Page images
PDF
EPUB

still to say, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal," would we add, "but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." We must not condescend to rivalry: that is at once above and beneath us. In the outward and visible, those who have most of the power and wealth of the nation may easily excel, may keep us at a ridiculous distance; but in the inward and spiritual we may excel, have far excelled them; and this is our glory and strength. Wherefore our emulation and our contest should always be about living principles. In the free spirit of Independency we should appropriate whatever is excellent in all denominations, but never affect what is erroneous or empty in any. And while our rule should be to conform whenever we can, and dissent only when we must, believing dissent itself, as every change, to be an evil justified but by necessity, we must not conform when words are misapplied, used in a sense dictated by pride, and productive of delusion. From this we must dissent; against this we must protest. We must " witness" against any application of the term "church" but that of the New Testament to the

[blocks in formation]

It will not be replied, What matters the name by which we call our places of worship? For if of no consequence, why change at all, seeing that change always demands a reason-a reason stronger than is needed for continuance ? But though it may be quite indifferent what is the precise name of any house of worship, except indeed it is named after one of the saints, whether it shall be called a "chapel" or a "church" is a momentous question, as all will admit who are acquainted with ecclesiastical history and the errors wrapped up in this term.. And in truth I should be glad, and tens of thousands with me, to learn upon what grounds an Independent Chapel can possibly be called a "Congregational Church?" I therefore venture to propose this question through the CHRISTIAN WITNESS, thinking it sufficiently important, since the Man of Sin was once a little child"a proper child”—and one of promise.

Wishing you strength and grace for your abundant labours, I am, ever yours in simplicity and godly sincerity,

A PROTESTANT DISSENTER INDEED.

་་

ON WATER DRINKING.

BY ALBERT BARNES.

Temperance.

“Drink no longer water," 1 TIM. v. 23. THERE has been much difficulty felt in regard to the connection which this advice has with what precedes and what follows. Many have considered the difficulty to be so great, that they have supposed that this verse has been displaced, and that it should be introduced in some other connection. The true connection and reason for the introduction of the counsel here seems to me to be this: Paul appears to have been suddenly impressed with the thought a thought which is very likely to come over a man who is writing on the duties of the ministry-of the arduous nature of the ministerial office. He was giving counsels in regard to an office which required a great amount of labour, care, and anxiety. The labours enjoined were such as to demand all the time; the care and anxiety incident to such a charge would be very likely to prostrate the frame and injure the health. Then

VOL. V.

he remembered that Timothy was yet but a youth; he recalled his feebleness of constitution and his frequent attacks of illness; he recollected the very abstemious habits which he had prescribed for himself; and in this connection he urges him to a careful regard for his health, and prescribes the use of a small quantity of wine, mingled with water, as a suitable medicine in his case. Thus considered, this direction is as worthy to be given by an inspired teacher as it is to counsel a man to pay a proper regard to his health, and not needlessly to throw away his life. (Compare Matt. x. 23.) The phrase, "Drink no longer water," is equivalent to "Drink not water only." The Greek word here used does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament.

"But use a little wine," mingled with water-the common method of drinking wine in the East-"for thy stomach's sake." It was not for the pleasure to be derived from the use of wine, or because it would produce hilarity or excitement, but solely because it was regarded as

K

necessary for the promotion of health, that is, as a medicine. "And thine often infirmities," weakness or sicknesses. The word would include all infirmities of the body, but seems to refer here to some attacks of sickness to which Timothy was liable, or some feebleness of constitution; but beyond this we have no information with regard to the nature of his maladies. In view of this passage, and as a further explanation of it, we may make the following remarks:

1. The use of wine and of all intoxicating drinks was solemnly forbidden to the priests under the Mosaic law, when engaged in the performance of their sacred duties, Lev. x. 9, 10. The same was the case among the Egyptian priests. It is not improbable that the same thing would be regarded as proper among those who ministered in holy things under the Christian dispensation: the natural feeling would be, and not improperly, that a Christian minister should not be less holy than a Jewish priest, and especially when it was remembered that the reason of the Jewish law remained the same-" that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, clean and unclean."

2. It is evident from this passage that Timothy usually drank water only, or that, in modern language, he was a "Teetotaler." He was evidently not in the habit of drinking wine, or he could not have been exhorted to do it.

