The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-18 00:00:00

(he Ont. too.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 18.

it ,seldom happens that the traits of two opposite
systems ripen into perfect and complete development
at the mune moment in the same plate. Social and
political systems, on whatever principles founded,
an confessedly liable to decay; and the remedy for
such frailty is usually sought in antagonist theories
and eugatieritions. 'then, in due season, these run
to sed: and so we oscillate between extremes.
l'oor-law administration is signally illustrative at
this. For a long time a fixed idea ruled all minds
amongst us that the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, lay in the unrestricted and
untiwt titled sovereignty of parochial authorities over
pstrochiul income and expenditure for the relief of
tic Issor. In fulness of time the alone s of unbalanced
localism grew intolerable; whenapou tloe Somerset-
house conspiracy axes formed—stn honest and
patriotic purpose being under pretenee of lopping
the decayed branches to make its own of the entire
wood. In delight at being relieved from insupport-
able burthens the rate-paying community clapped
hands at the inauguration of the new principle.
They neither asked its name, its purpose, or its
tendency ; and only by tardy experience hate they
learned to suspect that centralisation unchecked may
prove as intolerable a nuisance as unchecked
loralisat ion.
In England, however, we are very much disposed
to sulk mill growl who ii things are going wrong, and
the priviletnet cliques by about we have the honour
and happiness. of being govenied air wont to get
excessively nervous, and exesedingly civil when the
tail of the national animal is pereeived to move in a
nu miring manner. No effort is then wanting on
(lie pert of our lourcauenetie COILeI/1711et to pacify him.
Sweet wools ad li4iNat, ronnasions of the very vi-
tals of their pet thosories--an) thing, everything is
surrendered summarily to abate his rising rage,
*pm the calculation that once composed into a
sound sleep again, they may hope to resume their
rti pithy schemes of official monopoly, esoneentration
and absorption. And thus in England the wheel
of jugglery goes round.
Hut it, Ireland, unfortunately, the cheek of opinion
is not at operative or ellevtive. It appear,' to be a
settled axiom with flu Treasury and the Home
tollice, that all expostulation or suggi slim' of an un-
political kind rot 1111 l g from the other side of the
Channel should be treated with frac:tuitions contempt.
Nothing short of a cabal or a row has the least chance
of Is Mg attended to by our political prigs 01 any
party in power. And as the officials who are paid
for going through the forms of the Irish department
arc not sufrrvd to do the business for which it is
pretended that they are paid (and which we are
bound to suppose the v might 110 letter than it is now
done, inmintielt us nothing can prietically be worse
than its present mode of execution), it follows as
matter of course that nothing is eviar ridded in the
way of legislation for 1111.1111 i until in the face of an
angry opposition, or on the eve of some ministerial
crisis, plans, projects, and principles are all tumbled
oeerboaril at the instants• of the anxious whipper-in.
TV/II years ago the organisation Of the Irish poor
law oesapied not inconsiderable portjust of senatorial
time. Tin' /If the over-ceittnilised aystem had
then reached their height. In one-third of the king-
doom the electice guardians had been altogether
superalled by the apprentiees of the Treasury., fur
whom• extravaganoe, ins and injustiee,
thous:m.ls of inolusirious rats- payer- are still sultleing
the ‘et iglit of ox rtiiiitoon taxatiim. (hi the other loud
it ...idol not be denied that ait bout some actise and
vigorous intervention from ecittnil authority, over-
lourthened property in many plan, was too easily
tempted to slothe or negleo its duties in timesof %mi-
ser-4d pnraration and distress : and in short that tits
balance inust somehow, or by 501115' one, be held
lietatt-111.0101/111.rIti011 for the pnservation of indus-
trial energy. and for the preservation of pauper life.
it mas ao el/111010y Pite!gl'lLted by massy hu-
mane and 'tensible is. 12.011 S 5'4 haying totes
to give on a division, and by some, in
lbuth hones. of parliament, who hill, that the
true remedy for the the/0114 dangers of loth
systems lay in the due combination of the two. Vice-
guardians acting uncontrolled were apt to squander
the mamma of the union, and to plunge its rateable
property into imputable debt. Elective boards had
shown theinselees untrustaortity beyond a certain
point of aellatagellation with the rafr-whip, and in-
sensilols to the claims of humanity in the panic of
Pelf- preservation. What more rational, then, than to
cede atour by due equipoise of contervailing impulses
to prevent in future the nvurrentv of either extreme?
But the bureaucrats 'stilled it otherwise. No combina-
tion of the two systems would be admitted by them.
NO argument would satisfy their profound intelli-
gence deal a stipendiary guardian sitting with an
thelive beard was likely to prove us usehtl ter a sti-
pendiary magistrate sitting with uffixiitl justices.
It must he either the ono thing or the other. .'t
comprovnipe or balance of clashs was not eecording
to the as /rico of centralised administration. And
what is the result?
In Kilrush and Ennistymon. neighbouring, unions
in the mane county, the one ruled ever by un exclu-
sitely unpaid hoard, the other administered exclu-
sively by paid guardians named by the pour-law
caluniassoners, the state of things has risen to suclea
pitch of sffifering and shame. that it is dittieult to say
which of the two presents the more lamentable and
revolting Opectawle. Inadequate provision made fur
the sustenance, clothing, and houang of the misera-
ble inmates of the workhouses, follotweil hr their in-
evitable ronsispiencea, disease und sheath: mark the
rival scenes d mismanagement and malversation.
Originating in opposite sources, the streams of
wretched:am% cruelty, and mortality Mow in the
same direction. equally deep, dark, and disastrous.
Hut what avails complaint? Is it all inasording to
the system?

