MR BRIGHT AS AN OLD-TESTAMENT WORTHY.

Otago Witness, Issue 904, 27 March 1869, Page 19

MR BRIGHT AS AN OLD-TESTA-MENT WORTHY.

(Spectator.)

Mr Bright, in his striking Mtle speech at Birmingham on the occasion of his re-election, likened his own feeling*, when asked to become a Minister of the Crowrj, to those of " the great woman" of Shunem, in one of the most pathetic nn I striking of all the narratives of the Old Tebtament, who, when entreated by the prophet Elisha to tell him how he could 11% his interest for her " with the King or the captain of the host," answered, with grave simplicity, "I dwell among mine own people." It is not for the first time, and probably not for the twentieth, that Mr Bright, in hia Bpeeob.es, has had recourse to the language .of the Old Testament to express with the ' greater force and viyidn* bs the true feeling at the bottom of his heart, The present writer remembers perfectly the effect produced upon a vast audience in the days of Free-Trade monster meetings by the conclusion of one of Mr Bright's speeches for untaxed bread, in which' he reminded his audience of what " royal lip 3 had uttered on divine authority, ' that the poor should not always be forgotten, that the patient abiding of the meek should not perish for ever.' " Quite lately he concluded one of his finest speeches on Ireland by reminding the House >f Commons— an audience rarely addressed in language of that kind— of the promise that "to the upright there ari^eth light in the darkness." With a little patience we could easily multiply Jnany fold the proofs how .leeply ingrained in Mr Bright's imagination 'is the grave and sententious passion of the Old Tistament. We do not, indeed, mean that either &<;§ trade or household suffrage

