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

best representation tve can give of the strrngth of our cause is to state
the description of persons for whom our labour is now exerted. On
whom is it that the burden of this calamity principally lights? Of
what description of society are those who arc left without Churches to
n7istialll;e, Without' clergymen to instruct and advise ? They are
I. • sdements both of wealth an I will are wanting to
those in whom the _ plc own spiritual wants. They are
enable them to make provision for . • ""stall life' ; they are
the exiles from the habits and observances of ..... ''s relief of
the destitute fel' whom we plead—it is in their cause—for ts.
;heir moral necessities, that We labour to interest the Government. We
seek no increase of our own emoluments. We wish no pluralities by
the increase of Churches. Each Church will be occupied by a distinct
Clergyman.—(llcats) We put the question with the utmost confidence
into the hands of the Government, and let them determine what a
Clergyman ought td reeeilre ; and every shilling contributed from the
public treasury, let it go, tint to aiignfent the Clergyman's emoluments,
but to diminish the seat-rents w'his'k we it present are forced to demand
from the general population.—(Cheers.) Let this be our terminus ad
gum Our endeavours are not for any personAl object; but for a
public object—the Christian education of the community at large. 'We
knock at the doer of the Government, not in the crouching attitude of
supplicants for ourselves, bUt in the high attitude of the donors of 200,000/.
for 180 new Churches, as our offering to the cause of just patriotism.
We say this is our contribution. What is youfi,,--s4Lssud cheers.) It
is not true that, as it has been represented, we stand before We govern_
' went as so many " fawning and pampered ecclesiastics," to beg further
benefactions to ourselves. We appeal for the families of peasants and
artisans, and the men of handicraft and labour. We are the " tribunes
of the poor."—(Loud cheers.) We are the representatives of those to
whom the law has given none.—(Cheers.) We are the representatives
of the unfranchised multitude. Our object is the well-being of that
mighty class which form the overpressed ground-floor of the fabric of
the commonwealth. And, after the injustice, and prejudice, and
misconception, now heaped on us, are swept away, and ulti.
timate success crowns our efforts, then will be admitted the essen.
tial justice of our cause.— (Cheers.) You will not, therefore, be sur-
prised that we look for the countenance of those who esteem the moral
well-being of the poor as the highest boon that can be conferred upon
them.—(Cheers.) I agree with those who look upon the present contest
as boing, in fact, a contest between the higher and the lower elements
of society, and all the better and the higher spirits of our nation
righteously determine that the higher of those elements shall cure it.—
(Cheers.) For you cannot but remark that there is a kind of coarse
utilitarianism making way even in our high places, and which threatens
to vulgarise the whole system of our affairs—a growing distrust in the
efficiency of moral expedients, and the substitution of commercial
and the economical expedients in their room—(Cheers)--a dealing
with the coarser principles of our natures, as though conscience, and
these higher faculties were too etherial things for our legislators to work
upon—(Cheers)—and so a hard and strong parsimony in providing even
for the common, and yet more for the Christian, education of the work-
ing classes, is prevalent. The universal cry is for " cheapness," and
thus perhaps an immediate saving of money may be effected ; but at the
sacrifice of the money's worth, and with an ultimate far greater expen-
diture. Ilurkes' memorable aphorism, •4 the cheap defence of na-
tions," is now becoming obsolete in this remorseless craving after all
other sorts of " cheapnes."—(Cheers.) flow much nobler to have to
do with an enlightened and well-trained community, than
with a population, unprovided with the means of religious
instruction, and so fast rising in utter defiance of all the duties of
life, and all its decencies.—(Loud cheers.) This miscalculating
"economy" will be disappointed of its own object, and at length will
be turned to " the fruit of its own ways."—(Cheers.) And unless the
influence of Christian Instruction be brought to bear upon the turbu-
lence of the popular mind, the smotkering fire which now lies at the
foundation of the social and political edifice, will at length explode it
into fragments, and a day of fearful retribution, for a long neglected
population will be the terrible result of that process by which our rulers
shall have conducted us onward, step by step, in the career of national
deterioration, till we have landed in the veriest dregs and darkness of an
iron age.—(The Rev. Doctor finished amidst enthusiastic cheering.)