The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-31 00:00:00

THE FAKIRS

(From the Dublin Evening Mail.)
Referring to the shocking details of the inquest on the
; infant TouctiE, in our last, we cannot refrain from making
a remark or two on the genius of those institutions, the mem-
bers of which, while they abjure the society of females,
claim, in a peculiar manner, the education and even nurture
of children. If monks were hermits, or recluses, in the
strict}; sense of the word, they would be comparatively a
harmess race of fanatics—a better sort of Fakirs. Man-
, kind might afford to bestow their meat and clothing on them,
„' and *hewthey that. was done, would have little else than
' pity to add to satisfy all the claims that superstition can
reasonallly set up against too tolerant benevolence. But,
when the -Fakir steps forth from his den—when the monk '
lopits his rirement, and carries the foul air of the cloister
into the schoolroom and nursery—when the very cradle of
innocent infancy is invaded by the harsh bands cf ascetics,
glorying in an unnatural exemption from all parental feel-
,ing—when fellows fit only to stand on one leg under a shed,
and let their nails grow through the palms of their hands,
assume the functions of females, dabbling in wash-tubs, and
among baby-linens—and well had it been for the world, if
their unnatural perversion of mind and body (virus etiam
muliebria poll) had stopped there—when, in a word, Jesuits
play the parts of privy councillors, and barefoot Carmelites
of dry-nurses, it is high time to hunt the Fakirs back to their
cells, if not to shut up the cells themselves, and send their
fanatical inmates to join their brother Dervishes in a more
congenial clime. How many of these Carmelites have
we here in Dublin? There is a dozen of them at Black-
rock; five and thirty at Clondalkin, and at their head-
'quarters in Aungier-street and Clarendou-street here
in the city, we know not how many—perhaps as many
more • for the returns fnrnished to the Clerk of the Peace,
in compliance with the provisions of the Relief Bill,
cannot be depended on, as showing their entire number.
They are above complying with an "act, which requires free
born British subjects to submit to this mode of registering
their names and professions in any office whatsoever ;" they
deem it " in every respect penal, and an infringement on the
liberty and privilege of the subject, and trust that a more
enlightened Senate will erase it, in common with every
remnant of the penal code from the statute book."—(Protest
01.81-other, P. J., LEONARD, Cork, September 15, 1829.)
We know of several monks at this moment residing in Dub-
lin, whose names are not entered with the Cleik of the Peace,
and we make no doubt that the return ordered by the House
of Commons to be printed on the 22d March, 18.36, does not
contain more than one-half the names of the societies and
other members of the church of Rome at present re-
sident in these countries. In fact, there have been little
more than half a dozen registrations since the years 1829 and
18.30, while the real increase of the fakirs has been notoriously
not Only by the dozen but by the hundred.
Whenever a country has been overrun by vermin of this
description, industry has languished, and liberty gives up the
ghost. Their tyranny, their baseness, their beastly perver-
sion of every natural passion and sentiment have, from time
to time, become so intolerable, that there is scarce a country
of Europe out of which they have not been successfully
ejected as a pestilential curse. They have been allowed to
settle here out of mere motives of humanity. Let them keep
to their cells; and we pity them and pass them by ; but when
they thrust themselves into the schools and nurseries—tuck-
ing up their sleeves for offices unnatural to men, they need
neither wonder nor complain, if we argue from what has been
to what may be, and begin in time to put the public on their
guard against attempts at the revival of such a monastic sys-
tem as caused the expulsion of religious orders out of these
countries once already, and will probably cause it again.

THE RELATION OF ATHEISM TO A FUTURE
STATE OF BEING.