3. He must have been a remarkably temperate youth to have required the authority of an apostle to induce him to drink even 66 a little wine." There are few young men so temperate as to require such an authority to induce them to do it.

4. The exhortation extended only to a very moderate use of wine. It was not to drink it freely; it was not to drink it at the tables of the rich and great, or in

the social circle; it was not even to drink it by itself: it was to use a little," mingled with water-for this was the usual method.

5. It was not as a common drink; but the exhortation or command extends only to its use as a medicine. All the use which can be legitimately made of this injunction-whatever conclusion may be drawn from other precepts-is, that it is proper to use a small quantity of wine for medicinal purposes.

6. There are many ministers of the gospel now, alas! to whom, under no circumstances whatever, could an apostle apply this exhortation-"Drink no longer water only." They would ask with surprise what he meant? whether he intended it for irony or banter?-for they need no apostolic command to drink wine. Or, if he should address to them the exhortation, "Use a little wine," they could regard it only as a reproof for their usual habit of drinking much. To many the exhortation would be appropriate, if they ought to use wine at all, only because they are in the habit of using so much that it would be proper to restrict them to a much smaller quantity.

7. This whole passage is one of great value to the cause of Temperance. Timothy was undoubtedly in the habit of abstaining wholly from the use of wine. Paul knew this, and did not reprove him for it; he manifestly favoured the general habit, and only asked him to depart, in some small degree, from it, in order that he might restore and preserve his health. So far, and no farther, is it right to apply this language to the use of wine; and the minister who should follow this injunction would be in no danger of disgracing his sacred profession by the debasing and demoralizing sin of intemperance!

Education.

REPORTS OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN WALES.

To the Editor of the Christian Witness. SIR,-In the year 1842 the Committee of the British and Foreign School Society, at the request of the Committee of Council on Education, made under the fairest assurances of friendliness and impartiality, recommended the schools connected with their Institution in the neighbourhood of London, to admit, purely as matter of

courtesy, the inspection of Mr. Seymour Tremen here on behalf of the Government. No sooner, however, was the Report of this gentleman presented to them, than they found it necessary to protest, in the most earnest manner, against "the spirit and tendency of the whole document," as an "elaborate attempt to bring their schools into disrepute, and to hold them up to the subscribers and public as unworthy of support." They passed a series of resolutions for their lordships in council, which assume almost the form of an indictment against the inspector;

charging him, in seven different counts, with having grossly violated the express understanding on which inspection had been permitted at all. One of these is, that though it had been guaranteed to them that he should have no authority to examine into the religious instruction given in the schools, he nevertheless did so; and "furnished certain ludicrous and extravagant replies of confused children, as specimens of their scriptural instruction." Whoever will take the trouble to examine these " specimens❞ given by Mr. Tremenhere, from some of the best British schools in London, will discover a wonderful family resemblance between them and those imported from Wales by Messrs. Symons, Lingen, and Johnson. If, then, the Committee of the British and Foreign School Society justly and indignantly refused to admit these "ludicrous and extravagant replies," as a fair index of the information possessed by the children in their schools, with what far greater reason may the friends of education in Wales decline to be judged by the same test, which, in their case, is yet far more inapplicable and deceptive? To see this, we have only to reflect for a moment on the circumstances under which these precious "specimens" were procured. You are to imagine, Mr. Editor, a number of poor frightened Welsh children, with some vague idea of their being about to be subjected to a trial, which is to be reported to the government in London, placed in awful array before Mr. Commissioner Symons and his interpreters, the former standing, as he describes himself somewhere in the Report, with note-book and pencil in hand, to copy verbatim at the time" the "ludicrous and extravagant replies" for which he has so keen a scent; and indulging, perhaps, as we know from good authority he was sometimes wont to do, in severe and violent scoldings of both master and children. Thus, at the very outset, terrified out of their seven wits, they are first examined, in what is to them a foreign language, by this blustering official himself; and then, in their own language, by means of questions conveyed through his assistants, some of whom, unless fame greatly belies them, were not over and above well versed in either language. Now, let any man of ordinary sense and feeling judge, whether confused answers, extorted in such circumstances, can be fairly taken to represent the mental condition of the children, or the amount of knowledge which they had actually gained in these schools. For my part, I no more believe that some of the replies recorded in these Reports are to be relied on as correctly representing the educational state of the Principality, than I do that the condition of the British schools in London is to be inferred from the testimony of Mr. Seymour Tremenhere, when he gravely informs us, that he found children, who had been four years in some of these schools, and five years in a Sunday-school, who told him that David was the son of Jesus, and that Christ was crucified in England.

