The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 15, 1869.

1 conclusion w s that arrived at by the Ritualists at the
Freemasons' Tavern. We scarcely see how this
decision is likely to promote the object of the Privy
Council— uniformity in Ritual. It may be said that
uniformity is not desirable, and we ourselves have
repeatedly urged that considerable latitude
should be allowed, in order to satisfy different
religious temperaments. Yet it must be
remembered that the recent attempt to enforce
uniformity is due to the extreme diversity which has
prevailed, and that unless the latter be modified and
kept within bounds, there will be a growing reaction
towards a too rigid enforcement of the rubrics. For
h is, therefore, if for no other reason, it was desirable
that the bishops should agree upon some common
principles of action in dealing with their clergy.
Moreover, the clergy had a right to look to their
bishops for guidance at this critical period. A judg-
ment has been delivered which implies, if it does not
actually lay down, important changes in conducting
the services of the Church. The Ritualist clergy
are told that they may not do certain specific acts,
and their course is therefore comparatively clear.
But the judgment also implied that certain other acts
not specified, and systematically omitted by the Low
Church clergy, ought to be done. Some of
these, absurdly enough, have come to be
considered badges of a party, and Low Church
clergymen who honestly desire to obey the law are
afraid of doing so lest they should excite the preju-
dices of their people. In such a position they natu-
rally looked to their chief pastors for guidance.
These chief pastors, after consulting together, have
decided to do nothing. It was not to be expected
that they would draw up a code of rites and cere-
monies, but they might at least have decided upon
certain definite matters which are now in doubt. The
result of their collective deliberations would have been
received with a deference wherewith the opinion of
any one of them singly cannot be. They might have
issued a joint pastoral, which would have been above
the suspicion of party bias. As it is, the decision in
every case of doubt or dispute will be left to the
individual bishop, who may be, and often is, a party
man. The result may be a diversity of " use" as
great as that which prevailed before the Act of Uni-
formity, and indeed worse than that, since it may
not only differ with the diocese but with the bishop,
so that the same diocese may have a different use in
the course of the same year.
Akin to this partial abnegation of their functions
by the bishops, is another matter affecting them and
the Church. There are now no fewer than five
dioceses which are virtually without heads. In four
of these—Exeter, Bath and Wells, Winchester, and
Chichester—the bishops are old men, whose inca-
pacity is not, therefore, likely to diminish with

. .
years. In the fifth, Salisbury, the diocesan is com-

paratively a young man, and has been so recently
laid aside by severe illness, that we would
not be thought to say a word reflecting upon him.
But what ought to be said—what can be said, when
the impediment to the fulfilment of episcopal func-
tions is chronic infirmity, increasing every year ? Is
there any other profession in which such a condition
of things would be allowed to continue as now pre-
vails in the English Church ? Let us imagine what

our army, what our navy would be if there were no

half-pay or retired lists. Let us imagine what

our courts of law would be worth if they

were presided over by men who were hope-

[essly invalided ; or what sort of government we

should have if every octogenarian statesman had a

claim to be in the Cabinet. There are men who

will be found to say that if the Church can get on

with bishops of the kind we have mentioned, it could
get on equally well without any bishops at all. We
hold a different opinion. We believe that the

influence of an energetic head is felt throughout the

whole diocese, and that if there be vigour at the

palace there will be vigour also in the-rectory and

in the schoolroom. We, therefore, would amend
rather than destroy ; we would have bishops who are
overseers in fact, as well as in name. When they
are past work they should give room to

younger men. By all means let them have a provi-
sion in their old age. That this arrangement is not
impracticable is proved by the fact that it has been

made before. Less than twenty years ago the then
Bishops of London, Durham, and Norwich resigned
on account of their health, and a suitable provision
was made for them. There can be no valid reason
why the arrangement which was made with Bishops
BLO3IFIELD7 MALTBY', and HINDS should not be
made with Bishops PHILLPOTTS ItC K LAND, St3INER,
and GILBERT. It is time that the scandal ceased of
having broken-down colonial bishops returned to
England doing the work of still more disabled
English bishops ; that the men who have spent all
their energies in some distant and scantily-populated
diocese should in their failing years be called upon to
administer large and densely-peopled English dio-
ceses. It is time our prelates were taught that
bishops were made for the Church, not the Church
for bishops.

WiIESPONDENCE FROM PARIB.

lIROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, SUNDAY, February 14.
The Belgian Chamber of Deputies has come to the
rescue: It ins succeeded in rescuing the political world
of trance tom utter stagnation, but only by means of
raising a m►st disagreeable question. This is the little
affair which has brought about a really angry discussion
in the official and semi-official papers of Paris. The Belgian
Ministry his submitted to the Chamber of Deputies a
law relating to the Belgian railways. The drift of this.
measure is that no railway company shall for the future
dispose of any of the lines of which they are the conces-
sionaires, zor transfer, partially or totally, the working
of those lin►s to any other company, except by the consent
of the Government. Now at the present time a treaty is being
negotiated !or the cession of the line running from Arlon
to Brussels to the company of the East of France, which
already wo±s the Guillamne-Luxembourg Railway. This
treaty will fall under the ban of the new measure. A
law so unexpected has produced a profound impression in
Belgium, tie inhabitants deducing all sorts of inferences.
But the bewilderment of the Belgians is nothing to the
indignation of the French. The palpable objf ct of the
law is to prevent any foreign company gaining possession
of a Belgim line, and the French companies, who have
already galled one or two concessions of this kind, arc
most directly affected by it. Judging by the indignation
of the official papers, the measure has a political signifi-
cance, and though Prussia is not mentioned, the Temps
and the Liberti have no hesitation in detecting a
piece of Count Bismarck's work in this railway
bill. The conclusion is by no means unlikely.
Prussia has every reason to preserve the independence
of Belgium, and the surrender of the Belgian railway
lines to French companies would be by no means a step
in the desized direction. Without accepting the Libertes
belief that tse Belgian army will in future be as much at
the service cf Prussia as that of Baden, it is evident that
this measure—which, by the way, has been voted by the
Chamber—is directly favourable to Prussian interests.
But it is not less natural that the French should be
deeply mortified and intensely angry at such a proceeding.
The law rust hamper to some extent the freedom of com-
merce between the countries; but this is not its most objec-
tionable feature, according to public opinion here. It is
the everlasting rivalry of Prussia, that systematic opposi-
tion in every quarter, and, sooth to say, that complete
success in many, which produce the deep feeling o:
irritation.

