The Sun.
London, England, 1837-09-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1837.

guilty of these acts of scandalous corruption, have
been the Clergy of the Established Church. Bear in
mind, we request you, that they are also the public
opposers of education. But let us see what the Rev.
BAPTIST NOEL says on the subject of education;
without religious instruction. It must be recollected
that tl►e outcry against Ministerial candidates is,
that they have supported Ministers who maintain
the National System of Education in Ireland. Mr.
NOEL says, " Ireland is in a peculiar statethat
if it be impossible to have the able in the Na-
tional Schools, rather than that the people should
be left in ignorance—National Schools ought to b 2
established without the Bible—that schools for ge-

neral instruction must be had." To the scandalous 'al-
legations that the national schools take away the Bible
from the poor, and that it hinders Scriptural education,
&c., Mr. NOEL replies, " That in the schools he vi-
sited he generally found proof that the Scriptures were
in use ; that by returns made to the Commissioners,
out of 352 schools, 285 (or four-fifths of all) used
the Bible." But Mr. NOEL supposes the worst, viz ,
that all those schools are without religious knowledge,

and he grapples with the objections of such men as
Lord BAYNING and the Norfolk Clergy, who say
" that all knowledge, without religious principle, is
mischievous, because it confers the power to do the
greater evil." This is, in fact, the stronghold of the
enemies of popular education ; and we consider THAT
as the point in dispute between the enlightened and
liberal Bishop of NORWICH, and his ignorant and
bigoted Clergy, with Lord BAYNING at their head,
and we wish-the question to be dispassionately can-
vassed and decided. Mr. NOEL says—" The nature
of this objection is as follows :—Knowledge may be
used by a wicked man as a means of doing mischief;
—therefore keep the Roman Catholic people in. ig-
norance." He continues:—
" Let us apply this argument in other things. Health
and strength will make a rogue more daring, more mis-
chievous ; therefore render every labourer a sickly cripple.
• . . . If, indeed, it could be shown that knowledge is
muoh more uniformly injurious than ability, wealth, or bo-
dily strength, it might be a reason for not imparting it ;
but the very contrary is the fact. In tho case before us,
knowledge alone, simple, secular knowledge without the
slightest acquaintance with Protestantism, would be a
greater blessing to the Irish peasantry than any other, ex-
cept religious instruction, which it would be in the power
of England to communicate. Teach them the value of
agriculture, and you will enable them to receive three times
their present returns from their soil Super-
stition cannot endure knowledge and reflection ; and if the
people are but taught, Popery, with every other imposture
practised on human ignorance, will certainly share the fate
of ivlahomedanism and Hindooism, which are waning be-
fore the increasing civilization of the world."—Pages
314-316.
We think it important that this subject should be
well considered and canvassed—that the vicious
party spirit of the Tories should be fully explained—
as we are confident that the common sense of the mass
of the nation will be found in favour of the Bishop of
NORWICH and her MAJESTY'S Ministers, and that
the system of national education will not only be con-
tinued in Ireland, but the same system be introduced
into every parish in England and Scotland. From that
system, steadily continued, the gross ignorance which
keeps the people in the counties in England in their de-
graded state, under the influence of such men as Lord
BATNINet and his fellow Clergy, will be dispelled, and
the English yeoman be himself again an independent
freeman, exercising the suffrage he has, free from the
interested or bigotted views of the Clergy, or
Squirearchy.

Various have been the effects already produced or
the Tory faction hereby the publication of Mr. O'CON.
NELL'S powerful' and well-timed address to the people
of Ireland. Sonic it has maddened with rage and dis-
appointment ; others it has almost frightened out of
their wits-. They see in his straight-forward, generous,
and confiding appeal to the good sense, the honesty,
and the patriotism of the English and Scotch Re_
formers, the seeds of an union that must eventually
destroy the political power of the Tory faction, root
and branch. They were perfectly aware that the
Reform cause could only be injured by divisions among
the Reform body, and therefore to promote such divi-
sions and dissensions, have all their energies for. the
last four months been steadily and incessantly directed.
Every renegade from the cause of liberty and truth--
every political optimist cast out of the popular ranks
for clogging and impeding movements dictated by po-
pular necessity—every legislative purist, justly con-
demned by the common sense of the nation for refusing
to accept anything because everything was refused--
and every thick-skulled Reformer who denied the
faculty of discerning an object an inch before his
nose, was perpetually fancying that the Whigs
were forming a coalition with the Tories to fling
the Radicals overboard—were sure to receive the
sympathy—the commiserating condolence of the self-
styled Conservative Press. The object of this was
manifest. It was to effect splits and subdivisions
among the Liberal party. It was to encourage such
unprincipled renegades as R UTIIVEN ; and such One-
idead, short-sighted, legislative optimists as SisA RNIAN
CRAWFORD to exert their puny abilities to fill the
minds of the Reformers with a distruSt of their best,
and moss tried, and powerful friends. The Tory
organs knew right well, that divided among them-
selves, and separated from. their trusty and determined
leaders, the Reformers would be, comparatively.speak-
ing, powerless, and that by a little artful management
the Lords would contrive to bring their necks under the
yoke. They are therefore furious to find that all their
treacherous designs are likely to be baffkl by the
straightforward and manly course adopted by the Hon.
and Learned Member for Dublin, who appears clothed
in the sacred character of " peace-maker"—of healer
of the political " wounds of the nations." For years
it was the constant cry of the Tories that no Ministerial
concessions would conciliate O'CONNELL—t6t do
what they would he would ever be a thorn in their side, and
an adder in their path—a determined deadly. 'foe, whose
rancour would only be increased by kindness. They
now find they were mistaken, and the discovery is gall
and wormwood to them. They find Mr. O'CONNELL
as ready to support Ministers on just grounds, as he
was ruthless in opposing them when madly bent :upon
perpetuating the degradation of his native country.
We have stated again and again—a thousand and a
thousand times over—that union among the Reformers
is all that is necessary to the accomplishment of every
object required for placing the social and legislative in-
stitutions of the British empire on the firmest and
purest basis. We cannot too often reiterate this sa-
lutary and important truth. Chiming in with the pre-
vailing opinion among the practicable and steady Re-
formers of Great Britain, Mr. O'CONNELL happily
-observes :—" If the British Reformers of all classes
would but unite—if they would in every country,
town, and. city, form a Reform Club or Society—if
they clamoured at their public meetings, and in
their petitions, for further reform—if they attended
to the registry, and to the correction of erroneous opi-
nions, and the refutation of false statements—if, in
short, the Reformers were up and stirring against the
common enemy—the plundering, peculating, bigoted
Tory faction—if, animated by the spirit, not of paltry
discontent or querulous resentment against the Whigs,
but of genuine, high-minded love of constitutional
freedom—the Reformers of all classes would unite in
energy, exertion, and combined strength—the
proposed
4;4l:Wages of the Reform Bill would be realized—the
necessary stneliorations in our institutions would be
secur,d, and the traffickers is exraption, bribery, and
bigotry be banished for ever from power and authority."

