The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
The Tory Association of North Leicestershire held
its annual dinner last week at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. It
was distinguished by some novelty of tone in the
language used in reference to the Church. The dis-
covery appears to be made that all is not quite right
within the bosom of that venerable institution.
" Heavy blows and great discouragement" came not
from Whig Ministers alone, but frem internal
discrepancies, which, should the fashion of
de-
nouncing them spread at Conservative festivals, will
raise up a new phalanx of Church Reformers in an
unexpected quarter. On " the health of the Primate
and the Clergy" being given,
" The Rev. Dr. Evans, in acknowledging the toast,
said : In an assemblage so important and influential as
that I see before me, it is a proud but melancholy office to
return thanks in the name of the Bishop and Clergy of
the diocese for so cordial an expression of your attach-
ment to the Catholic Apostolic Church of your fathers,
established in these realms, under the present obscurement
of her glory, both from within and from without. From
within she is disturbed by the attempted revival of ancient
forms and ancient discipline, an attempt which those who
undertake to censure should at least read. But she is
still more distracted by the errors of an heresiarch, whose
proffered assistance was rejected in the settlement of our
ritual and symbolic writings, whose tenets and discipline,
wherever they have been admitted and embraced, says
Malmbourgh, the historian of Calvinism, have been at-
tended by rebellion, civil war, and misery.'"
Now, although we should be sorry to answer so
readily as the Rev. Dr. Evans for all the aspersions of
the Jesuit historian upon Calvinism, and although
we know not of any censors upon Puseyism, who
have not read its publications, half so severe as
are the censors by whom they have been read ;
yet we agree with the Tory Doctor, that the
present position of these two sects (within the Esta-
blished Church) is a very discreditable phenomenon,
and, we will add, that it demonstrates the necessity of
some reform to endow the Church with the usefulness
of a national institution. The Doctor's complaint tal-
lies with a curious case of conscience which was put,
not long since in the Morning Post, namely, whether
a clergyman who had obtained a living by means
of the " Simeon Fund," could be justified in retaining
that living after his conversion to Puseyism. The dif-
ficulty has not, so far as we have seen, been
solved for the anxious applicant ; and we know not
what has become of the doubting incumbent, his
conscience, and his living. The existence of the diffi-
culty, however, affords a remarkable illustration of
the present state of our ecclesiastical establishment,
and the necessity for some revision of its discipline.
With the amount or history of the Simeon
Fund we are unacquainted, except from what its
name imports, and from this specimen of its ope-
ration. It is, we presume, a fund for buying up
presentations to livings, and bestowing them upon trusty
preachers of High Calvinistic doctrines like those in-
culcated by the late eminent and pious Mr. Simeon, of
Cambridge. That is to say, it is a mixture of the
Voluntary Principle with that of a Church Establish-
ment, by which the moneys arc made to go further in
the purchase of Church funds than they would if be-
stowed directly upon the clergyman as a subscription.
The money power is thus not only brought to bear
upon the propagation of High C ilvinism, but it ob-
tains for those doctrines a portion of the influence
which necessarily belongs to the State Church. The
speculation seems a very advantageous one ; and, did
Dissenters look only to the spread of their doctrines
and not to their notions of Church government and reli-
gious equality, each sect might invest its voluntary con-
tributions in a similar way, with the prospect of a hand-
some return.. All might profit by this species of Simeon
simony. which is now, it seems, practised by the Simeon
sect. The Puseyites arc also a sect within the Church.
Whether they have, to any extent, become so by
purchase, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably
they have more facilities in possessing themselves of
livings without paying for them than the Simeonites.
Tne cost of the purchase in that case, is nothing more
than a solemn subscription, ex animo, to the Protestant
religion, which they are labouring to subvert. At any
rate they are a distinct body from the Simeonites ; so
distinct that converts may be made from one to the
other, and cases of conscience arise upon such conver-
sions about the retention of livings. Is not this a very
scandalous exhibition in a Church avowedly based upon
an act of uniformity ? Here are two conflicting reli-
gions within its very bosom. One of them is a new
form of that very Papistry front which the English
Church broke off, and the other is an extreme doctrine
to which that Church ( in the judgment of many great
authorities) did not advance. A previous question for the
consciences of both parties is, whether either of them
has any title to share of the revenues of the
Church of England, according to its present con-
stitution. is a Protestant Church established by law
for the emolument of those who denounce " the crimes
of the Reformation?" Was it endowed with nationsil
funds that doctrines might be advanced by means of
money-jobbing in those funds ? If such be the fact,
then all sects ought to have fair play. No preference
is due to Simeonites and Puseyites over twenty other
denominations quite as much in harmony with the
opinions of Protestant reformers. The tithes should
be thrown open for the speculations of propa-
gandists, and other Papists besides those of Oxford
should have their chance of profit from " the crimes
of the Reformation," and of rebuilding " ancient
forms and discipline" upon the " old foundations."
