The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-13 00:00:00

gstt &IN
when a Minister of the Crown; but will he '
, on for the supposition that he was then insincere
or that he is now factious ? Has he changed prinei
pies, with his different positions in the House. of Corn
moos ? We know it has beer) cbjeeted to the Churc!
Temporalities (Baglaral) Bill that its is more unfavourabl
+o the lessees of the Church than its Irish prototype. Thi
fiscal objection has been mooted in an unprincipled prim
which also swells the cry of sacrilege, althou,ol in 1833 i
abused Lord Grey's Cabinet for not going to work with th, •
Irish Church in a Imre sweeping fashion than the Caine'
approVed. That perfidious journal has beg .t getting VT.
tables of figures. to show that Mr. Spring Rice's propositio:k
is harder upon the Engii.l2llessees of the Church than was.
Lord Althorp's upon the Irish Ecclesiastical lesssa.s.
gures are often a very fallaCious test.. We are sorry it is
inconvenient' to .us to copy ." Jim C'rew's" tables ; but
their object is to show that by the Bill of 1633 the Irish
lessee of Church lands was enabled to convert a_ leasehold
yielding a net yearly rent of 2.485/. into a perpetuity, for
.5731. Gs. per annum, while the English lessee of Church lands
cannot make a similar conversion, by means gill,: measure
this night to be considered, with a less sum than 1,0f.K.q.
Bs. per annum. All this calculation is based upon igno-
rance or malicious suppression of the truth. There is,
we admit, a difference between the cases of the Irish and
the English lessee. That difference is not created by the
Bill fur the Abolition of Church-rates in England. It is
a difference springing out of the very nature, of things-1,
difference which Parliament has no right to regulate, and
of which the English lessee has no right to complail:.
The pi inciple is the same in the Irish Act :JO in the
English Bill. In both cases the purchase money of the
perpetuity is to be the difference between the present and
the future value of Church lands. Up to 1833 the inte-
rest of a lessee of the Irish Church having a lease of 21
years to run would sell in the market for 12.1 years' pur-
chase; now, by means of the Temporalitit* Act, that is
estimated to be worth 20 years' purchase. The dif-
ference between the present and the future value
—that is, seven and a half years' purchase—is the
price of the conversion of the leasehold into a per-
petuity. The interest of an English Church lessee hav-
ing twenty-one years to run is now worth fourteen years'
purchase : by the proposed arrangement it is calculated that
that interest will fetch twenty-five years' purchase. The
difference between the present and the future value—that
is, eleven years' purchase—will be the price of the conver•
sion of the leasehold into a perpetuity. The difference int
the value of land in both countries is, then, the cause or
the difference in the respective situations of the English
and Irish lessees. The Bill proposed for England arid.
passed into a law for Ireland by his Majesty's Ministers
treats the Church lessees in both countries precisely alike.
It very properly requires of each to yield up the increasel
value of the land to the State by whose interference this
increase has been effected ; and it wisely allocates this re•
venue to.the maintenance of the Churches, in. lieu of a tax:
that grievously afflicted the consciences of a large class ni
the King's subjects, and, by the unseemly contentions it lesil
to, inflicted great scandal and deep injury upon the Pasta.
blished Church.—Morning Chronicle.
The noble and becoming procedure of the English(
Bishops on Thursday last is hourly proving itself the salvas.
lion of our National Church. The spirit and wisdom of
the Right Rev. Prelates who stood forward in that me-
morable instance, and took upon themselves the sacred
duty assigned to them by their station as heads- and guar-.
diens of the Church established, are made equally naques•
tionable by the conduct of her friends and her nestalantss
whence cominunicati6ns haves
From all parts of the country
yet had time to be received by post or otherwise, the most
striking evidences pour in upon us of the just directions
which has been imparted by Thursday's proceedings in Om
House of Lords to the opinions of those members of ther
Established Church who had not until then been thoroughbe
roused to n consideration of the tendency or character
the Whig Dissenting 'Bill for 'robbing the clergy, as well
as the poor, or their only available resources towards tt pro-
vision 'fir the accumulating wants of both throughout this
Protestant king tom. Every moment brings the most satis-
factory demonstration of the fresh encouragement thus af-
forded to the reflecting and religious public, and of the new.-
force by Which they feel themselves animated in consequence
of the stand against spiritual barbarism begun in the Commons'
house of Parliament, followed up by the independent press.
and supported by our venerable champions of the Protestant
religion in the presence of the assembled Peerage. The mind of
the people is now concentrating, and the power of the na-
tional feeling will soon be experienced in its fatal effects
upon the measure for insuring the general dilapidation of
Churches, and exclusion of the poor from their immemorial
tights as Christians. But if the testimony furnished by the
friends and advocates of the Church against this unprin-
cipled measure were of doubtful extent or importance, all
defects of such a nature would be abundantly supplied, and
all uncertainty removed, by the hluguege of those whose
aim is to plunge the Protestant Establishment in ruin. Wo
have already described the demeanour of Lord Melbourne
towards the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his vain attempt
to answer that estimable Prelate last' Thursday. as unman-
nerly, boisterous, and bullying. Bullying a clergyman !
Why was this ? Lord Melbourne is not habitually a vio-
later of the external obligitions of a gentleman or a bravo
man.- had not such a scene been enacted by his Lord-
ship, we should have thought him as incapable as any other
Peer of treating an aged and courteous personage, like Dr.
Howley, With greater contumely than lie would observe
towards any other person who was not in a condition to
chastise his unseemly objurgation according to its de-
serts. But his outrageous recklessness on that day was,
in fact, the measure of his astonishment and mortifioa-

