The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-09 00:00:00

been characterised by honour and in tegri ty, and
he was happy to add hsd been crowned by suc- 1

Mr. aubitt was born at Buxton, near

Coltishall, Norfolk, and in early life served
about four years in the royal navy. In 1810, being
then 19 years of age, he turned his attention to com-
mercial matters and entered the building trade,
which he had carried on up to within the last few
years, and in which he had realised an ample for-

;une in connection with his brothers. The house

of Cubitt was now one of the most eminent in the

country. After 40 years of successful application
to business Mr. Cubitt in 1851 retired, and devoted

his time and attention to the service of the public
in other ways. In 1847, while still in business, he
was elected by his fellow-citizens to the shrievalty,
in conjunction with Mr. Charles Hill, and at about
the same period the electors of Andover returned

him as their representative in the Commons House
of Parliament—an honour which he enjoyed at the

present time. He added that Alderman Cubitt
was held in the highest possible esteem by his fel-

Low-citizens.

The Lord Chief Baron said—My Lord Mayor, I
beg to congratulate you on having attained that
honour, which the learned Recorder has expatiated
on in his address to the Court. You appear here
as the first magistrate of the greatest city in the
empire. You appear here to claim certain rights
which belong to the great city of which you are
the Chief Magistrate, and the ceremony which takes
place on this occasion is not to be considered as a
mere idle pageant, for, in reality, it is to re-
tain on your part those privileges, which have
existed from time immemorial. I rejoice to
bear the account the Recorder has given of your
life and success, and doubt not that during your
mayoralty you will continue to deserve the good
opinion of your fellow citizens. To you, the late
Lord Mayor, I beg to offer my congratulations, and
you retire, having undoubtedly will discharged
your important duties, into comparative private
life. You have, during your year of office,
displayed everything that could belong to
a private citizen and upright magistrate.
I feel assured that, in retiring into comparative
privacy, the discharge of those public duties that
remain to you will occupy the whole of your at
tention, and you will continue to deserve the
approbation, and to meet with that sympathy, in
the discharge of them, which you have hitherto
experienced.
The Right Hon, the Lord Mayor bowed his
acknowledgments.
The Lord Mayor was then sworn in. The late
Lord Mayor was also sworn to render under her
Majesty a full account of the receipts on account of
the Crown during his mayoralty, and to behave
himself properly, according to the old style of oath,
whilst he did so.
The other formalities having been gone through,
the Lord Mayor, the late Lord Mayor, the Re-
corder, and the officers of the City withdrew,
and, passing through the other courts, his Lord-
ship, through the Recorder, invited the Judges to
the banquet.
The procession then returned to the City in the
same order in which it arrived at Westminster.

711 E BISHOP OF OXFORD ON CHURCH

RATE'S.

On Wednesday, the Bishop of Oxford met his
clergy at Woodstock, and delivered to them his
triennial charge. On the subject of Church rates,
he said that in one respect a great change had
passed over the question since he last addressed
them. Then the plea for abolition was that the
Dissenters from the Established Church ought to
be set free from an impost which unrighteously
vexed their consciences. The plea was one which
it was very difficult to maintain against argument,
but it was one which appealed to English gene-
_

rosity, and was certain to be readily admitted. Bm
this plea had now been abandoned, and in its place
was put the open allegation that the existence
of an Established Church was injurious to
the realm, and that Church rates must
be attacked because they formed the first and
most assailable outpost of the Established Church.
The effect upon Parliament and the country in dis-
posing of this altered plea might be seen in the
altered numbers in the recent division. Indeed,
the change had been so great as to justify him in
asserting that the country had not yet fairly spoken
concerning the maintenance of the principle in
volved in a church rate. Under such circumstances
they (the clergy) believed that the question con-
cerned pre-eminently the lay members of the
Church, and upon the whole the best way in which
the great principle of an Established Church could
be maintained was that which was involved in the
present system of church rates. They should be
well contented to do nothing more than express
their desire that Parliament and the country might
not abandon this declaration of the national faith,
and wait patientlywithout themselves proposing any
scheme for alteration or any declaration of
their mind upon the matter, lest they should
seek to precipitate, by a doubtful solution, the
settlement of so great a question. He would now
call the attention of his clergy to a most momen-
tous question—the threatened alteration in the law
of marriage. The moral effects upon the nation
of an alteration in the law of divorce had justified
an,l. threatened to justify more absolutely the
warnings of those who opposed the change. But
more serious dangers to our domestic purity would
be caused by an alteration of the law which would
sanction unions which the Church of England
had always declared to be contrary to the law
of pod and incestuous, and in which declaration
she had followed the decisions cf the whole Ca-
tholic Church from the beginning. Having re-
viewed the arguments on the subject, his Lordship
said that should the State- acknowledge the mar-
riage of a person with a deceased wife's sister to
be legal, the law of the State and the law of the
Church must necessarily be at variance. The
threatened revision of the Book of Common Prayer
had been resisted not only by himself, but by every
one of his right rev. brethren who had in his place
in Parliament spoken on the subject. It was urged
that the general tendency of all human productions
in the course of time was to require revision and
correction, and this was strengthened by the decla-
ration of many sound churchmen that the Liturgy
might be amended, and certain specific amend-
ments had been pointed out. But then arose a new
set of conditions—the fit time for the alteration, the
fit hands for making the alteration, the model after
which the change should be fashioned, the amount
of good that would be effected as set against
the evil that might be caused. All these points
must be settled before any step could be taken
in the way of alteration. Behind the modern re-
visionists who desired to render matters less
obscure, and to provide briefer offices, were
men who had other objects and far different
claims—and who would effect such a cleansing
of the book of Common Prayer as would cleanse
f out
of the ministry of the church all who differed,.ro_
y-
u"es
their own views of the truth. The success et u
such attempt on the Prayer Book wou
to resist
up
tionably lead to a disruption which would
to
our national church. It was their duly
innocent aLterations, because the risk' advantages
change would far outweigh any attendin,
sme were signs of
that might accrue from it. Tberthem to drop all
special danger sufficient to induceto
tog in defence
minor differences, and combine
were heard to declere
lived in a time when persons
ver!s a misconception,
of the faith delivered to thesailits, be_cause they
that belief in the atonemept
which it was the duty
a system of naturalisnl.
that the miracles narrated scripture were parts of
in
to unveil
and dis
of remorseless
m
; eaination had allied itself
cover, that the
to produce a belief in
to the affections
them, and that y might be simply brought
them, rational
uat 1'
ura ism by such
down to critic's
as this, which the right rev. Bishop
expressions
of
description the passage of the
quoted
Ited Sea is the latitude of poetry." When the his-
tory
of the e had Bible
it been explained away by
treating as a legend, when was
it
attempted to
deprive it of its supernatural character by turning
it into a. history of past events, when they were
taught that mea might sign the articles of the
church, although in their own opiniOn they differed
from them, surely it was time for all true church-
men to unite together in defence of Holy Scrip-
ture as the only inspired revelation—to lay aside
even all suspicions of divisions in small matters.
Whilst they disputed
about the lesser matters of
the law, they might
be robbed unawares of the
true foundation:of their faith.

MARRIAGE OF SIR JOHN BOWRlNG.—Yesterday
morning Sir John Bowring was married, at the Unitarian
Chapel, Bristol, to Miss Deborah Castle, daughter of the
late Mr. Michael Hinton Castle, of that city. The cere-
mony was performed by the Rev. B. Apsland, of Hackney,
assisted by the Rev. W. James, of Bristol. The chapel was
crowded OA the occasion,