The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-27 00:00:00

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The inquiry into the Tioyn-hill Confessional has
ended in the exposure .of folly so preposterous that
the Commissioners, as it appears, thought the wisest
thing to be
.done was to leave it to its own fate.
It is nothing more nor less than an ecclesiastical
"sell," and we congratulate the reverend harle-
quins On - the success with which they have
hitherto -passed themselves off on the public as
well-intentioned and serious men. They certainly
deceived us in this instance, and if we thought
them erring from excess of spiritual science—if
we believed them too adventurous in the use of
the . moral probe—if we , ascribed to them any
very deep desisSm, -or • thought that in the
case of Mrs. Nancy Arnold they had been
treading on the dangerous verge between spiritual
discipline and spiritual defilement, we have now to
apologise for our simplicity; they are simply fools.
This, at least, is only a practical joke, and we have
been so credulous and so dull as to think it some-
thing real, and sermonised accordingly. If our
readers would understand the new light in which
the inquiry has placed this ridiculous affair, they
must transport themselves to a bal masque, such
as that which had been going on, we know not
how many hours or days, when Covent-garden was
burnt down. A solemn.-looking friar, telling his
beads and conning his book, addresses in succession
the frail nymphs that make half the throng. With
the same solemn. grimace, and the same " syste-
mistic course" for all, he asks some grave
fluestion, the gist of which consists in its being
utterly inappropriate to the known character of the
poor thing addressed. Her life and acts are patent;
there is no disguise. Her defence is effrontery.
Use your eyes, hear one tone of her voice, and yon
know all you want to know. The humour of the
occasion is, however, not to -use .one's eyes or ears
for any honest purpose; so the masquerader ad-
dresses himself to the pangs of a conscience that
has long ceased to feel a wound, and ,to the
" spiritual" interpretation of a Commandment that
has long been trampled under foist by every act of
body and soul. He softly probes her conscience
with terms which to her arc suggestive, not
of ideas, but of facts, the horror of which
has long departed from the mind of both exa-
miner and examined. If such a mummer were
found to be a recreant clergyman, and if the
performance were reported to his Bishop and a
commission of inquiry appointed, most certainly
the commissioners wentld nottrecognise in the ease
an attempt to introduce the confessional. They
would probably think the wretched jester the last
man to confess really in any form whatever. Whe-
ther they thought there was a prima
.facie case for
further proceedingS might depend upon the terms
of the commission. We have now to return from
Covent-garden to Boyn-hill, and there we see the
very thing, with scarcely less levity and even more
absurdity.. Of course, we have not the least wish to
say-More harm than we can help about the poor
creature who has been made the victim of this
sport; indeed, we should have an interest' in be-
lieving her a person justly aggrieved by too minute
inquiries. So we only take the woman as described
by Mr. West himself, and the witnesses for the
defence. His knowledge of the woman is itself the
just measure of his folly. ...
Here is a woman, then, who, on Mr. West's own
showing, and by the evidence of competent wit-
nesses on his side, had been openly living with two
men at once at a publichouse for a year together,
and had a child, .of whom she was accustomed to ,
declare, with an oath or a 'jest, that she did not
know who was its father. On the same evidence,
—that is of. Mr. West and his friends—we learn
that the woman was an habitual liar and
profane talker ; that nobody , would belie-Vs;
her on her oath, and 'that ' her most solemn
affirmation, therefore, was good for nothing.
By one man or another she had had eight children ;
and the most flagrant of her criminalities were ten
or twelve years back, though not the less fresh in
the memory of her Neighbours, including Mr.
Gressly's own gardener, summoned in the defence. •
Supposing any clergyman of common sense and
simple feeling visiting such a woman on the bed of
sickness, and on the eve of her confinement, we all
know what he would do. He would assume
what was known ; he would not ask the woniati to
confess with the lips what was notorious in
her life; he would not appeal to sins of imagi-
nation and disorders of the heart when deeds
were sufficient. Think of gently asking a
woman min) had openly lived with two
men at once whether, twenty years ago, before
she was mare d, she had ever had any improper
feelings toward any other man than the one who
became her husband! Is it possible to conceive
