The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-01 00:00:00

TWO CONSERVATIVE MEETINGS.

Two meetings of Conservatives, which were held on
Tuesday, had members of tho House of Commons to address

them. Ono of them a banquet, held at Buxton, to commemo

rate the victory of Captain Arkwright at the North Derby-
shire election, was presided over by Lord John Manners.
In his speech after dinner, Lord John spoke most feel-
ingly of the crisis which the nation had now reached. Wo
had come, ho said, to the point where two roads meet, one
leading from the glorious past of monarchical, religious
England, to an equally glorious future; the other branch-
ing off, to some unknown form of purely secular Democratic
government, in which the State is to be dissolved from reli-
gion, and liberty to ba lost in licence. At the commence-

ment of the late general election attempts wore made to
m:nimiso the issue, to localise it to Ireland; but those
attempts have signally failed. Principles such as those
that aro now promulgated in high places, dominant to-
day in Ireland, must, and will, to-morrow rule the
empire at large. The borough elections had been
won by the Liberals ere this fact bad been fully recognised;
but when that series of political orations delivered by Mr.
Gladstone in a neighbouring county, and the replies to those
speeches with which the hustings and the press fortunately
teemed, became as it were the property of the public, then
indeed those great and weighty political bodies, the county
constituencies of England, appeared to recognise the immi-
nence of the issue, and the momentous nature of the crisis.
Congratulating the meeting on the local victory which had
been won, he counseled the Conservatives to unite all con-
stitutionalists, Whigs and Tories, Liberals and Conserva-
tives—and they might yet prevent the overthrow of the in-
stitution they loved. "I may be asked—Who are you, to come
among us and give advice of this nature ? You who come
fresh from a crushing defeat in the House of Commons—
how is it that you make use of language which cannot be
called the language of submission and acquiescence ? Nn,
gentlemen, I preach no counsels of despair. My voice is nut
for surrender. Nothing, gentlemen, in my humble opinion, is

yet lost but the character of those public mon who, on
the hustings, and before the election, promised that the
Church of Ireland and the College of Maynooth should
alike be disestablished and disendowod, and who now
are proposing to establish and endow the latter on
the ruins and out of the spoils of the Church of England
is Ireland. In my of iuion the campaign is only beginning.
Our enemies have called up all their forces. Our reserves
have yet to come into play. The country now, for the first
time, begins to see what is the real meaning of those bastard
English words disestablisment and disendowment. They
now know that disestablishment means the separation of
Church and State ; and that disendowment means the
endowment direct and indirect, of the Church of Rome
out of the funds of the Protestant Establishment.
That being the case, I believe the country will
steadily and perseveringly re-assert its opinion is
favour of the ancient institutions of the country."
Lord John went on to complain that the private endowments
are now to be declared by law to be only those which were
given to the Irish Church since the year 1662 ; and the
plainest facts of history have to be falsified in order to
pillage her of her undoubted rightful property. These
being, I won't say the only, or the most important, facts
of the great case as it is now submitted to the country, I can-
not; and will not doub', what the ultimate result will be.
Another Conservative misting was held on the same
evening at Ardwick, the lion. A. Egerton and Mr. Birley
being the speakers. Mr. Egerton spoke out the old cry of
"No surrender." if the Irish Chinch went, so must the
English. He did not believe that that disestablishment of
the English Church w..u'd exile soon, but he would say
that the disestablislonent of the Irish Church was
a step towards it. Mr. Bir:cy rom'mltd the meeting that
Sir Roundell Palmer, the greatest English jurist. was op-
posed to disendowment, ho bolieved that almost every ir an
well qualified to judge—that was to say, our great jurists,
our grcatest judges—would be, speaking dispassionately, of
the same opinion. They would say that it was a great injustice.
They had the best lawyer on the other side taking a view
opposed to disendowment ; and even Sir J. Coleridge, the
Solicitor-General, had been, according to the admission of
his own party, unable to answer him.

A CHURCH DESTROYED BY LIGHTNING.—
A telegram from Havannah, dated March 16, and re•
cei ved-via- New York, states that the cathedral church in
Zacatecas•was struck by lightning on the sth instant an 4
tßrYiPg_hundreds of ittruins..4;°"-