The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-07 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 7, 1819.

support desired by the Protectionist Peers' anti Corn.
moners who convened the assemblage ? We doubt it
very much. Indeed, we do not think the dangerous
experiment will be repeated. Mr. BENNETT once fairly
on his legs did not restrict himself to the subject
matter of the resolution ; he spoke out some good
strong Radical doctrines. The inequality of rating
was censured. He spoke of persons of 2,000/. or
3,0001. a year living in houses worth 501. per annum,
and thus escaping from contributing according to
their means—he indicated a total want of confidence
in benches of magistrates, and complained of the
management of roads, &c., being thrown into their
hands. He censured boldly the law of settlement,
which, he said, should be altered, and the burdens
differently imposed. Bravo BENNETT !—after all, we
shall begin to agree together very well, and we
venture to say that there will be in those re-
spects a greater community of opinion between us
than was felt by your aristocratic auditory at
Willis's Rooms. Yes, the law of settlement must
he altered, the burdens must be equalised and more
fairly distributed, according to the means of the
parties. Let farmers struggle for these desiderata,
and they will receive our most strenuous support ;
but they will not be called together and patiently
attended to by an assemblage of landowners—the
rump of monopoly and protection.

The reactionaries of this country who set up
CHARLES I. as a model monarch, and LAUD as a
model bishop, have exhibited their usual tact in
putting forward Lord ASHLEY as the champion of
their notable scheme for the promotion of priestcraft,
the discouragement of education, and the destruction
of religious liberty, which was propounded by the
Noble Lord to the House of Commons on the evening
of Thur.day. No man, save one who was in the
habit of throwing bank notes into a waste paper
basket could with a grave face have dealt with sta-
tistics as did the _Noble Lord on that occasion. It
was barely possible, considering the antecedents

of the Noble Lord, that he might have
been duped by the representations of those
who had craftily set him on (indeed, we believe such
to have been the fact, for we have the highest opinion
of the sincerity of purpose of the Noble Lord), al-
though of no other Member in the House could such
a supposition have been for one moment entertained.
The advocates of priestcraft exhibited in this, as in
every other instance, the acuteness of accomplished
Jesuits in their choice of tools wherewith to work
their purpose. As one example of the manner in
which the Noble Lord handled his statistics, we
will take his account of the state of affairs in the parish
of St. Pancras. The population of St. Pancras, said
the Noble Lord is 140,000. There is only church
accommodation for 17,000, and the inference he left the
House to draw, therefore, was that all except 17,000
were necessarily living in a state of absolute
heathenism. The Noble Lord having produced a
great effect by these figures, forthwith proceeded to
declare that this was a state of things that had been,
but that at present there was church accommodation
for 51,000, still leaving the House to infer that the
great majority of the inhabitants of the parish were
unchristianized, for throughout his speech the Noble

Lord never once alluded to the efforts of the Dissen

ters, and for aught that appeared to the contrary
it might have been presumed that no religion, save
that of the State Church, was tolerated in this country,
and that those who were not members of that Church
were to be considered as a scum of base schismatics,
living without the light of the Gospel. The motion,
in support of which Lord ASHLEY thus consented
completely to ignore the efforts of the Dissenters,
and practically to deny to them the character of
Christians, is very cautiously worded. It is—

" That an humble address be presented to her Ma-
jesty, praying her Majesty to appoint a Commission to
inquire into the practibility and mode of subdividing,
into distinct and independent parishes, for all ecclesias-
tical purposes, all the densely peopled parishes in Eng-
land and Wales, in such manner that the population of
each, except in particular cases, at the discretion of the
Commissioners, shall note xceed four thousand souls."
Our excellent correspondent, " An Old Reformer,"
has most accurately described its object in his letter
to the Secretary of the Metropolitan Reform Associ-
ation which appeared in The Sun of Monday. He
says, and says most truly—
" This is one of the effirts which the retrograding.
Church Establishment is making to assist in her jour-
ney towards Rome. There is to he a better distribution
of the influences, which are to carry us back to all man-
ner of what the Articles of the original Church denomi-
nated ' fund things vainly invented.' Nuns black,
white, and grey, with all their trumpery,' are to be
brought back on us by renegade bishops, and the country
is to bu split up into neat subdivisions in aid of the

measure."