more astounding tolly ? We should hardly believe
it, except on Mr. West's own willing and obtruded
testimony. He insisted on his evidence - being
taken, and, once in cant, he took the opportunity
of pleading his own ctiuse, with the usual result.
He says he knew in a general way, on the informa-
tion of his predecessor, - that the woman had
had illegitimate children.- Her's was the first
house he was gals-n, to nn entering upon his
-charge, so it was a prominent as well as a
notorious case. Such was the woman whom Mr.
West selected for the trial of his "more systematic
course" of confession. The
.process he described.
For the special information •of Dr. Robert Philli-
more and the other Commissioners, he premised
that " each Commandment contains more than the.
letter." Proceeding upon this great arcanicm of
his . art, " he had explained to the woman," he
said, " in the best way he could, the spirit and
intention of each precept in the Dccalogue."
" He went through the various Commandments in
this way, explained their spirit, and asking her if
she had broken them." On coming to the
seventh, "he explaining to her its spirit, and when
she denied having broken it he told her it con-
tained more than the letter ; " and then, knowing,
as he said, that she had had illegitimate children,
and that all the world knew it, he asked, " Have
hou ever lusted after any other man besides your
usband ?" What possible occasion could there be
-for such a question ? The greater includes the less,
and the actual crime implies the vitiated mind. •
Who needs to inquire, who cares to know, the steps
of a moral decline the result of which is manifest ?
If there ever was u case in the world for that gene-
ral confession which is enjoined by our Church, and
if there ever was just reason to suspect an improper
motive in superfluous interrogatories, this is the
case, and the only escape from the suspicion is that
which the Commissioners appear to have taken—
viz., the utter absurdity of Mr. West's conduct,.
The result of the inquiry therefore is, not to dis-
robe a too prying, confessor, but to strip a wooden
lay figure. The confessional was to be part of the
system, so a Father Confessor was ordered from
town, sent down by luggage ' train, warranted of the
best seasoned materials, and certain not to shrink.
It had only to be wound up, and then wheeled to the •
tedside of the patient to be experimented upon, and
it would go through its " systematic course'', without
the omission of a Commandment, a letter, a spirit, an
intention, or a word. The machine, of course, could
not be expected to regard any nice distinction in the
persons to be operated upon. Man or woman, old
and ugly, young and pretty, husband of one wife,
wife of two or more husbands, young ladies, town
scandals, good, bad, and indifferent, fish, flesh,
and fowl, white and black, sound and rotten, were
all the same to it. Pull the string, and there it
goes, click, clack, click, clack, right through the
Ten Commandments, letter and spirit, " acts,"
" lusts," " looks," " feelings," and. everything,
till the " systematic course" is gone through,
and the penitent, or no penitent, is duly con-
fessed. Mr. Gresley appears to be , perfectly
satisfied with the working of the machine.
He says the fathers and mothers of Boyn-hill
-and the neighbourhood scud their children to be
confessed by it, and, as its application to young
gentlemen and young ladies would certainly not be
ridiculous, as in the case of the strong-minded Mrs.
Nancy Arnold, no doubt it has worked to admira-
tion in their case. For our part, however, we beg to
demur to the use of wood, or machinery any kind,
in spiritual affairs, particularly in the treatment of
consciences. A barrel-organ is a disagreeable neces-
sity, but a barrel onfessor, blundering through all
sorts of brutalities, and dragging the purest minds
and tenderest consciences through its villanous
" systematic course," has not even necessity to de-
fend it. The Church of England, evidently, has no
wish to send round a spiritual reaping-machine to
collect daily mountains of secret offences into an
ecclesiastical granary. Except in extraordinary
eases, where the conscience is evidently burdened,
and where the sense of some secret crime drives the
offender from religious ordinances,. the Church does
not encourage penitents to reveal their hidden sores;
nor does she desire the clergy to receisesrtie
of hus-
bandry
h rreve-
lations. There is pollution in this sor
; it is pollution to tell, pollutliontOheai—e
and., if there is anywhere in the Wosd , which w•,
beg to doubt, a class of persons who can be trusted
vath confessions of a startling and interesting cha-
rsMter, affecting the reputations of ladies, of fathers
of families—of any persons that anybody cares
about, that safe depositary is not to be found in
the clergy of the Church of England.

