The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-13 00:00:00

• -1' AA-VI 4.1 g - it,44/
' 4 3N4 •

r ONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1849.

The case of Plitnirs V. KING and others, recently
brought before the magistrates assembled at Doncas
ter, is one of the deepest importance to Protestant
Dissenters of every denomination, involving their
most cherished privileges—the exclusive enjoyment of
their own chapels, and the right of celebrating public
worship without hindrance, or disturbance of any kind.
There is now, happily, universal toleration for all sect
and denominations of Christiana in this country.
Every man is at liberty to worship his CREATOR in
the manner which, in his soul and conscience, he
believes to be most acceptable to the DEM. In the
privacy of his closet, or in the place appointed for
offering up the tribute of praise and thanksgiving,
he is protected from the intrusion of scoffers and
fanatics who may differ from his religious
views, and also from those who may
have private motives for interfering with or disturb-
ing his homage to the ALMIGHTY. This is as it

should be. A greater offence against public decency
cannot be imagined than the unwarranted inter-
ruption of the devotions of a congregation. If such
indecorous proceedings could for a moment be sane.
tioned or permitted there would be an end to tht
much vaunted "civil and religious liberty" of the
country. If the highest and most solemn act of duty
that can be rendered by a caeature to his CREATOR
could be wantonly interrupted on any occasion, or
on any pretext whatsoever, if the calm and holy
spirit in which homage should be rendered to tht
MOST HIGH could be wilfully disturbed, there would be
a palpable deficiency in the law that did not restrain
and punish so flagrant an impropriety. There is,
however, no such deficiency. A salutary law was not
long since enacted affording the necessary protection
to all denominations of Christian ; and it is the duty
of every British citizen, more especially of the public
journalist, to prevent the spirit of that wise and just
enactment from being frittered away and rendered
valueless by strained interpretations of the provisions
of the statute.

In the case now under notice two distinct offences
were charged against the defendants,,both committed
on Sabbath-days—on the 12th of August and the 2tl
of September last. Mr. KING, the principal defendant,
had formerly been the minister of the chapel, and
occupied a house immediately adjoining, in which hi•

mother still resides. For his convenience a door had

been broken between the private dwelling-house and
the vestry of the public chapel ; he has recently
caused this door to be entirely removed, so that access
could at all times be had to the chapel by means
thereof. Mr. KING, it appears, claims some rights in
connexion with the chapel, and the committee of
management fearing that if he obtained possession in
any manner there might be some difficulty in evicting
him, thought it prudent to keep a person continually
on the premises. On Sunday, the 2d of September,
about ten o'clock in the morning, while the congrega-
tion were, as usual, engaged in the celebration of public
worship, was the time selected by their former mi
ni=ter to assert his supposed rights ; he entered ac-
cordingly the vestry through the open doorway, accom-
panied by his mother and a person named GLOSSOP
whom he directed to take possession." The attempt
was, of course, resisted, and a considerable disturb-
ance took place, by which the assembled congregation
were gr,eatly scandalized, and were, in fact, obliged to
disperse without accomplishing the holy purpose for
which they had gathered together. This was the
simple state of facts, which (as required by the statute)
was duly proved by two creditable witnesses, and
we believe, not controverted by the defendants.
Nothing then remained for the magistrates but to
comply with the law, by requiring the parties to find
sureties to answer the charge at the next general or
quarter-sessions. A legal objection was, however,
rained on behalf of the defendants as to the
sufficiency of the registration, to which the
magistrates gave effect, declaring that they
were of opinion "that Dissenting chapels should
be registered annually, and that they could not
have protection unless that were done." The merits
of the case were, therefore, not entered into; indeed,
there could be no possible justification; for, even if
Mr. KING was fully entitled to the possession of the
chapel, he would not be warranted in disturbing a
congregation peacefully engaged in religious worship.
The case of "Rex v. lierbe," 5 Term Reports, 542, is
express on this point. If legal rights are put forward
they must be asserted according to law, and Mr.
Kiao, himself a Dissenting minister, relying on the
j tkt toleration acoorded to Diswnters of every class,
should have been the last person to have recourse to a
disturbance of public worship, or to have desecrated
the Sabbath-day, which his religion taught him
should be kept holy, by selecting it as the
opportunity for resorting to such untoward
proceedings. Neither should he have been the per-
son to have raised a point that must prove exceedingly
vexatious to himself, in common with the great bo
of Protestant Dissenters throughout the entire kiri -
dour, and which, if well-founded, would take away
all protection against intrusion and disturbance from
ninety nine out of every hundred chapels in this
country.

