The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-11 00:00:00

fall out honest people get their own. And the
Italians will now recover their own fair land, so
long contaminated by the footstep of the oppressor.

The Lords and Church-rates—a pleasant episode.
Last year the abolitionists pushed forward for the

first time their advanced posts into the Upper
House ; there, of course, they encountered the
main body of Ecclesiastical Austrians—and had to
fall back again upon the liberating army in the
House below. In that House the old leader, Sir
JOHN TRELAWNY, has again begun his march, and
the Lords, foreseeing the speedy approach, a second
time, of the enemy, are this time strengthening
their defences and taking measures to ensure a
successful resistance. We like the look of this ;
it betokens at least distrust of undisciplined
bigotry. Something more is felt to be necessary
than mere stolid resistance. The dash of the abo-
litionists, with the reserves of the country and the
press to back them, may, it is feared, prove too
much even for noble lords backed by spiritual lords.
Last year it was enough to say non-content ; this
year the non-contents want the report of a select
committee to enable them to say so without blush-
ing. This is beyond doubt a point gained. The
select committee is the trophy erected by the lords
themselves to the strength of the Abolitionists. The
latter of course behold it with pleasure. It will
give them a definite point of attack ; a little more
trouble perhaps to storm it, but the very battle is
a pleasure when one party rushes to the charge in
the name of religious liberty, and flushed with
splendid victories in the House of Commons
and the other timorously cowers behind its sand-

bags and begs for eleemosynary mercy on behalf
of the wealthiest Church in Christendom. Two of
these beggars of Monday last are in receipt of at
least one £15,000, and the other £lO,OOO a-year
from the Church for which they beg !

The Low Church seems just for the moment
to occupy the post of honour. The Duke of
MARLBOROUGH is highly honoured in its breviary,
indeed we believe that he and Lord SHAFTESBURY
are bracketed as its patron saints ; and on this
occasion Churchmen prayed to him with much
better success than the countryman had with
HERCULES. The Duke of MARLBOROUGH, indeed,
can sympathise with the poor country parishes, on
whose behalf the Archbishop, and our metropolitan,
" begged the favourable consideration of noble
lords." When in the lower house, he essayed in
vain to represent the populous constituency of
Middlesex, where Church-rates are abolished
without mercy, and was obliged to content himself
with the rural constituency of Woodstock. We do
not say Woodstock borough, because, it consists of
thirteen of those devout little villages which pay
Church-rates without grumbling, because in each
the clgrgTman and the duke are the gods they
worship—at least in matters ecclesiastical. And
the Duke's plaintive pleadings in the Lords indi-
cated a tender interest in things as they are in
Blenheim Park, and in the twelve other hamlets
which formerly enabled him to edify the Lower
House.

Of course the Duke is to have his select com-
mittee. Lord GRANVILLE knew and said that it
was superfluous, but also knew it was useless to re-
sist an archbishop, a bishop, and their patron saint
or lord in their own house. So the select committee
will sit—will prove to the satisfaction of every
bishop who sees things only with episcopal spec-
tacles, and of every old lord who sees things through
the recollections of the good old times, when
Church and King was the patriotic toast, that
Church-rates are essential to the support of the
Established Church ; that the Established Church
a occontial to the arictPnrp of a House of Lords;
that a House of Lords is essential to the existence
of the Throne itself; therefore to the existence of
the English Constitution—indeed of England
itself—Q.E.D.

To glance at the speeches of the four or five
right rev, and noble speakers, seems like going
from the light of day into the twilight of some
old cathedral. If we do not, all of us, know all
about church-rates, we should like to know what
we do understand. The subject has been discussed
ever since we had a reformed Parliament. And,
not only that, but we have all had to do
with the thing itself. It is, like the Ballot,
a people's question, on which the people have far
more practical knowledge than their lordships.
We have all had to pay church•rates, or
to vote, where we are strong enough, that they shall
be paid no more. What do per centages of parishes
such as the thirteen that could not muster alto-
gether 350 electors to elect Lord BLANDFORD
(the Duke of MARLBOROUGH)—what do per cen-
tages of such petty parishes concern us? They
must require but very small churches, and it is
strange indeed if they cannot keep such as they
have wind and weather tight. Some parishes in
Cumberland—exclaimed our wealthy diocesan—
what would they do without church-rates ? Why,
in all probability, much better than we do.here in
so many London parishes. They would meet easily
their own small wants, and when anything required
special help would appeal to the gentry of the dis-
trict, would use the county Gazette as clergymen
here use the metropolitan press, and would find it
the easiest thing in the world to get a long list of
subscriptions from the Sir JOHNS and Sir HARRYS
with their £lOO or 150, down to the shopkeeper
with his guinea. And, what is really the best part
of the business, these subscribers would feel an
interect in what they contributed for voluntarily,
while of those who pay rates one-half care nothing
the more for the church they must repair, and the
other half hate it, not for the amount they pay,
but because they are forced to pay it. The Bishop
of LONDON, indeed, told us that he thought the
fallacy of the voluntary system had been long
exploded. But what says the noble lord, the late
Secretary for India, who lives amongst men and
things—why, that this exploded "voluntary system,
whether we like it or not, is certain to be the creed
of the next generation, and that he voted for
Church-rate Abolition as a desirable preparatory
discipline for it." We believe, watching as we
have to do the progress of public opinion, that the
Lord is nearer the truth than the Bishop.

One legal fact seemed to annoy the patrons of
Church-rates a good deal—that Dissenters are
Churchmen, in the sense of having as much legal
power over, and in, the Church, as if they did not
dissent ; that while it is a national Church, sup-
ported by national property, they have a voice in
its administration, and a claim upon its funds as much
as those who worship at the national churches. From
this humbling view of their case, however, Church-
men have not and cannot have auy escape. If they
accept the golden honours of State support, they
must accept with them the humiliation of being
servants of the State—and, as Dissenters are a part
of the State, of being so far servants of Dissenters !
We cannot assist the Duke out of this perplexity
_we can only remind him that to the extent to
which the Church pays its own expenses it is
morally, at least, a free Church.

The Right Honourable C. P. Villiers, President
of the Poor-law Board, has appointed Mr. J. Thornely as
his private secretary.