//„.

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PRICE 4D• STAMPED, 5D

STAFFORDSHIRE AGRICULTURAL

80CIET1r.

THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY, LORD SAN-DON, AND

MR. ADDERLEY.

At the close of the exhibition of the Staffordshire
Agricultural Society, at Lichfield, on Wednesday,
the annual dinner was held in the Guildhall, in
that city. The chair was occupied by LordHather-
ton, Lord Lieutenant of the county and the presi-

dent of the society for the year.
Viscount SANDON proposed " The Army and
Navy," mentioning the name of Lord Shrewsbury
as connected ,with the latter service. At the present
time a good deal had been said at every public meet-
ing., at every assembly of that kind, at every place
where men had met together during the present
autumn, about the expenditure on the military de-
fences of the county-. He thought the country
was now fully. awake to the necessity of keeping
our shores inviolate from the tread of the foot of
mere aspect of the stranger foeman. He was one o
those who was rather afraid—from having the hon-
our of being a member of the House of Commons
he could not help thinking of money matters—he
was. rather afraid that now the spirit of the nation
was roused, it might push them forward into too
great and too general an expenditure for the pur-
poses of national defence. What he felt to be the
real necessity of the case was, that they should keep
a gallant, a great, and an overwhelming Channel
fleet, which would effectually prevent any possible
invasion of our coasts. He did not think that they
should keep up an immense army, but that they
should keep up what might be called the skeleton
of an army, which could be increased at any mo-
ment. Let them keep up the machinery of the army
sojo speak, and its scientific branches ; but for the
good of the_pountry—for the sake of those wha.paid
the taxes, whiCh were already sufficieUtly heavy,
let them not keep up an enormous army, but keep
up an overwhelming Channel fleet, which was really
the only safety of the country. Money should not
be expended in defending small places ; let them
defend" their great arsenals, let them defend their
great commercial ports, but let not the money of
the country be expended in defending every little
creek and inlet, but under no plea, whatever the
emergency, whether of a commercial crisis at home
or on any other ground, let not the country allow
the diminution of the Channel fleet.

