The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-27 00:00:00

S Nil DECEMBER 27, 1847.

is that of the most solemn religious responsibility ;
thousands regard it in this light. I have already
told you, my Lord, that the watchword of such is
this—" Whether it be right in the sight of God to
hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." I
have anxiously implored your Lordship to pause—to
avert the blow. I have long since told you the truth.
I have endeavoured to prevent, by every means in my
power, the commotion which has arisen, and the ne-
cessity of the performance of a painful duty. I hoped
the conge d dire would not be issued until a fair in•
quirt' and investigation had been instituted. A suit
has been commenced in the Ecclesiastical Courts—
why not have awaited its issue ? When the cove
daire did appear, I at once presumed, humbly but
faithfully, though I stood alone, to petition the
Crown ; and now, when I am officially informed that
"her Majesty has not been pleased to issue any coin-
I mands thereupon," I feel it to be my bounden duty,
after a full and calm deliberation on the whole
subject, having counted the cost, but remembering
the words of Him whose most unworthy sc.rvant 1
am—" He that loveth house or lands more than
me is not worthy of me"—lovinr, my children
dearly, and ardently desiring to compluto. the noble
work which I have for seven years laboured to pro-
mote, yet not forgetting that there i, an "hour of
death and a day of judgment," when I trust, through
the merits of my Redeemer, to be allowed to look up
with hope, that I may be considered by the interces-
sions of mercy and pity to have been faithful in the
hour of trial, to have "fought the good fight, to have
kept the faith, to have finished my course,"—believing
that I risk much, and shall incur your Lordship's
heavy displeasure, who may, if you will, direct the
sword of power against me and mine—being certain
that I preclude myself from that which might other-
wise have been ink lot, and expecting that I shall
bring down upon myself the abuse and blame of
sonie—l say, my Lord, having fully counted the cost,
having weighed the sense of bounden duty in the one
scale against the consequences in the other, I have
come to the deliberate resolve, that on Tuesday next
no earthly consideration shall induce me to give my
vote in the chapter of Hereford Cathedral for Dr.
Hampden's elevation to the see of Hereford.
I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's
faithful humble servant,
JOHN MEREWETHER,
Hereford, Dec. 22. Dean of Hereford

DR. HAMPDEN AND THE DIOCESE OF
HEREFORD.

lIEREFORD, SATURDAY.—The forthcoming election
of a bishop for this diocese creates the most lively
interest here, which has been materially increased
during the last few days, in consequence of the deter-
mination expressed by the Very Rev. the Dean to
summon to the election proceedings, not only the
canons residentiary (in whom the election is generally
vested), but also the prebendaries non-resident.
The following is the citatory letter, calling upon
the prebendaries to attend:—

" TO THE REV.

" You are required to attend in the quire of our
Cathedral Church of Hereford, on Tuesday, December
the 28th, for the purpose of then and there proceeding
to the election of a Bishop of the said see of Hereford,
the same having become vacant by the translation of
the Right Rev. Thomas Musgrave, D.D., to the
Archbishopric of York, and, at the same time and
place, to proceed in the whole business of the said
election, with all its incidents, emergencies, and de-
pendencies whatsoever, until the final dispatch of the
said election, in such manner as, God willing, we
ought to proceed.
" Chapter House, Hereford, Dec. 23."
For several days past meetings of the canons resi-
den tiary, and of such of the prebendaries as reside in
the immediate neighbourhood, have been held for the
purpose of determining the course it will be advisable
to adopt at the forthcoming election, under the pecu-
liarly delicate circumstances in which they are placed.
The consultations have, for obvious reasons, been held
with closed doors, and the conclusion at which that
venerable body has arrived cannot, therefore, be stated
with any degree of authority.

