59° 



The Review of Reviews. 



December 1, 1909. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX DENOUNCED. 



[n ''Musings Without Method" Blacku'ood in- 

 veighs against the current glorification of Fox. The 

 writer says : — 



Concerning no politician has so much cant been spoken 

 and written as concerning Charles James Fox. His name has 

 heen whispered with a reverential awe by thousands who 

 would have shrunk hack in horror had they recognised the 

 truth of his career. To him posterity has allowed a latitude 

 which it withholds from all others known to history. The 

 highly sensitive conscience which found Parnell's disgrace a 

 patent necessity does not shrink from the indiscretions of 

 Fox. Sir George Trevelyan celebrates in euthusia-stic terms 

 " the grateful veneration with which the whole body of his 

 Xonconformist fellow-citizens adored him living, and mourn- 

 ed him dead." Indeed, there is an element of the grotesque 

 in the passionate lespect in which the party of Dr. Clifford 

 holds this genial gamester, who loved women and the bottle 

 as deeply as he loved the dice-box. For his extravagances 

 they have an ever-ready excuse. With the bluff' exclamation 

 that " boys will be boys." Cliey sun themselves in the light 

 of his dissipations. They take a smiling pleasure in his 

 vices, and describe as generosity in him what in another 

 they would denounce for blackguardism. 



As a man of pleasure he was supereminent. In an age of 

 hard drinking and reckless gambling. Charles Fox had no 

 equal. 



His father took care that, when fourteen years of 

 age. he left France a finished rake. After a career 

 of fearful extravagance at the gaming-tables, Fox 

 set up a bank at Brooks', with Hare and Fitz- 

 Patrick as partners. Charles Fox, says the ^yriter, 

 went into politics without principles, and without 

 principles he remained till the end. He was a 

 partisan, and not a patriot. " Wherever there was 

 a foe to England, there was a friend of Fox." 

 " Throughout the war with Xapoleon, Fox did his 

 best to aid the enemy and thwart his own country- 

 men.' The writer concludes with the exclamation : 

 " How unfortunate is the party of Dr. Clifford, 

 which, in spite of its active conscience and high pro- 

 fessions, can find no better saints to reverence than 

 John Wilkes and Charles James Fox!" 



AGAINST TEACHING CHILDREN CHRISTIANITY. 



Miss T-'lorence Hayllar writes in the Independent 

 Rei'iac on Christianity and the Child. She raises 

 the great question, " How far is a child capable of 

 assimilating religious instruction?" The child, the 

 writer argues, repeats the history of the race. 

 Childhood in the individual corresponds to the 

 primitive savage and barbarian stages of develop- 

 ment in the race : and it was not to the primitive or 

 savage or barbarian man that Christianity was 

 given. 



THE MESSAGE OF CHKIST FOE THE MATUEE. 

 The message of Christ belongs to maturity, not 

 to childhood. The writer considers the teaching of 

 Tesus in the Gospels. Simple in appearance, it 

 involves for the most part an experience which a 

 child has not attained. The contrast between the 

 commands of Christ and the conduct of Christians 

 is apt to confuse the young mind. So much, she 



says, of Christ's teaching as is directly contrary to 

 the common conduct of ordinarv reputable persons 

 should not be brought to the notice of young 

 I'hildren. So with the history of the life of Christ. 

 The story of the Birth at Bethlehem, of the child- 

 hood, and of the three years' ministry may well 

 find a place in the child's mind, but she draws the 

 line at the Crucifixion. . The historical books of the 

 Bible are again \ery perplexing, because of the un- 

 christian conduct of many of the Jewish heroes. 

 The Acts of the .Apostles she considers to be the 

 book which lends itself most easily to a straight- 

 forward treatment. Passages from the poetry, phil- 

 osophy, and doctrine of the Bible might be com- 

 mitted to memory. 



.A.fter this preamble it is somewhat surprising to 

 find the writer insisting that Christian children 

 should be taught by heart the -Apostles' Creed, or 

 some similar form. In addition, children should be 

 told, in favourable moments, as much as they can 

 understand about Jesus Christ. His life and His 

 teaching. 

 CHILDHOOD ONLY A PEEPAEATIOX FOE CHEISTIANITY. 



But the object of the elementarv schools should 

 be, she insists, " to furnish the children with a pre- 

 paration for higher teaching analogous to that pre- 

 paration of the world before Christ came." Justice 

 and courage and self-mastery, which are pre- 

 supposed and not taught by Cfiristianity, should be 

 learnt first, otherwise forgiveness and love are 

 dangerous, humility and self-denial become mere 

 weakness. The time for distinctively religious teach- 

 ing, and for beginning the study of the Gospels and 

 the Bible is, the writer maintains, generallv ado- 

 lescence, extending from the thirteenth or four- 

 teenth to the eighteenth or nineteenth vear. Prepa- 

 ration for confirmation should then be taken 

 seriously. Then the high and solemn story of the 

 Crucifixion should be told for the first time. This 

 plan of religious education, she maintains, is the 

 natural one : — 



If any plan like this comes to be carried out. a much 

 greater importance than is now the case will be attached to 

 confirmation and the antecedent teaching. This would fall 

 for the most part beyond the period of elementary school 

 life, and would in all probability be undertaken, as it now 

 generally is. by the clergy; and of all the work in their 

 hands would be the most critical and far-reaching. 



This is certainly another way out of the religious 

 difficulty. Here is one. evidently a devout believer 

 herself, arguing that in the interests of religious edu- 

 cation children should be taught the plain funda- 

 mental virtues until they have left the public ele- 

 mentary school, leaving the clergy to complete the 

 religious in.struction by proper training for confirma- 

 tion. The writer makes a very valuable suggestion 

 with more humility than perhaps is quite necessary, 

 that among the studies compulsory before ordina- 

 tion, at least an outline of child-study, with the 

 necessary psychology and phvsiology pertaining to 

 it. should find a place. 



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