The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-12 00:00:00

41

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remains of former ages and the monuments of ancien
greatness, enable us to profit by the examples they
afford of the instability of earthly things, and ever to
bear in mind that according to Thy providence no,
Cons flourish or decay ; that Thou bast but to give
the word and the richest may become poor, and the
proudest be levelled into dust. Therefore, 0 Lord, we
entreat Thee so to regulate the thoughts of our hearts,
that they may not be lifted up, that we forget the Lord
our God, as if our power or the might of our hands had
gotten us this wealth. It cometh of Thine hand, and is
all Thine own ; both riches and honour cometh of Thee;
and Thou reimaest over all, and in Thy hand it is to
make great and to give strength unto all. Now, there-
fore, 0 Lord, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious
name, and beseech Thee to grant that the many bless-
ings vouchsafed to our nation may dispose our hearts to
serve Thee more faithfully, and in all that we undertake
to seek Thy honour and glory. Above all, teach us so
to use the earthly blessings Thou givest us richly to en-
joy that they may not withdraw our affections from
those heavenly things that Thou bast prepared for those
that love and serve Thee through the merits and media-
tion of Thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose pre-
vailing name and words we further call on Thee."

The splendid chorus of Hallelujah followed, and
a grander performance we never heard before.
The Queen and Prince Albert, as well as the Royal
personages who surrounded her, repeatedly turned
to the vocalists and musicians, as if astounded at
the wonderful and successful effect they produced.
When the music ceased, the Marquis of Bread-
albane, the Lord Chamberlain, came forward and
announced that it was the wish of her Most Gra-
cious Majesty, that the Crystal Palace of 1854
should now be declared open. Thereupon a tre-
mendous burst of applause proceeded from every
portion of the building, and rent the air with its
echo—the orchestra threw all their energies into
" God Save the Queen," during the performance
of which her Majesty retired.
The cheering was renewed again and again, un-
til the procession disappeared. After remaining a
few minutes in the prettily fitted-up ante-room,
which had been prepared for her reception, her
Majesty, leaning on the arm of the King of Por-
tugal, walked to her carriage, which was in waiting
at the centre transept, and on entering it was
greeted in the same enthusiastic manner by the
crowd outside.

The Royal party occupied three or four open
carriages, which were escorted by a small detach-
ment of Guards.

Her Majesty wore a light blue muslin dress with
white lace mantle, and a white silk bonnet, trimmed
with pink flowers. The dress of the Princess
Royal was equally simple, being of a light pink
muslin, with a plain white lace mantle, and white
silk bonnet without any ornament whatever.

The King of Portugal and his brother appeared
in a blue military dress with gold lace epaulets.
The barriers which had kept the nave and tran-
sept clear having been thrown open, the public
were allowed to circulate freely throughout the
palace and park, and of this privilege a large pro-
portion of those present availed themselves, for it
was late, and evening was closing in before all had
departed.

THE NEW PRESIDENT OF TEE COUNCIL.

Lord John Russell's appointment to the office of
President of the Council is gall and wormwood to

pseudo-Liberals and re-actionary Tories. The invete-
rate malignity displayed in the newspaper organs of

leso cliques on Saturday, though melancholy as

tending to lower one's opinion of human nature, has
also its ludicrous side—its toothless mumbling, its
combined eagerness and incapacity to bite. There is
also something provocative of mirth in the exact
coincidence in the cavils of the professing friends of
freedom, who hold a brief from Russia, and the blatant

adherents of oligarchical corruption, who have been
making Lord Aberdeen's Russian sympathies their great
card to play against him. These two factions
have been scratching and calling each other names
for months past ; but their common fear of Lord John
Russell now makes them rail against hiu► in har-
monious concert. Their tirades are real compliments
to the new President of the Council. Nothing could
have inspired them but the consciousness that though

earnest Reformers may often quarrel with Lord John
Russell, yet on the whole there is no living statesman
who, taking him altogether, enjoys to such an extent
the confidence of sincere Liberals of all shades of opinion
—confidence earned by a loyal and consistent adherence
to principle, unhappily too rare in the Rouse of Com-
mons. Of course the cause of their spleen is carefully
concealed by the Peolites, the Tories, and pseudo-liberals
who do Tory work ; the pretexts they have been obliged
to invent, in order to assign a reason for their snarling,
are sufficiently amusing.
A Conservative print, worthy of notice, since it so
faithfully mirrors the feelings of its party, is indignant
at Lord John Russell's appointment, not because he has
carried one Reform measure and attempted another ;
but because that staunch Whig, Mr. Strutt, has been
shelved amid the various transposals in office which that
appointment has led to. We have no reason to believe
that the arrangement complained of has been made
without first informing Mr. Strutt and obtaining his as-
sent, or that he is in any way annoyed at it ; but be this
as it may, there can be no doubt that he thoroughly un-
derstands and justly appreciates the sincere and disin-
terested sympathy of the Conservative worthies who are
raising a kind of Irish death-howl over his official pros-

