The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-03 00:00:00

THE. PRESS, JULY 3, 1858

BARING v. POOLE.
To trace the various developments of the
"odium theologicum " may be at times interest-
ing, but is almost invariably painful. Like
leaven, it betrays its presence both by fermenta-

Lion and by sourness. It excites quiet spirits to
the very verge of frenzy, and imparts a strange
and unpalatable acidity to even the blandest
tempers. Working with an intensity which
bears an inverse ratio to the importance of the

questions under controversy, it distorts facts,
perverts principles, uses forbidden means to
attain a doubtful end, and, even while obnoxious

to the gravest censures, appears to hold itself
infallible and irresponsible. Your thorough-
paced polemical hater would deem himself de-
graded by looking at both sides of a question, or
by imputing to his opponent anything but the
worst conduct or the vilest motives. We may
have outlived the times when
Christians burnt their fellows, qaite persuaded
'Mit all the Apostle• would have done as they did.
But upon a question of " High " or " Low,"
" altar ' or " table," " gown ' or " surplice,"
there is no lack of men who speak and act as
uncharitably as if Dr. CLosit at this day put Mr.
BExxErr to the question in due course of busi-
ness, or DENISON delivered DITCHER to the secular
arm. We cannot but fear that there will be
more than a common display of the merciless
spirit of controversy ere the public arrive at a
rational conclusion as to the nature, extent, and
tendencies of confession as lately practised at
Knightsbridge. " The beginning of strife is
" as when one letteth out water ;" and the water
in this case (with due respect to Father Thames,
be it spoken) seems likely to prove of the dirtiest.
We have already seen with deep regret an able,
and, unless report is more than commonly false,
an amiable clergyman circulating with his own
endorsement charges of the most revolting kind
against a minister of his own communion, upon
authority obviously insufficient, and, in the view
of the diocesan of the accused (certainly not too
lenient a judge), exceedingly suspicious. We have
seen a numerous and respectable assemblage re-
ceive these charges without inquiry, yet without
hesitation, when, independently of the high charac-
ter borne by the accused, and of what we cannot
but feel to be the inherent improbability of several
counts of the indictment, the commonest regard
for the law of evidence should have compelled a
verdict of "not proven." We have seen what
is still too often the "leading'' journal first
volunteer its services as " avocato del diavolo,"
improving the occasion with pestilent ingenuity,
and then insinuate a partial recantation without
a word of apology or even regret for having dis-
seminated charges certainly grievous, and which
may turn out to have been cruelly false. No
wonder that we have also seen such attacks as we
have described expanded into circumstantial
libels, and made the basis of persecution by pam-
phlets. The first assailant may claim the excuse
(valeat quantum) of thinking he did Gan ser-
vice; those who have followed him have "bet-
tered the instruction," in a spirit of hostility, not
only to one set of religious views, but to religion
in general.
If we turn to the other side of the question,
we see less of acerbity, and far more decorum.
Yet candour must admit that if Mr. POOLE
appears to have suffered wrong with more than
average patience, those who think and feel
with him have not always exhibited the
spirit of martyrdom. The letter of the Rev. F.
A. MAiintorr, for instance, has a good deal of the
" agro-dolce" flavour—a strong dash of bitterness
blended with the milk and honey of meek resig-
nation under injuries. And generally Mr.
PooLE's advocates forget that the harshness with
which that gentleman has been judged is not
directed against himself personally, but against
an apparent approach to a system to which Eng-
lishmen have a strong, and we believe uncon-
querable, aversion. If the practice of confession
in the parish which has been deprived of his
ministrations did not outstep the bounds of a
pious discretion, it seems admitted that it fully
reached them. The coachman► who undertook to
drive his master within three inches of a preci-
pice might be a steady as well as bold driver, but
nevertheless the preference for his rival who

