THE WORLD OF CANT. (Tasmanian Mail.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2167, 29 May 1886, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF CANT. (Tasmanian Mail.)

In one of Carlylc's letters to Emerson occur the following ejaculations :— " May the Lord deliver" us from all caut ! May the Lord, whatever else He do, forbear, teach us to look facts in the face, ami to beware (with a kind of shudder), of smeai ing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver into inecognisability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to his own blockheads of children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting swineVtrough for want of Gospels. "Oh Heaven ! it U the most accursed sin of man, and done everywhere at present, on the streets and high places .it noond.iy ! Verily, seriously 1 say and pi ay a* my chief orison, may the Lord deliver u.s from it." Carlyle doubtless had good reasons for giving utterances to such a pi ayer, but what would he have said if he lived in our day in one of the Australasian (.elonics, where cant flourishes like a rank weed in a garden. Of any omi of these colonies it may be said that it is not merely a world of cant, but a perfect paradise of cant, so much so that it may ulmo-t be paid to hare completely supplanted the genuine article of which it is the counterfeit. The unknown author of "The World of Cant" asks the question, "What is ••ant?" nud in icply he says it is nvoib; it is a noun. It is a trade, a profession, a show, u vitiated appetite, a conspiracy, a charm, a mischief-milker, a talisman, a saleable article, yet an unreality, a school, a faith, an institution, a pet, an imposture, a miasma, ii hydi.t, u conundrum. It is gross and tangible ; yet it is subtle and impalpable and all pervading. It would require volumes to describe it : but as its forms arc protean, and its origin and its goal are invisible and inscrutable : no definition could be complete." Perhaps not, but we venture to think that if we define cant as the counterfeit of religion it will sufficiently answer our present purpose, which Ls to draw attention to the extraordinary extent to which people allow th»rn*elvcs to be imposed upon by those whose stock-in-tiado is Cant. During the last thiec months our intercolonial intelligence has been little else than a record of gigantic swindles, bank robberies, and embezzlements, all committed by people who were distinguished for their extraordinary professions of piety. It is well known that the perpetrators of the notorious Glasgow Bank frauds, by which some hundreds of widows and orphans were suddenly reduced to destination, were committed by men who would never read a paper on Monday because it was the result of Sunday labour, and in a similar way we aie told of those concerned ia the Commercial Bink swindle iv Adelaide, which has brought misery into somo hundreds of heretofore happy homes, that they were distinguished «a being eminently religious men. The manager and the directors were either ex-ministers or elders of churches, and even the clerks were members of tho Young Men's Chri-tian A*soci'ition. Thus we are told of Crooks and Wilson that they held a high portion in the churches'they attended. Crooks especially was well-known for the constant interest which he took in the young men's societies attached to the various churches of tho Wesleyan body in Adelaide, his favourite exhortation to the young being that they should walk strictly in the paths of cotnmcicial integrity. (What a pity he did not practise what he preached)." He was uimparinc in his denunciations of the evil effects of cards, billiards, and betting, on the morals of young men. In fact he appears to ha\e been one of those people so scathingly satirised by Tom Hood, [our contemporary means Butler], who Compound for sins they arc incliiipd to By damning those they ha\ c no mind to. All the time that he was damning cards, billiards, and betting, on the ground, we suppose, that they too often lead to dishonesty, he was helping himself to the bank's funds, and he muBt have done it on a pretty liberal scale, too, if it be true as reported, that Crook? and Wilson hold between them over £100,000 worth of Silver-ton mining scrip. As a set off against this peculiar exhibition of commercial integrity, we are told that every room in Crooks' house in North Adelaide was hung with scriptural texts. Shakspore tells us the devil can quote scripture for his purpose, and it appears that there are people whose minds are so peculiarly constituted that they consider so long as they take care to interlard their discourse with scriptural quotation*; they can act pretty much as they please. The latest instance of embezzlement in a quarter where one would naturally least expect it is that of Walker, the gc-neral Secretary of the Adelaide Christian Young Men'? Association. This young man, it will be remembered, was in Hobart a few weeks ago attending the meetings of the Conference of Delegates of Christian Young Men's Associations. He took a very prominent part in the platform demonstrations at the Town Hall, and not content with that, he persisted in pestering the reporters who attended the meetings in the discharge of their duty to the papers they represented, I by such questions