The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-19 00:00:00

that pleasure on condition that they the Dissenters took
the toleration quietly, and allowed them to plunder their
pockets without objection. Its creed and its exactions
were still the same, and the meeting might be assused that
until the whole Dissenting mind was impressed with the con-
viction that the civil power had no right to interfere at
all in religious matters, they would never alter. Until the
people were prepared to bring their representatives to the
test, that there should be a series of well digested measures
of Church reform, not merely an easement of the bishops
from their legislative duties, but an entire separation of the
Church from the State—(The remainder of the sentence
was drowned in loud and continued cheering.) A patronized
Church makes necessarily a persecuted people. The very term
toleration was hateful ; the same power which tolerated
them in going to their own places of worship could
interdict them from going to those places. Until
that was taken as the rule of conduct for their re-
presentatives, they never could obtain all that was
justly their due. The entire separation of Church from
State was the great principle for which they must contend,
and the time was not far distant when it would be most
fully obtained, and the unfettered liberty of conscience
would be the result. The resolution he held
in his hand affirmed three propositions, to which
every one present must assent. The first affirmed
that Church-rates and their continuance was unjust to
the Dissenter. Could any one for a moment hesitate to
agree to that proposition ? It goes on to state that
they are disgraceful to the Church. Would any one
deny that ?—(Cries of " No, no," and cheers.) And
would any one deny, with all their affection for the Govern-
ment, that it was impolitic in them that it should be
continued?—(Hear.) Now, what was the course which
ought to be taken by the people towards their
representatives ? They were told to agitate, but who
were to be agitated ? The Reform Bill affected the
whole public mind—it brought the whole numerical
energy of the public mind into play. Some of the
public men, be must say, had not sufficiently attended to
public mind and weal in some of the measures which had
lately been passed. All the reform which had yet been
effected had sprung from selfish motives. There was as much
selfishness in the Commons as out of it. Let them look
at the course that had been taken upon the question of the
Irish Church. Did not the Government propose to take
away 30 per cent. of the income of the Church ? There
was no doubt that it ought to be taken away ;
but what other than selfish motives could have induced
them to propose that it should be put into the pockets of
the landlords ? It should be paid into a fund, and be ap-
propriated to the amelioration of the moral condition of the
people.—(Hear, hear, hear.) There were as many sel-
fish men in the House of Commons as in the House of Peers,
notwithstanding what his Hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) might
say to the contrary ; and he had no doubt that the plan
would meet with a ready acceptation, which proposed to
extend it to the Church of England. Even should it be
proposed, as had been by the Hon. Member for Kilkenny,
that it should be 40 per cent., it would not be objected
to.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") He would not him-
self object to it, if, as it ought to be, it were applied to the
poor-rate, for the moral education of the people. By such a
course the entire people would be with them, and then it
would be as difficult to resist them as to resist the swelling tide.
The position of Members of Parliament would be this in
the ensuing Session :—at the beginning of the Session it
would be proposed that Church-rates should be abo-
_

lished ; but it would be accompanied by another pro-
position, placing them either upon the consolidated
fund or the land tax.—(Cries of " No, no, never.") It
would be so accompanied, but if all were so enlightened as
that meeting, all would cry " Never." But then his Hon.
Friend Mr. Hume and others will say we must take it
—it is all the Government can do.—(Hear, hear.) Lord
John Russell is as honest as Lord Althorp. He would be
quite willing to give up Woburn Abbey, to repeal the 37th
Henry VIII., and restore all the vast properties that were
then alienated from the poor; but he could never carry them.
He said let the Church out of its own ample means supply
all those funds necessary for its own maintenance, but will
the Government propose that ? Most certainly not—be-
cause one of their great organs, the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, at the Limerick dinner, the other day, talked
in the same strains as the Times with regard to the wants
of the Dissenters. He wondered what they were aiming at.
Had they not the Reform Bill, and what more did they want.
They would have this gratification left, that they tri-
umphed because they merited it ; and if they failed, they
would find consolation in their own breast.—(Cheers.)
The Rev. Mr. ATKINS, of Southampton, in seconding
the resolution, felt it right to state his reasons for coming
forward on the present occasion. He stood there not upon
his own ground, but as the undeserved representative of a
respectable body of intelligent Dissenters—( Hear, hear)—
over whom he had the happiness as pastor to preside, and
by whom he had been deputed to attend the meeting. He
felt that the Dissenters would not solicit the assistance of
enlightened Englishmen in vain, and the sentiments put forth
at the present meeting would flow from the metropolis as
the heart, to the remotest parts of the land. While much
diversity of opinion prevailed among the body whom he
represented, some thinking in the excess of their Christian
charity, that they had not waited upon the kindness of the
Legislature sufficiently long ; others, that objections should be
directed to the present mode of exacting the rate ; and others
suggesting that they should content themselves with pas-
sive resistance—although this diversity existed as to minor
details, all were unanimous in the expression of their
opinion that Church-rates were alike disgraceful to the
Church, and injurious to the Dissenters.—(Cheers.)
With that sentiment he (Rev. Mr. Atkins) fully concurred,
and in one word he might say that it reversed the poetical
maxim of charity, that
"It blesses him that gives and him that takes," _

