The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-26 00:00:00

The Morning Post of yesterday, discovered that
Mr. M'NEILE was treading, in his last lecture, on
very dangerous ground. The Rev. Gentleman,
whatever he might wish, could not disguise the
truth. He seeks popularity and power after his
own fashion, and is a formidable rival to Dr.
CROLY and Bishop PHILPOTTS. According to
report, he is extremely popular in Lancashire, and
he has acquired his popularity by mixing much
with the people, uniting the two characters of a most
attentive pastor and a political leader. His swelling
self-satisfaction made him condemn much in the
Church, which is not according to his own practices.
Making himself the great examplar, from which he
drew, he dwelt with much energy on the necessity
of clergymen devoting themselves with zeal and
sincerity to their duties as clergymen, and to their
duties as politicians. All other pursuits he de-
nounced. A love of gardening,of 'arming, of art and
science, fell under his anathema, as well as the whist •
table and the race-course. He did not even tolerate
school keeping in beneficed clergymen, and rebuked
his reverend brethren who, as pamphleteers, writers
in Reviews, and Editors of Newspapers, weaken
the respect of the people for the pastoral character
by engaging in lay occupations. He would have
the priests confine themselves to preaching, praying,
visiting the sick, and denouncing an anti-Protestant
Government. He would have the clergy devote
their undivided energies strictly to their ecclesias-
tical duties, and so give them intense and papal
zeal to achieve a dowinion over their fellow-
creatures. Considering the legislative occupation
of the Bishops, and the pursuits of our most re-
nowned clergymen—the head-mastership of a high
school being the road to a Bishopric—we are not
surprised that our Tory Contemporary should have
discovered . that Mr. M`NEILE was treading on
dangerous grcund.
He did something worse than this, when he
described the mode in which the Church performs
the baptism of infants as a profanation of that
holy rite. The election of Bishops by the Chap-
ters, who are obliged to elect the persons recom-
mended by the Conge d'Elire, under the penalty ol
a premunire, he regarded as a degrading piece 01
hypocrisy, and wondered with what kind ol
prayer the venerable men could begin their
i mock election. College education, he made
out to be
pastoral character.w°futlY
art of subduing the souls of men.
Tdheefi eel.
leenr
gt y i
are n n form in. g the
vated, but not elocution, to which Mr. Greek
taught
the
art of subduing the souls of men. Greek is culti-
owes so much. The
,b
much-vaunted, venerated
Liturgy, too, he wished to have
passages e tatsesd,ge"ss of it,
oth a t
those clergymen who dislike manyr ek
might omit them, if they pleased. We infer from
this, and so will the public, that there are many
clergymen who object to parts of the Liturgy, and
yet who are obliged, for the sake of retaining their
, livings, to read and profess what they regard as
erroneous, or even as irreligious. Mr. WNEILE
himself must, of course, be one of those who ob-
ject to parts of the Liturgy, and the freedom of his
strictures on the ordinances, discipline, and practices
of the Church, as long as he remains in it; does a
great deal more honour to his judgment than to his
honesty.
We must draw one moral from Mr. M.NEILes
" dangerous " animadversions. For the sake of
this Church, which he describes as •so
~ imperfect, so inefficient, so hypocritical, peace is to
..1 be denied to Canada, and that colony e
ar s
be