THE JEWS AND THE CLERGY.
(From the 'Weekly Dispatch.)
Mr. Editor,--The removal of the civil disabilities
of the Jewish people has encountered a stou'er and
hotter opposition in Parliament than was anticipated.
The opposition cannot succeed. But it may retard
the good work; and the friends of religious liberty
throughout the country will do well not to despise it,
nor to neglect such aid as they can render towards
strengthening the hands of th,i Government. Hi-
therto the' activity hal:been chiefly "on 'the other side.
The tide of petitioning actually set in against the
measure. Up to the 11th inst. there were 57 peti-
tions against the removal of Jewish disabilities, and
only 10 in favour of removal; there were 3,181 sig-
natures to the former, and only 438 to the latter.
The last week only raised the number to 84
petitions against, with 5,589 signature; and 19 in
favour, with 2,511 signatures. The friends of
religious freedom are slumbering at their posts, while
the enemy is wide awake and sowing tares. This
should not be. The Whigs should be made to feel
that whenever they do propose really.liberal measures
they are sure of having the people at their backs.
Without that, we lose our right to blame them for
their defalcations. They may fairly ask, " Why
were we not better supported in our endeavours ?" A
good volley of petitions would be material for pelting
down more promptly this remaining bulwark of
legislative intolerance.
The Opposition is a headless one. All the party
leaders are combined in favour of admitting Jews to
Parliament. Lord John Russell, Sir R. Peel, and
Lord G. Bentinck, went out into the same lobby in
the division on the 17th inst. Mr. Gladstone fur-
nished a second memorable instance of the support of
Liberalism by a Member for the University of Ox-
ford. He played a similar part to that of Sir R. Peel,
who then represented the University in 1829, on the
question of Catholic Emancipation. But still the hos-
tility was fierce and formidable. It may, probably,
make a hard fight yet. The fact is puzzling at first,
for this is a question which many people had regarded
as already settled. The obvious reasonableness of the
claim, the recent admission of the Jews to corporate
honours, and, above all, the triumphant return of
Baron de Rothschild for the city of London, seemed
to indicate that the controversy was at an end, and the
victory certain. How, then, is the hostile explosion
to be accounted for? - It was fixed by a train laid out
out of the House. The clergy are its authors. By
them has the opposition been stimulated. Petitions
and speeches come from the clerical factory. They
are the gun-makers of intolerance, and have largely
distributed weapons from its armoury. And for the
strange fact that any difficulty exists to a Member
for the city of London, returned by near:y 7,000
votes, taking his place in the House of Representa-
tives, we have to thank the interference of the clergy.
The Universities led the way in petitioning against
the Jews, but otherwise the petitions are chiefly
parochial. The vicar signs first, then the curate ;
next the squire, if it be a country parish, or, if in a
town, the churchwardens. Then follow some three
dozen of frightened old women, some in their proper
dress, and some in breeches. The clergy understand
the tactics of petitioning : they make the most of
what numbers they can muster. London petitions
by its Corporation. The city of Worcester and the
borough of Portsmouth hold large meetings, and the
Mayor signs as chairman, and counts for one only in
the returns. Such things seldom happen on the other
side. The clergy are much more likely to get them-
selves counted twice or more, first petitioning by
themselves in their deanery or archdeaconry, and
then again in their parish churches. It is a good
plan, Mr. Editor, to look at the average of signa-
tures to petitions on any subject. A low average o f
signatures, with a large number of petitions, is a
sure sign that some manufactory has been at work.
In the present • case, though the intolerants have
presented so many more petitions than the Liberals,
yet, on the average, each petition against the Jews
is only signed by just one-half the number of those
who have subscribed petitions in their favour. Here
is a mark of clerical getting-up. This is evidence of
management. And more of the same sort of fabrica-
tion will be going on, all through the Christmas
holidays.
Sir Robert Inglis begged for the longest day that
Lord John Russell would give (Monday, the 7th of
February was fixed) for the second reading, that the
country might have time to protest against this
" outrage" on its religion. So we may guess how
the clergy will spend Christmas. The sacred time
will be divided, by many of them, between worrying
Dr. Hampden and petitioning against the Jews.
There is double game to hunt down. Two courses
will be served before the mince pies ; the roasted
heretic and disfranchised Jew. The bishop and the
baron will grace the top and bottom of the table.
Prayers will be offered against the desecration of the
House of Commons and of Hereford Cathedral. Perse-
secution will be puzzled to know at what to bite first,
like the donkey between two bundles of hay. What an
exhibition of the great Christian festival ! We shall be
told of the angels singing peace on earth and good-
will to men, by those who are showing the
that would keep the Jew a slave, and prolong the
reign of discord and persecution. Why, whose
birth is it that the Church commemorates ? Is
it not a birth in Jewry, the birth of a Jew ? What-

