The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-03 00:00:00

taT CP TSB PUBLIC JODIRALS.

The Times considers that the new -Irish Church will start
with large remains of its present advantages, such as they
are, and an amount of liberty and self-government which
will amply compensate for whatever -has been taken away.
The landowners, who are almost identical with the laity
sf the Irish Church, will be gainers by the. bargain to be
made with them, and will thereby have a margin which,
if they please, they may devote to sacred and useful pur-,
poses. The clergy will have the power of commuting
their life interests, and, by the action of the governing
body, will he able to consult their convenience and the
welfare of their congregations much more than is possible
ander the existing system. At least three-fourths of the
clergy of this country would gladly welcome a change
of this character. As it is, they must grow where
they are planted, whether the soil is suitable or
not, whether the fruit they happen to bear is in request
there or not. There they are, and there they must
remain till they die, even if they are conscious that they
do but encumber the ground. Elsewhere they might do
good, but not there. For a thousand reasons they would
prefer another post, even though with half the pay. Or
perhaps they are poor but most willing to work wherever
the labourer is thought worthy of his hire. Under an
establishment this is hardly possible, unless it be in the
miserably ill-paid class of curates. As for the bishops,
who are commonly supposed by women and half-educated
men to have almost absolute power of appointment, dis-
tribution, suspension, and removal, they may labour
for many years, but in vain, to put a man
where he is wanted, to displace a man who is simply
in the way, or to make any suitable provision whatever for
populations urgently wanting somebody to help them.
The loss of power arising from the want of free action
destroys more than the just influence of wealth and position
rives. The governing body of the Irish Church, starting
with a large amount of compensation, of which a consider.
able portion may be made permanent endowment, with all
the advantage of position, and with the strongest appeal
to the love and loyalty of the richest class, may, before
long, recover more than it has lost, and find that, after all,
the best endowment of a Church is its natural appeal to
those who accept its teaching, love its teachers, and desire
to extend to others the blessings they enjoy.

T,he Telegraph declares that next in interest to the
character of Mr. Gladstone's bill is the probable course of
the Conservative party. We do not, of course, affect any
alarm. Should the Conservative party "fight to the last
man," they could at the worst only " die in the last ditch;"
and they have no more power to frustrate the work
of justice than Mrs. Partington bad to sweep
back the Atlantic. "No-surrender" is a fine
old watchword, but it would mean nothing in
this case excepting the delays caused by repeated divi-
sions. We may take it, of course, as perfectly certain
that the Opposition will record their hostility to the prin.
ciple of the measure on the second reading. There will
be, on that occasion at least, a great party division, with
a result that can be anticipated by all. After that the
combat will be on points of law and questions of
detail. The considerate indulgence shewn to the dis.
established Irish Protestants in every line of the
Government Bill indicates the readiness of the
statesmen who now rule the country to make the
transition as smooth as possible, and to soften the
disendowment by every grant consistent with equity. On
many questions of importance a well-managed Opposition
might be able to win for its Irish clients even a better
bargain than that now offered by the lenient Reformer who
has taken the business in hand; and, if the Irish Church
is wise, it will direct its ability and influence to obtx.ininq
substantial concessions in detail. Mr. Disra.eli's tone o 4
Monday was singularly guarded ; for no sustained objec-
tion in principle to disestablishment or to disendownaem
need prevent him moving in committee clauses that wit
make disestablishment less immediate and disendowmenf
less complete.

The Standard says that after taking ample time f0:,4
deliberation, the Lord Chancellor has given his decisio4
upon that particular passage in the personal and official
history of Mr. Edward Watkin Edwards which recently
attracted so much attention. While the case was still sub
judice we felt it due to the inculpated person, and to the
judicial dignitary who had to pronounce upon his
,case, to
refrain from all comment upon the extraordinary circum-
stances which first became known to the world throne
the institution of criminal proceedings against the direc-
tors of Overend and Gurney (Limited). Now that Lord
Hatherley has removed the confidential friend and adviser
of the great discount house from the post which, untie
Wednesday, he had filled with more advantage
to himself than to the public, we may say thai
those who are conducting the prosecution of th
Gurneys and their former colleagues had deemei
it essential to secure the attendance of Mr. Edward:
as a witness at the Mansion-house inquiry which
ended the other day. The evidence which that gentleman
gave, seemed to take by surprise even those who had been
instrumental in compelling its production, while, by the
audience that crowded the court, it was heard, at first
with undisguised astonishment, and eventually with mani-
festations of indignation, which, though out of keeping
with the place or the time of their occurrence, were by no
-means unnatural. The dismissal of Mr. Edwards there-
fore is in no way affected by his peculiar arrangements for
conducting business between the Gurneys and himself,
which may or may not have been entirely fair and above-
board, so far as the partners were concerned. We are all
willing to make every favourable assumption with respect
to these matters ; but we are not surprised that Mr.
Edwards's chief should have declined to accept his assvr,
ante that he neither neglected his ordinary work nor uses
his official position improperly, in order to assist Overend
and Co. in their business, or in proving himself worthy of
the money they paid him.

