The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-10 00:00:00

The Bishops last night fairly threw off the mask,.
and set all regard to decency aside in theirsfurious oo
slaught on the Ministerial plan for the abolition oY
Church-rates, before it has. even received the conside•
ration of the House of Commons. At first the Lords'
were all sympathy with the suffering lessees. But th,
Bishops know these people too well to suppose thaw
any aid is to be expected from such a quarter. We.
were not unprepared for this display of the Prelatet
though we could hardly have believed that they would
so far lay aside all regard for propriety of behavior's.
We can now understand why the late Mr. Cobbett iti as
so much excited when he spoke of the vio'snice of t: ie
clergy towards himself and Lord Cochrane at a me( L-
ing in Winchester. They actually, he said, • sills ,k
their fists in the faces of himself and that bra ve
officer, who declared that hi all the scenes of 1 is
life he had never witnessed anything to equal eie
shameful bullying of the Hampshire parsons. WI: e-
ther it be the exemption from the responsibili is
to which other gentlemen are subject-that lea is
to these unseemly ebullitions we know not ; hat
this we know, that for a scolding bout the BiSh up
of London and the Bishop of Exeter are without th cur
equals in Parliament. The Bishop of Exeter had ti le
bad taste to burst into loud and contemptuous laugh, er
when Lord Melbourne declared what we are sure w
is
his firm conviction, that he considered the measure
be one of peace and concord ; and the Bishop of Lis;
don, at the top of his voice, denounced the plan as a
scheme of sacrilege and spoliation. Their Rig! it
Reverend Lordships are quite mistaken if they suppo me
that their indecent precipitancy will either overawe tl to
House of Commons or rouse the country in their bi
half. We are quite aware that the parsons, for some
time, have neither slumbered nor slept—that they ha 'ass
been getting up hole-and-corner petitions all over t he
kingdom ; at which they have endeavoured, by infla; r-
ing the minds of their partisans, to work them to th 3ir
purposes. It was in reference to these disingenuo us
practices, no doubt, that Lord Melbourne asked t; he
Most Rev. Prelate (the Archbishop of Canterbury r)
" whether he conscientiously believed that the measu res
had been fairly represented to the people—whethc
necessarily it bad not been misrepresented, if the feel-.
ing it had produced on the minds of the people was*.
that its operation was in any way to injure the sacredt
edifices of the Church ?" The parsons knew betr
than to call public meetings, because if they had don 0
so, these misrepresentations would have been exposes ks
The parsons would not have been allowed, vvithou t
contradiction, to get up petitions by holding out tha t
it was intended to destroy the sacred edifices, to le t
them go to ruin. The Archbishop of Canterbur)
told their Lordships that " a meeting of Bishop:
had been held that morning, at which they as. •
sembled to the number of fifteen, being nearly al I
the Prelates who were in town ; and he hay
been authorised by them to express their unani -
mous concurrence in the sentiments he had stated ~
and their determination to resist the proposed mea -
sure by all proper and just means." Proper„ in -
deed ! They gave an admirable sample of thei
sense of justice and propriety by thrusting themselve s
forward so unseasonably. Oh, but the Bishop
London was inflamed with holy zeal for the souls c
the poor people of this country ! " There were tws
millions of poor people in England who were withou
the means of religious instruction ; and to what other -
sources could they look for means if the present plan ,
was adopted, and these were cut off." Oh, it is all
zeal, burning zeal, for the souls of the poor people, nos!
doubt. The zeal remained hidden from mortal eye may,
long as Bishops and Deans and Chapters were ;ne.
dulged in their freaks of running their lives ar.osaist;
tenants, and jobbing in Church lands. But ene mo.
ment it is proposed to do an act of justice to the pis-
scoters out bursts the zeal for the souls of the poor. Is •
has been smouldering hitherto under a deep crust of sets
fishness ; but the flames can no longer he repressed.
Every pulpit of the Establishment will henceforth ring
the changes on spoliation, sacrilege, and other flowers
of the vocabulary of the Prelate who, in the late
case of Gompertz, proved himself so thoroughly irss.
hued with the Christian spirit, so much alive to the
sufferings of his poorer brethren of the Establishment,
so little influenced by personal or family considerations.
