The Sun.
London, England, 1838-03-08 00:00:00

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and which was assertesk the resolution which he held in his haitt,
The volontssry principle touched the vtrry cote of 51! es4lgious establish.
wrentS, and affected their very life Sertngs. He was aware of the effect
that their proceedings woOlil produce on the advocates of endowments.
They would reS.Se the cry of "the Church in danger," and they would
doobt be styled "infidels" and " destructive's" Thai. hillier to these
charges would be that State encitSktniedlS Weld hot religion; and that civil
establishments were hllt Liitittlaniiy.-=(thecrs.) It was Mie of the first
principle. nI ;thereat science to favour ill good S‘Abjcts alike.—
(Cheers.) Now, the Very e*itici.t. of an Established Church
necessarily created dlsiinion.—(" Hear, hear," and loud cheers.)
It was Utrt of individuals, but of the power which the
tburch possessed, of which they complained.—(Cheers.) On the one
hand, the Church scowled and frowned on the Dissenters, who, on the
other hand, were naturally irritated and goaded to resentment.—
(Cheers.) The question of Church Establishments was of a very
vague and uncertain nature. Some contended that the religion of the
majority ought to be established ; but the majority of to-day might be
the minority of to-morrow ; and the majority of one place, a mi-
nority in another.—)Hear.) So in England, Episcopacy—in Scotland,
Presbyterianism—in Ireland, Popery—was established—woe to Britain
that it was se.—(Cheers.) Others argued that the Government ought
to establish what they thought was the true religion. But Govern.
meats were unfortunately the least qualified to dseide on such a ques-
tien.—(Cheers.) Now it was usual to talk of "tolerating" Dis.
miters, But they sought to abolish a word which was the last
remnant of yet unextirpated intolerance.—(Cheers) If they had
a sacred right to maintain the religion which conscience held to be the
true, they . would not endure to be " tolerated."—(Loud cheering )
As Milton said, " Both the commonwealth and religion will prosper
-..hen they who govern discern betwr en the civil and religious."—(Loud
cheers.) In conclusion, the Reverend Gentleman said he would ex.
claim, in the words of Holy writ, of all Church Establishments,
" Overturn ! overturn ! overturn ! until he come whose right it is to
reign."—(Loud cheers.)
Dr. BEATTIE, of Glasgow, then came forward to support the resolu-
tion. He saw a controversy which had for some time agitated Scotland
was very likely to agitate the southern part of the empire also.—
(Hear, hear.) He would call the attention of the meeting to the effects
which the voluntary controversy had already produced in the northern
part of the empire. It could not be doubted that this question had occa-
sioned much bitterness of feeling and alienation among those who had
formerly been on terms of friendship with each other. It could not be
doubted it had given rise to much acrimonious language; a great deal
of obloquy had been heaped on the advocates of it; their motives and
character had been assailed, and they had been held up to the
scorn of the public.—(Hear, hear.) But good consequences had also
resulted from the agitation of the question. He would venture to state
without the fear of contradiction, that it had roused to activity those
who were formerly in a state of indolence—and that it had awakened
from torpor a Church that had been slumbering for a hundred years.
So long as the Dissenters did not attack the Church of England
politically, they had the support of the Establishment ; but when
they broached the voluntary system, then the members of the Esta-
blishment withdrew from their alliance. Allusion had been made
to a case which was now agitating Scotland. It was the case
of a parish, whose name an Englishman would find it very
difficult to pronounce—that of the parish of .iuchterarder. —(A laugh)
In the Court of Session, on the decision upon this case, it was said by

