The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-15 00:00:00

tion. He told the landlords and clergy of Bucking-
hamshire so, in his celebrated speech, in which he
asked the political support of the clergy on the
ground, that if they gave it, he would fight their
Church-rate battle. He and others, therefore, get

up the cry that Ecclesiastical Establishments and

Church-rates, are part of one whole. To give up
Church-rates would be to create one of the little
holes, which like those in the great sluice at
Lynn, might soon admit the waters of Voluntary-
ism, and flood the country with them. True, at

present the Voluntary flood more like that of the

Nile than that the tidal waters at Lynn, seems

to produce flourishing religious harvests where it
already extends, and even where it flows in the
channels of the Episcopal Church ; still 287 Tories
would persuade the country that it must be care-
fully banked out of all the old parishes of the
country. To do these gentlemen justice, we do not
imagine that one in 10 of them, perhaps not one in
20, believes what his vote formally implies. He
does not believe, we may be sure, that the Church
hebelongs to, needs the rate more than any Dissent-
ing Church does_ He would be indignant to hear
its members spoken of as either poorer or meaner
than the members of any Dissenting sect ; yet his
vote necessarily implies one or the other. That,
however, he cares little for. The Tory leader has
summoned him to fight the Tory political battle on
the Rate, He must obey orders if his party is to
fight successfully, his vote for Church Rates means
—place Lord DERBY and Mr, DISRAELI at the head

of affairs.
But what can Sir JOHN PAKINGTON mean by
resuscitating that stupid nonsense about the "Poor
Man's Church," This sort of cant, we can give it
no better name, is hardly so respectable as quack
advertisements of the " Poor Man's Corn Plaster."
The advertiser openly proclaims that he wants to
make his living out of the "poor man." Sir JOHN
uses the " poor man," as a political stalking horse,
although the "poor man" knows but little of Sir
JOHN'S church, We all know that, except when
charities bring the poor to the parish church, the
great body of those who go to worship at all, go
to the " Wesleyan Chapel," to the " Primi-
tive Methodist Chapel," to " Bethesda," or
" Zion," or " the Tabernacle "—or even to
" The Cave of Adullam." From any re-
ligious impulse, but few, indeed, comparatively,
visit the churches of the Establishment. They are
not compelled to pay, we believe, in any chapel,
but so far as we have ever heard they prefer to pay
their pence for the excitement and more colloquial
sermon and service they find in the meeting-house.
We remember a great Methodist authority told the
Lords' Committee that " the penny a week" from
members was their great reliance, that it was en-
tirely voluntary, but that the poor felt such inte-
rest in giving it, that their richer neighbours, if
they thought any member felt the payment of so
small a sum, frequently gave it them privately for
the purpose of contribution. That seems to us
something more like a " poor man's church," than
one in which he is offered the privilege, so distaste-
ful we imagine to an English poor man's pride, of
going to church in jortna pauperis.
As to the wisdom of taking Church-rates for
the battle-field with the " Liberation Society"—
the great bugbear of the Lords' committee, and the
clerical old ladies of the country—we certainly can-
not see the wisdom of it. This formidable Libera-
tion Society whose originator and leader but the
other day received a testimonial of £5,000 from his
friends, can hardly wish to fight their battle on
better ground. The rate is, not like some vener-
able endowment, hardly known of, and not affecting
more than a few persons—every parishionerknows
all about it, can vote for it or against it, and if he
sees fit, with a majority of his fellow parishioners,
to refuse it, no power exists to compel him to pay
it. It is a subject of annual discussion. The
places
are few in which sutuc of his nefisub..i.7 ao not
complain of the hardship of maintaining their own
worship and those of others, too. In very nume-
rous parishes there is en annual fight; in many
more, where the Anti-Rate party are in a minority
they yet find a pleasure in harassing their op-
ponents. Altogether, in a large part of the parishes
of the kingdom, the Church-rate is just t the
thing to enable the " Liberation Society"
to get a hearing for its principles under the most
favourable circumstances. We have not the least
doubt the Society would be sorry, as a matter of
generalship, to see the rate abolished. They like
the annual fight in Parliament, and like it still
better in the parishes. Church-rates furnish them
an Anti-State Church platform all over England,
and we have no doubt they feel deeply indebted to
Mr. DISRAELI for making it a party question.
Mr. DISRAELI wants Ministers to make the ques-
tion a Government measure. In the present state
of parties this, of course, is little better than a taunt,
or a joke, He and his friends made a sad mess
of it, when they made the attempt, by Mr. WAL-
POLE'S compromise. In fact, compromise is impos-
sible. It is not wanted. None can be devised.
Mr. ESTCOURT'S resolution confesses that. His
resolution itself is the signal of defeat. It is the
confession that, while they have demanded a com-
promise so long, after trying for twelve months
longer, they cannot find one. There is, indeed, but
one possible—that of Mr. BRIGHT, to abolish the
power of enforcing the rate, leaving the Church all
is machinery intact.

Whether it was from having a morbid and over-
sensitive remembrance of the altercations that
took place a few weeks back in the House of
Peers, between the noble and learned lord on the
woolsack, and one of the five ex-Chancellors,
we know not—but certainly his Grace the
Duke of BUCCLEUCH evinced an extraordinary
readiness
to take offence, on Tuesday evening, at a
very small peculiarity then noticeable in the pro-
ceedings of the Lord High Chancellor. We are in-
duced to revert to ithere for a moment, simply because
of the circumstance of Lord WESTBURY'S instant
and graceful apology for what, really and truly, so
far as we can in any way
understand the incident
required no apology whatever.
The circumstances here alluded to briefly then
y misapprehension on the
reverend prelates, viz., the
tmheomriegnhttar
paraorsteofouotneofofa
Bishop of WINCHESTER. Upon the division which
took place on Tuesday
evening—a division
which
resulted in the rejection of the Qualification for
Offices Abolition Bill by a majority of " thirty-
two " out of 142 Peers—the Bishop of Wiliam_
TER, while intending to vote with the " non-con-
tent;," by an error as to the lobby, had inadver-
tently walked into the opposite lobby and got nom
bered among the " contents." immediately alter
this circumstance had been notified to the house by
the Marquis of
CLANRICABDE, and admitted as a
fact by the Bishop of WINCELESTER—it was sug-
gested by Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY that, in the
absence of any precedent to guide them in the mat-
ter, their lordships should follow the course usually
pursued in these little dilemmas in the House of
Commons. Whoever the member might be who
was found to have voted thus erroneously, and in op-
position to his own deliberate intentions, is there, in
that "other place," summoned forthwith to the table
of the House by the mandate of Mr. SPIAKEU. In
compliance with this suggestion the Bishop of WIN.-