lecture of a western priest, inviting to us from the earliest periods and the poor men to emigrate to the west, and Observer might have added force to it, showing them how it would be advan- by crying, also “polygamist," "socialtageous for them to do so, the “re- ist,” or “ Lollard." * Lollard" would ligious" newspapers do, in their current indeed, have been newer, more obscure, criticisms upon things they dislike ? and, therefore, more dreadful to many

In this country, where progress and readers. Madam,” said Dr. Johnson development depend, under Providence, to the fishwoman, who had been spirtupon the moral and intellectual inde- ing Billinsgate upon his companion, pendence of the individual, such a ten

“you are a noun ! an adverb!! an dency is worthy of all suspicion. If interjection !!!" And the appalled the clergy, who are generally an edu- fish-wife shrank and grew silent before cated and morally-superior class, choose those portentous and unknown exploto bring their wisdom, and wit, and tives. special learning, to bear upon the But this calling of names, known topics of the times in weekly newspa- among political newspapers as blackpers, or to preach weekly sermons guarding, is not distressing. The word through the same' medium, we say God- "infidel," as an argument, or term of speed! with all our hearts. But if the reproach, means nothing. With the “ religious” press assume to be arbiters same perspicacity, the Observer would of morals, or to speak ex cathedra upon call Dr. Channing a deist, and Fenepoints of profound religious conviction, lon a pagan. But our good “ religious" or to utter anathema maranatha, with mentor prefaces its chastisement of all the anonymous dignity of a “reli- us, which it inflicts with the rod of gious department," upon opinions which another, by a disregard of the "terewth” they do not like, or do not understand, which would shock even the Reverend or which they willfully misrepresent; brother Chadband ; and this part of the then the odium is the greater in the matter is, unluckily, the only part of degree of the peculiar respect with any importance which is original with which the very name of religion is in- the Observer. vested, and every patriotic, moral, and

"The publishers of this religious man, who sees that the sting monthly (Putnam) ceased sending it to of papacy lay in its annihilation of

us a year or two ago, when we discovprivate judgment, and that a man may ered the spirit that pervades its pages. have all the spirit of a Borgian pope, We are glad to see that one of our realthough he calls himself a Protestant, ligious contemporaries has the fearlessand does not wear a tiara nor sing ness to do its duty to the public by exLatin through his nose, will hold that posing the progressive infidelity of that man to the strictest account of the as- work." It then quotes the remarks of sumption of any kind of authority bor- the Watchman and Reflector upon that dering upon the papal. The Church dangerous article in our February num- . of God is the guardian of human lib- ber" A National Drama”—which, as erty which proceeds from him. Any our readers will remember, or will find man, claiming to be a priest of that upon reference, lays tho axe at the Church, who in any way connives at roots of religion, morality, and human meanness or the indulgence of personal welfare in general. And, in a later spite, serving his little spleen under number, the Observer returns to the cover of serving his great Master, is a charge, quoting another notice of the double traitor to God, to man, and to the Watchman upon another article, entitled Church.

“ Broadway Bedeviled," in our March Our present question, however, is number, which was a brief and solemn not of argument but of fact.

record of the horrors of delirium tre. A late number of the New York Observer, a weekly “religious' newspaper Now for a plain worå with the of this city, declares with that reluctant gentle Observer, skulking bebind the sorrow, in which it always finds fault, Watchman and Reflector, and freely when its position in the van of virtue flourishing this easy epithet of infidel. compels it to cry out against offenders, And that plain word will show the that Putnam is infidel. This is not reader the occasion and significanco a new argument. It is, in fact, the old of the application of that epithet to the ary of mad-dog, which has come down Monthly by this charming specimen of

It says:

a Christian censor, and open the public and, reaching Egypt, this is the rhapeyes a little to the manner and spirit in sody of an American clergyman "on the which that veracious sheet is managed. Nile! on the Nile! and a broader,

