The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBEh 10, '1856

We cannot remember the time when the Church
was not in danger. Just before our entrance on
public life she had enjoyed a long and peaceful
slumber. She had had an unquiet time of it dur-
ing Presbyterian ascendancy, and JAMES 11. gave
her a year or two's uneasiness ; but from that
time to the horrid days of WHITFIELD and WESLEY
most happily did she doze and slumber, and slum-
ber and doze. Dissenters during that long inter-
vel troubled her not ; they were either too re-
spectable, retaining among them some titled sece-
ders, who suffered no insults to their venerated
mother, or too weak, and glad by extra courtesy
to country squires and magistrates, to atone for
the guilt of nonconformity. The popularity of
the two great field preachers of the last century
did not at first disturb ecclesiastical repose ; both
were sons of the Church, had taken her orders,
used and even attended her services, and, while
denouncing unworty priests, never attacked the
altar which they served.
Yet soon after the Church began to be alarmed.
The French Revolution set all the Radicals against
priests of every description. This, however, only
roused the bishops and clergy to triumphant
wrath. There was no easier way to devote any
over-zealous reformer to Church or State to a
mob auto de fe than by pronouncing him a
Jacobin. The mob was as serviceable to the
Church then as it is just at this moment to the
domestic institution of our American cousins. The
great danger began when two denominations,
separated by their opinions on ono point only, the
Baptists and Independents, awakened from their
s'umbers by the successes of WHITFIELD and WES-
LEY, began to push their opinions and to make
proselytes among the middle classes. Their church
government is strictly republican. The Memoirs
of JEFFERSON mention that that statesman ob-
tained his first conceptions of the federal union
of independent states from what he observed in
churches of the Baptist communion. One prime
article of their creed, and that of the Inde-
pendents also, is, that each of their churches
is a complete sovereign organisation, amenable to
no external authority, and every member having
equal votes. Endowments, even by individuals,
were soon found to be adverse to this out-and-out
republicanism ; and voluntaryism has long be-
come their avowed reliance. Their independence
was guaranteed by each member being alile to
diminish the Means of any usurper or invader of
their liberties, by withdrawing his quota from
the €lllll.ch treasury.
Ne,w, as advanced liberals ourselves, we must
do these twin sects the justice to acknowledge
their services to the great cause of freedom.
Whatever a man's religious principles, it is cer-
tain that they materially modify his conceptions
of government and politics. How few High
Churchmen fail of being good Tories also. Im-
plicit obedience to the Rector and the Diocesan,
issue in a tendency to quiet submission to the
powers that be. On the other hand, the sects
we have adverted to, distinguished by a purely
republican church polity, have hardly a Tory
among them. He is quite a black sheep
where he is to be found. When the Anti-
State Church Association was proved, which
held its meeting under a new name on Thursday,
so far as we could ascertain the active men
belonged almost exclusively to these bodies, and
we are informed that to this day it numbers but
a few Churchmen, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, or
even Catholics amongst its prominent agents.
We believe public atttention has been directed to
this fact, for a fact we believe to be, hitherto.
The Hon. Rev. Baptist W. NOEL no sooner
became the minister of a Baptist Chapel, than he
publishedat once a large octavo, and, we are told,
a rather vigorous attack against the union of
Church and State. It has been the same with
other seceding clergymen who have joined these
ecclesiastically republican Dissenters.
It is plain that at length they have succeeded
in gaining for their favourite principle of volun-
taryism, the respectful attention of respsct-
table Members of Parliament. Mr. MIALLS
motion on the Irish Church last session,
though avowedly based on the voluntary
principle, obtained upwards of 120 votes in its
favour. And both out of Parliament and in it,
such men as Mr. GLADSTONE and Lord StANLEY,
from there very different points of view, have in-
dulged in very strong encomiums on voluntaryism.
The abolition of protection in so many forms, and
the overpowering evidence that self• dependence
has augmented surprisingly the energies of com-
merce, has also been much in favour of the volun-
taries. They chime in with the popular senti-
ment by representling State Endowment as pro-
tection, and -Voluntaryism as free trade in re-
ligion ; and thousands who would give no head
to a theological dispute, attend when the creed of
the day is invoked. The abolition of the Clergy
Reserves iu Canada, and the general deter mina-
Lion of the, colonies to do away with State grants
for religious purposes, must also have an influence
on the mother country.

