THE CORN LAWS AND CHRISTIANITY.
Doctor Chalmers refused to attend the synod of Clergymen gathered together to consider the relative value of the Big and Little Loaf, on the ground that the reverend gentlemen were beginning their work at the wrong end. Wages will go up with Christianity, says the Doctor; cheap corn will follow the dissemination of cheap Bibles. “I know of no other road for the indefinite advancement of the working classes to a far better remuneration, and, of course, a far more liberal maintenance, in return for their toils, than they have ever yet enjoyed—it is a universal Christian education.” Such are the words of Doctor CHALMERS.
We perfectly agree with the reverend doctor. Instead of shipping Missionaries to Africa, let us keep those Christian sages at home for the instruction of the English Aristocracy. When we consider the benighted condition of the elegant savages of the western squares,—when we reflect upon the dreadful scepticism abounding in Park-lane, May-fair, Portland-place and its vicinity,—when we contemplate the abominable idols which these unhappy natives worship in their ignorance,—when we know that every thought, every act of their misspent life is dedicated to a false religion, when they make hourly and daily sacrifice to that brazen serpent,
SELF!—
when they offer up the poor man’s sweat to the abomination,—when they lay before it the crippled child of the factory,—when they take from life its bloom and dignity, and degrading human nature to mere brute breathing, make offering of its wretchedness as the most savoury morsel to the perpetual craving of their insatiate god,—when we consider all the “manifold sins and wickednesses” of the barbarians in purple and fine linen, of those pampered savages “whose eyes are red with wine and whose teeth white with milk,”—we do earnestly hope that the suggestion of Doctor Chalmers will be carried into immediate practical effect, and that Missionaries, preaching true Christianity, will be sent among the rich and benighted people of this country,—so that the poor may believe that the Scriptures are something more than mere printed paper, seeing their glorious effects in the awakened hearts of those who, in the arrogance of their old idolatry, called themselves their betters!
“A universal Christian education!” To this end, the Bench of Bishops meet at Lambeth; and discovering that locusts and wild honey—the Baptist’s diet—may be purchased for something less than ten thousand a year,—and, after a minute investigation of the Testament, failing to discover the name of St. Peter’s coachmaker, or of St. Paul’s footman, his valet, or his cook,—take counsel one with another, and resolve to forego at least nine-tenths of their yearly in-comings. “No!” they exclaim—and what apostolic brightness beams in the countenance of CANTERBURY—what celestial light plays about the fleshy head of LONDON—what more than saint-like beauty surprises the cowslip-coloured face of EXETER—what lambent fire, what looks of Christian love play about and beam from the whole episcopal Bench!—“No!” they cry—“we will no longer have the spirit oppressed by these cumbrous trappings of fleshy pride! We will promote an universal Christian education—we will teach charity by examples, and live unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike acts—we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in the House of the Lord!”
Their Christian hearts sweetly suffused with sudden meekness, the Bishops proceed—staff in hand, and Bible under arm—from Lambeth Palace. How the people make way for the holy procession! Hackney-coachmen on their stands uncover themselves, and the drayman, surprised in his whistle, doffs his beaver to the reverend pilgrims. With measured step and slow, they proceed to Downing-street; the self-deputed Missionaries, resolved to give her Majesty’s ministers “a Christian education.” Sir ROBERT PEEL is immediately taken in hand by the Bishop of EXETER; who sets the Baronet to learn and exemplify the practical beauties of the Lord’s Prayer. When Sir ROBERT comes to “give us this day our daily bread,” he insists upon adding the words “with a sliding scale.” However, EXETER, animated by a sudden flux of Christianity, keeps the baronet to his lesson, and the Premier is regenerated; yea, is “a brand snatched from the fire.”
Lord LYNDHURST makes a great many wry mouths at some parts of the Decalogue—we will not particularise them—but the Bishop of London is resolute, and the new Lord Chancellor is, in all respects a bran-new Christian.
Lord STANLEY begs that when he prays for power to forgive all his enemies, he may be permitted to except from that prayer—DANIEL O’CONNELL. The Bishop is, however, inexorable; and O’Connell is to be prayed for, in all churches visited by Lord STANLEY.
Several of the bishops, smitten by the heathen darkness of the great majority of the Cabinet—affected by their utter ignorance of the practical working of Christianity—burst into tears. It will not be credited by those disposed to think charitably of their fellow-creatures, that—we state the melancholy fact upon the golden word of the Bishop of EXETER—several Cabinet ministers had never heard of the divine sentence which enjoins upon us to do to others as we would they should do unto us. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, for instance, declared that he had always understood the passage to simply run—“Do others;” and had, therefore, in very many acts of his political life, squared his doings according to the mutilated sentence. All the Cabinet had, more or less, some idea of the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes. Indeed, many of them confessed that with them, the Loaves and the Fishes had, during their whole political career, contained the essence of Christianity. Sir EDWARD KNATCHBULL, Lord ELLENBOROUGH, and GOULBURN declared that for the last ten years they had hungered for nothing else.
