The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-23 00:00:00

the Church of England. A very harmless
Bill was before their lordships—Lone which
had passed the House of Commons with hardly
any discussion ; Mr. NEWDEGATE, we be-
lieve, only objecting ; it waste abolish the declara-
tion made by municipal Councillors, if Dissenters,
that they would do nothing in virtue of their
office to injure the Church of England. Lord DERBY
and a Bishop opposed it, and got it rejected, on the
ground that it was a part of a system which aimed at
religious equality. The whip has been used of late
for this reason against all really liberal measures,
great or small. Church-rates, the ballot, en-
dowed schools, and even municipal declaration--

composed of no value in itself have all
summoned from their retreats the whole
strength of the Tory party. We rejoice in all
this. • The right side will only triumph more
effectually, the more desperately the monopaly of
civil and religious privileges fight for their
" vested wrongs."

. The public must by this time have become
heartily sick of the farcical hypocrisy attempted to
, be played on them in regard to the Italian and
Savoy affairs by most parties. They have been,
juggled by Emperor, King, and Ministers
to the top of their bent. And a precious
" kettle of fish" they have made of it. Rumours
preceded lies—lies begat contradictions as veritable
as their antagonists. Then came arguments
founded on sophisms more or less reliable in pro-
portion to the source of their parentage, which
after all seemed to evade a closer scrutiny. Pre-
sently sinister assurances were sent out as feelers
to test the strength of pulse evinced by the
credulous, the doubtful, or the unbelieving.
Altogether, it was a piece of such barefaced im-
pudence that its infamy can only be measured
by th© unblushing scandal of its assurance !
Verily experience seems lost on Emperors as much
as upon humbler individuals ; for the fate of his
uncle presents no other .monitor to NAPOLEON the
THIRD but the mirror of hope in which his own
destiny is mystified by the shadow of the future.
Let him go on rejoicing, it may be for a while ; but
the hour of retribution is coming with a 'sure
but wizard step, which will lead him to
his doom. Men may be trifled with for a
while, and nations may look on and bide
their time—and the longer they wait
the more complete will be their vengeance.
NAPOLEON trusts in his destiny— others
have done the same, and found it at Philipi!
He may meet it on the Rhine, or curse it in the
Channel.

Before Savoy is actually re-united (revnie) to
Franca, it can hardly fail to be interesting to note
here, briefly, how it came to pass, under what pre-
cise circumstances it happened, that Savoy was
formerly absorbed by France as " part and parcel"
of her dominions.
It is first of all worthy of remark, however, that
Savoy only belonged to Franco, once upon a time,
for the comparatively brief and even insignificant
interval (in the history of nations) of scarcely
eighteen years and a-half !
It was in the May of 1796 that Savoy was first
given over to France by Sardinia. It was in the
October of 1815 that the assembled Powers of
Europe resolved, in solemn congress at Vienna,
upon the act of restitution.

France was Republican when Savoy was seized.
It was taken possession of then in the name of the
democracy, one and indivisible, as the spoil of a
military conqueror—that conqueror young General
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. It was almost at the very
outset of his wonderful career. He had hardly
unfurled his banners. They had scarcely begun
to flutter—" fanned by conquest's crimson wing."
It was only in the March of 1796 that he had
joined the Army of Italy, (then literally nothing
more than a disorganised band of men clothed in
rags) as Commander-in-Chief. He fleshed his
sword on the 11th of April upon that memorable
scene of the first of the Great NAPOLEON'S Vic-
tories—the Field of Mon tenotte. On the 14th of
the same month he defeated the Austrians to the
right and to the left simultaneously at Dego and
at Millesimo. On the 17th he exclaimed at Monte
Zemoto—" HANNIBAL forced the Alps, and we have

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turned them!" On the 22d he won Mondori. On
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the
10th of May he crossed the bridge of Lodi
in the midst of a deadly and blinding hurricane of
balls—being dubbed for that act of heroism by his
troops by the title which marked him thenceforth
as the darling of the French Army—The Little
Corporal ! On the 15th of May he entered Milan
_victorious. And it was on that 15th of May,
179 G, that the famous treaty of peace betw.:Tn the
French Republic and the King of SARDINIA was
signed—whereby there were ceded to France by
Sardinia—Savoy, Nice,
and the whole of the pos-
sessions of Piedmont to the westward of the highest
ride of the Alps, from Mount St. Bernard by
Mount. Genevre to the immediate vicinity of Genoa,
at Roceaburbone! Upon the signing of this treaty
at the close of an armistice but a fortnight
old, what wrote General NAPOLEON BONA-

from trusteeship of the school on account of his
religious principles.

As no schools founded prior to King EDWARD'S
reign could have been founded with any regard to
the Church of England, as the founders were Catho-
lics and would regard the Church of England,
could they rise from their graves, as an apostate
Church—it is plain that all such schools
ought to be open equally to all classes of
her MAJESTY'S subjects. No founder's title can be
alleged by the dominant sect. If the Judges con-
strued according to the founders' views, they would
pronounce the religion of the Church of England
heresy ! And yet this Church has found
means to persuade Judges to consider hers to be
the only religion in England ! We do not care to
dispute the correctness of the Judges' interpre-
tation they are bound by their precedents ;
but we do assert, that if the law be
what they say it is, it ought to be
instantly altered. The arrogant exclusiveness of
the Church of England in grasping every sixpence
confiscated from the Roman Catholics by her
founder, HENRY VIII. of blessed memory, is only
paralleled by the arrogance of the legal ground she
takes in making the claim—that in this land of
liberty, of toleration, and of Christian equality, the
law is to understand nothing by religion, but her
Prayer•book and Articles ! We do not wish to im-
peach their excellence, but really we should like
Churchmen to settle first among themselves what
is their religion. Are we to learn that from St.
George's-in-the-East and St. Barnabas, or from
Lambeth, and the Earl of SHAFTESBURY'S theatre
preachers ? Let the Church settle what her reli-
gion really is before she claims that it shall be the
the only one to which the law shall award all the
loaves and fishes.

Evidently there is a perfect panic in the ranks
of " the privileged." In the Lords last night the
terror was openly confessed. Dissenters, it was
said, are conspiring to reduce the Church of Eng-
land to their own level; or, what is just as horri-
ble, to place themselves on a level with