The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-18 00:00:00

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HOUSES OF CONVOCATION.

(From the Times.)
A report has reached us, which is not, we believe,
without foundation, that Lsrd Derby and his colleague
have resolved to advise Ilsr Alajes'y to remit the
Houses of Convocation to sit for the despatch of busi-
ness, and that the Royal licence will consequently be
issued, empowering those ecclesiastical assemblies to
enter upon the consideration of such matters as may be
thereby submitted to them. So little are we ourselves
—so little is the country at large—prepared for such an
announcement, that our first impulse is to question the
information of this rash and abrupt measure which has
reached us ; for if there be truth in the intentions as-
cribed to the Government on this subject, we can hardly
conceive any act or determination of the State more
perilous to the Church of England, or more
inimical to the order and tranquility of society.
It is notorious that the exertions made of late years
to revive the force and efficiency of Convocation
have proceeded from the extreme High Church
party, and not from the Church of England at large.
The clerical electrons which have bean conducted with
a sort of mock solemnity in some dioceses of England
a ere regarded as a farce, cr at best an empty form, by
the majority c f the clergy, since no intimation whatever
had been give a that it was intended to depart from the
established custom and to allow the Houses to proceed
to business. After a lapse of 145 years it would amount
to a trick of the grossest kind to place the affairs c f the
Church, without previous notice, in the hands of a
body of men not even chosen with any view to the
practical conduct of them. The whole constitution of
these ecclesiastical assemblies is so antiquated and
defective that the attempt to set in motion an engine
which was discarded nearly a century and a
half ago as mischievous and unmanageable, is
certainly one of the wildest freaks that ever
passed through the brain of a statesman.
The division of the two provinces of Canterbury and
York, the absence of proctors from the Church of Ire-
land, the exclusion of lay members of the Church, and
the lack of definite objects or positive jurisdiction, would
suffice, if there were no other objections, to render the
scheme inconvenient, imperfect, and absurd. But when
we call to mind the animosities which unhappily divide
a considerable portion of the English clergy, the exor-
bitant pretensions of one party, imbued with all the
priestly arrogance of Laud and Atterbury, the tendency
of another fraction to drop the standard of Church
doctrine and Church discipline along the declivity of
dissent, and the incessant activity of the common enemy,
the Church of Rome—it does seem that no time could
be worse chosen to re-open the public arena to ecclesias-
tical combativeness, to distract the ,Church by placing
weapons in the hands of its conflicting leaders, and to
recognize pretensions on the part of the Establishment
which will give rise to the furious hostility of all her
adversaries.

It is impossible to take a more serious view than we
are disposed to do of the duties which the Constitution,
both in Church and State, imposes on the political Min-
ister who distributes a vast amount of ecclesiastical pa-
tronage and exercises the authority of the Crown in
ecclesiastical affairs. No doubt the mode in which Lord
John Russell most imperfectly discharged that sacred
trust, in compliaace with his own peculiar views and
party connexions, has been one of the causes, not only
of the hostility of the Church which he personally in-
curred, but of the general distrust which has unhappily
sprung up between the clergy and the civil power. But
the first dut:. of the civil power is to preserve the Church
from those internal feuds and dissensions which are so apt
to embitter with tenfold virulence the scenes of
ecclesiastical controversy. The duty of the Minister
is to defend and uphold the prerogative of the Crown
in Church matters, not to abandon it to that faction
by whim the Queen's supremacy has been openly
assailed ; but the very same party which professes
the highest veneration for the prerogative of the Crown
in all other affairs has ever been ready to curtail its just
and necessary rights, and to weaken the powers of the
law 'eself, whenever they have come into collision with
the pretensions of sacerdotal ascendancy. Can Lord
Derby imagine that this is a time to copy the high Tory
po!icy of Rochester and Harley, cr to allow those scan-
dalous scones to be repeated in the chapter-house of St.
Paul's which convulsed the Church and inflamed the
country from the last year of the reign of William 111.
ee the accession of George I.? During the whole of
that period the Lower House was in open revolt against
the authority of the Crown and of the Episcopate. A
handful of passionate bigots continued to challenge the
rights of Parliament itself, to insult the bishops because
they were prelates of moderation and liberality, to con-
tend for unheard-of privileges, and to exercise their idle
violence in the inquisition and condemnation of heterodox
Publications. They had in fact no appropriate functions;
for Convocation has no power to Leek@ new canons, or to
touch in any one respect the Act of Uniformity, or th© le-
gislation of the Church by law established. In 1664 they
surrendered the last of their rights, which was the
voting of supplies for the clergy, and from that limo the
clergy have been taxed like the rest of the community.
They met and they existed, therefore, for no imaginable
purpose but the disgraceful exhibition of their cwn dis-
sensions and of the professional incapacity of clerical
bodies to deal with the affairs of this world and even
with the interests of their Church in a spirit of discre-
tion, wisdom, and decorum, The flame burnt itself out,
and the institution has virtually ceased to exist since
1717, because it had destroyed its own claims to respect
and influence. Is it because there are signs in the
Church of a revival or; those days of discord and intem-
perance that Lord Derby is prepared to let in a gust of
air on the smouldering embers of such a conflagration ?
With the accustomed levity and recklessness of his
character, we suspect that if Lord Derby be indeed pre-
pared to take this step, he is actuated by much slighter
and less serious motives. The scope of his patriotism
obviously lies not an inch beyond the duration of his
power, and he sees no danger to th© Church and the
Constitution in a measure which will gratify the more
intemperate of his own adherents. The clergy have
done bim good service in the elections. Oxford has
made him her Chancellor without a contest. He is
aware that this question of Convocation has found its
most zealous champions even among the ablest members
of the Conservative party not now connected with the
Government ; and it is not impossible that the conces-
sion he is said to be ready to make may draw over to
him their support. As a party move such a step might
be comprehensible, though even in this point of view
we hold it to be neither defensible nor wise, since it
is a concession to that extreme High-Church party
to which the great mass of Protestant and Conservative
feelings and principles in this nation are stoutly opposed;
and if we know aught of the spirit in which the Lower
House of Convocation would probably meet, its first
proceedings and pretensions would kindle this latent an-
tagonism into fierce resentment. But is it to be endured
that the peace and stability of the Church herself should
be put in jeopardy for such objects as these, to strengthen
the hold of a tottering Government by rallying an ex-
treme and intolerant party to its banner, or to satisfy the
ambition of that party by a measure which our history,
our experience, and the calmer judgment of the roajority
of Churchmen would condemn? If this report be con-
firmed, and this scheme realized, it will go far to prove
that the prolonged existence of Lord Derby's Adminis-
tration is fraught with positive danger to the institutions
of the country, since it will raise a storm which neither
that Noble Earl or his colleagues will allay; and the rash-
est schemes of Radical innovation are not more crude
and ill-timed than such false Conservatism as this would
prove. We deprecate it, and we should deplore it as
mischievous to the Church of England herself, for its
effect on the interests of religion, on the Protestant faith,
and of the Establishment, is the first object to which our
attention is directed. But we deprecate it no less for the
sake of the country at large, from the conviction that
these discussions cannot be revived without severing what
we wish to unite, and weakening what we wish to
consolidate. It may still be not too late earnestly to
reconsider, and possibly to disavow, the intention im-
puted to the Government. It may yet be possible
for the country to anticipate in distinct language the
effect which such a measure would create through the
length and breadth of the land. We are still unwilling
to believe that Lord Derby is capable of that degree of
temerity and infatuation which would superadd to all the
secular duties and difficulties of his high position the
hiving of a swarm of theological hornets, when, to use
the expressive language of Mr Hallam, " to scatter a
little dust over the angry insects" is evidently the duty
and the interest of the First Minister of the Crown. But
we trust that at least all further doubt on this subject
will at once be removed, and the moderate party in the
Church will then consider what course they have to
pursue.

