Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, September 18, 1841Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, September 18, 1841
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
We perfectly agree with the reverend doctor. Instead of shipping
Missionaries to Africa, let us keep those Christian sages at home for the
instruction of the English Aristocracy. When we consider the benighted
condition of the elegant savages of the western squares,--when we reflect
upon the dreadful scepticism abounding in Park-lane, May-fair,
Portland-place and its vicinity,--when we contemplate the abominable idols
which these unhappy natives worship in their ignorance,--when we know that
every thought, every act of their misspent life is dedicated to a false
religion, when they make hourly and daily sacrifice to that brazen
serpent,
SELF!--
when they offer up the poor man's sweat to the abomination,--when they lay
before it the crippled child of the factory,--when they take from life its
bloom and dignity, and degrading human nature to mere brute breathing,
make offering of its wretchedness as the most savoury morsel to the
perpetual craving of their insatiate god,--when we consider all the
"manifold sins and wickednesses" of the barbarians in purple and fine
linen, of those pampered savages "whose eyes are red with wine and whose
teeth white with milk,"--we do earnestly hope that the suggestion of
Doctor Chalmers will be carried into immediate practical effect, and that
Missionaries, preaching true Christianity, will be sent among the rich and
benighted people of this country,--so that the poor may believe that the
Scriptures are something more than mere printed paper, seeing their
glorious effects in the awakened hearts of those who, in the arrogance of
their old idolatry, called themselves their betters!
"A universal Christian education!" To this end, the Bench of Bishops meet
at Lambeth; and discovering that locusts and wild honey--the Baptist's
diet--may be purchased for something less than ten thousand a year,--and,
after a minute investigation of the Testament, failing to discover the
name of St. Peter's coachmaker, or of St. Paul's footman, his valet, or
his cook,--take counsel one with another, and resolve to forego at least
nine-tenths of their yearly in-comings. "No!" they exclaim--and what
apostolic brightness beams in the countenance of CANTERBURY--what
celestial light plays about the fleshy head of LONDON--what more than
saint-like beauty surprises the cowslip-coloured face of EXETER--what
lambent fire, what looks of Christian love play about and beam from the
whole episcopal Bench!--"No!" they cry--"we will no longer have the spirit
oppressed by these cumbrous trappings of fleshy pride! We will promote an
universal Christian education--we will teach charity by examples, and live
unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of
civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike
acts--we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in
the House of the Lord!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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