for it cursed both him- that gave and him that
took it, inasmuch as its very principle was averse to
and destructive of all the best feelings of charity and reli-
gion.—(Cheers.) He fully concurred in the sentiments
that had been expressed, that the present meeting would
give a tone to every subsequent meeting throughout the
country, and they should, therefore, watch narrowly their
proceedings—on the principle that any deleterious infu-
fusion communicated to the fountain at its source, will
give colour and character to its remotest branches,
so if there was anything in the conduct or character of the
proceedings that day which was unworthy of upright men
it would retard the progress of their cause and sully its
purity. On that ground he felt it his duty to base his op-
position to church rates upon principle—not as related to
the abstract payment of the rate itself—for if they did not
take their stand upon the granitic substratum of principle,
they would never stand clear to their consciences ; they
would never stand clear to the community at large, or at that
great audit, where, whether Churchman or Dissenter, they
should all appear.—(Hear.) In making that statement be
was giving the feelings of those whom he represented, and
on the same principle he should reject the paltry boon
of the Regium donum. —(Tremendous cheering.) No
single argument could be brought against Church-rates
that might not likewise be brought with equal success
against the regium donum. If it were unfair and unjust to
make the Dissenter pay for the Churchman, it was equally
unfair to tax the Churdhunan for the Dissenter. There,
were not less than 3,000 churches throughout England based
upon the congregational principle, and from these a fund
amply sufficient might be obtained to support those worn-
out servants in the cause of charity and mercy, instead of
making them public objects of pity, and pensioners of the
State.—(Loud cheers.) If only 101. was subscribed by
each of these churches, it would produce a sum of 30,0001.,
which would be more than was derived from the region!, donum
and enable them to reject that paltry grant altogether.—
(Hear.) Upon the same principle they should object to
the grant to Maynooth College, and he for one would
maintain that the system of instruction at that college
did not give the public a favourable specimen of the
character of a Roman Catholic clergyman.—(Hear, hear.)
There were another class of individuals among whom, in
fairness, he should reckon himself, who, although Dissen-
ters, held pews and other Church property ; and he would
candidly admit that so long as ho received a quid
pro quo, he could not refuse to pay Church rates.
But what he would do, and what he would recommend to
others similarly circumstanced, was no longer to retain that
advantage.—(Hear, hear.) That was the principle on
which they should act, and then they would stand clear be-
fore
the country.—(Hear, hear.) He made these re-
marks the more freely, because he saw presiding over
them an individual who had raised himself above the dark
narrow lines of sectarian prejudice ; and just in proportion
as they estimated his character, and the sentiments repre-
sented by their Chairman, he would entreat of them to
stand upon the ground of principle, and in accordance to
the dictates of enlightened and conscientious minds,
do as they would be done by.—(Loud cheering.)
If they acted thus, they would soon see the abolition of
Church-rates, and the people would sing the requiem of
of what was no more. He begged to second the resolution.
The CHAIRMAN then put the resolution, which was car-
ried unanimously.
Mr. EWART, M.P. for Liverpool, in moving the next
resolution, observed that whenever he attended a public
meeting, he kept two objects in view—one was t• make
their object as intelligible as possible ; and the other was
that in pursuing it they should all be united.—(Cheers.)
It was, therefore, with some regret that he heard the senti-
ments of the Hon. Member for Southwark, by which it
would appear that their unity of purpose should be in some
slight degree sacrificed to more comprehensive views, which
he (Mr. Ewart) agreed with.
After some further observations by several Teakers, to
• •
tvho,c, eloquence 1V1... have not Lu uo justice, the tncei-
ing adjourned.
The following are the rest of the resolutions passed
2. That, under these circumstances, this meeting regard it as