The Earl of SHREWSBURY, who responded to the
toast, said he was glad to see that at last there was
a spirit abroad that the main defences of the coun-
try, the wooden walls of Old England, should not
be neglected. (Applause.) At the same time he
felt that they should not disregard the salutary
warning of his noble 'friend. Some members of the
House
,of Commons, after buttoning up their
breeches' pockets for the last 50 -years, now appeared
ready to, dip their hands deeply into them, and to
scatter. their contents with the greatest profusion.
(Laughter and applause.) There was no necessity
for that. He had always advocated a proper, con-
sistent, manly expenditure on the navy, and was
never afraid of giving his vote as a former member
of the House of Commons for what was necessary
to maintain the proper efficiency of bOth services.
Buthe had lately felt afraid from symptoms he had
seen of a danger of too large an expenditure. He
went over to Cherbourg and saw the magnificent
sight which that great fortress presented ; and he
saw another sight—a great number of the members
of the House of Commons—(laughter)—and from
what he saw and what he knew of them he feared
there was a danger of their running into the oppo-
site extreme of extravagance, for some of them
seemed so struck with the number of the ships, the
extent of the fortifications, and the multitude of
ordnance, that they appeared ready to vote million
after million for the defences of the country. Such
an expenditure was not at all nct3ssary. Hq was
happy to say that they had now an efficient Channel
fleet—a small one, it was true—but he did not
think they need have a very large one. They
wanted a standing navy, which they might amplify
at any time when occasion arose. They ought to
have it in the most complete state of efficiency, so
that, if need arose, every ship's company could be
turned into two or three by mixing raw hands—
volunteers; who would, he trusted, if any danger
appeared, flock into their ships. It must always be
remembered that the real resource for manning the
navy was in ill:: merchant service, but when com-
merce was prosperons and the ships away in China,
America, and other distant places, a lengthened
period must elapse before their return ; and they
required a provision to meet any.sudden emergency
that might arise in the meantime, when they would
always be ready to come forward in defence of their
country. He would not detain them any longer by
any observations on that head. He did not believe
that there was anything to be alarmed about ; he
felt quite sure there was not ; but if by any chance,
in a short and sudden interval, a foe should land,
lie doubted not that the yeomen of England would
give them such a reception that, with a Channel
fleet in their rear, very few of them would ever get
back again.
" The House of Peers " having been proposed
and responded to by Lord. Shrewsbury-, the Chair-
man proposed " The House of Commons."
The Right Hon. C. B. ADDERLEY said that
though at an agricultural meeting he might not be
allowed to allude to politics, he might possibly be
permitted to unite the character of both ; and it
would be the duty of himself and his friends when
they returned to their posts to stand.as scarecrows
to 1.-tighten away that flight of birds—the voracious
consumers of the national resources—which might
be expected after such a splendid harvest. (Laugh-
ter.) If he might compare the political to the agri-
cultural field—and what would not agriculture serve
to illustrate ?—he appealed to them whether they
might not be grateful to both fields for the satisfac-
tory harvest which had been realised—whether
the winds and storms that ushered in the spring
had not been succeeded by a serenity of atmosphere
which had served to bring to maturity very im-
portant crops ? (Applause.) He could mention
some of them, and he was sure his hon. friend (Mr.
Bass) could mention others. (Laughter.) There
was one crop which he was told was quite certain
to appear in the course of the next session. It was
generally said that we might confidently look for
it, whatever be the soil, whatever be the weather,
whatever be the nature of the atmosphere, whoever
be the administrative cultivators. The crop usually
went by the name of reform. He had nothing
whatever to say respecting it, except that as it was
a very important crop lie hoped its treatment would
fall into safe and good hands, and if it did he cared
not whose hands they were. It was introduced
into this country some 30 years ago by very dis-
tinguished cultivators—and he was not sure if he
did not see one of them on his right hand—it was
introduced with every possible stimulant, and its
culture carried to such an extent that the whole
soil had become impregnated with it, and calm as
was the weather, free as the atmosphere was from
convulsions of any kind, and although there were
no stimulants of any kind, they were told that they
might confidently expect the recurrence of this crop.
(Loud laughter and applause.) One thing he ob-
jected to was that any old cultivators of that crop
should consider that they had acquired any tenant
right in it at all, or that they should be surprised
that, in the passage of time, or in the succession
of events, other cultivators had to deal with that
crop ; that they should consider that they had in
any way a monopoly in any principles they had
once promoted, or that they should consider that
they had any right to bind down any other culti-
vators, whatever might be the progress of science,
or whatever the change of circumstances, to adhere
to the practice of the past century. He should
conceive that no party could on any possible ground
establish a claim for a fixity of tenure in that crop.
He begged their pardon for making such an un-
usual number of remarks upon a strictly agricul-
tural subject. (Continued laughter.)
Mr. BASS, M.P., proposed the healths of the
vice-presidents of the society, which were responded
to by Lord Sandon and Mr. Chawner, and shortly
afterwards the company separated.

HOWDEN HORSE FAlR.—This fair was held at
Howden last week, and was attended by all the principal
dealers in the country. There was a scarcity of good ani-
mals of all classes, and sellers consequently realised high
figures for these descriptions ; but the secondary and in-
ferior sorts were only partially disposed of, buyers supply-
ing themselves pretty nearly on their own terms.
The Journal d' Indre et Loire contains the fol-
lowing account of the effects of the electric fluid :—" Count
Thierry de Montesquieu, when out sheeting in the neigh-
bourhood of Charnizay, with one of his friends, M. Roger,
auditor at the Council of State, were obliged to take shelter
from a thunderstorm in his gardener's lodge. All of a sud-
den they. heard a violent report, and M. de Montesquieu
was actually lifted up in his chair, and moved a distance of
more than a. yard. A glass, from which he was drinking
wns ihattered in his hand. The electric fluid had struck
the chimney, in a room above, which it knocked to pieces,
and then, breaking through the ceiling, fell on the table near
which M. de Montesquieu and his friend were sitting, and
finally disappeared through the window. The count was
uninjured, except that, above the ankle, the lightning left
Blight wound. The other escaped altogether,

THE RECENT VISIT OF HER MAJESTY TO LEEDS.
—Lady Fairbairn, the Mayoress of Leeds, has just had the
honour of receiving from her Majesty a beautiful bracelet
set with diaMonds and turquoises, accompanied by a letter
from Sir Charles Phipps, expressive of herMajestv's grati-
fication for the attention the Royal Family received during
their visit to Woodsley-house, the residence of Sir yckr
Fairbairn, the Mayor of Leeds, and also for the admirable
arrangements so successfully carried out in the town of
Leeds during her 1114e5ty'ta visit.