The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-15 00:00:00

party in the Council have done everything in their
power to give " a heavy blow" to the cause of church-
extension, and to make this Greenside affair available
for discouraging the liberality of the public. But,
connected with the specimen we have now given of
the precious working of the Scotch Municipal Bill,
there is one remaining consideration in which the
public in this part of the kingdom are more particu-
larly interested, and which has been our chief motive
for noticing the matter at all. The Edinburgh cor-
porators who have perpetrated the atrocity in question
are bankrupt qua corporation, being indebted to the
Treasury and to individuals about half a million of
money. They are begging and boring the Chancellor
of the Exchequer not only to cancel their public debt,
but to help them to pay a composition to their private
creditors. Now be it observed, that one important

item of the corporation revenue consists of the sea
rents in the city churches, amounting annually to thou.
sands of pounds. It is quite clear, then, that to ap
point popular clergymen who shall prove attractive to
the inhabitants, and productive to the corporation funds,
is the bounden duty of these municipal insolvents.
But no, their licentious party liberalism must have its
bent, pay for it who will. They must show their
hatred to the church establishment by fastening upon
it a very worthy, but as we are advised, a very unsuit-
able minister. They must show their fitness for the
honest and economical management of the city re-
sources by making an appointment which, in the anti-
cipated event of failing to attract pew-payers, will oc-
casion a loss to their corporation of several hundreds
a-year 1 And yet these are the worthies who will have
the assurance to ask creditors to forego their claims,
and the country to pay their debts.—Times.
We have only one fault to find with the Dissenters.
In all that concerns their social and religious duties—
in all that concerns their private respectability and their
public spirit—in all that concerns the discharge of
their functions as individuals and as citizens of a free
community, their conduct is generally unexceptionable,
and they have established the highest and justest
claim to the good estimation of the whole nation. But
we have one grave accusation to make against them—
one serious grievance of which to complain. They
have, we admit, sacrificed on many occasions (and the
sacrifice is most honourable to them) their interest, as
a section of the community, to the interest of the entire
body. When the great grievances of the Test and
Corporation Acts pressed most heavily upon them, they
willingly exhibited the extent of their patriotism, by
postponing the redress of that grievance to the re-
dress of the penal laws which pressed upon the Roman
Catholics, Catholic emancipation being pronounced at
that time by public opinion the paramount object of
' Reform. Again, they were equally willing, with honour,
able self-devotion, to sacrifice their just claims to
the redress of other grievances, (which were partially
redressed during the last Session, or still remain to be
redressed) to the paramount necessity of that union
among all Reformers which was requisite for the pur-
pose of carrying the great measure of Parliamentary
Reform. Some things have been done in their favour
lately by the Government—which it must be admitted
owe to them a large debt of obligation, both for their
original arid -continued support ; but they have been
done unsatisfactorily and incompletely. Nevertheless
it was possibly the best step for them to accept those
measures, incomplete as they were, as the best they
could get—or, at all events, as instalments of better—
rather than cavil with their political friends about the
extent of their mutual obligations, and thus by ill-timed
dissention play a cat d into the hands of their ever vigilant
and office-hankering enemies. But we cannot invent the
same excuse for them, on the subject of the great
grievance and nuisance of the Church-rates, nor for the
supineness during so long a period under which they
have submitted to this infliction. This indeed forms
the only ground of accusation we haveto make against
them. We doubt their eight to have made the long
compromise which they have to the evil principle of
Church rapacity on this essential point. Evils are con-
firmed by sufferance—claims are obliterated by endu-
rance—titles vitiated by prescriptive custom. Even if
they have the right to sacrifice their own claims to
mistaken views of their duties, as loyal subjects, or of
public tranquillity as well-disposed 'citizens—thc ques-
tion is, whether they have the right to compromise the
great cause of civil and religious liberty. This is not
a sectarian but a universal questiori, and one in which
every individual in the nation, of every sect, vocation,
colour, and creed, is as much interested as they them-
selves. It is again, moreover, questionable whether they
possessed a right to sacrifice the religious opinions of
their body, (which if they are not conscientious opinions
are worth nothing whatever), to any views, of private
expediency or even of political advantage. It must be
recollected that the reasons why the three denomina-
tions of Dissenters object to the payment of church-
rates are conscientious and religious, as much as they
are political or financial. If they be not conscien-
tious and religious, then there exists no reason
for their separation from the Church, or for
the existence of the very name and substance of
dissent. Heaven knows, they have quite suffi-
cient, in a social point of view, to complain of as
regards the church-rates. It is quite a suffi-
cient grievance that the) should have to pay forty
shillings in the pound, where the minority cf the reli-
gious community only pay twenty shillings, for reli-
gious instruction. It is quite a sufficient grievance
that they should have to pay for their own clergy—
their own churches—their own church repairs—and
their own charitable and educational endowments—
without having to pay for all the claims under those
heads which are made upon them by a church to whose
tenets they are opposed. It is quite sufficient grievance,
we say, in a financial point of view ; but it is in the
light of an outrage offered to conscience that the
church-rates ought to be considered by the Dissenters.
They ought to be equally so considered by them as
they have invariably been considered by the Society of
Friends. If, however, we have had hitherto reason to
complain of the supineness of the Dissenters—(and
we have thus frankly expressed our complaint)—we
shall shortly have no longer grounds for complaining.
In conformity with a previous intimation which we gave
our readers, we have now the gratification of stating
that this great and influential body are resolved in fu-
ture to substitute acts for words, and immediate deci-
sion for equivocal procrastination. The Provisional
Committee of a Church-rate Abolition Society is
already in operation, and has resolved on calling
together a public meeting in London, next Thurs-
day, for the purpose of organizing throughout
the country, a firm, peaceable, and consentane-
ous passive resistance to church-rates ;—to establish a
local association corresponding with the metropolitan
society—to nominate representatives of the local dis-
tricts to the town convention—and to raise a fuild for
defraying the expenses of both the local and the ge-
neral opposition. Most glad are we to record this re-
solution of the Dissenters—most cordially do we con-
gratulate them upon this necessary determination ; and
on the well-considered and well-organized means they
are about to employ for giving it practical effect.
Above all do we rejoice that there is to be no more
talk " about and about" this most vital question of
civil and religious liberty. Deeds are about to be sub-
stituted for words. In extreme cases, such as the
church-rate question is now become, this in fact is the
only mode of grappling with their difficulties, and bring-
ing it to a termination. In these cases men must leave
off praying to Jupiter, and apply their shoulders to the
wheel. It is by confronting the evil manfully, that it
is to be put down. When things are at the worst, as
the proverb says, they are likely to be mended ; and
passive resistance to the church-rates, such as the
Quakers have long submitted to, is the worst that the
Dissenters have to fear. It was when the Roman
General burned his ships behind him, that he prepared
for and secured his victory.—Morning Advertiser.

THE PRINCE OF CANINO'S MEMOIRS.—The
appearance of " The Prince of :Canino's Memoirs " the
first volume of which has just issued from the press, will
create a great sensation in the literary and political circles,
embracing, as it does, that memorable era when the whole
of Europe was convulsed by a moral earthquake, and its
dynasties changed by. one mighty spirit, and minutely de-
tailing the causes which led to such tremendous effects.
It will prove an invaluable adjunct to the history of modern
times, and no library can be complete without it.
LIVERPOOL COTTON-MARKET, OCT. 13.—Our
cotton-market has been flat to-day ; about 4000' bales have
been sold. No alteration in prices.