The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-07 00:00:00

but they spurned a plan which went to put an end
to their being the exclusive possessors of some
peculiar advantages. He offered it to the poor,
and for a long time they did not understand it, nor
had they the means of acting on it. But how did
he offer it to them, and how have they at length
come to follow it in considerable multitudes ? He
went about amongst them, and he employed others to
go about amongst them, to ;ireach up its advan-
tages. He reduced it to practice in one or two
instances, and believed that he had succeeded. He
made no pretence of showing men the way to Heaven ;
he preached happiness on earth. He described in
glowing colours the great advantages of the co-
operative as contrasted with the competitive system
of society. He asserted that all men might live at
ease, and live in enjoyment, like the Bishops. The
Socialist tracts abound in representations of peace,
plenty, virtuous contentment, and happiness to be
enjoyed by all the members of the co-operative
communities. Men have been tempted into them
by the assertions that they can all be made to live
at their ease and in enjoyment like the lay and spiri-
tual Peers. Socialism, therefore, is altogether a
system for this world, and it is the belief that it
can procure many advantages here which has col-
lected thousands of the poorer classes around Mr.
OWEN'S standard. It is another illustration of the
principle that belief is more dependent on the plea-
sure derived from any doctrines than on their abso-
lute truth or falsehood. It is another illustration
of the fact that the physical destitution of the many
makes them eager for new guides, and ready to
listen to any doctrines which promise them relief.
Of the religious opinions professed by Mr. OWEN
we have no desire further to speak than merely to
refer to what appears to be their origin. It was
soon forced on his attention that the right of pro-
perty stood in the way of his co-operative principle,
and lay at the bottom of the competition to which
Le was opposed. But foolish parsons and foolish
politicians have sought to connect the right of pro-
perty with religion, and throw around it the sanctity
of an ordinance sanctioned by revelation from
the Deity. They have endeavoured to bolster
up political iniquities by ascribing them to a Divine
origin; they have claimed the Divine sanction for the
present political orders of society, which, in Mr.
OWEN'S opinion, are the source of so many evils ;
and hence, as it appears to us, he was led to ques-
tion the utility of the right of property, and led to
examine and condemn the prevalent systems of re-
ligion, because they interfered with his social ar-
rangements. His form of society does not grow,
like that of the Monks or the Rappites, out of
his religious opinions, but his form of society,
which was altogether dictated by worldly consider-
ations, led to his conclusions as to religion. Now
this explanation of his system makes it,
as it appears to us, entirely a subject for the reflec-
tions of the politician—for the deep, profound,
meditations of statesmen on the condition of the
poor, with which the priests, as such, as the guar
dians and preservers of a particular species of
knowledge which only bears incidentally on the re-
lations of this life, and is chiefly intended to show
mankind the way to life everlasting, have nothing
whatever to do.

