The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

Any criticism upon so much only of Bishop Pbillpotts's
speech on the Temporalities Bill as concerned even ro-
motely the principles or objects of that measure may be
comprised within a very narrow compass, The learned
and loquacious Bishop refused to pay more than a tithe of
his vast oration to the" Church." The bulk of the dis-
course is a philippic against Acts of Parliament formerly
passed—against the members of certain Parliamentary
Committees—against the King's Ministers—against Doc-
tors Doyle, M'Cabe, and the body of the Catholic priest-
hood ;—it is a philippic, indeed, against the Bill also,
where Dr. Phillpotts condescends to treat of its provisions ;
hut we have looked in vain for arguments requiring muc,i
serious answer. In speaking of the abolition of the vestry
cess, which he professes to approve of, the Right. R v.
Lord objects to any portion of the substitute fur that arbi-
trary impost coming forth from the pockets of the clew y.
"It ought," says he, "to fall upon the land." But a
large share of such land, as his Lordship knows, is no
other than Catholic property; a tax on which, for pur-
poses exclusively apertaining to the Church, would be,
in other words and in substance, that same vestry cess
levied for objects in which Catholics have no concern,
aeainst which so just a clamour has been raised, and for
whose abolition the Bishop Phillpotts declares himself an
advoca.e. For our parts we should have no objection
to see the whole charge of the Church of Ireland come elf
the Irish land—not merely what was requisite for the
support of all ranks of the clergy, high and lox—but
so much additional as might be wanting for repair of
churches, and those other ends to which the obnoxious
vestry cess has been appropriated. But in that case it
would be a part of our condition that other churches
besides the Protestant should likewise he decently
supported from the land—from which abundant sour cc,
moreover, the miseries of pauperism ought to he
relieved, and the pecuniary means of general education
for the children of the poor of Ireland ought to ha
provided. This, however, goes far beyond and al oce
the contemplation of the present Bill. Dr. Phillpotts, as
might have been expected, was great in his dissertation on
the fitting numbers and the paramount duties of Bishops.
To his right reverence it would seem a more palatable sort
of reform that the English bench should be extended, so
as to make tire superficial measurement of England and
Ireland respectively the standard of their relative sees, than
that tie Irish prelates should be reduced by even the frag-
ment of a single mitre. His Lordship hints at the expe-
diency, rather, of raising the English Bishops from 26 to
37, than of subtracting 10 front the Irish, that, in a
combined proportion of multitude and magnitude, tin:
two benches and the two islands might be equal. To
save the field of ecclesiastical patronage untouched in
Ireland, he would enlarge it here; exhibiting a mixed
and somewhat loose equation thus, as IS miles to
30, so 22 Bishops to 37 ! But his reverence does not
leave the work in a state so crude and unfinished : he
knows that another element exists from which to com-
pound his table of comparative episcopacies. Dr. Phill-
potts by no means forgets that the relative numbers of
souls to be cared for ought to enter into his account, and
a curious account he makes of them. His Lordship first
finds out that the number of English prelates having
5,000,000 of Protestants under their spiritual guidance is
too small ; and then, to get rid of the difficulty forced
upon him with regard to Ireland, by the general acknow-
ledgment of the small amount of Protestant souls to be
saved in that country, he actually turns round upon his
own doctrine, calls on the Catholics for succour, and
broadly, and without relaxing for an instant the p..renoial
smile upon his countenance, proclaims that the dirties of
an Irish Bishop are increased by the enormous propertion
of Catholics to Protestants in his diocese ! L rugh at
this, or cry " Prodigious !" No, we dare not ; it is

too much for our astonishment—it takes away cur
breath. Why, then, if all were Catholics, there must
be a reinforcement of Bishops—of Bishops—for the
grand work of proselytism, for such is the avowal of
Dr. Phillpotts. 1-Is says that it is the duty of Protestant
Bishops to try and " win over to the Established Church
the Catholics, who are estranged from it ;" therefore the
more Catholics, it follows the more Protestant prelates
there must be employed to " win then► over ;"—a costly
experiment we opine, and savouring more, as one mieht
imagine, of the Popish spirit of conversion, than of that
mild tolerance for an adverse faith which Dr. Phillpott
has blown forth ere now, through the spiracle; of his cer-
tainly not proselyting pamphlets. It was hardly to be
hoped that this pugnacious Bishop would leave off tor-
menting his hearers with the long-since-exploded cant
about the nature and tendency of the coronation oath. lie
stood out stilly fur the asserted restraint imposed by the
oath upon the King in his legislative capacity, as if one
rational being would suspect that any branch of the Le-
