The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-17 00:00:00

Ignorance of the Clergy in the Reign of
Elizabeth.

(Prong the the Times.)
Speculation has often busied itself about the feel-
ings of a man under sentence of death, and novelists
have found in the Last Days of a Convict opportu-
nities for minute analysis of character, harrowing
descriptions, and sensational situations. The result
has never been satisfactory. Fine writing has been
powerless to describe the dull inability to under-
stand his situation which appears to befall the ordi-
nary man left for execution. We are now, however,
entering on a period having no remote analogy to
the last days of a criminal's life. For the next 17
months we shall have opportunities of watching the
behaviour of constituencies under sentence. The
existing constituencies of England are condemned.
Execution is, indeed, deferred until the Ist of
January, 1869. Until that time comes all casual
vacancies must be filled up, and a General Election
—should by any unforeseen chance a General Elec-
tion be held—must be conducted as if no Reform
Act had been passed. But in 1869 new classes of
electors will be invested with the power of election.
What will the old constituencies do in the interval?
There must, according to the ordinary law of
chances, be forty or fifty vacancies before 1869.
Will the £lO householders make their peace with
their future masters? Will they court the favour
of the multitude ? Will they attempt to disinte-
grate the formidable mass so as to retain some of
their present influence in the future? Or will they
die hard and unrepentant ?
The first note of the first contest after the pass-
ing of the Reform Act has been sounded. Mr.
Poulett Scrope has retired from the representation
of Stroud. It has been known for some time that
Mr. Scrope would not seek re-election, but the
announcement, of his immediate withdrawal from
Parliament seems to have surprised his constituents.
Stroud is a borough which was called into existence
by the Act of 1832, and almost from the date of its
birth Mr. Scrope has represented it. lie contested it
in 1822 ; he was returned in 1833. He has been
one of its members ever since. Ile has been the
colleague of Lord Russell ; he is the colleague of
Mr. Horsmau. Through the long and unbroken
period of his political career he has always voted
with the Liberal party, and on economic subjects
he has been an authority. But the Stroud created
in 1832 is about to be merged in the Stroud created
iu 1867 ; and Mr. Scrope takes the opportunity of
retirement. We can well understand his feelings.
Stroud, though called into existence in 1832, is a
rural borough running into many parishes, and it
was, according to rumour, made so extensive with a
very definite object. But though thus enlarged,
and though Lord Russell has sat for it, its popula-
tion has dwindled and is dwindling. It has fallen
off about 121 per cent. since 1832. It had, -how-
ever, last year within its limits 1,483 £lO house-
holders, and of these no less than 1,400 appeared
on the register. These are the electors who re-
turned Mr. Scrope. But the male occupiers in the
borough are 6,927. The Small Tenements Act was
never adopted, except in a small part of its area,
and more than 6,300 of the male occupiers have
always been separately rated. There will thus be
no difficulty in the enforced rating of every occu-
pier. The future member for Stroud must, there-
fore, represent a cmstituency nearly five times as
large as that which has so faithfully supported Mr.
Scrope, and any ono canvassing the electors of to-
day must be anxious to consult the wishes of the
unknown electors of to-morrow. We can sympa-
thise with the daring candidates who are wooing
the electors of Stroud. Three of them are already
named, and have issued addresses ; two others are in
partial obscurity, being only mentioned as aspirants
for the seat. How embarrassing is their situation !
They want to get in now, and, on the other hand,
having got in, they would like to stop in after
1869. They must court the voters who are at pre-
sent so powerful, yet they must beware of too
closely echoing their sentiments, lest the unenfran-
chised householders who two years hence will be
omnipotent should take umbrage at their conduct.
They are bound to respect the 6,000 or 7,000 men
of the future, and yet not too devotedly, lest the
£lO householders should be jealous. Perhaps, how-
ever—for these electioneerint, o• personages are far-
sighted men—some one or two of the candidates
are careless about the result of the present contest,
and merely wish to make their names known in
the neighbourhood, suspecting that the senti-
ments of the other member for Stroud may not be
altogether approved by the new constituency.
