The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT Or THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times remarks that Mr. Forster, in the space of a
short speech, has laid before the country a simple and
forcible statement of his educational policy. Some of
the principles he enunciates, especially with regard to the
importance of religious influence, may win him con-
sideration in quarters from which he has most reason to
fear opposition. He bases the interference of Parlia-
ment with educational institutions on a just founda-
tion when he observes that all endowments are
practically entrusted to the State. Nothing but
the authority of the State can insure the application
of the founder's bequests to the uses he designed, and it is
in reliance on this authority being duly exerted that en-
dowments grow up amid a settled civilisation. It becomes,
therefore, not only the right of the State for its own inte-
rest, but its duty towards former public benefactors, to
see that funds left for useful purposes are usefully and
appropriately applied. The simple task which the Govern-
ment has undertaken is to modify the existing charters so
as to render the schools serviceable once more, and this
can doubtless be best done by introducing the study of
those sciences which have come into existence within the
last 200 years. There were once only three learned pro
fessions, and the old grammar-school training was the
best possible introduction to the study of them. There
are now other professions, and a corresponding course of
training needs to be provided. We have not the least
doubt that it will be provided in answer to the demand,
even if there were no endowments to foster it. Large
funds, however, are lying idle, which cannot be more
naturally applied than to this purpose. But the very
revolution in knowledge which has rendered such inter-
ference necessary warns us against attempting a second
time to stereotype any scheme of education or study.
What we need is a system of free self-adjustment under
careful supervision.

The Standard alludes to Mr. Sumner's dialogue with the
special correspondent of the New York Herald, and says
that it confirms all it has said as to the true origin of the
Alabama claims. It is now evident-from Mr. Sumner's
own words (if we may suppose him to be correctly
reported), that the rejection of the Alabama Treaty was
due to the political circumstances of the Republican
party. It was not rejected because of any fault of
England, but because it was the work of President
Johnson's Government. Mr. Sumner clearly implies
this when he expresses his surprise that we should
go on negotiating the treaty with Mr. Reverdy
Johnson after General Grant had been elected
President. As to the objection against Mr. Reverdy
Johnson, what has England to do with that? How were
we to suppose that he represented nothing, seeing that he
had been appointed by the American President, and con-
firmed in his appointment by the unanimous voice of the
American Senate? It is monstrous to expect that Eng-
land is to look behind the character of every ambassador
who is sent to us from America—that we should inquire
whether or not he represents anything, or how many he
represents. We had no option but to accept, as the
American representative, the individual who was sent
over to ne in that character. And Mr. Sumner is guilty
of a curious inconsistency in approving of one portion
of the work which we did through Mr. Reverdy
Johnson, and in rejecting another. Surely if Mr.
Reverdy Johnson was not competent to arrange the terms
of the Alabama negotiation, he was equally incompetent
to settle the San Juan difficulty, or the naturalisation
question. Having accepted those two treaties with
England, negotiated through Mr. Reverdy Johnson, Mr.
Sumner is clearly restrained from objecting to the
character of his own agent, as a ground for the rejection
of the Alabama Treaty. Upon no principle of interna-
tional or moral equity can this be fair, nor is it easy to see
how even Mr. Bright can believe that it " serves us right"
to have these new claims advanced against us merely be-
cause the Americans cant agree among themselves as to
who should be their representative.

The Daily News declares that Dr. IWN-eile attributes to
Mr. Gladstone by insinu tion closed ears, a hardened
heart, and a temper blindly elated by success. Dr.
JSPNeile's dark forebodings as to Mr. Gladstone's mental
and moral condition are at present only suspicions. They
will become melancholy certainties when Mr. Gladstone
shall have proved himself insensible to the remonstrances
and reproofs of his ghostly adviser at Ripon, who is pro-
bably waiting with the utmost anxiety for the 31st of
,this
month. Then it will be known whether his shot has taken
effect. If on that day Mr. Gladstone rises, not to move
the third reading of the Irish Church Bill, but to announce
its withdrawal, to make profession of penitence and
to read his recantation, Dr. APIS-elle will have made a
notable convert. Should the Prime Minister Fioceed with
the measure the explanation will be only too obvious. His
mind is closed and his heart is darkened. If Dr. 111`Neile
were a Christian confessor of the first century standing
before some heathen magistrate who would be as likely as
not to reply to his remonstrances with the summary sen-
tence—Ad leoncs, his boldness would be respectable. But
a courage so cheaply exercised as his scarcely palliates the
rudeness with which it is accompanied. If Saint Paul
had commenced his pleadings before Agrippa or Felix by
attributing to Clem closed ears, h ardened hearts, and
tempers elated by pride, it may be a question whether the
one would have trembled, or the other have been almost
persuaded to become a Christian. Mr. Gladstone is not
precisely an Agrippa or a Felix ; and Dr. M'Neile is far
enough from being a Saint Paul, in whom, setting aside
more remarkable gifts and endowments, some critics have
recognised the qualities of a perfect gentleman. The
Irish Church Bill of Mr. Gladstone, in contributing to
make the Irish people contented citizens of the United
Kingdom, will do more than a thousand polemical letters
to reduce to a minimum those evil influences of Roman
Catholicism on which Dr. M`Neile monotonously insists.

