Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1869-12-31 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

STOCKTON HERALD.  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1869.  CROSS-ROADS, MAPS, AND MILEPOSTS.  CROSS-ROADS, like cross purposes, are sometimes very perplexing. • To the right, to the left, or straight on, which is it to be? This perplexity is continually confronting all who, to use the quaint language of Bunyan, "have put on a show of pilgrimage." The favourite popular advice of "follow your nose" is hardly safe here, unless you have an experienced Mentor, who can impart to the nasal guide the proper initial direction. Maps are all very well foie those who can afford to buy, or, having bought, are able to understand them; but for the ignorant or unlettered wayfarer some contrivange is wanted much more simple and intelligible. Writing not for those who are wiser than their teachers—and we trust, for their own sakes, they are many—but rather for that large multitude who are pursuing life's pilgrimage friendless, guideless, 'napless, and alone, and reaching, as they are now doing, that stand-point of the year's journey where, it may be, some perplexing cross-road cuts in two the highway along which they have been travelling, we feel sure we shall not appeal to them in vain for a blessing on the man who invented mile-posts. Let blessings, then, like charity, begin at home; and, on this principle, blessed be the memory of the late Sir William Turner, of Kirkleatham, to whom we believe we are indebted for those innumerable mute directors which guide the pilgrim through the dales and over the moors of Cleveland. For their unpretentious and inexpensive guidance there are few who have not had reason to feel grateful. Even on the loveliest summer's day, with the rival attractions of sea and land on either side, and the unfieck'd blue above, the traveller, hungry, dusted, and footsore, feels the miles grow very long as, hill upon hill surmounted, hill upon hill' still remains; and who, save those who have experienced it, can understand the sinking at heart, the collapse of purpose which seizes him when he comes at last to some unexpected cross-road, and finds nothing to tell him the way. he is to go. If, in this extremity, he discovers in the hedge-row an inartistic wooden cross, stretching out its welcome arms, and mutely telling him not only which is not, but also which is, the right way, and assuring him that he is only a short distance from his journey's end, his heart takes courage, his muscles resume their play, he invokes a blessing on the benefactor who set up the friendly guide, and goes on his way rejoicing. Cross-roads, moreover, have a strategetic importance. The military commander knows this, and sometimes very successfully acts upon this knowledge. The eagle eye of Wellington saw at a glance the advantages of the position of Quatre Bras; and, but for unforeseen circumstances, here, probably, and not at Waterloo, would have been fought out the battle which was to decide the fate of nations for years to come. Yet even in military tactics cross-roads are an element of distraction in a general's calculations, as Napoleon proved to his cost. This same cross-road, so says one of his biographers, was the main, if not the sole, cause of that irretrievable miscarriage which sent Grouchy with his thirty thousand men after the Prussians on the wrong track, and thus detached them from the decisive engagement which took place two days afterwards, in which their presence might have turned a defeat into a victory.  Cross-roads also occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of crime. Here, in the twilight and in the dark, lurks the highwayman, listening for the footfalls of the benighted traveller from all points of the compass. Hither, too, in days gone by, the poor felo de se was taken and staked to his mother earth; and hither, also, on a hurdle, vengeful justice used to drag her victim, and hang him up in chains, as a ghastly reminder, to all whom it might concern of the certainty of human retribution. This is a long and, as some of our readers may think, a not very relevant introduction to the subject for which we wish to bespeak attention—viz., the prospect which opens out to the English Church at the close or one of the most eventful years she has ever been called to pass through. It was the wisdom and boast of her Reformers to steer a middle course between two extremes—to fence the precious treasures committed to her apostolic predecessors by welldefined guards, at the same time allowing to her ministers considerable latitude on all questions not deemed of vital importance. They put into the hands of her children a Book containing apostolic and time-honoured creeds; articles defining the truth as she held it; and a Liturgy which seemed to meet every requirement of the intellect, • while satisfying every ,clt7 aspiration of the soul. They caused to here to the apostolic order in her ministry and fenced her fold, as they thought, by ests, which would render it well-nigh impossibl for any stranger to break through and mislead her sheep, or wolf climb over to devour them. In a word, they made the highway to heaven plain for the poorest of her children, furnished them with a map showing the one true and the many false ways, and at every cross-road set up mileposts to point the way and tell the distance. Who were those mile-posts 1 Her bishops, priests, and deacons! the generals and officers of a great lay army, which, with a docility surpassed only by its bravery, cheerfully, as a rule, followed their command, neyer doubting the reliability of their judgment. Of late, however, it has been painfully manifest that these ecclesiastical mile-posts are not to be trusted. They have proved very misleading to many travellers. In some cases the names of the places and distances have become obliterated or illegible; in some the dire6llg hands have dropped down; while in others the post itself has been completely turned round, so that the hand which once pointed to Zion now