The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

Sir Andrew Agnew is at his tricks again. We
do not all impute it to the hon. baronet that he
means to be what is called " tricky." We believe,
on the contrary, that as there never was a zeal more
indiscreet, more mischievous, than his, so was there
never any more blindly honest, more dully well
meaning, as to the good results dell his contrivances
to sweep away the most harmless recreations of the
people, and to persecute and banish from the face of
England every spirit save that of hypocrisy or fana-
ticism. How comes it that Sir Andrew Agnew
doss not perceive that he has annoyed most persons
of common discernment, as well as of kindly feeling,
by the obvious inconsistency between the title of his
bill last year and its provisions ? He talks about
the measure as one for " protecting" the public
against the profanation of the Sabbath, as if
5r were an encouragement to the poor, and
an indulgence to their feelings ; whereas, it
is in all its parts a machine for subduing
the mind to a state of the most abject and melan-
choly prostration, or for provoking it, by excessive
harshness, to a desperate and reckless mutiny against
all restraint. There is hardly an act of the most
innocent or useful nature to which Sir Andrew
Agnew does not affix a penalty, if it be performed
on the Lord's Day; there is not an exercise of mind
or body, calculated to cheer the broken hearts, or to
rally the sinking health, of the overwrought poor,
who have been confined and jaded for six days of
every week, which this mistaken interpreter of
Christianity does not visit with some form of legal
vengeance. Why, it is intolerable ; it drives the
spirit of gladness out of the land, and makes the
church and its ministers, lay and clerical, the objects
of vulgar execration. We hope that Parliament will
at once teach this gentleman to busy himself about
his own salvation, and to leave the innocent repose
of society undisturbed by his restless meddling. Let
him keep the noses of his kirk-going brethren to the
grinding-stone; but let him forbear from making
laws for the English conscience.—Timer.
In the early sitting of yesterday a petition, pre-
sented by Dr. Lushington, from the general body
of dissenting ministers of the three denominations in
London, and within ten miles of it, gave rise to a
good deal of discussion. The petitioners prayed
for a separation of church and state, the union be-
tween which they deemed injurious to the cause of
Christianity; and they prayed also for a remedy to
the principal practical grievances under which they
laboured, viz., a want of general registration, the
difficulties in the way of the solemnization of mar-
riages, the burial of their dead, the exclusion from
the Universities, and their liability to the payment
of rates, and other compulsory levies for the main-
tenance of the established church. Sir Richard
Vyvyan observed, " that almost all the gentlemen
who advocated the removal of the specific prac-
tical grievances, used the words ' at present,'
and now.' If the present practical grievan-
ces be removed, what guarantee had the house
that next session the dissenters would not
come and apply for a separation of church and
state ?" There can be no guarantee, as was well
observed by Mr. Sinclair. The Dissenters are as
prudent as they are powerful. They will bide their
time. "Nothing else," said Mr. Sinclair, " would
satisfy them but the separation of church and state.
It was true they did not demand that now—they
were too prudent—they wished to put it off, and
to content themselves with some minor matters.
But why did they act so ? Because they knew
they would not succeed at present, and because they
required those other things as so many stepping-
stones to the other object." Mr. Sinclair is, of
course, well acquainted with the views of the Dis-
senters. He is himself a zealous advocate of the
attempt to free the Scotch Presbyterian church—
not from a union with the State (for the Scotch
church recognises no such union)—from an en-
croachment on the independence of that church,
introduced by the Tory ministers of Queen
Anne, which it has always resented—we mean the
right of patronage. The Scotch Presbyterians and
English Dissenters have all the same hatred of
union of church and state. The English dissenters
are too sensible of the advantages they enjoy under
the constitution to advance towards their object in
any other than a constitutional manner. But as-
suredly they will exert all the influence they possess
under the constitution to effect their object. In the
meantime they will be satisfied with the removal of
their practical grievances. They ask this not as a
favour, but as a matter of justice. No man, or set
of men, are entitled to say to them, we will not
satisfy the demands which you now make because
you will not satisfy us that you will not ask for more
on a future occasion. The dissenters would say to
the hierarchy, who are you who dare to say to u-,
you shall not have justice done to you—you shall
be treated as inferior before the law ? The first
condition of peace in every country is equality.
This, and this alone, puts an end to jealousies.
The dissenters will advance or recede as pru-
dence dictates, quite assured that their claims
will only be conceded when they cannot be withheld,
and not from any favour borne to them by the
hierarchy. There is no dOubt, however, that the
treatment they have received has, at present, deeply
irritated them. Mr. Willis, who has much influence
with the body, and enjoys much of their confidence,
" regretted that vacillation which perplexed ti e
house, and created dissatisfaction amongst the Dis-
senters out of doors. He was sorry to find that a
member of the administration had brought forward
a measure which, he was sure, would meet with
universal disapprobation.--(Loud cries of Hear,
hear, hear.') He regretted, also, that another sub-
ject had been taken out of his hands by a proposi-
tion for an universal national civil registration. He
was also sorry that the question of church rates—
another vital subject—was postponed to so late a
period of the session. These questions were all in-
timately connected with each other, and ought to be
discussed in continuity; and lie feared, the manner in
which they were treated would cause much trouble
to many members of the house, and occasion his Ma-
jesty's ministers tolose much of that attachment which
Protestant dissenters had hitherto evinced towards
them." It is always dangerous to wound the pride
of any class of men. The dissenters were willing
to make every allowance for the difficulties of the
position of Ministers. But they thought they per-
ceived a feeling on the part of Ministers as if they
were ashamed of the connection. Lord John Rus-
sell's measure seemed to say, we must do some-
thing to get rid of them, but let us do as little as
possible. We are always sure of these people; any
thing in the way of recognition will satisfy them.
'We must not hazard the displeasure of the Bishops
—of those who tried to trip up our heels, and who
will try to do so again, on account of the Dissenters.
The Dissenters, however, are neither short sighted
nor insensible. And any party in this country who
suppose that they will be satisfied with anything
short of complete political equality, will find them-
selves greatly mistaken.—ellorning Chronicle.
The long and intimate connection which has sub-
sisted between the Dissenters and some members of
the present administration, to say nothing of all the
deputations and conferences of which we have re-
cently heard so much, seemed to justify the expecta-
tation that government would have been enabled in
proposing any measure to Parliament for the relief
or gratification of its sectarian supporters, to avoid
the misfortune which has now befallen it, the mis-
fortune of having its proposition universally scouted
by those whom it was expressly intended to please.
We do not deny that the task of framing a new
Marriage Act, which shall at once fulfil all the
wishes of the Dissenters, and protect the interests
of society, in reference to, by far, the most impor-
tant of all human engagements,
i is one of sur-
passing difficulty. It is a task indeed which we
did not expect Lord John Russell or any of his
colleagues to execute, or even to attempt. But
while we should have thought it an extrava-
gant absurdity to suppose that they would take
a thought about the weighty interests of society,