one of the judges that it was " absurd to say that Christ was the only
head of the Church. It was true that the King was not the head of
the Church, in the same sense as he was in England. He could not
regulate the prayers.—( Laughter.) Parliament was the real temporal
head of the Church, and it was to its acts the Church owed its exist-
tence.—(Renewed laughter.)" The Rev. Gentleman then read extracts
from the judgments of Lord Meadowbank, Lord Fullerton, and other
Judges on the same subject, amidst laughter and cheering. What had
brought thejChurch into her present plight ? She had sold the privilege she
derived from the Head of the Church, by selling herself to the State for
gold. It was the object of this meeting to release her trammels—to take
from her the State crutches on which she hobbled, and to let her go
forth, according to the words of her Divine Founder, and teach all na.
tions.—(Cheers.) He would conclude by briefly alluding to the subject
of toleration, which had been spoken to by a previous speaker. The
Earl of Shaftesbury said in the House of Lords, in 1821, " I hate the
Toleration Act—l hate the very ward toleration, because I love liberty."
Mr. DRNNISTOUN, M.P., moved the next resolution. He was not a
Dissenter, but favourable to the Church as at present established. He
thought it his duty not to conceal his sentiments on this or on any other
occasion.—(Cheers.) If this were a new country, and no Establish.
ment existed, he, for one, should be opposed to its creation,—( Hear,
hear)—but as it did exist, and as it was supported by a large portion of
the people, he would not join in the cry of " overturn—overturn."
But he would not allow the people of the rest of the kingdom to be com-
pelled to contribute to the " Extension" of the Establishment in
Scotland.—(Loud Cheers.) As one who took part in general
politics, he could not but regret that the clergy of the Esta-
blishment, had of late become political partizans.—(Hear, hear.)
To that he attributed the discontent, dissension, and hatred which had
been of late spread through Scotland. He concluded by moving a reso-
lution to the effect, that the Report of the Religious Instruction Com-
missioners shows that there is no want of church accommodation,
seeing that there are many thousands of sittings unoccupied in the
various places to which the Report refers; that the exertions of the
Dissenters had erected between 700 and 800 places of worship through.
out Scotland, without the aid of the State; that the friends of the
Establishment ought in the same manner to supply the deficiency
(if any) of church accommodation ; and finally, that the proposed
grant to the Church of Scotland was unjust to the Dissenters, and
uncalled for and inexpedient, in thecircumstances of the case.
The Reverend Mr. HARPER, in an eloquent speech which was much
applauded, seconded the Resolution, and spoke at great length to each
of its allegations. He called upon the Dissenters of England to assist
the non-conformists of Scotland for their own:sakes.—(Hear, hear) They
were not enemies of the Church, but of its exactions—were not enemies
of the maintenance of the Church, but only of the unjust mode in which
it was attempted to maintain it.—(Hear, hear.) He appealed to the
non.conformists to bear in mind the example of their puritan fathers—
they were the natural guardians of religious liberty.—(Great cheers.)
He asked them, were they prepared to resign the trust ?—(Great cheers.)

The CfIAIRMAN, in consequence of-what fell from the Hon. Member
for Glasgow, felt it to be his duty as a member of the Established Church in
England, to explain that he entirely repudiated the sentiment which
the word " overturn" as applied to the Church in an unexplained sense,
would be supposed to convey.—(Hear, he ,r.)
The Rev. Mr. YOUNG explained that he had not used the word ob-
jected to in the sense of overturn the Church—he did not confound a
Church with an endowment, nor a religion with an Act of Parliament.—
(llear, hear.)
Mr. Glum's, M.P., who was greeted with loud cheers, moved the
third resolution. He had, in the face of an unwilling House of Com-
mons, denounced the alliance between the Church and the State. The
object of the present demand for extension of the Church of Scotland was
to place the whole of the education of the people in the hands of the
Established Clergy. If that principle had been acted upon for the last

century, the consequences would have been lamentable; for during that
period, those Clergy were in a state of lethargy.—( Hear, and a laugh.)
It appeared that thepeople of Scotland made it a practice to go to any
Church, but that of the Establishment, in their own parish.—(A laugh.)
The parishioners of the College Church, Edinburgh, resorted, according
to the report of the Commissioners, to seventy-one different pixies of
worship.—(Hear, hear.) The whole of the demands for further aid to
the Church of Scotland, were based in deception. It was, for instance,
proposed to provide for them out of what were called the Bishop's
teinds, or tithes, which were the property of the people, having
become the property of the Crown upon the suppression of
Bishoprics in Scotland, and afterwards from the Crown in the
form of the Civil List. By pretending to supply the funds
for their extension out of those teinds, they thus would throw the bur-
then upon the Consolidated Fund.—(Hear, hear.) The object of the
extensions in this was to prevent the property of the Church from
being taken from their Tory friends, the landed proprietors, by whom it
was usurped.—(Hear, hear.) The attempt to obtain this grant was
only one movement in the crusade against Dissent.—(Hear.) He re-
ferred to the speech of Dr. Chambers, at a public breakfast in Edin.
burgh, when the Rev,. Gentleman said, that the officers of defence (that
is, the army), and the officers of instruction (that is, the schoolmasters),
and the officers of religion (that is, the cl,rgy), ought to be all supported
and paid by the State.—;Laughter.) That union was worse than the
Trades' Unions, of which they had heard so much.—(Continued
cheers, and laughter.; The Honourable Member concluded by
moving a resolution to the effect that, should the projected grant be
upon the bishops' teinds, that form of the grant would only be intended
to mislead the public, as it would in reality be paid out of the consoli-
dated fund, as the teinds became the property of the Crown, on the sup-
pression of Episcopacy in Scotland, and have since been purchased by
the nation, together with the other revenues of the Crown.

