INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 148, 19 April 1873, Page 3

INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER.

Lasi e\onm« the Dean of St Paul's (Dr Churcli) delivered the iirst of :i course ot leetnres " On the Influence of Christianity upo'i the National Character" to nn audience of men under tlic dome of the cathedral. Uo said he proposed to consider tlie subject 111 connection with certain loading types of Jintiou.il character which lind been specially influenced by Cbnstianit\—vi7, first, the Eastern races belonging to the Greek Church, and particularly the Greeks themselves ; next, the Latin races, more e t pecialf\ the Italians and the French ; and, lasth , the Teutonic races. Those divisions would hiipply the subjict of the three lectures which, he proposed to deliver ; but it was e\ ident that subject, from the limits of time at his disposal, could be treated only in the most general manner. Ho believed that it was as certain that each race poosessed a national character as that a type of physiognomy and expression peculiar to each existed, although it might not all at once he distinguishable. That character was composed of the qualities and tendencies of a nation and its history, of the moral, intellectual, and physicnl gifts and condition* -\v itb winch it started, the occurrences and trials ■which it met in its course, the presence of great men, either good or bud, and the actions, ieelmga, assumptions, and habits which grew up Wlt^ lf - Everyone must, he thought, hare wondered how diifrronb would have been the fate of his country if a certain event, had not happened or a certain man had not lived or had died when he did. One of the most important influences which ailed ed the character an I history of o nation vras religion, stating it generally, and as au instance of this the Dean cited the Alahoraedan religion, -which, he said, had, so to speak, consecrated despotism, slavery, and polygamy. As to the efl'ect of Christianity on tho natioi al character of Eastern Christendom as typified by the Greek race, he remarked that he had chosen that race because the first impression made on the Greek was a prim 117 and original one, and was not communicated to them from other nations, because they had the longest history, and because of the -\ lassitudes which they had undcigunc. It required an eilbrt to call up any amount of interest in the later Greek race, and many per«ons -would choose it as an instance of the failure of Christianity to raise men There were two reasons for the feeling— first, the great division and gulf between Eastern and Western Christendom ; and secondly, the enormoiH influence w Inch Gibbon's great history had had on the minds of Englishmen. The Dean took occasion to demur to Gibbon's estimate of the Greek character, and to refer the student to the more impartial works of such writers as Mr Freeman and Dean Stanley One iact, lie alone should make the race interesting- -namely, that ltwa* Greeks and peoplo imbued with Greek ideas who first welcomed Christianity, and that it viiu 111 the atmosphere of Gieece that the faith which had so great an influence upon the world grew up and became strengthened To that faith, tl ough centuries had passed and a series 1 f misfortunes and disasters bud been undergone, the Greeks Iwd been unalterably laithful, though in comparison with the races to which they had passed their knowledge their religious progress was disappearing. The Dean then pointed out hew the Gospel had been originally preached at Athens, Corinth, EphesuF, and other cities, how the religion continued to flourish notwithstanding the Roman conquest of the world, and even after the fall of the Roman Empire, and how even now it still existed. Without that religion, tho race, he thought, must Imm 0 perished. The Dean concluded an able lecture, of which we have only given the faintest outline, by urging that the reasons why Christianity had exercised so much influence on the national character of the Greeks were that it impressed on their minds w ith new force the idea of the eternal and tho lasting, that in it there was a spirit of brotherhood which singularly coincided with the notions of social equality which they held, and that it taught them to have hope even 111 the midst of then 1 greatest dangers and disasters. — Times,, Feb. 5.