" liked to keep as far off as he could" represents
a general and not irrational tendency. English
Protestants have no wish to try how near they
can approach to the system which has proved so
baneful to morality in the Church of Rome.
At this point we gladly turn from the per-
sonalities which have been unfortunately im-
ported into the question, to consider it dispassion-
ately on its own merits. Some of the leading
points on both sides have been ably, as well as
temperately and courteously, brought forward in
the recent correspondence in the Times between
the Rev. Mr. LIDDELL and a gentleman whose
nom de plume of " Paterfamilias" we accept as
fairly indicating his position in the controversy.
It is consolatory to observe that the views of the
two parties, calmly and deliberately stated, ex-
hibit no violent repugnancy. Mr. LIDDELL
gives up the Confessional as a system frankly—we
had almost said unreservedly. " Paterfamilias"
does not damage his cause by denying that cases
may and do arise where a particular confession
from a particular person may be desirable. We
would remark, however, in passing, that the
latter scarcely gives his opponent full credit for
his admission of the exceptional character of con-
fession, and seems needlessly suspicious in doubt-
ing that his rule would allow a veto to a husband
as well as to a natural guardian. Mr. LIDDELL,
on the other hand, does not show with satis-
factory clearness the practical working of
his own limitations. He does not offer
sufficient warranty that his school would
not—perhaps we may say, do not—allow
the occasional confession to pass first into
a habit and then into a system. Yet here lies
the actual, and we believe solid, ground for the
fears which he wishes to allay. The question is
not (save in the eyes of a few fanatical partizans)
of priestly sacrifice and victim, of the deliberate
perversion of a sacred confidence, but of human
weakness and human frailty, of a feeble mind
seeking relief by the imagined delegation of its
own responsibilities ; or a strong one uncon-
sciously rejoicing in the acquisition of power for
good or evil, and assuming against probabilities
that its exercise will be beneficial. Speaking in
the interest of the weaker sex, we say that our
clergy—those of " Low" as well as those of" High"
Church views—have already quite enough of
personal influence with the female members of
their congregations; and we believe that in nine
cases out of ten the influence acquired by a
minister in the course of frequent confession will
be principally personal. To argue this out in
detail is as needless as to a delicate mind it
would be distasteful. We will, however, observe
that we do not agree with those who consider
that the dangers of the Confessional are dimi-
nished by the celibacy of the clergy. No doubt
some trifling social evils attendant on the system
are thereby avoided, but on the whole we believe
that a married or marriageable clergyman would
be a far safer confessor than a Popish priest. And
if there is one circumstance more than another
calculated to arouse English suspicion against
the modified form in which a numerous school of
able and earnest men would sanction confession,
it is that too many of that school would dis-
courage, if not absolutely forbid, the marriage of
our clergy.
Our limits would forbid us to enter on the
theological argument, eN en had we the inclina.
tion. We believe, however, that the one text
which bears most directly upon the question of
confession suggests a fair inference as to the
limits within which it should be confined.
Christians arc exhorted to confess their sins one
to another ; we cannot, therefore, as Christians
forbid clergymen to hear a confession appropriately
addressed to them. But it may also be fairly
argued that confession in general, as distinguished
from the seeking of ghostly counsel on some parti-
cular question which troubles die conscience of the
penitent, is not more appropriately addressed to a
clergyman than to any other fellow-Christian.
Ile holds an exceptional, not a general privilege.
He will not be the safer adviser because he inter-
cepts an avowal more fitly due to those with whom
we are closely connected in the order of GoD's
providence—to whom our love, our respect, our
confidence, belong in the daily relations of life.
Ile will not be the better servant of the State
because he is made the depositary of secrets
which he may long to disclose fur the public
good, and yet feel bound in official duty to sup-
press. He will not be the more acceptable peace-

maker for being supposed to know from a few
what many are anxious to conceal. In short, an
English clergyman must not seek to be a father
conti:ssor. Our Church appeals to holy Writ, and
no such character is there to be found. We are
nowhere taught that instead of laying down our
own burden at the foot of the Cross, we are to
commit it to CHIST'S minister, that ie may de-
posit it there.