Two years ago, in our number for swifter, altogether a more respectable June, 1855, we took occasion to notice river than we had looked for." several recent books of travel written Now, a book of whose ludicrous vacuby Americans, and, among them, ity such extracts are fair specimens called Travels in Europe and the East, which dashed at all the most familiar by Samuel Irenæus Prime. We re- objects on all the most familiar routes marked the amazing shallowness of the of European travel, with an ingenious book; its silly style ; its fault-not un- imbecility that positively destroyed the common in the traveling journals of interest of the most interesting scenes, clergymen-of beatifying little men, was a stroke of pure farce, and would and treating sectarian and local heroes only bave amused an idle moment, exas if they were of interest to the world. cept that it also afforded a signal inWe quoted several of the livelier absurdi- stance of that testy and truculent jealties of the book, as illustrating the per- ousy which often leads American travnicious literary error that slang is ease, elers in Europe to defend bad things at and flippancy, spirit, and general care- home because there are bad things lessness, general superiority. Some of abroad. these we shall repeat here, in order that The Reverend Samuel Irenæus Prime, the reader may understand that the au- for instance, going down to Oxford, thor, if by chance he has any vanity, sees women working in the fields, and would not, probably, delight in the ex. calls them “the white slaves of Eng. posure of his bad grammar and worse land," and seriously argues with a feltaste, and would not be reluctant to low-traveler that, because they do not improve any opportunity of retaliation * love the employment," their condition the shame of such ridiculous offenses is as bad as that of the American being heightened by the fact, that the slave, and, therefore, the slave sympaauthor was also a clergyman of respect thy of England is gratuitous and imable standing

pertinent. In the course of the conThe specimens were culled at ran. versation, the reverend author remarks dom through the volumes. Mr. Samuel that the English treat women as they Irenæus Prime dines at one of Mr. are not treated in any other Christian George Peabody's banquets at Rich- country of which I have heard.” This mond, and sits next " a venerable Eng- is, at least, perceptive for a traveler lish lady, patched and proud," and he upon the continent where women unirecords his surprise tbat “an aristo- versally work in the fields; or for a cratic and splendidly-genteel woman" citizen of New York, where women should behave as she behaved. In may be daily seen dragging little wag. the London fish-market, the Rev. Mr. ons, side by side, with dogs. But the Prime and his companions are insult- whole thing has nothing to do with ed by one of the fish-wives. As they slavery. The woman works in the retreat, “she followed us with her field, as a lawyer works at the bar, compliments, and some of her neigh. or the merchant in his shop, not bobors heaped on a few more of the same cause he loves it, but because he must sort." He hears some one * demand a earn bis honest livelihood. Of course the question :" and the Reverend Mr. Prime observations of a man who so entirely informs us, with the delicate wit of a confounds and confuses common sense, b'boy in the Bowery, that Sir Joseph who consoles himself for his broken leg Paxton, “with a good wife, got a hun- by observing that his neighbor is blind dred thousand dollars, not bad to lake." of an eye, are of the same consequence Again, he asks, or " demand," a ques- in themselves as Mr. Toots's observation, “in as fair German as I could tions; but we improved the occasion frame to pronounce.” Venice is “unlike to speak to the general error. anything else, in the way of a city, that The book of the Reverend Samuel was ever seen before," and, in Florence, Irenæus Prime was foolish and unimMadame A "flourishes in the style portant, and is now forgotten. It made of a princess," and "smokes and drinks, assertions, indeed, that, especially as genteelly, of course,” while Lord B. coming from a clergyman, shocked our

is cutting a great dash in the city;" moral sense quite as much as anything

1

we said in an essay upon "A National with Pulnam ; that it untruly stated Drama” could have shocked the Ob- the exchange to have been stopped by server : and if we had stated, with an Putnam because the Observer had dis. air of solicitous warning, what was true covered its spirit-when the truth was, enough, that this Mr. Samuel Irenæus that the boot was entirely on the other Prime, claiming to be a Christian cler- foot, for the exchange was stopped begyman, said things that were baldly cause Putnam had discovered the want atheistic, the Observer, careful of Chris- of spirit in the book of the reverend tian charity when its own ox was gored, editor of the Observer; and that, finally, would, doubtless, have admonished us of with the Christian hope of doing the the impropriety of such language. magazine all the harm it could in the

Now, let the reader mark. Immedi- “religious” world, the Observer charges ately after the publication of our article it, in general, with “progressive infiupon the book of this reverend gentle. delity." Whether, so far as the 06