BY JAMES STEELE.*

( From the Scottish Christian Herald )
Moral writers, in describing the appalling consequences
of atheism, enumerate, among others, a total oblivion of all
the fears and hopes of a world beyond the grave. They tell
us that the foot wbo says in his heart "there is no God," in
the same spirit of absurd impiety says also there is no here-
after—nought after death but "the dark, unbroken sleep of
nothingness." But let us, in dealing with the atheist, ever
bear in mind that the two points admit of being argued on
differeut grounds. Independently altogether of the existence
of a Supreme Being, we might argue for a future state on
the principle of a mere continued existence.
Discarding the idea of an infinite series of men, let us sup-
pose a point in remote antiquity, in which one man was
created. This being, whether the creation of chance, fate,
a fortuitous concussion of atoms, or whatever the atheist sub-
stitutes for a Supreme intelligent mind, might have started
into existence with the intellect of a Newton. In this there
is nothing incredible, even if the hypothesis of the atheist he
admitted; for surely the power, whatever it be, which
created a mind capable of producing the Principia, might
have conferred at once that vigour of intellect which was the
growth of years. This man, on surveying but his solitary
self, but the one unpeopled planet on which he stood, would,
by a rapid act of thought, land in the inference that that
which created him could create other beings, that that which
had given existence to one planet could have given existence
to others. He would not infer that creative energy had ex-
hausted itself in him, and the place of his abode. Nor
might this be all. On contemplating life, and if made aware,
by any means, of its cessation at death, he would not fail to
perceive that if there at first existed an energy sufficient to
have called him into existence from nothing, that same
energy could raise him from the dust, and make him to be
again all that he was before.
All this the atheistcould not deny. He may speak of the
improbability of future being, but its possibility he must ad-
mit. His own existence does away with all difficulty in the
case. His own reason must suggest that there is in this
ground for tormenting anxiety. The very uncertainty of the
case generates doubts of the most harassing description. The
very fact that he Pah), live for ever is sufficient to give a sting
to every pleasure. The hand-writing upon the wall is that
dread word—Eternity. He must, if he thinks at all, come
to this awful conclusion—the same power, however blind
and unintelligent, which placed me here, may transpose me
elsewhere : it may perpetuate all the pains I feel, increase
their number, and augment their intensity, and all this where
no wisdom rules, where no mercy pities, where chaos urn-
' pire sits," where all his hopeless woe and irremediable con-
fusion. It may be that my future destination may be a happy
one, but who can assure me that it will not equal in misery
all the felicity which is fabled of the heaven of the New Tes-
tament ?

And such is atheism. The man who, insensible to the
multitudinous proofs of the divine existence and attributes
which meet him on every hand, which press upon all his
senses, which occupy in their succession every moment of
his existence, can yet afford to deny his Creator, must, if he
thinks at all upon hisfuture destiny, contemplate but a chaos
of disorder. Under the influence of that moral disease which
he has suffered to obtain the mastery in his spirit, he can see
no truth in religion, no God, no mercy, no life and immor-
tality. Without believing in a place of punishment, he
realises, in his moments of most sober reflection, the essen-
tial evils of that place which, separated from the Divine pre-
sence, contains the fire which never shatl, be quenched, "the
worm that will not sleep and cannct die.

[* Author of "The Philosophy of the Evidences of Chris-
tianity," and of the " Manual of the Evidences." the very
able and interesting work we lately noticed, and which we
again cordially recommend to our readers.'

YARMOUTH ELECTION.—A very painful occurrence hap-
pened at the election. A poor fellow who took some part in
the election, declared that such was the interest he felt, that
if Baring lost the election he would hang himself. The poll
closed at four, and he bad effectually hung himself, and was
cut down before five o'clock.—Norwich Mercury.
- • -

SINGULAR CHARACTER.—Died at Heckington, Lincoln-
on Tuesday last, Hrs. Elizabeth Struggles, aged SI.
She had been a widow, and lived alone for many years, and
was very eccentric and penurious in her habits. Two or
three weeks before her death, on one of her sons visiting her
as usual to inquire after her health, she began to be aware
that 'her time was not long for this world, and requested him
then or at some future time not to forget to take up one or
two bricks of the floor near the hearth-stone. The hint was
promptly attended to, and he found a stone jar, containing
260 three-shilling pieces: raising a few more bricks, he
brought to light another similar vessel, containing silver of
different coins to the amount of £3B 12s. 6d.; and not yet
thinking it prudent to give up the search, he persevered, and
other snug corners produced about 30 sovereigns. This was
not all before her death : what is to come now she is gone re-
' mains to be proved. We fancy if the executors were to sell
the house, persons might be found to speculate upon further
findings.—Cambridge Chronicle.