The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-13


influence in England that Dean Stanley
is by no means what we know here as a polG-
cal preacher. To say that he is one Of tba
finest and ripest scholars of whom the Emo.
lish Church can boast, and that his place
among men of letters is far above the salt.
is to say what everybody knows who knows
anything either of the English Church or of
English letters. But he is a living man of
the world 1--WE use the phrase in its best
sense) as well as a scholar and man of let
ters. He was married a few years ago TO one.
of the sisters of the late Sir Frederick Bruce,
a lady whom many travelled Americans know
and honor as one of the truest and most
intelligent friends whom we possess in
Great Britain; and, as the relations both of
DR.. Stanley and of his wife with their sove-
reign are notoriously those of near personal
friendship, it may be safely assumed that, in
selecting his theme and the day for treating
his theme, the Dean of Westminster was gov
erned by political considerations, although Of
no vulgar or ignoble kind. The sermon, in
deed, may be taken as a semi-olfical decara-
tion that the highest parsonage in the British
realm earnestly desires that peace, goodwill,
and justice may prevail between her people
and ourselves The Queen of Great Britain,
it is true cannot control either a single pow
ertul press or a fragment of a political party
III her own dominions She does not even
vote; and if we are to believe the ladies of
the RCUOJUtiOB, she is therefore, but an insig-
niticant and helpless sort of person. But she
is, notwithstanding all this genuine power
in Britain. Her spirit and her proclvities
have a real influence; and it is not trihing
thing that, in this matter of the existing irri-
tation between England and America, the
spirit of the English sovereign should be Just
and her proclvities pacific.
We doubt, on the whole whether those who
are esteemed to be hostile to us in the
English world of opinion heed Dean Stanleys
admontions so much as those who are con-
spicuousy ''by way of being friendly to us.
So far as America is concerned, the leading
sin of English comment upon us and our
affairs is its more or less consciously super
cihOIs tone and this is decidedly more pro-
voking from professed well-wisher than
from an open or a probable enemy. The
foolishness of such a friend, for example, as
Mr.. Goodwin Smith, who thinks our news
papers want elevation of tone" because they
sometimes quiz the hat and boots of H. c..
is good deal harder to bear than the vtu-
peration of such thorough foe as Roebuck
That man grown, and professor at that,
who has seen the plaid trowsers of Lord
Brougham and his shocking bad hat shown
up in all possible forms i'll all sorts of British
journals ever since he could read, should be
scandaliZed when Americans take like liber-
ties with their own public characters is
insulting, because II llnpleS tnat, IN the
professors Judgment, we are a raw and in
ferior kind of people for whom there is no
escape from sOlemnity save into malice Or.
when the Times again treats the Boston
Peace Festival as a serious indication that
the American people, after all, are not so
savage and blood-thirsty as their general ways
and manners would lead people to fancy, it is
hard to elect between laughing at the absurd
ity and Icing vexed by the impertinence
What Dean Stanley seems to have laid to
healt-the fact, namely, that England and
America must henceforth treat each other
with the frank courtesy and unreserved JUS
tice of equals, if they are to maintain friendly
relations at all-is simple thing enough for
us. But it is very far from being really and
generally apprehended in England. And so
we hope that the Deans discourse may help
to do a real good in England which greatly
needs to be done there. Those who would
just now be most benefited by it on our side
of the house, we fear it will hardly touch
Sumner and his associates, having taken up
England for a thorough dressing" from the
''highly moral pedagogic, and parenetic
point of view, will hardly be persuaded to
subside into Christians and gentlemen even
by kindly sermon preached in London on
the Fourth of July by one of the chaplains of
the granddaughter of George III.