The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-27 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

tion which I could not but deem to be not a little shock-
ing to the feelings of ordinary men.
The inference of which your Lordship speaks is one
":hick t e.cr entered into my thoughts. In truth I
co, ld not, in my waking hours, have ascribed to your
I. rdshlis the folly of being " desirous" of effecting so very
' hp es an object as "to impress on the House of Lords,
tha-. rt ligious instruction WAS not of paramount import-
ance to every other in general education." What I really
said was, that you had avowed the proposition which I have
quoted above. Your Lordship can hardly fail to per-
cei .e, that to avow an obnoxious sentiment, entertained
by yourself; is a very different thing from being desirous
to impress it upon others. Such an avowal is often
in life under the ingenuous impulse of the moment, and
is the frankness of free discussion, when the speaker
v:m.lil not have the hardihood to attempt, nor even to
wish, to impress the sentiment on hid hearers. Now,
this is all that I said or thought of your Lordship on
thi' occasion.
Your Lordship further says, that if I had " adverted
to your having previously stated, in the printed corre-
spondence then under discussion, that a system of reli-
g Wag instruction forms the most solid foundation on
hich public education can be placed, it would have
l een impossible," &c.
My Eord, it is true that I did not advert to that
correspondence, nor should I have thought it necessary
' to advert to it, even if it had been, as your Lordship
states, " then under discusson." But I cannot suffi-
ciently express my astonishment that your Lordship has
made such a statement. Has it escaped your recollec-
tion, that in the very speech from which I quote, you
\
had protested against bringing that correspondence then
under discussion—that you had yourself demanded that
the discussion should be confined to the Minute of
Council of 3d June—that you had even complained of
the want of candour evinced in including words taken
from that correspondence, in one of the resolutions of
the day, and that you yourself actually moved and cars
rZed, nem. dir., the rejection of those words, because
that correspondence formed no part of the question ?
Yet you now intimate that I ought. not to ascribe to
words which you then used the only meaning they could
fairly bear, because, in the course of that very corres-
pondence, you had written something to somebody,
s Age months before, of a somewhat different tenor.
I say of a somewhat different tenor ; for I am not
sure that what you wrote in February was absolutely
inconsistent with what you spoke and printed in July.
kßut if it were, are vie to refuse to give to what you last
delivered the only meaning the words will bear, because
that Meaning does not agree with what you may have
written live months before ? Is it, then, utterly incon-
ceivable that: your Lordship may occasionally be a little
inconsistent witb you se.l ? Is it an unheard-of thin,
that a Parliameetary speaker is sometimes thus incon-
sistent, especially as subjects which he does not trouble
himself to think v:ry- much about? For this, my
Lord, is, I apprehead, the 7,!al clue. An honourable
man will, with perfect sincerity, express very different
sentiments on the very same subject, if it is a subject
which is not much in his mind, and still less in his
heart. This is the way in which I should reconcile
what may appear contradictory in your Lordship's
letter of February, to your speech of July. This im-
0, tance or non-im mrtance of religion, seems to strilse
P -
Tiordship very differently on different occasions,
your ...
according to the shifting convenience of debate,
Is this an unc laritabla supposition ? My Lord, I
wish it were,- Btu if, instead of adverting to a letter
.mo moths before, I advert to a previous
1
mitten several
p,sssage in this ve.y speech of your Lordship's, I find
tnsssi what can bs explained only by your want of
due ha4tual and serious
attention to the paramount im-
-1
portance of religion. Cos:ld any man who had an
abiding sense of religion, who .made an habitat:ll prac-
tical reference of all passing events to the disposal of
i Almighty God, could he speak or %-state such a sentence
as the one which I am about to quo:.!!
After enlarging on the dangers which threaten the
► peace and security of society, from the igNirance of
1 t.he manufacturing population, your Lordship thus pro-
; ceeds (p. 16) :
" There is no supernatural being on whom your
i
Lordships can rely to stay the progress of this evil, to
t allay tLe coming dangers—dangers already blackening
the itorizon. You can rely upon no other commanding
and beoeticent spirit but the diffusion of sound moral
and religinls instruction." In other words, man, and
the devices of man, are all we have to rely upon in this
world!
NI,/ Lord, do
say, or do I insinuate, that you do
.1.
; not believe in the exstence, or moral government, of
:
God ? God forbid !
-gut this I say, that if you had a
lively, abiding, practical sense of the blessed truths
which the word of God has re,"caled to us, you could not
have uttered, much less have L.'eliberately penned and
1, Tainted, the sentence which I hive cited. And let
toe add, which I do with a sincere and' ;yarns desire of
t' 'ournden spiritual welfare, that if the effect of this corres-
voce shall be to make you think more gravely and
. aura seriously on this most grave and serious subject,
, you" vt.II have reason to rejoice that it has been .here
'
uroug;'.it before you, however distasteful some of the
) accompar. yin matter may be.
Oa theo.ther particular to which your Lordship re-
g.,_,,,, ~,,, quotation, in a note. from, the Appendix to
Me. C-1 ~,,, 7 ~,... 2-5'"76." R'flui ', i."tis' I7D, that .. on
the continent a pri.'wipie of economy is the sole motive
i tur sobriety" in the m.2nufacturing classes, I thank your
Lordship for setting me right respecting the authority
of that gentleman on this'
,point. The fact is, that my
quotation was taken, not from the report its:4, but from
.1 small brochure in quarto, of 20 closely printod pages,
itied " The Condition of the Factory and 1-land-
__di Weasing, Population of France, Austria, Bel-
gium.. Switzeriand, &c., as shown by the Reports of' the
.Assists.nt Hand-loom Commission. London : printed
by. Edward Brewster, 1839."
At p. 1 7, under the head " Morals, &c. of the Work-
ing Classes," occurs the passage cited in the note to p.
27 of my charge, to which your Lordship refers. It
is stilted to be take; from " Documents communicated

