The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-23 00:00:00

EVEN ENG EDITION

LONDON:
THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1840.

The Earl of STANHOPE is to head the High
Commissioner LlN's auxiliaries, on assembling at
the-freemasons' Tavern on Friday. The Noble
Earl is an amiable, well-meaning man, who has
acquired a right to rail against the use of opium,
or any other stimulant, by his celebrated refusal—
narrated by himself—to pledge the mother of our
amiable Sovereign at the Royal board, in a goblet
stronger than that supplied by the parish pump.
But while it is impossible to doubt the good inten-
tions of the Earl of STANHOPE, it must be allowed
that his political views partake not of the clearness
I of the simple beverage in which he indulges—that
his vision is wont to be obscured, and his brain
muddy—that he has a trick of standing in his own
light, and, as in the case of the Poor-law Amend-
ment Bill, that he very frequently sacrifices his
understanding, such as it is, at the shrine of his
feelings. Of course L3rd STANHOPE sees the
Chinese question through a tee-totalism telescope.
' Beyond the fact that the immoderate use of opium
is injurious to health and morals in China, just as
immoderate gin and whiskey-drinking is pernicious,
to the health and morals of the people of the Bri- j
tish Isles, it would be folly to expect the peerless I
apostle of tee-totalism to carry his views. The
country is aware that whether the use of opium be
baneful or beneficial, is quite a distinct question
I:roin the one upon which the Government is at i
issue with China ; but if LIN'S auxiliaries be
all tee-totahrs, the substitution of one for
'the other will afford the widest scope 1
for an eloquent appeal to a nation so tender
of the morals of it own people as to mulct in a pe-
nalty of five shillings the unfortunate wight whom l'
taxed gin has deprived of the use of his legs, his 11
sight, and his reason. We had supposed that such '
a meeting would be held in a church or chapel_
but no, a tavern has been selected for the appro-
priate theatre of a denunciation against opium.
Of course a number of our good friends the li-
censed victuallers will attend, and join in the chorus
raised by the Noble Chairman against the wicked
wretches who can be guilty of the crime of selling
opium. In fact, the whole affair has recalled to our
memory a fable which, when a mere boy—(alas !
a period so long passed away, that our recollection
of it waxeth faint)—we committed to memory, and
which appears to us an admirable commentary upon
the conduct of a large party in this country with
respect to the Opium- Question. At the hazard of
committing a few blunders—for we cannot at the
torment lay our bands upon a book to guide us, vic
shall attempt its recital :

A Fox and a Cat, as they travelled one day,
With moral discourses cut shorter the way.
hard,' says the Fox, to make justice our guide.'
How godlike is mercy l' Grimalkin replied.
. As onward they journeyed a' Wolf from the wood,
Impatient of hunger, and thirsting for blood,
Rushed forth, as he saw the dull Shepherd aslee,
" And seized for his supper an innocent Sheep. p
• In vain, wretched victim, for mercy you, bleatmust cat.'
There's mutton at hand,' says the Wolf, 1.
Grimalkin astonished, the Fox stood aghast
To see the fell beast at his bloody repast.
What a wretch,' says the Cat, he's the fellest of
brutes
D,,es he feast upon flesh while there's herbage. and
roots?'