Tiik ZvN'/tßvn Mission— The Colnyne Gazette says:— "The English man-of-war Briton, under the command of Captain Malcolm, arrived on the 13tli of December in advance ot the other vessels jilaccd at tho disposal of Sir Bartlc Frerc at, Zanzibar We extract the follow ing from a private letter dated Zanzibar, December 19 :— ' We arrived at Zanzibar on the loth of December, at 8 o'clock p m , and found next morning a respectable town both as to size and appearance before us. When we hoisted our flag we fired 21 cannon shots to salute the Sultan, but on account of the terrible ram, though it is jiiNt now the dry season, we could not leave the ship "before 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We bailed immediately Dr Kirk, the English Consul and Livingstone's friend. Jle appears to be in very bad health, lie said that the terrible hurricane which lias devastated the island and the coast of the continent has caused such a demand for labour that it w ill be extremely difficult to come to an agreemont on a treaty for the suppression of slavery. Afterwards we went to the slave market, where we found about 100 shues •vhibited for sale. They were quiet, and appeared rather 'flattered than offended when the prices of sal« wore aaVed. The women were divided in groups according us they •were destined for work or concubinage. Tlioso of the latter category were painted and showily adorned ; the highest price ask°d for nny one of them was about GO thaler (tO). Seyd Burgbash, Sultan of Zanzibar, is a man of middle size, stout, with black hair aiul beard, large black eyes, and olive coloured complexion. He is very much opposed to Sir Bartle Frero and his plans. Every day a young bullock is sacrificed, and den lshes and priests go through tho town, reciting passages from tho Koran and prayers to avert away the threatening misfortune. On the 18th wo were presented to the Sultan. His troops, Arabs and Negroes, were drawn up in ranks 300 paces long. Near the Palace and in ita hulls and pa.i-i.iges Persians (hib bent troops) were placed, and 40 paces distaut from thorn stood the Sultan, with his Vizier, brother*, nephews, and officers. He gave his hand to Dr Kirk, and saluted him amicably. We remained standing at the ontrancc to the throne room. The Sultan advanced to the door, asked us to enter, and took up his place in the middle of the room, having at his rij;ht his Yizior, a cunning old Arab, and his AT mister of War, a Persian, all in their barbarous array of State. At his left wero Dr Kirk, Captain Malcolm, and tho officers of the Briton. Coflee and sherbert were ser\ed round, and tho conversation turned on unimportant subjects, until the Sultan asked suddenly Captain Malcolm how matters stood about the Sea King. Tins was a vessel belonging to tho Sultan which had been lost, and whose crew tho Briton had handed over to a Prize Court. Fortunately, Captain Malcolm could nay that all this had happened before he had taken command of the ship, and the officer ne\t to him gave him so cle\ er and evasive an answer that no discussion arose from this incident. Sovereign and people hate us thoroughly, and look upon us only as a sort of pirates ; if it wore in their power, they would also treat us as such. They are astonished that such a rich nation as tho English busies itself with the slaves on the East African coast, instead of being satisfied with minding its own atlairs. — Pall Mall Gazette. A singular freak has been committed by a young curate, who was to have been married to tho daughter of a county magistrate in Staffordshire, a momber of the congregation in which tho curate ministered. On tho previous night he made his cuttomary visit at the joung lady's house, where the presents were laid out in the drawing-room, and several friends had arrived to take part in the ceremony on tl o morrow. The villagers had decorated the church and festooned tho streets. The brido put on some of her w edding costume to show her suitor, who remarked, " What should you say if I si ould run away, and not come to-morrow ?," The young lady laughed away the suggestion as the height of impropriety. In tho morning, when the bride and her iriends were about to enter the carnage, a note fiom the curate was put into her hand. She read it and immediately fainted. Her suitor had written that, he " f elt ho was unworthy of her, and therefore could not become her husband." It turned out tlut within an hour aflor leaving his brido expectant on the previous night, the cumtc hu I left for the JSorlh bv tho JicuLch uiuil.

Considerable sensation was experienced on the classic "pave" of Pitt streeet on Monday night, m consequence of the apprehension of a smart person of youthful appearance, by constable Harrington, who was on "duly m that locuhty. From inquiry it appears that the mdix uUiaL wa- agirl named Mary Anne Caroline Downing, daughter oi respectable parents, residing m Melbourne, irom wlio^e tn»toJ\ she was abducted about three week- ago bv two old men, one of them known as Eres, who brought tier on to this colony and took her to Cook's Hirer. The disconsolate parents, on imping her from home, telegraphed to the police authorities of Sydney, and subsequently sent her likeness to assist in her identification, and the police have I>mmi actively in search of her ever since. When found in l'itt street by constable Harrington, she was attired in a fashionable youth's light tweed bint, a Californian hat, and wore elastic boot*, she also had a false moustache, and her hair w as cut short like a boy's. She carried a smart riding w hip in her hand. The constable apprehended