The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-30 00:00:00

CHIVALROUS DEFENCE.

(From the Morning Herald.)
Great efforts are now making by the anti-Church
faction to build up tithe grievances, whereupon to erect
the battering ram of agitation against the temporalities
of the Establishment.
These pious " volunteers," whose confederacy with
Romanists and infidels against the Church of the Re-
formation, proves how pure and righteous are their
principles, have lately been parading in the Journals
devoted to their cause, preparatory to a public sub-
scription, the case of a " Widow Young," who it ap-
pears, has been attached for contumacy in the Eccle-
siastical Court, she having been sued for 31. 103. tithe
in arrear.
The sui-disant " sympathisers" on this occasion as-
sert that the widow Young has been wrongfudy sued in
the Ecclesiastical Court, and wrongfully imprisoned.
If so, she will have her action for false imprisonment,
or might be delivered from her illegal durance on a
writ of habeas corpus. But that would not answer
the purpose of the agitators. Their interference in
the matter does not arise out of any real sympathy with
the alleged wrongs of the widow Young. Their ob-
ject is to make the case of that imprisoned lady a
" stalking horse" for shooting their envenomed shafts
at the clergy of the Establishment, and for opening a
furious attack upon the Ecclesiastical Courts, which
the Courts of Common Law can always restrain and
control whenever they exceed their proper jurisdiction.
If the widow Young was cited in the Ecclesiastical
Court in a case beyond its jurisdiction, the Queen's
Bench, if applied to, would have issued a grit of pro-
hibition to stop the suit ; and no imprisonment could
have taken place, for there can be no contempt where
there is no authority. We, however, have no other
knowledge of the case than what we can collect from
the fiery partisans of anti-Church warfare, on whose
statements no unprejudiced person would place much
reliance. We have not yet heard the other side, but
we have heard enough to be convinced that whether the
widow Young has been lawfully or unlawfully impri-
soned, the Church has been attacked, and if the Rev.
Dr. Lyle has done wrong, the whole body of Church-
of-England clergy are to be made responsible for his
default.

John Thorogood was a Church•rate " martyr," who,
being in arrear for Church-rate upon a tenement to the
amount of a few shillings, chose to appeal to the Eccle-
siastical Court from the lay jurisdiction of the Justices
of the Peace, empowered to hear and determine claims
of Church-rate not exceeding 10/. John, having so
appealed, chose to become contumacious, and was ,
com-
mitted to prison, not because he refused the payment of
Church-rate, but because he had committed a contempt
of the Ecclesiastical Court. If John had allowed the
Justices to decide the case, his person would have been
in no danger of captivity, for the amount due—viz.,
9s. 2d., would have been levied by distress upon his
• goods and chattels, but that would not hays afforded
him so opportunity of " martyrdom." So John quali-
fied for a prison by refusing to submit to the jurisdic-
tion of the lay tribunal, and by committing a contempt
of the ecclesiastical one. The speculation turned out
a very profitable one, and the voluntary " martyr" be-
came plump in person and purse by refusing to submit
to the laws of his country, and by preferring the receipt
of a public subscription to the payment of a lawful debt.
Another voluntary Church-rate " martyr" in the per-
son of Mr. Baines has since appeared on the public
stage ; but as his case is yet sub judice we forbear
making any further comment upon it at present. It
produces, however, none of the excitement which John