The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-20 00:00:00

EPILIA: OP TEE FURL 1O JOURNALS,

The Times remarks that the Bishop of Exeter outlived
everything that once made him famous and formidable.
Length of days brought its gains and its losses. He long
survived, and, lo doubt, learnt to regard with generous
kindness the foes he resisted or provoked, the causes he
denounced, the statesmen he defied, the clergy that
rebelled against his discipline, the Primate he excommuni-
cated, the writers that lived by abusing him, and
the Lords that would not listen to his harangues. He
could afford to pity them all. It is true that

among them they kept him at Exeter ; but, oven
so, they were taken at their word, for they kept him
there very long. After a long and stormy passage he
drifted into calm, and for many years redeemed the fruit-
less toils of his more public life by devoting himself as well
as he could to a diocese a hundred and forty miles long.
He wrote upon many subjects, and whatever ho touched ho
adorned ; but the touch was fatal, and the decoration that
of the funeral obsequies. lie wrote and contended for
Church and State, for the High Church sense of our formu-
laries and Articles, for the danger of tolerating Romish
error, for the possibility of framing safe securities, for the
exclusive right of the Church cf Engiand to the education
of her children, for tho unpopular side of every question
that has latterly divided the British
Upon everything that he ever wrote of a political
or polemic character it might probably be now
inscribed that it was written to no purpor.e. tree judg-
ment of mankind, or simply the course of events, went the
ether way. The fireworks were discharged, or the monster
ordnance fired, and the foe heeded them net. We have
done, or arc doing, or are about to do, everything that
Henry of Exeter said ought net to bo done on any account,
as we would stand the consequences. It is a comfort to be
told that a bishop, who with all his faults was a true
Englishmen, has done his proper work well. Cranmer
made a good martyr when he could no longer help it, and
when Dr. Phillpotts found himself chained to the remote
capital of the West he did his duty there. Henry of
Exeter was one of the personages of the day, and only did
what everybody expected of him, though sometimes a little
in excess of himself.

The Post says that Dr. Phillpotts may be regarded as a
self-made man, and he owed his promotion to his general
abilities, but particularly to his special aptitudes for reli-
gious controversy. During the more active portion of his
life, clever pamphlets on Church questions continued to
issue in profusion from his fertile pen. Whatever may be
thought of the late Bishop's views upon ecclesiastical
affairs, they always bore the mark of sincerity and strong
conviction. He did not spare his adversaries, but the charge of
indirect and insincere writing or speaking is the last that
even his least generous opponents would ever think
of bringing against him. As it was only the other day
that he resigned, under the now Act, his decease may be
regarded as almost coincident with the termination of his
episcopal career. It is nearly half a century since Dr.
Phillpotts took his degree as Doctor of Divinity, and it is
seventy years since he distinguished himself at college by
his essay on the " Influence of Religious Principle," a work
which, written at the age of eighteen, obtained the Chan-
cellor's prize, and gave promise of those great abilities
which have since made his name so famous as a Churchman
and a controversialist.

The Herald declares that though a Churchman of so high
and decided a stamp, Dr. PEillpotts was not, and never
was, regarded as a Puseyite. The difference between him
and them might be thin, but it was sufficient to become
plainly cognisable by all. Perhaps one reason might be
that his own intellect was too robust and self-asserting to
fall readily into grooves marked out for him by another
mind. His conclusions on all questions were his own, anc:
the vigour of his own character was more likely to give the
law to others than to take it from any one. It might have
been expected, indeed, that as the earlier labourer in the
field he would have been at the head of the new school o:
theologians, so denominated, rather than Dr. Pusey or Dr.
Newman. Had fate so willed it there can be no doubt that
a different direction would have been given to Puseyism.
But for the task of a leader of men Dr. Phillpotts had no
aptitude whatever.

The Daily News thinks that with the Bishop of Exeter
we bid farewell, not only to the characteristic man of a.
period, but to the period itself. His vigorous controversial
pamphlets, filling sixteen pages with their titles, fitly
occupy a place in the Museum Library, for the titles ar'
the names of controversies which are extinct. They will 'is,
useful only to the historians of his time, and they will
serve to illustrate what a Bishop of the Church of England
could be in the period before Reform. Dr. Phillpotts was
in some senses the representative of a transition period.
He embodied the new life and vigour of the Church, but
embodied it in old forms. He was a kind of pioneer of the
ecclesiastical revival, and his administration of his diocese
will be regarded as one of the most remarkable in history.
He has lived to an mg:, far beyond that usually allotted to
man, and perhaps his test praise will be that after 39 years'
administration d the poor Western diocese ho died Bishop
of Exeter.