SOCIAL PROGRESS IN IRELAND.
Tin: decline of party politics in Ireland, and the
concentration of public opinion in the sister
country upon social progress, are amongst the
most interesting changes that are taking place in
the United Kingdom. In 1848 Ireland was con-
vulsed with excitement; there were deputations
to Paris, SMITH O'BRIEN plotted, and " MEAGHER
of the Sword" harangued, and a bad imitation of
the "Red Republic " was attempted by a noisy
platform of loquacious declaimers. In 1868
everything is altered. There are deputations,
indeed, but they do not go to Paris, but to
London, and it is the CHANcEr.r.on of the Ex-
ciaorEtt, not M. DE LAMARTINE, to whom Ire-
land appeals in the cause, not of fomenting revo-
lutions, but of fostering the fine arts. In 1848
seditious journals were popularly circulated, and
now the sons of her Majesty are received with
enthusiasm amidst the people who then heaved
with agitation. The surplus population finds an
outlet tor its energies in the colonies and in emi-
gration to America ; the rate of wages in Ireland
is raised to the labouring classes ; and the poor-
rates have fallen to a trifling figure. No sign of
the times in Ireland can be more significant than
this filet, that in many parts of the country it is
thought that the workhouses were originally
proportioned to too narrow an area, and there
have been attempts made to consolidate adjacent
unions, so as to diminish expenditure by working
with one staff what a few years since required
two sets of doctors, masters, matrons, clerks of
guardians, &c. It has been pleasantly observed
that as the Martello Towers were " built to puzzle
posterity," so future ages may wonder why so
many workhouses were erected in Ireland.
Some statistical facts recently brought before
the Royal Dublin Society strikingly demonstrate
the advance in prosperity of the sister kingdom.
Mr. THOMAS MILLER read a careffil paper show-
ing how numerous and how successful were the
settlers in Ireland since the year of the famine.
Nearly 4,000 persons (chiefly Scotchmen) have
recently settled in Ireland as proprietors,
farmers, agents, or chief stewards. Mr. MILLER
addressed letters to many of the settlers in
various localities, inquiring how they were satis-
fied with their investments of time and money in
Ireland, and out of 170 replies there were only
eight or nine unfavourable. In Connaught
numerous Scotch proprietors employ thousands
of labourers ; near Tuam are many English
yeomen located on small properties purchased
by themselves, resembling the so-called " states-
men" (or petty proprietors in fee) of Cumberland
and the Border districts. The Cheviot sheep in-
troduced into Connaught reach a larger size
than on their native hills. In the province of
Leinster the largest number of Scotchmen have
settled ; and in the vicinity of the town of
Athy, in Kildare, there are about forty Scotch-
men located as farmers, the country around pre-
senting the usual aspects of a choice Scotch
district. The whole agricultural class in Ireland
is now possessed of money, and (unlike the case
of former times) rents are now generally paid to
the day in Ireland. At a single glance the
statistics of pauperism conclusively show the
strides which Ireland has made in prosperity:—
Number of Paupers in England fur IKiti .. 871,667
Dirt° dim, in Sendai-id 137,3N3
Iri•to ditto in Ireland .. 7:3,083
That is to say, Ireland, with double the popula-
tion of Scotland, had in 1856 only one-halt' of its
helpless poor.
Those who have lived by political agitation,
and derived personal consequence from their ac-
tivity in exciting the political passions of the
Irish, are not much pleased at the tranquillity of
Ireland. The Whig party (proper) was almost
extinguished in the sister country by the Aiiita-
tors, and its place has been for many years tilled

THE PRESS, JULY 3, 1858.

up by an anomalous bevy of place-hunting
" Liberal " M.P.'s, playing fast and loose with
the Whig aristocracy in England and with the
priests and peasantry of Ireland. Small
squires, flippant nisi-prius lawyers, fast adven-
turers of various kinds, abounded in that con-
nection ; but Ireland has got wearied of their
duplicity, selfishness, and legislative incapacity.
It is from this class of Irish politicians that the
loudest complaints are made upon the restoration
of a Conservative Ministry ; but a large portion
of the really Liberal party in Ireland holds aloof
from the place-hunting section attached to Lord
PALMERSTON and Lord JOHN RUSSELL. These
" Irish Independents" comprise several gentle-
men with considerable personal resources.
Colonel FULKE GRP:VILLE, M.P. for Westmeath,
is a gentleman of fashion, birth, and fortune ;
The O'DoNoGituE, M.P. for Tipperary, is the re-
presentative of one of the most far-descended of
the ancient Irish families; Mr. JOHN ENNIS, the
Member for Athlone, is a great capitalist, of the
highest commercial standing; and Mr. JOHN
MAGUIRE, the Member for Dungarvon, has the
reputation of being one of the most effective
popular speakers in Munster, and he has gained
the "ear of the House," These gentlemen are
subjected to much censure because they decline
becoming the allies and followers of the Whig
clique, who think that if they fill up the Bench
with their legal partizans, they have done for
Ireland all that is necessary.

The question of tenure of land in Ireland is,
undoubtedly, a difficult one, presenting many
embarrassments to the Legislature, but we do
not despair of its finding a settlement. The
present Lord Chancellor of Ireland is profoundly
versed in jurisprudence, which he understands in
a comprehensively philosophical, as well as in a
practical and technical sense. Mr. WHlTEsmic,
the Attorney-General, is not only an accom-
plished orator ; he also possesses great reach of
understanding, and has a fertile intellect. And
many persons of opposite political convictions
look with much hope to the present Cabinet for
some measure for improving the relations be-
tween landlord and tenant in Ireland. It is cer-
tainly a most important question, and deeply
concerns settlers in Ireland. Those who wish to
buy property in the sister country would be
naturally anxious that their proprietorial powers
and privileges should be clearly and accurately
defined. There are also another class of settlers,
who wish to farm large tracts of land rented from
Irish holders of the soil, and who desire to use
their superior agricultural knowledge in tilling
and reclaiming. These latter parties Are natu-
rally desirous that their position as tenants should
be defined without unnecessary legal ambiguity.
It is a curious fact that the present rapidly
advancing state of Ireland, and its increased
social prosperity, utterly belies the dismal antici-
pations of the late Sir ROBERT PEEL. A
few years ago it was interpreted "in the City "
as a bad sign for Ireland that Sir ROBERT, in
his last will and testament, positively forbade his
executors from lending on mortgage in Ireland
the fortune of his (then) unmarried daughter!
Was it not strange that while advising Parliament
about sending " messages of peace ' to Ireland,
and delivering stilted perorations about laying
the foundation of a Temple of Concord,
that the same man should have been cautiously
guarding against the possibility of any portion
of his own fortune being invested in Irish
securities ? _ _ _

