Ittitto tu ti t etritur.
LORD PALMERSTON'S LETTER TO THE PRESBYTERY OF EDINBURGH.
Edinburgh, 9th November 1853.
But—In your journal of October 29th you allude in the following words to the "admirable rebuke the Secretary of State for the Home Department has given to the Presbytery of Edinburgh," and give an additional article on the subject in your last. ' That body asked Government to appoint a day of fast and humiliation on account of the cholera. No, says Lord Palmerston, the Creator has decreed and made manifest the laws which regulate health and disease; human creatures can themselves modify these conditions; • and diligence in removing the causes of cholera will show more reverence for the laws of Providence than all the prayers and fastings of an inactive nation." Now, Sir, a rebuke to take effect must be relevant and applicable, or fall to the ground, if it does not recoil on him who administers it. A censor re- proves improper practices, neglect of duty, or wrong opinions; but when none of these is to be found in the objects of his censures, his blows reach not them ; he beats the empty air • and whatever he may think, himself is really the parts- who "looks foolish." The Presbytery of Edinburgh, composed of learned and educated men, may safely be assumed to be quite as well aware as Lord Palmerston of those gaseous exhalations and other causes which are productive of disease, and quite as willing to exert them- selves for their removal. The use of human means for the prevention or dispelling of disease they are always prepared to inculcate, and do inculcate as a duty : yet if there be any force or relevancy in his Lordship's rebuke, it must be on the supposition that the Presbytery are opposed to the use of these means, or disposed to neglect Poem; an assumption notoriously in- correct.
I would explain the views of the Presbytery of Edinburgh in this matter, not because I have any title to speak for that reverend body, but because their opinions are those of all Scotch Presbyterians; and I will do so by a short extract from a book for which, and for the body by whose authority it is used, I doubt not Lord Palmerston has great respect. I mean the Prayer-Book of the Church of England; in which are the following words: "Prevent us, 0 Lord, in all our doings, with Thy most gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help; that in all our works, begun; continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy holy name," &c. I have no doubt, that were I better acquainted with this venerable manual I could find other passages besides this admirable prayer, to serve my purpose ; but that is quite sufficient to show where the Home Secretary and Scotch Presby- tenans differ. There, the Church of England, acknowledging our complete dependence on the Creator of the universe, puts in the mouth of her people a petition for His favour and continual help in all their doings ; and not only "when man has done his utmost for his own safety," does this Church hold that "then is the time to invoke the blessing of Heaven to give effect to his exertions," but in all their works, begun, continued, and ended in Him, they are to glorify His holy name. This, the doctrine of the Church of England, sufficiently and clearly explains the views of Scotch Presby- terians. We think it our bounden duty thankfully and actively to apply the remedies and preventives of disease which science has brought to light ; but to begin and continue our undertaking with prayer for God's blessing, and to persevere in the exercise of both means and prayer to the end. In fact, Lord Palmerston's admirable rebuke must be as applicable to the bench of Bishops as to the Presbytery of Edinburgh. The Home Secretary commits a gross mistake when he connects fasting and prayer with inactivity in duty—" in spite of the findings and prayer of an united but inactive nation." At no period, in Scotland or any Protestant country, will such a connexion be found to subsist ; but exactly the reverse. It would be easy, but is superfluous, to show that piety and prayer induce not indolence but the active virtues wherever they prevail. In truth, the inten- sity of desire for a great benefit, or for protection from calamity, which urges to supplicate Him who can do all things, will, it may be inferred, a priori, necessarily stimulate to the active use of all means known to lead to the de- sired result; while all history, from the age of the Apostles downwards, teems with proofs of the fact.
I am not aware that Scotland with reference to cholera has been an "in- active nation," more than other parts of the United Kingdom; but that there has been a culpable neglect of the means of health and safety which Providence has placed at our disposal throughout the country at large, with a disregard of the plainest teaching of His afflicting dispensations amounting to impiety, I am not disposed to deny. In administering rebukes to this recklessness and torpor, Lord Palmerston is in his right position. He may fail in giving lessons in theology to our Scottish clergymen ; but in waging war against the filthy sources of pestilence and misery in overcrowded local- ities—in exhorting the nation to do now all that it ought to do for health, without waiting as hitherto for another advent of the scourge, he has objects worthy of his great ability and undoubted patriotism. And let him not think that he shall lack the cordial cooperation of any ministers of the gospel or of any denomination of Christians because, like the Presbytery of Rdinburgh, they hold the paramount importance of prayer : he will find them his firmest allies. If there exist religionists to whom his Lordship's rebuke and your observations do apply, who, through sloth, have recourse to prayer to the exclusion of earnest means and active remedies, "let the galled jade wince." They are not the Presbyterians of Scotland, ssor Iventure to say, any denomination to whOm, as with them, the whole Bible is taught in wheels and enforced, in ehurches. But before administer- ing smart rebukes, or applying reproachful epithets, the parties who d9 so
should first identify eleerlytlic objelh(,,atai prove beyond doubt the grounds of their censures. They will thereby avoid infringing the ninth corinnand or the Decalogue.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A SOOTC11 PRESBYTERIAN.
[Perhaps Lord Palmerston would not hesitate to subscribe the greater por- tion of this fairly-argued letter, except of course the direct censure of himself. In order to appreciate his point of view, however, a few facts must be kept in mind. Scotland has laboured under a reputation of exces- sive impureness in matters of health and cleanliness. Edinburgh in par- ticular has lain under this reputation ; which has been justified for &inland at large by the recent cholera returns. The Church to which the Edinbnreli Presbytery belongs is but technically entitled to consider itself distinguished from the many other sects of Great Britain ; its chief managers especially repudiate the headship of the secular authority. And while Lord Palmerton set aside the question of national devotion, which was not properly brought before him, in order to point out the particular direction in which activity, as connected with his department, was most wanted, he did not at all throw objection or obstacle in the way of any spontaneous advance, whether by the whole nation or by any section thereof.—En.]
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