The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-23 00:00:00

FIIGEI WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TEtT DAY—Morn. 2) min. aft. I—Evening 24 min. aft. 1
To-lionzow—Morn. 46 min.aft. 1 —Evening El min. aft. 2

THE WEATFIER.—SuN Orrin, Nov. 23.

TIMMOXIETER, IN TIM SHIM
--1.1.,-;neat ithcc noon yeatoragy.
40 --,a,egt morning and during the night.
93 this day at n 007.1.

BAROMETER, 20.83.
WlM—W.N.W.—Light, with fine, dull weather.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1855.

[3 Lord JOHN RUSSELL also among the Volun-
taries ? lie who has defended Church Rates as
the outwork of the Crown and the Constitution—

he who taunted Ministers, not supported by State
endowments, with preaching to please, because
they preached to live—he who even joined in
giving up the appropriation, clause, which would
merely have applied improved values of the pro-
perty of the sinecure Church of Ireland to general
Irish education in that Protestant-ridden country.
In the Church-rate debate last Session Lark!
JOAN RUSSELL taunted Lord STANLEY, apparently
envying him a just reputation for honest and
solid liberality, with the remark, that "his ar-
guments fairly carried out would lead to Volun-
taryism." The sarcasm, for such it was meant to be,
was unfelt by the liberal Tory IJ)rd. He took
the case before him on its merits ; he suffered nc
party considerations, no apprehensions that a just
judgment on the particular question raised might
interfere with some old prejudice or foregone c m
elusion, to bias his decision ; he acted on the old
and trite adage, Fiat jastitia ruat codum' and
voted for the abolition of Church Rates. Lord
JOHN, who seemed that evening to have caught
the mantle, or, we should rather say, the Whig,
of Lord ELDON—for most certainly he spoke not
by inspiration, butt in the most unprophetic nar-
rowness of
vision—Lord JoiaN trembles for
Monarchy and the Upper House if the Rector
epuld no longer seize the Quaker's goods to pay
for washing his surplice, and for his sacramental
Wine. Woe to the State when the symbols of
the sacred passion were no longer purchased by
compulsion of conscience, even to fine and impri-
unment.

Lord STANLLY may now enjoy the et to
It was not in the Senate House, it is true, but it
was in a read lecture, at an immense public meet-
ing at Exeter-hall, and with three or four thou-
sand-of the youth of London before him, that
Lord JOHN RUSSELL delivered himself of senti-
ments the only fair result of which is the Volun-
tarY sYstem. Having combated—easy work now
—.the intense bigotry of the great Dr. JOHNSON ;
having raised a laugh at the logical Doctor's re-
mark " that the magistrate has a right to enforce
what he thinks, and he who is conscious of the
truth has a right to miff
er ; —his Lordship's pen
and tongue warning, he ,iolaiing,
" Why not per-
mit the free circulation of truth and error ; leave
to truth its own all-sufficient armour, and to error
its own stratagems and delusions; leave argument
to be met by argument, assettion by in-
quiry." Again :—" Here, in fact, h, the
turning point of the whole question. Dr.
JOHNSON and others contend that Governments
have the right and duty to control their subjects
as parents control children. The friends of Reli-
gious Liberty contend that Governments have no
such right, and have no special capacity to fit them
for the task." We may safely appeal to any
Tolunte.ry whether lie desires any better basis for
his arguments, and whether, as Lord JOHN
laughed at the Doctor's logic, Lord JOHN'S might
not be ridiculed with equal justice, if he defends
henceforth State endowments of religion, and
egpeeially the enforcement by the State of pay-
ments for what King, Lords, and Commons de-
clare to be State-truth.
If truth is really to be "left to be its own
sufticient armour," what need of the armour of