The Express.
London, England, 1866-10-11 00:00:00

CANON OAKLEY ON THE TEMPORAL POWER.

In a letter to a contemporary, Canon Oakley thus
deals with the argument that since the church could dis-
pense with the temporal power in the earlier centuries, it
must be a separable accident of the church, and cannot be
indispensable now :—" The question turns upon the mean-
ing of the word ' necessary.' A thing (to use our theologi-
cal language) may be necessary to the plenitude of en in-
stitution which is not necessary to its essence. Thus, in
the sacrament of baptism, as taught and administered by
us, a certain material substance, and a certain verbal form,
are required to its essence, while other ceremonies, used
in conferring it, are necessary only to its completeness as
an eeolesiastaeal rite. To take an example still more in
point. The essential rites of religion may be performed by
a clergyman officiating in his ordinary dress and in a barn:
but no one would say that such a state of things would
be otherwise than most abnormal. The lowest view
which, as I think, can be taken of the temporal powe-
is, that it is the comely vesture or decorous appendage
of the church, which came in, together with all other cir-
cumstances of splendour connee:ed with her outward
manifestation, as soon as she was freed from the restrairts
incident to the state of persecution. Without denying
for n moment the light which suffering sheds around the
church, yet, considering the sin and blasphemy which are
the conditions of that suffering, we cannot contemplate
without shuddering such a state of things as that with
which the denudation of the church would be coincident.
Again, all catholic believe? with the certainty of undoubt-
ing faith, that the church is truly a kingdom, and it is in
harmony with the law of the Christian dispensation
that this truth which the world cannot understand
should be impressed upon it by such visible tokens as it
is accustomed to associate with the ides of royalty—such
as are territorial possessions, absolute though merciful and
regulated sway, and the outward badges of imperial power.
If the priestly office of the church require certain visible
symbols whereby to indicate it, why not also the kingly?
Lastly, the temporal power, as has been again and again I
said, and as, indeed, is coming to be admitted on all
sides, is n to the exerciseof ecclesiastical indepen-
dence.Thieess:lis no doubt connected with the fact and
not with the extent of such power, sad would be secured
even by such an abridgment of the domains of the
church as did not wholly withdraw them. But it must
be remembered that whatever beyond such a minimum of
territory the church has ever received she owes to the
pious munificence of her children, and that the forcible
abstraction of her possessions involves the guilt, as Dr.
Newman also appears to have said, not only of ordinary
pillage, but of that especial kind of robbery which consists
in the unlawful appropriation of things given with a reli-
gious intention and forareligious use. Hence,whilelwould
not deny as matter of doctrine that the idea of temporal
power is metaphysically separable from thatof the Christian
church, I think also that, in the actual order of Provi.
dence, it has been so bound up with her material organias-
tion that it has become an integieting part of her constitu-
tion. Although Peter is ever himself, even when in
chains, yet Almighty God was pleased at the prayer of the
church to liberate him ; and it seems to be the instinct of
piety to believe that He will never finally allow His church
to be deprived of that which appears during so long a
period of her history to have been necessary, in point of
fact, to the freedom of her action, the distinctness of her
utterances, the majesty of her position, and the splendour
of her outward manifestations.—l am, Ito.,
le. CANON OALLNY.
St. John's, Islington, Oct. 9.

THE CHOLERA.—'nut MANSION-HOLUM RELIEF
Comererr.g.—At a meeting of this committee yesterday,
Sir Mordaunt Wells in the chair, 1,0001. was voted towards
the maintenance of children made orphans by the disease,
thus supplementing by so much the sum of 5,0001. which
they had previously set apart for that purpose. From that
fund they granted yesterday 1,E30/. to assist in providing
for 173 orphans in Mile-end Old Town, the money to be
dispensed by trustees selected from anion some of the
most influential inhabitants of the district, and at the
bead of whom are two of the Messrs. Charrington, the
brewers. At their previous meeting the committee voted
1,5301. to Mr. Robert Wigram and Mr. E. H. Currie, re-
presenting the local relief committee in Poplar, towards
the maintenance of 153 orphans there, the money to be
dispensed in like manner by trustees carefully chosen. Mr.
Wigram, who is himself a member of the Mansion-
house Committee, took occasion to sal that the
more wealthy of the inhabitants of that district had raised
upwards of 9001. among themselves as a provision for the
orphans there, and that sum would go to supplement the
Mansion-house grant. The Lord Mayor, Sir Mordaunt
Wells, and the Rev. F. G. Blomfield bore emphatic testi-
mony to the energy and creditable manner in which the
Poplar committee bad acted all through the emergency.
The Lord Mayor thanked Mr. Wigram personally for the,
conspicuous part he had taken on the occasion. Mr.
Wigram explained that much of the credit in reference to
the orphans was due to his coadjutor, Mr. Currie. In the
course of the day a communication was received by the
Lord Mayor from Mr. Helps, clerk to the Privy Council,
to the effect that a letter which the Lord Mayor had ad-
dressed to that department, recommending, on the part of
the committee, the resumption of the publication of the
daily returns of deaths from cholera and diarrheas, had
been referred to Mr. Secretary Walpole, with whom the
matter rested.
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