The present prosperous state of Ireland demon-
strates how little there was of a prophet in the
nature of Sir ROBF.ItT PEEL. The Conservative
party, which he so shattered and prostrated, is
now in power, and there is no sign of discontent
in Ireland. On the contrary, the Independent
Irish M.P.'s, and many of the advanced Liberals,
are rejoiced that Ireland is delivered from
the rapacious grasp of the Whigs; and
the announcement of the CHANCELLOR of
the EXCHEQUER that the Government will
turn its attention to the landlord and tenant
question has given great satisfaction to all classes.
The natural influences of rank and property are
regaining their legitimate power; the age of dis-
cord and demagogism has passed away, and a
happier era has dawned upon the island, which
has undergone such trying visitations. There
are some special features in this remarkable
change which may claim our notice on another
day.

629

THE MEMBER'S DIARY.

HOUSE OF LORDS.
MONDAY.

THE " state of the Thames " has become a sub-
ject constantly introduced at every Parliamentary
night's entertainment. Nulla dies sine linen,
and no day in either House without its complaint,
its question, or its suggestion, founded upon the
fact that the river whose "silver winding way"
has been so gloriously described in prose and
poetry since the time of WALTON and GRAY
just at present exhibits nothing but a putrid
tidal ditch. To-night his Grace of Guarrox
asked the customary question—what was doing,
or to be done, with the Thames ? Lord MALMES•
BURY described the means which the Govern-
ment had adopted, under the advice of Mr. GOLDS-.
WORTHY GURNEY, to mitigate the immediate
nuisance. Lime was thrown upon the river-
bank, and disinfectants injected into the sewers,
especially in the neighbourhood of the Palace of
Legislature. All these agencies, as the Foreign
Secretary confessed, were mere palliatives. The
permanent cure had still to be contrived, but,
even if devised and adopted, its execution, as the
Noble Earl sensibly remarked, must be postponed
until the cold weather. We have on our hands
one hot-weather campaign in India, and must,
with whatever regrets, endure the sacrifice of
health or life which will inevitably arise, in con-
sideration of the vast interests at stake. But a
summer campaign against the Thames mud is
not absolutely necessary, and would prove ten
times as murderous. Clearly we must wait until
November before commencing any serious

operation. Parliament, however, must not sepa-
rate until the plans are arranged, and the money
provided for the work. The evil has grown so
rapidly that another year may exhibit it under a
most formidable aspect, if the intervening winter
is allowed to pass over without any remedial
application. The nuisance of 1858 seems more
than likely to become the plague of 1859. At
such a price must Parliament pay for any pre-
sent neglect in the matter !
The abolition of what are called the " poli-
tical services," appointed for certain anniver-
saries in the churches of the Establishment, was
afterwards moved by Lord STANHOPE. These
comprise the special services ordered by Royal
Proclamation to be used on the 30th of every
January in acknowledgment of the martyrdom of
CHARLES 1., on May 29 for the Restoration of
CHARLES 11., and on November 5 as a double
recognition of deliverance from the Gunpowder
Plot and of the landing in England of the Prince
of ORANGE, afterwards William 111. All of
these services, as the Primate explained, were
retained in the Prayer-book under very excep-
tional conditions. Though in the Liturgy, they
are not of it. Acts of Parliament had ordained
that the events themselves should be held in
remembrance on their several anniversaries, and
these enactments there is no intention of repeal-
ing. But the special services introduced into
the customary ritual of the English Church on
each day have no higher injunction than a Royal
Proclamation which each Sovereign has hitherto
been accustomed to issue shortly after their
accession to the Throne. The use of these ser-
vices is therefore not compulsory ; as a matter of
fact they are never used except in a few cathe-
drals or collegiate chapels, or by way of attesting
certain pronounced opinions on the part of indi-
vidual clergymen, in which case they sadly con-
travene the real intention of the union between
Church and State, which, as Lord STANHOPE
quoted from an old Divine, was "designed to
" make the State religious, and not to make the
" Church political." The motion, which had
been thrown into the form of an Address to the
Crown, was carried without opposition, and with
scarcely a word of dissent from any quarter.

TUESDAY.

Considerable progress was made with various
Bills, such as were judged fit to ripen for present
legislation, or consolidate into more definite
shape and substance for enactment in another
session.
Another question relating to the discipline of
the Church was then mooted by Lord ST.
LzosAnDs. As the law stood—and as some
recent cases had practically proved—the mcum-
bent of a living might get heavily into
mortgaging the revenue of his
when matters had gone so far

incumbency, and
•as to lead to se- /•