• To all this has to be added to the results of the
religious census; not merely was it proved that
one half the worshippers in the kingdom did
support their own worship ; but even the prodi-
gious chureh building efforts of the last fecv
Iyears have been voluntary efforts—efforts, too,
the results of which have stood in marked con-
' tract with the little effected, byGovernment grants,
for the same object. Thousands of Churchmen
bavo been taught, by the best of all teachers, how
much more they could do for their Church than
they had thought they could. The success of the
Free Church in Scotland, of Popery in Ireland,
and the total failure of our wealthy Establishment
there, have all come in support of the new danger
to the Church. Perhaps Mr. SPOONER has helped ,
the Dissenters sia much a 3 any on.!. Every argu-
ment he (-,...an use for disendowing Maynooth is.s

induced to lend his aid in removing the trifling with honourable and business men, argument for
obstacles opposed to the traditionary policy of I disendowing the religion of the minority in Ireland.
Russia, by the late war, to render nugatory the The Voluntaries support Mr. SPOON ER, as they con-
sacrifice of 50,000 English lives, and sistently state with a double reason ; for they at
100,000,0001. of English money g Every senti- the same time vote against a State Endowment,
mcnt of patriotism is opposed to the notion. and will compel Catholics to vote ultimately for
But, putting aside the considerations of patri- the disendowment of the Irish Church.
otism, and the effect on our own industrial opera- We believe the Church of England has made
tions, by the effect on the currency, there is still in the last five and treaty years great advances
another aspect of the question which has been in efficiency; but, unfortunately for her state
presented by " A Hertfordshire Incumbent," Establishment, they have all been at the expense
through the columns of a contemperary, that is of that principle. All the members of the Esta-
peculiarly worthy of notice. The Rev. writer blishment have done in this way has so far but
points out the existing scarcity of iron in Russia, gone to prove that they do not need help from,
and the results that must follow so great a de- without. Looking these facts in the face, we
m ind as must be produced by the vast consump- m ust confess that if the Church were the Esta-
tion. The price would take away the profits of blishment, and the Establishment the Church, the
the company, or at least would greatly increase Church is indeed in danger; but as no one now be-
the outlay, while the guarantee is limited to a lieves this, we must also confers that the Church,
fixed sum. An addition of some millions of ex- in our opin ion, never was less in danger. She
penditure would practically reduce the interest,' is learning better every year how to go alone,
which will only be paid for a certain term of and exercise is bracing her muscles. Should the
years, to a lower amount than could be obtained day of separation come—as Lord STAN LEY says it
for a perpetuity, either in England or France ! will at latest by the next generation—she will be
Let our countrymen, and our French brethren found as able as Dissenters are to take care of
ponder on these matters, and abstain from en- herself. From the meeting of the Society for the
tangling themselves in matters that may here- Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and
after occasion serious losses to themselves, and Control, at the London Tavern, we gather that it
misery and destitution to their unfortunate is intended to prosecute vigorously the campaign
families,
against the Irish Church next session. The
Voluntaries have certainly chosen for attack an
institution which no Statesman can defend on its
own merits, but which yet seems a valuable sup-
port to the Establishment here. It is commencing
to demolish the building by first battering a
shaky though by no means unimportant buttress.

A morning contemporary, of which a year or
two ago it was supposed L)rd J. RUSSELL had,
for political purposes, become part proprietor, now
comes forward with a proposal which, it is to be
hoped, the Premier will entertain as it deserves ;
no less, in sooth, than that "JOIINNY who upset
the coach" shall be pitchforked from the obscurity
of the back benches, to which pique and vaulting
ambition have consigned him, to the Ministerial
forerank in the Lords ! No doubt the Noble
Lord has done good service to his country in his
day, but the last services his Lordship rendered
weze " to upset the coach" and walk arm-in-arm,
metaphorically as well as literally, with Prince
GORTSOHAROFF at Vienna. The country has not
forgotten this, and were the Premier to listen to
the suggestion of our contemporary, instead of
adding strength to his Ministry he would intro-
duce an element of suspicion and peril. The
attitude of Russia at the present moment
would add greatly to the impolicy of a
selection from which in any case no pos-
sible good can be' anticipated. But a short
period would be allowed to elapse before his
Lordship would be found "at his old trick again,"
leaving the Premier to repent his ill-advised good
a iture at his leisure. " Sorry sight," therefore,
as it may be to see his Lordship wasting another
session on the back benches, with the Liberal
party in power, it is but the penalty of his own
misdeeds, and he must make the best of it, The
Liberal party is not so weak as to be unable to
furnish whatever accession of ministerial strength
may be required in the Lords, without having
recourse to aid which would everywhere be re-
garded with suspicion. The Noble Lord is
"used up " for Ministerial purposes, and the
best thing he can do is to redeem the past by
illuminating the shade of the back benches with
th• lustre of public services independently ren-
dered, without looking for any further reward
than " the testimony of a good conscience." His
Lordship's case is not hopeless, "sorry" as the
"sight" may be. He has but to wash in the
waters of repentance to be clean—in his present
opacity. Lord PALMERSTON can hardly afford
to have his coach upset just now.