The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-31 00:00:00

rity should from time to time seem either necessary or
expedient."
And it is the duty now of those who aro in the place
of authority to meet the present exigency of the times,
and without altering in any respect the doctrines of our
liturgy: to render it more suitable to the taste and
habits of the people.

Can any person wonder that such a hodge-podge,
such a chance-medley, droned out Sunday after
Sunday, should fail to excite in this generation the

spirit of devotion, and fail to give them any con-
solation when they are in distress. Now, what is the
remedy which this writer,: having so clearly shown
the inefficiency of the Church, proposes ? To
give us more Bishops, forsooth, though in a some-
what different character. No attempt is to be
made to purify doctrines—none to examine into their
truth—none to demonstrate their utility. All these
things are to be taken for granted, and a dose of
more priests is to be administered to cure the
poison of priestcraft :
You have commenced, my Lord, the work of reform ;
you must not stop—you must advance much further.
Four-and•twenty Bishops, peers of the realm, with in-
comes corresponding to their rank and station might
suit very well with the feudal system ; and even after
the abolition of this systcm, as long as the spirit of it
continued to pervade the land.t While the greater
part of the wealth, the political influence and power of
the country, was vested in a landed aristocracy, and the
people looked up to the peer or the esquire with some
of that reverence with which their forefathers regarded
their feudal chiefs, the same episcopal order might suit
the habits and notions of the people ; but duringlthe
last fifty years, a mighty change has come over us.
Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds,
&c., may he said to have come into existence with their
still increasing thousands, unconnected with the aristo-
cracy, with no aristocratic feelings, but rivalling the
peers in wealth and in political power. And if you
hope to retain these towns within the pale of an Epis-
copal Church, the number of our Bishops must be
greatly increased. Each of these towns requires its
separate Bishop ;4. not a Peer of the realm,
but an individual of an income from 1,5001. to 2,000/.
a-year, such as to enable him to live respectably, but
not to vie with the wealthy merchants and traders of
these flourishing towns. His influence must arise from
his sacred station, his exemplary conduct, his Christian
benevolence, his pious conversation ; and your Lordship
can scarcely imagine the weight and influence that such
an individuel would have in these places, both in a re-
ligious and political point of view.
lit 1834, the Church Commissioners lost the oppor-
tunity which then occurred, of introducing Suffragan
Bishops, whereby much of the evil now complained of
might have been remedied. It was generally under-
stood that they would have recommended this measure,
but the Episcopal members of the Commission feared
that by such a step their seats in the House of Lords
might be endangered. As in many other cases, this
human policy may hasten the measure it was intended
to prevent.
The great pressure of business which now falls upon
the Bishops, from the lengthened sessions, and nume-
rous important measures. submitted to Parliament, the
increased population, the building of churches, the va-
rious benevolent societies, which they so properly
patronise, fully occupies their time, and tends
alarmingly to secularise the office of a Bishop.
If things continue as they are, the individuals,
who in future occupy the Bench, must be to-
tally different from those of former days, whose
names are the ornament and glory of our Church.
These and all similar measures, however, while
they demonstrate the inefficiency of the Church,
will fail to restore its vigour and efficiency. Its
day is past. No art or skill can revive the dead.
The parsons have murdered the Church, without a
hope of resurrection. The time is gone by when
these gentlemen, like the Augurs of Rome, laughed
with glee, as they met each other in the streets, at
their own success in cheating the multitude. They
now know that they are detected. They are filled
with dread, they tremble, and confess. Will the
world be fool enough again to believe and trust
them, and give them absolution ? They have
failed under the most favourable circumstances ;
what can be expected from them in these adverse
Imes ?

* I have been informed:that, at the public dinners an-
nually given at Lambeth by his Graco tho Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Litany is read immediately before dinner ;
the custom having been retained from the time when this
meal was at eleven o'clock.
t A writer in the Quarterly Review proposes as a re-
medy for the existing evils, that our large towns should be
partly depopulated, and the feudal system partially re-
stored. However absurd and wicked such a notion, the
writer evidently thinks and allows that our present eats.
blishmant is suited to a state of feudalism, but not to the
existing order of things.
No proceeding of the Church Commissioners was
more inconsistent with the object for which they were Ap-
pointed than their arrangement respecting the see of Bris-
tol. Here was one large town with a residence for a
Bishop, and they virtually merge this see in that of Glou-
cester, one of the Commissioners undertaking to add to his
diocese, already too extensive for the superintendence of
one individual, the care of a city containing between one
and two hundred thousand souls.

The case of SA RAH YOUNG is acquiring much
celebrity, and exciting considerable sympathy. She
has been unjustly and illegally put in prison at the
suit of one Dr. LYLE—called by courtesy, we be-
lieve, a Christian minister—and kept in prison for
several mouths. An abstract of her case, with
the bearings on it of Captain PECHELL'S Act,
passed in 1835, for the recovery of tithes, will be
found i❑ another part of The Sun. We will not
attempt to gild the refilled gold of our Contempo-
rary lest we should tarnish and spoil it, and there-
fore will not make any remarks on the case itself.
Taking another course,wc may remark that both.the
Times and the Herald have within this week made
severe attacks on the administration of the law ; the
former fell furiously foul of Mr. Justice PATTISON
for the injustice of some of his sentences,and the latter
assailed the sentences of some Police Magistrates.
They seem to wish to keep a monopoly of this re-
probation of injustice and illegality in their own
hands, and both of them have resented the notice
of the case of SARAH YOUNG by the Liberal
journals as if it were an infringement of their own
domain, while they, in common with almost
every writer in the country, hold up the Courts of
Law to public contempt, by continually pointing at
the injustices they commit. The Herald treats it
as an offence that the public attention has been
:directed to SARA it YOUNG, and rather scolds that
she did not apply to the Courts of Law for redress.
She might have done that, or her friends might
have done it for her, were the Courts accessible
and the laws what they ought to be. But who
can tell either what the law is, or how, in any case,
it will be administered ? The greatest reliance, we
believe, was placed on the law in the case of Mr.
BA INES, but he obtained no redress from it. lie
is left to languish in prison for insisting on having
a conscience. Could SA RAH YOUNG'S adviser,
however certain he may be that she has been most
illegally and cruelly treated, be sure that on some
quibble or other the Courts would not deny her
justice ? If he doubted the Courts —as
what rational man can have any con-
fidence in such a lottery where fiction
draws all the tickets ?—he was quite right in
appealing to the public as the quickest and safest
way of getting SARA II YOUNG released. As a
last resource a man may apply to a Court, but as
long as any other means of redress is open to him
he should keep out of Court.

The Times, more careful than the Hcra/d, con-
fines its remarks to a declaration that Liberal
Journals intended to puff Captain PECUELL, and
so gets up a counter puff for Lord LYNDHURST.
It labours to destroy the merit of the Captain, and
weave a wreath for the Lord. The Noble Lord, it
seems, excluded Ireland from the operation of the
Bill, and because he was not then blamed, the
Times sets him down now as deserving praise.
Neither of the Tory Journals, however, ventures to
show that the law is just, and that it ought to be
honoured. In truth the case of SARAH YOUNG
is but a type of the whole law. It never was
made to protect the people, the Courts
never were intended to do them justice.
Where man and man only are concerned in some
disputed commercial transactions, the Courts may
do justice impartially between them; but whenever