Matthew Feilde

“ It is unreasonable to expect that 20,000 clergymen of the Church of England, are qualified as preachers, shall be able, one and all, at least twice a week, to talk or read something that will command attention for fifty or sixty minutes? Why not some UNIFORMITY in the Prayer, or no Prayer, before sermon? Why not some authorized version of psalms and hymns to be sung in all the churches? Why this diversity? The layman has a right to say to the Bishop, if you forbid me to take any part in the government and discipline of the Church, I cannot contribute towards the “extension” of such injustice. ”

“ Gentlemen, I belong to no Party, but I will yield to none in my earnest desire to thoroughly RESTORE and REPAIR the venerable Fabric of the Constitution, and to put the Representation of the People on a firm basis, and to have a House of Commons for the common people. ”

“ Like Florence Nightingale she was in every sense a model woman. Yet those eyes, beaming with intelligence, have now lost their lustre, and are for ever closed, and the hand that wrote that admirable pamphlet is mouldering in its shroud. ”

“ The Romish system cannot bear the light of intelligence: Priests of that faith don’t want their people to know too much, or to get as high as the generalities of history, or the speculations of philosophy, but YOU, the Clergy of the Church of England, that Church which will stand or fall, as it meets the requirements of this progressive age, have no interest whatever in keeping the Key of Knowledge to yourselves. Recollect St. Marylebone has a disgrace to retrieve, a character to redeem. Believe me it is a discredit to your large Parish to be without a Public Library. ”

“ Believe me the time has come when you must throw off indecorous reserve and squeamishness, that is if you really desire to do good and raise yourselves on the social ladder, if you really desire to be released from the terrible bondage of GOVERNESSING, or the cruel servitude of DRESS MAKING. You are NOT called upon to lead Troops, or to Preach, or to make public speeches about Woman’s rights, but YOU ARE earnestly entreated to SAVE YOURSELVES, to agitate this subject started by a distinguished political writer, viz.: “WHAT WILL THE WOMEN DO NEXT?” ”

“ The law allows you to vote for the Libraries Act, and I warn you that if you persist in clinging to delusion, if you permit yourselves to be overcome by indifference and listlessness,—if you “likes to be despised,” and prefer being tied and bound by the chains of fashion,—the day will come when you will bitterly repent such fastidious and disdainful behaviour. ”

“ It is far too sweeping an indictment, for the tone of the Press generally is sound and healthy, always excepting the misleading Times, the Daily Telegraph, and Morning Advertiser.
I will quote Mr. Bailey’s clever sketch of the “great mercantile concern.”
“I think if working men are to be led to read at all, the Newspaper with its ill feeling, bad reasoning, worse taste, fallacious assumptions and distortions of the truth, is about the most objectionable school in which they could be educated.” ”

“ And here let me for a moment glance at Serjeant Shee’s speech. Observe this Old Bailey advocate is well aware of that most unfair rule of law, which prohibits every person, and the wife of every person, who stands as a defendant at a criminal bar, from giving evidence. He well knew the discreditable defects in our criminal jurisprudence, and yet felt no compunction in doing his best to blacken the character of a clergyman who is not of Rome. ”

“ Why there are parts of a watch which a woman can finish far better than the best workman. Talk of negro slavery, the tyranny of the workshop is more odious, more hateful in every respect. But I rejoice to perceive the dawn of a brighter day when a truer and higher civilization will threw open the doors of Watch Manufactories and Printing Offices to English women.
Ladies of St. Marylebone, I invite you to attend the Public Library Meeting at the Literary Institution, 17, Edwards Street, Portman Square, at 12 o’clock at noon, on Monday 18th June, 1860. ”

“ Every thing that ministers to comfort is seen in a nobleman’s mansion, shall God’s House alone be dishonoured by such paltry and mean frugality? Who can deny the attendance of invalids at Matins, with litany and communion, is not itself an ordeal, but to combine this length of Service with a Sermon of an hour’s duration is an infliction of no ordinary character. ”