They, however, have taken up the subject of
Socialism, and the Right Rev. Bishop of EXETER,
in the House of Peers, supported and followed by
some bigoted pupils, we suppose of his own,
amongst the Tories in the other House, has called,
or is to call, for a persecution of the Socialists, not be-
cause they claim to be the authors of a new revelation,
conflicting with Christianity, but because certain
earthly principles which they have adopted lead
them to deny or doubt the doctrines teaching a be-
lief in which confers such immense advantages on
the priesthood. Some time ago the Bishop of
EXETER persecuted in his own diocese the Me-
thodists and other Dissenters. We believe he was
beaten in the contest, though aided by the Tories.
The whole Church party, in fact, within recollec-
tion, were as outrageously violent against the Dis-
senters as they have of late been courteous, hoping
for their aid to crush the Catholics. Latterly
the Catholics have been the objects of the
Bishop's persecuting hostility ; and the Catho-
lics having grown too powerful to be assailed
with impunity and success, the Bishop and the
' clergy now fall foul of the Socialists. They think
that the Socialists are yet so weak, that over theni
they can achieve a great triumph. They are equally
cowardly and mischievous. We trust, however,
for the sake of perfect toleration, that the priest.
hood will be defeated. Let them now be encou-
raged, by the law being directed against the So-
cialists, to persecute men for a difference of opi-
nion, or a difference of faith, and where can they
stop ? If A theism be a crime, surely Deism, in the eyes
of the Bishops, must also be a crime. In fact, they
and their journals denounce the Socinians as worse
than Atheists. If the Socinians may be punished,
why not those who persist in seeing in the wine
and the bread, not symbols of salvation, but the
actual body and blood of the Saviour? If the
Catholics may be oppressed for their opinions, why
not the Methodists, or the Baptists, or the
Puseyites, or any sect of the Anglican Church,
by any other sect which happens to have a pre-
dominance of politicr! power? The Dissenters
and Catholics were excluded from office on account
of their opinions ; of late, a furious attempt has
been made to turn out the Ministry because they
appointed a Catholic to office, and now they are to
be censured for having given a place to a Socialist.
Such an uncharitable system ought to be univer-
sally decried, as equally contrary to good policy
and sincere Christianity.

The Standard says that the Ministers and their
friends are far from being satisfied with the result
of the debate and the division on Sir JoHN YARDE
BULLER'S motion. If they be not they are a most
unreasonable set of men, for both the debate and
the division turned out much more to their advantage
than they anticipated. The same Standard which
contains what we have quoted, also contains a letter
blaming two Conservatives for voting with the
Ministers, which shows a balance in favour of the
Ministers of four more than they expected. The
greatest majority, in fact, which their friends anti-
cipated, was 16 ! The Tories set the Ministerial
majority down as extremely doubtful ; they would
not have brought forward the motion without a
great probability of success ; and as the majority
was 21 against them, it overtopped all the hopes of
the Whigs and esually* disappointed the Tories.
So much for the division; as to the debate we
have already pointed out some very important
particulars, in which all its advantages were
on the side of the Ministers, and will
not now repeat them. If the Tories had the ad-
vantage of mere eloquence, which their scribes
claim, and we deny, it is impossible to withhold
from the Ministers the praise of superior honesty
and superior sagacity. The Tories proved them-
selves hypocrites—the Ministers were only charged
with a want of discretion. The Tories proved
themselves, by their own statements, totally in-
adequate now to govern the empire, and they only
accused the Ministers of incapacity. The House
of Commons decided that the charge was not
proved ; and while the Ministers were exonerated,
the brand remains on the Tories with which they
stamped themselves.
There is one statement made by the Tory
Journals in which we are disposed to concur. They
say, that had the question been, " Has the House
confidence in the Whig Ministers ?" the majority
would have been the other way. It is supposed
that there are many Members who, while they
voted to keep in the Whigs as far better than the
Tories, are by no means satisfied with them, and
would vote, if the question were asked, that they
had not confidence in them. But all those and
many more would, if a similar question were asked as
to the Tories, vote that they had no confidence what-
ever in them. If such a question were put as to a
Ministry composed of Sir IL PEEL, Sir .J. GRA-
HAM, and Lord STANLEY, the whole body of the
Whigs and Radicals, and not a few of the Ultra-
Tories, if they are as honest as the Radicals, would
vote a negative. Now this shows a somewhat re-
markable coincidence between the opinion of the
House of Commons and the opinion of the public.
Not one twentieth of the people profess confidence
in the Tories —a very small, though noisy and bust..
ling, minority indeed, who, being maintained in idle-
ness out of the annual produce of industry, devote
themselves to getting up a semblance of public ()pi- !
nion, but the bulk of the nation are decidedly anti-
Tory. A larger proportion,
but perhaps not above
a fifth of the whole people, profess confidence in
the Whigs. Out of the House of Commons,
therefore, as in the House of Commons, the naijo..
rity has not confidence in the Whigs, and has a inot
determined distrust of the Tories. So far as the Tory