J are well-marked Old Testament ideas— that ' David wished for a foreign policy of nonintervention — that Solomnn had conceived even that necessary preliminary to the policy of a "free break ta^t-table," a taxed breakfastta v le — or that the compound householder of Birmingham was anticipated among ' the citizens of Joppa, Jericho, or Jerusalem. The Old Testament references to foreign p ilicy are couched much more in the tone of Mr Bright's memorable " Perish, Savoy !" than in the tone of his universal-brotherhood speeches. Indeed. Moab and Edom are not untrequt-ntly referred to in the Old Testament; m terms not unlike those use > by Mr Bright of Turkey or Savoy, or any other State for whom England might be expected to go to war, and which Mr Bright would at sach times glad'y declare to be bis "washpot," or aspire to "cast his shoe" over them, — nob for good luck. Otherwise Mr Bright is not quite in sympathy with the tone of the Old Testament on foreign policy. Ezekiel apparently did not approve of Tyre's reing a free port, and the trade with the Isles of Chittim, — theyslands of the Mediterranean, — was by no means a matter of congratulation with him ; and yet his denunciation of the unrighteous traffic of Tyre, — apparently the Greek slave trade, the trade ■with ''Javan in the persons of men," was couched m language not unlike some of Mr Bright's. In short, though we are by no means disposed to th'nk of the middle clis Mpmber for Birmingham as STongly resembling an old Hebrew statesman or prophet, yet there is just enough of the 01<l Testament stimp in him to produce a certain grandeur and pic turesqueneas of effect in its contrast with the indistinct political types <">f our modem days In contrast, ab least, to his chief colleagnes, —to Mr Glidstone, in whom religious and secular qualities are curiously mixed and c infused, in a subtle amalgam of what we may call confluent contraries, reminding one more of the mixtures of type cbaractemt c of w >rthies of the New Testament era than of the grand mi simple outlines of the < *ld, — t> Mr Cardwell, who assuredly suggests nothing less than such a Jfle rew minister < f war ab Joab, — to Mr Lowe, whose mere exitt mcc tends to make the prey ous existence of Isaiah difficult of belief to a vivid imagination, — in contrast to these, at least, Mr Brigat seems to re-assure us that the race o % the Old Testament is ready of one stock with the humanity of our own country and day. And there may be some interest, if there is not much instruction, in noting the features to which we refer, and wh'ch import, as we think, throus^h Mr Bright, some snatch of the sbatel'ness and passion (in its higher sense) of that great history into our rather petty, feverish, and technical modern politics. In the first place, there is something of the stitelv simplicity of the Old Testament about Mr Bright's political style, and ia his c>>n stint and profound insight into thn relation of politics 10 domestic life. '! he confession in his speech the other day that it had oeen his ambition to t*row a freer man as he grew older, whereas he found himself becoming more and more fettered by his obligations to his friends, his party, and his c< untry, hia evidt-ntiy sincere expression of feeling that " to speak for him " to the Queen was doing him the very oppbsite of a personal service, arnce, like "the great woman" of >hunem he " dwelt among his own people," is a fair illustration of this simplicity. But there are other instances still more striking, not only of this dignitied simplicity, but of thab value ' for domestic life aa at the heart of national ■ life, which reminds us of the political tone oi a period when a shepherd was on the throne, • and his ministers and friends brought home * to him his sins a* a king, by the freshest and Bi-nplest incidents taken from domestic life. Who but Mr Bright could have spoken to \ the House of Commons, — and spoken to it : with the greatest effect. — in such language as this, in pleading for a definite line of policy cm the great Civil War in America?— "l want to know whether you feel as I feel on this question. When I can get down to my home from this House. I find half a-dozen little children ploying upon my hearth. How many members are there who can say with . me that the most innocent, the most pure, the most holy joy which in their pash yeara [ they have felc, or in their future years p they have hoped for, has not risen from con- } tact or association with our precious children ? Well, then, if that be so, if, when the hand of death takes one oi' these flowers r from our dwelling, oar heart is overwhelmed 3 with sorro-ar and- our household is covered . with, gloom, what would it be if our children [ were brought up to this infernal system — one . hundred and fitty thousand of them every ! year brought into the world in these Slave [ States, amongst their ' gantlemen,' amongst , this 'chivalry,' amonsrst these men that w^ , can make our friends ?" The grave simplif city and the power of simple domestic feeling ! in that passage, made subservient, as it was, to a political rebuke in the most reticent and i fastidious political assembly in the world, has scarcely any better parallel — different aa of. . course the style must necessarily be - than 5 Nathan's narrative to David of the, pet lamb { stolen by the rich man from the poor. b And this" tendency of Mr Bright's to ref duce political policy and events as far as he ' can to their real meaning in their bearing on L domestic life, though it does, we think, not 3 {infrequently mislead him into a view of. war I more huaaaae than just, is closely allied with k another great quality in which he shows i some affinity to the statesmen of +he Old L Testament, — the faculty of vision which, t wherever it oan^ puts a picture in the place i of n. argument. Political economy truly unj derstood requires a good deal of imagination i ia one sense, bnt it is the dear imagination j of intriiwioftily ujßiuteresftnjj traftß^ctioog.