“ Why add Insult to Injury? p. 21It is a defence full of peril, to say in effect that your order requires the people to be deprived of their just Rights.
Let me tell that political incendiary Lord Derby that if his Order can only be upheld by depriving us of the Elective Franchise, that if his Order really requires this great sacrifice, this keeping the people year after year in dense ignorance, that if his Order can only be preserved by USURPING the privileges of the House of Commons, in order to perpetuate an odious and miserable Tax on Intelligence, I for one exclaim, Perish this Order. ”

“ To give a vote which seriously impedes education, and prevents the cheapening of School Books and Tracts, is consistent in the extreme. But not only is it refractory, but ungrateful opposition on the part of Lord Shaftesbury. A nobleman so favoured by Lord Palmerston as to issue his Congé d’élire, permission to choose a Bishop, and on whose fiat the Lord Chancellor appoints to Livings, ought not to have been a deserter when his vote was of so much importance. ”

“ You boast of your love of freedom, your newspapers fill columns every day with the details of what men are doing in other parts of the world—some in overthrowing, some in building up noble fabrics of human liberty. ”

“ I am for a more comprehensive franchise than the symbolical one of lath and plaster. I would give a vote to every man certified as competent to READ and WRITE. I prefer a representation of INTELLIGENT MEN to any Franchise that can be devised. What claim has an illiterate hind to the Elective franchise? ”

“ This glorious Temple, which stands alone for grandeur, worthiest of God, the Holy and the True, deserves a better fate than to be starved by its Priests on the pretext of a false and wretched economy. ”

“ Is it not well occasionally to ask yourselves whether the common people hear you gladly? and if your words contain the food, or the medicine which meets the great necessities of toiling hearts. You have vainly preached prohibitions and restrictions,—you have hurled spiritual thunderbolts with little or no effect. Stand upon the steps of the Churches, and see who comes out. Is the working man there? There are clearly faults on both sides. He loves not the Church. The Church has not done its duty. ”

“ Do what you can then to satisfy this increasing thirst for intelligence, and the cultivation of the intellect, and you will enlarge the field of remunerative employment, you will open up the avenues to honourable and congenial occupation to young women, whom the narrow existing labour market fails to find bread, let alone the means of support. ”

“ The City of London, the wealthiest in the world, but not the best governed, is destitute of a Public Library. The babblement of Sidney the vain, which in 1855 triumphed, now ceases to amuse and the shrill screams of the Peacock are no longer heard. If you wait for a scheme that will please the Peacocks and the Sidneys, you will never do anything at all. ”

“ It is a gross violation of Editorial duty to bespatter, to assail with infamy, the memory of a Poet, only thirty-seven years of age, who accomplished so much, and whose early death eclipsed the gaiety of nations! ”

“ Looks handsome in six hundred pounds a year!”
Yes, hold up your hands for the adoption of the Libraries Act, and in the hour of death, when the world and its allurements are receding from your view, when alone and deserted by your so-called friends, how it will console you in that solemn moment to be sensible that you have obeyed the voice of HIM who spake as never man spoke, that you gladly took the advice of your ASCENDED LORD to “make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.” Ah! think of eyes so young, obscured, and darkened by tears, that you will thus make clear and glad! ”

“ And yet, remember, the musical and rhetorical excellence of the Liturgy, consists chiefly of translations from the Latin! Surely such persuasive, such affecting petitions to Heaven deserve a better fate, than to be murdered by ruthless and ignorant men who have missed their vocation. ”

“ To hear two such advocates of Libraries for the People is of itself a treat of no ordinary kind. The great anti-corn law speeches of Mr. Fox are not forgotten, and I am sure the honourable member for Oldham on so congenial a topic as the Instruction of All, will not fail to please. The crowded Church of St. Mark attests Mr. Bellew’s well deserved popularity, and that neglected art among clergymen—the art of READING, the reverend gentleman has attained to perfection. ”

“ Yes, the veering, versatile, infamous Times faithful to one principle only—unprincipled wickedness exerts every nerve to retain this obnoxious tax. It has assailed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and vilified his policy with a vindictiveness which Shylock might have envied, and which even cheap journalism disdained. Parish officials who ought to know better, prose about the danger of innovation. ”

“ I grant that newspaper reading, as the most effective instrument of public instruction, should be encouraged as much as possible, but it is no easy matter to go from ten and twelve hours work in search of useful knowledge. You must provide good and cheap Recreation. I entertain serious misgivings that additional Church Accommodation is NOT the most pressing question of the day. There is a taste to be formed, and a mind to be humanized by enjoyment, before Church or Chapel services can be relished. ”