The Daily News observes that the Lord Chancellor has
dismissed Mr. Watkin Edwards, formerly the confidential
adviser of Overend, Gurney, and Co., from the office of
official assignee of the Court of Bankruptcy. The public
would give a Lord Chancellor of less simplicity of
character than Lord Hatherley credit for sincerity when
he stated that he had made an order of this kind with
much pain. But in the interests of public anal
official morality the Lord Chancellor could do
no less. As he himself points out, Mr. Edward's
must have been well aware that he could not hi
properly performing his official duties while he Val
rendering to Ovcrends services which in his own clAniot
were cheap at £5,000 a year. It is painful that the aoces•
say should arise for applying extreme measures to met
who have been knoVin in good and honourable positions•
but in these days it seems nothing less will suffice. Oe
commercial and financial offenders will take no gentle an_
timely hint ; they rather try, as indications of dance:
increase, to carry everything off with a high hand an, •
triumphant smile. No one can look around at the preser
moment and not perceive that public opinion has still
great work to do amongst offenders of this class. Yen!
lately words of gravest censure, words which only came
short of the imputation of a criminal offence, fell from one
of the oldest judges of the Court of Chancery, relating to
some highly equivocal operations in the City, one of the
persons most directly affected by his censure being a mein•
ber of the House of Commons, sitting for one of the first
constituencies in the kingdom. The public, which naturally
expected to hear that this person had had sufficient core•
sideration for the honour of the Legislature to relieve it or
his presence, has only heard that he has surrounded him.
self with his " friends " to accept from them the advice to
brave the judgment of the country.
The Post disapproves of the scheme last week laid
before Convocation proposing to organise a deputation to
the Christian Church in Abyssinia, with the view of
establishing religious intercommunication. The Pose
refers to the case of the Armenian Archbishop, who is
still detained a captive in that inhospitable country
suffering from want of the common necessaries of life,
and asks whether Archdeacon Mackenzie can be in sober
earnest in desiring that fresh victims should be offered up
on the shrine of misplaced enthusiasm. There is plenty
of hard work for zealous Churchmen and ardent philan-
thropists without going so far afield ; and it would be no
bad thing if more real endeavours were made to heal the
wounds which are now galling the Church in this lard
before it is sought to establish a community of religion
sentiment with African savages. Besides, at a peri9u
when even all the members of one family are seldom in
accord as to the vital principles of their religion, it seems
something like a mockery to set ourselves up as the
reformers of Abyssinian backslidings.

The Star, in commenting on the loss which France has
sustained, declares that 21 years ago no name was more
frequent in the mouths of men than that of Alphonse de
Lamartine. In the early months of the world-fFmus
" year of revolutions," the poet, orator, and historian of
Republican sentiment bad seemed for a moment to grow
to the proportions of a statesman, and as the leading
figure in the Provisional Government, to shape.
a policy and lay the foundAions of a polity at
which Europe looked with varying emotions,
with wonder, suspicion, exultation, hatred, hope, or
fear. As a natural conseqten;e of the revolution
Lamartine took a leading place in the Provisional
Government. How lie was overburdened with the weight
of power, and how he failed to keep in a firm grasp the
reins of the state, we have already told. He wavered
between the temptation of leading the Socialist Demo-
cracy and the fear of alienating past recall the affections
of the b ittegeoiie of Park Like all waverer& he con-
ciliated neither party ; yet it would be unjust to deny
that, at a critical moment, when the aspect of '
affairs was darke,,t, Lamartine boldly faced a
maddened crowd, and refused to abandon the tricolour
for the red flag at the bidding of the populace.
Fur that act of civil cyurag; no words of praise
can be t o warm. We forget, in contemplating
this noble passage of an unequal and chequered life, all
the failures and the errors of the man, and we remember
only his high aspirations, his purity of life and integrity
of purpose, his eloquence, his poetic fervour, and his pas-
sionate zeal. Lamartine had survived all the glory of his
career, and had lived to taste its bitterest disappointments •,
his nine-and-seventy years were crowned with sorrows and
humiliations. Yet he may have found consolation in the
fact that his name has obtained a permanent place in the
lterary and political history of his country, and will not
for.,-etten while Frenchmen read poetry and remember
t rung days of lfra.