The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC 'JOURNALS,

The Times remarks that the Irish Church,Act has been
added to the Statute Book. Less than a score of legisla-
tors attended the last act of the drama which had so ener-
getically stirred the passions of all. This absence of
interest, which is in strict accordance with historic pre-
cedent, is, no doubt, due, in great measure, to the purely
Ministerial character of the ceremonial, but it may also
be in part attributed to the reaction consequent upon the
termination of a party contest. The reconciliation of Ire-
land to England is the great result intended to be attained
by the policy of which the Irish Church Act is the first
fruit, and to Ireland we shall have to look in due season
to discover whether the result corresponds to our hopes.
If we have any regret in reviewing the measure, it is
that it was not more complete. The outward pre-
sentment of the Irish Church will scarcely be
changed by it. It is satisfactory to see that there is no
fear of that dilapidation of the Irish Church which some
of its defenders wildly predicted, and that, on the con-
trary, there is every reason to anticipate the success Mr.
Gladstone wished it. With the anomaly of the Irish
Establishment the anomaly of a Protestantism which is
not Liberal will disappear. The direct effect of the Act
may thus be an Irish reconciliation in which both parties
will change sides ; but this result, if it sh( uld happen, will
not be discouraging. If the Catholics of Ireland become
Conservative, they will, at all events, become law-abiding.
If, on the other hand, the Protestants become Liberal,
we may still be confident that their energies will not be
directed to breaking the law, though they may agitate for
changes in it. The one party will be brought into relation
with the Constitution, the other will not depart from it ;
and the unity of the kingdom will be perfected because
all forms of political development will be included
within it.

The Irish Church Bill, says the Standard, has received
the royal assent, and, therefore, has now become the law
of the land. We are not surprised to End that the set-
tlement effected with such startling rapidity last week has
failed to secure the approval of the Irish Protestants, and
we can make every allowance for the vigorous language in
which they record their dissent. The Conservatives have
done their best for the Irish Church, and that best is
represented by a very appreciable increase to the modicum
of wealth which it is permitted to retain. At present the
service is grudgingly accepted where it is not indignantly
repudiated. As time rolls on and the sharpness of the blow
which has fallen upon their Church becomes blunted by the
lapse of years, they will learn to think more gratefully of
thole who have fought their cause with such perfect
devotion and such persevering earnestness. They will
forget, or rather, cease to think of, the wrong done against
their Church, and, ceasing to complain of acts which
cannot be recalled, they will strive to make the injury as
little harmful as possible. Resigned to a fate which was
not to be averted, they will gather courage and determi-
nation to strengthen their Church as much as possible,
so that it may still be equal to the high mission set
before it.

