The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT; OF TILE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

would be difficult, says the Saturday Review to over
rate the significance of Father Hyacinthe's letter. His
course differs widely from that taken under similar circum-
stances by persons in nearly the same position. When the
ill-omened bull of Gregory XVI. appeared which con-
demned the Liberal Catholicism of the last generation as
represented by Lamennais and Lacordaire, Lacordaire
yielded at least an external submission to the decree which
blasted his fondest aspirations; and Lamennais, who had
taught himself and others to identify Christianity with
Papal infallibility, after a brief period of suspense, rejected
both alike and finally. Father Hyacinthe does nothing of
the kind. But ho does not break with Christionity or
Catholicism, though he brings the most terrible impeach-
ment against the whole existing administration of the
Catholic Church. Three or four centuries have rolled
away since this language, or anything like it, has been
heard from the lips cf priests and monks. It recalls the
burning words of Gerson and Savoncrola, of the speakers at
Pisa and Constance, and at the earlier sessions of the Coun-
cil of Trent, and it confirms in every particular what has
for some years past been urged in more cautious terms by
the reforming party within the Roman Catholic Church,
and has been all along denounced by their opponents as a
libellous falsehood cf her enemies. Father Hyacinthe
expressly accuses the Roman authorities of doing their
utmost to bring about an unnatural divorce between
religion and morality, and of being the real authors of the
unbelief and moral anarchy so widely prevalent among the
Latin nations. No one who is even moderately acquainted
with the phenomena of European society can entertain the
slightest doubt that these words point to a truth, and a
truth which is daily forcing itself more imperatively on
the convictions of religious and earnest men, whether
among Catholics or Protestants. And if now, as Father
Hyacinthe observes, "for the first time in three hundred
years an (Ecumenical Council is not only convoked, but
declared necessary," by the Pope, it seems not a little
remarkable that in convoking it no reference whatever is
made to facts which, ono would have supposed, contained
the true explanation of that necessity. In the fifteenth
century the cry for reform was loudly raised throughout
Catholic Europe. The Roman Catholic authorities of the
present day seem to shrink from admitting the
possibility of any reformation being requisite or
even desirable. How are we to explain this ?
Meanwhile, it must by this time have become clear, even
to the shortsighted clique of resolute obscur•antists wbp
pull the wires of the Vatican, that they cannot hope to
carry matters their own way without a struggle, and that
to extort from the Council an assertion of Papal infallis
bility is much more likely to imperil the unity than to
secure the subserviency of the Church. A recent preacher
on the Council at Archbishop Manning's " Pro-Cathedral."
at Kensington, is reported to have told his hearers that
for his own part he would not remain another day in the
Catholic Church if it did not allow full scope for the rea-
Boning 'powers. It is very satisfactory, of course, to be
assured on such good authority that Monsignor Capel finds
full and free play for his intellect within the straightest
limits of Ultramontane orthodoxy; but we have to set
against this the fact that another preacher, of perhaps
almost equal celebrity, has a very opposite experience to
record. Cardinal Cajetan said, in his treatise on the rela-
tive authority of Popes and Councils, that " the Catholic
Church is the born handmaid of the Pope." The Court
of Rome is, to all appearance, determined to take an
early opportunity of testing the correctness of his de-
scription.

The Spectator says that discussions on the condition of
the British agricultural labourer are in danger of becoming
monotonous, but no chance should be lost for preventing
any feeling of that kind by shewing the urgency of the
question, and its title to a first place in political pro-
grammes. For these reasons we are heartily disposed to
welcome the three letters on the Devonshire labourer
which Sir Charles Trovelyan has now seen occasion to con-
tribute to the discussion. The debates at the last meeting
of the British Association will have done some good, if

Ley have dono nothing more than elicit these letters.

Though somewhat strangely unimpassioned, considering
who the author is, being remarkable rather for the dry light
they contain, and the admirable way in which the main
elements and facts of the case are sifted and combined,
they may yet help in that process of heating the public

mind which we believe to bo desirable and necessary.
We have followed the writer not without approval, but
yet we should like something more than dry light and on-
lightend self-interest, and the skilful application of sccial
science maxims, in this, as in other large questions of
p(l,tical and social improvement. The manipulation of

human masses, like a brute substance, by the skilful exhi-
bition of moral chemicals which are warranted infallible,
and which do act with no little certainty, is somewhat
wanting to the dignity of human nature, and in reality is
a most incomplete process of improvement. The only
excuse for relying so much on it is the assumption that
there are other larger agencies at work to which this task of
clearing impediments, and artificially adding to or withdraw-
ing from the conditions of living, is only contributory. It is
not every race or people which would receive the good that
almost any European race may be confidently reckoned en
to receive from a sudden material improvement. There
are moral and spiritual agencies 01 crating on them, and
something now in the blood, by which the material im-
provement becomes, on the average, a certain blessing. It
would be as well if this fact were less seldom forgotten,
and perhaps, too, the power of these agencies without some
of the minor aids which are now so much thought of. ,

With a little more faith and zeal, the elevation of the
whole people in situ, paupers and Devonshire labourers

included, might not be impossible. It may be doubted

whether, with all our modern applicances, so much, or any-
thing like so much, will be done for the degraded classes as
was done two or three centuries ago for the Scotch

peasantry by the discipline of the Reformation, though the
Scotch peasants then, and long after, were poor and poorly
fed, materially perhaps as impoverished as the Devonshire

labourer of to-day.