Obman, the New York Observer stopped server is concerned, this charge, iterits exchange with Putnam's Monthly. ated and reiterated, and coupled with a In due course, failing to receive it, we deliberate misstatement of fact, is made sent for the copy due us, and were told in good faith, or from bad feeling, every that we might buy it if we wanted it. sensible reader will decide for himself. The Observer had a perfect right to stop We suggest to the editorial direction the exchange, and we have endeavored of this “ religious” newspaper, which to bear up under the loss; but our ur- appears under the heading as Sidney E. bane ecclesiastical weekly allows its Morse & Co., Editors and Proprietors, malice to overtop its veracity when it to insert conspicuously for safe family says: "The publishers of this monthly reading in the secular department" of ceased sending it to us when we dis- their next issue, the familiar and pregnant covered the spirit that pervades its proverb that “Certain chickens come pages.”

home to roost." Let it learn not to The Observer had a right to stop tho call names spitefully, lest its spite reexchange, but it had no right to mis- turn upon it with a sting. Let it understate the circumstances of that stop- stand that it is not to stand up in the page, and make us appear to have been land, and, while it insults and maligns chafed by its criticisms of our character the cause of humanity dear to that God and career, which criticisms we always who has made all the nations of the forgave with many smiles. And if the earth, think to cover its shame and pass reflecting mind should demand what for pious, by lustily bellowing “Lord ! motive could the Observer bave to stop Lord!" We are glad to see that what the exchange at that time, or to make the Observer would call the “ secular injurious representations afterwards, press" exposes boldly the cunning pusilwould it not be a curious and interest- sanimity of a paper, whose mendacity ing coincidence if the substance of the we have probably made apparent to tho Reverend Samuel Irenæus Prime's book reader. A recent number of the Utica should have been originally published Herald says, with justice : in the columns of the vivacious Observer, signed Irenæus, and if, at the “If the Christian ministry is to be attacked

-if the Northern churches are to be arraigntime it stopped the exchange and called

od-if man-catching and man.stealing are to Putnam infidel, it should have been be defended on strictly religious' grounds generally understood that the name of if the Border-ruffian argument is to be pro one of the most active editors of the

sented with the ministerial twang superadded New York Observer was Samuel Ire

- The Observer is called into the field. It

'turns up' on every occasion when a triumph næus Prime ?

of Slavery is to be achieved, or has been That is to say, in brief, that Mr. accomplished. It turned up' in defense of the Prime, whose name does not appear

Fugitive Slave Law; it turned up' in defense

of the Nebraska scheme; it turns up' in beupon the Observer, was yet understood

half of the Drod Scott decision. Every time to be one of its editors; that he went to Slavery has made a new demand, The Ob. Europe and wrote letters which were server has made haste to back it up. Every published in that paper; that he re

time a new rascality has been batched in the turned and printed them in a book; that

National Capitol, The Observer has shrieked

Amen." Pulnam reviewed the book and exposed its absurdity and sophistry; that, there- The Observer may or may not be, in upon, the Observer stopped its exchange the true sense, a “religious newspaper;"

66

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but it must understand that men and harmonize with the high_objectivity of absomagazines may not have the Observer's lute truth and justice. For, having throwu morals, and yet be quite as Christian, shall not be the less, but the more, under the

off the capricious secondary rule of man, we and faithful to God and man.

steadfast, primary rule of God; for, having And now a word with any one who broken the force of human fallible prescripmay sincerely wish to understand the

tion, we shall the more feel and acknowledge

the supremacy of flawless divine law; for, ostensible ground of this assault of the

having rejected the tyranny of man's willful. Observer and Watchman and Reflector, ness, we shall submit the more fully to the and learn a little of the capacity, as we

beneficent power of principle." have already shown the animus,

of these two " religious" journals.

Our readers will probably agree with In our February number was a brief

us that this is, in commercial phrase, and thoughtful paper upon “A National

"a superior article” of “infidelity." Drama." The Watchman and Reflector

The next illustration of our infidelity does not like it; which is sad. But the is not less striking. In the same article Watchman and Reflector willfully gar

which condemns the above cited extract, bles and distorts a passage in it, which

the Watchman and Reflector says: is silly. It says: The article is also

“Another unchristian sentiment is that saturated with a poorly disguised in

on p. 114, hinting that it is natural for fidelity, audaciously stating, as the

a clergyman to believe in Divine Provi'true Christian principle, that out of

dence, but that the philosophical hishimself is to come every man's redemp- torian' will attribute the result under tion.' Can it be that this writer ever

notice to a well known philosophical read the New Testament, ever heard

fact. That may be the impulse of an that saying of the Redeemer, With- epicurean or atheistic philosophy, but out me ye can do nothing'-or that of

