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

There is no mistaking the object of the Bishops in their
indecent exhibition on Thiusday night,,end in the hole-and-
corner meetings throughout the country, got up in all se-
crecy by instructions from them, with a view to that explo-
sion. Dreading the effect of calm and deliberate discussion,
they thought they might commit various parties to a prema-
ture opposition to the measure, from which they would be
ashamed to recede. If reason had been on their side they
would not have resorted to violence. But how comes it
that the Bishops are so infuriated ? The zeal for the cure
of souls has seldom, in their spiritual Lordships, been of the
nature of a consuming flame. The Bishop of London ad-
mitted, a year or two ago, when the crying abuses of the
Church with regard to , non-residence and pluralities were
brought before the Peers, that the Church had only begun
to bestir itself in;reform, in consequence of its being impelled
by the public. Had there been no other consideration
than a regard for the two millions of souls still to provide
for, according to his Lordship, we should probably have
been spared the present unseemly exhibitions. What, '
then, is the secret of all this violence ? What has led
to the threatened rebellion of the Bishops—to their in-
decently anticipating the consideration of a measure by the
branch of the Legislature into which it has been brought ?
We fear it will be found that now, as on all oiler occasions,
the zeal of the Church has been kindled by Mammon. It
is' said that the Bishops have been in the habit of receiving,
for their own personal advantage, the sums that have been
paid by canal and railway companies for the land belonging
to the Church which has been taken for these public
works. How much, for instance, may we ask,. does the
Bishop of London hope to appropriate from the Great
Western Railway ? These sums, so received, have never
been accounted for, though they clearly belong to the See,
and not to the accidental Bishop who has but a life interest
in the property, and who would, therefore, only be fairly
entitled to the interest of the purchase-money for land so
alienated from the See. All these windfalls ought either to
be invested in lands or in the funds, for the benefit of future
as well as existing Bishops ; but they have been hitherto
quietly pocketed, like fines on renewals of leases. We
need .hardly observe, that this great transference of
the proceeds of prophrty of the Sec to the pockets
of the existing Bishops could no longer be conti-
nued after the passing of the Bill for the Abolition
of Church-rates. This unrighteous appropriation of
what belongs to the See, to the detriment of their succes-
sors, is a subject which Parliament would have to investi-
gate. Hine ay klck pnce ! The Right Rev. Prelates
tremble at the prospect of the real value of their Sees being
correctly ascertained, and are unwilling that these comfort-
able windfalls should be transferred from their own pockets
to the vigilant custody of a responsible Commission. The
children of this world are wise in their generation ; and the
Bishops have seldom been deficient in an anxiety for other
treasures than those which are laid up where moths do not
corrppt and thieves do not break through and steal. We;
would remind the clergy in general, that there are other
sources to which the State is entitled to have recourse be-
sides the additional value given to Church property by the
present measure ; and the motion of Mr. Baines for the
production of accounts respecting tenths and first-fruits
sufficiently indicates the source to which we allude. If the
present plan were to fail, through the factious clamour of
the Bishops, seconded by the clergy throughout the
country, they may be assured that no difficulty will exist as
to the making the tenths and first-fruits available acs
cording to the original intention of the Legislature. We do •
not believe that the lessees will be the dupes of the interested
appeal made to them by the Bishops and other opponents of
the Ministerial measure. They must know the precarious
nature of their tenure ; and they may be assured that they
never will have as good, terms offered to them as those
which are presented in this measure. They cannot fail,
too, to perceive that one great reason of the hatred of the
Bishops to the measure is its appropriating what they con-
ceive ought to belong to themselves ; a ground quite irre-
concilable with the pretended sympathy with the interests
of their tenants. But be this as it may, the lessees may be
assured that the public having been fairly directed to the
state of this description of property, a change of system
with respect to it is inevitable. If an arrangement do nst
take place with the lessees the leases may be run out,
in which case the full value of the estates would be ar-
propriated to the public use. It is of some consequence
to lessees that they should not act with a rash disregard
of consequences. Two leading objections have been started
to the project ; a religious objection and a fiscal objec-
tion. First, it is call, r a measure of sacrilegious spoliation.
This objection might come with a good ;race from Sir
Robert Harry Inglis--and possibly even Sir Robert Peel
might consistently employ it—for the Member for Ox-
ford University and his Right Honourable Friend,
whom he superseded in that scat of intolerance,
both resisted the Irish Church Temporalities Act
of 1833 on this very pretence. But will Lord Stanley or
Sir James Graham venture to oppose the present measure ?
We ask the question beCause of the curious coincidence and
association which we noticed on Saturday; we allude to
the procession of the triumvirate—Stanley, Peel, and Gra-