There is on the whole much reason to apprehend that
the ill feeling between France and Prussia is again
actively reviving. In fact it does not appear that public
confidence has made any progress during the last twelve
months. It has palpably revived at certain periods,
but always to fall away again. At the present moment the
difficulty with Greece is over, but then there is trouble in
the East in three different quarters at once ; and, lastly,
there is the ever-present Prussia v. France struggle for
supremacy.

The appointment of Senor Rivero as President of the
Cortes is deemed of much importance here. lam informed,
in a very good quarter, that the chances of the Duke de
Montpensier are considerably weakened—though, of
course, not destroyed—by this event. Rivero is of
decidedly Republican sympathies.
There was a grand field-day at Manly on Friday. The
Empress and her ladies of honour joined in the shooting,
and bagged a good average of game.
Something like a revolt among the semi-official papers is
probable. They complain greatly of the insufficiency of
their intelligence—a very well-grounded complaint, for it
is both small in quantity and bad in quality.
A youth of 19 has just been condemned at Nancy to
twenty years' hard labour for an extraordinary crime.
This youth, or rather this monster in the guise of a youth,
was pupil at a school for young men intended for the
priesthood, but he appears to have thoroughly dis-
liked his intended profession, and to have re-
preached his parents for having chosen it for
him. His conversation with the other pupils was often
blasphemous and sceptical, and his offences against disci-
pline were so numerous that he was led, on very good
grounds, to apprehend expulsion. He therefore deter-
mined upon a signal act of vengeance for an offence which
had not yet been offered him. He got up in the night,
collected a heap of books in the schoolroom, and set fire
to them ; and whilst the pile was burning he broke open
the desks of the other pupils to take whatever money or
valuables they contained. He then scrawled various
foolish inscriptions on the walls. Finally, being much
attached to another youth of the name of Jouatte, and
fearing that the expulsion he expected would now be
instantly decreed, the miscreant, Jeanson by name,
resolved to murder his friend rather than separate from
him. Going up to the dormitory he cut the poor lad's
throat, inflicting a fatal wound. A plea of insanity broke
down altogether.

THE WEATHER TABLE.—Tzrzs DAY.

30'09r.
30 15r.
3017 r.
30'23r.
30'28r.
30'33r.

30'17r.
30'13f.
3013 r.
30'33
30'27f.

3011 f.
30'43f.
3,y48f.
30'44r.
30'45r.
30 40r.

8.8.11".
S.S.w.

IW. N..W.
W. N. W.

s.w.
S.W.
S.S.W.
s.w.
S.S.W.

N.N.W.
N. NV.
S. S. W.
S. W.
S. W.

W.S.W.
W.B.W.
Z.

W. S. W.
W.
N. W.
W.
W.N.W.

' c.o.
b.o.
b.f.
C.lll
c.o.
10. M

THE GOVERN4ENT AND THE IRISH

CIIURCH.

The London correspondent of the Leeds Mercury writes
as follows :—" Though no revelation of the intentions of
the Government was made at the Fishmongers' Hall,
I have reason to believe that the crisis which existed a
few days ago has passed away, and that the danger of
some such half measure as that proposed by Lord Russell
being adopted by the Ministry no longer exists. The
' backbone ' of the Government has been firm, and more
than one eminent member of the Ministry has assured Mr.
Gladstone that the break-up of the Administration would
inevitably follow the adoption of any of the levelling-up
schemes which are in favour in certain influential quarters.
The Radicals in the Ministry have saved us from the
spectacle—which there was at one time reason to believe
we might witness in the opening session—of the abandon-
ment of solemn pledges in favour of a compromise that
could have satisfied nobody. ' Thorough' is still to be the
policy of Mr. Gladstone's Administration, and the Liberal
party throughout the kingdom need feel no misgivings as
to the nature of the announcement which it will be the
Premier's duty to make on the Ist of March."

The Echo, referring to the fact that Mr. Bright has
already she wn a weariness of office, says : "He would
like to be thundering against those contemptible hin-
drances which prompt compromise, and it is scarcely a
secret that the Government has resolved upon the
necessity of temporising with the question of the Irish
Church. We shall not be surprised to find that
Mr. Gladstone's scheme involves the appointment
of some Commission of Inquiry to deal with the question
of re-appropriation of the Church revenues. We shall
not have to wait for disestablishment, but we scarcely
venture to hope that we shall see the whole matter
settled this year. The interest of the people is
to be rid of a question which overshadows others
of great practical utility, and Mr. Gladstone would arouse
a feeling, already becoming dormant, if he were to risk
defeat by dealing as largely as possible with the question.
If he fails he can then dissolve Parliament, and ask the
people whether or no they will have his measure. The
response would not be doubtful, for every one knows the
work must be done."