Jehovah reigneth, whether the philosothe greatest Christian apostle : When

phers own it or not.” we were without strength, in due time The passage alluded to—will the Cbrist died for the ungodly.'"

reader please observe it and compare The whole passage, conveniently

with the above extract ?-is a note to deformed by the Watchman and Re- the article upon "Myles Standish," and flector to do all the harm it could, is

is as follows: as follows, and let the reader mark again the honesty of the "religious"

"The Rev. Dr. Young, in a no te to one of

Robinson's letters, given in the Chronicle newspaper:

6

much of hell as was compressed into that stage- word against a prevalent sin. “Religitrip from Madison Square to Barnum's Moso. am, has saved me from believing in an eternity

ous” newspapers, like the Observer, of it."

which perceive no conflict between the

divine golden rule of loving your neigh“So concludes an artiole in the March num. ber of Putnam's Magazine. 'One is puzzled,'

bor as yourself and human slavery, will says the Watchman and Reflector, 'on reading naturally find fault with the theology of it, to conjecture the writer': meaning --whether a metaphor, and, with equal naturalness, he is in serious earnest, or is satirizing Univer. salism. Certainly a severer thrust into any

omit to sympathize with the exposure of religious system could hardly be made than by

a sinful indulgence. presenting it as one that commends itself very In the name of heaven and Christianity especially to the likings and the experimental why do not this precious pair of saints logic of a brain bodeviled with alcohol. As an

instead of excusing slavery, and bearing argument in good faith it would be ridiculous, if the subject were not so serious. The dread.

false witness against their neighbors, by fulness of hell is a good reason for shunning it misstatement of facts and misquotation by repentance; but it 18 no reason at all for presuming that it cannot endure. But, whether in their

own eyes? Their dishonesty

of passages, attend a little to the beams in jost or in earnest, whether meant to be for or against Universalism, it seems to us that

defiles their whole class, and all the reli. every thoughtful person must regard such & gious newspapers suffer by this shametreatment of that most awful subject as highly lessness of two. indecorous. Putnam's Magazine, the prospectus of the last volume announced, has

There are plenty of religious men in opinions and principles." There will be'a good this country who feel, with some sadness, many people who will be interested to know that the clergy, as a class, are pot whether it is to include theology in the range conspicuous in the van of all moral and of its topics, wbether Universalism is ono of the opinions and principles" it is to be under

humane movements as their position as stood to have, and whether the stuff we have

ministers of God, and not apologists for quoted is a sample of the “liberal and intelli. man, implies and demands. There are gent discussion' it befriends. The proprietors plenty of religious men, clergymen and may find that they are setting a price upon their work which the religious portion of

others, who see with shame and alarm, society cannot consent to pay.''

that the technically “religious” nows

papers follow with timid eagerness the The little sketch, "Broadway Bede- lead of time-serving and weak political viled,” was a solemn and touching plea journals, in denouncing all clergymen for temperance, in the form of a thrill- who expose, as Christ exposed, special ing description of the effects of deli- sins, and particular classes of sinners. rium tremens, told by the sufferer bim- In a country whose only political hope self. It was very brief and very vivid, of the future is in the general moral recounting the promenade through heroism of the people, and where public Broadway of a victim of the rum-mad. moral sense has always been so power, ness, followed and haunted, as he walked ful a political lever, every patriot and or rode, by the ghastly fiends that avenge Christian is concerned to take care so the indulgence of this appetite. It was far as lies in him, who moves that lover, drawn with great skill and with the evi- and to see who corrupts that sense. dent fidelity of foarful remembrance. Every Christian minister is peculiarly The tone of the entire article was fear concerned that the newspapers, for fully serious; only a ribald could see which his profession is editorially rejesting in a thing so tragic, and the last sponsible, shall at least tell the truth sentence was simply the high-wrought in secular affairs ; shall not be mere climax of hyperbole to express in a word conduits of sectarian spleen or the the dreadful horror of the suffering. sour spite of wounded vanity, but Whether the author cleaves to the par with a hearty sympathy, and generticular sect of the Watchman and Re- ous hope, and Christian faith, give flector, or of the Observer, or to some their hands and their hearts to the other, is beside the question. The work of saving men here as well as sketch was a strong, manly, striking hereafter.

VOL. LX.-31

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