The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP TEE PUBLIC JOURITALS.

The Times, in referring to the decision of the Conserva-
-
',rye Peers, says : We are on the eve of a crisis. Nothing since
;he throes which preceded the passingof the Reform Bill can
he compared with the consequenceswhich must attend the
threatened conduct of the Conservative Peers. Of the
'milt of the struggle there eau be no doubt. The policy
A the Irish Church Bill, approved by the three kingdoms,
jointly and severally, after mature deliberation and a.
Erect reference of the question to the nation cannot be
Jefeated. Ent there are other results of their action
which touch us all. They put in jeopardy not only them-
selves and their privileges, but the peace of our great
towns, and the maintenance of law and order in the
country. Above all, they do their best to provoke an
outburst of passionate violence in the unhappy country
the vast majority of whose inhabitants they propose to
autrage by a contemptuous disregard of their wishes.
The cissidents on Saturday were a very small fraction
pf the whole, and it must be observed that few of the
Conservatives who disapprove the policy of blind and
ungovernable res"stance will feel compelled to mark their
disapprobation of it by voting for the bill. They will not
vote at all. Ti eir absence will diminish the ranks of the
Opposition, but will not add to the ranks of the Ministry.
We must be prepared, then, for the rejection-of the bill.
It is wi,e to Le ready to meet this i,sue. What must
follow ? Nothing more serious than an August inLorulon.
The business of the session must be immediately wound
up, and Parliament prorogued, to meet again after
a short interval of rest. We shall see the Lill introduced
in the new session without a tittle of change, and brought
up to the Lords precisely in the form it will be presented
next week for its second reading. It will depend upon
the Lords themselves what steps will by that time have
heen•taken to ensure its success. But that the bill must
pass then is certain. There is no other alternative. The
nation has pronounced upon the question. The House of
Commons reflects its opinions, and neither the nation nor
the House of Commons will recede from the policy they
• have deliberately approved and supported. Next week
the Lords will be asked to allow that policy to prevail.- If
they defer to the will of the people, it will be well. If
they stubbornly and successfully resist, the successful
majority will be overruled two months later.
The Standard declares that the peril of such a resolution

is too obvious to be ignored even by the least thoughtful
and conscientious of our hereditary legislators ; it must
have been constantly and urgently present to the minds of
the tried and experienced statesmen who lead the Con-
servative party. The kind of popular excitement likely
to be produced by a collision between the Peers and the.
Commons was sufficiently impressed upon their recollec-
tion by the result of the rejection of the Paper Duty
Repeal Bill in 1861. The reasons which should
lead the Peers to think deeply and hesitate long
before, under any -provocation or for any object, they
engage in such a contest as is now impending—
r Paso n familiar to our readers—were earnestly
urged by men like Lord Salisbury, whose attachment to
the Church is well known to be DS fervent, whose
adherence to Conservative principles is at leait as con-
sistent and unquestionable as that of any of the advocates
of a bolder policy. It must not be overlooked that a very
strong pressure, much underrated by the Liberal press,
has been put upon the House of Lords since it became
apparent that the majority in the Lower House would
listen to no argument and accept no compromise. Such
demonstrations as have been made on behalf of the Church
of Ireland are without parallel in recent history. The
Anti-Corn Law League, the Reform League, never called
•forth a tithe of the enthusiasm displayed in this cause.
Nothing like it has been seen since 1832.
The Star thinks that in the event of the rejection of the
bill by the Peers the popular menace against the Irish
Church will include other institutions. It will be pro-
claimed on the housetops.that the House—of Lords is not
a more logical, desirable, or excusable institution:than the
Irish Church ; and in the fever heat which will follow the
rejection of the bill—a fever heat such as has not been
seen-since Birmingham• threatened to march on London
in the name of Reform—cries will be heard for the down-