The Rev. FRENCH seconded the resolution, and at great length
denounced the connection of the Church with the State. The Church
in alliance with the State was a State prisoner like her Master—like
him she was crowned on:y to be crucified—like him she was betrayed,
and her betrayers, like his, were her disciples—like him she was sold,
and the price was gold.—(Great cheering.)
The resolution was carried unanimously.

The Rev. Dr. FLETCHER moved the next resolution, to the effect
that the meeting exceedingly honoured their Scottish brethren for
ther uncompromising opposition to the proposed grant to the State
Church in Scotland, and otherwise to express the sympathy of the
meeting with the Scotch Dissenters.

Mr. WoNTNea seconded the resolution, which was carried with
much applause.

The Rev. Mr. KING, on the part of the Scotch Dissenters, expressed
their gratification at the sympathy evinced towards them by the Non.
conformists of London.

The Rev. Mr. BURNET would not at that late hour detain the meet-
ing, but he wished to glance at an observation which had been made in
the course of the day by a gentleman, who said that if he had to deal
with a new thing, he would resist the establishment of a State Church;
but as the thing was established, he would let het live as long
as she chose to exist.—(Laughter and considerable applause.)
But, if there were injustice in any system—if there were infringement
of the rights of conscience—if there were an assumption of the prero-
gative of high heaven who should say that it must be borne for
its age, notwithstanding its odious monstrosity ? (Tremendous
cheering.) The Reverend Gentleman proceeded to ridicule the
statement of the member for Glasgow with infinite humour
and amidst continued laughter and applause. In exposing the
grievancess under which dissenters laboured, and the oppressive charac-
ter of the Established Church, he said that professional men were dis-
countenanced by the aristocracy wherever it was discovered that they
were dissenters. A lord would be ashamed to acknowledge himself a
dissenter. The Scotch peers had all found it necessary for their dignity
to join the English Church Establishment, and if the Queen herself
by any conviction of her conscience were to change her belief from that of
the Establishment, she would be required to take the crown from her
brow, and to descend from the throne.—(Hear,, hear, hear.)
But if both Houses of Parliament did her wrong, and they
sometimes did wrong—(Loud laughter)—if they called on her to
resign the throne from such a cause, the millions would arise and pre-
vent it.—(lmmense applause.) The resolution was to the effect,
" That it was the duty of Dissenters to exert themselves in every way
to resist the demands of the Scotch Church."
The motion having been seconded, was carried unanimously.
A petition founded on the resolution was agreed to. Thanks were
voted to the Chairman, and the meeting separated.

We have to complain of the exceeding rudeness of a Secretary to the
United Society, who took away the solitary ink-bottle allowed to the
reporters of The Sun by thoe who provided the accommodations—
whereby three, of the six gentlemen, who were sent from this paper to
report the proceedings, were interrupted in writing for a considerable
time.

NAVAL HEROES OF GREAT BRITAIN.--If
there is one class of historical record that the English people
should, and do, hold in more especial honour than any other, it
is that which busies itself with the deeds and characters of our
naval heroes; and, after Nelson, the roll of fame presents no
single name more worthy of honour than that of St. Vincent,
yet, hitherto, his life has gone unrecorded. We are happy
to perceive that the hiatus has now been worthily filled.
Captain Brenton, the intimate personal friend of Earl St. Vin-
cent, and to whom he himself especially consigned the task,
has just given the result to the world, aided by every other faci.
lity, including access to various public and private documents.
A subscription is opened at Waterford to present
Mr. Kean, the tragedian, a native of that city, a testimonial of
of public esteem.
ALDERMEN OF LoNboN.—ln the ancient re-
cords of the city it is stated, " That no person is eligible to
be returned as an alderman unless he is of comely person, wise,
grave, wealthy, faithful, generous, and not to be of mean and
servile condition, so as to disparage the place and state of the
city."