The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-28 00:00:00

aI/ tr CH
.R.l TER.

In a book which contains more common senAe
than is generally supPosed,.it is written that a live
dog is better than a dead lion. This is a troth
Zilch lies at the foundation of political reform and
progressive improYement. A large part of the
World is always hugging " the dead lion."' It
buries itself in the ghastly skeleton-it. attires itself
in the musty hide—it grins through the teeth and
flourishes the tail, all through a sentimehtal•regard
to that which has
.been, and,which time will never
restore. But as man is a living thing, as lions and
dogs are made for man, and not man for either lions
or dogs, and as the means and appliances of his
higher as well as his lower life ought to grow with
his growth and strengthen with his strength, so the
" living dog," inferior though it be, is infinitely
more to his purpose than any dead remains. When
houses become sepulchres, and institutions become
prisons, it is time to leave them. We possess in this

country a political dead lion, a fossil istablislimeht,
in the old church-rate. It is Pre-eminently a thing
out of which growth, and life, and sap have long
departed. Pretending to be the maintenance of the
Church's fabrics, it grows 'net with the Church or
its fabrics--it will not enlarge a church or multi-
ply churches, or follow the congregation, or retire
from the spot where it is no longer wanted, or with-
hold. its claims from the place or the people whom
it can no longer benefit. Once'extinauislied, it
revive-4hp 'dead branches fall ar cine-byone,
but there are no fresh shoots. It is no more a real
. tree
.than a tree in china, or in copper, or -com-
pilation of dead brandies. in a birdcage.. There
is nothing in modern , institutions so stiff and
unaccommodating. It is the shrunk arm that
requires a constant :sling, or the shrunk limb that
dangles uselesSly by the side of the wooden leg.
Such institutions there have been in times past, and
much time has been lost, in-clearing them away,
except, indeed, when the obstinacy of mankind let
them accumulate till nothing but a revolution could
do the work. A revolution :and a wild one, is the
usual Nemesis of a system, which is oppressive with-
out being beneficial, ,and which rests upon right
instead of use. Of churches,as well as palaCetand
castles, it is found at last,. that he that.buileleth his
houSe4ith other men's' money" heapeth npistones
to his own sepulchre. .•
Mr. Whiteside is one of ihose sentimental pct. liti-
clans who care not how dead an institution be if it
can afford a theme for an oration. He can bring
excellent music out of marrow-bones. The Irish
church rate, the vestry-cess, is no more, and the
church thereis-all the stronger and qUieter-for the
riddance ; but what of that ? The lesson is list en
Mr. Whiteside. He can trace the death of the
institution from its birth, and find it al-
', ways failing, only to bid us rely still on this' ob-
solete nc'er'do well; It springs, he says, from the
common law,:which.eommon law has its origin in
the interests' and wishes of the people. But ages
ago common law ceased to enforce it, and -neither
common law -nor any law has carried it to
building a new church or maintaining a second
church in a parish since the Reformation,
even if it had ever done so 'before. The utmost
research only • establishes that the church
rate was at best, and in the first, a supple-
mentary aid, and an imperfect system, • enforced
by Church Law in default of any other, and left a
mere matter of custom appertaining to particular
fabrics. We need not travel out of this metropolis,
summon any witnesses, quote any petitions, or cite
any authorities, except those before all the world.
On Thursday night the Bishop of London reminded
the House of Lords that in the City of London, a
space about a mile long and half a mile wide, with
a population not much exceeding 100,000, there are
58 churches. Every one of these, we believe, raises
large Church-rates. In the parish of St. Pancras
there are about. 200,000 inhabitants, or near twice
the population of all the 58 City of London parishes,
but not a farthing of Church-rate is collected.
Every church there is maintained•entirely by pew-
rests and voluntary contributions. The same may
be said of most of our large and populous parishes,
such as St. George's, Ilanover-square, and St.
James's, embracing the most aristocratic regions of
the metropolis. In a recent appeal by the Bishop
or London on behalf of Church Extension he stated
that there were 60 parishes or districts each with
one church for 10,000 souls, most of them fora much
larger number, some for thirty or forty thousand.
For these cases, embracing the greater part of the
metropolis, the Church-rate system is utterly inef-
fective; either it has become obsolete, or, being still
in force, it builds no new churches. But it is not
with respect to large cities and the masses of popu-
lation that the controversy is maintained. The
" dead lion" is lauded and upheld as the Palla-
dium of the Church of England, not for the
multitudes ready to perish for lack of shepherds
and folds and spiritual food—not for people at all,
but for the sake of some supposed miserable little
fabrics somewhere on some mountain, or down far
away from people, and there ore to be invested with
a held upon property. Throughout the whole cf
these discussions the people are put out of count. It
is not for them that the rate is demanded, for, in
truth, it is well known the rate does not givy them
churches, or even maintain the churches which they
may build. It is demanded for a few fabrics—
which we are invited to imagine may be found
somewlic re over the isle—under such very unfavour-
able circumstances, and already so near ruin under
the law of church rates, that without the rate they
must fall to the ground altogether.
But the very obsoleteness, inequality, and insuf-
ficiency of the rate, which condemn it in the eyes
of a statesman, are its chief recommendations in

