The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-09 00:00:00

BriErar TiE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Whatever, observes the Times, may be the immediate
ietults of the scene enacted on Wednesday in Bow Chnrch,
it cannot fail to be memorable in our ecclesiastical history.
The issue raised is extremely simple; it is the issue

between a national and a sectarian Church. A national
Church is a Church which exists by virtue of the national

will declared through Parliament, whose constitution
is incorporated with the law of the land, and

the liberty of whose ministers rests upon definite
sta tutable guarantees. It might be possible, indeed,
to make the episcopal office elective consistently with
the due subordination of the spiritual to the civil power.

'What cannot be done consistently with that principle is
to give the Crown the right and responsibility of nominat-

ink bishops, and yet to allow a nomination to be set aside
by tho archbishop for the time being at his own discretion.

In the present day it could not last ten years as an esta-
blishment, after the appointment of a bishop by the
Premier should have been cancelled by the Primate. But
the spirit in which the agitation against Dr. Temple has

been conducted augurs still worse for the prospects of the
Church, in the event of that separation from the State which
Dr. Pusey and others pi ofess to desire. When the First
Napoleon thought of convening a general Synod of the
Galilean clergy he was dissuaded by a shrewd Churchman

in these significant words :—" Sire, it is an excellent wine,
but far better in bottle than in cask." The same criticism
applies, more or less, to every other body of clergy, and to
none, perhaps, more than our own. Because Dr. Temple
will not disclaim complicity with his fellow-contributors
to "Essays and Reviews," Bishop Trower stirs heaven and
earth to stop his preferment ; but the only effect is to
shew the impotence of mere clerical menaces where the law
of the land and the voice of the people are on the side of
freedom. Only, it may be well to remember, what is
beginning to be felt in Ireland, that no Church, whether
Established. or Free, can exist without the sympathy and
support of its lay members, and laymen hate bigotry more
than heresy. The bitter odium theologicum which has pre-
vailed among our clergy for the last thirty years has done
mere to weaken their legitimate influence with the laity
than all the shortcomings in the last century. Bishops
like Dr. Temple may help, at all events, to restore that

in•`luencc, and those who have striven to close the Episco-
pate against men of his stamp are not the best friends of
the Church.

The Standard had already expressed the opinion that the

opportunity for successfully opposing the appointment of
Dr. Temple had passed away with the issue of the congi
d'elire. Up to that moment the appointment represented
the arbitrary will of Mr. Gladstone only. The moment the
royal writ had been snit out, Dr. Temple became the
nominee of the Crown, and the hindrances to the can-
celling of the appointment were enhanced ten-fold
After all, even the most exuberant denouncers of Eras-
tianism must admit that there is all the difference in
the world, so far as the practical chances of success
are concerned, between opposing Dr. Temple a:
the candidate of Mr. Gladstone and the same person when
approved by the Crown. At the same time we by no
means deprecate the formal steps taken by Bishop Trower
and his friends on Wednesday, with the view, if not of upset-
tang the appointment, at least of entering a final public
protest against it. The case will now, we apprehend, be
taken to the Court of Queen's Bench in the form of
an application for a mandamus to compel the arch-
lishop of the province to hear proof of the
allegations of the objectors, and we may antici-
pact a lengthy and possibly abortive suit. Thus far
I 'r. Temple has gained the day, and the attempt to
impede his desperate rush upon the episcopal bench has
been withstood, and it is possible that the subsequent pro-

eceding,s of Bishop Trower and his colleagues will be
e lually unsuccessful. The partisans of the bishop elect are
in high feather, so much so that even within the walls of
a consecrated church they could not refrain from cheering
their client and hissing his opponents. The latter have
a right, when publicly challenged, to enter their protest,
sad if they are defeated in the ultimate result, they will
still possess the satisfaction of having been faithful to their
amse of duty.

