Thomas Spencer

“ Let us know the religion that God hath chosen:—"To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? ”

“ Let everything be based on right principles, let everything be honest, let everything be fair, let everything be equitable, pay your dues, and do what is right, and then, if you have the opportunity and the means, show your generosity. But even then the charity of the Bible is not modern charity not charity at the expense of the state—or of the poor-rates—not charity at the expense of the church-rates—not the charity which says, "Be ye warmed and be ye clothed," and then adds, "go to the parish for it;" but it is the charity which comes out of a man's own pocket. ”

“ Now, as soon as ever the people of this country will do their thinking for themselves—whenever they will come and realize justice for themselves—and, above all, when they come to know for themselves what true religion is,—that it is not mere cant—not the putting on long faces, the saying of prayers, and singing of psalms, but the putting of justice and rectitude into all their words and actions,—when this time, I say, shall come, then will the League go through the country and make converts so fast that a few weeks will see as much success as as many years have witnessed in times past. ”

“ Mow, the principle which I wish to lay before you is this—that if there be distress in the country you should not take the modern system of patching, mending, and tinkering, but should go to the fountain head of the mischief and the misery, and try to remove the cause of that misery. (Cheers.) It is better to spend £5 in removing the cause of misery, destitution, and vice, than to spend £500 in striving to keep people comfortable in their wretchedness. ”

“ Whereever I go, and have talked with farmers and with persons who have stumbled on the subject of the Corn-laws, I find one of the greatest difficulties to be on the subject of the National Debt. "It might be," they say, "very fair if all countries were alike and all equally taxed; but it is impossible for the farmer, with this national debt upon his land, to compete with countries that have no national debt." ”

“ I do not hold it to be stolen produce; and, therefore, as whatever is not of faith is sin, this is of faith in me, and is no sin. If a man knows a thing to be good and does it not, he sins; if a man, believing it to be sinful to use, yet uses, slave-grown cotton, slave-grown tobacco, or slave-produced gold, copper, and silver, why, he condemns himself. ”

“ There have been those who have found fault with others for relying upon great names, but who have fallen into the very same error themselves—men who charge others with relying on a Pope, and yet stick up another themselves: who have got a Luther, a Calvin, a John Knox, or a Wesley, upon whom they pin their faith. ”

“ We pray every Sabbath that these "may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours on the best and surest foundation, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations." ”

“ I hope they will know that they stand there to represent the public, and not the interests of their own pocket—that they stand there to consult the good of a nation, and not their own individual gain. ”

“ Now, at present we have anything but peace and happiness among us we have anything but prosperity in our land;—and why does not Sir Robert Peel, when he hears this prayer, know that he himself is acting contrary to the spirit of the prayer-book, so long as he declines going to the very foundation which is here described as the best foundation—cheapness and plenty—by allowing men to buy wherever they can to their own best advantage, and allowing them to sell wherever they can to their own best advantage? ”

“ The scripture says, "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all/' You allow that you offend in one point; we do not allow that we offend at all; you are therefore guilty of all. You are guilty of the slave-grown sugar which you do not touch; you are guilty of using slave-grown produce, because you wilfully use slave-grown cotton, wilfully smoke slave-grown tobacco, and wilfully take up your nose slave-grown snuff. (Great cheers.) I have seen men who have refused even slave-grown cotton, and yet I have known those very men with slave-produced gold in their pockets. ”

“ I ought to feel a great deal of diffidence in my own opinion as a clergyman of the Church of England, when I know that so great a majority of my own order entertain different views from myself upon political subjects—when I see in the late election for South Lancashire that only six or seven clergymen polled for the Free-Trade candidate and sixty or seventy for the other—that is, that nine out of ten entertained opinions differing from my own. However, it is possible for a minority to be right. ”

“ It is not the landowner and the farmer who have to pay this national debt, but each bears his portion. I say, then, that the argument of the national debt is in reality an argument in favour of Free Trade. ”

“ There cannot be bad laws over a wise people, because you cannot bribe a virtuous man, nor make drunk at an election a sober man (cheers) , nor can you intimidate a noble-minded man; and, therefore, I say it is partly the fault of the people that the laws are such, and the taxes as heavy as they are. Therefore, the reform must be with the people. ”

“ It is because the people do not think—because they do not consider—that such a state of things exists. I am of opinion that a wise and understanding people cannot be badly governed. (Hear.) There can be no tyranny where there are free souls and free spirits. ”

“ The fact is, that the one man works with a feeling of independence: he knows that he is working for himself; probably he works by the piece; and he knows at the same time that he can lay by for sickness or old age, and is in a better condition, and will do ten times the amount of work, that a pauper or slave will do; whilst the man who works without such a stimulus has no feeling of honourable emulation about him, and will not do so much justice to his employer. Then these persons say that slaves are stolen, and that therefore slave produce is stolen goods. ”

“ Then I find another recommendation, which we who live in an age in which religion is very much in fashion, when there are so many ladies and gentlemen who think themselves more religious than others, who almost feel themselves defiled if they meddle with any movement, or interfere in the affairs of the world, or come within the influence of ordinary matters—still I find that religion which is recommended to us to be this—"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? ”

