The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-15 00:00:00

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

We insert in another column a letter addressed by
one of its members to the Committee of the Church-
rate Abolition Society, on his seceding from that body.
We leave the letter to speak for itself ; it tells its
own story plainly and forcibly, and furnishes a key to
some facts about which a mystery has for some time hung.

It cannot be denied that the abolition of Church-
rates is an object of enormous difficulty, while the
whole power of the Church is arrayed against it. The
only means of accomplishing the point are for the
Dissenters to act with energetic and simultaneous
force ; and we cannot get rid of an impression that
they have failed to do so. Especially for the last two
years there has been manifested by their recognised
leaders and organs no such earnestness of purpose as
would compel or even encourage any Ministry to take
up the cudgels for them, or to provoke increased hos-
tility from a powerful opposition.
It would seem, at first sight, essential to any well-
conducted plan, that a central body should direct the
general course of operation ; and this would really be
the case but for certain influences eminently injurious,
and almost inevitable. Among the leading London
Dissenters are some gentlemen variously connected
with the Ministry, their dependants, or their Parlia-
mentary supporters, and whose counsels could but
impede the course of Church-rate agitation. Others
again, who are really in earnest, and whose piety, or
learning, or wealth has placed them prominently before
the public, naturally believe that by the mass of society
the character of Dissent is identified with theirs, and
entertain a morbid apprehension of compromising their
"respectability," which in political conflict, cripples
their energy, and makes them falter at every untried
step.

We have sufficient experience of public life to be
assured, without individual knowledge of the fact,
that in this, as in every other organization for public
improvement, men would intrude themselves whose sole
object is the emolument or the glory of conducting its
affairs—men to be found in every community, whose
business is to pursue rather than to eradicate the evils
on which they exist.
We must add that the locality of a Church-rate
Abolition Committee is unfavourably chosen which
enables the Ministry to obtain immediate intelligence of
all their deliberations, and by the Hushai whom any
Ministry would, of course, find or send among them,
to mar their counsels and defeat their plans.
No, the Dissenters must act for themselves in this
matter—there is now no other subject on which the
materials for agitation are so widely scattered, or so
ready to the hand of every man who wishes to use them.
Let such as are aggrieved, use the facility which the
law affords to impede the laying and collecting of
Church-rates, and bring before the public every in-
stance of ecclesiastical oppression, and the Church
will soon be foremost among the claimants of a reform
in the law of Church-rates.

The Paris Journals of Thursday announce that at
a meeting of the Municipal Council of that capital,
held the day before, great dissatisfaction was expressed
at the manner in which the Government expended the
20,000 f. voted to assist in paying the expenses of the
fnneral of Marshal LOBAU. Several Members of
the Council complained that not only had the Govern-
ment not contributed any sum, as it had engaged to do,
but that even the amount voted by the Municipality
had been misapplied. The Archbishop of PARIS,
whose zeal in promoting the sordid interests of his order
must be edifying to the members of the Hierarchy in
every part of the world, was stated to have
rated the importance of his presence at the funeral at
a sum so exorbitant as to threaten the absorption of the
entire 20,000 francs, for ecclesiastical purposes only.
This was not well relished by the Council, the more
especially as some Members complained that several of
the priests had not comported themselves with that
meekness which would convince the Municipality that
they were solicitous to obtain the city cash only
that they might distribute it in alms among
the indigent. A letter addressed to the Council
by the Solicitor-General recommending the pro-
secution of the Editor of the Charivari for some
laughable comments upon the vote of 20,000 francs
by the City of Paris, to pay the funeral expenses of
Marshal LOBAU, was read in Council, but to the
credit of that body rejected with contempt.
On Wednesday the Editor of the Temps was fined
2,000 francs, and sentenced to a month's imprison-
ment, for publishing a false report of the proceedings
at a trial instituted against three other Journals by the
sons of CASIMIR PERIER, for a libel upon the me-
mory of their father.
There is no political news of interest in the Paris
Journals of Thursday. They have all articles on the
Hollando-Belgic question, and the questions which
will particularly occupy the Chambers, but they are
too vague and problematical to interest an English
reader.

The Spanish Papers received this morning an-
nounce another victory obtained over the Carlists by
Colonel PEZUEL A, near Valencia, for an official account
of which we refer to an extract from the Madrid
Gazette of the 6th inst., which will be found in an-
other column. The rebels had 400 killed, besides 200
made prisoners, and the loss of 800 muskets and