fall of obsolete Chamber, which-no longer disguises the
anachronism of its existence by that decent deference to
the popular will which the Duke of Wellington said ought
never again to be withheld. When the issue cornea- their
lordships will probably be wise in tithe. If not, they must
take the consequences, and those consequences cannot
possibly be pleasant or safe. Most probably the resolu-
tion of Saturday and the dubiety of to-day will . teach
the English people a lesson they will never forget. It is
absurd enough that in_ these days there should be any
chamber of Legislature with a standing majority statedly.
opposed to the general bent of the- nation's will on the
mesa vital -questions of government ; but that such a
majority shouldgive the smallest anxiety for a'single day
nnder a popular Government carries the absurdity to an
intolerable pitch.
The Daily News says that the Lords who met at the
Duke of. Marlborough's are supposed to have expressed a
unanimous desire that within the course of the next few
days the real sentiment of. the whole nation should be
ascertained. This language loOks like an appeal from
hotseehold to universal suffrage. Is there to be another
leap in the. dark ? Is Mr. Murphy to perambulate the
country, with a warrant from Lord Cairns to
raise a No Popery riot in every town of the
kingdom ? The doctrine that the sentiment of the
station is not represented by the decision of the constituen-
cies in a general election, and by the votes of an over-
whelming majority in a House of Commons upon a ques-
tion on which each member had, practically, a special
mandate from his constitrents, is more than revolutionary
—it is anarchic. The fact that a number of noblemen
rePresenting the strictest Conservatism of an institution
usually thought to embody the .Conservative element of
the Constitution should throw out ideas of this sort ought
to shew them how false and untenable the position is
which they have taken up. There is yet time for an
honourable retreat from it, hut the time is short.
• The Peers have consented, says the Herald, at the in-
:;tanee of the_Protektient party. in the countiy to take the
lead in a perilous and determined conflict. It behoves
these.who have urged them -to this venture to support
them with all their energies against the storm which their

resolve is certain to raise,. Nor is this less the duty of
of' every -Censtitu ITW 1r the
realm. It matters not whether the decisiOns of the
Lords rile- pruddit pblific,:' We may regret or
wfrmny approve it ; but thus much is certain, tat
having been taken, it is of paramount importance that it
be upheld by a force of public opinion sufficient to
prevent the Lords from being crushed in the struggle. If
they are overpowered by the reckless and headstrong
violence of the Prime Minister, their power is gone. for
ever, and the balance of the Constitution is overthrown;
ana eVen' thOse wh6regret that so much has been staked
upon so doubtful an issue must feel that, now the stake
has been laid down, all that can be done is to secure that
it shall -not& lest.

The Post thinks that the proceedings at the meeting of
Peers held on Saturday render it certain that the House of
Lords is, after all, to be made the scene of an attempt to
reject the Irish Church Bill; but they by no means make
it necessary to believe that the attempt will succeed. It
trusts that the Lords will consult their own honour and
dignity by passing the bill, which has been distinctly
affirmed in principle and undeniably accepted in detail
by the country at large. No resolution was come to
at the meeting on Saturday, and the circumstance'
that the Peers who attended reserved their liberty of
action would seem to indicate some proper apprehension
of the impolicy of the course they were advised to take.
We may feel assured that the Ministry, strong in their
purpose and their support, will certainly carry their
measure. It may be left to their wisdom to decide on the
course to be chosen in the event of the Lords rejecting the
bill. If that untoward accident should occur, it may
delay, hut cannot prevent, the final triumph of the decision
arrived at last November.

