Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/275

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��recently added to the library comprise ' Westward Ho ! ' 600 copies, and ' Heartsease,' 900 copies. There are also columns from Smith & Elder and Blackwood. Bradbury & Evans advertise a new serial work by Mr. Charles Dickens, ' Little Dorrit.' And our old friend Mr. Thorns advertises Notes and Queries.

In 1855 and 1856 hawkers were selling in the streets of London 1905, NOV. 25. caricatures of the two popular preachers Bellew and Spurgeon, j.'c. M. Spurgeon being depicted as Brimstone, and Bellew as Treacle. The Bellew. Saturday Review, ever on the look-out for popular subjects, devoted much space to reviewing their sermons as well as those of Dr. John Gumming. Bellew then preached to a fashionable congrega- tion at St. Philip's in Regent Street, which was crowded to the doors. The reviewer describes him as having " a loose, rambling intellect," and column after column could be filled " with examples of the surprising digressions, the tawdry ornaments, and the jumble of ideas, which, with a very few exceptions, disfigure every sermon that Mr. Bellew has published."

To Dr. Gumming two long reviews are devoted on June 14th Dr. Camming, and 21st, 1856, the works being ' The End ; or, Proximate Signs of the Close of the Dispensation,' and ' Apocalyptic Sketches.' The last had a sale of 16,000. He is charged

" with gross ignorance ; his object is to insinuate for he does not go so far as explicitly to assert that the end of the world is to take place in 1865, and this he does on the strength of certain passages in the Greek Testament, and their connexion with certain historical events."

The review disclaims all knowledge of Dr. Gumming or his affairs :

" We look only at the influence which he exercises, and at the doctrine which he preaches, and we feel very strongly that such influ- ence ought not to be exercised, nor such doctrine to be preached, by incompetent persons without some kind of protest .... An enormous proportion of it consists of denunciations of the Papists, and announce- ments of the approach of the end of the world. It is not too much to say that he is principally occupied in disseminating, as widely as possible, mutual distrust and indignation between two great religious com- munities, and in unsettling the minds of his own immediate flock in the pursuit of all their ordinary duties."

Spurgeon was also severely dealt with ; but in many ways Charles he quietly took advantage of criticism. He had criticisms and Haddon caricatures bound into volumes, and they were preserved by him Spurgeon. at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Bellew and Gumming are almost forgotten, but the name of Spurgeon will for long years yet to come kindle a glow in many hearts.

The Saturday Review took the same course in regard to the literature of the day as it did with respect to foreign and home politics : it attempted no complete record, but merely reviewed such books as were considered to be of special interest. From the first two volumes I have made the following notes,

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