Still onward the journeyed, and moralised still,
'Till they came where some poultry picked chaff by
a mill.
Sly Reynard survey'd them with gluttonous eyes,
Aud in spite of morals made a Pullet his prize.
A Mouse, too, that chanced from her covert to stray,
The greedy Grimalkin secured as her prey,"
" A spider who sat on her web on the wall
Observed the poor victims and pitied their fall;
What monsters 1' she cried—' How guiltless am I'—
Then flew to regale on a new-taken fly."
The moral of this fable is obvious, and in the
case of not a few who have raised a cry against
the Government with respect to the Chinese ques-
tion, not a little striking.
But we have already demonstrated the falsehood
of the impudent assumption that our Government
has made war upon China to obtain, by force, a
market for the sale of opium. Ministers have
never once called in question the right of China to
prohibit any article of merchandise at her pleasure,
and the papers laid before Parliament prove that
Captain ELLIOT did all that it was in his power
to do, to discourage a traffic in the prohibited
drug. Surely, then, we are not to be called
upon to discharge the duty of an efficient coast-
guard for the Celestial Empire, and still less are
we to permit China to relieve herself of the expense
of such a duty by the starvation of our innocent
subjects trading to Canton. In the language of an
able writer in the last number of the Quarterly
Review—" If we must extend our sympathies to
the other side of the globe, let them be, at least, in
favour of our own subjects in preference to those
who have nothing in common with us, whose reli-
gion, morals, and habits are altogether at variance
with our own, and whose natural protectors ought
to be the authorities under whom they are eo-
verned." The same writer in another place says,
what we have again and again repeated—namely,
that the evils of opium are greatly exaggerated—
" that doubts may be entertained whether they are
worse than those of gin and whiskey." But this,
whether correct or incorrect, has nothing to do with
the real question at issue—the right of preventing
any nation from enforcing Custom-house laws by
the starvation of innocent foreigners living under
her protection. This is the real question, and yet
we would venture to take a bet that the organisers
of the meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern, on
Friday, will do all they can to prevent a word being
said about it.

The Report of the proceedings at Leeds on
Monday, for which we arc indebted to the editor
of the Leeds Times, will gladden the heart of
JOHN THOROGOOD, within the walls of his cold
gaol at Chelmsford, and make the proud Bishop of
LONDON quail in his velvet-lined palace at Fulham.
It is truly said that the blood of martyrs is the
seed of faith, and JOHN THOROGOOD will now
be fully assured that he has not suffered in vain.
As soon as our paper reaches him—if he be not
before informed of what took place at Leeds—he
will find himself amply rewarded for his sufferings.
He went to prison that he might more effectually
bear testimony against the Church, and now his
testimony is echoed in a voice that will startle the
Bishops from their slumbers, however soft and pro-
found.

The whole body of the clergy may see in that
meeting the effects of overstraining their power.
They would persist in exacting Church-rates and
in upholding Ecclesiastical Courts, and now the
nation begins to petition for the separation of the
Church from the State. They demand more
Churches—the nation will reply, " Provide it
yourselves." The meeting at Leeds is the com-
mencement of a series of meetings, and Anti-
Church agitation, if not so fierce, will be more
steady in England than agitation for Repeal in
Ireland.

The clergy must not be led astray by the quiet-
ness or apathy in the metropolis, or by the dulcet
notes of praise which they sound for one another
in the rural districts. London does not influence
the provinces like Paris. Being the residence of
many of the nobility and clergy, of all the Judges,
of a great multitude of persons who depend on the
Government, many of its shopkeepers and whole •
sale dealers looking for their profit, far less to the
industrious classes than to the tax-eaters, being in-
habited, too, by a great number of persons who
hate any kind of agitation, as it may influence the
price of public securities—London has long
ceased to be an example to the other parts of the
empire. The Anti-Corn-law agitation began in
the North, and London will never heartily join in
it till the vast distress of the manufacturing dis-
tricts is felt here by a diminished national revenue.
In like manner, it is not the Londoners, but the hardy
and more enthusiastic, and more independent men
of the provinces who have begun and will continue,
probably to the shame of the Metropolitan Dis-
senters, the agitation for the separation of Church
and State. The clergy, by their arrogance, and
their almost impious claims, have roused a spirit in
the land which they will find it difficult to lay.

