The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-18 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Morning Post observes that the first French
revolution, set the fashion of sneering at all Church
Establishments, and goes on to say :—" Even at this
day there are many persons of hardened hearts and
contracted mental visions, who look upon the clergy as
rather to be tolerated for the sake of the prejudicies of
society, than to be upheld as the most useful body of edu-
cated men in this country." ir the clergy are so regarded
it is only because as a corporate body, they have too often
shown themselves inimical to the best interest of society;
because they have always been slow to admit the necessity
of sound reforms in their own establishment ; have gene-
rally sided with the oppressors against the oppressed ; and
have opposed every system of national education but
that over which they themselves could have the supreme
controul. These are some, among numerous other
reasons, why the Clergy are not so respected as they
should be. Religion has nothing to do with a question
of this sort, for people may be sincerely religious, thul
yet entertain but an indifferent opinion of its salaried
professors.

The Times, still harping on the Church question,
says :—" We see no reason to qualify our assertion that
the State does not now give, and has never given to the
Church of England any considerable advantage in
respect of property over any tolerated Dissenting sect."
One " considerable advantage " at least the State has
given the Church—and that is, the privilege of putting
her pious fingers into the pockets of all Dissenters who
from conscientious motives may demur to her discipline.
Our Contemporary adds, " The State has frequently
interfered to restrain the acquisition of property by
the Church, but never yet, on any considerable scale,
to promote it. If Sir R. Inglis would introduce a Bill
to remove some of these restraints, and to give more
scope to the beneficence of private Churchmen, it might
be a boon worth accepting." No doubt the parsons
would think so ; but does the Times really consider
Mother Church so poor, that it is necessary to bring in
a Bill removing all restraints on her acquisition of fresh
property ? The late Church Commission did not discover
that the old lady was so singularly lean in point of purse.
The Chronicle, resuming the question of free-trade,
and the presumed policy of the Tories, remarks as fol-
lows:—" Either the free-trade principles espoused by the
Liberal party are good, or they are bad. If they are
bad, the more solemn and distinct pledges they can get
from the Whigs of their adhesion to free-trade, the
better for the Tories. But if they are good, and if the
very men who turn out the Ministry for proposing them
know that they arc good, then we say, the Queen and the
nation have a right to know, explicitly and without dis-
guise, why they oppose them, and what they mean to do
themselves."

The Herald bewails the exceeding poverty of Mother
Church in these terms :—"The utter inadequacy of the staff
and the revenues of the Church on their present footing
to supply the demands for spiritual instruction of a po-
pulation whose rapid and gigantic increase has so far
outgrown the fixed limits assigned to the Clergy and
their endowments—these evils have been powerfully de-
monstrated. They are, among candid, well-informed,
and reasonable men, universally acknowledged."
This lament for the poverty -of the richest Church
Establishment in the world—which boasts an Archbishop,
whose income was reformed the other day to the tune
of fifteen thousand a year ; and who, in some shape or
other, affects the pockets of every class in the com-
munity, is infinitely ridiculous. But the Church and her
organs arc constantly crying out about their poverty. It
was but a few months since that an appeal to public
sympathy was attempted to be got up on behalf
.of the Bishop of London, who was said to be all but
in a state of insolvency, notwithstanding his income is
full twenty thousand per annum ! We suppose we
shall shortly see. the Church suing for
_public charity
in forma pauperis.

The Advertiser says—" The anticipated character
of th. 3 Queen's Speech is beginning to excite the fears of
the Tories. This is a circumstance of happy augury.
Most heartily do we hope that these Tory fears will be
proved by the event to be well grounded. It will be a
heavy blow, indeed, to a nation's fondest hopes if the
Royal oration of this day week do not more than justify
the most serious apprehensions of the factious monopo-
lists."