The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-23 00:00:00

precepts of our blessed Saviour, and pursue the things which
mare for peace, and if you charge the Church party with
conduct which interferes with that peace, show them at
least, by your example, that you can forego even supposed
rights for the sake of peace—that you can bind up wounds
and promote a renewal of the best Christian feeling-s, and
do not drive your best friends, like myself, to take a
part painful to themselves, and at variance with you.
Give not cause to the great and good man, the Duke
of Wellington, who, when he bowed to the general wish
and carried the Catholic Relief Bill through Parliament,
did what he did in the spirit of a hero—give him not
reason to repent of what he has done ; and give not
reason to those who so long proscribed the Bishop of
Norwich for having supported the cause which he sup-
ported in the teeth of the general opinion of the Church—
give them not reason to say that he has contributed, more
than any other man in the kingdom, to open a floodgate
whereby the Church, of which he is so high a Minister, is
in danger of being overwhelmed, unless it prepare for, and
determine upon, a struggle painful to every Christian feel
ing, and destructive of that which we pray for—viz., " that
we all, who profess and call themselves Christians, may live
in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteous-
ness of life !" Condescend to listen to one who has a right
to offer himself as a mediator and counsellor to those in
whose behalf he himself has been distinguished, and in
whose behalf his venerable father has made more sacrifices
than any individual in the country.
I am, Gentlemen, your obedient and respectful servant,
HENRY BATHURST, Archdeacon of Norwich.
March 20, 1837.

TO THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON BA-
THURST.

Committee-room, Patriot-Office, London, March 22.
Reverend Sir—The Committee of the Church-rate Abo-
lition Society, presuming it is your intention to address
them in your letter inserted in the Times newspaper of this
morning, although you have slightly varied their title, have
instructed me to offer some observations on that letter. This
they have done, not only as a matter ,of courtesy and re-
spect, but also, and chiefly, that you may be rightly in-
formed of the course which the Society intend to prosecute
in relation to the abolition of Church-rates.

But before I make this statement, permit me to assure
you that in the committee and among the members of the
society which I have the honour to represent there are
many Episcopalians who render the most important ser-
vices to the association ; men whose attachment to the doc-
trines and to the discipline of the Church of England can-
not be doubted—who are anxious to relieve their Church of
the power to oppress, and to establish her in the affection
of the people.
Your proposition is, that the Church-rate Abolition So-
ciety shall, under existing circumstances, " declare to the
Government, that they will, for the present at least, suspend
their claims to the abolition of Church-rates ;" and the con-
sideration by which you enforce your proposition are the
following :
The difficulties which beset the question.
The uniformly liberal conduct of the Bishop of Nor-
wich and of yourself to the Protestant Dissenters.
The undesirableness of giving occasion to the Duke of
Wellington to regret that he carried the Catholic Emanci-
pation Bill through Parliament.
The danger of alienating yourself, and others like you,
and driving you to take a part painful to yourselves, and at
variance with the opponents of Church-rates ; and
The great importance of peace and unity.
Is it not desirable, Sir, that you should have stated ex-
plicitly what the " existing circumstances" are upon which
your recommendation is founded ? They are to be gathered
from your letter only inferentially. I may be allowed to
say, in passing, that existing circumstances are, in the judg-
ment of the Committee of the Society you have addressed,
favourable to the prosecution of their claims. The public
mind is alive to the monstrous injustice of the tax which
they are endeavouring to remove ; and the just and libe-
ral men now in power are favourable to the redress of the
grievance. •

Perhaps you refer to the opposition with which the pro-
posed extinction of Church-rates has been met by the Pre-
lates, and by others interested in the continuance of the
tax ; to the number of petitions presented to the House of
Lords in favour of the present system ; or to the proposal
of the Archdeacons of England and Wales in meeting
assembled, that additional powers should be given to the
Ecclesiastical authorities to make and levy Church-rates. I
beg to assure you, Sir, these are not circumstances which,
in the judgment of those whom you have addressed, will
give any weight to your recommendation.
You say that the subject is beset with difficulties. Ad-
mitted. Would the lapse of time remove them ? Have
they ❑ot been increasing of late years with an almost unex-
ampled rapidity ? Is it not true that in very many places
Church-rates cannot he levied, and that in those parishes
the fabrics and the worship are supported by voluntary
contributions ? Although it will be at once conceded that
the Church-rate Abolition Society possesses the confidence
of the country, yet such is the state of feeling in relation
to the impost of Church-rates, that any recommendation to
suspend opposition to them would be treated by the country
at large as an idle sound, and the Society which gave such
a recommendation would be regarded as traitors to their
trust and to their cause.