'There is no consistent medium between the sup-
pression of sects within the Church, and the equalised
condition of sects without the Church. It is most
unfair to tax the Independent for the emolument
of the Simeonite, and admit the Oxford Catholic,
while the Irish Catholic is excluded. By the tithes,
the nation pays for the Protestant religion, and not for
sectarian plunder or proselytism. The Tories seem not
exactly to know what to do with this schism. The
Quarterly Reciew committed itself by the memorable
article on Chartism, with its proposition for razing
half the metropolis, and drafting off the population of
Birmingham and Manchester into little rural feudal
colonies, each under the conjoint government of a par-
son and a squire. But the Tory press in general is
more cautious. It feels the difficulty which must some-
times befal a faction with great need of numbers and
no regard for principle. It is loath to lose either the
Oxford revivers of Popery in England, or the hot cru-
saders against Popery in Ireland. So it will first try
to keep both, and when that becomes impossible take
' to the strongest. Whether the " jolly full bottle "
Protestants of Tory festivals will hereafter shout for
the invocation of saints, or for the orthodoxy of Ge-
neva ; and which doctrine will be glorified in rounds
of Kentish fire, depends on the toss of a half-
penny, or rather, on the unforeseen contin-
gencies and expediencies of a dirty, factious, and
hypocritical policy. Meantime, we have a word of com-
fort for the Rev. Dr. Evans, in his " melancholy office,"
and those who mourn with him " over the Church's
present obscurement of her glory." The quarrel is a
very pretty quarrel, but it interests the clergy much
more than the laity. Against any gross perversion of
Protestantism into either priestcraft or intolerance the
public intelligence will be a defence. The clergy would
attract little censure by as large a latitude as they can
desire in their theological speculations, did they but
make honest provision for such comprehension, and
sympathise more with the people on great moral ques-
tions. And if the clergy do interfere in public business,
it is on such questions that their influence should be
felt. In party strife, in the conviviality of Tory Clubs,
in the corruption of contested elections, their aid is
neither decorous nor recommendatory. But when every
principle of Christianity and morality, as well as of
legislative justice and national policy, is violated by
an impost that diminishes the weight of the poor
man's loaf to increase the weight of the rich man's
purse, then it would well become them to interpose.
Then they should proclaim that " the labourer is
worthy of his hire" to the full amount of food which
that hire will purchase. The 6. obscuremcnt of the
Church's glory " would soon pass away, under such a
demonstration of her sympathy with industry and po-
bmvoeadrktyeys a.ntdh Telliab
The heresy of bread•taxism is destructive of
soul.
u rletrismerdirbs
sitheebilndattourtable a
factoryffect io w
n s ,
when
he ought to be at school. It sinks the peasant into a
serf,o
b andrc the e
strife.serf
intNoVhay dfaomnisohtedtbbrulteer.gy Itp preach
bdleist
the
down ? Why do they not animate thee clergy
people to choose
legislators who will vote for " daily bread " to those who
earn it ? Such conduct would endear the Church to
' the heart of millions, and enable it to smile at any
" heavy blow or great discouragement " that could ever
be inflicted, either by the Whig indifference which it
imputes, or by the Tory apostacy to religious liberty,
which its bigoted members will never forget •
or forgive.
(From the Times.)
In the strange picture of the misdirected efforts of
the French in Africa which we exhibited the other day,
we endeavoured to point at this great truth—that
national influence is not to be seized by sudden violence
or acquired by the most enormous sacrifices of the hour;
nay, that it is rather depreciated and damaged by the
display of mighty means leading to such slender results.
The most striking contrast which we can present to
this remarkable instance of faithless aggression, cruel
warfare, and unrewarded hardships, is to be found in
the position of our own country with reference to the
other Powers of Europe, and more especially with re-
ference to the vast populations of Asia. It is a part of
our glory that the greatest hosts and armadas have been
armed not by us but against us, and that they have been
armed in vain. It is our boast that the Indian principa-
lities and powers, taught by
our rule to share, not to pe-
rish by, the arts of European
warfare, are held in obedi-
ence to our sway by a British army not amounting in force
to one-half of the garrison of Paris. It is most of all our
pride, that wherever the British race, the British lan-
guage, and the beloved liberties of England are striking
root in a strange soil, they are not planted by the
bayonet nor protected by military
force ; and in the
wide lands of Australia we have a people springing ra-
pidly to life and power, who afford probably the first in-

stance since the world began of a great colonial posses-
sion established without either external war or internal
bloodshed. We have frequently taken occasion to re-
monstrate on the frequent inadequacy of our forces both
by sea and land to the performance of the boundless du-.
ties to which they are called ; for it becomes the nation
to demand ample protection for its wide-spreading inte-
rests, as it becomes the Government to be
prepared to repel by arms the attacks which other
nations may make by arms. But greatly do they
err if they suppose that arms can give to them,
or take from us, the influence which they view with
affected mistrust and with ill-dissembled jealousy.
