The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-05 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

spoke at the meeting, is a Member of Parliament ; and
since it is allowed by law that a military officer may
represent the people in the House of Commons, it must
be in the contemplation of law that military officers are
free to hold and to express independent political
opinions. At the Ashton dinner the Government was
veryindignantly spoken 'of by Mr. Roby, but no disre-
respect was shown to the Crown. We by no means de-
sire that military men should interfere in politics as
military men ; but the fact of a man holding the Queen's
commission does not obliterate his rights and duties as
a member of civil society. Officers of the army hate no
right to talk politics to their men ; but to assa.rt or in-
=nate that they arc not at liberty to go to a du:ner,
and to sit there while speeches are made that find taxi:
with the Government, is a piece of tyrannous imperti-
nence well worthy of the Sunday hack of Whitehal
place, and offensive to all just sense of British liberty.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
It is intended, we understand, to make this day of
annual thanksgiving for national deliverance an occasion
for desecrating sundry churches, both in London and
the country, by denunciations against our Roman Ca-
tholic countrymen, like those recently fulminated at
Manchester and Liverpool, and very often in Exeter-
Hall.
With the theological condemnation of Papists
we have no purpose to interfere. According to our no-
tions of toleration, men have a right to believe, and to
preach, if it seem good to them, the eternal destruction
of their neighbours. Whether it be wise in a State to
pay some ten or twelve thousand preachers to tell some
eight or ten millions of people that their faith is a
rcuteis a damnable one, is a question that may, perhaps, come
to be mooted, if the firebrand faction in the
Church do not " please too moderate the ran-
cour of their tongues." If there be any peril in
prospect to the Protestant Establishment, it is in the
reaction which their unbridled zeal may eventually pro-
duce. But whether their intolerant dogmatising com-
port with the creeds of the Church of England is a
matter for settlement between them and their ecclesias-
tical superiors ; and there we leave it. What we con-
demn is not their disposal of the souls, but their attacks
on the civil rights of the Roman Catholics. The suc-
cessors of St. Peter only claim the keys of heaven and
hell ; but the Saint Stowells and O'Sullivans, and their
clerical coadjutors, claim in addition the keys of the
Treasury and public offices. They vilify the Constitution
of their country, of which the Catholic Emancipation
Act is now as integral a portion as the Bill of Rights.
They strive to preach down all respect for the law.
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his ancestors. Their " holy war" is against peace and
justice ; their mission the revival of the odium theologi-
cum, with all its baleful influences. Their anti-Papis-
tical notions are animated by an anti-social spirit. Their
Gospel is an anathema against the kindly charities that
render pleasant the life of men, and the equal civil
rights that crown it with dignity. And what an occasion
have they chosen for their indecent and intolerant exhi-
bitions ! In the deliverances which the Church comme-
moratos this day : the plot, in one case, and the tyrant in
the other, were Popish. But history has been strangely
falsified if; even in those times, there was any essential
or exclusive connection between Popery and ferocious
plots or arbitrary power. In our own days the
notion of such connection is something worse than
an egragious absurdity—it is a wicked calumny. Why,
then, can we not thank God without hating our neigh-
b. bur ? Wi-y not rejo.c; in having been rescued from
Catholic arbitrary power, without denouncing the ex-
istence of Catho;c civil liberty ? Why not commemo-
rate the defeat of ono sedition without stirring up another
sedition ? The triumph over intolerance must be capa-
ble of many better mode.; of celebration than by the
immolation of Christian Ch,:rity. Were the Queen to
act upon the advice given her by the Bishop of Londoa,
in his sermon at the coronation, and imitate her Royal
predecessor Elizabeth, she would speedily. silence this
politico-theological fanaticism, by a " Sir Priest, I will
sleevesth? this
unfrock you," even though the frock,,,,l;ardeos.
lawn. The circumstance which chid)
anti-Christian and anti-legal abusiveness frt.tn contempt,
is the implied sanction, by his silence,
ex-
pected Tory Premier. Through him, intoler...ince as-
pires to become the law of the land and the spirit of G. o-
vernmeet. He is reckoned upon as capable of paying
for fanatical support by a new Catholic
proscription.
His repentance of the one liberal act of his life is pub-
licly vouched far and his silence seals the bargain.
Whether it be the silence of simple shuffling between
the opposite sections of a party—of predetermined
treachery to the supporters thus purchased—or a con-
version to hostility against the liberties of Ireland so
bitter that it will brave the civil war front which once it
flinched—is a secret of which we may be content to die
in ignorance, if it can only be revealed by the calamity
of a Tory restoration. For the present, Sir Robert
Peel, allows himself to be regarded as the head of those
who threaten Ireland with infinitely more bloodshedding
than that of Rathcormac ; and of those who threaten
Queen 'Victoria with the fate of James 11. or Charles I.

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

(From Woohner's Exeter Gazette)

We are authorised to say that the satement
which has appeared in some papers that the Bishop
of this diocese has declared his assent to the pri.9et-
ple of the Government scheme of education, is en-
tirely without foundation. The letter of his Lord-
ship to Lord John Russell, from which this change
of opinion is said to have been inferred, seems ra-
ther to have been prompted by a hope that the
Noble Lord to whom it was addressed had altered
his views on the subject, agreeably to the tenor of
his letter of the 16th. At any rate, that Lord John
Russell himself did not understand the Bishop's
letter in the manner in which some others have af-
fected to understand it, is plain from the following
answer to it, which we are permitted to publish, as
a part of the correspondence which cannot now be
properly withholden :
" Buckhurst, Oct. 18, 1839.

"My Lord,—l confess lam not sanguine as to
the result of any conference between the BishoFs
and the Committee of the Privy Council on Edu-
cation. Ido not, however, wish now to discuss
the principle laid down by your Lordship, that the
Church is the fit guardian and administratrix of
National Education.' I can only say that I have
no objection to the publication of the correspon-
dence between your Lordship and myself. I should,
in any case, have thought it right to communicate
it to the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Labouchere,
Loid Monteagle, and Sir George Grey, who at
present form the Committee of Privy Colwell for
Education.