It is all zeal for the souls of the people ! The Bish
e op
of London affected to be quite satisfied that as a finan-
cial scheme the measure was altogether founded on er-
roneous data, and that it would fail in that respect.
But if the Right Reverend Father in God had not a
tolerably good assurance that the measure would not
fail financially, we should have been spared, we sus-
pect, much of the holy zeal for the souls of the two
millions of people. If the Parsons could but rely on
the lessees, and could have any tolerable assurance that
the scheme of Ministers would fail financially, how
they would rejoice at the prospect of Ministerial dis-
appointment ! But they know that it will not
fail. They feel assured that Lord Melbourne was
justified in stating, " Though I do not at pre-
sent pretend to be a master of all the calculations
on which the measure is founded, or to be able to
go through all the details, I can tell the Right Rev.
Prelate that if there is any part of the measure on
which I feel less doubt than another, it is the financial
part of it. lam perfectly convinced that by a proper
management of these Church lands, ample funds will
be realised for all the purposes stated in the measure."
It is knowledge of the truth of Lord Melbourne's
statement that has impelled them to thrust themselves
prematurely into the discussion of the question. Their
conduct is scandalously indecent ; but they mistake the
character of Englishmen if they suppose that this at-
tempt to bully the House of Commons will have the
effect of deterring Members from the discharge of their
duty, or obtaining them partisans throughout the toun-
try. We must remind our consistent Contemporary,
the Times, that having so long stimulated Ministers to
abolish Church-rates, it ought not to oppose 'diem on
this occasion. We must remind our Contemporary that
it never spoke with more truth than when, a year or two
ago, it stated, that though "the English people may be
Protestant, a very large proportion are not Protestants
of the Church of England," and that " the Protestant
congregations of the Established Church ought to sup-
port that Church from their ownresources exclusively.'
But we regret that want of space will not allow xis to
avail ourselves of the aid of our Contemporary, who
so much outran Ministers in its zeal for the abolition
of Church-rates. And now one word to lessesis, for
whose interests the Times yesterday felt so deep an
interest. It is not necessary to waste many words our
this cry of " Church lessees in danger," sshich has:
been raised with the forlorn hope of persuading thee
holders of Church-lands that the:ir interests are to bet
sacrificed by the proposed plan. It is only necessar3s
to recapitulate the principles. of the measure to silenc a
their flourishing recheat, It is proposed—l. To
value the fee-simple of all the Church-lands as worth.
only twenty-five years' purchase. 2. To value the
particular existing interest of each tenant on, the
same scales And 3. To give him the option ors purs-
chasing the reversion of his property by spying a
rent equal to the interest of the difference betweesa
those two sums. An absurd notion has b': en started
that one uniform average valuation is to 1-,e put upon
all existing leases, instead of estiraating each lease ac-.
cording to the actual number of years. it has still to
spoke,plan itoodeteldle.
t:
fie
e;
Houser un . l
ofn cexplaining,
wit hre, natureg ofn
of an average term, be eause he could not otherwissi
have made his statement intelligible ; but it my a
haveibeen as reasonable to proclaim that all the •
nisters in Esigiand have three hundred pounds, a' ,rd
amore, be:;ause in the same speech he mentione d that
sum as their average income, as to suppose LI oat r ea!
existing interests were to be cut down or ext e tided to
fit that average term, which was used only fc,r the p
pose of explaining the general results eranpri!,,eil it r
his national plan. Each particular ease will be dealt w
according to its specific value, in yeferencst to its own
cumstances. Lord Ashburtonovith characterissicsimi
city, professes to be incapable of comprehending how fi nsa
persons can all rise winners from a whist table. \ Ve
do not know if his Lordship be a member of
Graham's Club, from the neighbourhood of which le
seems to have imported this metaphor. . We woi 1,1
ask him, in return, if he remembers the card-play inl ;
commemorated by Gil Bias, when all declared the np •
selves losers. There can be no doubt that all pan .zee
hitherto have been losers by the restricti ons iii p used