That influence is due to the perseverance, the modera-
-1 tion, and the judgment by which it has been acquired,
and is upon the whole exercised ; if these qualities
ware wanting, the glory of the greatest nation would
be tarnished, the strength of the strongest dissolved.
This is evidently) not the standard of excellence to
which the French aspire ; and we can only lament for
them and for the world that their ambition should ad-
dict itself to such different and suicidal purposes. It
might be inferred from the national passion for arms
that France owes every thing to military success, and
that her history contains no record of successful en-
terprises but those which have been begun by the
sword. But, in fact, the very reverse is the case. It
would not be difficult to show that the history of French
wars, from the beginning of the 18th century to
the last peace, has been accompanied with the decline
of that colonial greatness to which she still aspires.
At the earlier period to which we refer, the French
held many of the finest colonial possessions in the
New World. They divided with Spain the island
of St. Domingo, inferior in size to Cuba alone, infe-
rior in fertility to none. They occupied in the most
northern part of the American continent, the St. Law-
rence and its shores, up to the great lakes, and down
to the harbours on the coast—a position which placed
at their disposal the fur-trade of the north, the mili-
tary command of the country, and a boundless field for
enterprise and improvement, encircling the whole of
North America. Far, in the more southern latitudes
of that continent, the French plantations on the Mis-
sissippi, and the French port of New Orleans, gave
them the command of the other great American river,
and consequently of all those mighty resources which
time and the British race have since called into activity,
from the swamp and the prairie, the once solitary river
and the primaeval forest. In the south of Asia the
same great beginnings, supported for a time with
energy and ability, enabled the French East India Com-
pany to dispute the commercial and growing political
power of the British merchants trading to the East In-
dies. It is common in France to hear a vast deal of
jealous and ignorant declamation on the history and the
nature of British dominion in India , but, strangely
enough, amongst a people so covetous of national
honour, the names of their own great Indian servants
Labourdonnais, Dupleix, Bussy, and Lally, have been
as ill-treated by posterity, as the men themselves were by
their contemporaries. We do not enter into a discussion
of the system of colonization pursued by the French, nor
do we here pretend to account for the fact that they
have planted mere shrubs, dwarfed in their growth and
limited in their duration, whereas the colonies of Eng-
land have thriven like forest trees. But this much is
certain—that the undertakings which were vigorously
planned by some of the greatest statesmen who ever go-
verned France, were first thwarted by their military cha-
racter, and finally lost by the fortune of war. Vat it is
by military means and by war that the French, in
spite of our contrary example and their own expe-
rience, persist in straining to aggrandize themselves.
The very same thing which has occurred in other
parts of the world is now repeated in Africa. France
availed herself of the general peace and the general
dread of war to get a footing (no matter by what
means) on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean.
She occupies province after province, port after port,
and converts the loose towns of the Arabian Emirs
into strongholds for her army. This occupation ex-
tends over nearly ten degrees if longitude ; but it is
a military occupation, and nothing more ; it has been
acquired by the sword, and pill perish by the sword ;
and it weakena France, as France must be weak-
ened by the fortifications of Paris, or by any other
huge display of material power intended to supply
the place of that moral power which she has not
got. Unfortunate y, such attempts not only do
not supply it, but they demonstrate the absence of
it. Since we touched upon this subject, we have
received a very curious paper by M. Blanqui, who
was sent to Africa in 1839 to inspect the state of the
colony. The accounts this document contains far
exceed the statements of hardship and loss we had
ventured to make. In the month of October last
the army lost 1,500 men ; and the number remaining
in " what are called hospitals in Algeria" was 12,000.
The garrison of Miliana lost two-thirds of its force in a
few weeps, and the same ravages took place at Medea,
Blidalt, and Douera. Men have been used up faster
than ammunition. After ten years' occupation, 300
men are required to carry a letter, and 3,000 to escort
a convoy even at the gates of Algiers. The army is
not provided with beds or barracks ; and some time
ago a battalion of 800 men was reduced to subsist for
three days on snails! What, then, is the suggestion
which accompanies these horrible official disclosures ?