With respect to the point itself, we have carefully
perused the statute, and we have not the slightest
hesitation in saying, that all the requirements of the
law were fully complied with in the single registra-
tion in the court of the Archbishop of the diocese,
and that nothing further was required on behalf of
the congregation.
The statute declares that " no congregation or
assembly for religious worship of Protestants shall
be rermitted or allowed, unless and until the place
of such meeting shall have been, or shall be, certi-
fied to the Bishop of the diocese, or to the Arch-
deacon of the Archdeaconry, or to the Justices of
the Peace, at the General or Quarter Sessions of the
Peace, for the county, riding, division, city, town, or

place, in which such meeting shall be held." Here
an option is clearly allowed to the congregation—
they may select the Bishop, or the Archdeacon,
or the Justices, as the quarter in which
the original registration shall be made. it
is perfectly clear that they cannot be required to
do so with all. The section then goes on to provide
that the party with whom the original registration is
made shall once in each year return the places so
registered to each of the others, so that the place shall
be duly registered in all the quarters. This subse-
quent act is a duty cast upon public officers, and it is
manifest that the congregation, who have already
performed all that is required at their hands, cannot
be deprived of any privilege allowed them by the
law in consequence of the neglect or default of par-
ties for whom they cannot be held responsible.
There is a sufficient reason why this registration
should be renewed annually by public
officers, because a penalty not exceeding 201.
and not less than 405., is imposed on any
congregation meeting with the doors locked or
otherwise fastened. It might, therefore, be advisable
that the party with whom the chapel had been regis-
tered should in each and every year give notice to
the other quarters in which registrations might take
place, that such original registration had not been
cancelled or revoked. There is, however, nothing to
compel Dissenters to perform the vexatious and un-
necessary act of annual registration. The single act
is all that is required at their hands, and when that
has been once performed they are privileged and
protected until it has been formally withdrawn.
We trust that the highly respectable congregation
thus annoyed will not be contented with the law
expounded by non•professional persons. An oppor-
tunity is still open to them of bringing the case
before the Quarter- Sessions, and we have no doubt that
the law so clearly and ably explained by their
intelligent professional adviser, Mr. MARRATT, will
be fully maintained and carried out.

Disappointment has recently been expressed at
what some are pleased to call the indifferentism of the
Government in regard to Religion. Even the smallest
sin of omission or commission in this particular has
been seized up-m and distorted into an act of grievous
culpability. It was observed by many with indigna
tion that upon the new florin, or two shilling piece;
recently issued from the Mint, the reverential acknow-
ledgment of a presiding Omnipotence, a device of
immemorial antiquity, was, for the first time perhaps
in the annals of our currency, forgotten; that round
the crowned medallion of the SOVEREIGN appeared the
words Victoria Regina instead of the prescriptive
circumscription Victoria Dei Gratia. Of course we
presume that those who are so much distressed at this
obliteration of the customary D G. are always in the
habit of writing to a friend that they accept an invitation
to dinner D.V• for Thursday, or of allaying the im-
portunity of their tailor by an assurance that they
hope to pay him D.V. very shortly. Again, no
little scandal was caused by the tardiness with which
the order for a national prayer of supplication was
issued by the QUEEN in Council during the time of
the fatal ravages of tihe late pestilence. These
circumstances have been fruitful themes for animad-
version, not to say anything of the pro-
ceedings of the Post-office authori tie 3 in
regard to the new regulations at St.
Martin's le-Grand, 'upon which we yesterday
bad the satisfaction of commenting at some length.
It may be permitted us to observe upon the latter
agitation, en passant, that in consequence of the ex-
citement provoked in relation to the Post .office clerks,
it is the intention of another numerous class of the
population—the persons occupied in lighting and
guartling the streets of the metropolis—to insist upon
the necessity of their general cessation from employment
on Sundays. For, be it observed, the argument assuredly
holds good that policemen have souls to save as well
as Post-office clerks; and that although the work-
men engaged at a gasometer are in the habit of
dealing very largely with coals, they are still in no
degree prepared to go to hell for the advantage of
the rest of the community. In truth, a consistent
fulfilment of the demands of these Sabbatarians
would transform the day of repose and adoration
into a blind man's holiday and the thieves' Sabbath.
What, however, we would here insist upon is, not
so much the absurdity of the outcry against " Sun-
day Desecration," a thing at once recognised without
a moment's argument—as upon the miserable, and
horrible, and we might even say the unchristian cus-
tom prevalent among us of recognising the hand of
GOD alone in great calamities. Is the country in a
flourishing condition, are its finances happily
balanced, is the revenue abundant—the blessing of
GOD the ALMIGHTY is overlooked—it is good luck, or
fortunate speculation, or the felicitous result of com-
merce, anything in short rather than the
goodness of the OMNIPOTENT Let a blight
descend upon vegetation, however, let a mur-
rain affect the cattle, let mercantile affairs
become embarrassed, let the Exchequer betray
a lamentable and continuous deficiency, let the
cholera, or the sweating sickness, or the plague
come among us, let epidemics, endemics, and conta-
gious diseases become prevalent, and lo! it is attri-
buted at once to the hand of GOD, to the wrath of
the CREATOR, and the nation falls down in terror,
morally clothing itself in sackcloth, and strewing its
head with the ashes of repentance. To us, there is
really something absolutely terrible in all this, some-
thing:inexpressibly =grateful to the Awful BEING out
of the abysses of whose divinity the whole of the visible
and invisible creation has emanated. To acknowledge
his presiding influence only when the community is
stricken by mortal sickness or subjected to some other
disastrous misfortune, and to ignore the very fact of
its existence in times of ,general prosperity, appears
to us a profanation of the truth of Christianity and
an anomaly very little short of being actually
blasphemous.