or show the capacity even to comprehend them,
we certainly did not anticipate that they would
he found so entirely to have neglected their abun-
dant opportunities of acquiring correct informa-
tion as to what would satisfy the Dissenters, that
they should be compelled to withdraw a measure
once submitted to the Legislature, on the ground,
exclusively, of the dissatisfaction of that body.
The two conditions we have mentioned, of pleas-
ing the Dissenters and of protecting the interests
of society, in legislating upon the rite of marriage.
are, we believe, incompatible, and all that could
reasonably have been expected of the Whigs was
that they should fulfil the former. It is, how-
ever, their peculiar felicity to have failed in both.
On Monday night, on the motion of Lord John
Russell, the Dissenters' Marriage Bill was ordered
to be printed, and the second reading postponed to
the 28th of April, in order to give the parties inte-
rested an opportunity of digesting the objections
they felt towards the measure. Lord John had no
hopes of making it palatable to the D ssenters, and
he was far from wishing to press an obnoxious mea-
sure upon a great body of people for whom he had
a sincere respect. This is in effect a withdrawal of
the bill ; and it amounts to a distinct confession that
ministers have rashly and foolishly attempted to le-
gislate upon a subject which ought to be touched
only with the greatest caution and deliberation,
either in disregard of information which they pos-
sessed, or in indifference to information which they
could easily have acquired. The Dissenters, we are
told, will be satisfied with nothing less than the power
of celebrating marriage without any preliminary ap-
plication to the church ; and their right to this privi-
lege is strongly urged by those who seldom urge any
thing strongly unless they have reason to believe that
the Government are prepared to accede to it. There is
a great difficulty, however, to be surmounted before
this proposal will obtain the general acquiescence
of the community, viz., to define accurately who
are and who are not Dissenters. At present the
Churchman of to-day may be a Dissenter tc-
morrow ; so that such an Act as the Dissenters
require, and the Administration is at least half
inclined to concede to them, would place, not
Dissenters only, but the whole of society, in ab
solute dependence upon the integrity and discretion
of dissenting ministers for the execution of the
present or any other enactment intended to prevent
the clandestine marriage of minors. The Dis-
senters say that the privilege they claim is no
greater than what is now enjoyed by Quakers and
Jews. But how many of the Dissenters are
prepared to accept this privilege if accom-
panied by the condition that they shall
forthwith interpose obstacles, of any kind, to
the admission of new converts into their sect as
effectual as those which prevent the temporary as-
sumption of Quakerism and Judaism ? The danger
arising to society from the privilege in question may
be nothing, so long as it is confined to sects be-
tween whom and the rest of the community so
marked a distinction exists, and who, for this among
other reasons, are bodies little subject to fluctua-
tion, and become inconceivably great if extended to
_ .

she infinite variety of other sects who present no
,isible mark to separate them from the rest of the
world, and whose congregations are in a perpe-
tual state of mutation, and daily interchanging
members with each other, and with the established
Church. If every congregation of Dissenters,
claiming this privilege, would pledge themselves
to dress always in drab or crimson, or yel-
low—or any other distinguishing colour—or to
wear their beards, in order to afford the same
security against its abuse as we derive from the pe-
culiarities which belong only to the Quakers and
Jews, there would be some sense in their preten-
sion—but, so long as they will persist in wearing
garments like those of other people and their chins
as smooth, it is not to be thought of. But we
forbear, in the deep consciousness that so serious a
subject should he treated seriously, concluding, as
we began, by expressing the sincere regret, which
must now be the universal feeling of all mankind,
that a subject of such vital importance to society as
that of the laws relating to marriage should be in
rho hands of so incompetent a legislator -as Lord
John Russell.—Morning Post.

MINORITIES.