The Star says that, as a Churchman who had the mood
and capacity of a statesman, Henry Philpotis is not likely
to be forgotten so long as the minor great men cf our times
live in history; and it seems quite possible that in the
times which are immediately before us—times expected by
the Primate to be specially difficult for those who are
involved in the fate of the Church of England—there will
be many occasions when prelates and leaders of the Church
will need qualities of which the Bishop of Exeter was an
example. The first necessity of his life was ecclesiastical
success ; the second was theological controversy; the third
was an active share in politics. His abilities were usually
misapplied, but they uniformly excited the admiration of
intelligent observers, and they helped to make Church
politics worthy of the interest and attention of the
world.

It has been computed, says the Standard., that 100,000,000
tons of coal would make a wall round the entire globe
three feet wide and seven feet high ! Our yearly produce
now exceeds that quantity. With such dimensions before
us it does not seem unreasonable to fear a somewhat early
exhaustion of our coal-fields. We certainly ought to guard
against waste. It has been calculated that from 15 to 20
per cent. of the coal which nature gives us is wasted by
the mode of getting it. Thus, in the course of about six
years we may be said to waste, in connection with our col-
lieries, as much coal as would equal a year's entire con-
sumption. There is also a prodigious waste in the mode of
burning coal, so far as the real utilisation of heat is con
cerned. In an ordinary open fireplace at least three-fourths
of the heat flies up the chimney. Imperfect combustion
renders a considerable portion of the fuel worse than
useless. The smoke from which our large cities suff.-.,r is
merely a penalty on our prodigality. Nature is avenged
upon us. If we we waste her gifts she PlP:dues us for our
folly. Blackened buildings, a murky s;,-meaphere,
peculiar composition of a London_ fog,
are and the
simply retribu-
tive. But so rich is coal power that even our most
skilful engineers are at -present a long way from getting
out of a ton of coal, all the work that is in off
it. There is
power in coal ts) raise eleven million times its own weight
a foot high. But no steam engine has yet shewn such a
result, the best raising cnly a million rounds through a
foot, though this result seems marvellous enough, and lies
at the foundation cf our commercial supremacy.
The Telegraph thinks the first result of the impending
trial of the Albert Life Assurance Company may be to
clear up everything that is doubtful in the position of all
the three parties concerned. We shall get, it is to be
hoped to the bottom of the causes that have led to the
collapse ' • shall ascertain at what stage the company ceased
to be solvent, and shall learn whether any others than the
individuals now charged were instrumental in giving th. Albert its final push downwards on the slope to ruin
The broad facts already known are sufficiently painful
An institution positively insolvent t7ansacted busi-
ness so long as it could mus'.-,r funds to pay
pressing claims ; and to the tsst its authorised agents
use language which induce,' a belief in its soundness. But
a very calm and p.atii;is examination of fact, and motives
Will be necessar; actor° we can decide upon the dividing
line betweess mere over-sanguine cJnfidence, carelessness.
or presrsinption, and the deliberate conscious intention to
defraud. And there are many circumstances connected
ith the laxities which have too generally been allowed to
'Creep into our English business practices, with the extreme
complexity of the details in the present case, and with the
Personal character of individuals involved, which make
hope itself join in strengthening the doubts that must
instantly be challenged by the very nature of the charge.

The Daily Neu-3 considers that the Memorial of Lord
Carllse has been very appropriately raised in the county to
which he belonged, and which for some years he repre-
sented in the House of Commons. To some admirers more
ardent than discriminatinL,, it may seem but niggardly
praise to speak. of him as one cf the foremost cf the worthies
of Yorkshire. They would claim for him a high rank
among the statesmen cf England. It is true that
Lord Carlisle in his time filed many high offices, and
achieved r;reat popularity, uni;•ers-il esteem, and consider-
able distinction. Eat he Was never very much of a poli-
tician. lie went intl priLio life as he went to Oxford,
because it was the thing for a clever young nobleman to
; and hip University and Parliamentary distinctions
were much of the same character. The two phases
of a statesman's life which prove 1113 real quality,
the cnerry and pure se of mature manhood,
and the mild, guarded, and comprehensive wisdom
of old have nu pla,!e in the late Lord Carli,de's
,r:0 wilco .ter n :•:'e in the zenith of
L.ll :1111 Z:.11110-,t
t. Lord Carlisle
,nun, who sins also it 'met midis-
Eaglislunan. His public services shed lustre on
his country and his house, rather than form in themselves
a very luminous portion of our history. The monument
which has been erected to his honour in his native
county has been very fittingly placed,commanding as it does
the three Rhlings of the great shire, and overlooking the
principal scat of the Howard family. The graceful tributes
paid to his memory by Lord Wenlock, Mr. Cardwell, and
Mr. Baines were marked by some natural exa,rgemtion. of
Lord Carlisle's merits and services as a statesman ; but they
did no more than justice to the private virtues of ono of
.the parest, gentlest, and most generous of men.

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