'We would see this tendency to cant obliterated,
We would see a wholesome and consistent morality
substituted. We would have all the felicities of for
tune and all the sanity of mind and body attributed
to the beneficence of GOD, as invariably as the
scourges of famine and pestilence are regarded as
indications of His anger. But any perseverance in'
the custom to which we have before referred, is to
our thinking not less impious than it is irrational.
Besides, those who participate in upholding the
present system appear to imagine that it is
only requisite to pray and so forth, in compliance
with the command of the Primate in order to relieve
them from all peril or anxiety in regard to the con-
tinuance of their misfortunes. Such melancholy
fatuity, to our thinking, is beyond all expression
pitiable, an insult at once to the common sense of
humanity, and to the wisdom of OMNIPOTENCE. It
is in perfect keeping, however, with the idle argu-
ments of these most illogical Sabbatarians, who
prefix to all their sanctimonious humbug the homage
of the DIVINITY and who demand the non-delivery
of letters, and the prevention of the sale of mackerel,
and the closing of public• houses on Sunday in the
name and apparently in obedience to the ordonations
of Christianity. Theirs, to us, is the bathos of the
Oriental porter, crying—
"ln the name of the Prophet—Plus I"

In conduct, as in art, there is an idea of the great
and beautiful, by which men should exalt the hackneyed
and the trite of life. Eliza Cook's Journal.
DISPENSARIES, &c., IN IRELAND.—A Parliamen-
• tary paper, published yesterday, on the motion of Sir
William Somerville, the Secretary of State for Ireland,
.howl that the number of dispensaries, fever hospitals,
and infirmaries for which county presentments were
made in Ireland in the year 1848, amounted to 773
(against 813 in 1847); the amount of presentments was
83,5081., and the amount of subscriptions 33,393/.;
making a sum total of 116,9021. The total amount of
the sums subscribed and granted for fever hospitals in
Ireland at the presenting sessions preparatory to the
spring
nufnetreedr
itaSiZT.B of 1849 was 7,885/. The
number
hospitals supported by the poor-rates in 1848 amounted
of
to 233 under the temporary Fever Act, the coat of which
was 81,4481.; and to 80 not under that Act, the cost of
which was 21,789/.
PUTRID VENISON.—A short time back Mr. Dixon,
of the lied Lion, Henley-on-Thames, was entertained to
' dinner by some of his supporters, and among the dishes
was a haunch of venison. The meat was so "high"
that it was sent from the table untested; but on the fol.
lowing day a portion of it was hashed up for the family
dinner, and immediately after partaking of it Mr. Dixon
and his two brothers, together with the cook and boots,
were seized with a sudden illness, and all of them, it is
raid, died in the course of a few hours.—Cheltenhani
Examiner.
The power which is at once spring and regulator
in all efforts of reform, is faith in man, the conviction that
there is an infinite worthiness in him which will appear at
the call of worth, and that all particular reforms are the
removing of acme impediment.--Eliza cook's Journal.