We will not weaken the force of the excellent '
speeches delivered at the meeting by quoting anv
parts of them, but we solicit the public attention to
the remarks of Mr. Alderman STANSFELD, one
of the most influential Liberals of the neighbour-
hood of Leeds, as affording a practical illustration
of the influence on the public mind of the conduct
cf the Bishop of EXETER and his friends. Mr.
RICHARDSON'S speech and the speech of the Rev.
Mr. GILES, who is well known both as a preacher
and an author, and who properly characterised
THOROGOOD: as a noble-minded man, will
repay perusal. Their remarks show how the in-
ordinate pretensions of the PUSEYITES have kin-
dled and fanned hostility to the Church. We will
not, however, forestall the speeches, which we re-
commend to notice, but will rather attempt to en-
force the doctrine of the separation of the Church
from the State by a remark of our own.
The first resolution lays it down that the inter-
ference
of the civil power in matters of religion is
inconsistent with the design of civil government.
That appears to us correct. We think the duties
of Government are wholly incompatible with favour-
ing and supporting any one religion. What are its
duties ? They are all comprised in few words.
To protect the lives and property of the peo.
pie. The
no
Government creates no property, it
bestows
property, it possesses no property,
but it is constituted to protect the property and
the lives of the people. There are many subor-
dinate objects kept in view ; but the great objects, to
which all the contrivances of statesmanship tend,
are to protect life and protect property. The pro-
motion of morality, the teaching of religion, the
punishment of crimes, the diffusion of the fine arts,
all centre in these, so far as the State is concerned ;
for of what use are they without life, and how
can there be any enjoyment without security ?
Such being the duty of Government and religion
concerning another life, what business have those
who administer the Government, and which claims
obedience, on condition of affordingproteacntiyonp,to
a
i r-
choose a religion for the people, or show
tiality to any one religion professed by its subjects
more than another ? We see to what result this
partiality leads. In Ireland it was, and is, the source
of most grievous injustice. In England the par-
tiality shown to the Church is an injustice to the
Dissenters. By a Church-rate the right of pro-
Perty is violated—by committing one of them to
prison for not paying such a rate their security is
l endangered. What affects one on such grounds is

an injury to all. A Government cannot possibly
select any one religion of many embraced by its
subjects for peculiar favour without violating the
duties it is instituted to perform.
Moreover the Government is intended to pro-
mote happiness on earth ; Religion is to promote
happiness hereafter. The one is supposed to be
incompatible with the other. Religion is, it is true,
connected with a very limited code of morality,
which may be supposed to conduce to the security
of life and property, but the Governmen is very
careful not to rely on it, and leaves scarcely any
crime without a punishment, beyond the punishments
of religion. But whatever advantage the Govern-
ment may derive from the system of morality con-
nected with religion there is no form of Christianity
which may not confer that advantage as well as the
Church of England. In truth to confer that ad-
vantage it is essential that the Church teach and
practice the morality of Christianity. We may be
permitted to doubt whether any body of Christians,
whatever may be their faith or their hopes, prac-
tise the morality of the Gospels, but we are
quite sure that the Church of England exi-ts only
by violating it ; and whatever advantage the mora-
lity of the Gospels might confer on the State is lost
by the Church of England being adopted by the
State.

We take, however, a higher ground, and affirm
that statesmen have no patent for ascertaining
which form of Christianity or Church government
is mast conducive to the morality of mankind. If
they cannot ascertain that point—and only their
own sect will admit that their attachment to the
faith in which they have been educated is any
guide to make a selection—we say that they are
without any means or rule for determining which
form of Christianity is most worthy to be honoured
with the patronage of the State.
This subject is every clay growing in impor-
tance, and every man must be prepared to state his
reasons for the faith that is in him, either as a par-
tisan or opponent of the union between State and
Church. It will not suffice, when every institution
is liable to be overhauled, to assert that our fore-
fathers established the union, and we accordingly
find it in existence. That is undoubtedly one
motive for our respect, but those forefathers believed
in witchcraft, had slaves, and practised torture ; and

if their Church Establishment will no more stand
the test of examination than torture, slavery,
or witchcraft, the mere fact of its existence will not

istify its continuance.