“ Some towns in England have, by means of their corporations, got into debt; but is a town with a heavy debt to say, "You must protect us and allow us privileges not possessed by other towns, because we have ft sort of little pocket national debt." You would say, "No; be more industrious in your business, so shall you be able to pay off your debt and the burdens which oppress you," So must it be in the wide field and market of the world. ”

“ I hope the time is coming when men shall be ashamed thus to deceive each other; and yet, I am sorry to say, that in the neighbourhood in which t live these attempts are going on on a large scale—even in the villages—not, I need hardly say, by such gentlemen and agents as are employed by the League, but by quite other means. (Cheers.) A petition is brought into a small village by the butler or head servant of the great house, and is taken by him—as I know to be a fact—not only to those who are in favour of the Corn Laws, but to their opponents, calling upon them to sign it. ”

“ The scripture says, "Prove your ownselves"—"Prove all things—hold fast that which is good"—"Know ye not your ownselves?"—"Why do ye not your ownselves judge what is right?" This is the scripture rule; but men are always shifting their responsibility upon other men, and doing everything by proxy. ”

“ If England have difficulties, other nations will not regard them; and if our goods meet with others of the same quality in the neutral market, the cheapest must and will be taken. As other nations will not, then, regard our difficulties, we must depend for prosperity upon our own wisdom and our endeavours to extend our trade (which will be the result of Free Trade) , in order that we may ultimately rid ourselves of the national debt. ”

“ But my answer is, "It is not necessary for you to live if you set up so high a standard. There have been martyrs at the stake who have not accepted their lives even though by signing their names to a recantation they might have saved them." ”

“ Sometimes it has happened in the world that truth has been held even by very few, and it is possible for a man even to stand alone—at all events no man should be prevented thinking for himself by this circumstance. ”

“ Now, I have no faith in prayer except it is united with action. The man who says, "Give us this day our daily bread," and does not go to work for it, must be a person of very small sense indeed. (Loud cheers.) I believe there is not an instance in the whole Bible of God's doing anything for man that man could do for himself ”

“ In the Psalms of the afternoon. service I read about misery and distress:—"How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. "Here, then, it appears that our conduct to the afflicted and needy is to obtain justice for them. It is not the mere giving them charity that is the doing justice to the afflicted and needy. Then the next verse is, "Deliver the poor and needy; rid them, out of the hands of the wicked." This is what the Free-trade movement is intended to do. ”

“ At a time when a great part of the people are poor, and many men do not know how to keep their heads above water—whilst a few are getting enormously rich, because they do not pay their fair share of the burdens of the state—to such persons the description applies. ”

“ It is in these days when the people are paying taxes on whatever they eat, on whatever they drink, and on whatever they are clothed in—it is to this that the description which I am about to read particularly applies. ”

“ The League has to do the thinking part for them, just as some people like to have all their work done for them: there are some who commit their health to the doctor, their estates to their agents, all their difficulties to the lawyer, and their souls to the priests. (Great cheering and laughter.) They do not read the scripture aright, for it says, "Examine yourselves;" ”

“ I hope the time is coming when no man will attempt to blind the eyes of his more ignorant neighbour, and endeavour to persuade him that it is well for him that food should be dear, and the necessaries of life scarce, when common sense tells him it is desirable that food should be low, plentiful, and cheap. ”

“ I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of my fellow- creatures, but I am convinced that he is right: that men are indolent in their minds, whatever they may be in their bodies—they do not like thinking, studying, and labouring mentally ”

“ If a man, in coming to the Bible, for instance, once makes up his mind, from external and internal evidence, that its pages are genuine and authentic, then he is not to cavil at any particular word afterwards, but recollect the conclusion he had previously come to. ”

“ He says, "If there is any class of persons whose opinion on these questions are entitled to deference and respect, they are, undoubtedly, political economists men who have made the sources of national wealth the principal subject of their inquiry ”

“ There must be a change, and a new understanding must result from enlightening them more; there must be a greater generosity of heart exhibited by every man whilst seeking wisely his own interest, at the same time not injuring the interest of any other man. ”

“ I have before me the testimony of a very great man in his day—a man, indeed, who has not been a very long time dead—not a clergyman of my own church, but Robert Hall, the Baptist minister. (Hear, hear.) ”

“ There is another reason why this cause has not gone on faster than it has done, and that if, that even amongst those who do think a little, and who have made up their minds that Free Trade is right,—and thinking is sure to bring men to this conclusion I mean, unbiassed and disinterested thought,—they commit the great fault of leaving the acting to other people They say, "Nevermind, it is not necessary for me to do much—there is Mr. ”

“ I do hope that the longer the subject is discussed the more it will be believed to be a shameful thing of any man to stand up in Parliament to advocate local or selfish interests, instead of having regard to the advantage of the public at large. ”

“ This is exactly the case in the present day. (Cheers.) The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made so many holes in the bags in which the people's wages are put, that a man has no means of keeping his money. ”

“ I cannot quite see the inference here attempted to be drawn. It does not follow that the earth on which a man treads is . stolen earth because the man himself is stolen; and yet these persons believe it. ”