The Herald, in commenting upon the pastoral of Arch-
bishop Leahy, says that late as the exhortation comes, and
odd as are the motives upon which the Archbishop bases his
recommendation of the precept " Thou shalt do no
murder," we welcome the pastoral with the heartiest and
most unfeigned satisfaction. We must take it that the
Archbishop knows the people with whom he has to deal,
and that in pointing out to them that if they go on killing
landlords they will cover their English Liberal friends
with a certain amount of odium, and so destroy their chance
of obtaining a satisfactory reform of the land laws, he
presents to them the only argument which is likely to
have the slightest effect, and we may hope that a repre-
sentation coming from such a quarter will convince
the peasantry of Tipperary that they ought not to com-
mit murder in order to assert the right of the tenant as
against the landlord. It is not, of course, very compli-
mentary to the Irish tenant that his spiritual advisers
should deem it necessary to have recourse to such argu-
ments. Nothing that English writers and speakers have
ever said of the Irish people has been half so offensive to
them as these appeals to them by their natural leaders not
to commit murder because the crime will probably preju-
dice their own objects ; but that is a question between the
Archbishop and his flock, and we are too glad that he has
stepped out to denounce murder at all, and too ready
to admit his influence over the population, to
examine very critically into the reasons which he
gives for such a proceeding. Murder, in fact,
says the revered Archbishop, is not only wrong, but,
under present circumstances, it is extremely foolish, it
will not pay. If you will only wait, tenants of Tipperary
and other Irish counties, and trust to the great statesman
now at the head of the English Government, a Samson
yet unshorn by Delilah—let us hope that Rome may not
prove Mr. Gladstone's Delilah—you will get all you
want. You want for yourselves the property of your
landlords, but you take a rude and awkward method of
obtaining your object. Give up the notion of helping
yourselves and confide in the great leader of the English
Liberal party. If you will only keep quiet, and not
frighten his more timid followers, he will next year com-
plete the destruction of the upas tree by confiscating
for your profit the property of the landlords, as he has
this year confiscated for their benefit the property of the
Church.

The Telegraph says people still consider that a minister
of religion is a man who holds himself commissioned by
Divine authority to preach the Gospel and administer the
rites of the Christian Church. Face to face with this
still potent belief, we have the extraordinary fact that the
sacred right is openly offered for sale ; that the greatest
publican and sinner in the City of London may buy the
next right of presentation to a living, and may exercise
the power of appointment. The Church of England has
a great task to accomplish. It has first to civilise, then
to Christianise., the millions who live coarsely and
brutishly in what we may call the back settlements
of our rural districts, and yet more sinfully in the back
lanes of our towns, with physical and moral foulness all
around them. And how can the Church fulfil that ter-
rible task through the hands of men whose right to be the
apostles of the Cross has been bought—literally bought in
the market with hard money ? There arc in the Church
as true soldiers of Christ as any that have been sent forth
to preach ; why should such men, living exemplars of self-
denial and heroic labour, be classed and linked with the
rectors who represent nothing but their own families or
their fathers' cash ? Yet, when we have exhausted our
indignant questions, we shall be asked, "Where is the
remedy to be found The question unfolds a gigantic diffi-
culty ; but no trouble, no perplexity, can daunt the earnest
heart or the clear intellect in such a cause. Stricter iales
regarding the residence and work of incumbents—a larger
license to the bishops to refuse the induction of very young
clergymen—mere liberal laws as to the minimum salaries
and personal rights of curates—would diminish the evil.
And diminution would lead to more ; for we will not con-
ceal our conviction that eventually we must "reform it
altogether." Such a hideous abuse—such a cynical confes-
sion, in the very act of the clergy, that scepticism is right,
and the portals of Truth are kept by hypocritically dis-
guised mercenaries —is a wordly canker in the midst of the
Church ; it converts the Temple into a mart ; it deadens
and degrades the ministry, and makes the preachinz of the
Gospel a mere official and pharisaical act.