MINT, ANISE, AND CUMMIN. (From the Saturday Review.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1285, 6 January 1860, Page 3

MINT, ANISE, AND CUMMIN. (From the Saturday Review.)

" Nation*, lik« TiU»g« gossips, we very much in the hit bit of talkinfrover the ,*&"! of, their neighbour! ; tad, a« in.thVdomwitw parallel, the, piquancy of icandal'ii inbreii^fl »f it happens to'be about our own relatjonji; :>.We own that, »t the present moment, there i« muqh\gojng on in the honieholdi of'our national sisters wMchls of umwual interest to Mrs. Bull. A Royal ConuaMon if travelling over moral Scotland to inqtfflf«:%tp' thei working of the Forbot Mackenzie Actin otbeV-|^biJ4», to see whether the vice of drunkenness hai been 'iftedtually dealt with by recent legislation, or wh«^ter r^^ p J very actire party wishes, some more strinjgeiitjlyndlidf measure for compelling men not to make l b*|SSi\6i ; them««lre« is not the best policy for the liano^^Kb^ic, In Ireland, on the other hand, whionhaiißwtd.nVne for all manner of wickedness, aJndm.^hlM|tiiV7firop of national wild oats has always beta, moMj^^i^o md perennial, -we are told that a wonde|tm^w|p(«'oyer we whole population of a con•id«rjWoi»rapi|^yte taken place; and the 'Times' give??l%uy||i|pLpf.)to BeVival from a correspondent, J.C., inyl^j fflßws' |talian hand we recognise the hack ' wlKM<«r -who has > just come out with a WimniQgJ^ipK|^l|a shap* of the Great Tribulation, dont wMm^^MH^Q&Botiusually^nserred j^&th*l*ilt ieV*<p9|i I) s^ Moot Scotland the seene i «F*r»Bi*** muon l^iiw»ilw^ i deeperi, and. much* -m£»^eai#mg, ' than mfM^m^^ KAot;Sootlana 'the'plrent-^inr | deed, tl|w^| lonjf-^fth*^ purest^form of religion attainSl *a brief,' but "respectably •uottM ia t^^tw awwdancy of CromwM time ? '