ham--to Lambeth Palace on Thursdai, just about the
hour when the Prelates. were in conclave upon the Church-
rates question. We repeat the question—will Lord Stan-
ley and Sir JaMes Graham dare to oppose this measure on
the plea of its being sacrilegious and spoliatory ? They
were both in the Ministry of 183. Sir James Graham
had then a scat in the Cabinet. On' the 12th of February
of that year, Lord Althorp introduced into the House of
Commons the Church Temporalities' (Ireland) Act. The
primary object of that measure was the abolition of Church-
rates in Ireland. Its leading principles and provisions
were nearly identical with those of the measure recently
proposed with a similar view by Mr. Spring Rice. The prin-
cipal difference between the two measures consists in this

—that the former swept :away ten. Irish Bishoprics—
while the latter does not so much as touch- an English
crosier. The Twenty-seven Bishops are to continue
in this country—while .of -the Irish Twenty-two
have been cut down •.tO twelve. Sir James Graham and
Lord Stanley were strenuous supporters, they were among
the framers, of the Irish Bill ; and as they did not deem it
a sacrilege or it , spoliation of the Church to lop off ten
Irish mitres and abolish Church-rates in that country in
1833, throwing upon the Church lands the burden of mak,
taining in future.the fabrics of the Church, by an arrange-
ment almost precisely similar to that detailed on a late
occasion by Mr. Spring Rice, we cannot conceive the pos-
sibility of their resisting, in 1837, a measure infinitely less
sacrilegious, even though introduced by a Ministry to.whom
they are opposed ! The measure of the 12. th of February,
1833, abolished ten Bishoprics, abolished Church-rate, and
introduced a new arrangement of Church property in Ire-
land, That measure was, as we have already stated,
vigorously supported by Lord Stanley and Sir James,
Graham, and it related to Ireland. The measure of

February, 1837, does not touch the Bishops, but pro-
ppes to 'abolish Church-rates, and to introduce a new
ngement, similar to that adopted in ;833, for the
etting. of the Church lands. This measure relates to

England. Is it to be supposed that Lord Stanley
and Sir James Graham will be so reckless, so unprin-
cipled, so basely factious as to oppose this latter Bill ?
It is for themselves to answer the question in the midst of

the Commons of England.and in the face of the country.
We have stated what were the principles and the provisions
of the Bill of 1833. Lord Stanley, in his speech in reply to.
'Sir Robert Pcel, described that Bill as a ." liberal measure,
founded upon piii./cipk.r, to emu. fine of .whicl4 be gave lila
cordial and entire and unhesitating. -a&sent?'... Alludiag to
the provisions of that measurei• the ryrincipks of which ho
had previously so cordially, entirely,, and unhc\sitatiugly ap-
proved, Lord Stanley • " •
" What was the plan now proposed ? it was that the land
should be valued at a certain corn,rent, and Oat mither the
tenant nor the Bishop.shoold.he at liberty to refuse that valu-
ation." [We believe Mr. Spring _Rice's plan is not so arbi-
trary against the English-Bishops.] " But," continued Lord
Stanley, " to whom was to belong the benefit of the inereasP...2
value thus derived from the land 1 He (Lord Stanley) 2:Jould
say it ought to belong to the State."

Such was the language of LordStanlcy in 183 P:
to a measure for the abolition of Church-rates -in reference
and the new me-
delling of Ecclesiastical tenures. TheNoUleLord did not con-
fine himself to mere assertion on this ar-
guehe-
the point against Sir R. Pc 1. • ..d. He went on to
who had designated the
Bill a sacrilege ,and a spoliati%,. " What," asked Lord
Stanley, " what is the val' of Church property ? By the
conditions which the State had annexed to it, it could not
be leased. for •ti longer, term than twenty one years ; sub-
ject to this coLdition, if brought into the market, it would
produce a cci Lain arationt of put -chase money. But a new
mode of dealing. With it. gave it an inrzeased value. What
tight, then, he asked, had the: Church to claim that in-
creased value- which it never ht.d, and never could have,
unless the State had passed au Act to give it (the in-
creand value) to it (the lani3O ? It (the Church) had uo
right, and the difference becigeen th J former value and the
increased value ought, he (Lord *;tanley) eenteladed, to
be applied to secular putpases. or to any purpose that the
State might direct, without any! of the properitY
the CAurel4." tkisTobli; Lord uttered these sent:-
)t).