the eyes of the Church sentimentalist. Because it
is nothing but a principle, therefore it is invested
with more mysterious virtues than would be attri-
buted to an institution in full vigour and efficiency.
This is the old rule of all idolatries, which ever
most worshipped that which was ugliest and most
mutilated. There is a "principle" in a hideous
black figure that scarce has a feature, or even a
limb, which there is not in a beautiful and expres-
sive statue, much less in that which lives and
breathes and has an eternal soul. In point of
fact, the Legislature has long since repudiated,
if ever it maintained, the duty of the State to
keep up, the fabrics of the Established Church.
It no more compels that than it can be said to com-
pel a landowner to keep up the dwellings on his
property. It never did more than give certain
parishes the power of levying rates for the main-
tenance of certain fabrics that enjoyed a peculiar
prescription for this purpose. It never compelled
a parish to maintain a church which it might
choose to let pass out of repair. It did allow hun-
dreds of churches, even in the last century, to go
out of repair and fall to the ground, till they have
disappeared altogether; It never attempted to en-
force the maintenance of new churc hes. It only
allowed a legal prescription to be urged in favour
of some particular churches. Latterly, by a new
interpretation of the old and doubtful law, it has
left every parish to decide for itself whether it will
keep up its parish church or let it fall to the ground,
a choice -which every parish shares with every
district, and every congregation of Dissenters in
the kingdom. Such is the "principle," or mystic
bond, between Church and State, which such
speakers as Mr. Disraeli can tell us constitutes
England's claim to the favour of the Almighty: It
is this that elevates us to a fellowship with Ancient
Rome, and all the old religious commonwealths of
the world. It is this, and not any Divine truths,
any priesthood, or any treasury of spiritual bless-
ings, that makes England a link in the golden chain
that descends from the skies. If this be all, then
we tremble for the parishes in which Church-rates
never have been, and never will be, paid ; and still
more for the impious fabrics raised and maintained
by vulgar voluntary means. We tremble fur the
nation which has permitted at least five thousand
churches to rise up since the beginning of the cen-
tury wholly outside the pale of the compulsory
rate. We cannot believe it was this preternatural
view of the rate which led the house to pass the
third reading of the bill before it last night by so
small a majority as 9. We
presume it must bo
alarmed or disgusted by Mr. Bright's damaging
advocacy of the measure. That advocacy is no con-
cern of ours, AV
Dissent ie g 5 question. We see neither liCeCFFity ncr
e feel this to be a Church, not a
sanctity in a rate which vestries ma levy as they
please, which is only demanded for two churches
out of three, and even foi them is wholly milieus-
sary.—Times.

MRS. MATREIVs' FRIENDS FOR TILE
Mathews has long been a favoured visitor amongst us, and
many a weary hour has she cheered by her sparkling anec-
dotes and vivacious table• talk, She always, therefore, re-
ceives a smiling welcome, and we assure her most sincerely
that her Fireside Friends will bo, greeted with the same cor-
dial reception, and both grave and gay be honoured guest
in our social circle as well as in our seasons of retirement.
Amongst them we can choose as best meets our feelings, the
lively or the thoughtful, certain to be gratified, amused, and
instructed.