The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-24 00:00:00

it also an the avowed means of the gradual change'
from slavery to freedom throughout all the States.
But if we look back still further, we observe
in this Message a complete reversal of the policy
of forty years. Every offer to the South, every
purchase-price of peace, has been one for the
strengthening of the slave interest and slavery.
The evil began in the compromise clause in the
much-lauded Constitution itself—a clause which,
by its ultimate working, has almost severed the
Union. The Missouri Comprothise, and all the
admissions of States, have been arranged to pre-
serve the slave power in a virtual ascendancy. The
iniquitous Fugitive Slave Law, and the equally
iniquitous decisions of the Supreme Court, have all
been sops offered to the South, to aid, abet,
and uphold the bondage of the poor Af-
frican. Mr. LINCOLN himself, though elected

ex animo in its plain grammatical sense. Nothing,
moreover, was before them but penury, fines, im-
prisonments, eonverticle acts, and fivemile acts, with
the neccssity in many cases of self-banishment to the
continent to escape the spies and informers of bishops
and cavalier magistrates. We all remember, how on
the contrary, the Free Churchmen marched forth
in triumph from what they called "the Residuary
Assembly ;" how they took their congregations
with them, instead of being driven from them ;
how the congregations, instead of being fined and
imprisoned for going to hear them, were free to
worship as they pleased, and support them in com-
fort ; how, in fine, they were speedily provided with
new churches and new manses, instead of being
compelled to lead the lives of fugitives and vaga-
bonds on the face of the earth. We by no means
underrate the principle shown in the Scotch move-
ment; we honour highly all suffering for what
the sufferer believes to be truth. We only remark
that, as a sacrifice to the sacred cause of Religious
Liberty, we never could compare the secession of
the Free Church clergy with the ejection of the
Two Thousand.

to preserve the territories of the States for the
free emigrants, yet has been guarded as was
BUCHANAN, or any of his predecessors, against
implying by anything he said that he wished to
free the negroes. Indeed, up to this hour, the
grand reason we have all assigned, Cabinet Minis-
ters as well as private individuals, for feeling no
interest in the struggle, was that the American Go-
vernment steadily refused to show the slightest
interest in emancipation, although so obviously its
most effective weapon in prosecuting the war. It
is impossible not to perceive that the state of the
public mind, which we may be assured Mr. LIN-
coLN knows well, Ernst have changed indeed
when he can coolly tell the people who
are spending millions on the war—that it will
be economical to spend yet a few millions more in
purchasing the freedom of the Border States

negroes.
As to the practicability of the purchase we do
not doubt it: In the" present aspect of things" to
which Mr. LINCOLN significantly points, the value
of negroes must be very much reduced, and may
become almost nothing at all. Then, again, there
is a resource in the United States lands, by the
sale of which ELIHv BURRITT has long ago shown
that the negroes might be emancipated without
severe pressure on the public. Again, the Border
States themselves contain a very large proportion
of Unionist whites, and altogether almost four
times as many whites as slaves, while in the
Gulf States, and the planting States the negroes
equal or exceed the whites in num-
bers. The Border States which, with the
exception of Virginia, are almost wholly in the
hands of Federalists, stood thus at the census of
1860 :

Whites. Slaves.
Maryland
Kentucky
Tennessee
Missouri
Virginia 1,405,196 .. 490,287
If we compare these figures with those for the
more proper South, the difference between com-
mencing with the half free Border States and
their few negroes will be apparent enough. Thus—
Whites. Slaves,
South Carolina has
Mississippi
Louisiana
Alabama 529,164 .. 435,132
Georgia • 595,097 .. 462,230

These few figures speak volumes. They show
that the PRESIDENT well knows what he is about
when he speaks to the Border States of purchase,
and is content to leave the others to come in when
they please. Left to themselves, they would soon
have no alternative but to submit.

We observe that the body of Dissenters—the l,
Independents—who held the otherwise respectable
meeting of Tuesday night, have made use of
this great historical reminiscence as an occasion for
"sending round the hat." This we cannot com-
mend. If it were necessary to build a hundred
or more Independent Chapels, we could wish a
separate arrangement had been made for that.
There are thousands of Englishmen whose religious
opinions differ widely enough from those of the
Puritans of 1662 and of the modern Independents,
who would yet feel a deep interest in the com-
memoration by suitable intellectual means, such as
lectures and public meetings, of the great historical
event which is so evidently connected with the
religious liberty and equality sentiments of the
present day. They would not choose, however, to
seem even to participate in a chapel building move-
ment. It is a kind of desecration of the memory
of the event to