gislature, whether Commons, Lords, or King, cott!tl, with
eyes open, be criminal enough to abdicate its own most
necessary functions for ever, or as if the necessary meaning
of the oath was not that the King, as executor of the laws,
bound himself to an enfOrcement of all those powers,
to the observance of all those duties, a submission to all
those restraints, and a bona fide fulfilment of all those ob-

ligatious which he should himself concur with the otlit,r
branches of the Legislature in establishing against him-
self and in favour of the people fur the public good ; but
the oath did nothing further. Lind Piunket, in an able
speech, demolished this as well as other extravagancies of
the subtile Bishop, who, like others of his cloth, appears
to have fallen into the fatal error, that a rich and over-
bearing Church must be in the ratio an efficient instru-
ment for serving the cause of that religion of which it is
the outward representative. Never was any fallacy more
ruinous to religion than this. Even the Bishop of Exeter
must allow that the Church of Ireland has not been scan-
tily supplied with revenues, or with gentlemen in clerical
robes to enjoy them. How happens it, then, that a
eburch thus favourably circumstanced, if werlth awl a
great body of nominal Ministers be in its favour—that
such a church should not have been able to keep together
its own members, much less to " win over" the smallest
fragment of stray souls from the non-established, miens
dower', long-discountenanced, and persecuted hierarchy
of the Catholics? The Catho'ic Church of Ireland
has been a mendicant Church,—its Ministers literally
supported by the charity of their congregations. The
Protestant Church has been the wealthiest in Europe,
after that of Spain, with enormous patronage, and with
legislative power at its back ; and how have these two
rivals prospered ? The poor one has thriven, its mem-
bers have multiplied, its pastors, independent of the state,
and of everybody but their own confiding flacks, have
grown in strength and influence and authority : while
the Church established by law, and drawing immense
revenues from the country, has, from lack of ts-al, know-
ledge, piety, sacerdotal character, no less than by the
oppressive nature of the mechanism put together
for its maintenance, lost itself in the eyes of even
its own children, has stagnated where the ad-
verse and originally prostrate and hungry church has
moved onward, and is now in danger of being
'sent empty away." It is impossibly not to advert once
more, howev,r briefly, to the speech of the Duke of
Wellington, and to the ominous tendency of that dis-
course, according to the construction put upon it in a
variety of quarters. Our own hope It is been ;Arcady
tleclared, though, perhaps, with more confilenve than
the case would fully justify, that the Duke of Wellington
could not mean to support the second reading of the Bill
for the sake of effecting, through the mutilation of it in
eo.nmittee, what his Grace was afraid to attempt by the
mote manly anti daring course of the total rejection of its
principle on the second reading. 'Fite matter stands thus—
The Duke avows, that if no act at all be passed by the
Legis'ature, the Church of Ireland " must go." is wus
impossible, lie said, that the Church of Ireland could
" stand for a day, if some measure of this kind were not
passed for its relief." By a measure of " this kind," the
Solie Duke must mean, of course, some measure of which
the leading provisions coincided with those of the Bill in
question. With what consistency, therefore, or with
what pretension to that immoveable rectitude by which his
Grace's political career and character have been, say his
friends, so remarkably distinguiAed, is it that the Duke
of Wellington, after such an acknowledgment of the
necessity for the present Bill, contrived throughout his
speech to attack so fiercely all the leading clauses and pro-
visions by means of which the measure is to operate for
the well-being of the Church of Ireland ? How cause the
Duke to reprobate—first, the principle on which the ecele-
siastieal commission is framed, explaining his objection to
be, that the commission was not to be exclusively one of ec-
clesiastics ? How, with an approval of the Bill as a
whole upon his Fps, did the Duke of Wellington venture
to condemn the proposed reduction in the number of
Bishops ? Wherefore, once again, did his Grace insist on
the inadmissibility of a third important clause, fir retu-
eing any application of the public money towards building
another, per-
tlie
a church in a parish where there hail been no *:ervice
formed during three whole years ? If a county
cd'ilreeet
be a farce, what is the erection of
libteiejnircicet'3o t
Maffee called the Catholic
church to stand ein;:tydf,r,fontabeonneo:::
be literally what Archbishop. rs
re tom —a speech-
establishment—"a Church without a .
When the Duke of Wellington announced
less but affecting record
seasons faith, and of the profanation of our ecclesiastical
his resolution to oppose the above-mentioned clauses of
the Bill, he aught, in common candour, to have said
Let us throw out the measure without further noise or
resources ?

