HISTORIC SKETCHES. 



be doubled by return who never abstained, bat with a view to 

 excess ; uor spared, but for the indulgence of rapacity. KnewU*. 



:>! lowing tract on the minion and duty of the man of 

 .: atl'oriU a fitting conclusion to oar LOHHOD* in " Reading 

 and Elocution: " 



xx. TUB SCHOLAR'S MISSION. 



The wants of our time and country, the constitution of our modem 



our whole position personal and relative forbid a life of 



imlnrsliip or literary pursuits to the great majority of those 



who go out from our colleges. However it umy have been in other 



times, and other lands, bore and now, but few of our educated men 



are privileged 



" From the loopholes of retreat 

 To look upon the world, to hear the sound 

 Of the great Babel, and not feel its stir." 



Society has work for us, and we must forth to do it. Full early 

 and hastily we must gird on the manly gown, gather up tl 

 leaves and scanty fragments of our youthful lore, and go out umuiii; 

 men, to act with them and for them. It is a practical age ; and our 

 Wisdom, such as it is, " must strive and cry, and utter her voice in tho 

 streets, standing in the places of the paths, crying in the cln 

 of concourse, at the entry of the city, and the coming in at the doors." 



This state of things, though not suited to the tastes and qualities 

 of all, is not, on the whole, to be regretted by educated men as such. 

 It is not in literary production only, or chiefly, that educated mind 

 findd fit expression, and fulfils its mission in honour and beneficence. 

 In the great theatre of the world's affairs, there is a worthy and a 

 sufficient sphere. Society needs the well-trained, enlarged, and cul- 

 tivated intellect of the scholar in its midst ! needs it, and welcomes 

 it, and gives it a place, or, by its own capacity, it will take a place of 

 honour, influence, and power. The youthful scholar has no occasion 

 to deplore the fate that is soon to tear him from his studies, and cast 

 him into the swelling tide of life and action. None of his disciplinary 

 and enriching culture will be lost, or useless, even there. Every hour 

 of study, every truth he has reached, and the toilsome process by 

 which he reached it ; the heightened grace or vigour of thought >: 

 speech he bos acquired all shall tell fully, nobly, if he will give heed 

 to the conditions. And one condition, the prime one, is, that he lx> 

 a true man, and recognise the obligation of a man, and go forth witli 

 heart and will, and every gift and acquirement dedicated, lovingly and 

 resolutely, to the true and the right. These are the terms ; and apart 

 from these there is no success, no influence to be had which an in- 

 genuous mind can desire, or which a sound and far-seeing mind would 

 dare tosewk. 



Indeed, it is not an easy thing, nay, it is not a possible thing, to 

 obtain a substantial success, and an abiding influence, except on these 

 terms. A factitious popularity, a transient notoriety, or, in the case 

 of shining talents, the doom of a damning fame, may fall to bod men. 

 But an honoured name, enduring influence, a sun brightening on 

 through its circuit, more and more, even to its serene setting this 

 boon of a true success goes never to intellectual qualities alone. It 

 gravitates slowly but surely to weight of character, to intellectual 

 ability rooted in principle. George Putnam. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XXV. 



THE GOEDON EIOTS. 



" MY Lord George, do you really mean to bring yonr rascally 

 adherents into the House of Commons P If yon do, the first 

 man of them that enters, I will plunge my sword, not into his 

 body, but into yours." Strong language, certainly, especially 

 for the House of Commons, and yet never was speech spoken 

 more earnestly or significantly than this, and the unusual 

 character of it passed without rebuke from the Speaker. Tho 

 person addressed was Lord George Gordon, the man who 

 addressed him was his own kinsman, Colonel Murray ; the date 

 of the speech was Friday, the 2nd June, 1780, and the occasion 

 on which it was delivered will be set forth in tho following 

 sketch of what are known as tho "No Popery" Biota. To 

 understand tho subject folly, however, it will bo necessary to 

 glance back at a state of things more than two centuries before. 

 Soon after the death of Henry VIII., in 1517, the policy or 

 impolicy, the religions zeal or tho intolerant spirit which you 

 will of the English Government, deemed it necessary that those 

 who lately had been subject to systematic persecution for their 

 religious opinions should change places with their persecutors. 