The Morning Post is quite alarmed for social
order, because the word of a Bishop is not listened
to with reverential awe. To question or criticise
it is to sap the foundations of society. Our Con-
temporary says, " If there is to be no respect paid
to such an authority (a Bishop) upon such a sub-
ject, (education), how can we expect regular go-
vernment to go on ?" Nay, worse even than this,
to speak a plain truth is reckoned a crime in The
Sun, and the Ministers are made answerable for our
criminality. We did but state well-known facts,
in the following passage, to the first of which the
Bishop of LONDON has borne his testimony in
the House of Lords, and to the latter of which
every day brings proof:—

Another journal, no less a violent partisan of the Admi-
nistration, exultingly exclaims that " the people no longer
reverence the clergy and the aristocracy—they no longer
honour the law and the judges.

The arrogant and avaricious priesthood, meddling
and grasping, have brought themselves by their
conduct into deserved contempt. The bread-tax
inflicting gentry haie done exactly the same by their
scandalous avarice. Using the law for the gratifi-
cation of their vile purposes they have 1;;.T'06!.1,11e
law itself into contempt, and' for statirtg these facts
in humble language, the Post accuses us of hlowmg
up the foundations of society. It is not done by us,
who only observe the scattered fragments as they are
hurled in the air; it has been done by the ex-
plosive and uncompressed passions of the priests
and the landowners. We should rejoice if we
could for a moment believe, from the observations
of the Post, that they had become sensible of their
folly and their guilt, and were resolved to amend ;
for the reformation most needed must begin with
them, and unless they can win back the people,
by acting justly and kindly, to a respect for them
and for the laws, the present political order of
society will speedily, we are afraid, come to a
fatal end. The misfortune is, that these men who
preach about man being a fallen and sinful creature,
ready to commit all kinds of crime, without he be
laid under the restraints of religion and coercive
laws, always exclude themselves in practice from
this description, and hold that it is limited
to the poor. They use religion and law as
a bridle for other men, by which they may
ride them, but no more think of applying
these restraints to themselves than a groom thinks
of putting a horse's bit into his own mouth. The
evils which the Post dreads are the results of mis-
conduct in its own friends. Nothing but that could
have rooted the gentlemen and clergymen of Eng-
land out of the affections of the people.

Mr. O'CONNELL'S oft repeated anecdote of the
Irish drummer and the criminal at the triangles,
is by this time familiar to every body. With the
most obliging disposition in the world to accom-
modate the lashes to the sufferer's own notions of
the part of his back fittest to bear them, the honest
Hibernian failed to give entire satisfaction ; as
whether he flogged higher or lower, every descent
of the cat was provokingly followed by a scream
Now th e Tories are as hard to please as the flogged
criminal. Whether the Government is at war
or at peace, they are dissatisfied. Before the
rumour reached this country of the probability of a
war with China, the Tory press was never tired of
railing against Whig submissiveness to insult. The
seizure of the Vixen in the Black Sea—the forcible
seizure of the pilot in the Gulf of Mexico—the
previous misunderstanding between France and
Switzerland—and the Mauritius affair, were each
and all cited five days in the week at least, as
irrefragible proofs of Whig pusilanimity. But now
that the Government has manifested a vigorous
determination to submit to insult from no quarter
where insult is really intended—to protect both the
national honour and the interests of B:itish corn.
merce, we are stunned with the disgusting cant in
the mouth of the rapacious Tories of economy and
retrenchment. We are reminded, that while the
Government is plunging the country into expensive
wars with China, with Herat, with Affghanistan,
with Naples, with Egypt, and with the United
States, there are thousands of operatives and their
families without bread, and without work to Pro-
cure it. Will the lying Tories pretend that the
operatives of Great Britain had plenty of work at
this season, in the years 1838 and 1839, when
they clamoured so loudly for a murderous war with
France, for no other reason than that a young
and gallant, but rash Prince had ignorantly
been guilty of a slight violation of the law of nations
in forcing a pilot from on board a British ship of war
mistaken for a merchant vessel, and for which the
King of the FRENCH was the first to offer, in his
own name, and on behalf of the offender, a frank
and honourable apology ? Nay, did they not then
attempt to enlist the sympathies of the working !
classes on the side of war, by setting forth that/
money was never so plenty, nor employment so l
hundant, in England since the peace of 1815, as /
it was during the previous warlike period ? But