THE MELBOURNE.—PLYMOUTH, Oct. IG.—After
the accident to this ship on Wednesday, the artizans from
the arsenal were quickly put on board, and, working night
and day, were enabled to complete her repairs by Friday.
She started about 2 o'clock in the afternoon for her destina-
tion, St. Vincent, Cape of Good Hope, St. George's Sound,
Adelaide, Port Phillip, and Sydney, taking mails also for
Sierra Leone, Natal, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand.
Besides the specie shipped in the Thames, she shipped here
a considerable quantity, making in all above, 200,000/., and
jewellery and watches, &c., valued at 10,0001. She has 35
first class, 53 second, and 57 third class passengers, among
whom are the Hon. Louis Hope, who takes with him a choice
assortment of British plants for culture in Sydney ; Captain
Graham, an active member of a mercantile firm in Auckland,
new Zealand; Mr. James Sibbald, of the firm of James Sib-
bald and Co., of Leith, who is preceded by two valuable car-
goes of British goods in the Yarra and Signet ships, of 500
tons, gone on to Port Philip ; Mr. B. Wallace, son of General
Sir A. Wallace, of Stonraer ; and Messrs. Y eung, J. B B. Kirk,
and others, Wesleyan missionaries. There is a considerable
preponderance of Scotchmen among the passengers, !Ind one
Hungarian refugee, Colonel Szabo. The i iNelb ourne is a well
officered ship; her commander, Captain Cox, has had great
experience in the East India trade, and her first and third
Ricers have had command of, dips. The mails are in charge
of Commander Phillimore,
INCENDIARY FIRE.—One of the largest conflagra-
tions that has occurred in the eastern part of the county
of Kent for the last 15 years, brolin out on Sunday night
at Overland-court farm, in the parish of Ash, about four
miles from Sandwich, in the occupation of Mr. Petley.
it appears that about seven o'clock a cracking noise was
heard by Miss Petley, and upon her opening the door
to ascertain the cause, she was startled by seeing one of
the barns, and also one of the stacks, on fire. The fire
raged with unabated fury from half•past coven until five
o'clock this morning, entirely consuming two sticks
of wheat, two stacks of oats, two stacks of clo-
ver, and one each of beans, peas, and hay, with two
large barns, nearly filled with corn, two lodges, the
whole of the stabling and the farming implements.
The loss sustained cannot be estimated at less than
1,5001., and Mr. Petley is insured for only HU, for the
stockand implements, in the Norwich Fire Office. The
origin of the fire is shrouded in mystery; but there is
very little doubt it was the act of a vile incendiary, as
the fire, when first observed, appeared to be in two
opposite points.