 Laws of the most stringent kind were passed by the Protestant 

 king, Edward VI., against Papists, as the professors of the Roman 

 Catholic faith were then commonly called, and by them it waa 

 made an offence punishable with hsavy fine and imprisonment, 

 and ia certain cases capitally, for a man to hold the faith in 



which he had been educated. (Jueen Mary, in 1M3. repealed 

 these laws, bat they were re enacted with frwb rigoon by 

 Elizabeth when she came to the throne in 1558. At the time 

 theae laws were made, it was not contemplated that them 

 couM be such a thing as dissent from tho newly-estabUshed 



England, but when the Puritan* arose the men who 

 fought tho battle of religions and political freedom against a 

 Tudor queen, and against all the Stuart kings fresh laws wen- 

 framed to chock them, and fetters the most oppressive and the 

 most harassing were forged for them as they had been forged 

 for the Roman Catholics. Every one within the realm was 

 ordered to go to church on Sunday, or to be fined twelvepeno* 

 sum in those days equal to more than two days' wages 

 for a labouring man and those who did not go for a month 

 were fined 20. Subsequently, in the reign of Charles IL 

 (1660-1G85), it was ordered that no one should be admitted to 

 office in any corporate town who had not within a year pre- 

 viously taken the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the 

 Church of England, and certain oaths were prescribed to 

 persons elected which no Romanist could take. The Book of 

 Common Prayer waa ordered to be nsed in every place for 

 public worship, and no one was allowed to be a schoolmaster, 

 to have anything to do with tho instruction of youth 

 (dancing, for instance), unless he had signed a declaration 

 of conformity to the Liturgy. Meetings of more than five 

 persons for the purpose of worshipping God otherwise than by 

 using tho Prayer Book were liable to be broken np by force, 

 and the preachers fined. The Test Act, passed in the twenty- 

 fifth year of Charles II., required all civil and military officer*, 

 and all persons in tho service of the Crown, to take the oaths 

 of allegiance and supremacy, to declare their disbelief in 

 doctrine of tranaubstantiation, and to receive the 

 in the Church of England; and another law of the 

 king forbade any one to sit in Parliament or to vote for a 

 member until he had taken such oaths as no Romanist could 

 possibly take. 



William and Mary (1688-1702) assented to a law granting 

 Protestant dissenters the right of meeting for public worship 

 if the place of meeting were duly registered ; but the laws 

 which gave this and certain other privileges to Protestants, 

 welded yet closer the rivets of intolerance on the unfortunate 

 Catholics, who were still forbidden to meet, or to celebrate the 

 Mass. Statutes of George I. (1714-1727) and George IL 

 (1727-1760) confirmed the odious Test Act, and extended it. 

 Not only were all officers in the army and navy, and all persons 

 in public posts still compelled to desecrate the sacrament of 

 the Lord's Snpper, and to take startling oaths, bat all eccle- 

 siastical and collegiate persons, all preachers, teachers, school* 

 masters, lawyers, and high constables were compelled, under 

 pain of deprivation, fine, and forfeiture, to take the oaths of 

 supremacy and allegiance, and to abjure the Pope and the 

 Pretender. 



In 1779, tho year before the words at the beginning of this 

 article were spoken, an Act was passed relieving the Protestant 

 dissenters from almost all their disabilities, those created by the 

 Teat Act and Corporation Act excepted. But the people thus 

 enfranchised could not bear that a slight concession made the 

 year before to Romanists, and allowing them to meet for worship 

 under certain restrictions, should remain nnrepealed. It was not 

 enough that tho Romanist should be shut out from every post 

 of every kind in the public service, that he should be precluded 

 from getting a living by instructing in any branch of knowledge, 

 and that he should be unable to practise at the bar; the lately 

 persecuted felt they could not enjoy their freedom if their 

 fellow-sufferers by tho law were also relieved, though only 

 in part.* 



A number of organisations, calling themselves Protestant 

 Associations, had been formed in England and Scotland for the 

 purpose of obtaining the removal of disabilities from Protestant 

 dissenters. They chose Lord George Gordon for their chief, 

 and had they searched the whole country over they could not 

 have found a representative more thoroughly unsuited to guide 



It was not till 1839 that the Catholic FasitHpsttosi Act sOowed 

 Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, or to vote ateleetios*, nor was it 

 till the present reign that a full measure of freedom wss meted oat 

 to the professors of all religions, including the Jewish religion, sad 

 that the law both in principle and practice ceased to pnsecnts. 