°tibia." 'there would have seen just as little obloquy, we
can assure his Grace, attendant on such a course, and a
great deal less hypocrisy, than in the avowal that
" a measure of this sort" was necessary, followed
by the intimation, that instead of a formal negative
upon the Bill, it was to be mangled piecemeal in
Committee by a rejection, or metamorphosis, of all,
without exception, of those enactments contained in it
which constituted its efficiency and its essence. The trick,
if it be one, or the folly, or both, will most assuredly fail.
The present House of Commons will be as much roused
by the mutilaton of the law as by its wholesale murder.
The recourse to a new Parliament will be more desperate
in the former case than in the latter, for the manly people
of England are ever more incensed by fraud and treachery
than by the most audacious crime. " What then hap-
pens," according to the formula of interrogatory furnished
by the gallant Duke? The Ministers will resign instanter,
at the first alteration forced upon them of any of the above
provisions of the Bill. The Lord Chancellor more than
hinted as much ; the Prime Minister pledged himself to it,
indeed the solemn admonition of Earl Grey to their Lord-
ships' House, towards the conclusion of his reply on Si-
turday morning, must either open the eyes of those " who
have eyes to see with," or ring hereafter in the ears of
those " who will not hear," as a prediction their disregard
of which will have entailed on their whole order political
degradation and ruin.—Times.

The speculations as to the termination of the session of
Parliament seem to be as uncertain as ever. Like the sky
behind the mountain top, the prospect recedes as the tra-
veller advances. Still, however, as all things, even the
traveller's journey, must have an end, it is to be hoped
that the session will come to a close some time or other,
in spite of present appearances. We cannot say to the first
reformed Parliament as Blackhawk, the Indian warrior,
said to an American doctor the other day—" White man,
we like your talk." The fact is, that both the English
Parliament and the American doctor talk too much for
our taste, especially the former, from which we have a
right to expect performances as well as dissertations and
promises. If the purpose of calling Parliament together
be merely to set its jaw-bone in motion—a theory which
we must allow derives some countenance from practice—
no session that ever passed has answered its object more
completely than the one, which perhaps may shut its
mouth some day on this side of Christmas. But the phrase
" despatch of business" ought surely to puss for something
more than a mere expletive ; it sounds too much like the
announcement—and the emphatical announcement— of
design to be altogether overlooked by those who pre-
tend to describe or to perform the functions of Le-
gislators. Upon this assumption the disproportion
between the sayings and the doings of a certain
great assembly is likely, should it continue, to at-
tract public attention before long, with a view to
the adoption of some remedy. Our speakers increase, and
are likely to continue increasing, both in number and
facility. The prospect is, therefore, any thing but en-
couraging when we look forward to what may Ise expected
from a succession of such Parliaments as the present.
When things are at the worst we are told they must mend ;
but bad as the propensity to talk is now, we fear it has not
yet reached that climax from which we should be justified,
according to the adage, in calculating the dawn of improve-
ment. At all events it is a subject well deserving of atten-
tion. Something should be done to check the growth of
the evil. It is hard to say what that something should be.
Education, we apprehend, advances too slowly amongst
the mass of the community to afford any immediate pros-
pect of relief from that source ; but even if our hopes were
limited to the influence of education alone, we should not
despair of the coming of the day when a well-informed
and intelligent people will expect from their constituents
rather an apology for long-winded speeches, than a boast
for having inflicted them on the Legislature and the public.
—Morning Herald.
The most contradictory reports and calculations prevail
in the best-informed political circles of all parties on the
subject of the propable fate of the Irish Church Bill. We
believe the fact to be that the Tory faction are alter-
nately influenced by their hopes and their fears—hopes of
obtaining possession of the Cabinet, and fears of the al-
tered state of the representation. We knots that it will be
impossible for the Tories to resume the reins of Govern-
ment, or to hold them six months in despite of the present
or any new Reformed House of Commons. They might
succeed in deposing the Administration of Lord Grey, but
the consequence would infallibly immediately result of his
speedy return to power, supported by men of more liberal
views, or a revolution and complete subversion of the
present form of the Constitution, and an utter destruction
of the social and commercial system of the empire. The
Conservatives are in a state bordering on political despair.
