The Sun.
London, England, 1834-05-19 00:00:00

served this day as they thought proper, and
with the unquestionable liberty of human action.
And for whom is Parliament called upon to le-
gislate ? Tor Scotland, whose religious esta-
blishment is Calvinistic and Puritan—for Ire-
land, whose population is chiefly Roman Ca-
tholic, but partly Presbyterian and members of
the Established Church—for England and
Wales, whose inhabitants entertain as great a
variety of religious opinions as the number of
heresies recorded in the catalogues of Augustine
and Epiphanius. Nor do our active modern
Sabbath-legislators appear to know that penal
statutes actually exist for securing a legal ob-
servance of the Sunday on many compulsory
points sought to be further attained through the
agency of new laws. The statute of Elizabeth
.exists—a dead letter—which ordains that all
persons not having " a lawful or reasonable
excuse" shall attend some place of worship on
a Sunday on pain of the censure of the Church
and the forfeiture of one shilling to the poor.
Various laws of Charles I. and Charles 11.
are still " alive" in the statute-book, prohibiting
every species of Sunday trading, with some ex-
ceptions in favour of bread, meat, and milk.
A select number of watermen are allowed to
ply on the Thames, and we have already a
superfluity of laws for the observance of the
Sunday unknown—unobeyed—obsolete. Surely
then we may, without being suspected of irre-
ligion, or a propensity to Sabbath-breaking,
again record our protest against this rage for
abortive legislation. The body of Sir Andrew
Agnew's bill has begotten the monstrous pro-
geny of four other bills, now pending in the
House of Commons ; and what must be the
necessities of Christianity when Lord Wynford
hobbles into the " House of Lords" with a bill
entitled " An act for the better observance of
the Lord's Day, and for the more effectual pre-
vention of drunkenness ?" If this crippled
project of legislation were allowed to pass, Sun-
day might truly be esteemed by our aristocracy
as their " Lord's Day ;" for it would establish
by law an enviable distinction between the
rich and the poor, inasmuch as it allows
a British peer with impunity to get drunk
and swear most profanely on a Sunday as well
as oat a week day, and allows him the further
political license of breaking the Sabbath at Rich-
mond, in the Zoological Gardens, or at a cabi-
net dinner. If such a
,partial piece of law-giving
was to pass ' the legislature, would it not ulti-
mately disgust the whole nation ? The bill
contains a clause imposing a penalty on publi-
tans who permit persons to get drunk in any
public house on a Sunday, or who may serve
them with " liquor" when in a state of ine-
briation. Thus, while the butler of a Peer of
Parliament may assist his master and a party of
noble guests to get beastly drunk on a Sunday
in a palace, the poor publican must possess
himself of a gauge or standard of each custo-
mer's power of resisting the barley-corn ; and
by the wording of the bill the innkeeper may
not even give his customer a bottle of soda
water or a cup of camomile tea to get him sober
—such restoratives in legal parlance being
" liquor I" Stage coaches must not start from
a town during the hours of Divine service,
though the bill permits them to gallop through
any intermediate stages at any time of the clay.
Passengers by land or water are to be limited on
a Sunday to " sixteen pounds in weight" of
luggage, such an allowance being the maximum
permitted to a travelling Christian I Constables
and magistrates are armed with the most summary
powers against the persons and property of Sab-
bath breakers and publicans and sinners, and all
wages are to be paid, not on Saturdays, but on
the day preceding the market day of the town
or village nearest the place of payment—it
being notorious that Monday is the market-day
of some of the most populous boroughs, in
England and Wales,—and which enactment
would thus compel masters in many districts to
pay their workmen on a Sunday ! But we
will not risk a charge of levity against us by
criticising this ludicrous and crooked-minded
project ; it is evidently the concoction of some
person who knows as little of the spirit and
elevated objects of Christianity, as he does of

technical legislation. With the aid of the
Bishops, who seemed to support the bill for
the value of the preamble, it may pass the
House of Lords ; but we are confident that it
will create a " collision" with the Commons,
and make Sir Andrew Agnew deservedly jea-
lous of Lord Wynford. We should propose a
conference between those two righteous indivi-
duals, when perhaps the bill might be " licked