The Daily News declares that whatever may be the
r;;sult of the crowning work of the Pope's life, his lEcu-
eienical Council had at least a splendid opening on Wednes-
day. As a spectacle it must have been one of the most
inaposfng which even Rome has seen; as a gathering of
ecclesiastics it must have seemed a supreme success. If it
were possible anywhere to forget the modern world, it
roust have been forgotten in the Vatican and St. Peter's
on Wednesday. The scene must have been one
which might well cast the glamour of a fond
illusion over ecclesiastical eyes. Probably at no
y eriod of history could more pomp and splendour of
ecclesiastical display have been paraded in St. Peter's. A
procession of six prince archbishops, forty-nine cardinals,
Leven patriarchs, six hundred and eighty bishops and arch-
hishops, and twenty nine generals of religious orders,
might well have seemed, to ecclesiastical eyes, to typify
the unbroken power of the Church. It must have been
difficult even to look away from such a spectacle, and to
see behind it a critical and unsympathising Christendom.
r.l he sovereigns and princes who were looking on from
their seats in the lateral arches of the Cathedral may
well have got some new impression of the Church's
p ewer. If a revival of that power could be got up by a
revival of its outward s-ebna and symbols, the Church
alight date a new era from Wednesday. It was a reproduc-
tion of the past, and we may well forgive those who, urn-
n! ersed in it and dazzled by it, did not see that it was in-
deed the past and not the present. Lookers en at a distance
cannot, however, make the same mistake. They see in it
an unsubstantial pageant ; or at most a gathering
of all the forces of ecclesiasticism to draw one more
ineffectual barrier across the march of modern progress.
For the present, however, the spectacle is enough ; what
lies behind it will develope itself hereafter. Pius IX.
must have exulted as he looked upon the magnificent
scene; the scattered faithful in all lands will feel a new
glow of pious fervour as they read of it; but the con-
ditions of the modern world place before the Council one
alternative—to be content with the spectacular success or
to go down to posterity as a pretentious failure.
The Telegraph considers the judgment in the Kelly case
to have been one of the most interesting essays on
matrimonial law and life ever delivered by Lord Penzance.
Ti-e all know his lordship's rare power of putting his
opinions and decisions into wonderfully felicitous words ;
and his judgment in " Kelly v. Kelly " seems to surpass
e Ten the best of his former deliverances from the Divorce
Tench. Tho case itself is peculiar. When we read
in the " Saurin v. Starr " case, records of a cruelty
perpetual, minute, incredibly barbarous in a small way—
men said, " None but women could torture each other with
such a pin-prick persecution." But here we have a man of
education who carries out towards the unfortunate lady in
his power a continued system of cold severity enough to
break down the health and spirits of even a strong man.
We were told, at the time of the Saurin case, that
ropery was at the bottom of that mystery of malice—that
only Papists could be so hypocritical and cruel. But here
we have a member of the Church of England, living in the
second city of the Empire, in the sight of many men,
preaching the Gospel every Sunday, and bound to live a
life of piety and devotion, making his wife's daily
lire a prolonged and apparently hopeless misery. What
is there in common, then, between Mrs. Starr and
the Rev. James Kelly? Not much, perhaps:
hut this at least—that the spirit of religion seemed
to have lost its power to rule their acts, while they
vent on regularly and formally fulfilling the miserable
mockery of weekly and daily ceremonies and
prayers. Mrs. Kelly is now rescued from his ministering
hands. She has obtained in the Divorce Court a
decree of judicial separation. There is no doubt
that this decision practically enlarges the law. For
it has been held that " hard words break no
bones," and many husbands have believed that
they might commit almost any cruelty, so that they
abstained from immorality or assault. But Lord Penzance
has now clearly established the recognition at law, what
was known before as a fact, that there are insultrworse
flan a blow. His decision practically confers on a wife a
clear right not to be insulted by deprivation of her wifely
and domestic rights, not to be outraged by harshly unjust
words; it gives her the best redress—freedom from the
intolerable restraints of such oppression—tot freedom to
marry again, but for the rest of her life some dignity, some
repose.

The Herald thinks that the great reciprocity meeting
held on Monday night, at Manchester, affords fresh proof
cf the fact that the widespread feeling of dissatisfaction
ith the present state of our foreign commerce, which
many of our contemporaries affect to treat with ridicule and
contempt, is one-that Parliament will find it impossible to
ignore next session. The Radical press in this country may be
very strong, but it is not strong enough to burke all demands
for inquiry into a state of things like that from which the
niannfactnring classes are suffering at the present time.
The demand for reciprocity is a demand for some protec-
tion, and if the Government of this country continues to
have any regard for the welfare of its subjects, such pro-
tection to native industry will be granted. It is un-
doubtedly much more difficult to grant it now than it
would have been to refuse in the first instance compliance
with the unreasonable terms which the framers
of the Cobden treaty were beguiled into accepting.
*Put in some way, by roundabout if not by direct
'roans, that much protection must be granted to them.
The country generally is waking up from its Free-trailn
enthusiasm to see that, though the consumers may benefit
by such an arrangement, they may benefit to such an in-
finitesimal degree that their gain cannot be weighed for a
moment in the balance against the ruin of the producer.
It i, this consideration which wins on all hands new re-
cruits for Recirrocity,and the great meeting at Manchester
is only the wave of an advancing tide, which, as time goes
on, Mr. Bright will find it more and more di ' cult to keep
Lack v ith hi 4 broom.

The Post remarks that when the accident happened to
the Spindrift, the vessel was within (and we believe only
barely within) the " compulsory " district in winch tt islet
I 4 imposed by the law; and as under those circum-
stnces owners and captain 3 are specialty exone
rated from Lability for any damage acne, it follows
1:1 this ease. ,:here, i ever, there ni,lst have been
the vro:;:_c-..t neglO‘nce disp7ayed, nobo.7y in answerable.
fr I. the comegnoaces. Tine rilot, it will I.e said Perhaps,
answerable, am'. so he may Le, but that will be but
consolation for those who have to Lear the loss of the
N”, 000 Worth of cargo ; for a London pilot, writing in de-
fence of his clasi, has hianelf told us that a
lot under " such circumstances is in most cases
r•lnetantly compelled at once to surrender and
declare himself insolvent," Practically, therefore,
there is no responsibility at all for . any damage
clone by a vessel while in charge of a compulsory pilot, and
this, in tact, is one of the great vices of the compulsory
1,,-st.eirt. Probably the matter has already occupied Mr.
Fright's attention, and we recommend the case of the
Spindrift to him as the latest and most flagrant instance of
.t.:e inquitous and injurious wet king of the pilotage laws,
Lithe hope that the oppo:t-Inity will be taken of amending
them by the Mercantile Marine Amendment Act to be rein-
troduced itcmt session.