her under the prov i-jions of the Indu-tri.il Schools Act, for being, when under sixteen 3 ear* of age, without any lawful abode. Miss I) >wning was brought up at the Central Police Court tliis morning on that charge, but as she appeared to be eighteen j ears old, the bench were reluctantly comj>ellcd to dismiss t'.ie eaoC. It was admitted by her that she had £20 when she arrived here, and that she had spent £10 of it 111 Sydney ; bill she promised to return home to Melbourne in t lie CII 3 of Adelaide to-morrow, her mother having made arrangements to piv her passage at that end. — Town and Country Journal, April 5 A Wr.DDING IN Mokocco. — The (rihrultar Chronicle of the 21>t ultimo sajs :—": — " On Friday last Tangier witnessed a sight unprecedented m Morocco — the marriago of a lineal descendant of Mahomet, 1113 Highness the Shenll'ofQ-ua/an, better know n b_\ Ins Spanish cognomen 'El Santo,' w ith an English Christ mirlady, Miss King. The bride rode to the British Consulate on an Arab horse covered a\ ith a saddlecloth embroidered with gold, presented to her by Ihe bridegiooin. The marriage was merely a eiwl ceremony, per- j ibiincd by Sir John Hay Drummuud IL\\, K.C.J3., and after this was o^er the bride and bridegroom rode back to the Victoria Hotel, where a sumptuous wedding breakfast had been prepared by Mr Martin, at which the Consulate body were present. The bridegroom, who appeared in a flowing Eastern dre3« of dark blue, was escorted by a guard of Moorish soldiers to the hotel. At tb.3 conclusion of the breakfast the bride iin I brie e_;room proceeded to the ec un ry i house of the Sheriff, situated at G-uazan. 3Tor the boneht of the fair countrywomen of the bride who may bo disposed to j follow her example, it may be as well to add that the Sheriff i has now four wives, that a Christian mam ing a Ma'lomedan forfeits the protection of Eughth lav, md that Mahomedan husbands are by the Alcoran (Chapter 1, verse 38) stricth enjoined to beat their wnes in csi.se the latter are disposed to be refractory. The bridegroom is a personoge of the greatest importance in Morocco. ' El Santo' is a stout, robust man, aged about 35, who distinguished himself greatly during the war with Spam in 1859-UO, especially in one of the most spirited and best contested actions of the campaign, when hit* address to the Moorish soldiers roused then' to such a pitch of enthusiasm that they threw themselves headlong, in rather a confused state it must be admitted, on their opponents, and though defeated, were by no means disgraced. He paid a visit to this garrison two or three years ago, when there was a review 111 Ins honour on the Xorth Front. Colonel Maberley, C.8., then commanding the Royal Artillery , presented his Highness on that occasion vsith the horse furniture of a Field Officer of that corps. It may also be mentioned that the Society of the MuUy-Taieb, of which Sheriff is the head, has ramifications in Bombaj'." E vuTH-EATiNG. — Dr Gait, in his " Medical Notes of the Upper Amazon," published in a late number of the American Journal of the Jledical Sciences, has furnished us w ith some curious information on a subject that does not Usually come within the rango of professional notice — namelj , the strange practice known &i " dirt-eating," or " geophagie." This disease, according to Dr Gait, now enters as one of the chief endemic complaints of all tropical America, and at the distance of over 2,000 miles from the sea, on the Amazon Valley, j where the negro is a rarity, bein<j merely a waif from Brazil or the Pacific coast, it is the most important disease among the children and women of the country. Here, on the Maranon, the half-breeds are mostly addicted to the practice of dirt eating— neither the pure savago nor tfic more cultivated being so often the -v ictiins. The accounts about the tyranny of this habit of dirt-eating on the victims of it would seem almost fabulous, Dr Gait sa^s, were there not evidences all around one to give sanction to them. Children commence the practice from the time they are four 3 ears old, or less, and frequently die from the results in two or three 3 ears. In other cases they grow to manhood or womanhood, and Dr Gait speaks of having himself seen in the case of a Me«h/e soldier, who was dying from dysentery which sooner or later 1 supervenes on this habit, the poor creature, hiilf an hour ' before his death, detected with a lump of claj stuffed m his ' bimken cheeks. Oilleers who have the Indian or half-breed I children as servants in their employ sometimes have to u-e wire masks to keep them from putting the clay to their ' mouths, and women, as they lie in bed sleeploss and restless, t will pull out pieces of mud fr< m the adjoiun q wa'ls of their | room to gratify their strange appetite, or will soothe a squall- j ing brat by tempting it with a lump of the same material. If persisted m, the cifects are surely fatal at varying terms of years, some In ing tolerably to middle age and then djmg ! of dysentery. In children dropsy usually appears to be the ' most prominent cause of decline and death. — Lancet. A strong-minded woman in Detroit made the following gentle reply to a politician who had called at her house to get her husband to go to the poll and vote : " No, sir, he can't go ! He's washing now, and he's got to iron to-mor-row, and if he wasn't doing anything he couldn't go. I run this 'ere house, I do, and if anyone voted it'll be this same Mary Jane." Faltacy of Futivty. — Phy-icians often prescribe change of air when the change realh required for the poor patient's cure is change of circumstances.