tion at the odious light in which he and his brother
Ministers, and their conjoint political wickedness, were
placed by the mild, simple, and unvarnished statement of
the venerable ArchbishJp. The Noble Viscount was furi,
ous because he was sore and frightened. Had his Lordship,
been less conscious of the entire destruction wherewith him-
self and his unhallowed schemes against the Church of
England were threatened by the frank exposure which was
administered to them by the ecclesiastical head of that
Church, he would have less resembled in his whole bearing
the rude swash-truckler of the seventeet.h century, or the
tavern-ruffier and mohawk of tl:c reign of Anne, than lief
did when he thumped down his gauntlet on the table in des-
perate defiance of tha established religion of his country.
Lord Viscount Melbourne intimated as one
,grand motive,
for this warfare against the estates of the Bishops, the.
chapters, and their respective lessees, that "peace" be-
tween those sects which divide the parochial population:
would be restored by it. Peace! Why who has broken
the peace? Is it he - who acts upon the ancient.
and existing law of England, or he who resists it

anil raises an outcry for its abolition ? We have heard

a great deal of nonsense talked upon this question of
religious " peace." The breaker of the peace is not
the defender of established rights. It is the aggressor
on them. The promoter of " animosity in parishes "
is not the man who feels a just (however strong) resent-
ment at those who seek to deprive him or his property ; but
it is the offender who strives to despoil him of it. Nei
doubt, when highway robberies were in fashion, it would
have much conduced to the tranquillity of the roais, had.
the traveller always permitted liitusell to be plundered
without oppositioa—without a scuffle or complaint—with-
out pursuit or prosecution. In such a ease, the " peam;
tranquillity, harmony, a:J concord," bbtween passengers
and thieves, would have seen most edifyinc;—only there
would have bean no justice, no security, for those who left
their homes, and consequently no lone;er any locomotion.
So, with regard to this question abouz.Church-rat:.s, it is

sure enough, that if the Church of Eagland eongiegations,
and their several officers and 'parish functionaries, were to
let the political sectaries nave their own way, and retain,
snugly in their. own Poc-ots those sums which had been,
by the tracktit law or -england, inuncinoriall- appropriated

:0 the wants of the 'Church, there would be nu. more ill-

blood on quarrels ~on the particular subjeot of Church:
rates, and no other harm rnight'ark-e than that the sacral
edifices would fall to ruin; and there Cou!,l h 2 no :Wore

. .
public worship celebrated in them. But would that stop a.
similar, or louder, clamour for the nonpayment of tithe ?'
Unqueitionably not. We haVe it announced ti 4 Ais Offi-
cially, by the turbulent enein:es of the Church, that after
Church-rates are got rid of, the peace of par;shes will bd+
disturbed instanter for the tool abolktion of ..ithe, and ti,
establishment of the voluntr:y princkple ; which Lard Mel-
bourne must be void of all pretension to consistency if he
did not recommend to Parlkament, on the seine ground as.-
the repeal of the Uhurch-.rates—viz., its tendency to th
restoration of '' peace, tranquillity, hammy, and concord
•—a result v.vhich wed, who know something of Dissenters,.
are abun:irntly satisfied ‘iould never be obtained, but of:
which, )'; arrived at, the final consequence would be, that. w o
might, have indeed a sort of Protestantian and a sort of
er:iscopacy, but in both it is certain an inferior arr,ele„
the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Reverend brc.threlk
have, we repeat it, saved from inchoate deitruct..on aIL
those sacred and paramount -interests which are 'lncorpo-
rated with the Church of England, and have preserved to
us and to our children,. under Providence, all t.nose bless-
ings which our ancestors derivrAl-from the national Church,
and transmitted to us throurrn it. The Bishops have laid
open a low-minded fraud o;, those who dishonour the title of
" King's Ministers," and, have frustrated a licentious and
daring crime. tint how stands our Sovereign, the King,,..-
hinrelf ? IR tie Pot trebly armed, since this fulfilment eir
their sworn, duty by the bench of Bishops ? Is not big
Majesti's mind more informed than it could have beer s be-
fore ruch a demonstration of the sentiments entertair
,ed by
the heads of the Protestant established clergy ? CAn the
King. be indifferent to such an expression of their f eefings ?
Who ought to be—who are—the spiritual adv; iers of a
King of England ? arc questions bearing dir.ectly and
avowedly, mt by remote implication (like the,,r(
,;al of the,
Rotwat Catholic disabilities), Intt imuetliatutr‘ runs ,in 0-