1 e. t 1
1 loth

by the Board of Trade, and originating with an engineer
(IA manufacturer in Eef.%ium, Mr. Grenville Withers,
of Marehinne au Pont, ni.,lr Charleroi," and to have
b'en a part of "Appendix to Foreign Report from J.

U. Symons, Esq."
As there is no intimation given frf the tract from
which I quoted that Mr. Symons had dislaimed t: :e

sta,'ement, or that the person from whom it proceeded
was ,lnknotvn to him, I concluded (too Instily, it ap-

pears) that Mr. Symons had given to this document a
place in 'lig appendix, because he deemed it worthy of
credit. I :vat take care to correct the error, and will
ascribe the ;.tatement to its author, Mr. Grenville
Withers. My readers wili judge for themselves whether
this engineer and manufact:irer in Belgium is entitled
to credit, in respect to the :,,tate of religious feeling

among his own workmen and others on the Continent.
neanwhile your Lordship will, I am wire,. forgive me,
if I add my own testimony, so far as it goes (I admit
that it does not go far) respecting the religious know-
-led4e of some of our own manufacturing people. IN the
.!,,r 183 G, a numerous deputation was sent to Loncion,
.ondeavour to procure due legislative regulation of the

Lour., of working in the factories. Several of these men,

deiejos'e3 from different places, I had the gratification
hevint, .at more than one interview. Their general
iatelligent.e, and power of explaining their views, much
sorpried ate. I was aware, indeed, that they had been
B.4eted, and we-e not average specimens of their class.
Still they execedeci what I should have expected even
in selected men. Bct what was most gratifying was, to

th.d that those who wece thus selected for their t:bility

intelligence Were also religious and pious men. -I
formed this judgment from long conversation with them,
in which they stated and deplored the moral condition

nf our factorieF, generally evincing, at the same ti►:le,

tt. own acquaintance with the blessed truths of the
Gr...-pel, and, seemingly, their sincere and deep rever-
eee those truths. I avow, be it the effect of mere

vrejudice or not, that I do not think it would
he easy to uroduce a similar deputation from the work-
ivg classes of Belgium, or Prussia, or France, and that
ti,erefore I am predisposed to assent to the accuracy of
Mr. Grenville Withers's testimony on this point.

Be this as it maj'. your Lordship will agree with me,
that it is impossible oot to feel a warm interest in the
welfare of such men, anj an ardent wish that measures

raqy be taken to giv. e to ell of t.ieir class those institu-
tions and opportunities of religious instruction and wor-
ship, which, with God's blessing, may be at means of
making many to be like the few whom I lame, thus
seen. I have the honour to be, my Lord, your L.ord-
s4iP's most obedient servant. H. EXETER.
perceive on inspection, which I did not give
to it before, that the printed paper from which I quoted
is only a portion of a work, apparently going through
the press. It was sent to me by a gentleman who had
informed me of the passage cited by me, on my desir-
ing bins to give me his authority for it. I subjoin
another brief citation iron the same Paper, which states
that it is part of the same document, taken from the
same appendix, p. 173 I have had at different
times, and in various parts of Belgium, more than
20,000 workmen under my control, and I m confident
that not five per cent. of them could read and write.
In the small towns and villages the supt,rsticion and
ignorance of the people are amazing; their faculties are
locked up and benumbed for want cf being called iuto
exercise."
'INe Marquis of Lansdowne, K.G.

THE IiMEQUis OF LANSDOWNE TO THE BISHOP OF
EXETER.

London, Nov. 25, 1839.
MY LORD,—I avail myself of the fiat opportunity the
post affords, to acknowledge )01.1r Lordship's letter from
Exeter, which, although dated the 20th instant, I did
not receive in London till the 23d.
It would not be necessdry for me to do more, if, in
endeavow_ring to explain the grounds of your previous
miscppreheroion of my meaning, your Lordship had not
allow.ed yourself to be betrayed into a ntis-statement
ho lens inaccurate than the allusion which your Lordship
admits, ourself to have erroneously made to Mr. Sy-
mons'a report.
Your Lordship states, in referm:ce to your having
omitted to advert to a passage in the correspondence
:hen upon the table between Lord John Yusselt and
myself, in which I had, in your own words, " written