in thig
densely populated district has been long severely felt, as is
fully evinced by the crowded state of the new churches which
have been lately opened, and which are filled every Sunday
with regular and attentive congregations. Another of the
Bethnal-green new churches in the Hackney-road is in a very
forward state, and will, it is said, be consecrated in a few
weeks.

Sir,—There are two schools of philosophy flourishing at
this day, as at others, neither of these accepting Christian
principles as the guide of life, yet both of them unhappily
patronised by persons whom it would be the worst and most
cruel uncharitableness to suspect of unbelief. Mr. Bentham
is the master of the one ; and Sir Robert Peel is a disciple of
the other. Mr. Bentham's system has nothing ideal about
it ; he is a stern realist, and he limits his realism to things
which he can see, hear, taste, touch, and handle. He does
not acknowledge the existence of anything which he cannot
ascertain for himself. Exist it may uevertheless, but, till it
make itself felt, to him it exists not; till it comes down to
him, and he is very short-sighted, it is not recognised by him
as having a coexistence with himself, any more than the Em-
peror of China by the European family of kings. With him
a being out of sight is a being out of mind ; nay, he allows
not'the claims of traces or glimpses to regard, but to know a
little and not much is to know'nothing at all. With him to
speak truth is to speak with a meaning ' • and to imagine, to
guess, to doubt, or to falter, is much the same as to lie.
What opinion will such an iron thinker entertain of Cicero's
" glory," or Lord Brougham's " truth," and Sir Robert's
" scientific consolations," and all those airy nothings which
are my proper subject of remark, and which I have in view,
when by way of contrast I make mention of the philosophy
of Bentham ?
And yet the doctrine of the three eminent orators whom I
have ventured to criticise has in it much that is far nobler
than Benthamism, their misfortune being, not that they look
for an excellence above the beaten path or life, but that
whereas Christianity has told us what that. excellence is,
Cicero lived before it was given, and Lord Brougham and
Sir Robert Peel prefer his involuntary error to their own
inherited truth. Surely, there is something unearthly and
superhuman in spite of Bentham ; but it is not glory, or
knowledge, or any abstract idea of virtue, but great and good
tidings which need not here be particularly mentioned, and
the pity is, that these Christian statesman cannot be content
with what is divine without hankering after what was hea-
then.