The Post observes that the Irish Church Bill has received
the assent of the Crown, and it is to be hoped that the
angry passions which, if its discussion had been adjourned
to another cession, would probably have fixed themselves
in the form of deep and lasting antagonisms, will now die
away and disappear. Without bating a jot of their Pro-
testantism, the people of England and Scotland have at
last freely and fully admitted that the Irish people, being
a Catholic people, have a right to perfect independence,
or to a perfectly equal union. Now the fundamental
cause of offence is to be removed. The fortress of
Protestant ascendancy in Ireland is already virtually
surrendered. All the Churches it that country are
to be equal in the eye of the law. Nevertheless, the die-
established Church may preserve its ascendancy on a
moral footing. Its priests may be tribunes of the Irish
people. But, whatever may appear hereafter, there is
every reason to believe that the Act which is nowrecorded
among the statutes of the realm will confirm the noble old
maxim, that "Right never comes wrong," and we may
believe that a measure of substantial justice, which
redresses the grievances of Ireland, cannot fail to
strengthen the arm of this country.
The Daily News says that the royal assent was given on
Monday by the commission, which included the Heir .Ap-
parent of the Throne and two princes of the royal blood,
to the bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of
the Irish Church. The cheers which greeted the Speaker
on his return from witnessing the ceremony acclaimed
the reconciliation, where there had been divergence, of
law and of justice, and the accomplishment of that first
instalment of a remedial policy for Ireland to which the
Government has pledged itself, and to which Mr. Glad-
stone has, we believe, resolutely girded up his strength.
The logic of facts may be irresistible, but it is tardy.
It took politicians forty years to perceive that the full
rights of citizenship being conceded to the Irish Roman
Catholics, it was an anomaly and an iniquity to main-
tain among tilt m, out of the national revenues,
a so-caned national Church, in which they, being
seven-eighths of the population, had no part or lot.
The chief immediate causes of the success of the measure
lie beyond question in the force with which Mr. Bright's
noble eloquence has brought home to the national mind
the obligation and necessity of pursuing a policy of civil
justice and religious equality in Ireland, and in the ear.
neatness and vigour with which Mr. Gladstone has applied
his unrivalled administrative capacity, and the strength
which the trust of his countrymen gives him, to the
accomplishment of a great task. It would be vain to
expect all at once great and startling results even from a
measure of signal justice. The change for the better will
first be conspicuously discernible in the generation which
will grow up, and the character of which will be formed,
under the new conditions which the legislation of the
present Parliament is creating. In the present and
the immediate future we shall see chiefly the fruits of
the past.
The Irish Church Bill, says the Herald, has become the
law of the land. The mischief is done, and it remains to
be seen what will be the consequences of the Act now
passed on the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland. It
is likely that Orangeism will be much more general and
potent in the Church than heretofore. She will be more
passionate and less reserved, more 'controversial and less
practical, more given to preaching and less to prayer —in
fact, more governed by the so-called Evangelical and
less by the Moderate school than she has yet
been. If the laity desire to avert this danger,
they must keep her as much as possible what she Las
hitherto been, an endowed Church ; a Church governed
by law ; a Church of which the clergy are independent in
their functions and secure of their bread, but in which the
legislative and controlling influence is that of laymen.
The future of the Church is in the hands of her members;
it can be secured by sufficient sacrifices on their part ; and
we shall think ill of the zeal and piety of Irish Protestants,
of the sympathy of their English brethren, of the Orange
spirit—and above all, of the sincerity of those professed
friends of the Church who voted with Mr. Gladstone, if
those sacrifices are grudged.
The Star thinks that the establishment of the new
Church body in Ireland will be one of the most peculiar
and interesting experiments in ecclesiastical history. Well

might the Earl of Carnarvon, in advocating the with-
drawal of the Irish bishcps from the House of Lords,
suggest that those prelates would be better employed in
the great task which awaited them than in attending
parliamentary debates at Westminster. A labour of
mora special difficulty than that which they and the
representative body will-have to perform, if the advan-

takes of the Irish Church Act are to be secured by
the Church, has seldom been undertaken. The difficulty
will not arise from the poverty of the Church. On
the contrary, she must be rich, and may be much richer,
if the arrangements of the Act are carried out. But with
the churches for nothing, and the glebe houses for next to
nothing, with the half-million in lieu of private endow-
ments, and with complete liberty of organisation, the
coming task of the Irish Church, however difficult, ought
not to be by any means insurmountable. INluch will de-
pend on the wisdom of the representative body, and per-
haps even more on the willingness of individual clergymen
to do their best for the Church by availing themselves of
the commutation, and consenting to be stationed where
they can be most useful.

The Prince and Princess of Walt s intend to leave
Marlborough House to-night for Germany, where they
make a stay of a few we. ks. _
MIIRDER.—Two cases—one of murder, another
of attempted murder—are under investigation in the
Midland district. One William Mobbs has been com-
mitted for trial in Bucks, on the charge of murdering a
boy, named Newbury. The boy was found in a pea-field,
near Haversham, with his head nearly severed from his
body. The prisoner's clothes were covered with blood, and
a knife found near the body is thought to have belonged to
him; but no motive for the crime has been discovered. In
Derkshire a man, named Sherwood, has confessed to an
attempt to murder a fellow-workman near Maidenhead.

TIIF, tAI:KING SEWAGE OUTrA LL. The inquiry
1 Pollution of the Thames at Barking IvaP
resumed ua Momloy in one of the committee-rooms of the
House of Commons. Mr. Bidder, C.E., considered that
so far from the sewage having contributed to impede the
navigation, a contrary result had been cblained.
Three-quarters of a mile from the outfall the
presence of the sewage was not perceptible. Mr.
Gregory, C.E., agreed with the theory and opinion of Mr.
Bidder as to the speedy dissolution and disappearance of
the matter. Mr. Hawksley also expressed his conviction
that the river had not been injured by the action of the
outfall works. Scientific evidence was then taken to shew,
on analysis, the constituents of a sample of mud taken
from Barking Creek, and the inquiry was again 44
Jourind. -

lilt° the all(