The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-02 00:00:00

o

WITH WHICH
" THE TRUE SUN" IS NOW

INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 2, 1838.

As Dr. CHALMERS concluded his third lecture
yesterday with a repetition of what the Post calls a
" most elegant phillipic against the coarse and sordid
utilitarianism of the age" we think it our duty at once
to say that the appellation of this maxim by the Rev.
Doctor, to the Legislature, demonstrates that he is
either a grossly negligent observer of modern history,
or that he wilfully perverts it to serve a party pur-
pose. In either case he is an unsafe guide. In
1825, the Legislature of this country voted, almost
by acclamation, the sum of 1,500,0001. for building
Churches, a-ad placed it wholly at the disposal of the
priesthoot!, of the Established Church. In 1833
our se, called sordid Legislature and our people
cheerfully voted no less than 20,000,0001. sterling to
the slave-owners, as the price of the redemption of
the slaves. In the following year our utilitarian and
grovelling Legislature voted 1,000,0001. sterling to
the priests of the Irish Church, not one farthing of
which will the people ever get back out of their
clutches. This sordid Legislature has also, within these
few years, voted considerable sums for building schools
and extending education both in England and Ireland,
notwithstanding the immense funds which the good
sense or the piety of our ancestors appropriated to this
purpose—funds which, if honestly applied by that
class of men who arc the trustees to carry the gifts or
the bequests into execution, and who, like the
horse-leech, are still bawling " give, give, " as
they hold forth their capacious wallets, like
the greasy-begging monks, their predecessors—funds
that are amply sufficient duly to educate all the people.
Besides these sums the " sordid" Legislature, in
opposition, we must say, to the soundest principles of
political science, looking to the beggared condition of
many of the tax-payers, has voted considerable sums,
as Dr. CHALMERS yesterday admitted, to the building
of National Galleries, to the purchase of Pictures, to
the augmentation of the Museum, and to the improving
the taste, correcting the science, and enlarging the
knowledge, of the people. There are various opinions
as to the propriety of the Legislature devoting the
national funds to any of these objects ; but there can
be but one opinion as to the fact, that the Legislature,
in no previous thirteen years of its history, ever before
applied such a mass of the nation's wealth to religious,
benevolent, and philanthropic purposes, as since
1825. It is at the same time true that the vote of
1,500,0001. for building Churches, has much more
promoted discord than charity ; strife, than religious
peace—and has turned out one of the most fatal gifts
that ever was made to the church. It is the last straw
laid on the wealth-burthened beast which has broken
its back. It is at the same time true that the splen-
did
vote of 20,000,0001. given for the freedom
of the slaves has done little more than nou-
rish the pride and avarice of their masters ;
and that the whole empire is at this moment
loudly bewailing the useless extravagance. It is, at
the same time, true, that the 1,000,0001. advanced to
the Irish tithe-owners has not lessened their itnplaca-
bility, or hastened the settlement of the tithe-question
by one (lay, and is so much of the public money
thrown wantonly and wastefully into the lap of those
idle, profligate men, who think any pretext sufficient to
extort and to waste the property of those they pretend to
instruct and serve. What will be the fruit of those other
votes to which we have alluded time only can shew
but Dr. CHALMERS made us yesterday sensible that
they have already excited the envy and the cupidity of
his order, and that they supply him with the strongest
if not the only argument on which he demands similar
aid for endowing more priests in Scotland. The re-
sults, then, of those votes, including his envy, are not
such as to encourage an imitation of them, and the mem-
bers of the legislature must wall up their minds against
the light of daily experience, if they should be induced
by Dr. CHALMERS' unjust tirades against sordid
economy, and his unfounded argUtnents to repeat the
public extravagance, which it is his object to recom-
mend. Dr. CHALMERS may, after all, not be wrong
in describing the age as hard, griping, and avaricious,
as coarse and sordid—for these are undoubtedly the
essential characteristics of the Priesthood ; and as they
are the salt of the society, it is not surprising that
their peculiar savour should predominate in the mess.
We cannot to-day enter further into the yesterday's
lecture, of which we give our readers an ample report
but we agree with the Post, that it " was not so
attractive, or so redundant in new and striking views,
as were the previous lectures." A poorer hash, in
fact, of unfounded distinctions and noisy reiteration
has not often been imposed as sound reasoning and
high-souled eloquence on a willingly credulous audi-
ence, by a great name and an energetic manner.

Mr. HOME last night brought forward his motion
for suspending the payment of the annuity to the
Duke of CUMBERLAND, so long as that virtuous per-
sonage shall continue King of HANOVER. The
Hon. Member for Kilkenny prefaced his motion by a
*peach which the CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER
attempted, but entirely failed, to answer. It has now
become the fashion, when Parliament is called upon
to perform any act of national justice, to plead "a
solemn contract" as an insurmountable obstacle in the
way of all such measures. The poor hard-worked,