" SPIRIT RAPPING EXTRAORDINARY" might
well head a report of a large meeting which was
held in St. James's Hall last Tuesday night. Its
object was to summons and to catechise the spirits
of a very remarkable body of men who were in the
flesh just two hundred years ago. They were the
class of men who are best known to most of our
readers by MACAULAY'S splendid description of the
ancient Puritans, whom CARLYLE too has placed
in their right position in his well-known life of
CROMWELL, and of whom even HUME has written
that they kept alive the spark of British
Liberty, when otherwise it must have
become extinct beneath the civil and reli-
gious despotism of TUDORS and STUARTS. Of
this class nearly two-thousand of the elerical leaders
showed that they shared the military courage of
the Ironsides, by their act of secession, for con-
science sake, from the Established Church just 200
years ago. Some of our prayer-books exhibit to us,
in full, the act which drove them forth from the
Church of the Bishops, the STUARTS, and the Cava-
liers. There it stands, equally a monument to the
Episcopal bigotry and the Nonconforming courage
of 1662 ; and, strange to say, passed in such an age
and under such circumstances, it has remained un-
modified either in the harshness of its direct pro-
visions or in regard to the singularly confused and
contradictory book originally appended to it, and
construed as a part of the act to which the con-
forming half of the English nation has continued
to adjust its religions opinions and its worship
ever since.

" Give to a sect what was meant for mankind."

Up to the time of these men clergymen in England
had been generally " Vicar's of Bray." With the
exception of the leaders, who were not allowed so
to escape, from the time when HENRY
founded and fashioned the Church of England ac-
cording to his royal will and pleasure to the days
of the commonwealth, the vast majority of clergy-
men meekly accepted all the changes backwards
and forwards made by successive sovereigns, and this
secession of 1662 stands forth as the first in our
history of any such act on the part of a large body
of the clergy. Notwithstanding a little logical incon-
sistency, it must be looked back to as the first asser-
tion on the large scale of those rights of conscience,
which, since the days of Dr. JOHNSON, hardly an
Englishman has been found to call in question.
To commemorate such an act by building a number
of sectarian chapels, and that, too, for the sect
which had fewest of its number amongst the Two
Thousand, seems to us the worst possible religious
taste.

With this very important exception, we have no
desire to speak carpingly of the meeting. We acknow-
ledge that promises to the amount of nearly SIXTY
THOUSAND POLINDDS, show that the chapel build-
ing project is regarded with favour by the body
immediately concerned. Its leaders will perhaps
think our remarks but little called for, or that if
there be some truth in them, that such a subscrip-
tion amply condones any error of taste in the affair.
That, therefore, we leave with them. But we are
not sorry to see in a trimming, easy-going age like
this, vigorous steps taken to set before us pretty
broadly the sterner virtues of our forefathers. Their
spirits, if Mr, FORSTER► can summon them, will re-
turn, we fear, answers not very flattering to our
self-complacencyi

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cam-
bridge and the Princess Mary honoured the Duke and
Duchess of Sutherland by their company at dinner on
Thursday, at Stafford House, St. James's. There were
present to meet their royal highnesses their Serene High-
nesses the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Weimar, the
Marchioness of Ely, the Earl and Countess of Derby, the
Earl Granville, Viscount and Viscountess Enfield, Lord
Dnfferin, &c.
The Duke of Cleveland and Lady Augusta
Poulett are expected to arrive in town at the close of the
ensuing month from Raby Castle, Durham.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Ailesbury are
expected at the Countess of Dunmore's residence, on
Carlton-terrace, in a few days, from Savernake, Wilts,
where they have been receiving a succession of visitors.
Maria Marchioness of Ailesbury has returned
to town from a visit to the Marquis and Marchioness of
Ailesbury, at Savernake Forest, Marlborough.
The Marchioness (Dowager) of Lothian and Lady
Agnes Kerr have taken a mansion in Audley-square for the
season. _ _

The Earl of Lonsdale has returned to town from
the Isle of Wight in improved health.

The Bishop of Oxford attended on Friday at
Denham Church, at a confirmation after the restoration of
the old church. Mr. and Lady Emily Drummond received
the right rev. prelate, the rector, and many of the local
clergy and gentry, at dinner at Tile House in the evening.
The Baroness de Clifford and family are expected
in town at the latter end of the month from Kirby Mallory,
Leieestershite, for the season.

The Right Hon. B. Disraeli gave a Parliamen-
tary dinner on Saturday, at his residence, Grosvenor-gate.
There wore present the Duke of Marlborough, the Marquis
of Salisbury, the Earl of Dartmouth, Lord Stanley, Hon.
C. Trefusis, Right Hon. Spencer Walpole, Sir Edward
Korrison, Sir Minto Farquhar, Colonel Cartwright, Colonel
Gilpin, Mr. Thomas Baring, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Hartopp, Mr,
Benyon, Mr. Bankes Stanhope, Mr. Leader, and Major
Edwards.

