"POPULAR JUDGMENTS."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3130, 9 July 1881, Page 4

"POPULAR JUDGMENTS."

Dean Stnnley seems to have been iv a ;■ i i ik -:e;u «■' en tie mounted the pulpit of V'\- hi' ; ri■ te." .VVilw lust Sunday to ' imp. v; ... ; r u„ ~v; ~f i ....,! He took tor his text Judges xvi., 30 : 'So the dead he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.' The reference is to Samson, and a little reflection will enable us to see its appropriateness. Samson figures in sacred history as a halfmythical hero of the Hebrew nation. His life was spent in battling with the Philistines, to whom the chosen people were then in subjection, but he carried on the fight in his own wayward fashion, as much ty trickery as by force. His enormous strength gave birr, an advantage with his enemies, but he alway- preferred to 'dish ' them if he could. Otm n< <[.> he was in temporary lodgings at On/a, and tho PhihViner thought they were sure to catch h 1 "-- ".. '■■■

morning. But. ho was bc'orehnn-i wt: theru. He waited till all was quiet, anrl then, stealthily leaving his chamber, he marched off with the gates of the city on his back. If the scene had lain near the river Jordan, and he had caught them bathing, he would probably have stolen their clothes. On another occasion he caught three hundred foxes, tied them in couples tail to tail, fastened a firebrand to their tails, and sent them among the enemy's standing corn. The Cave of Adullum dntv'g a couple of centuries later in Hebrew history, but the worthies of the cave end Samson's foxes suggest analogous exploits. Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the ' jawbone of an ass,' a weapon which some have supposed to symbolise the marvellous power of rhetoric. Proverbs are associated with his name. ' Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetuess.' It is but a moderate inference to assume that be was ' a master of epigrams.' He chose his wife from among the daugnters of the Philistines, and not from among the daughters of his own people. This was the honest passion of hip youth, but hi 3 fate was mysteriously bound up with a woman's guiles, and he chivalrously gave up the secret of his strength rather than offend Delilah. Then comes the final episode, which furnished Milton with the subject of the most classical of his productions, and which Dean Stanley has selected as the vehicle of a moral lesson. The Philistines had him in their power at last His fatal alliance with Delilah undid him. Great was their ._; when their mighty adversary, who In .. beaten them in strategy and war, lay blinded in the dungeon. They thought to make sport of him. They brought him for this purpose into the temple of Dagon. Thousands of Philistine men anrl women were seatpd in the area of the temple. Three thousand more were on the roof looking down upon the revelry. But Samson, ruse and calculating to the last, managed to place himself between the two pillars upon which the main stress of the building lay. and with one desperate pull brought it all down together, so that, as the Dean's text tells us, ' the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.' Our knowledge and appreciation of these particulars are the reward we get for 'looking at the context,' as we are recommended to do by all enlightened expositors. But we cannot be quite sure that we have yet mastered all the Dean's meaning. Samson slew the Philistines ; slew more of them at his death than he had done durine his life. What are we to understand by the ' Philistines ? ' The Dean knows very well that the ancient name has received a modern interpretation. In the nomenclature of Mr Matthew Arnold, rendered into English for us from the German, the modern Philistine represents the dull and stupid child of routine, the clumsy foe of intellectual freedom. In his phraseology the modern Philistine is the ten-pound householder, the Nonconformist, the doctrinaire Whig, Radicals like Mr Bviggs, or. to stretch a point, like Mr Chamberlain. The wicked Dean knows very well the literary meaning attaching to this ancient designation, and probably chuckled with sacred glee as he cl ln - 3 concordance and settled upn his text. These are the Philistines w 1 --™ ; "> hero slew, slew more of them at M* death than in his life. This question of more or- less raises the only remaining point which it is necessary to elucidate. I should be quite at a loss how to proceed with this part of my exposition were it not for the light reflected back upon it by the grr.r.d lesson which the Dean deduces from the story, a lesson to which I shall presently advert. The Dean's idea seems to be that the extraordinary demonstration of sympathy called forth by the rV.r.ii „f !, o ;. r l Rpnconsfield proved that the heart of the nation was with him, that his eiir-nies were confounded by it, thai it put his detractors to silence, and made his political reputation victorious over all assailants. In this sense the Dean seems to think he slew his enemies at his death, and inflicted a crushing blow upon the envious, carping, critical, malignant children of Philistia, who had repined at the greatness they could not rival. All this may seem fanciful, but it is impossible to suppose that the Dean chose an inappropriate text, and it is only by such a line of interpretation that its appropriateness can be made out. That I am right is certain from what follows. The Dear, proceeds to speak of the ' hcllowness ' of ' what are called popular judgments.' He does not give them that name himself. They are ' popular' no doubt, but he would never describe them as 'judgments.' .But they pass as 'popular judgments,' and as such he denounces them. He says' that they 'are at all times worthless,' that they have ' over and over again been found to shift with every gust of feeling and passion.' ' Such,'he goes on to say, ' in a great measui'e, were the varying opinions respecting the great statesman who had gone. There was the expression of strong approval three years ago ; there was the expression of no less strong disapproval a year ago ; there was now this strong expression of sympathy which seemed almost universal. 1 From the assumed differences between these three assumed verdicts, from the fact that these three assumed verdicts respecting Lord Beaconsfield, recorded at Bhort intervals, vary so much from each other, the Dean triumphantly infers the ' hollowness' of ' popular judgments,' tells us in so many words that they are not worth a moment's consideration, and that they deserve to be held in utter contempt by wise men. This is the doctrine the Dean lays down from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey. Now, before he proceeded to that length it behoved him to examine himself in order to ascertain whether his mind was as entirely free from self-regarding sentiments as to warrant bis indulging in this sweeping and invidious dogmatism. The Dean probably has not yet recovered from a ' popular judgment' which subjected him to bitter humiliation. He gave his assent, we know under what influence, to the erection in Westminster Abbey of a statue to the Prince Imperial. He soon discovered that he had misinterpreted public opinion, but he clung tenaciously and courageously to his resolution till he was compelled to abandon ifc by a vote of the House of Commons. He had to retreat before a 'popular judgment.' He is in a position of exceptional independence. As Dean of Westminster he owes no allegiance to episcopal authority, and is free from all interference save ' that to which he loyally and amiably yields. But Westminster and Windsor had to beat a retreat before the redoubtable Mr Briggs, backed by the ' Batavitin' eloquence of Mr Beresford Hope, and supported by the opinions of a majority of men of all parties out of doors. Probably the Dean never made a closer acquaintance with the rigours of ascetic mortification than during tho night which followed the utterance of this ' popular judgment.' Is it possible that he can admire the instrument of his humiliation ? i say at once that he i 3 not an imimpartial witness, and I would even venture to question the taste which permitted him to use the national pulpit of Westminster Abbey as a medium for this out-pouring of his

