The Sun.
London, England, 1840-07-10 00:00:00

year, there had been laid out in building and
repairing gaols 3,319,0001., without taking into
consideration the expences attendant on the main-
tenance of the inmates, the trial of criminals,
the transportation of convicts, &c., which may be
estimated at as much more. Now, a great part of
this money, he argues, would have been saved if
there had been more churches and parsons in the
land.

We are by no means inclined to take this for
granted, and we protest against any outlay of
the public money on such fallacious grounds.
So far from viewing the enormous expense
of our gaols as a reason for giving more money
to the clergy, we regard it as a strong ar-
gument against such a grant. Why is it
that we require so much gaol ? How comes it that
vice and crime prevail to so alarming a degree,
when we have so numerous an army of clergymen
spread over the country, for the very purpose of
keeping the people virtuous by their teachings and
their example ? Can there be a more severe con-
demnation of the clergy, or a more convincing proof
of the utter inefficiency of a State-paid clerical po-
lice, than the simple fact that so large a sum is ex-
pended on the punishment of crime ?
If the truth were told, it is because the Church
is so richly endowed that it is so powerless
as an instrument of moral correction. It is
not the palace-lodged Bishop, the stall-fed
Prebendary, or any other clerical personage,
too dignified to mix with the humblest
classes of society, that will ever influence those
classes for good. The men who expect to
reform the morals of the poor must not stand upon
the ceremonial observances practised at Oxford or
Cambridge. Neither must they be hirelings. Their
mind and soul must be in their work. They must
not think that their duties are done for the week
when they have delivered a drowsy sermon on
Sunday. If they have not in them that missionary
zeal which keeps them employed at all seasons—
which sends them into the cottage, the hovel, and
the cellar—wherever, in short, poverty, and misery
are to be found, they are not the men for the task
of reforming that class of the community from which
the great mass of criminals issue.
Now, State clergymen are by education and
habit, and, in many cases, by birth—such are the
conventional regulations of our social state—com-
pletely incapacitated for missionary labours. T;ley
have never succeeded in that capacity abroad,
still less can they be expected to succeed at
home. Why have the ministers of other sects mo-
nopolised the instruction of the black population
in our colonies, but because the State clergy—the
men of Cambridge and Oxford—will not submit to
those facrifices without which no good can he
accomplished ? They ate men of iefinement, fond
of ease, studious of elegance, and have no notion of
taking up their cross, at the expense of all that is
associated in their minds with the enjoyment of life.
It is, therefore, an utter delusion to hope that
any check will be given to crime by the multiplica-
tion—even ad iiffinitum—of such men, especially
after the lamentable proofs of their past inefficiency
with which the country abounds ; and to tax an
already overburdened people, of so many different
religious persuasions, for such a purpose, would
not only be an act of folly and extravagance, but of
the greatest iniquity.

The following official news from Paris, which
appeared in our Second Edition of last night, con-
firms the account published in 'Pie Sun of Wcd-
nesdav, of CABRERA'S flight into France, and the
termi!lation of the civil war, which so long deso-
lated the fairest provinces in Spain. The des-
patches were received by the French Government
on Tuesday evening, and . are quoted from the
Hfmiteur of Wednesday :

TELEGRAPHIC DESPATCHES:

" The Pr.::Let of the E,tern Pyrenes to the Minister o

the Ivterior.

" Perpignan, .Irily 6, Half-past Ten, A. NI.
" Berga is in the pow:r of the Chri,tinos. Curb) pur-
sues the faction, 100 of whom entered France this morning,
by Osseja. Cabrera, at the head of 4,000 men, is in signt ;
he trill probably enter Franca this night."
" The Prefect of the Eastern Pyrene;2s to the Minister of