The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-26 00:00:00

CHURC El-RATES.

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pices of the Leicester Voluntary
Church Society, and had for its object to petition Parlia-
ment for the abolition of Church-rates and Ecclesiastical
Courts, as well as the immediate release of Mr. William
Brines, now lying in the eounty gaol for non-payment of
Church-rates. The Leicester theatre, which i 3 a very
large one, was on this occasion crowded to excess, and,
what is curious on such an occasion, where so vast an as-
sembly was collected together, there was not to be found a
single person to express a dissentient opinion. Every sen-
timent uttered by the speakers bearing oa the question of
Church-rates was loudly cheered, and every resolution
proposed unanimously adopted.
In the course of the day the Members for the borough,
Mr. Easthope and Mr. Wynn Ellis, arrived in town, and
they were soon afterwards joined by Mr. Hume and Mr.
O'Connell, the latter accompanied by Mr. Hutt, who had
arrived from the Leeds festival. In the course of the day
they all waited upon Mr. Baines in his prison, and had
a long and interesting conversation with him.
At six o'clock precisely, the Mayor of Leicester, John
Biggs, Esq., accompanied by Mr. Easthope, Mr. Wynn
Ellis, Mr. O'Connell, and Mr. Hume, appeared on the
stage, and as each was recognized ho was greeted with
loud cheers.
Amid this applause it was moved by Mr. LEGG, and se-
conded by Mr. MILES, " That the Mayor, John Biggs,
Esq., should take the chair."
Mr. Blocs said that it was most painful to him in the
discharge of the duties of his office, that he should be
called upon to carry into effect the law against conscience;
or that he should be required to authorise the sale of
effects, belonging to those whose conscience told them
they could not obey the law. For himself, he felt it to be
his imperative duty to carry into effect the law as he found
it ; but he also felt it to be his duty to call upon the Le-
gislature to repeal a law that he looked upon as an out-
rage upon every principle of justice—(Cheers)—a law
that in his opinion must be soon repealed if they wished to
see peace and order established in society.—( Hear. )
The Rev. Mr. MYATT said that when, upon the impri-
sonment of Mr. Baines, now two months since, he was
called upon to address a Leicester assembly, he indulged a
fond and over-confident hope that the next occasion of pre-
senting himself to their notice would be one of rejoicing,
and that it would have been his pleasing duty to mingle his
congratulations with theirs on the honourable release of
the noble-hearted captive.--(Cheers.) Although the
overt hal falsified his expectations, and the prisoner re-
mained to this hour in the tenacious gripe of the Church's
executioner, he could discover nothing unreasonable in
the grounds upon which at that time he based his faith.
He was not, indeed, so foolish as to imagine—no man
even partially versed in ecclesiastical history could have
given entertainment to the idea—that the State Church
would spontaneously relinquish her hold upon her vic-
tim. Whatever else she may at times hve given up—
whether a long-cherished doctrine or a favourite rule of
discipline—it was never yrt known throughout the
wide and diversified range of her history, that she had
foregone a pecuniary demand, or put a check upon
her insatiable lust for gold.—(Cheers.) How should
she ? Money was the life-blood of her system. Her
energies, her zeal, her labours, her hops and fears are
all identified with money. Take away her property and
she dies ; touch her filthy lucre and von touch her life—
( Cheers)—for the Establishment itself is but rem vast and
too successful scheme to obtain money under religious
pretences.—( Hear.) He was not, therefore, senseless
enough to suppose that, in a case of subtraction of money,
however paltry the sum, truth, justice, or religion would
weigh with her.—(Cheers.) He knew well she would
" have her bond," even though every drop of the victim's
blood should be sacrificed to her rapacity—and he was
sufficiently convinced that appeals which in tall ordinary
cases would clpave their way through the thickest pre-
judices, and lay bare consciences to the very quick,
would never make the slightest impression upon her
impermeable avarice.—(Cheers.) But he did hope that
many thousands in her communion, somewhat blind,
indeed, to her defects, but personally free from
1 her characteristic vices—stung with shame at this flagrant
violation of all right, and unable to endure the burning
blush of indignation at the foul deed douc in the name of
Christianity—he did indulge the persuasion that they,
looking at the character of the prisoner, at his station, at
his high-mindedness, and at the general sympathy which
his suffering had elicited, would have risen up in all the
virtuous anger of insulted humanity, cried " shame" upon
the perpetrator of this outrage upon conscience, and have
given to the world their indignant protest against these
odious exhibitions of ecclesiastical malignity.—(Cheers.)
