Yeast: a Problem | Page 2

of
complaint. He was demoralised, as surely, if not as deeply, as his own
labourers, by the old Poor Law. He was bewildered--to use the mildest
term--by promises of Protection from men who knew better. But his
worst fault after all has been, that young or old, he has copied his
landlord too closely, and acted on his maxims and example. And now
that his landlord is growing wiser, he is growing wiser too. Experience
of the new Poor Law, and experience of Free-trade, are helping him to
show himself what he always was at heart, an honest Englishman. All

his brave persistence and industry, his sturdy independence and
self-help, and last, but not least, his strong sense of justice, and his vast
good- nature, are coming out more and more, and working better and
better upon the land and the labourer; while among his sons I see many
growing up brave, manly, prudent young men, with a steadily
increasing knowledge of what is required of them, both as
manufacturers of food, and employers of human labour.
The country clergy, again, are steadily improving. I do not mean
merely in morality--for public opinion now demands that as a sine qua
non--but in actual efficiency. Every fresh appointment seems to me, on
the whole, a better one than the last. They are gaining more and more
the love and respect of their flocks; they are becoming more and more
centres of civilisation and morality to their parishes; they are working,
for the most part, very hard, each in his own way; indeed their great
danger is, that they should trust too much in that outward 'business'
work which they do so heartily; that they should fancy that the
administration of schools and charities is their chief business, and
literally leave the Word of God to serve tables. Would that we
clergymen could learn (some of us are learning already) that influence
over our people is not to be gained by perpetual interference in their
private affairs, too often inquisitorial, irritating, and degrading to both
parties, but by showing ourselves their personal friends, of like
passions with them. Let a priest do that. Let us make our people feel
that we speak to them, and feel to them, as men to men, and then the
more cottages we enter the better. If we go into our neighbours' houses
only as judges, inquisitors, or at best gossips, we are best--as too many
are--at home in our studies. Would, too, that we would recollect
this--that our duty is, among other things, to preach the Gospel; and
consider firstly whether what we commonly preach be any Gospel or
good news at all, and not rather the worst possible news; and secondly,
whether we preach at all; whether our sermons are not utterly
unintelligible (being delivered in an unknown tongue), and also of a
dulness not to be surpassed; and whether, therefore, it might not be
worth our while to spend a little time in studying the English tongue,
and the art of touching human hearts and minds.

But to return: this improved tone (if the truth must be told) is owing, far
more than people themselves are aware, to the triumphs of those liberal
principles, for which the Whigs have fought for the last forty years, and
of that sounder natural philosophy of which they have been the
consistent patrons. England has become Whig; and the death of the
Whig party is the best proof of its victory. It has ceased to exist,
because it has done its work; because its principles are accepted by its
ancient enemies; because the political economy and the physical
science, which grew up under its patronage, are leavening the thoughts
and acts of Anglican and of Evangelical alike, and supplying them with
methods for carrying out their own schemes. Lord Shaftesbury's truly
noble speech on Sanitary Reform at Liverpool is a striking proof of the
extent to which the Evangelical leaders have given in their adherence to
those scientific laws, the original preachers of which have been called
by his Lordship's party heretics and infidels, materialists and
rationalists. Be it so. Provided truth be preached, what matter who
preaches it? Provided the leaven of sound inductive science leaven the
whole lump, what matter who sets it working? Better, perhaps, because
more likely to produce practical success, that these novel truths should
be instilled into the minds of the educated classes by men who share
somewhat in their prejudices and superstitions, and doled out to them in
such measure as will not terrify or disgust them. The child will take its
medicine from the nurse's hand trustfully enough, when it would
scream itself into convulsions at the sight of the doctor, and so do itself
more harm than the medicine would do