However that may be, the hazard, and doubt, and
difficulty of running at the same time with the hare
and the hounds at Stroud form but half the embar-
rassment of the candidates. They must be sorely
put to it on both sides when they have to explain
their parties and their principles. The expiring
Session has made terrible havoc with the old party
distinctions. We observe that a Mr. Dorington
has been put forward by what are called] the Con-
servatives of Stroud, but Mr. Dorington makes no
declaration in his address of political principles.
Flow could lie? If he called himself a Conserva-
tive, he might be asked on the hustings whether he
would vote with General Peel ; if he declared that
he was a follower of Mr. Disraeli, he would be
asked whether he was prepared to secularise the
revenues of the Irish Church and to endow a Roman
Catholic University at Dublin. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer must in the ensuing recess invent
some formula for his friends. At present their
position is cruel. They have not that exceeding
power of words in which he rejoices, and when they
venture forth upon the hustings their nakedness is
discovered. Air. Disraeli may boast that he has
destroyed the monopoly of Liberalism, and rejoice
that the House of Commons has been " renovated,
not reformed ;" but what are these dazzling ex-
pressions to Mi. Dorington before the electors of
Stroud? He would most probably have been glad
had the monopoly of Liberalism been undisturbed.
It is olds that he dislikes renovation as much as re-
form. Ile can only declare that he is an independent
man in favour of freedom and the British Monarchy.
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that a
decent Liberal is about as ill off as a decent Con-
servative. If the Conservative party have, as Mr.
Disraeli proclaims, no principles, the Liberal party
have no leader. The chaotic condition of the Op-
position is the single consolation of the Ministry.
The Whicrs have been " dished." One half of the
Reform question has been settled, and upon the other
half Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone differ ; and
the intelligence of the party supports the first
against the second. We believe Mr. Winterbotham
came before the electors of Stroud as a Liberal
candidate early in the year, and at that time
his course may have been easy ; but the events
of the session and the convulsions of party must
test his independence and his firmness. Like
his Conservative opponent, he will be bound to
abjure persons and to renounce party ties, and he
may find it equally difficult to make a more definite
profession of faith than is expressed by a belief in
freedom and the British monarchy.
We suppose next session will remove some
of the difficulties of Parliamentary candidates if
it aggravatci others. The more nearly we ap-
proach the let of January, 1869, the more power-

Early in the reign of Elizabeth the chaplain to
the Archbishop of Canterbury had occasion to ex-
amine the curate of Cripplegate, and by way of
testing his knowledge asked him the meaning of
the word " function." To this difficult question
the rev. gentleman, not having paid much atten-
tion to the niceties of language, was unable to
make a satisfactory reply. Several years later the
clergyman of Farnham, All Saints, was examined
by the Bishop of Norwich. The conversation which
ensued is deserving attention ; and it is preserved
by Strype, whose devotion to the Church of Eng-
land no one will think of questioning. " The
Bishop asked him the contents of the third chap-
ter of Matthew : he answered nothing ; and the
contents of the eleventh chapter ; neither could he
answer to that. He asked him how many chapters
the Epistle to the Romans contained, and what the
subject of that Epistle was. To neither of these
could he answer. And when he adventured to
answer, he showed his ignorance as much as by his
silence." But I might fill a volume with similar in-
stances, and I can only afford room for one or two
more examples. In 1574 a certain William Ireland
was presented to the rectory of Harthill. The
Archbishop of York directed his chaplain to exa-
mine him. The chaplain first desired him to trans-
late an easy Latin sentence. This he was unable
to do ; but as such knowledge was not very common
in the clerical profession, the absence of it did
not amount to a disqualification, and the examiner
proceeded in his inquiry. He asked the rev. gen-
tleman " Who brought up the people of Israel out
of Egypt ?" He answered King Saul. And being
asked who was first circumcised, he could not
answer. It is not to be expected that men such as
these should display any remarkable ability when
they had occasion to mount the pulpit. Indeed
their apostolic deficiencies were so glaring that it
was found necessary to draw up sermons which they
might read to the people. But some of the more
adventurous of the sacred order, disdaining to
shine by such borrowed light, ventured to
address their parishioners in their own language,
and with their own ideas. One of them, with the
view as I suppose of moderating the presumption of
his flock, preached in favour of mediocrity, and his
sermon was considered such a masterpiece of
theology that it was repeated in two or three dif-
ferent parishes. " God," says this great divine,
"delighted in mediocrity by these reasons—viz.,
man was put in medio paradisi : a rib was taken out
of the midst of man. The Israelites went through
the midst of Jordan ; and the midst of the Red Sea.