I pass over the reason you deduce from the conduct of
the Bishop of Norwich and of yourself, not from uncourte•
ousness, nor from want of a due appreciation of the obliga-
tions under which the venerable Bishop, and the son, who
professes to inherit his principles, have laid the Protestant
Dissenters of England ; but because personal considerations
should not sway the mind in its judgment upon a great
national question, and because the parties you have ad-
dressed are accustomed to pay more deference to argu-
ments than to authorities.

Your next reason will not, I think, be deemed to be of
much weight. Whether the continued agitation of the
Church-rate question shall cause the Duke of Wellington
to regret that he carried the Catholic Emancipation Bill
through Parliament, or not, can have but little effect upon
the settlement of the Church-rate question. But if the
.agitation be continued, his Grace may be induced to do in
this what you say he did in the other case, when he acted
in the spirit of a hero," and—" bowed to the general
wish !"

You fear that persevering efforts to abolish Church-rates
will alienate yourself, and those who think with you, from
the principles we advocate. Most deeply would the Com-
mittee of the Church-rate Abolition Society deplore such a
result. But their regret would be for the friends who had
forsaken them in the hour of their need, rather than for
themselves and the cause they espouse. •
The last reason you assign in support of your recom-
mendation is the importance of preserving peace and unity.
Sir, your estimate of the importance of peace and unity is
not higher than theirs whom you address. To attain them,
they would sacrifice every thing but TRUTH ; but they
have learned that the wisdom which is from above is
"first pure, then peaceable." They would follow the
example of your venerable father, whose name is revered
by the wise and the good of all parties, because of his
perseverance in that course of principle which you advise
the Dissenters at the present time to forsake for expediency.
And now, Sir, be assured that the Committee of the
Church-rate Abolition Society will not cease to agitate the
question of Church-rates until they have secured the ulti-
mate triumph of their cause—that there will be no sus-
pension of their efforts—that be their day of success distant,
or be it near, their course will be undeviating, their exer-
tions unwearied, and their confidence undisturbed.

I have tile honour to be, reverend Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
T. H. BOYKETT,
Secretary to the Committee of the
Church-rate Abolition Society.

THE ROBBERY ON THE ROCHDALE ROAD.—
This subject, so fertile in the columns of the Manchester Guar-
dian, is still unexhausted. A long article in the last number
of that journal begins and ends thus :—" We now come to con-
sider the most important part of this extraordinary case—
namely, that connected with the repeated and consistent con-
fessions of the gang of Irishmen. • • We
now come to the view which has been taken of the case at the
Home-office ; and we are enabled to state that it is exactly
opposite to that which Mr. Taylor seeks most anxiously to
establish. It is now admitted at the Home-office, that the
Irishmen were concerned in the robbery of the Messrs. Royds ;
but it is presumed, on some grounds wholly unknown to us, that
EaStwood and his companions were their accomplices. This
presumed connection is now therefore, the important point in
the case. We believe we shall be able to show, not merely
that no evidence has been given to prove such a connection,
but that it is inconsistent with the evidence on which the pri-
soners were convicted, and equally inconsistent with all the
known facts and probabilities of the case."
LAUGHABLE BLUNDER.-1 will relate a laughable
blunder of a translator, by way of giving you a familiar ex-
ample of the manner in which the French fall into error con-
cerning the condition of other nations, and to illustrate my
meaning. In one of the recent American novels that have
been circulated here, a character is made to betray confusion,
by tracing lines on the table, after dinner, with some wine that
had been spilt ; a sort of idle occupation sufficiently common
to allow the allusion to be understood by every American.
The sentence was faithfully rendered; but, not satisfied with
giving his original, the translator annexes a note, in which be
says, " One sees by this little trait, that the use of table cloths,
;it the time of the American revolution, was unknown in Ame-
rica !" You will understand the train of reasoning that led
him to this conclusion. In France the cover is laid, perhaps,
on a coarse table of oak, or even of pine, and the cloth is never
drawn ; the men leaving the table with the women. In Ame-
rica the table is of highly-polished mahogany, the cloth is re-
moved, and the men sit, as in England. Now the French
custom was supposed to be the custom of mankind, and wine
could not be traced on the wood had there been a cloth ;
An erica was a young and semi civilized nation, and ergo, in
1779, there could have been no table cloths known in Ame-
rica !—Cooper's Recollections of Europe.