The Express.
London, England, 1862-05-28 00:00:00

1222 REGENT-STREET, LONDON.
MAPPIN BBOTHISS (by rointrnent to
Nsle Majesty Napoleon SIII.MMITiIft. Castro-
Inver as, Dressing-case Manufacturers, and Cutlers, Queen's
Catlin Works, Sheffield, have the honour to 1111ZIOUllee
hey tbat
hairs
detOIENCED BUSINESS at the wurr-END of LONDON. by
opening PHEMISES at
El 2, IBGENT -STEKET,
with alarm) oollecticm of tiedr manufactures. sad they bolos to
receive, as they will endeavour to merit, an extension of the
favours hitherto awarded them at then Cityfietabllshment.
67 ended, ICING wuxuataTizzr.

GEM 11111TH AND 00.15
pURE EXTRACT of
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Tx Invalids sad Cca
add la &L. la. la, sad 4a. slita. by all cambia, groom, de.
IdAympAeroly. POZTLAND-ST Bareat-48.., W.

§EOOND-HAND PIANOFORTES.
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TO 0011PJEIPONDENTS.
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HAYMARKET.
TOM ITEMS?
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St. JA3I 8.

THIS SPIKING. TR' POW NOBLIMLN. Mr. sad Mn. A.
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DIUTANWI
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BM NAT= AT LONDON NALIKII.
Ms DaT —Wombs. 11 Ma.. Allaneca, 2t. 10a.
TO•NOILIOR—Marifte, 1k MM.— . Afternoaa Da 46a.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 28.

LORD EBURY is probably satisfied with the de-
bate of last evening on his measure for amending
the Act of Uniformity. If it is, as Earl Russzia.
declared himself of opinion, performing a public
service to call the attention of Parliament to the

injurious severity of the terms of Subscription at
present required of the clergy of the English
Church Establishment, Lord EMERY has been of
late very woefully employed ; for the whole dis-
cussion last night showed that the subject has
made great progress as compared with former
years. The question is one for the consideration
of which the House of Lords has peculiar advan-
tages. It needs for its treatment that calmness
and absence of passion to which the Upper
House is disposed by its composition and the
situation of its members ; and it is, besides,
one which can most profitably be discussed in an
assembly Where laymen greatly predominate. If
the clergy are deeply interested in the terms of
subscription, the laity, who are the great body of
the Church, and for whose sake theclergy exist, are
still more so. For it is incontrovertible that for
two hundred years the present terms of subscrip-
tion have wrought powerfully to determine the
amount and quality of the services available for the
Church, and it would be well if, while eminent
Church dignitaries can describe them as cruel in
intention and disastrous in effect, one single per-
son distinguished for knowledge and sobriety of
judgment could be found to assure us that their
operation had been for good.
But a man need not go deep into Church history
to see what an over-rigorous subscription has done
for the English Church Establishment. He need only
be moderately observant of what is passing around
him. Is there anybody with even the common
morality of the market-place who has not been
scandalised—is there a Christian who has not
been horrified of late, to see not only clergymen
subscribing formularies the truth of which they
labour to subvert, but propagating theories by
which such conduct is made to appear legitimate and
proper 4 This is a subject on which any one can
judge for himself, and we will not enlarge
on it. But whence comes the immorality ?
It is directly traceable to the stringency
of the terms of subscription. Parliament has
imposed on the clergy a form of subscription so
exacting that men cannot and do not accept it in
its simple and natural sense. The first thing they
do with it is to explain away its terms, and thus •
door is opened to casuistry and every kind of
moral sophistication. Looked at in themselves, the
creeds, and prayers, and hymns, which make up
the body of the Book of Common Prayer, are so
awful and tremendous that no man with any
degree of truthfulness in his nature would dare to
take them as the guide of his ministry unless he
had first seriously embraced them in his heart. If
the question were how to corrupt and debauch this
natural sentiment, which is the proper guardian
of the Prayer Book, the Mephistophelian
answer might be—Do not attack its object, but
cause it to be approached and regarded in an alien
spirit. To destroy the sentiment of reverence,
introduce the spirit of chicane and pettifogging.
For this purpose impose by law an obligation to
the letter of the volume which everybody shall
say is excessive, then its interpretation in a legal
technical spirit will be sure to follow, and when
once you have thus brought men to dispute about
the duty of allegiance, some to this part and some
tothat part of the Prayer Book, you may rest con-
tent with your work. And this is what has ac-
tually been done. We can see, if we choose,
every day how in this matter the moral and
religious spirit has been overcome by the legal
spirit, just because the Legislature, not choosing
to trust to those universal sentiments upon
which after all every religious system must
be traced, preferred to seek from the law a degree
of security for the fidelity of the clergy, such as it
was not in the nature of law to afford. Lord Esuav
has proposed by his Bill to remedy this mis-
chief by repealing that portion of the Act of Uni-
formity which prescribes the declaration, " I A. B.
" do declare my unfeigned assent and consent to
" all and everything contained and prescribed in
" and by the book intituled the Book of Common
" Prayer," retaining the co-ordinate declaration,
" I A. B. do declare that I will conform to the
" Liturgy of the united Church of England and
" Ireland as it is now by law established."
It was objected by the Bishop of OXFORD that
the tenor of Lord EBURY'S proposition was that,
provided a clergyman was willing to use the
Liturgy, he might believe what he liked.
If so, the Bishop should have been content with
nothing short of the ignominious rejection of the
Bill. A bigoted persecuting Church would be a
great nuisance in these days ; but it would be a
far lighter curse to this nation, of old sincere
and serious, than a Church Establishment in
which the clergy were held together not
by conscientious convictions, but by convenience.
But as it is certain that Lord EBURY intended
nothing of this kind, so we believe that no such
result would follow from the abrogation which he
advocates. Until it is explained why the
clergy should be supposed to be differently con-