itt, it must be confessed, one passage in
Bishop l' LL rirrrs's Pastoral I.et ter that extorts some
acquieseunee in it. Quell the prelate of strife and
diaccald :

It was my misfortune to be tumble to concur with the
great saijonty of the bishop. in an address which they have
vent on this subject (ritual differences] to the clergy of their
dioceses. If ritual diffiTences were the principal matters
which at present cause divisive amongst us. I should fully
rivogniee the fitness of stag an unit. 41 effort to produce
Imrmony. But, is this the fart ? Iv it not rather true dif-
ferences on incomparably higher matters, grave questions
of doctrine, are those which really iuterfere with the unity
and peace of the church ? Is it then accordant with the
true dignity--or even very manifestly consistent with the
duty—of bishops, to close their eyes, and seal their mouths.
walnut (the daring violation of on artiste of the chunk
and to look at nothing but little ritual irregularities ?
Differing entirely as to wherein consists "us;
daring violation of an article of the church," and he
from considering the questions involved in excessive
rubricism us "little ritual irregularities," we never-
theless assent to the episcopal proposition thut it was
eit
neither accordant with the true nor con is-
tent with the obvious duty of the bishops to att t
to produce an external conformity of practices in t e
church, and to leave unnoticed and untouched those
far greater doctrinal controversies out of which ritual
dissensions have really sprung. And though the
- -- the signatures of 22
'-• no huger mistake
amongst the 23
thought and views—':
essentials—that ens..
and the hoslhms 1
At to this edam
de OntriZat=t
era sea
tellsises mesh it entre-
lime et telseeption,
1 the character of a
Bishop Puturarrs
bench with endes-

