The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-24 00:00:00

LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 24, 1834.

Earl GREY, Mr. STANLEY, and the other
Cabinet Ministers, left town this morning for
the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, to attend a Privy
Council, which the KING will hold this day, at
three o'clock. In the evening the Ministers will
dine with their MAJESTIES.

At a late Durham Conservative dinner the
Rev. G. TOWNSEND, Prebendary of Durham,

made, what the Cambridge Chronicle is pleased

to call, an " admirable speech ;"—that is to say,
a speech distinguished by its more than prelatic
hostility to all effective Church Reform. To
be sure, the Rev. Gentleman would have the
" Bishops be always on the alert, and the clergy
exert themselves to the utmost," but beyond this
fine parade of zeal—which means something or
nothing as the case may be—he would have the
Church still stick to its good old abuses. He

would have the Rev. Bench still free to thwart
all the best intentions of Government in the
House of Lords ; and pluralists to squeeze their
darling tenths from the parishioners of a living
which they seldom or never vouchsafe to edify by
their presence. Such, at least, is the impression
made on our minds by a perusal of the Reve-
rend Gentleman's speech. Yet he must be
aware that the time has gone by when the
Church could safely adopt his advice, and resist
all substantial Reform. He must see that the
tithes are doomed ; that the system of pluralities
is at its last gasp ; that high Protestant bigotry
totters weakly upon crutches ; that the knell of
the Bishops in the House of Lords is rung.
Mr. TOWNSEND cannot but see this; what mad-
ness, then, is it in him to think to check the
tide which is now setting in so strongly against
every species of ecclesiastical abuse ! He might
just as well attempt to arrest an avalanche by
throwing himself in its way.
One concession, however, the altered circum-
stances of the timos have wrung from him. It
is but a straw, yet it serves to show how
the wind blows. He has discovered that it
" is with churches as it is with individuals,
none can be perfect." Now, though this be
nothing more than a common-place, yet it is
only within the last two or three years that
a beneficed clergyman could have been found to
utter it. Before the present Ministry came into
office, the cry was, Mother Church is immacu-
late and needs no reform. Now it is found out
that she is not quite so sinless as she might be ;
but that it is just possible that she may need
some little improvement. Yet this improve-
ment Mr. TOWNSEND would discreetly confine
to her discipline. He is horror-struck at the idea
of a reform in her revenues, and opines that
none but an Atheist could think for a moment of
such an atrocity. But we tell the Rev. Gentle-
man that ecclesiastical reform to be really useful,
must, in a great degree, touch the pockets of
the clergy,—more especially of the higher orders.
The purse of Episcopacy must be reduced in
bulk. It is far too un-apostolic ill its size. The
various sinecures, too, attached to our cathedrals,
must undergo the same searching revision.
We say nothing of Mr. TOWNSEND'S sneers
at our alliance with France, with which he seems
to think—and we know not where he finds
warrant for his opinion in the Scripture—we
should be in a constant state of warfare; because