[ocr errors]

But I am particularly anxious, before closing this letter, to call your readers' attention to the general picture which these Reports present of the moral and religious character of the Welsh people. Any one, taking his estimate of the actual condition of the Principality from them, must inevitably conclude that there is not on the face of the earth a population, which, in point of intelligence and morality, is more

utterly degraded than that of Wales. But is this true? Sir, brought up, as I have been, in the heart of Wales, and having held all my life constant and intimate intercourse with its people, I claim some right and authority to assure the English public, through your pages, that it is not true; that it is utterly, grossly, monstrously false. How, then, came such a representation to be made? I will endeavour to explain the process; confining myself, to avoid confusion, to the Report of Mr. Symons principally, as an example. In the first place, these gentlemen had obviously a case to get up. Let Mr. Symons disclaim this as vehemently as he pleases, there are too many damning proofs of the fact lying on the surface of these huge documents, to admit of a moment's doubt in the mind of any one who has the slightest acquaintance with Wales. In pursuance, accordingly, of this set purpose, they took especial care, in the selection of their witnesses, to fix upon those, for the most part, who were either least acquainted with the people, or had their own reasons for defaming their character. One glaring fact, which no ingenuity can disguise, abundantly proves this-namely, that in a country where Churchmen are to Dissenters as one to thirteen and a half, out of forty-one clerical witnesses consulted and examined, for instance, by Mr. Symons, only eleven were Dissenters, and these, nearly all, known abettors of Government interference with education. Nothing more startles those conversant with the Principality in these Reports, than the almost entire omission of all the most celebrated and influential ministers belonging to every denomination of Dissenters. But, in the next place, having thus picked their witnesses, a series of inquiries was addressed to them, calculated, and, I do not scruple to say, designed, to elicit from them a description of the very lowest class of the population, and of the very worst aspect of the national character in every neighbourhood. What else could be the meaning of such leading questions as the following? Is there any deficiency of good day-schools with competent masters in your neighbourhood ?" "Is there much ignorance among the poor, and on what subjects?" Are their morals defective; and, if so, in what respects? State instances and facts which illustrate this." In drawing up replies to such inquiries as these, the result was inevitable, that the thousands and tens of thousands of the humble peasantry of Wales, who, by their Christian attainments, their earnest piety, and their holy and consistent lives, adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, are kept entirely out of sight, and the ignorant and depraved-those, as Mr. Symons suggests, whose "morals are defective," are brought forward as average and characteristic specimens of the entire population. No place is found for those traits of spiritual devotion, self-denial, zealous consecration to the good of man and the glory of God, of which Wales could furnish abundant examples; but "instances and facts to illustrate" their immorality are carefully sought for. But this is not all. Having thus contrived to bring to the surface all the feculence and corruption of Welsh society, the next process is to pass it through the commissioner's own sieve, and to separate carefully whatever of a favourable kind may have accidentally come up mixed with the impurities. The Welsh papers and magazines everywhere abound with

[ocr errors]

indignant complaints from those whose evidence is given, against the mutilated form in which it is printed, the parts omitted being always those which were in favour of the people. And, finally, when this precious compost had been collected, the commissioner himself, in the way of a summary, undertakes to compress it into an essence, as Mr. Symons does, for example, when he sums up his entire estimate of the national character into this monstrous conclusion-that not only are the people grossly immoral, but that their immorality betokens an utter" want of a sense of moral obligation."

Now, Mr. Editor, let any nation under heaven be, in regard to its intelligence and morality, passed through such a process as this, and will it come out in any better case than the Welsh nation does in these Reports?

I am, Sir, yours, faithfully,

HENRY RICHARD.