Mr Bright, however, even in his speeches on Free Trade, trac slates his arguments into pictures of a higher kind, pictures requiring power and passion to paint. Hoes not this bit of a speech delivered in 1845 at a m^e'ing of the Anti-Corn Law Leaaue, considered as a plea against the Corn Laws, imply a very remarkable faculty of vision, — sony thing indeed of a Hebrew seed's power, though ap. plied to a different field of thought ? — "Since the time when wp first came to London to ask the attention of Parliament to the ques r ion of the Corn Law two millions of hunvm ! eings hive been add^d to the population of 'he United Kingdom. The tabje is here as before ; the food is spread in about the same quant.tv as before ; but two millions of fresh guests have arrived. . . . The^e two millions ..ra so many arguments for the A ntiCorn Law League, — sr» uwnv emphatic condemnations of the policy of this iniquitous law. I see them now in my mind's eye ranged before me, old men and young children, all looking to the Government for bread, some endeavouring to resist the stroke of famine, clamorous and turbulent, but still arguing with us,— some dying mute and uncomplaining. Multitudes have died of hunger in the United Kingdom since we first ask«d the Government to repeal the Corn Law, and althoueh the great and powerful may not regard those who suffer mutely • nd die in silence, yet the recording anj.el will note down their patient endurance and the heavy guilt of those by whom th.-y have beea sacrificed." Has not thab in it a "-na'ch of tomeuf the prophetic dese/iptious of famine? l! Lift up thy hands towards the Lord for the li-.e of thy young children thab faint for hunyer in ttie top of every street. The young and tne old lie on the ground in the streets." Again, Mr Brigbfc's power of wrath, — not personal vmdictiveness, for no man is usually less pers mal than Mr Bright in his assaults, though be did once withstand Mr disraeli to the ( ace for his " m xture of servility and pomposity," but his pawvr of concentrat ng into a sentencp scorn and lo*thlnt; for a policy t'iat .Me tiinks dishonest an&> injurious, is quite He 1 rew m its force We need ouly r- mmd our readers of his •'enunciation of the policy of builVng the Alabama : "There mty be men out-iue, there are men sitting amorist your legislators, who will bui'd and equip corsair ships to prey upon th& commerce ot a r endly power — who v. ill tU 8 . reg'ird the laws and the honour tit their country — who will trample on the proclamation of their Sovereign, and who tor the sake of the glittering profit that s. metimes waita on crime will cover themsa yea with everlasting infamy." Has not that in it some of that ol< l Hebrew wrath— anger which i& not mortification, not, even in the lea&t degree, personal irritation, but that impersonal wrath which dilates character, the sort of wrath, which Luther eaid was purifying, and without; which he couH not write ? Most of all, Mr Bright is, we will no'e gay, the most religious of our statesman he is probably not so, certain'y not. more urofoundty relig ova than the Pnme Ministerbut h s religion is of the Old Testament type. We do not mean this -n the sens > of cccL sUs* tics, we^onot mean that it n-sts morooa " the, law" and less on the I ye oi G..d than, that <>f other public in»n ; but that it is of the Old Tt-stament type in the sens© of aff-ct-ing him directly through his political imagination, in the sense of t.i- mi? to th« larger questions of po.itical ife a sp-cial religious i«aring, whioh they have not, at least do nofe seem to have, in the minds of other statesmen. Of. course, numbers of politicians besides Mr Bright use the ordinary formula a^ouc "Providential" guidance. But Mr Blight does not speak in formula? . He may not indeed exactly believe in the " Lord of Hosts," though even of that he showed traces during the great civil warm the Uaited States. But he does belie v& in One who overrules the evil actions even of armies and who brings "light out of darknese " for the upright, whew man would least expect it, "Whether." he said, five years ago, " whether the war in the United' States wi'l give freedom to the race which: white men have trampled in the dust, and whether the jasue will purify a nation steeped, in crimes. a«auist that race, is known only to the Supreme. In His h^eds are alike tlj^ breath of man and the lite of States. I%m willing to commit to. him the is-ne of this dread contest ; but I implore of Him, and I beseech this Hr>us>, that my count-y may lift nor hand nor voice in aid of the most, stup°n<lous act of guilt that hi&torv h,fts recorded in the annals of mankind" Thafc certainly is not cou -hf d in the pria^itive and simple style of the Old Testament. But remembering that it was spoken in the House Commons, it has the impress of that lar^Q. and devout faith in Gel's government of tie world which is rarely enough expresse * by our politicians, and which giv* s to politics a solemnity and grandeur of tho ancient and higher kind. We are I y no means insmsible to those political qualities of Mr Bright which tend to identify him with some of "the poore»t elements of our modern middle- ola^s pr. judice» Still, take him as a whole, and we shall t-careely find another statesman in the House whodoe3 so much to give to our political life the simplicity of a passion that is neither petty nor personal ; the vision, of one who sees many of those implied meanings of abstract policy on which other mpn only reason a* & think ; who expresses, with so great a ?>owerto kindle in others, the wrath which political! meanness and selfis ness deserve ; and who discerns so steadily, through the blinding twilight which we call day, the vision of a worl'i of order divmer and nobler than our own. Snrely, with all his faults, Mr Bright is not a figure whom our national Parliament,