I saw in Birmingham a beautiful park, with hot-houses, in which were tropical plants, open to the public; saw also a large concert-room, where twice in the week “glees” were sung, and to which the public were admitted at a low price: all republican institutions, and which seem to prosper more in a monarchical realm than in republics themselves.
I met with a surprise in Birmingham; that is to say, I was all at once carried back fifteen centuries into the Syrian desert of Chalsis, and there lived a life so unlike Birmingham and Birmingham-life, that just for the sake of contrast, it was very refreshing. The thing was quite simple in itself, inasmuch as one evening I accompanied an amiable family, who resided in Birmingham, to a lecture, which was given by a young, gifted preacher, on the old Church-father, Saint Jerome (Hieronymus.)
The subject of the lecture, which was extempore, and delivered with much ease and perspicuity, was evidently not intended to recommend to his auditors, but rather to repel them from an ascetic and contemplative life. Saint Jerome was delineated as a noble fool, a curiosity in human nature, and was to be deplored as a sacrifice to perverted reason, by no means to be imitated. The true end of humanity was not to be attained by flying from city life, and burying one’s self in a desert for study and self-mortification; that end was rather to be attained in the busy city, than in the isolated existence of the wilderness; and so on. Such was the lecturer’s moral. But upon me his arguments made an impression considerably antithetical to that which he intended. I saw this warrior of the third century devoured by a burning thirst of light and knowledge, of purity for his whole being; saw him wander out, seeking the wells of life; saw him, separating from the agreeable circles of city existence, roam on amid catacombs and the tombs of martyrs; saw him seeing in Gaul, and on the Rhine, and there finding—Christianity. Saw him there, after being baptized, with his Bible under his arm, retire into the deserts of Syria, and there, in the burning sands of Chalsis, bury himself for a number of years, amid exegetic studies and severe deeds of penance. I heard him, even at the time that he, according to his own words, “watered his couch with his tears,” and while he was given over, and regarded as a fool by his friends, still reproach those friends for having chosen the worse part, that of the life of enjoyment in the city, and break forth in transport, “O! silent wildernesses, flower-strewn by Jesus Christ! O! wild solitudes, full of his spirit!”
I saw him, after his conflict was accomplished, go forth out of the desert with his Bible, enter Rome publicly, and unsparingly chastise the crimes of the proud city. I saw the haughty ladies of Rome first start, then bow themselves to the severe judgment of the teacher; saw Marulla and Paula renounce the dissipated life of Rome, and follow the preacher; found convents and Christian institutions in accordance with his views; saw him grow in the combat with the spirit of the age, till he stood as a founder of the greatest power on earth—that of the Christian Church. The fool, who had buried himself in the sands of Syria, and done battle with himself during solitary days and nights.
Ah! this fool, this glowing sun of the desert, as he now stood forth to view, through the veil of fifteen centuries, grew greater and greater in my eyes, till, finally, he expanded himself over the whole of Birmingham, with all its factories, workshops, steel-pens, and the like, as a colossus above an ant-hill.
Birmingham is almost entirely of the class of what are called Chartists; that is, advocates of universal suffrage. They are this, through good and through evil; and the resistance which their just desire to be more fully represented in the legislative body has met with from that body, has brought them more and more into collision with the power of the state, more and more to base their demands in opposition, even to the higher principles of justice; for they overlook the duty of rendering themselves worthy of the franchise by sound education. But the fault here, in the first place, was not theirs. Growing up amid machinery and the hum of labor, without schools, without religious or moral worth; hardened by hard labor, in continual fight with the difficulties of life, they have moulded themselves into a spirit little in harmony with life’s higher educational influences, the blessings of which they had never experienced. Atheism, radicalism, republicanism, socialism of all kinds will and must flourish here in concealment amongst the strong and daily augmenting masses of a population, restrained only by the fear of the still more mighty powers which may be turned against them, and by labor for their daily needs, so long as those powers are sufficing. And perhaps the Americans are right where they say, in reference to this condition of things;—“England lies at our feet—England cannot do without our cotton. If the manufactures of England must come to a stand, then has she a popular convulsion at her door.” Perhaps it may be so; for these hosts of manufacturing workmen, neglected in the beginning by society, neglected by church and state, look upon them merely as exacting and despotic powers; and in strict opposition to them, they have banded together, and established schools for their own children, where only the elements of practical science are admitted, and from which religious and moral instruction are strictly excluded. In truth, a volcanic foundation for society, and which now, for some time past, has powerfully arrested the attention of the most thinking men of England.
But into the midst of this menacing chaos light has already begun to penetrate with an organizing power; and over the dark profound hovers a spirit which can and will divide the darkness from the light, and prepare a new creation.
From Birmingham I traveled, on the morning of the 4th of October, by a railway to Leamington, and thence alone in a little carriage to Stratford-on-Avon.
| [1] | A minister paid by the community for devoting himself exclusively to its poor, and one worthy of the confidence reposed in him. |