MORAL POWER OF INSTRUCTION IT is with due deference to such authorities, that we venture to submit the following figures and results. We are indebted for them to the November number of the journal of the Statistical Society, and the name of their compiler, Mr. G. A. Porter, is the best guarantee for their trustworthiness. Taking all the counties of England and Wales, during a period of eleven years, from the beginning of 1836 to the end of 1846, we find that, on the average, more than one half of these counties fail to furnish any accusation against persons instructed beyond reading and writing; or, in other words, persons who have used reading and writing. The centesimal proportion of instructed persons during that whole time being 0.41, we have a yearly average of 106 such persons out of an average annual aggregate of 25,412 accusations. Among the male population generally, while one person in every 370 was on the average yearly charged with an offence, and among the female one in 1,680, of persons educated beyond the mere rudiments of reading and writing there were no more than one accused in 76,227 of the male, and 2,034,133 of the female population.

In the year 1845, twenty-two counties of England and Wales, comprising a population of 11,183,718 persons, furnished forty-five convicts who had received instruction beyond reading and writing; while the remaining thirty counties, containing 4,728,039 inhabitants, did not furnish one single case where that amount of education had been imparted. Further, of the 8,136,533 living that year in England and Wales, to only one of those who were adjudged to have outraged the law of his country, had the page of knowledge been opened. The same result is given by the returns of 1846. In fifteen English counties, no educated person was convicted in either of these two years. On these and similar results, equally startling, Mr. Porter remarks:

"The small number of persons to whom the

blessing of education has been imparted, who are thus found to place themselves in positions to call down upon them any degree of punishment under the laws of their country, is calculated to inspire a doubt, whether some considerable errors may not be committed on the part of those functionaries by whom the returns are made. I am assured, however, that every possible care is taken to prevent such errors; that statements are frequently, and whenever any doubts arise are always, sent back to the prisons for verification; but that they are never found erroneous, except in having sometimes included with the persons better instructed some prisoners who read and write well, without having acquired any other branch of knowledge. In most cases the returns in this respect are examined by the chaplains of prisons, whose competency for the task cannot be doubted. If, under these circumstances, we cannot rely upon the accuracy of the accounts, I know not upon what testimony any fact should be received. Before we can discredit these returns, we must believe that a great number of men of education and high character throughout the country have entered into a conspiracy together to deceive the Government and the public, and that, too, in a matter where they can have no interest in deceiving, and in which they can hardly be themselves deceived. It must be confessed that it would be difficult, upon less reliable testimony, to believe, that, in the county of Middlesex, including the metropolis with its two millions of inhabitants, exposed to temptations of such various kinds, there should have been, in 1845, no more than three persons of education convicted of any crime, and that, in 1846, there should have been only one such person rendered amenable to the laws of his country. It may, indeed, be said, that only one such person was actually punished in either of the two years; for, in 1845, one of the three convicted was discharged from custody, the judgment having been arrested, and another, having been found guilty of an assault, was fined only one shilling and discharged. This fact is rendered still more extraordinary, when we consider that the proportion of well-educated persons is probably much greater in the metropolis than in any other part of the kingdom. On referring to the only test existing upon this subject, the return of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, stating the proportionate number of persons who affix a cross instead of their signature to marriage registers, we shall see, that while in all England the proportions so signing with crosses in each 100, are 32.4 males and 49.2 females, the proportions in the metropolis are only 12.1 males and 24'8 females."

It is certain that of our criminals a large proportion are born, suckled, tutored, and reared in crime; the number of youthful offenders thus becoming an important element in criminal statistics. Now, during the two years, 1845-6, of all the educated criminals there was not one below the age of fifteen, although the number of charges against boys under that age amounts to 3,189.

DEATH PUNISHMENT.

133

Philanthropy.