The John Bull declares that St. Michael may in some
sort be regarded as the patron saint of Mr. Disraeli. His
famous remark, in his great speech at Oxford, that he was

on the side of the angels, implied, we presume, the con-

verse, that they were on his side. But good and evil

angels are, as we know, ever battling for the victory over

us mortals ; and certainly the evil angels have managed,
let us hope only temperarily, to have marred his destiny.
Now, on Tuesday last, the metropolis of Buckinghamshire
kept high festival. Its beautiful parish church, after a
lengthened restoration, was finished, from designs of the

eminent architect, Mr. Scott, himself a native of the

county. But where were the county and borough mem-
bers? Conspicuous by their absence. When Buckingham
church was opened, tho Duke of Buckingham and both

the borough members walked in the procession.
Where were the parliamentary representatives at
Aylesbury ? Any Member of Parliament, when the
chief church in his constituency is opened, is present
almost as a matter of course. But if the ordinary county
M.P. should testify his sympathy in such work, surely of
all men to come forward on such an occasion is the leader

of the Conservative and Church party. Shall we be told
that Mr. Disraeli would not like to have met the Bishop
of Oxford and Archdeacon Bickersteth when he had behaved
to them somewhat as Pharoah's chief butler did to Joseph ?

It cannot surely be contended that so clever and astute a
tactician could not have managed very adroitly to extricate
himself from any embarassment. He might have repeated
his famous Oxford speech in substance ; ho might have
confessed his error, and with withering sarcasm have
asked what the Church party had gained from gr.
Gladstone ?

The Economist thinks it evident that Mr. Lowe's pro•
posal to change the sovereign will not gain such an una-
nimity of support as will enable him to change it. In the
long run, and upon au average, the Economist holds that
Mr. Lowe's reasoning is right as to domestic transactions,
but the doctrine of averages is not applicable to coin. If
A contracted to receive so much gold, and you only give
him 99 per cent, of that gold, you must prove that he—
that individnal A and no other—will be able to buy with
the 99 per cent. what he used with the cent. per cent. It
is of no use shewing that other people—most people—
people on an average—people in the lapse of years—will
get it. You must shew each man that he will get it—that
he will bo no loser—that he will be as well off as before.
And by the nature of things you cannot 'thew it. A sove-
reign, with a Mint-charge equal to the cost of coining, is
exactly like a manufactured article—exactly like shoes,
but you cannot say what at any given moment will be the
price of bar gold in sovereigns. It will be in constant
fluctuation. Bar gold is preferable for many purposes--
sovereigns for many other purposes. Tho average value
will be fixed by the cost of production as in other cases,
but only tho average value, and averages are not enough
for this purpose. Each person will want that he shall not
be hurt. Again, with respect to international values, Mr.
Lowo's case is worse. He only says that after the two
changes—after the imposition of the charge, and after the
diminution of the bullion—it will be all the same for

international purposes When other nations have the
same coinage as wo have. For example, the
French are not only to coin a 25-franc piece of exactly the
same weight and fineness as the new sovereign, not only to
give up their silver standard, but also to alter all their
gold coinags—to make it suit equally with tho new 25-franc
piece. 250 francs must be of equal weight and fineness,
whether paid in Napoleons of 20 fiancs each or in the new
25-franc pieces, and therefore all the present Napoleons
must be altered. France cannot have two gold coinages of
different weight and finenuess and different Mint-charges
side by side ; nor can other rations. The proposal of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot be adopted till the
"new sovereign" is a legal tender in all nations. Till
then the sovereign will be only so "much bullion"out of
England, and if wo alter the quantity of the bullion, we
alter the only thing other nations care for. And a " new
sovereign" cannot bo a legal tender abroad till it exists,
and it cannot exist till all the present gold coinages are
called in, and it and its fractions are substituted for them.
These considerations seem to us to prove distinctly that
Mr. Lowe's suggestion will not be adopted, and ought not
to be. Tho alternative suggestion as to a Mint-charge
levied on the making of our proepit sovereign we will agaii
.tintak ktilgattiY94l.