ever else, or more it might be, still it was
that. Not all the declamations of all the pulpits in
Christendom can make it otherwise. It was the
birth of one who came to proclaim universal love;
and it will be kept by petitioning for exclusive pri-
vilege. It was the birth of one who came to unite
Jew and Gentile ; and it will be kept by separating
them at the door of the house of Commons, the one
to be turned back as a serf, and the other to enter as
a legislator. It was the birth of one destined to die
by persecution, and it will be kept by fanning into a
flame the expiring embers of persecution. Faith will
carry priests anti bigots through much; but certainly
reason and humanity stand agha, t at these mon-
strous incongruities.
It is not merely the political rights of the Jew
that the clergy are opposing, but those of the people
generally ; amongst whom, the Jess s are but 40,000
out of 28,000,000. The theory of Government by
representation implies a free choice of representa-
tives. A candidate is injured when he is declared
ineligible for a seat in Parliament on account of his
religi ais opinions. He is s'opped in a career of
honourable ambition, and, it may be, of public
use-
t'ulness. This is a wrong But it is a greater wrong
to limit the freedom of the electors, and deny them
the man of their choice for the advocacy Of their
rights and the prot( ci ,n of their interests. The
exclusion of the Jew Member is the exclusion
also of the Christian constituency. The bigoted
clergy and their backers are waging war on the poli •
tical privileges of the city of London. They are
striving to obliterate one name out of the four re-
turned by the metropolitan constituency. Thus
pushing of their creed amongst the wheels of the
electoral machinery, so as to obstruct its working,
would be very impertinent, even if only tried upon
the smallest and remotest constituency in the country.
What business has any creed between the elector and
the elected? But the offence rises to a climax when
attempted upon what may be called, on many accounts,
the first constituency in the empire. There are more
numerous than that of London ; those of the great
northern counties, for instance, Yorkshire and Lan-
cashire. There are constituencies with a higher ave-
rage of intellectual attainment; those, for instance, of
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But in
both these cases the electors chiefly belong to two or
three classes of the population; to the agricultural,
the manufacturing, and the professional. London, like
the one, has a numerous constituency ; and like the
other, a comparatively high degree of electoral attain-
ment ; but it far surpasses both in the variety of classes
to which its voters belong. They have amongst them
persons connected with land and with manufactures;
with literature and the professions; and they have,
besides, almost every form of industrial occupation,
of consmercsal enterprise, of monetary speculation ;
all ways of individual life, and all modes of working
for society, are to be found there, rendering the
City electors peculiarly a representative constituency.
They are an epitome of the nation. They are the
heart of the empire, to which flows, and from which
is propelled, every drop of the social life-bloOd that
circulates at the extremities. Such is the constitu-
ency with whose rights a portion of the clergy i 3 try-
ing to tamper. In disregarding difference, of creed,
for political objects, London speaks for Great Britain,
and virtually is Great Britain. And, in endeavouring
to keep the return for London imperfect, or force its
electors to another choice, the clerical bigots have
assailed the liberties of the country. They have
struck at the most important right of the
most important body of citizens in the community.
Now this is really a bold enterprise. It is taking
the bull (John Bull) by the horns. 'Well may it be
asked, who are the men that venture on such an un-
dertaking? And when we remember that they are
only the State's hired servants, to read the Church
prayers, and teach the people religion and morals, one
cannot but conclude that their conduct evinces no

_.....
little presumption. They are out of their sphere of
duty. They are in a perilous position when they
thus thrust themselves between the city of London
and the House of Commons. Let them leave such a
question as that now pending to the great parties
whom it mainly concerns ; those, on the one hand,
who make Members of Parliament—who are the
makers of law-makers ; and those, on the other
hand, who hare been, directly or indirectly, the
makers of their Church, of their Bishops, and of their
religion.

A- hint has been thrown out that perhaps the
clergy may be better reconciled to the removal of
Jewish disabilities, if the revival of the powers of
convocation be allowed. They would doubtless
secure one gratification thereby, although they lost
another. Baron Rothschild would take his seat, but
Dr. Hampden would not put on hi..mitre. The sug-
gestion which was thrown out by Mr. Gladstone in
the late debate is a shrewd one; but it will not do.
The country is not reduced to such a compromise
with a section of the clergy. The Jew will be sworn
according to his conscience, and the heretic will re-
ceive Episcopal Consecration. Judaism will be in-
stalled in the Senate, and Liberalism in the cathe-
dral. Of the first, the Church has no right to com-
plain ; and to the other, the Church must submit, as
part of the price of its alliance with the State. From
that unholy alliance it derives obstructive power
against the admission, for a time, of the Jewish Mem-
ber for London into the Legislature; but the advan-
tage bitterly recoils, in the humiliation to which it
is subjected by the nomination of a bishop whom it
is anxious to disavow. The State rides roughshod
over its wishes, trampling on the reluctance of Dean
and Chapter, and the protests of half the bench of
bishops. If there be any power in experience to
teach wisdom, it may be hoped that the time will
come when the Church shall learn to consult its own
character, dignity, and best interests, by falling
back :nto the ranks of religious equality, and relin-
quishing a political connexion that, under the form
of ascendancy, subjects it to degradation.
PUBLICOLA.