We present the following, from one of our ablest Journals, as a subject for the consideration of some very excellent men, whose humanity has somewhat blinded their otherwise clear understandings. They have said bitter things of us because we refuse to join in the cry for the abolition of Death Punishment in cases of murder. The following are among our

reasons:

The criminal returns recently presented to the members of both houses of parliament, contain matter of grave interest at the present moment -not only to those more immediately connected with proposed reforms in our penal system, but to the public generally. Probably no great national question is surrounded with so many difficulties of various kinds as that of criminal science and its administration. These difficulties exist, in the first place, in the very nature of the subject itself-involving, as it necessarily does, many of the fundamental, yet controverted, principles of moral, social, and political science; but they are not a little complicated and increased by the fact of some not very profound views having gained currency amongst certain classes as to the jurisdiction of society in the matter of life and death; more especially as the legal forms, provided by the constitution for the administration of the law, afford to these well-meaning but, we think, mistaken individuals the power of interrupting the course of justice. They set their theories up against the sanctions of the law, and in the name of mercy seek to minimise the apportionment of pain to the offender. On abstract grounds they are possibly right; but society is concrete, not abstract; it has to be dealt with, by practical men, in the rough. One cannot break stones with the sculptor's implements. We are not Draconists. We have no faith in excessive punishments. The infliction of unnecessary pain we should strenuously denounce as absurd as well as inhuman. We have no objection even to the abolition of extreme penalties, as soon as they can be dispensed with with increased, or even with equal security to society-but not till then.

In the meanwhile it is highly desirable that we proceed in our reforms and alterations of the existing law with great caution-consulting, where it is possible to do so, such authentic facts as our experience may furnish as we advance, making our progress, even if it be slow, certain —and thus provide against the waste of time, energy, and wealth, in prosecuting a false path, which we might subsequently find ourselves under the painful necessity of retracing. In the present state of theoretical penal science, with such uncertainty as to the play of motives in criminals, and while the existing anarchy prevails as to the relation and effect of punishment on crime, real bona fide statistics constitute the only safe basis on which to form a judgment as to the best way of proceeding in the work of reform.

In this sense, the criminal tables for 1846 contain matter both of encouragement and warning-encouragement to go on, and warning as to the direction. During the present decade the total numbers of the commitments in England and Wales, for each particular year, have been as follow: 1840, 27,187; 1841, 27,760; 1842, 81,309; 1843, 29,591; 1844, 26,542; 1845, 24,303; 1846, 25,107. The figures offer occasion for grave congratulation. The gradual diminution is spread pretty equally over the surface of the whole country: it evidently arises from general, not from local causes, and is therefore the more satisfactory. The tables for Ireland exhibit a state of improvement almost parallel. In that country the gross committals were: 1840, 23,831; 1841, 20,796; 1842,21,186; 1843, 20,126; 1844, 19,448; 1845, 16,696; 1846, 18,792. Both countries show an increase of crime in 1846 over 1845, but in both that augmentation still leaves a balance in their favour against the commitments for 1844 and the previous years. This fluctuation from that regular decrease which, from 1842, had become the rule, admits of natural and unforced explanation, without any reference to the supposition that the spirit of criminality has become more active. The year was one of almost unparalleled distress. The privations of 1842, when crime ran up to its maximum, were not by many degrees so severe. To those who know how much the poor, especially in the manufacturing counties, have been tried, it is matter of wonder that offences against the law have been so few. That they have been so is a significant and cheering evidence that better influences and sounder notions are at work amongst the masses than have hitherto been found to operate with them.

On the other hand, while crime generally, with more or less of incidental fluctuation, is gradually diminishing, certain species of crimes are alarmingly on the increase; the increase being almost uniformly in those departments in which penal concessions have been made to the ultra-humane tendencies of the age. This is especially the case in the more serious crimes -namely, such as, before the mitigation of punishment commenced in 1832, were capital offences; attempts to murder, rape, burglary, arson, forgery, &c. For the five years ending in 1831,-i. e., before the alterations in the criminal law took place-the number of commitments for attempt at murder in England and Wales was 453; for the five years ending 1846, they numbered 1,099! The charges for rape in the same periods were 252 for the former, 597 for the latter. Those for burglary were 1,299 in the first, against 2,701 in the last; those for arson, 212 against 581; those for forgery, 240 against 706. These terrible augmentations have occurred in the face of a general diminution of crime, as we have already shown; while the crime of murder, still capital, has not increased in any proportion-the numbers for each lustre of the last twenty years being: 1826 to 1831, 317; 1831 to 1836, 355; 1836 to 1841, 284; 1841 to 1846, 360; being 28 more for the first ten years than for the second. These statistics suggest a. horrible presumption as to what would probably be the result of rendering murder non-capital.

« PreviousContinue »