as " How's your soul?' as if a man's soul were liable to catch cold or some of the other maladies that flesh is heir to "Are you saved ?" "Arjeyou converted?" "Is your heart right with the Lord ?" One of the reporters, we believe, replied to his queries in language more forcible than polite, and, under the circumstances, it was quite excusable. Newspaper reporters, as a rule, who attend religions meetings do so simply as a pure matter of business, just as they would a theatre, a circus, or any other place of entertainment. What religious feeling or convictions they may entertain they "keep to themselves, and have no desire whatever to parade them before the public. This man Walker, on the other hand, made himself a perfect, nuisance by his extravagant and eccentric demonstrations of piety. He could not go into any office or place of business without persisting in flopping down on his knees and praying for what in his modesty and charity he assumed to bo the unregenernte soul of the person he was interviewing, and now it comes out that all the time he was cutting these religious capers, and for some time previously, he was embezzling the funds of tho Association of which he was a trusted member and a shining light. Like Judas, he carried the bag, and, like Judas, he helped himself to its contents. It must have been very soon after his return from Hobart that his accounts were examined. His books were found all right, but cash was missing to the amount of £1400. He has admitted tho appropriation of this amount, and the explanation of tho occurrence f urnishesa very significant commentary upon bin platform profession*. While he was denouncing the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and exhorting his hearers to lay up treasure in Heaven by contributing liberally '>f their substance towards tho funds of this and kindred associations, he was keeping up a style of living for beyond his means. He received a salary from the Association of £*}00 a yen.r and he lived at the rate of £(500, making up the difference by surreptitious draftaupon tho funds of the Association. We aro forced, then, to the conclusion that, while this man profeascd so much anxiety for other people's «outs, he had not much thought for his own— he

cared more for the pleasures of the body. He livid in an atmoaphero of Cant, and his ostentatious professions of piety wcie nothing more than a sham, a hollow pretence like those of the Pharisees of old, who loved to pray t-tanding in the corner*, of the streets that they might be seen of men ; who devourei widows' honses and for a pretence made long prayers. The moral to be drawn from this in not that we should despise religion. By no means, but thit we should learn to distinguish between the hollow and the genuine, between the pinchbeck article ami the sterling metal, in other words, between religion puro and undented, and its counterfeit, which is Cant. The sincerely religious man docs nut parade his foclinpp beforo his fellow mcv, it is in the retirement of his closet that he pours out his boul. He is never obtrusive, nor docs he assuino to himself the function* of a ceiihor. O-i the contrary, he practices that charity which thinketh no evil, vauutcth not it-olf, is not pulled up With him religion is far too sacred » subject to be dealt with at platform demonstrations, or opon air assemblages accompanied with the braying ot trumpets, and the beating of drums. He doe.* not interlard his discourses or bubiner"* matters with scriptural quotations, and inquiries about his neighbour's soul, but recognises the fact that there is a time .md a place for everything. When, therefore, you find men like these fraud u lent b.iuk managers and directors, or like this man Walker, inn king .such ostentatious professions of piety, and professing Mich extraordinary solicitude for your spiritual welfare, it ipretty s.ifo to conclude that Uu-ir re:il auxiety is how they nisiy best annex some portion of your tempotal goods, and if they gain admittance into your liou^c you had better keop your rye on tho spoons. Their profes-ions of religion arc but a cloak to conce-il their ultoiior designs " Christianity," says tho author of thr " Woild ef Cant," i-. the purest of moial atmospheres ; it invigorates the brain and energises the heart. Cant has emitted its* filthy, putresccut and deadly exhalations into and throughout, those religious ix-ene-where men go to seek that Divine atmo^ phere, so that unwarily they sicken, be come delirious, languish, or die, whin searching for the conditions which promised them immortal life." " Chrktianity is a spiritual garden, a paradise for the soul. Cant ha> violated its harrcd preciucts, do»troyed the fairest fruits and flowers, and in their place has planted a rank und pestilent vegetation, reeking with poison for mankind. She bus blasted nil the laudncape, and ban hushed the jubihint voices of nature which ieMiunded through the groves and bowers. Where she has located herseU, no honest man is permitted an entrance ; for the liiM-ing serpents of slander are cora-ini.v-ioned to guard the gate, and to attack with their deadly stings whosoever ih unwilling to render to omnipotent Cant, praise glory and gratitude for tho hide ms desolation and devastation which she has wrought."