into shape" to suit their mutuarreligious views ;
but we would advise them not to clog the mea-
sure with clauses for the prevention of drunken-
ness, but rather to turn their attention to the
formation and encouragement of " Temperance
Societies ;" and in lieu of the design against
fermented liquor, to introduce a clause limit-
ing his Majesty's Christian subjects to the
Jewish itinerary measure on a Sunday of 750
paces or about two-thirds of an English mile.
But to be serious, what need is there of any
puritanic or new fangled legislation on this
subject ? We contend that in no period of our
history was there so much decorous or religious
observance of the Sunday. The dissenters have
laudably christianized the great bulk of our ma-
nufacturing and neglected population. The vo-
luntary systems of education during the last few
years have produced a great moral influence
among the people ; we are a better people in

relatio—n to our grosser nature than in ihe-times
of our ancestors. Lord Wynford would do far more
good as an exemplar of sobriety and a discourse
free from oaths than by attempting such stupid
legislation. If simple moral considerations will
not induce a due observance of Sunday no legal
or penal enactments will secure the end. The
Bible, not the Statute-book, is the religion of
Protestants, and we are not believers in the
doctrine of Plato—that the world can be go-
verned by geometry. We refer our readers for
an able and scientific dissection of Lord Wyn-
ford's bill to the admirable protest of the Lord
Chancellor. We think that the pious baron will
abandon his new avocation of manufacturing
laws on behalf of religion.—Morning Chron.
We do not, we confess, partake of the alarm
which some of our Contemporaries express as
to the relative situation of the established
church and the dissenters. Indeed, the very
circumstance which weighs so strongly with the
writers we allude to administer to us a very
different feeling, and that one of confidence and
security. We allude to the open and acknow-
ledged aim of a certain portion of the dissenters
to bring about an actual separation between the
church and state. Upon the principle that an
open enemy is at all times more easy to cope
with than a concealed one, we hail this candour
as far more advantageous to the church in all
respects, than the insidious show of half-friend,
half-foe, which has hitherto characterised the
proceedings of those sectarians, who, relying on

a degree of countenance from a few persons in
authority, which they vainly magnify far beyond
its importance, have thrown off the mask, and
openly call for a dissolution of one part of that
social compact in which the liberties and wel-
fare of the people are indissolubly involved.
Even were a complete remodelling of the con-
stitution to take place, a crisis which, happily,
is not very likely to arrive, we do not believe
that the majority of the people of this country
would be prepared to abandon fiat connection
between the Church and State, by means of
which religion and civil liberty have grown up
and flourished together. But such is not at
present the question. This union is a settled
and fixed principle of the Constitution as it at
present exists ; and the Dissenters might just
as well call for an abdication of Kingly Govern-
ment, or any other inroad upon the most vital
of our institutions, as proclaim that because
they choose to dissent from its doctrines, the
character and utility of the Church, as part of
the Constitution, should cease to exist. But

the utter futility of this attempt resolves itself
into a very narrow compass, and is grounded
almost entirely upon a mistaken calculation of
numbers. It is not till lately that the numerical
strength of the Church over that of the Dissen-
ters has ever been made a question, and, when
adverting to it lately, we showed, from indisputable
documents, that there could not be a shadow of
doubt on which side the majority, and that a vast
majority, lay. We showed, too, which we again
repeat, that much of the numerical strength of
the dissenters arises not from any hostile feeling
towards the established church, or its doctrines,
but from its neglect of insuring within its pale
the continuance of hundreds and thousands,
who only betake themselves to other folds be-
cause those to which they would resort are in-
capable of containing them. If there be any
truth in the expressive adage of " forewarned,
forearmed," the friends of the church have now
a warning which it willbe a grievous fault if they
disregard. We say that churchroom for the
great mass of the people (who in great parts of
the metropolis, and in large towns do not pos-
sess it) is the one thing needful. Other defects
there certainly are, which act as serious draw-
backs upon the diffusion of its doctrines and its
general utility ; but the great object should be
to keep down the numerical strength of the dis-
senters, and that can be best effected by denying
to none who will resort to it the spiritual food
and consolation which the established church
affords.—Morning Herald.
The Whig Ministers have once more re-
corded their apostacy from the principles which
they were accustomed to maintain with such an
outward show of patriotic ardour on the Oppo-
sition benches. On Thursday, they spoke and
voted against Mr. Tennyson's motion for short-
ening the duration of Parliaments, with the
most thorough contempt of everything like con-
sistency. Poor Lord Althorp, indeed, admitted

