Bygones Worth Remembering, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Were I to edit a new journal again I should call it _Open Thought_. I know no characteristic of man so wise, so useful, so full of promise of progress as this. The great volume...

A star of the first magnitude went out of the firmament of original thought by the death of Herbert Spencer. His was the most distinctive personality that remained with us after...

I prefer the picturesque name of Disraeli which he contrived out of the tribal designation of "D'Israeli." Had it been possible he would have transmuted Benjamin into a Gentile...

Political readers will long remember the name of Joseph Cowen, who won in a single night the reputation of a national orator. All at once he achieved that distinction in an asse...

But the act which most wounded him occurred at the Elswick works of Lord Armstrong. Mr. Cowen was returning one day in his carriage at a time of political excitement. Some of th...

employed legal aid to look into the whole matter and make a statement of it. Mr. Cowen became their negotiator, and obtained a decision in their favour. The whole expense he inc...

An outlaw is seldom considered a pleasant person, and naturally occupies a dubious place in public estimation. His position is worse than that of an exile, who, if once allowed...

Every one of manly mind, every person of thought and determination, takes sides upon important questions. Those who say they are indifferent which side prevails, are indifferent...

I commence with Judge Hughes' first candidature. There are cases in which gratitude is submerged by prejudice, even among the cultivated classes. There was Thomas Hughes, whose...

Seed sown upon the waters, we are told, may bring forth fruit after many days. This chapter tells the story of seed sown on very stony soil, which brought forth fruit twenty-fiv...

Being several times in France, twice in America and Canada, thrice in Italy and as many times in Holland, under circumstances which brought me into relation with representative...

The voyage out to America described in the last chapter included an instance of the extraordinary behaviour of the Established Church at sea, which deserves special mention as i...

Were I persuaded, as many are, that each person is a subject of Providential care, I might count myself as one of the well-favoured. I should do so, did it not demand unseemly e...

Thrift is so excellent a thing--is so much praised by moralists, so much commended by advisers of the people, and is of so much value to the poor who practise it--that it is str...

How necessary entire abstinence is to many, I well know. When the drink passion sets in, it leads to an open grave. The drinker sees it, and knows it, and, with open eyes walks...

Predatory Christianity would not be far from the mark. Christianity is of the nature of a penal settlement where independent-minded persons are made to expiate the sin of thinki...

None of our Sunday Societies or Sunday Leagues seem ever to have thought of the advantages of advocating as I have long done--two Sundays--a Devotional Sunday and a Secular Sunday.

It is worth while recording the curious, not to say ignominious, ways from which justice to new thought has emerged. In the 5 and 6 Victoriae, cap. 38, 1842, the trial of eighte...

The extraordinary legal licence of disordered and offensive imputation has been limited since 1842. In those days, officers of the law, who always professed high regard for mora...

Many religious thinkers, ecclesiastical and Nonconformist, whose friendship I value, will expect from me in these autobiographic papers some account of the origin of opinions in...

These singular instances of bygone experience of a religious student, of which few similar have ever been given, must be suggestive--perhaps instructive--to religious teachers i...

Events of the mind as well as of travel may be worth remembering. Columbus, high on a peak of Darien, saw an unexpected sight--never to be forgotten. Of another kind, as far as...

There are people who live many years and never grow old. We call them "young patriarchs." Limit not the golden dreams of youth, which, however, would be none the worse for a tou...

The late Archbishop of Canterbury spoke derisively of agitators. The Rev. Stewart Headlam asked whether "Paul, and even our Lord Himself, were not agitators." Mr. Headlam might...

It seems to me that I cannot more appropriately conclude these chapters of bygone events within my own experience, than by a summary of those of the past condition of industry w...