The upholders of priestcraft are to the full as•into-
lerant, as overbearing, as persecuting, and as full of
hatred and uncharitableness towards all those who
refuse to acknowledge their supremacy as ever they
were. It is want of power, and want of power
alone, that prevents them from reviving the fierce
persecutions of the Dissenters in which LAUD, who
is their model priest, indulged, and the object of this
motion, and of all motions of a similar character, is to
acquire that power. So long as the people could be
kept in such a state of " gross and crass " ignorance
as fitted them to be the materials out of which could
be formed at any moment the ferocious "Church and
King mob," which, in Lord GEORGE GORDON'S time,
sacked London, and a few years later, at Birmingham,
wrecked the house of Dr. PRIESTLEY, so long were
the upholders of priestcraft among the most invete-
rate opponents of any system of education whatever.
Thanks to the exertions of the Dissenters,
however, the people became gradually civi-
lized, the cause of education progressed, the
great majority of the people could read, and the
great majority were by the exertions of the friends of
true religion supplied with Bibles, the mob had dis-
appeared before the light of knowledge, and instead
were found the people, the educated people—
" Who know their rights, and knowing dare maintain."
ORSON was endowed with reason, and the reign of those
who had for centuries systematically kept the people
in ignorance appeared approaching to its close. There
then arose a cry for reform in the Church, a cry of
which the upholders of priestcraft cunningly
availed themselves to make one more great
effort for the recovery of their lost power.
We admit the necessity of Church reform, replied
they, and we will reform ourselves. They were
believed, and forthwith the agitation for Church
reform ceased. Church-rates were patiently tolerated,
even the nuisance of the ecclesiastical courts was
suffered to remain, because it was fondly believed that
those promises were sincere. How have these
pledges been kept ? They have every one of them
been violated. It is perfectly true that the upholders
of priestcraft have proposed various alterations, but
every one of these alterations, instead of being
a measure of reform, has been a measure to
strengthen an existing abuse, and in many instances
to gain a legal sanction for an heretofore illegal exer-
cise of the priestly power. The plan of Lord ASHLEY
ie no measure of Church reform—it is a measure of
proselytism. Its intention is to scatter the profes-
sional upholders of priestcraft broad-cast through
the land, in order to obstruct the efforts of the
Dissenters. Unable to prevent education, they seek to
pervert it, and to distort the pure light of knowledge by
transmitting it through a coloured medium. Should
they succeed in their endeavours then shall we see
the days of LAUD revived ; again will the Dissenters
in England be subjected to the fiercest persecution,
their mode of worship forbidden, and their persons
imprisoned ; and again will the Episcopalian zealots
of England endeavour to force Episcopacy on
Scotland. Let, therefore, the. Dissenters of England
and the Presbyterians of Scotland be warned in time.
Let them arouse themselves, and strenuously oppose
these insidious endeavours to restore the reign of
priestcraft. Again let the cry for Church reform be
raised ; again let the opposition to church-rates be
organized; again let petitions praying for a reform in
the ecclesiastical courts load the table of the House of
Commons.

A t the present moment, the mere display of the
moral force of the opponents of these schemes will be
sufficient to prevent the contemplated mischief from
being consummated, but if time is given to the para.
pretre to mature their plans, it is impossible to fore-
see the consequences. Delays are proverbially dan-
gerous, let the Dissenters be "up and doing."

ENGLISH AND FRENCH INTERNATIONAL ASBO-
- are authorised to state that Mr. H.
Brown, ALL'., is in no way connected with, or permitted
hi, name to be used as a patron to, this society.
Dispatches were sent off yesterday evening from the
Colonial-piney for the Governor of Gibraltar.