• 'l:7er since the steadfast action of Mr. Cladstonc's
majority transferred all incertitude about the L ish Church
Bill to the Upper Chamber, we have :believed, says the
Telegraph,. and have persistently maintained, that the
Peers. would pass the second reading. Our opinion vas
not affected by the rumours with which the air was
filled, during the past week ; and it- is not shaken now
by the proceedings of the meeting; at the Duke
of Marlborough's house on Saturday. It is still
our firm belief that the house of Lords as a
body—whatever may be • done for the sake of
party, of-pledges, or of bigotry by individual politicians—
will suffer the measure to go into committee. That we
bold firmly to thii vietv will explain why we have never
joineel in the excited clamour raised by certain of our con-
temporaries about-the intentions of their lordships. Mr.
Gladstone is today so strong as to be simply irresistible.
By next week the tiers part/ around Lord Stanhope, Lord
Carnarvon, and Lord Salisbury w have grown to a
number sufficient, we may trust, to rescue the Tory
forlorn hope from its own rashness.

Canada has doubled her popuhttion once every
eighteen years since 1800.

A HORSEY CHURCHWARDEN.— Tlio county of
Kent has its peculiarities of social character ; but we do
not know whether ecclesiastical discipline is stricter
or more lax there. There is one stray sheep of the
*iocese of Rochester which sadly wants looking, after.
The churchwarden of a rural parish in Kent was not at
”hurch on Sunday. It was known to the initiated—
that is to say, to all who bad bought a particular penny
sporting newspaper—that he was at Paris, where he rode
the horse that ran third for the Grand rrix. This would
.119t1ilmil_are'cjii4 A few sears

ARCHBISHOP MANNING'S PASTORAL ON
NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Archbishop Manning has issued, on the occasion of the.
Feast of the Sacred Heart, a pastoral which is practically
a plea for denominational education in England, not. as
absolutely the beat possible system—that being realisable
only where the whole people being of one mind in religion
are religiously brought up in schools which are at once
schools of the Church and of the State—but as the beat
of which the English people have the choice.
The following passage fairly represents the import of the
whole :—" Water cannot rise above its source. The State
has no rights, therefore no duties, . higher than those of
the parents. Sacerdotaliam claims no such rights against
the natural rights of parents. The Church claims and
possesses the right and the commission to direct, and by
all moral power to constrainrits members to educate their
children as Christians, and, further, to protect them
in these rights and duties against all adversaries; and of
all adversaries, from 'Julian to Voltaire, the State, when it
exceeds its rights, is the worst. A Christian civil power
educating by its public action an united people in sound
Christian schools, is the most perfect example of the moral
character of the State. A civil power holding the balance
of justice even in a firm neutrality among the religious
sections of a divided people, assisting them to educate their
children, partly by private and partly by public means,
in schools proper to their respective religious convictions,
is the less perfect, but the inevitable, condition of a State
which has forfeited its religious unity. A civil power
rejecting all religion from its public action, and excluding
it from its popular education, and nevertheless meddling
with teachers, schools and books, becomes the worst of
social tyrannies, the tyranny of bureaus and of pedants.
In such a system the State has not only got rid of sacer-
dotalism ; but has usurped the parental rights of the
people. Its usurpation upon the office of the Church-is an
usurpation also upon the authority of every father and
mother in the land. 'We cannot be too prompt in mea-
suring the full extent of the conflict into which we may be
entering. It is ner less than a trial of strength between
the traditions of Christian England. and the demands of
those who, while they strip the State of all Christianity,
claim for it a supreme control over the education
of the people. They tell us that the time is
come for enlarging our, conceptions of the State, by
claiming for it a right to exercise those functions
which the deity have hitherto regarded as their own.
But those functions are essentially and exclusively reli-
gious; and the clergy claim a direction of education,
because education in its essence is the religious forma-
tion of children by the law of Christian faith and morals.
This claim then of the State is epiivalent to a State
supremacy over the conscience. . What was once claimed
for Kings is now claimed for Staies. But Kings
claimed a supremacy to direct their people in.matters
of religion ; the State is now to claim a supremacy to
strip the education of the people of Christianity-, and to
exclude their pastors and clergy, from directing the
education of children. Now, this is nothing else than
the deification of the civil power, which Christianity
overthrew. It is the lex regia of Ancient Rome, in which
Emperors were pontiffs, a true tyranny over body and
soul-