The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-17 00:00:00

Otfiening f-.!,Aut

LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1847,

The principle of religious tolerance is triumphant .
Virtually and morally the question of Jewish disabili-
ties is already decided, and one of the noblest of the
Hebrew race in England will very speedily be per-
mitted to enter Parliament as a representative
of the British metropolis. After the brilliant and
logical oration delivered yesterday evening by Lord
JOHN RUSSELL; after the sagacious arguments of
Mr. W. J. Fox; after the close reasoning and the
syllogistic explicitness of Mr. GLADSTONE ; and es-
pecially after the eloquent and impassioned adjura-
tions pronounced by the lips of Mr. DISRAELI, it
would be preposterous to anticipate any other con-
clusion to the discussion upon the motion introduced
by the Prime Minister, than one' which will vindicate the
Constitution of the empire, and proclaim the Christianity
of its inhabitants. To effect this double advantage,
those expressions must be expunged from the Oath
of Abjuration which have hitherto tended to the ex-
clusion of Israelites from the national Legislature.
As the Noble Premier averxed, the measure is
"rather a moral than of t‘.. physical or political
necessity." It is a moral necessity that the law should
not pronounce a Jew disqualified from serving as a
burgess in the Imperial Parliament, simply because of
the doctrines of his, august and venerable faith, and
yet have the inconsistency to countenance the
naturalization of the Jewish people, their elevation
to the magistracy, and their nomination to a seat
in our municipal corporations.* It is a moral
necessity that such incongruities should beobliterated
from the statute-book; that the senators of the United
Kingdom should prove themselves to be Christians
by the exercise of that charity which is the most
glorious among its virtues; that the same indulgence
should be shown towards the children of ABRAHAM
as is already displayed towards the disciples of
ARIUS, of WILLIAM PENN, and of all the mourn-
ful but glorious promoters of infidelity.
Already, in 1830, the same proposition was negatived
by the House of Commons as the one just introduced
by the First Miniater, of the Crown. The time had
not arrived for the consummation.of the great crusade
in favour of religious freedom. The population was
scarcely prepared for the recognition'of that sublime
principle. Since that period a marvellous change
has been effected, not merely throughout the inhabi-
tants of these realms, but throughout the length and
breadth of Christendom. Popular opinion is unani-
mous in its advocacy of tolerance in matters of an
ecclesiastical character. It would sweep into oblivion
those execrable penal enactments against the profes-
sion of Roman Catholicism which are the last shreds
of the dark and bloody code of fanaticism. It would
abrogate everything that tends to the depression
of the Hebrew or the heretic. It would as soon re-
vive the devilish animation of an auto-da fe as it
would dream of allowing the resumption of our old
er Comburendo,
system of bigotry. It would as readily subscribe to
the ordonations of the law De Iketico
as it would think of e. t*Anabaptist from a JEC ing an
town-hall, or a Wesleyan from the courts of justice,
or a Quaker from the House Of Commons. Public
Opinion has gradually ripened to this state of uni-
versal tolerance; it views the fundamental dogma of
the constitution in
precisely the same light
as that in which it is pourtrayed by
Lord JOHN RUSSELL ; it considers that
" every English subject is entitlEd to the privileges
and advantages which the British Constitution
yields, that religious opinions ought not to be a bar
or disqualification of
those rights, that the laws of
England are the birthright of the people, and that
'
there is no greater hardship to the people than to
be deprived of the privilege of serving
their prince or
their country." Public Opinion is so far actuated
by these ennobling
sentiments that it is solicitous to
see the invidious distinctions of creed removed from
the scheme of our Government ; And all the more
intellectual Members of the House of Commons
are proclaiming their coincidence with Public
Opinion.

Zealous as the minorit
=,;t
f the dissentients have proved
themselves to be, in they°G
persons of Sir R. 11. INGLIS,
AOULBURN, Mr. BANICES, Mr.
Lord ASNLET, Mr.
s SirT.
that
fervour originating
with the vigour ofeftru_ith, tch: Narpd,9tuhFeyo
of sincerity,
cfienridtyt,haant
de
prejudiceP.n us ie nEi , and
impotent
foirnynsaurpietyrs.titTiohne and sustained by
When brought into collision
Abjuration
j uormatnioipnotiesnc
jeustified- w
t Member
e provem be
r
Learnedus Honourable and
the University of Oxford
defy may
the wording of the Oath of
by every precedent in our
national annals, "from
thedays of ALFRED the
.
GREAT to those of Praise God-Bare-Bones, and from
Praise-God-Bare-Bones to the time of the Revolu-
tion," but the sententious language of the Premier
overthrows his historic appeal—that sententious
language which rises almost to the dignity
of an aphorism —" An Act . of Parliament
will not maintain the
Christian character
of the country." Lord Asti"
Y may recoil
from the homely force of that remark of Mr.
MACAULAY, that " to talk - of an
as
die essentially Chris-
tian Government was about
as to talk of
essentially Protestant cookery, or essentially
acknowledge
Chris-
tian horsemanship," hut he
must the
accuracy of the observation madeh
y Mr. GLAD..
STONE, that the Government could
i scarcely be un-
Christianized by the obliteratiOn
,2,f a mere phrase,
for that with the admission of a feyr
Jews into the
Parliament, " the overwhelming
the legislative body must still remain majority of
Chris-
tians." Believing, moreover, as
all Christians
do, in MOSES and the Prophets,
asremembersthe professors
ng that
Israelites adore the same Go]) professors of
Christianity, andthat they both acknowledge
the same
argument in
revelation, it becomes an irresistible
favour of the proposed innovation when
the author of
out
`` Tancred" and " Coningsby" calls to us in his

wff i
he ioe nht 0 l
d countycom .
* In a clever pamphlet by Dr. Barnard Van Oven (re-
cently published by Effingham Wilson, and entitled
thus "Ought Baron de Rothschild to sit in Parliament?"
the writer enumerates several of the more distinguished
among those Israelites who have availed themselves of
magistrates,
partial
for example, emancipation. he
aAmmoon nggt thehs particularizesthose
I). Salom o n , ,
;Davidson, Da Costa, Lousada,
EN.; Sir M. Montefiore, Bart.; Baron Meyer de Roth;
those in our Indian Government,
child, and B. Cohen, Esq.; among the active town
those in our Colonial Houses
coun-
cillors, B. Phillips, Loudon, E. Moses, Portsmouth, and
and
ds
sißarnett,oua i a
Phillips;oura n 3
aßirminghamnrgmiea
among
Ellis and Davidson;
of Assembly, Lawrence, Hart, Magnus, Phillips, and
Sangineti; among those who have risen more promi-
nently at the bar, Goldsmid, Waley, and Jessel; in the
fine arts, Hart, (R.A.), Solomons, Selman, Goodman,
and Mocatta; and in our literary.j.nstitutions, Gompertz
(Kits.), Dracb, (F.R.A.S.), and Professor Sylvester.
Out of these we may especially mention the name of Sir
Moses Montefiore as that of one of the most enlightened
philanthropists of the age.