The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-30 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 30.

AT the annual meeting of the National Society,
to be held on the 4th of June—that is, on Ile.dneselay
xert—the following resolution will be moved by
Lord ltoue.ur GttosVENOU, and seconded by Sir
JOHN PAKINGTON

That the cause of sound religious instruction, and the in•
Wrests of the church demand, at the pree.ent juncture, the
friendly ea-operation of the National Society and the Com-
mittee of Council ; and this meeting, satisfied that such co-
operation must be fur the advantage of the National Society,
as well as of the church ut large, desires to express its
earnest hope that the two bodies may act cordially together.
And this resolution, so appropriately moved and
seconded, will, we are assured, be supported by Beyo-
nd peers, by a large body of the clergy, and by a
strong muster of the laity: with a view either to
purge the society of the offensive principles adopted
at its two last general meetings, or to leave it
entirely in the hands of priesteraft ; when, of course,
it will be completely denuded of all pretensions to a
national character, and with them of any claim on
a triennial royal appeal to the English people for its
support. So that, on the 4th of June next, the
National Society will have to pass through a crisis,
on the solution of which depends in some measure its
future usefulness.

What part the bishops will take in the discussion
no one can say; for such is the timidity and caution,
sad want of courage of the majority of the bench,
that little dependence is to be placed on support from
them, even in a movement of which they approve;
sad it is no secret that, even as a matter of policy,
three-fourths of them would very gladly see the National
Society relieved from a position in which conserva-
tive stupidity, in its dislike of whig interference with
education, first placed it, and in which tractarian
craft, availing itself of that political stupidity, con-
firmed it. There, for example, is the venerable
primate ; a man, good and pious, and sincere and
humble beyond most Christians; a prelate of toler-
ance and liberality in their best sense ; to whose
mild nature there is scarcely anything positively
hateful but sacerdotalism ; yet the excellent and able
Archbishop SUMNER yielded, as President of the
Society, to the pestiferous pretensions of its trac-1
Whin committee, and gave his high authority to its
earlier correspondence with the Privy Council ; and
it is on the pretensions of that correspondence that
Mr. G. A. DENISON'S resolutions, condemnatory of
the course pursued by the Privy Council, have been
founded. There can not be any real community of
object between the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and
Mr. G. A. DENISON. But, nevertheless, so skilful
has been tractarianiani in its stealthy movements,

• i that logically Mr. DrNrisos's conclusion s the natu-
nil and inevitable result of letters bearing the ho-
noured signature of Dr. Srxsua.
With all due reverence then both for the person
SA the office of the venerable primate, we must
think that, on the 4th of June, some further explana-
tion of his views as to the right of the laity in the
eaanagement of parochial schools connected with the
National Society, which they partly support by their
nosey, is due to the country. It is neither fair to
tie church, nor the community generally, nor to the
society in particular, that its president, the chief
bishop in the land, should leave them all in doubt, whe-
ther he accepts Mr. DENIsoN'S resolutions carried two
Tears successively and the present spirit of the society's
committee as the legitimate and proper consequences
of the correspondence which he, as president, com-
menced with the Privy Council, but did not, we are
happy to add, carry on to its disastrous conclusion.
In the midst of oar present ecclesiastical troubles;
it is not right that either party in the society should
be in a position to claim its archiepiscopal president
in supporting their very different, indeed, their anta-
gonistic views ; and neither can be unreasonable in
expecting on Wednesday next some further explana-
tion frun Dr. SUMNER. These are not times in which
silence is true wisdom ; even if it be the more com-
fortable worldly policy.
But, whether or not Wednesday will be found a
fitting occasion for a fuller statement of archiepisco-
pal opinion, it will be the time to act ; gladly, with
the high sanction of Dr. SUMNER, if it be given; with-
out it, if it be withheld. The laity will no longer
subscribe their money to, or submit to tri-
ennial collections under royal authority, on behalf
of a society, the committee of which is engaged in
supporting a principle destructive of all lay partici-
pation in the conduct of education, and which in a
discussion with the state (whose money to the extent
of half a million it has taken in the last eleven
years), has practically asserted the absolute predo-
minance of the spiritual power over the education of
the poor ; for either at that the position of the so-
ciety in the controversy aims, or else the whole cor-
respondence on its part is a piece of idle, senseless
verbiage.
Formerly the National Society was common
ground on which all parties in the church could meet
and act together, even though many deplored and