The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

distinct line, and say, when this is passed, the childrdn
are to be withdrawn ? The distinction is impossible ;
would be nugatory, if it were possible ; and is imposing
a task to which the parents must in most instances be
utterly inadequate. To call this proposition an offer of
education to all is sheer mockery. It is like bidding a Jew
to a banquet where, besides a conspicuous roast pig in
the centre, every dish is garnished with sau.ages,
and savours of pork. The Bishop bids him arise and
eat, for it is offered to all, and he has only to leave what
he cannot in conscience take. Such mockery to a Jew
would be ungentlemanly ; the Bishop mocks, not Jews
merely, but all Christian denominations except
and that one is more dishonoured by his gibe than
it would be in being the object of the mockery.
In another part of the Charge (p. 30), the Bishop
says, " It will not be pretended that more is de-
manded, on the part of the Church than that the mat-
ter of instruction in the national schools shall include
the Bible, the Catechism, and the Prayer Book." If
the High Church would stick to this statement, it
would simplify the question very much indeed. But
the Bishop himself does not stick to it through the
length of one page. He says it simply as a contro-
versialist, making thereby a hit at a rival pamphleteer,
and when the assertion has served its turn it is kicked
out most unceremoniously. The very next paragraph
imputes folly and dishonesty to the notion of a plan of
education " capable of combining all parties and all re-
ligions denominations." In fact, this statement,coupled
with the language quoted at the commencement of the
present article, would amount to a concession to
the Government and the friends of National Edu-
cation of the main point in dispute. The two pas-
sages together imply the possibility of separating se-
cular and theological instruction, and, consequently,
of the one being provided by the State for all
classes, and the other devolved upon the religious
teachers of those different classes, according to arrange-
ments made by themselves for that purpose. We can-
not understand the Bishop to mean that ; and we point

out the incongruity as one indication among many, that
he has not gone into the subject as one well skirled in
the principles or details of education, and honestly
anxious for its extension, but in the spirit of a political
partizan, eagerly grasping a topic which may be turned
to account in the warfare now waging by the High Church
and Tory alliance to which he belongs. Another and
more striking illustration of this spirit is found in the
enormous pretension, very solemnly advanced, that the
Education Grant of last Session is the exclusive property
of the Church, in so far that it can only be applied to
education founded on the theology of the Church of
England. He charges the Committee of Privy
Council, and by inuendo their Royal Mistress (pp.
33-35) with perjury, if a single shilling of that
grant be touched by any save orthodox fingers.
" Within this limitation (of Church of England instruc-
tion) they may exercise their discretion ; beyond it, if
they venture to extravagate, if, for instance, they shall
date to establish, with the moneys thus granted, a
model school for Roman Catholics, they will become
guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor ; they will
place themselves within the peril of the law, from which
a majority of two in the House of Commons may not
always be found able and willing to bear them harmless."
Hypocrite! If such were the known and inevitable re-
striction of the grant, why was it so fiercely opposed,
and on such false pretences ? Mitred man of faction,
and, if words have meaning, in purpose man of blood,
when was it ever heard of before, in christendom, or in
heathendom, that to promote the instruction of the
poor, the ignorant, and the erring, was a crime to call
down the terrors of impeachment, and the penalties of
perjury or treason ?

(From the Times.)
The crime of these ill-fated insurgents in South
Wales being complete, there remains the punishment—
a punishment, too, which must be inflicted, or there is an
end of civil society in England. The crime is treason
and rebellion—nothing more nor less—an attempt to
sack and destroy a large portion of a populous and im-
portant town—an attack by fire and sword upon the
Magistrates engaged in the fulfilment of their delibera-
tive duties—an attack upon the Queen's troops assem-
bled in obedience to the Magistrates, and in defence of
them—an enterprise, one and only one of the meditated
consequences of which was to seize on all the property
of the country, to convert it to their own uses, and leave
the rightful owners to starve. We shall not follow the
example of Lord Normaoby, and apply small names to
wholesale atrocities " Outrage" may do well enough
for a novel writer, but rebellion is " rebellion" in the eyes
of a Minister. Who headed the rebellion ? Frost.
What gave Frost the paramount influence and authority
which he exercised throughout the whole mining dis-
trict of South Wales ? Obviously his position as a
Magistrate. And who made him a Magistrate ?
Why, who but Lord John Russell ; and, what is worse,
he was so made by Lord John Russell in the teeth of
remonstrances addressed to his Lordship by respect-
able persons, who had known Frost all their lives, who
were aware of his once having been a fraudulent bank-
rupt, and of his having for a very long period been oc-
cupied in schemes of violence and crime. But what
was Lord John Russell's answer to such communica-
tions ? Did he act upon them ? Oh, yes, by alleging
that he felt it his duty still to appoint Mr. Frost a
Magistrate, in deference to the wishes of those in-
habitants of Newport who had applied in his behalf"

—that is to say, of the Chartist and other conspirators,
who saw a facility for their own plots in the promotion
of a leader and a fellow rebel ; these men were deemed
worthy of all attention by Lord John Russell, while the
denunciations and dissuasions of loyal and respectable
men could obtain no notice from the Queen's Home
Secretary ! We see the consequence. The " Liberal"
Government carried their liberality to a pitch which
most reasonably and logically led the poor mountaineers
to imagine that Mr. Frost, the delegate of Lord John
Russell, when he spoke treason, was uttering Lord John
Russell's sentiments, and had the Noble Lord's full ap-
probation of his schemes ! What a plight, then, must
the consciences of these popularity-hunters be in, when
they find themselves forced by the necessities of office,
and with the eyes of all England upon them, to issue
special commissions forthwith, to try and hang the dupes
of their own wicked policy ! We know that the com-
missions must go forth—we know that some of the im-
mediate perpetrators of rebellion must suffer. But, good
Heaven I only think, once more, what must be the feel.
ings of that Cabinet which first made Frost a Justice of
the Peace, not listening to any advice against the ap-
pointment, and next sign the warrants under which he
and those duped by him, because he was a Magistrate,
must undergo the doom of traitors ! If the alternative
were proposed to us whether to stand at this moment in
the shoes of a rebel mountaineer or of those whose Ma-
chiavelian selfishness and rabble courtship had first se-
duced and then betrayed him, we undoubtedly would not
prefer the position of Lord Melbourne and Lord John
Russell.