vourhig to escape from tres*Aiglesitilas, byte
over the cranks and crannies of the terser difficulties.'
The assenting bishops cried "peace! peace!" when
they themselves know net what " peace " is.
Why, it may be inquired. refer to this episcopal
di:cord ? Btcause. we reply, in it—in the points of
disunion, arc involved questions of not merely the
highest religious interest, such as we don't profess
to discuss here, but of en swing political import-
ance, the examination of which cannot be avoided
without augmenting their mischievous tendency.
'lle Church of England has at all times played so
great a part in our political system, and occupies so
prominent a position in our social organisation—the
power of its clergy is so omnipresent in Englund,
and the influence of its hierarchy so predominant in
the councils of even whit; cabinets, that its throes
and distractions, its controversies and debates, are
matters and things that affict, not only the welfare
of the community, but more or less the repose of
every individual.
It is not, then, a light or trivial thing to have this
church rent by a debate as to its own character; to
have one party in it claiming for it a position here
on earth of a transcendental character; for its clergy,
functions, and powers fur exceeding any that the
physical organisation, mental capacity, or intellectual
cultivation of man can evolve or disclose; for its
literature, an authority not far from supernatural;
and to have in it another party treating it as only an
ordinary ecclesiastical organisation with no such at-
tributes, possessing, as a church, principally historical
claims for teepee, and, as to means uf religious in-
struction and edification, that authority which arises
wryly from its fidelity to revelation.
No doubt these two parties have,mere or less deve-
lord, always existed in the church of England. But
until our times they existed rather in its literature
than in its active ranks; their debates were the dis-
cussions of schoolmen rather than a war of armed
men : they evaporated in books and pamphlets and
tracts, they never before penetrated into the bosoms
of families and into the vitals of society. From the
termination of Cromwell's great reign to the days of
Bangor'e greatest bishop thesedehatcs have beenevery
now and then breaking out afresh in one form or other,
but in a harniless,unimpassioned,uninjulious way. Not
so now. In our generation, they have marshalled
the church of England into two great armies—they
give employment to these armies in regular cam-
paign—they have driven one party to rely for aid
and succour on the legions of Rome ; they arc urging
the other to a better and holier alliance and friend-
ship with the more powerful, though irregular,
troops of nonconformity.
The struggle is one over which parliamentary in-
fluence is almost powerless ; on Which legislative
action can have at best but little effect; fur neither
party reeognisca parliamentary jurisdiction over
their dispute : it is, moreover, one in which
parliament, as a body, is not well informed,
and on which few legislators take that ae•
the interest which, perhaps, the gravity of the
warfare requires. A time may, however, arrive
when parliament may be compelled to interfere;
but when reached taw intervention will lie unwilling,
and its consequence may produce in England what
legislation on a cognate controversy brought about in
Scotland—a disruption of the southern establish-
, ment—a contingency by no means absent from con-
templation of Bishop Putcceorrs : for, on referring
to what he chasms the excessive pretensions of the
royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, he says:
A retnapert of they, matter* has not failed to fill tAe
churchman'• mind a ii h strange foreboding*, to excite appre-
ben.ions revecting a much longer continuance on the part
of the state of a continuance el those rights and antics of
the church, which will not, cannot he abandoned by her,
br Me cost adhrriny Mawr,' what it may ; for, on them,
her faithfulness to a higher power than any which human
laws can alts t to give or cluion—nay, her very being, us
" the church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of
the Truth"- incuntestablydepends.
Secession and separation being then already
' within the prebable results, as acknowledged by a
bishop and a leader of one of the parties. it is a matter
and contingency to be steadily looked at and fairly and
reasonably estimated. Is there then aught in the
discussion and the controversy about which moderate
and temperate and solsermind:al men ought to risk
u result which, in the opinion of churchmen at least,
would he a great and serious evil? Whatever might
previously have been the opinion formed on this
4luestion:llishop Pilita.eorrs statement of the differ-
ence, if udopted and accepted by his party generally,
cull, we near, leave little doubt. For between him
and the Archbishop of CANTERIWItit the differences
are whully irreconcilable. The religion they deduce
from, the scheme of redemption they respectively
find in revelation, has not even common terms;
it is not only discordant, it is antagonistic. Be-
tween them, there are no &thaw, elaborate
finely spun lognmachic discords such us Gums de-
lights in unravelling and tracing down to one common
knot, but great and mighty, and fundamental contra-
rieties; lwtween them it is no dispute about sub-
laisarianism or super-lapsarianism, such as oeeu-
pied the time of the Synod of Onset, but
I irreconcilable statements of doctrines, and navcon-
cilia& discrepancies of interpretation on the primor-
dial element, its it were, of Christianity.
The turning point and pivot of all their differences
is the character of the church of which the one is
Primate, and the other is comprovincial bishop. On
this subject Archbishop SUMNER is plain and ex-
plicit ; on it he ulmust reproduces the noble language
of lloantse