“ Marylebone especially, will take comfort in the thought that fortune favours the brave, and that although the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, they have, come what may, deserved success, for they have done what they could to win the battle. ”

“ These determined opponents of Progress—Parish Magnates—who dread the light of intelligence, and whose excessive desire to guard the ratepayers’ pockets is suspicious, and reminds me of Judas’ anxiety to trade on the distress of the poor. This Ignorant Phalanx, officered by pompous little great men, or loud little foolish men,—small vanities and pomposities, whose cry is “more taxation,” and who seem to say, “I am the Parish,” and p. 4“when I speak let no dog bark;” all these small politicians and miserable DO-NOTHINGS are making ready for the field. ”

“ You who may be so powerful in society, why should you remain powerless? Why not do what you can to slay this Demon Ignorance in St. Marylebone? Why should Central Africa and other far off Missions engross your FIRST attention? I exhort you to attend this Library Meeting, and take your part in this good work.
Yes, vote for an Act which will bring silent, yet most interesting companions, BOOKS to your Homes! ”

“ My extreme anxiety to carry the Libraries Act in St. Marylebone, must atone for any repetitions of last warning words to the Ratepayers. Believe me the enemies of Literature, of innocent, intellectual recreation, are too astute to tolerate fair, or indeed any, arguments in favour of this most hopeful Legislative enactment. ”

“ Is the Swiss girl more naturally artistic than the English? Is she more capable? Certainly not. It is instruction alone which constitutes her superiority. Let a woman be employed in that branch of industry for which she is adapted. ”

“ Last Autumn the sad want of knowledge of the elementary rules of economy among Operatives was strikingly and ruinously displayed, and it is obvious what a handle it affords to employers to be apathetic, if not hostile to extending the Franchise. ”

“ Knowledge should be the Portion of All!
The working of the Libraries Act in Manchester, has given great satisfaction. Artists, authors, surgeons, chemists, lawyers, clerks in, and out of orders, and artizans frequent the Reading Room. So in Marylebone the Public p. 12Library would benefit not one alone, but ALL classes. Such an Institution would do something to diminish that ISOLATION of class, which the dying Talfourd rightly said was the bane of England. ”

“ You cannot allow this fair land to be invaded by an enemy so real and fatal as Ignorance. You will not forget what it is that makes one man wiser, or more virtuous than another, and what it is that constitutes the difference between one man and another? ”

“ With pretended friends of Progress the right time will never arrive;—to-day is the plea, exclusion the object. I admit your “Poor rate is enormous,” but I rest my case on this fact, as a strong argument for adopting this humanizing Act of Parliament. ”

“ In coarse and vulgar slanders of the Poor who is such an adept as the man who is a traitor to his order—the man who has himself worked for his bread? None are so bitter and malignant as those who have risen from the ranks. ”

“ Far be it from me to notice affronts which I set down to exuberance of arrogance, often seen in men who have raised themselves from an obscure position to a front rank. I would much rather dwell on Mr. Bright’s eminent services in the People’s cause. ”

“ That civilization must be very imperfect, extremely smooth and artificial, which selfishly permits and tyrannically decrees that the kitchen, and the nursery, the workroom and the factory shall entirely absorb energies which might be much more usefully directed. ”

“ Speaking generally, the newspaper literature of 1860 exhibits as much information, and more talent than can be found in modern empty books with gilt edges, vellum, and morocco. The Editors of the London Journals, with a few base exceptions, nobly use their opportunities of directing public opinion. No such vile journalism exists in this country as can any day be found in the New York Herald, a one, or two cent daily paper, owned and edited by the black mail levying vagabond, and fugitive from Scotland, James Gordon Bennett ”

“ To opponents I would say are you content to be taxed £70,000 a year for Expenditure at the Workhouse? At the utmost a £2000 Library Rate would be required from the large body of ratepayers, which is not worth consideration, and which would be saved over and over again in the improved habits of the people. Exercise then a little commercial foresight, and you will perceive that it is a good investment and will prove an economical Institution. ”