private grieF. It is hardly decent that he, the latest ana most conspieious sufferer from a ' popular judgment,' should avail himself of his ecclesiastical coign of vantage in order to <: II us that, coiiertively we are fools. The IT'tin i* a courtier as well as a Churchman. The two cliiir.-icters are not at all incomp i■":'.■.-■ a= w?. know fr.>:si ma-iy examples, but from none more decisively than from his own. He knows what he is doing when he denounces the ' hollowness ' of ' popular judgments,' and declares_ that 'at all times they arc -worthless.' He is not the only sufferer. He is sure of sympathy and appreciation. He will certainly have his reward. The -wonder is that with his rare sagacity, with the delicacy of discernment with which he is endowed, and with the sympathy which enables him to interpret every nidation of the public sentiment, he should expose himself and hi? ■■.(lice to damaging-mimMdveraion. Hut i« is position defensible ? Are ' popular judgments ' •dways 'worthies* in themselves?' Is there nothing remarkable in them but i.neir • hollowness ?' I will take his own test. He says that within three years public opinion has pronounced 'hree different and contradictory verdicts upon the character and conduct, one or either or both, of the late Lord Beans field. Ts this true? He says, ' There was the expression of strong approval three year* ago.' Doubtless ther ■■ was. But did it represent the opinions of a majority of the nation ? Did it express the verdict, at that time ready to be uttered if an opportunity had been given, of the constituencies of the United Kingdom ? Twelve months earlier Lord Reaconsfield acknowledged that the nation was not with him. Three years ago the Crown was besieged with entreaties to dissolve ■ Parliament, in order that the country might have an opportunity of expressing its opinion of the policy piirsued by the Queen's Ministers, These entreaties were not complied with, and. we are therefore unable to assume that the verdict of the nation would have been condemnatory. But, at all events, we know tha*- tho policy of tho Government in 1878 was not before tho country in 1874 ; and we also know that on the very first opportunity the nation condemned it with an emphasis almost without parallel in our political history. Thus the contrast which the Dean discovers between the ' popular judgments' of 1878 and 18S0 disappears, and with it the proof of c hollowness.' According to the Dean the 'popular judgment' pronounced in 1880 is again reversed by the ' strong expression of sympathy, which seems almost universal,' called forth by Lord Beaeonsfield's death. It is amazing how an acute and truthful divine can lend his authority to such an inference. If the Dean were to die we should all be filled with profound grief. The newspapers would pour forth their eulogies. His faults would be forgotten, and his virtues, of which he has so many, would be allowed for seven days to shine forth with undimmed lustre without the intervention of the thinnest vapour of criticism to intercept their rays from a disconsolate public. But it would not follow that we had forgotten the young Napoleon episode, or that we admired the courtier quite as much as we revered the divine. It is rather unfair of Dean Stanley to take advantage of our generosity in order to twit us with inconsistency. It is a sin against what is purest and best in human nature, the nearest approach we can imagine to the sin for which there is no forgiveness. Popular judgments are not infallible, but they are not fallible because they are popular. The judgments of deans and bishops, and Convocations and Parliaments, and even of Courts, are equally open to impeachment. To me no attribute of popular judgments appears moie remarkable than their leniency and consistency. If they have weakness, so far as public men are concerned, it lies in a readiness to seize upon their best points, to give them the benefit of the most charitable constructions, and to believe in them through all the vicissitudes of fortune. National verdicts vary with the poli?y of the Government. To-day they approve, to-morrow they may condemn. .but the variation attaches to the questions submitted to national ap proval, and not to the sentiments of the nation. The Dean lias done us a great injustice. We are not the mutable eteatures he supposes. He is the victim of subjective illusions which, like the demons of old, go not out except by prayer and fasting. He has taken a trip to the Continent Perhaps a change of air may restore the moral balance. If not, as a last resource, I would venture to suggest a month's ' retreat,' with alternate courses of ' Thomas a Kempis' and ' Stubbs's Constitutional History."—London correspondent of an English paper.