We cannot dwell upon every individual case of ignorance displayed in the Cabinet. We confine ourselves to the glad statement, that every minister from the first lord of the treasury to the grooms in waiting, vivified by the sacred heat of their schoolmaster Bishops, illustrate the great truth of Doctor CHALMERS, that the poor man can only obtain justice “by a universal Christian education.”
The Bench of Bishops do not confine their labours to the instruction of the Cabinet. By no means. They have appointed prebends, deans, canons, vicars, &c., to teach the members of both houses of Parliament practical Christianity towards their fellow-men. Lord LONDONDERRY has sold his fowling-piece for the benefit of the poor—has given his shooting-jacket to the ragged beggar that sweeps the crossing opposite the Carlton Club—and resolving to forego the vanities of grouse, is now hard at work on “The Acts of the Apostles.” Colonel SIBTHORP—after unceasing labour on the part of Doctor CROLY—has managed to spell at least six of the hard names in the first chapter of St. Matthew, and can now, with very slight hesitation, declare who was the father of ZEBEDEE’S children!
“An universal Christian education!” Oh, reader! picture to yourself London—for one day only—operated upon by the purest Christianity. Consider the mundane interests of this tremendous metropolis directed by Apostolic principles! Imagine the hypocrisy of respectability—the conventional lie—the allowed ceremonial deceit—the tricks of trade—the ten thousand scoundrel subterfuges by which the lowest dealers of this world purchase Bank-stock and rear their own pine-apples—the common, innocent iniquities (innocent from their very antiquity, having been bequeathed from sire to son) which men perpetrate six working-days in the week, and after, lacker up their faces with a look of sleek humility for the Sunday pew—consider all this locust swarm of knaveries annihilated by the purifying spirit of Christianity, and then look upon London breathing and living, for one day only, by the sweet, sustaining truth of the Gospel!
Had our page ten thousand times its amplitude, it would not contain the briefest register of the changes of that day!
There is a scoundrel attorney, who for thirty years has become plethoric on broken hearts. The scales of leprous villany have fallen from him; and now, an incarnation of justice, he sits with open doors, to pour oil into the wounds of the smitten—to make man embrace man as his brother—to preach lovingkindness to all the world, and—without a fee—to chant the praises of peace and amity.
Crib the stockbroker meets Horns a fellow-labourer in the same hempen walk of life. Crib offers to buy a little Spanish of Horns. “My dear Crib,” says Horns, “it is impossible; I can’t sell; for I have just received by a private hand from Cadiz, news that must send the stock down to nothing. I am a Christian, my dear Crib,” says Horns, “and as a Christian, how could I sell you a certain loss?”
A mistaken, but well-meaning man, although a tailor, meets his debtor in Bow-street. A slight quarrel ensues; whereupon, the debtor (to show that the days of chivalry are not gone) kicks his tailor into the gutter. Does the tailor take the offender before Mr. JARDINE? By no means. The tailor is a Christian; and learning the exact measure of his enemy, and returning good for evil, he, in three days’ time, sends to his assailant a new suit of the very best super Saxony.
How many quacks we see rushing to the various newspaper offices to countermand their advertisements! What gaps in the columns of the newspapers themselves! Where is the sugary lie—the adroit slander—the scoundrel meanness, masking itself with the usage of patriotism? All, all are vanished, for—the Morning Herald is published upon Christian principles!
Let us descend to the smallest matters of social life. “Will this gingham wash?” asks Betty the housemaid of Twill the linen-draper. Twill is a Christian; and therefore replies, “it is a very poor article, and it will not wash!”
We are with Doctor Chalmers for Christianity—but not Christianity of one side. “Pray for those who despitefully use you,” say the Corn Law Apostles to the famishing; and then, cocking their eye at one another, and twitching their tongues in their mouths they add—“for this is Christianity!”
Q.
ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATIVE TALENT.
Her Majesty has, it seems, presented the conductor of the Gazette Musicale with a gold medal and her portrait, as a reward for his constant efforts in the cause of music (vide Morning Post, Sept. 9). From this, it may be supposed, foreigners alone are deemed worthy of distinction; but our readers will be glad to learn, that Rundells have been honoured with an order for a silver whistle for PUNCH. His unceasing efforts in the causes of humbug, political, literary, and dramatic, having drawn forth this high mark of royal favour.