-If Scotland did all thil, and produced that'long'array of God-fearing generations, with its deep and earnest theology, its grave kirk session's and discipline, how is it that it hoi oome to this pass ? How ore, we to account for tha backsliding from John Knox and hi* *e1 vival' to the state of thingi whioh has called for a Forbe« MaoKenzie Aot, and which ia laid to juitify, if not to demand, a further root-and-branch reform in the shape of more compulsory morality and a Maine Liquor Law t If this is the end of It ih Scotland, can we reckon on more permanent results from the Irish revivals ? The same blood seems to be susceptible of the same influences. .North Ireland is only a Scotch and Puritan settlement ; it is now witnessing a moral regeneration ; and is it destined to go through what appears to be the inevitable cycle of unnatural religion and a corresponding and equally unnatural moral debasement f It is the fact that Scotland presents the spectaole of the most Puritanized and most drunken community on the face of- the earth. Nowhere is the strict interpretation of the letter more popular, and nowhere are the more free, and liberal, and practical influences of the spirit more disregarded. The Sabbath is kept, but the moral law is set aside. The reaction is most complete on the platform where the strictest and straitest Puritanism flourished. New York is about the most profligate city in the world ; in Geneva, religion is all but unknown ; and in Glasgow, the sons of the Covenanters are the most druuken population on the face of the earth. T These are the historical consequences of a popular religion which has produced such events as the Ulster revivals ; and we are at least justified by precedent in anticipating the v liko results of the present alleged awakening. Dr. dimming has settled the end of all things in the next seven years, and may therefore be careless of the lessons of the past in his satisfied contemplation of the very brief future which is reserved for the sons of men. But for those who think that a little more of the ordinary slow, and weary, and commonplace work of attempting to grapple with moral evil is reserved for the world, and who nave learned to distrust sudden and spasmodic revivals in religion and morals, the question arises, what ia the root of failure in all these attempts to renovate social ethics by other than the old tedious processes ? We may perhaps discover this again in an even older Puritanism. The Judaic code was, in its later debasements, much what Puritanism is. Puritanism is only a revived Judaism. Both systems are of the letter — both interfere with the most minute particulars of daily life — both prescribe small, insignificant, hard, harsh, cast-iron, inflexible observances — both attempt to make man walk in fetters — both are cramping, servile systems. Their principle is — Touch not, Taste not, Handle not. Against this system Christianity was and is the natural protest and Reaction — Christianity, that is, in its essential character — the Christianity of the spirit and not of the letter. But Christianity is always tending to the same leaven which debased Judaism. It is always tending to that [ Christian Judaism which has effloresced in the minute interferences of Puritanism and the technical system of Rome. It may astound the Exeter Hall professors to I be assured that, as far as principle goes, their religion and that of the casuists is the same. What Pascal exposed in tho'minute and consequently immoral rules for Direction is much the same as what the New England legislators reduced to a political and police system. What came of it in the land of the Emigrant Fathers we all know. The end of the laws prohibitory of drunkenness and all manner of loose living and ungodly ' talk was what we see in the United States, where, by a refined and curious profusion in blasphemy, immortality, and universal tippling, the sons of the Mayflower pilgrims attest the wisdom of their ancestors. Our great objection, then, to the Forbes Mackenzie Act, and to the proposed legislation with respect to intoxicating drinks, such as the suggested introduction of the Maine Liquor Law, is the intrinsic Judaism of these measures. They have been tried and failed. The Pharisees tried this sort of thing ; the Puritans tried it ; the technical morality of the Roman schools tried it ; and in each and every case with deplorable results to morality. This, too, is the vice of all the minuter systems of legislation. Prohibitory duties, systems of licensing, interferences with the freedom of commerce and the liks — all these defeat their own objects. Unless we observed indications and tendencies of a wish to recur to a debased and debasing system, we should not be at the trouble of showing what ignorance of morality is really at the bottom of all this restrictive legislation. But, false and debasing as the principle of it is, the more popular tout of its failure in practice is constantly occurring to convict this mint, anise, and cummin method of law-making. The working of the Forbes Mackenzie Act illustrates what we have been arguing. This remarkable measure presents a tolerably perfect attempt to realize in a single department what the Judaizing and Puritanical . spirit would wish to introduce into the entire statute-book. Two cases have recently been disposed of in the Edinburgh Police Court which illustrates the oppression and constant interference of this sort of law with the common concerns of life. The Act restrains the publican from selling provisions to be consumed off the premises, and prohibits the dealer in eatables from selling exciseable liquors. The consequence is, that the victim of law is compelled to tale* his meat and drink horse fashion. He must first bolt his provender at one shop, and then rush to another for the means of washing it down. If, * restaurateur may sell us a game pie, we must not' take it home to enjoy it in the bosom of our families ; and though a railway traveller may purchase six buns at the counter of the refreshmentroom, they must all be gobbled up on the platform; for fine and imprisonment await, probably the purchaser — certainly the vendor— if he surreptitiously conveys a single lump of the indigestible nastiness to be consumed in the recesses of the carriage. Human folly, or the malignity wliich delights in petty tortures, could scarcely have invented a more refined system of deliberate vexation and stupidity. The Act perhaps wanted this or some such crucial experiment to expose its perverse absurdity. But this instance, though an extreme one, is only a specimen of what always comes of these interferences with our proper human liberty. And, after all, they do no good whatever. Is the great Temperanca cause furthered by compelling a railway traveller to bolt all his food within the station • Or is morality the gainer by prohibiting an innkeeper from sending home a venison pasty ? We are further tempted to ask, what ii the moral use of a license at all i Or why should the sale of certain articles, " tea, sugar, snuff, and tobacco," "beer, wines, and spirituous liquors," require a bit of parchment and a certain' fee which is not considered necessary in the matter! of beef, bread, and candles ? Of course we know that the taxes must be kept up; but one sees no principle in the licensing system. It might be well to license all shopkeepers — it might be wellj to get rid of licenses altogether. But, as for as principle goes, there is nothing more immoral in selling beer than in selling hats ; and as we presume that the Legislature does not intend, by the fact of a license, to discourage the sale of any particular article — though something of this sort may have been originally at the bottom of the publican's license — we should like to know what is gained by making the sale of tea and coffee more difficult. In other words, is it not that we blow hot and cold. We discourage both bane and antidote, and, by enforcing both publicans' and grocers' licenses, make it equally hard to buy intoxicating and non-intoxicating liquors. "\yhisky and tea are alike pursued under difficulties.