The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-22 00:00:00

LONDON,
SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22, 1831.

We again reluctantly revert to that subject, which
at present engrosses public attention, from one end
of the kingdom to the other, in a nearly equal de-
gree with the Reform question—we wean the
recent conduct of the Episcopal Bench. Willingly
would we find excuses for this conduct ; willingly
would we attribute it to simplicity—ignorance—
want of tact—patriarchal purity of intention—to any
thing in fact that m;ght help to get the Rev. Prelates
out of the slough, into which it is but too evident that
they have plunged chin-deep ; but we cannot do so;
the motives of the Episcopal Bench are too pal-
pable, too glaring, too distinctly and painfully in-
telligible to be thus misinterpreted; so intelligible, in-
deed, as to put even the invention of the illorningPost
to a stand-still, and its effrontery to the blush I The
man or the Journal that can assert in the teeth of incon-
trovertible evidence to the contrary, that the Bishops
in throwing out the R,form B II were actuated by
the best intentions towards the people, are fit only,
the one to reside, and the other to be read, in Bedlam.
The whole kingdom, as we observed yesterday,
views the question in this light, and has already taken
it up in a becoming spirit. The whole kingdom
roundly delares that it has been insulted and be-
trayed by the Bishops. Mat k, it is not the radicals,
the revolutionists, the mere mob, who hold this
language; it is the men of property—of influence—
of intelligence, whose opinions carry weight with
them, who are the duces, the centurions of their res-
pective districts. What says Mr. EAGLE in a tem-
perate and well considered speech, delivered at a re-
cent Meeting in Bury, the most aristocratic little
town in England ? _ _

" There was a question," observed this respectable gentle-
man, " upon which he would only touch lightly, as he wished
to avoid excitement, namely, how far it might be deemed expe-
dient to unmake some of the Peers. That portion of the Lords
which had led him to this observation, had not to thank him,
hut their own votes, for the agitation of the question. He was a
friend to civil and religious liberty, but now that the Church was
really in danger from its professed friends, he would stand for-
ward to reform and relieve it. The subject would probably come
under discussion."

At the great North Shields Reform meeting,
Mr. RENNISON, alluding to the same subject, re-
marked that

" The votes of the twenty-one Bishops had done more real
injury to the Church of England than all that was ever either
written or spoken on the subject."

Mr. PERKINS, at the Leith meeting, observed in
a similar spirit, that

" If the indignation of the people were excited against the lay
Lords, what must it be against the mitred Aristocracy—those
should-be messengers of peace, who had taken up the tire-brand,
and thrown it into the midst of the people."

At the meeting of the Edinburgh Political Union,
at which, at Itast, twenty thousand persons assem-
bled, this was the language of Mr. P- RENTICE, an
able, active, well•known, and highly appreciated
Reformer

" If surprise and grief had been excited by the conduct of the
Opposition Lords generally, the conduct of one bench—the Bi-
shops—(Loud expressions of disapprobation)—the Right Reve-
rend Fathers in God—the Apostles of Peace—the successors of
the fishermen of Galilee, had still more excited their asto-
nishment and indignation.—(Loud cheers.) These men who were
exalted into legislators of the first rank. sitting in judg-
ment in tempora matters in the highest Court of the kingdom,
and plunged, by their decisions, the country into misery and
distress.')—(Loud and continued cheers.)
Mr. AYTOUN (Advocate) also declared at the
same meeting, that
"The Bishops should he taught that the people of this country
were not to be insulted with impunity.—(Cheers.)"
Mr. HAY too (another Advocate) asked,

" Who were they who had destroyed their hopes ? Was it
the openly profane and the blasphemous ? No ; it was the Fa-
thers of the Church, the teachers of peace, who said, there
should be no peace."
This is pretty strong language; but it is mere oil
and honey to what follows. At the Ayr meeting
Dr. TAYLOR said,
" As for those fat and comfortable Lords, professing themselves
the meek advocates of the Christian religion, the country will not
forget them ; the keen eye of retributive justice shall mark their
career ; soon shall they be dragged forth from the situations they
never should have tilled, and the places which once knew them
shall know them no more on earth."

-••—• • •
At the same meeting Mr. ANNESLEY, with much
energy, exclaimed,
" First and foremost in defence of the corruptions on which
they have so long fattened, behold the bench of Bishops ! These
sleek teachers of morality, pampered on half the earnings of an
almost exhausted nation, have succeeded for a time in depriving
the people of their rights."
Again, at the Kilmarnock meeting, a gentle►ran of
superior station and eminence in that town; expressly
declared that—
" We have tolament that a paltry handful of boroughmongers
and Bishops have thwarted and retarded our favourite measure.
I say retarded, because pass our Bill must, and pass it will. The
sweetest music I would like to hear then would be three groans
for the Bishops. "—(Three deep groans were then given.)"
Lastly, by way of a wind-up to this energetic
out-break of opinion, comes the following most im-
poitant, most momentous statement of a respectable
parishioner of St. Ann's, Westminster, which has
already had the effect of " unavoidably preventing"
the Bishop of LONDON from holding forth there

next Sunday
" The spirit of Reform is so deeply rooted in the heart of every
honest man, who is therefore anxious to show the contempt in
which he holds the enemies of our just rights—the Reform Bill,
that it was the determination of the major part, or, indeed, I
may say, the whole of the inhabitants of this and other parishes,
to have attended the church on Sunday next, hot to h ear his
Lordship, but on his reaching the pulpit to h
have instantly quited
the church. Imyself know of 1,100 persohs who AdMade up their
minds to have received his Lordship with that contempt with
which he and his colleagues have treated the honest demands
of the inhabitants of every parish in the kingm',
There are signs of the times which none but the
deaf—tbe blind—the idiotical—or the invincibly
bigo,ed can fail to misinterpret or misunderstand,
But another yet remains to be noticed. This day,
at a numerous and respectable meeting of the inha-
bitants of St. Marvlebone, a motion to the effect,
" that the meeting should take the earliest opportu-
nity of imploring the Legislature to remove the
Bishps from the Upper House of Parliament," was
not only proposed, but actually carried by accla-
mation !
What will the Rev. Bench say to this ? Will
they now confess that they have made a false step,
or will they continue obstinate and unflinching to
the hot ? No matter which way they decide ; whe.