Mn. LISTON.—We regret to learn, says the
Edinburgh Courant, that a son of the late Mr. Liston,
whose recent death has caused such general regret, died
on Friday, of an affection of the brain, at an educational
seminary in the neighbourhood of the city, where he
was pursuing his studies. The deceased was about six-
teen years of age.

IMPORTATION OF POULTRY.—The steam-ship, Sir
Edward Banks, arrived from Ostend, has brought ninety-
one cases and one basket of poultry, the produce of
Belgium.

HOW TO LIVE ON NOTHING A YEAR.—I wonder
how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by
great practitioners in Crawley's way—how many great
noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to
swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums,
and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a
nobleman has left for the continent, or that another
" noble" nobleman has an execution in his house—and
that one or other owe 6,1900,0002 or 7,000,000 L— the defeat
seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in the
vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber
who can't get his money for powdering the footmen's
heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by
fixiug up ornaments and pavillions for my lady's
dejeiiner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the
steward patronises, and who has pledged all be is worth,
and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has
done him the honour to bespeak ? When the great
house tumbles down the miserable wretches fall under

it unnoticed ; as they say in the old legends, before a
man goes to the devil himself he sends plenty of other
souls thither. Rawdon and his wife generously gave
their patronage to all such as chose to serve him. Some
were willing enough, especially the poor ones. It was
wonderful to see the pertinacity with which the washer-
woman from Tooting brought the cart every Saturday.
and her bills every week. Every servant was owed the
greater part of his wages, and thus kept up per force
an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid.
Not the blacksmith who opened the lock, nor the glazier
who mended the panes, nor the jobber who let the
carriage, nor the groom who drove it, nor the
butcher who provided the leg of mutton, nor
the coals which roasted it. nor the cook who basted
it, nor the servants who eat it, and this, I am given to
understand, is not untrequently the way in which people
live elegantly ou " nothing a-year." In a little town
such things cannot be done without remark. So,
probably 200 and 202 in Curzon-street might know what
was going on in the house between them, the servants
communicating through the area railings; but Crawley
and his wife and his friends do not know 200 and 202.
When you came to 201 there was a hearty welcome, a
kind smile, a good dinner, and a jolly shake of the hand
from the host and the hostess there, just for all the world
as if they bad been undisputed masters of 3,0001. or
4,0001. a-year--and so they were, not in money, but in
produce and labour; if they did not pay for the mutton,
they had it; if they did not give bullion in exchange for
their wine, how should we know? —Vanity Fair.
[ADVERTISBMENT.]—CARRIAGE FREE.—Families
residing in the country are supplied with Teas and
Coffees at the lowest wholesale price, in quantities not
less than six pounds, delivered carriage free to any part
of England. Orders must be accompanied by amit-
tance, or if a reference be made in London,od pare men t
will suffice on receipt and approval of the o
of prices and samples free, on application Gs.T Amlist
to
sell and Co., wholesaleG.
tea-dealers, 2, Bucklersbury,
Cheapshie.
IADVERTISEMERT.I—THR EARL 07 A LDBOROUCiII
AND HOLLOWAY'S I'ILLS.—AYI astou •
medicine, after every other means h astounding cure by this miraculous
" Villa
Lordship's letter, dated Messina,
failed. See extract from his
Leghorn, Feb. 21, 1845.
Professor Holloway—Sfr be, to acquaint
have
effected a cure of a disorder 0 acquaint you that youripas
eminent of the faculty, at home my liver
liver and stomach al
all over the continent, bad not
been able is effect; nay, not even the waters of Carlsbad. or Ma-
rienbad. (Signed) " AI,6OROUQ"PI." These wonderrul pills will
cure any disease of the liver or stomach.--told (also Holloway's
Ointment) at Professor Holloway's Establishment, 244, Strand, and
by all =oat maws MINH:OE4 the elTillied world.