Practically, our Saviour is treated with dishonour when the
church which he has established is made to usurp his place,
to perform his acts, to receive his homage so repre-
sented as to be, virtually, the author of salvation, instead
of the channel through which salvation flows. This is, in
truth, to depose him from his throne, and to invest his sub-
jects with the authority which belongs to himself alone.
Again :
It is convene-nt. no doubt, in language to embody the
multitude who le beet, in Christ under one comprehensive
term, and our Lord himself taught us by example that we
may do this safely and legitimately. But language may
mile 01. We may personify a body, for the convenience
..f discourse, and by degrees forget that a community is not
a person.
And further:
Perhaps it is ton much to expect, which nevertheless we
earnestly de•+ire, that there should he no schisms or divisions
amongst Christians; that the church of Christ should ever
be a seamless coat ; that all congregations of faithful men
should ever be so strictly one. as to think alike and agree
unanimously upon all subjects—upon such subjects, for
instant..., as diocesan cpiscop:u•7 or infant baptism, or litur-
gical forms, or church membership fur a national esta-
blishment.
Lastly:
One of the first and most needful works of the reformers
was to pierce the veil and to divest the church of the mys-
tery in which it bad been shrouded, and to disclose it to the
world in its true and scriptural form, as the company of
believers.

This is strong language of the Primate's. But
it is as true in essence and as correct in form I
as it is powerful in terms and emphatic in
expression. It is language that embodies
principles under the operation of which the
church of England may easily be reconciled with
civil government, under which the supremacy of
royal authority may readily be made to adjust and
fit in with ecclesiastical organisation, under which
authority and order mar be cordially made to accord
with fre'edom of thought ; for in such principles and
views there is practically a repudiation and a denial
of all those pernicious and dangerous figments in-
cluded in that silliest of terms, cathaicity.
Bi-N7E-C—se archiepiscopal views of a church—of
the church of England, Archbishop SUMNER'S com-
provincial uof Exeter denounces in the
most unmeasured as unscriptural ; as
heretical ; as" maiming and " truncating" the body
of the faith ; squaring the revelation of
Goo to man's presumptuous measure of what is rea-
sonable, good, and edifying." The Primate who utters
these and other such reasonable views of Chris-
tianity. is said to have thereby „forfeited his right
to catholic communion, to be a Solifidean ;" to have
"renounced the divine authority of the office in
11 which the power of mission is lodged "—to have
1" flung the commission of CHRIST under the footstool
ci an earthly throne," to have made "6, voluntary
betrayal of a high and most sacred trust"—"Traditor
potestatis, glum sancta matey ecelesia a spouse sue
acceperat "—to have placed St. Paul " in the Index
Expargatorins of modern Lambeth."

All this is. of course, disgusting enough, when re-
garded as mere episcopal- Billingsgate. But it is
much more than that; its fierceness of expression in-
dicates how vital is the controversy raging in the
church of England; and its vindictiveness shows
how powerful a breakwater the moderation and
truthfulness of the Primate arc in times like these.
Remove them, and between church and state in
England would ownmence a straggle which, though

,
recent episcopal addrees' bZre die a
It . out of our 26 prelates, there can be I
11
than to sumo that there is a
that substantial unanimity of thou
that unanimity of opinion on assent
7ret the ellen, the position a
whisk bseription
useilimeipt
ibe%disial. On the a
eadrearns a
diatoms ea realities of religie
they et Antrim at the very schen)
numelp:3r; views as to th
Aetna& ia , wellentitle Bi
I be tea= an the be
,
, '