THE EDITORS PORTFOLIO.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 18, 9 July 1842, Page 72

THE EDITORS PORTFOLIO.

REMARKS ON THE FORMATION OF ASSOCIATIONS TO ACCOMPLISH ALL OBJECTS BY ORGANIZED MASSES OF SOCIETY. BY CHANNING. [Continued from our hut.] It were better thnt they should escape than be imprisoned or executed by any man who may think fit to assume the office ; for sure we are that, by this summary justice, the innocent would soon suffer more than the guilty ; and, on the same principle, we cannot consent that what we dean error should be crushed by the joint cries and denunciations of vast societies directed by the tyranny of a few; for truth has more to dread from such weapons than falsehood, and we know no truth against which they may not be successfully turned. In this country, few things are more to be dreaded than organizations or institutions by which public opinion may be brought to bear tyrannically against individuals or sects. From the nature of things, public opinion is often unjust ; but when it is not embodied and fixed by pledged societies it easily relents, it may receive new impulses, it is open to influences from the injured. On the contrary, when shackled and stimulated by vast associations, it is in danger of becoming a steady, unrelenting tyrant, browbeating the timjd, proscribing the resolute, silencing free speech, and virtually denying the dearest religious and civil rights. We say not that all great associations must be thus abused. We know that some are useful. We know, too, that there are cases in which it is important ( that public opinion should be condensed, or act in a mass. We feel, however, that the danger of great associations is increased by the very fact that they are sometimes useful. They are perilous instruments. They ought to be suspected. They are a kind of irregular government created within our constitutional government. Letthem be watched closely. As soon rs we find them resolved or disposed to bear down a respectable man or set of men, or to force on the community measures about which wise and good men differ, let us feel that a dangerous engine is at work among us, and oppose to it our steady and stern disapprobation!. ■•* We have spoken of ihe tendency of great institutions to accumulate power in a few hands. These few they make more active ; but they tend to produce dependence, and to destroy self-originated action in the vast multitudes who compose them, and this is a serious injury. Few comprehend the extent of this evil. Individual action it the highest good. What we

want is that men should do right more and more from their own minds, and less and less from imitation, from a foreign impulse, from sympathy with a crowd. This is the kind of action which we recommend. Would you do good according to the Gospel ? Do it secretly, silently; so silently that the left hand will not know what the right hand doeth. This precept does not favour the clamorous and far- published efforts of a leagued multitude. We mean not to sever men from others in well-doing, for we have said there are many good objects which can only be accomplished by numbers. Hut, generally speaking, we can do most good by individual action, and our own virtue is incomparably more improved by it. It is v'a^tlv better, for example, that we should give oflr own money with our own hands, from our own judgment, and through personal interest in the distresses of others, than that we should send it by substitute. Second-hand charity is not as goodto the giver or receiver as immediate. There are, indeed, urgent cases where we cannot act immediately, or cannot alone do the good required. There let us join with others ; but where we can do good secretly, and separately, or only with some dear friend, we shall almost certainly put forth in this way more of intellect and heart, more of sympathy and strenuous purpose, and shall awaken>jpore of virtuous sensibility in those whom we relieve, than if we were to be parts of a multitude in accomplishing the same end. Individual action is the great point to be secured. That man alon* understands the true use of society who learns from it to act more and more from his own deliberate conviction, to think more for himself, to be less swayed by numbers, to rely more on his own powers. One good action springing from our own minds, performed from a principle within, performed without the excitement of an urging and approving voice from abroad, is worth more than hundreds which grow from mechanical imitation, or from the heat and impulse which numbers give us. In truth, all great actions are solitary ones. All the great works of genius come from deep, lonely thought. The writings which have quickened, electrified, regenerated the human mind, did not spring from associations. That is most valuable which is individual; which is marked by what is peculiar and characteristic in him who accomplishes it. In truth, associations are chiefly useful by giring meaps and opportunities to gifted individuals to act out their own minds. A missionary society achieves little good, except when it can send forth an individual who wants no teaching or training from the society, but who carries his

commission and chief power in his own soul. We urge this, for we feel that we. are all in danger of sacrificing our individuality and independence to our social connexions. We dread new social trammels. They are too numerous already. From these views we learn that th«* is cause to fear and to withstand great associations, as far as they interfere with or restrain individual action, personal independence, private judgment, free, self-originated effort. We do fear, from not a few associations which exist, that power is to be accumulated in the hands of a few, and a servile, tame, dependent spirit, to be generated in the many. Such is the danger of our times, and we are bound as Christians and freemen to withstand it.

We have now laid down the general principles which, as we think, are to be applied to associations for public objects. Another* pan of our work remains. We propose to offer some remarks on a few societies which at this time demand our patronage or excite particular attention. In doing this, we shall speak* with our customary freedom ; but we beg that we may not be understood as censuring the motives of those whose plans and modes of operation we condemn. The associations for suppressing intemperance form an interesting feature of our times. Their object is of undoubted utility, and unites the hearts of all good men. They aim to suppress an undoubted and gross vice, to free its victims from the worst bondage, to raise them from brutal degradation to the liberty and happiness of men. [To be continued.}