The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-21 00:00:00

probability of the people or England being fed
with manna from Heaven than relieved by the
specifics of our excellent friend Mr. Owen. And
we are the more disposed to place these senti-
ments on record from having been obliged to
digest an address which will be found by the cu-
rious reader in some corner or other of this
morning's Paper. It is called "An Address
to the Religious of every Denomination,"
and its object is to convince these persons
that they have no mind or sentiments of
their own—that they are a parcel of " ir-
rational" fools that their principles are
the mal-formations of their stupid parents—
that they have been in " error" all their
lives—and that the " rewards" they expect in a
future state of existence are doubtful and unintel-
ligible trifles of which it is beneath the dignity of
man in this enlightened age to make a matter of
serious concernment. We are afraid that this
address will prove an effectual antidote to the
co-operative system. Because, if all men be in
error—if all men be irrational—if all our ideas
be founded on fallacious suppositions—who is
to be the redeeming angel that shall dispel our
mental blindness, and lead us into the broad
highway of pure philosophy? Can Mr. Robert
Owen be the real Messiah expected by the scat-
tered sons of Abraham ? But we must permit
the reader to judge for himself, and for that
purpose we request his attention to the extraor-
dinary address to which we allude.—Morning
Journal.
The recent Meeting of the county of Devon,
the proceedings at which were fully reported in
our Paper of yesterday, illustrated at• least as
forcibly the dangers which are inseparable from
any attempt to remodel the property of the
Church, as the advantages which the advocates
of any measure of this nature anticipate from
its adoption. Those who are really anxious
that a revision should take place of our national
system for the support of the Parochial Clergy,
and that it should be undertaken and conducted
in a spirit of prudence and equity, will cautiously
abstain from blending complaints of the hard-
ships inflicted by the collection of tithe upon
any particular class of the community, with the
arguments of a more general character which
they may deem likely to promote their views.—
The term hardship, and all the terms equivalent
to it, and all the epithets by which they are
usually attended, are words without meaning
when opposed to the exercise of a legal and
long-established right, unless they are intended
to intimate, on the part of those who employ
them, a disposition not to compound with
that right, but to invade and subvert it.—
Such language must always operate as a cau-
tion to the Government and the Legislature
against affording cry sanction or encourage-
ment to the agitation of a great practical
question, which so many persons are deter-
mined from the beginning not even to dis-
cuss
fairly. The flag of truce which may I
be the precursor of an amicable and just
arrangement will not be surrounded by armed
men in the actual commission .of acts of
hostility. We are happy, however, to perceive
in the language of the petition adopted by the
Devon Meeting, a much greater portion of
wisdom and moderation than can be found in
some of the speeches delivered upon the occa-
sion. It asks for "no innovations on the prin-
ciples of the British Constitution, nor for any
unfair or improper sacrifice from any party.",
The evils it describes as consequences of the
tithe system are undeniable, and are stated, as it
seems to us, without any violent or mischievous
exaggeration. It is just in all similar cases,
and highly satisfactory in this, to infer the
general character of the Meeting, and its pre-
dominant feeling and opinions, from the lan-
guage of the petition, rather than from the less
authoritative and matured effusions of individual
eloquence. But while we agree with these pe-
titioners that the tithe system is in many in-
stances injurious to religion, by impairing the
harmony and confidence which ought to exist
between the Clergyman and his parishioners ;
and that it impedes the progress of agriculture,
by diverting capital from the most beneficial
of dl possible employments in a na-
tional point of view, that of reclaiming and im-
proving the poorer descriptions of land, we
must contend that these evils, great as they are,
are still insignificant in comparison of those
which must inevitably ensue from the act of
giving legitimacy to the principle of spoliation,
and of degrading and impoverishing the
1 National Church by an unjust invasion of its
property and rights. If every man who seeks
the removal of the former evils manifested at
the same time a just sense of the latter, the
difficulty and danger of - the subject would be
almost wholly removed, and we should not
despair .of an arrangement being accom-
plished, under the auspices of a wise and
patriotic Legislature, which would be highly ad-
vantageous to the country, while it would ac-
cord with the wishes, and eminently conduce to
the interest and comfort, of all the parties imme-
diately concerned. It is evident, however, that
the general prevalence among public men, and
particularly among popular leaders, of respect to
the Church of England, and a disposition to do
her ample justice, as well as a high degree of
public confidence in the body of exalted Church-
men, whose duty during the progress of any
change it would become to watch over and, pro-
sect the interests of that invaluable corporation,
are conditions indispensable to any attempt at
innovation, unless innovation is to be attempted
in utter disregard of the public alarm, jealousy,
and confusion to which otherwise it must, and of
the intestine strife to which it might not impro-
bably, give rise. These considerations suffice to
convince us that the present is not the fittest
moment for agitating the question.—morning
Post.
Verily the country is at length roused to I
something like a sense of its distress I and VI
ever there was a Session of Parliament which
promised to be fruitful in important discussions,
the ensuing is that which is likely to bear away
the palm. The malt and the beer duties—the
tea monopoly and the currency—the taxes and
the public expenditure—and lastly, the tithes,
and a more equal distribution of the property of
the church among its pastors ;—these are the
questions which must come before the Legisla-
ture, and which will be pressed upon its atten-
tion by petitions, not from the people only—
those who work with their heads or their hands
—but from the owners of the soil itself, who
have never yet lifted up their voice unanimously
without accomplishing. their object, whether it
was for good or for evil. But the tithes and
the Church property, would you meddle with
them ? exclaims some young scion of the no-
bility, who expects to clutch a bishopric on the
first vacancy. Aye, we say, meddle with them as
they have o ften been meddled with before, and
the country will not only be benefited, and the
morality of the people improved, but the hearts of
the great body of the clergy made to leap for joy.