Samson put firebrands in the middest between the
foxes' tails. David's men had their garments cut
off by the middest. Christ was hanged in the middest
between two thieves."—A Posthumous Paper by Mr.
Buckle in Fraser's Magazine for August.

LIBERTY BECOME LICENSE.—Week after week
our better taste has boon outraged by the appearance of a
series of cartoons intended to heap ignominy on members
of tho Royal family. These miserable prostitutious of
art are almost beneath our notice, and we do not envy
their perpetrator the reputation they are calculated to
procure for him. They may perhaps find admirers
among the more vitiated classes of the people, and pos-
sibly a feeling of morbid curiosity may tend to a tem-
porary increase in the Sale of the journal in which they
appear. We cannot sufficiently condemn the cowardly
feeling which conceived and caused to be executed the last
design. In the first place ono would have imagined that
the sex and virtues of the high personage assailed would
have protected her from such dastardly attacks; but not
so, apparently. It is indeed valiant and honourable to
couch pen and pencil against those who, from their very
position, cannot notice the assaults of individuals so utterly
their inferiors. lu making these remarks we are but
echoing the sentiments of the majority of the British
people.—Echoes from the Clubs.
NIAGARA FALLS.—TabIe Rock was successfully
blown away from the main rock on the 26th ult. by a
second blast of powder, which removed what a first blast
had left. Visitors can now reach the sheet of water at
the base of the Palls without danger from falling rock.—
Toronto Globe.
THE SCHISM AMONG TIIE MORMONS.--A few
weeks ago a shipload of 400 Mormon emigrants landed at
this port from England, and set out across the plains for the
city of Great Salt Lake. By all accounts it seems certain
that they will find their paradise in a sad turmoil when they
got to it, and the Saint. in a most ungodly rumpus. The
schism to which we alluded a short time ago has become so
wide, and has made such an ugly wound, that there is but
little prospect of its ever being healed. Brigham Young is
boldly denounced. his followers have ceased to obey him;
his adversaries set him at defiance. When ho falls the
keystone of the Mormon structure is overthrown.
The Latter Day Church cannot outlast its great
prophet. It is said that Young is about to remove
to the newly-discovered gold mines of Utah; but we
are loth to believe that he so quickly gives up the right,
and it is more probable that ho will make a determined
stand at his capital. At any rate the Mormon diffi-
culty, which has perplexed us for so many years, seems to
be rapidly solving itself without our assistance. In another
generation wo may hope to see the polygamists of the
groat plains quietly absorbed by a law abiding and indus-
trious race of new settlers. If they withstand the com-
bined influence of internal discord, the Pacific Bailway,
and the tide of immigration which will be attracted to
Utah by the discovery of gold in the territory, they will
show a stability and strength of character to which his-
tory affords no parallel.—New York Tribune.
The New York Times has contracted with Cush-
man Brothers, Amherst paper manufacturers, to take all
the paper they make, which will be just about half the
amount consumed by the Times.
An important Shaker case is assigned for trial
in the September term of the superior court for Tolland
county. Some years since Zolotes Terry, acting as trustee
for the East family at Enfield, bought a house and several
building lots, giving his obligations in payment. Zolotes
having since died, Omar Pease, his successor in office,
refused to pay, yet keeps possession of the laud, pays the
taxes, and receives the rent.
Some of the young men of Worcester are forming
a league to emigrate to the far West.
State Liquor Commissioner Baker has appointed
three sub-agents for the sale of liquor in Boston. Each is
supplied with a seal on which is cut his name and place,
and an impression on wax is to accompany each package
sold. This, it is asserted, will give evidence of the purity
of the liquor.
The Paris Prefect of Police has refused permis-
sion to the International Co-operative Congress to meet.
This is the more strange as the co-operative movement
was taken by the Government under its own immediate
protection in the commencement. No reason is assigned for
this change of opini n, which was intimated to the Presi-
dent of the Congress by a commissary of police.
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by he Barry's Food. Cure No. 6813.—" " Rome, July 21, 1866.
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rook
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surprisingly
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sevei? years
nervous a ' liver
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the most intolerable nervous agitation.. ' Cure No. ,77 Lord
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