pects.
The Coryphseus of the malcontents, however, is that
ultra-Russian champion the Times. Every cavil that
has been urged against the appointment of Lord John to
preside over the Council, by the host of Tapers and Tad-
poles, is caught up, and repeated with exaggerated em-
phasis, by this consistent and liberal journal. The first ob-
jection of the Times rests upon a question of etiquette wor-
thy of a gentleman-usher. The office has hitherto been cus-

tomarify filled by a peer, and " such departures from
ancient constitutional usage are not to be recommended
unless they are justified by obvious public utility ; and
Lord John Russell should be the last man to break

through these traditions, when no case of public utility
can be said to require it." If the office has been usually
or uniformly filled by a peer, the reason has not been
that there was any greater fitness or utility in placing
it in a member of the Upper House than a member of
the Lower. The truth is, that from the time of the
Revolution until very recently (when the President of
the Council was declared ex officio chairman of some im-
portant Ministerial committees) the office was more
one of form than real work, and therefore better
adapted for some peer of more social influence than
talent, than for the practical statesmen trained in the
rough contests of the Commons. The reason why Lord
John has been appointed to it is, that its almost en-
tire exemption from departmental labours leaves him
more free for his onerous duties of Parliamentary Leader,
and that it at the same time gives him a more definite
ministerial character than a mere seat in the Cabinet

without even a nominal department. Perhaps some
persons may entertain a notion that the dignity of the
office is lowered by conferring it upon a commoner, but
these worshippers of the peerage may console themselves
with the reflection that even a cadet of the house of Bed-
ford is a more aristocratic personage than the wearer of
many a mushroom coronet. But the piety of the Times
has been even more outraged than its delicate sense of
courtly etiquette by the Presidency of Lord John Rus-
sell. The Times is shocked to see the departnieukt of
public education entrusted to a Minister " who is tp this
day the head of the Dissenters' Education Soiety."
In the columns of a "Church and State" newspaper
such an appeal to sectarian influence, whatever its
character in other respects, would probably have been
an honest expression of sincere bigotry ; but who can
attribute such a character to it when found in the
column of the Times? There is not one educated gen-
tleman among our High Churchmen but must feel out-
ragzal by the vulgar hypocrisy of this canting utterance
of language whien would have been sincere if used by
himself. This low and mean appeal to sectarian preju-
dice, with a view to injure Lord John Russell, will, it
may safely be predicted, prove a total failure.
The carpings of Lord John's enemies,—coming whence
they do-- have a natural tendency to strengthen the
confidence reposed in him by Liberals, and from the
indirect glimpses with these attacks afford of what is
passing in the minds of the writers, Liberals may
the hithertoc Council
be inclined to attach inure importance to his new
uncdil done. Though
little
of
the ap-
pointmentoffice othfanrretshiedyentha:f•e
onerous departmental duty attached to it, part of that
duty is the presidency of the standing
committee of the
council on education. It is gratifying
to see this impor-
tant charge devolve upon a tried Liberal deeply imbued
with a taste for intellectual pursuits. Again, it has been
customary in selecting a candidate for the office of Pre-
sident of the Council, to have regard chiefly to his qua-
lifications for Pres • erving harmony and concert among
his colleagues. Since
the Premiership has come to be
regarded as attached to the office of First Lord of the
Treasury the President of the Council has generally been
de facto, though not ostensibly, a kind of deputy or
Vice-P •
remier. Here is the true source of the rancour
which Lord John Russell's.appointment to the office has
elicited, his Tory and pseudo-Liberal ill-willers look
upon the conjunction of the Presidency of the Council
with the Leadership in the Commons as placing their
holder, in respect of influence in the Cabinet, nearly,
if not altogether, on a footing with the First Lord
of the Treasury ; or as, at alt events, giving him a
prior claim to the reversion of that office at the first
vacancy that occurs. It is natural that all the
enemies of popular principle arid progress should
be irritated by this strengthening of Lord John
Russell's position in the Cabinet. But this very consi-
deration ought to teach Liberals to see in his recent ap-
pointnont a counteraction to a certain tendency to lapse
more and more into obstructive Conservatism, of which
various Ministerial movements have of late been alarm-
ingly symptomatic. In short, the Peelite section of the
Cabinet and their friends in the Press are disgusted to
find the more Liberal half of the Coalition getting addi-
tional power.
This consideration cannot be without its weight amon
the City Reformers. True it was scarcely needed, for
the Tories, instead of mustering an
opposition to Lord
John seem entirely engrossed with the labour of invent-
ingplausible excuses for not contesting the election.
There g
is every appearance that his return will bs unani-
mous and unopposed ; for even though it should enter
the wayward brain of some semi-lunatic or conceite
separatist to have himself put in
nomination, such cater-
ing to the amusement of the electors assembled
category of in Guild-
hall scarcely comes under the
what can with
strict propriety be called opposition.—Daily News.