"The Bicentenary of St. Bartholomew," as it
seems to be termed, is likely to be a grand sub-
ject with the Nonconformists this year, though
some of the Church organs are denying their right
to build the sepulchres of these old nonconforming
fathers. It is contended that the Evangelical party
in the Church, not out of it, are the hereditary descen-
dants of the ejected of 1662. The reason assigned
is, that the ejected Ministers were Churchmen, that
modern Dissenters are opposed to a State Church,
and that the Churchmen who hold the same creed
as the ejected have most claim to the honour of com-
memorating their worth. It is not for us to settle
ecclesiastical pedigrees, but taking a layman's
broad view of the matter, we do not see how the
thousands of Evangelical clergymen who must have
subscribed with many qualms of conscience
in the very towns which the two thousand were
ejected for refusing, can claim either ecclesiastical
or moral descent from them. The two thousand of
1662 believed and acted on the supremacy of con-
science, the evangelicals of the present day accept
supremacy of expediency. This indeed may be said
of High as well as Low Church clergy, of Broad
Churchmen too, as the pleas they put forth must
convince all sensible laymen. Probably no clergy-
men but the Indifferentists ever subscribed the
"unfeigned assent and consent" formulary, with-
out framing to himself some excuse for it. We must
think, therefore, that the Nonconformists are the
nearest of kin to the redoubtable Two Thousand.
And though the latter will thankfully acknowledge
that their lot is comparatively summer and sun-
shine, still, it was won for them by the sufferings
of these first confessors. English Nonconformity,
in. its broad features, undoubtedly runs back in the
pages of English history to 1662. We know, in-
deed, of no historian who takes any other view.

711

ES.

We must not compare the ejection of 1662 with
the Scotch secession a few years ago. Hardly any
of the Circumstances which raised the former to the
rank of martyrs, or, at least, of confessors, were
similar in the two cases. The ejected were then
separated all over the country, when fifty miles was
a long day's journey, whenmeans of commu-
nication were few, when concert was impracticable,
and when even a great part could not actually ob-
taro a copy of the book they were required to accept

......
The Atheneum says:—"Mr. Pechter is pre-
paring for representation a play of which ho is the author,
entitled ' The Golden Dagger.' It will bo produced at the
Princess's Theatre in a few days, Mr. Fechter in the lead-
ing
part."
THE FEDERALISTS AT NASHVILLE.—The follow-
ing letter, dated Feb. 28, is from a French resident :
" This city is in the possession, since a few days, of the
Federal troops, in hot pursuit of the Confederate army, who
have left sad traces of their passage through this place and
country. Wanton destruction of public property, pillaging
of stores, and plundering of farms have marked their re-
treat or rather flight. My father-in-law, whose plantation
is at one mile -distance from the town, has been robbed of
his horses, mules, waggons, corn, oats, hay, and even
negroes. The latter managed to escape from the hands of
the defenders of Southern rights. We are now all under
the protection of the so-called abolitionists, and order and
security are being restored. These events leave me compa-
ratively free to regulate my movements. I shall endeavour
to leave this place on my return to France in the course of
nest month."
" URGENT PRIVATE BUSINESS."—A circum-
stance arose lately in one of the battalions of the Guards
ordered to Canada which was near originating a very
serious question, in which the privileges of the House of
Commons and the maintenance of military discipline might
have been brought into antagonism. It appears that
Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Hugh Annesley, of tho
Scots Fusilier Guards, and M.P. for Cavan, demanded, and
as a matter of right obtained, leave from his battalion
while it was on its way up to Montreal from
St. John, New Brunswick. The battalion was on
service, and very arduous and trying service, and
leaving it at the moment with a political truce. between
the two sides of the House of Commons, was not, perhaps,
strictly in harmony with the usage of the army. However,
standing on his constitutional right as a member of Par-
liament, Lieutenant-Colonel Annesley took his leave of
absence about the time of the meeting of Parliament, for
the purpose of attending to his duties as a knight of the
shire. But, instead of repairing to Westminster, he seems
to have yielded to the attractions which the locality
holds forth to a sportsman, and to have devoted himself to
moose shooting. This was rather too much for the akar
in command of the Giiards, who, though obliged to allow an
officer away for parliamentary duty, did not conceive that
it was dealing fairly by the other officers to make them do
his duty while he was amusing himself in the prinueval
forests of Canada. Accordingly, Lieutenant-Colonel Annes-
ley was pulled up, and a long investigation would no doubt
have taken place had not the errant
1 fusilierc.,eptPd the
given"ration tervice,
This was,
on the whole, perhaps the easiest way of terminating an
ac
tion him of retirinE from t
affair that might have brought about much complication
and wiplosontness,—Army onci Aravy ciaftle,

HER MAJESTY'S.

THE SUN, LONDON) MONDAY gVHNING,I ARO rit 24, Will

It is now definitively settled that this establishment will
be opened for the performance of Italian Opera on the 26th
of April, and that Mr. J. H• Mapleson will be the manager.
Arrangements have been concluded with Mdllo. Titiens,
Signors Giuglini, Vialetti, Graziani, Ciampi, M. Gassier,
and with Mdlle. Kellog, an artiste who has acquired a great
transatlantic reputation, and Mdllo. Trebelli, who has won
her laurels on the Continent. Negotiations have also been
entered upon with Mr. Sims Reeves, with a view to his
appearing as Sir Huon, in " Oberon," in conjunction with
Mdlle. Titiens and Signor Giuglini. Tho orchestra, which
has been the weak point with former administrations, is to
be the strong one of the present, and will include nearly
all the members of the band of the Philharmonic. Signor
Arditi and Signor Benedict are named as conductors.