Simply, that the war should be carried on upon a larger
scale ; and that Gen. Bugeaud should be placed at the
head of an effective force of at least 80,000 men for the
purpose of extirpating by one vast effort all the hos-
tile, tribes. The scheme is as foolish as it is extrava-
gant and atrocious ; for the Arabian horsemen will be
driven into the desert, where no European troops can
follow them, only to return with renewed fury to their
secular warfare. The reflection which these facts produce
in us is, that Algerine piracy itself, and all the miseries
of Christians pining in barbarian fetters, were less grie-
vous to our race and our religion, certainly far less
costly to human life and happiness, than these fierce
inroads of French civilisation.
We have perused with uncommon diversion an analy-
sis, in the Moniteur, of an Essay on the British Adminis-
tration of India, read to the French Institute, by M.
Blanqui, aine. That learned individual, in describing the
various kinds of land revenue in India, assured his audi-
tors that the Ryot-war tenure derived its name from its
extreme severity, and signified literally la guerre aux pay-
sans, evidently mistaking the Indian adjective termination
war, for the English word war.

( From the Morning Advertiser.)
;Ile question of the fortification of Paris is one with
which we have scarcely meddled, except in a very sum-
mary Fay ; and for two reasons, each of which had its
proper weight with us. The first, that we have no right
to inter fare with the follies of our neighbours, whatever
guise they may assume ; and the second, that we were
in hopes that reason would in the course of time resume
her empire over their minds, and put to flight the absurd
and false fears upon which the project was based. Now,
however, that the Committee, of which M. Thiers was
appointed the Chairman, has made its report, and that
report is in favour of the establishment of the fortifila-
dons, we may be excus..ld if we express our decided opi-
nion, that nothing was eve
conceived in the wildest days
of the French revolution so calculated to degrade the
people of France in the eyes of Europe as that of erecting
a series of a forts, or wall of cireumvailation, round Paris.
The idea that either England or any European Power en-
tertains the slightest idea of invading France, or march-
ing upon Paris, without gross and unnecessary provoca-
tion, is an absurdity, as M. Thiers arid his master, Louis
Philippe, perfectly know ; while, as a means of averting
such an attack, supposing it to be intended, the pro-
posed fortifications are utterly valueless, A Napier or
a Wellington would blow them to atoms in fewer mi-
nutes than it took days to erect them. with a pow-
erful army and a numerous cavalry, both the garrisons
and the capital could be easily starved into submission
or revolt—and France would have to witnese the de-
plorable spectacle of seeing the guns of her own forts
converted into the instruments for the destruction, in-
stead of the preservation of her capital. A lne of
forts, as proposed by the Committee of the French
Chambers, extending over a circuit of 50 miles, is worthy
of the wisdom of those who conceived the erection of the
great wall of China, and is an equally prudent and po-
litic undertaking. It is useless for external defence ; but
it is An admirale scheme for dominating insurrections=
in the capital of France, and conferring upon Louis'
Philippe the power of suppressing any unpleasant ex-
plosion of public opinion. It was to please this long-
cherished phantasy of his Sovereign, and by pleasing
it, to maintain his position as Premier, and carry out
his undefined schemes of glory and grandeur, that M.
'Thiers threw out the captivating bait ; but although
Louis Philippe was delighted with the one, he did not
by any means relish the other, and hence, having gained
his ends, he turned out M. Thiers to wonder at his
own folly and deplore the stupidity which had induced
him to throw the game into his enemy's hands. Thiers,
in fact, has been caught in his own net. He would
now give anything, either not to have proposed or ap-
proved of the fortification of Paris. What a handle
for opposition to the Guizot Cabinet would it not have
proved in the hands of such a skilful orator ! With
what appearance of patriotic hocesty might he not have
reused the masses—paralysed the' Government of his
successor, and made even Louis Ph;lippe tremble on
his throne ! But that chance M. niers was too in-
cautious to reserve, and he has now be...n obliged to
report in favour of a scheme which he knows to be un-
national in spirit and intent, and which he curves in his
heart as an insurmountable barrier to his roturn to
power and political influence. So perish all ende..l
to gain power at the expense of the liberties of tt.he
people—and their abettors with them ! yours

(FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF SATURDAY.)
(From the Globe.)
We yesterday devoted some space to an illustration
of the " public services" of Lord Strangford, for which
we were indebted to the columns of the Times ;
and which we put forth to exemplify the worth of the
recommendation which the same Journal furnished to
the son, founded on the eminent public services of the
father, in order to aid him in his attempt to enter Par-
liament as Member for Canterbury. We will today
employ a brief space on the other candidate, for whose
success the Times, in the same article, evinces a deep