hat he had voted, he could not tell how often,

in favour of motions similar to that which he
then opposed ; and the only reason he could
adduce for his change of conduct was the fact,
that now the people were really intrusted with
the power of electing their representatives,
whereas, before the Reform Bill passed, popular
election was but a mockery. Surely the Re-
formers of England are under infinite obliga-
tions to his Lordship He was in favour of
frequent elections when they could render no
['service to the mass of the community, and

could merely serve the turn of his own aristo-
cratical party ; but now that the voice of the
people has really something to do with the
choice of Members of Parliament, he is deter-
mined not to repeal the Septennial Act. Mr.
Stanley's speech contained a good deal of per-
sonality and little argument. He, it seems, has
never been in favour of triennial Parliaments ;
he has only been intimately connected, during
the whole of his political life, with men who
constantly advocated a return to them. But
this is of little moment : the part of Mr. Stan-
ley's speech to which we wish to direct atten-
tion, is that wherein he ridiculed the Members
who declared their several predilections for
Parliaments quinquennial, quadrennial, &c.
Now, how does it happen that all these new-
fangled notions have lately been thrown out ?
During the whole of the reform struggle, there
was no difference of opinion : from the hour
when Lord John Russell's speech was uttered,
the whole country expected triennial Parlia-
ments : it was deemed prudent not to press the
question at that time, but every one expected
that one of the very first measures of the re-
formed Parliament would have been the repeal
of the Septennial Act. This the Whigs well
knew : Lord John Russell had intimated, in
his opening speech, that the settlement of the
question was only deferred for a time, and the
day was fast approaching when it was sure to
be discussed and settled in the new House of
Commons. Then it was that the Whigs—Mr.
Jeffrey in Edinburgh, and Mr. Macaulay in
Leeds—threw down the apple of discord, in
the shape of a proposition for quinquennial
Parliaments. The Whigs artfully suggested,
and afterwards encouraged that difference of
opinion on this subject, which Mr. Stanley
.ri-
diculed and exposed on Thursday night, with
so much self-complacency. The folly of the
Reform Members—of Sir Daniel Sandford, Sir
Edward Codrington, and Mr. James—in thus
giving a handle to their antagonists, is too pal-
pable to need remark. . Sir Daniel Sandford
has mistaken his forte—he is not cut out for a
debater or a statesman. His speech on Thurs-
day was a sad failure ; a fact of which Mr.
Stanley's reply must, we should think, have
made him sensible. Lord John Russell per-
formed his part in the miserable drama. He
reiterated the old fallacy that triennial Parlia-
ments must necessarily be biennial, because,
forsooth, it had been usual to dissolve septen-
nial Parliaments after the expiration of six
years. Why, Lord John Russell, why should
not a three-years Parliament last three years,
neither a day more nor a day less ? Suppose
the present House of Commons should be dis-
solved on the Ist of July, 1835, what is there
to prevent the assembling of a new Parliament
on the Ist of January, 1836, or sooner ? An
argument against the motion was urged by Lord
Ebrington, which the Globe quotes as one of
the " true objections" :
" When in the course of the discussion on the Reform
Bill he was taunted by the opponents of the measure, that
if it were carried, it would only prove a stepping-stone to a
further measure of reform, he stated, that although he en-
tertained opinions in favour of a large measure of reform,
yet if he could see the measure carried in the shape in
which it was brought before the house, he was ready to
give up his opinions in favour of ulterior measures, and
take that as a final and conclusive measure."

If Lord 'Ebrington's constituents are satis.
fled, as he said they were, with his determina•
tion to oppose " ulterior measures of reform,'
there is an end of the matter as far as he am
they are concerned. But as regards the fact o
the Reform Bill being received as a final mea.