Except in a few individual cases, nothing of the kind had
taken place—the man aad the gentleman had been merged
in the Churchman—and acts which thousands in their in-
dividual capacity would have loathed to perform, they did
net scorn tacitly to sanction and uphold under cover of
1 their Church.—( Hear, hear.) He freely confessed, how-
ever, that he had much more sanguinely anticipated re-
dress from the legal Courts. After the emphatic opi-
nion pronounced by Dr. Lushington in the House of
Commons upon Thorogood's case, that the only remedy
for contempt possessed by these Bishops' Courts was the
imprisonment of the person it was not natural to conclude
that, contrary to all the analogies of law, they had power
to proceed with the case in the absence of the defend-
ant, and to run up at their discretion a bill of costs, to
any amount that might satisfy the needy host of proctors
and doctors.—( Hear, hear.) But it had now come out
that Ecclesiastical Courts were " twice blessed"—blessed
with the power to imprison, and blessed with the authority
to pillage; and that, if they prefer it—and who can doubt
but that in all future cases they will prefer it ?—thoy have
unlimited licence, after pronouncing their victim in con-
tempt, to suspend for a season the pleasure of proceeding
to incarceration, and to employ the interval in heaping up
costs, with not a single item of which the defendant is ever
to be made acquainted.—( Hear, hear.) The existence
of this unique privilege they learned for the first time in
this case of Mr. Baines, and the confirmation of it by the
Courts.of Law bad given rise to a pretty general idea that
the liberty of the subject was to be specially regarded by
the judges of the land, in all cases but that of disobedience
to the Church.—( Loud cheers.) He had had one more
hope—it was hope in the dissenting community. He had
not yet abandoned ft.—( Hear, hear.) The seeming calm
which had too long characterised the great body of
Nonconformists was not necessarily indicative of in-
difference. It might be, he trusted it was, the
s:illneas which marked the period of thought, a deep re-
flection and anxious deliberation, ere the fitting hour of
energetic action had arrived—the coolness and composure
of men in council or, the eve of battle.—(Hear, hear.)
A rumour was in circulation that London was preparing
to rrove.—( Hear, hear.) He had reason for believing
that the rumour was well founded.--( Hear, hear.) Would
Manchester consent to lie under the stigma of stark insen-
sibility to the rights of conscience? Could Liverpool, vi-
talised hey the energy of a Voluntary Church Society, re.
main much longer mute ? Leeds had a well-earned re-
put Vion to sustain, and so had Bradford, for both took up
the cause of Thoro,good ; they might, therefore, confi-
dently rely upon their being afield soon after the opening
of Parliament. Nottingham had already honoured itself
by sending an address and deputation to the prisoner.
—( Hear.) Nottingham, of course, would not lag behind in
the general movement. The metropolis had only to give
the signal, and soon the beacon-fires of religious liberty
would blaze in every province. Men were from every
quarter of the country turning towards London Dissenters
a wistful and anxious gaze—their minds divided be-
tween hope and fear—hope that in this hour of extremity,
when the rights of conscience were insolently trampled
under foot, the spirit of their forefathers would be awakened
within thsir bosom, and concern for religion persecuted to
bonds would impel them at last to take up their post, and
fear lest a lax expediency, too prevalent amongst them,
should induce them to witness in silence the oppression of
a suffering brother Christian, their own degradation and
insult, and finally the calamitous triumph of their master's
foes.—(Cheers.) In the name- of sacred truth, be asked,
how and when do they mean to act? He conjured them,
by the value they set upon religious liberty—by the impe-
-1 ishable fame of their noble ancestors—by the homage they
owed to voluntary Christianity—by all that they profess to
know of the spirituality of Christ's kingdom, to come for-
ward and bear their testimony, and lift up high their voice
against the employment of force within the domains of the
Church, in the name and for the support of the reli-
gion of Christ.—(Cheers.) Mr. Baines still continued
in confinement. The question now occurred, what corn-
iensation was to be awarded us for his long and patient
addingwas de rinsult
n ttiemate
cruelty—that
that L o Lord Jwould
R east:
sell meditated it
suffering?
tempt to carry into effect the recommendation of the Eccle-
siastical Commissioners, that be would give to Church-
wardens the power of levying Church-rates, and to
the
Msgistrat.e3 at quarter sessions authority to enforce them
_
by distraint. As yet, he could not believe that his Lord-
ship would venture upon so it fatuated a course. They
The as
parasites
had not forgotten his taunts. they would not put up with
his blows. Mean-spirited, cringing, fawning
he deems them, they were not sunk so low as that.
body upon whose shoulders his Lordship had been borne
into nower still had the fate of the Whig Cabinet in their
hands. Already it had too long forborne ; their tenderness
for Ministers had already assumed the aspect of treachery
to the cause committed to their keeping ; but there was,
nevertheless, some blood in them, sluggish though it
might be ; and if the Colonial Secretary was desirous of
quickening its circulation, and raising its temperature to
boiling point, he had only to propose this confirmation of
their bondage.—(Hear, hear.) What, then, were they '
willing to accept as compensation for their imprison-
ment ? I answer, nothing but the total abolition
of Church-rates.—( Hear, hear, hear.) Was this an
unreasonable demand ? With an income of 5,000,000/.
a year, with the undisturbed possession of all parish
churches, the property of the nation, with an aris-
tocracy of unbounded wealth professedly attached to