In this glowing picture of the consequences of an union
among the Reformers there is not the shadow of an
exaggeration. United, and with the QUEEN at their
head, the Reformers have nothing to fear from the hos-
tility of the House of Lords—the more especially as
we understand Ministers are inclined to adopt
the recommendation of Mr. O'CONN ELL in the
case of such Peers as derive their importance
from having their families quartered upon the public
purse. Were the pauper Peers, who now insult the
people, made sensible, by a wholesome exercise of the
Royal prerogative, of their utter helplessness—of the
ridiculousness of their pretensions deprived of their
means of subsisting by the plunder of the public—we
are very confident the LYNDHURSTS of the Upper
Chamber would take a widely different view of the
policy of the Government before the close of the next
Session of Parliament. Now is the time for Ministers
to stand by their friends, and hold no further parley
with their enemies. Let them show by a thorough
pl;rification of the Administrative departments of the
Government that they are omnipotent at Court, and
the Reformers of the United Kingdom will rise as one
man to support them. The QUEEN has declared for
the Whigs—let Ministers dare, therefore, to employ
in a straightforward determined spirit the power which
such an accession of strength gives them in their
pending conflict with PEEL, LYNDHURST, and the
Hanoverian Tory faction. Resolution and energy
are all now wanted to secure the permanent triumph
of the Reform cause. For the course which Mi-
nisters and the Reformers of Great Britain ought im-
plicitly to follow, we know no better guide than Mr.
O'CONNELL'S address to the people of Ireland.

Madrid Papers of the 30th ult. received this morning
bring no news of importance from the Peninsula. A
letter from Saragossa of the Ist inst. mentions the pre-
valence of a rumour there that CABRERA, in an at-
tempt to escape from the Pretender with a quantity of
specie, was pursued, taken, and shot. CABRERA
according to this report, having quarrelled with VIL-
LAREAL, a duel was' the consequence, and the
latter having been wounded, CABRERA fled—having
taken the precaution to provide himself with whatever
gold and silver he could lay his hands upon. In a
despatch dated the 26th ult., General ORA A an-
nounces that the Carlists were compelled to raise the
siege of Lucena. ESPARTERO had reached Cagol-
lendo, and on the 28th addressed the following procla-
mation to the army. Any comment upon it would be
needless. The Commander-in-Chief has manifestly
been frightened into making the Constitution of 1837 a
watchword, by the fate of SAA RSFIELD at Pampeluna :
Soldiers !—Your General has addressed you whenever
the good of the country and your glory have required it.
That same good and your safety oblige me again to fulfil
that sacred duty. I am sure you will listen to me as to a
father who wishes to prevent the genius of discord from
causing the ruin of his children.
" Hitherto you have fought with valour, constancy, and
amidst all possible sufferings, the Carlist faction. Its efforts
have always been fruitless. You have destroyed those
enemies in glorious combats ; your and my blood has been
shed in defending the most just of causes. They should by
rights have vanished from a land which they have polluted
by a large number of crimes ; but parties support them ;
those parties which, under different shapes, aspire to power,
and, without caring for the consequences, wish to throw
discord among us, and draw us into their ambitious views.
Believe me, those parties are nothing but the agents of the
rebellious Prince.
" Soldiers !—Never listen to those dark machinations.
Be not the blind instruments of the confusion which it is
sought to introduce into your ranks. Be obedient to your
superiors, do your duty, and let discipline be your main
object. Between us there is but one motto, Isabella the
Second, the governing Queen, as Regent, and the Consti-
tution of 1837. United under that flag, which we have
sworn to defend, we shall be invulnerable. Turbulent men
will disappear, and we shall have no other enemies than the
rebels. The triumph of these is certain—a triumph to
which your General will ever have the glory 'to lead you.
(Signed) " ESPARTERO.
" Head-quarters, Cogollendo, Aug. 28."

The Paris Journals of Thursday have all been re-
ceived. The following despatch from Bayonne in-
cludes the latest intelligence which they bring from