The Sun.
London, England, 1840-07-28 00:00:00

NUES BILL.

The Bishop of ROCHESTER presented a charac-
teristic petition from the Rev. Sidney Smith against the
Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill.

The Earl of DEVON presented a similar petition
from the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough.
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY presented a
petition from Devonshire to the same effect.
Viscount MELBOURNE then rose to move the
second reading of the Bill, and said that notwithstand-
ing the many great and important questions which it
had been his duty to bring before the House, he had
never felt so oppressed with a sense of his own weak-
ness as on the present occasion, when he rose to bring
before their Lordships a question without doubt of great
magnitude and very great importance, a question which
not only involved important general principles of Go-
vernment, but also many questions of common and ec-
clesiastical law, with which, of necessity, he was but little
acquainted. He felt in these circumstances great
satisfaction, support, and consolation, in being supported
by those who were well acquainted with the state of
the law at present, and with that which they
sought to establish, and who would be able to
correct any error he might make, or supply
any deficiency he might exhibit on the pre-
sent occasion. Although there were many de-
tails which were of great importance, and would re-
quire correct attention, he would confine himself en-

,
tirely to the general principle of the Bill, and the im-
mediate subject for their Lordship's consideration,
which was whether their Lordships would consent to
some reduction of our present Ecclesiastical Establish-
ments, and the application of the funds accruing from
the deduction to that purpose, which was so loudly
crying for them, and which had been brought before
their Lordships in so strong and cogent a manner, and
which of itself must form so strong a claim on their
Lordships' judgment and feelings—namely to supply
that state of unhappy destitution of spiritual instruc-
tion which unquestionably largely prevailed throughout
a great part of this country. This was the general
principle of the Bill, and to this he asked their assent
on the present occasion. And he must beg to remark
on an error—undoubtedly unintentional, and resulting
from the warmth of feeling in argument which ran
through the whole statement of the able and eloquent
Counsel who had addressed their Lordships with
so much power at the Bar of the House.—(Hear.)
They both of them stated that it was the object of the
Government to suppress these establishments entirely,
whereas their Lordships were only called upon to make
such reductions as would leave them amply sufficient
for all the purposes for which they were originally in-
tended, and to apply the funds to that object which
formed the most urgent claim on Parliament and on the
country, and on both Houses of Parliament. In 1835
the Government, of which Sir R. Peel formed a part,
had advised his Majesty to recommend the appointment
of a Committee for that purpose, so as to extend more
widely the means of religious instruction. That Com-
mittee was appointed, and on March 10, 1836, the
three first Reports of the Commissioners were laid on
the table. The recommendations of the Commission-
ers, with respect to ecclesiastical duties and revenues
had been already adopted, their recommendation with
respect to pluralities and sinecures had been also carried
into effect, and their Lordships were now called upon
to carry into effect the recommendations contained in
the second and fourth Reports of the Commissioners.
It was said by the Learned Counsel that these recom-
mendations had been made in times of difficulty and
alarm, to meet the exigencies of the occasion, and now
that the alarm had passed away, it was unwise to make
these concessions. The Right Hon. Bart. had distinctly
denied that he had been actuated by any such motives.
On the part of himself and his colleagues he begged to
make the same disclaimer. But even if the Commis-
sion had been a concession to the alarm and danger of
the time, he had always heard that there was no more
short-sighted course than to withhold those concessions
which had been extorted in times of alarm and danger
on the first appearance of returning tranquillity.—
, (Hear, bear.) It was now, in his opinion, wise in
their Lordships to carry these measures into effect,
even if there was less clamour and alarm, than at the
time the Commission was appointed. It was unneces-
sary for him to detail the amount of spiritual destitu-
tion that prevailed in that country ; that was fully de-
tailed in the Report of the Commissioners. The
amount of that destitution was alarmingly great, and
the object of the present measure was to apply a re-
medy to that evil. The Noble Lord here read an ex-
tract from the Report of the Commissioners with re-
ference to the amount of spiritual destitution. It
would be quite unnecessary for him, he was sure, to
argue that the Church should set an example in the
education of the people, and that it was in the highest
degree fitting that the Church should take the lead
in making such an appropriation of her funds as
would show her readiness and zeal on the sub-
ject. It would not be necessary for him to de-
lay their Lordships by any further arguments on
that part of the question, but they had heard strong
objections to the course they were about to pursue
urged in that House, and at their Lordships' bar, which
he should not be performing his duty if he did not
allude to, because the general argument of the,Learned
Counsel went to the very basis of the question. They
sail that their Lordships had no moral right on the
point, and that the case was not justified by precedent.
They admitted that funds had formerlybeen transferred
from one body to another, and from one institution to
another, but that it had always been on grounds dis-
tinctly stated, and which was not alleged on the pre-
sent occasion. But the Learned Counsel must
have forgotten that when they admitted that similar
cases had formerly occurred, they, in fact, cut from
their own feet the whole ground of this argument ; and
if their Lordships were so bound up by the intentions
of the original institutors—if the question were to be
settled on that ground, whatever might be the change
in circumstances—whatever might be the amount to
which their funds may
have grown, and however un-
suitable they might be to the objects for which they were
intended—if they were to say that they should still be
bound by the terms of the original institutors, why
then he would say that in some of the cases which the
Hon. Gentleman had cited there was a sufficient ground
for the course that bad been taken. The Learned
Counsel had said that there must be delinquency to jus-
tify such proceedings, as in the case of the Knights 1
institutions themselves, if
.
Templars. But delinquency was no ground for
proceeding against the ir!sti
they were good, but
against t
abused them. The only case in which delinquency
for
was a reasondisturbing any institution,
was when the delinquency duency was an evidence of the
vice of the institution itself. He acknowledged that
questions connected with religion should be treated with
the highest possible respect, and that they should be
approached with great caution, and not wantonly or
rashly ; but he could not hold, when other objects
became more urgent, that Church institutions were to
be considered absolutely inviolable, and that they were
to be bound down to a course of proceeding which,
under the circumstances, might be considered unwise
and absurd. The Learned Counsel had denied the ap-
plication in the present instance of all those proceedings
which had taken place about the time of the Reforma-
tion, but he (Lord M.) did not think that the Learned
Counselhad stated those proceedings very accurately. He
should certainly,however,agree with the Learned Counsel
if he had merely said that the proceedings of the
refermation were to be looked to with a great deal of
caution, and were to be silted before they were adop-
, ted as a model. He thought the 4efortpation the
. greatest blessing ever conferred on mankind, but still it
unquestionably did not originate in the best of mo-
, tives, nor was it carried on by the purest means. The
precedent of the Reformation should therefore 'be