In their occasional lucid intervals, they acutely perceive
the hopeless and fatal nature of the paralytic seizure which
has befallen them; at other times, and under the excitement
and expiring throes of nature which peculiarly distinguish
the last flickerings of the vital spark, they make desperate ef-
forts to avert the hand of death, and will submit to any ope-
ration that affords a ray of hope or a pennyweight of
chance. They either believed their predictions in the
discussion on the Reform Bills, or they did not : if they
did, they foresaw their present fall ; if they did not, they
were accomplished hypocrites. Referring to the wordy
and dolorous orations of Sir R. Peel, in 1831.2, we think
we discern his real estimate of the revolution of old parties,
and the extent of the new distribution of electoral power ;
and we fancy that lee is fully convinced of the desperate
condition of the Tory cause. This apprehension is also
further exhibited in the tact with which the Right Hon.
Baronet, Sir Joseph Surface-like, poises himself between
all parties, and waits upon time with a tantalising caution
which distracts the feelings and plots of the Tories. This
old machiner who has run in all the political Omnibuses
of the last 20 years—who broke down as the successor of
Pitt—does not think it right to make play for the present
party heat, but is running a waiting race. He wishes the
other animals to beat themselves. A public man, of a
certain caste, cannot turn all in a moment ; and the
Catholic question has warned him of the danger of
turning a corner too quickly. Hence, the Duke
of Wellington, on Friday last, was closeted with
Mr. Manners Sutton ; and hence the Speaker is
hired as the job-horse of the day. But all these scenes
will ultimately prove political abortions. Lord Sidmouth,
that was, might inform Mr. Sutton of the shortness of the
Life of a cies paw; and the Speaker's vanity must be
greatly superior to his political sagacity, if he can for a
moment even dream of the formation of a masked Minis-
terial battery of Wellington guns. These critical party
machinations, however, are too serious to be treated with
contempt or levity. IC the prime agents of the Carlton
Club can see the way to overthrow the Government, they
doubtless possess the numerical power in the House of
Lords of emasculating the Irish Church Bill in Commit-
tee, or defeating it on the third reading. Their working
agents and servile Mamelukes, the old Whipper-in and
fi'as new apprentice, yesterday gave out that the Bill would
nisquestionably be " gutted," come what may by the ma-
nseuvre. Can this destructive state of matters continue ?
Will this great nation and its new and omnipotent consti•
Nancy permit the British Government to be thus inju-
riously acted upon by the galvanic battery of Toryism ?
His Majesty must be fearfully alive to the sacrifice of his
interest and to the danger of the Monarchy from such scan-
dalous and dangerous cabals. The Tory Aristocracy may
not see the cooling avalanche descending on their hereditary
privileges. The Right Rev. Bishops, buried in their wigs,
and their reason rolled up in lawn, may be blind to the
coming storm which, if not timely averted, will blow them,
in a popular hurricane, from their seats on the benches of
the Upper House. They may put their faith in t 1 e monkish
homilies of the superannuated Lord Eldon, who, with one
foot in the grave, and in his confessional orations, is an
exemplar of " holy living and dying ;" the evangelical
prelares may deliver Christianity over to the lay keeping
of Iris Grace the Duke of Wellington, arid to that beau
ideal of morality his Royal Highness the Duke of Cum-
berland, or to the super-human sagacity of the Duke of
Gloucester, but we ask the more moderate and intelligent
Tories, what must he the end of these will freaks of
party contention? In the solitary confinement of metro-
politan society, the Tories discern not the rapid and
irresistible progress of public opinion among all classes of
fa*e people. Nothing blinds men more than contempt;
3414 despising and bating their inferiors in station, the
'Tory aristocracy neither know ni.r duly appreciate the
rowing power of the lower classes of their countrymen.
if they should succeed in opposing the suppression clause
of the Mali Church Bill, and in retaining the present
atati of Irish Bishops nay, if they crush (and the
stumbling Bishops .‘ trip up") the Cabinet of Lord Grey,
do they rock them elves in the vain expectation of saving
Prow early destruction that enormous and horrible ex-
crescence of the English hierarchy—the Irish Protes-
tant establishment in Catholic provinces? Was there
ever so anti-national religion forced on a hoiitile people,
without the aid of the bayonet; and could the Duke of
Wellington now uphold the Irish Church, at the head
of one' hundred thousand mercenary troops of the Holy
Alliance? Will England and Scotland long stand by and
passively witness the crusade for tithes and useless Pro-
-14iit
priests waging in Ireland ? Have the Bishops the
''-kiti--ihrte years gained in public opinion ; are the English
Protestants anxious to recruit their nunihers as the pre-
lates are gathered to their fathers, and are the people now
desirous of placing Chinn on " ;" and, by draft-
ing the Spiritual Lords from [the Tory drill in the Upper
House, of Tendering them more useful and popular? We