The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-06 00:00:00

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..s.eN'A'A•lkelif,e69rtieg444l'ast,l/ear after year the time of the
sse 4304, ger.lcawenefs-:so much taken up with questions
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,e`.\-• - ,It If 'At character? Can it be reasonably impu-
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NI tethe supposition that we possess more of the
Christian spirit, and a more fervent zeal for its propa-
gation, than any other civilized country ? Those
who have visited the nations of the world will
not agree in any such hypothesis. Every impartial
traveller will admit that he has found much of the true
fire of religion in Prussia, and yet it is a subject
which is scarcely ever heard of in that country as a
topic of public discussion. There is perhaps no nation
in which there are so many forms of worship as Austria.
It abounds with Greek and Roman Catholics, Protes-
tants, Moravians, and even Mahometans. But whatever
differences of opinion may prevail between the various
sections of that empire upon matters of apolitical nature,
d:fferences upon points of religion are never so much
as mentioned amongst them. This silence cannot
be owing to apathy, for we venture to assert
from our own knowledge, that there is no part of
• Europe in which the churches of every kind are more
frequented than in Austria and its dependencies.
Those who know France only from Paris, are entirely
ignorant of the religious fervour which exists in that
kingdom. In the provinces it is conspicuous, but at
the same time unostentatious. Yet the word religion
never is heard of in the Parliamentary debates of
France, although it is notorious that the LOwer
Chamber especially is composed of Catholics and Pro-
testants, and even of Jews. Since Belgium became
independent, we hardly recollect a syllable uttered in
its Legislative Assembly about religion, except with a
view to secure to every man perfect freedom of con.
science, and entire equality in the eye of the law. Por-
tugaland Spain may be said to be bigoted countries ; ne-
vertheless their Cortes never indulge in dissertations on
religion. The United States of America possess as
many religious sects as England itself, but we do not
remember that Congress has ever had so much as a
single debate on any question whatever connected with
this or that form of Christianity. Everybody knows
that American missionaries are to be found in all parts
of the world. The question then recurs, why happens
it that the time of the British Parliament is so fre-
quently occupied with questions connected with re-
ligion ? It is simply because in these countries re-
ligion has been unfortunately united with splendid
temporal endowments, which touch the worldly inte-
rests of a vast mass of individuals. If we look through
the world, we shall find in no nation so much—nay, not
half so much wealth set apart for the establishment of
Christianity as we find in this country and in Ireland.
To the persons in actual possession or in expectation
of a portion of that opulence, whatever borders on a
religious topic becomes consequently a question of
property—a presage of a life of ease, or even
of princely grandeur on the one side, or of priva-
tion and misery on the other. Young men are taught
to look to the Church treasury as an inheritance—
the men in enjoyment of it consider it in the
same light as if they had derived it from their ances-
tors—it is portioned out among sons and daughters,
relatives, and friends, throughout the whole circle of
• society. Whenever the fund is spoken of, their means
of existence are in question ; and, by a very natural
self-deception, they immediately cry out that the
Church—meaning all the time the treasury of the
Church—is in danger !We apprehend that we should
hear very little in Parliament upon the subject of reli-
gion, if it had happened to come down to us recom-
mended only by its doctrines, and the primeval sim-
plicity and poverty of its founders. Mr. Fowell Bux-
ton placed this point in a light which is unquestionably
the only one worthy of the Christian system. " You
have been trying," he said, " for three hundred years
to convert Ireland to your tenets ; but your mission-
aries have been too rich ; they found other enjoyments
than those arising out of a disinterested and apostolic
zeal for the dissemination of the,Gospel—enjoyments
full of temptations, which as, men they could not re-
sist. Change your plan—send missionaries over who
shall make vows of poverty—who really can have
no other object in view than the propagation of divine
truth, and you will find a very different result."
We know not how far the Hon. Gentleman's views
might be realized if his suggestions were car-
ried into effect ; but we can have no doubt what-
ever that his principle is the only one that has ever
yet succeeded in converting any nation to Christianity.
We never heard that the first Christian missionaries to
this country entered Canterbury in a coach and six, or
that any' one amongst them enjoyed an income of
twenty-five thousand pounds a year. We rather be-
lieve that they were pedestrians, and that they lived
upon charity during the whole of their glorious career.
It is obvious, therefore, that the contest now going on
in Parliament arises out of the real progress which
religion has made in the world, and which has already
taught many persons in this country that Christianity,
in the true meaning of that word, has nothing, and
ought to have nothing, to do with secular wealth. We
are at length on the eve of practically establishing this
great truth, that essentially the Christian system is a
system of humiliation and poverty—not of human pride
and splendour. We haYe found out that the gospel no-
where authorises a grant of 14,0001. sterling perannum
to an Archbishop of Armagh, or oflo,ooo/. to an Arch-
bishop of Tuam,for the performance of duties which ought
never to have been connected with pecuniary considera-
tions at all. Those venal writers are consequently quite
consistent who are now endeavouring to raise the war-
whoop of the " Church in danger," because the tem-
poral wealth of the Church is about to be diminished.
They look upon the Church as a mere manufacturer of
money, and they are right in crying out that in that
capacity the " Church is in danger." This is pre-
cisely the meaning which Mr. Shaw attached to that
phrase when he used it with so much emphasis a few
nights ago in the House of Commons. Public opinion
is becoming too enlightened to suffer an establishment
to exist under the name of Christianity, which must
offend against the fundamental prinCiples of the
Gospel, so long as it shall remain thus gorgeously en-
dowed. The Chnrch truly is `in danger, but never
was religion so safe, or so likely to achieve its noblest
triumphs, as at the crisis at which we are now arrived.
We have seen much of mankind, but we do not be-
lieve that the religious temperament, the disposition
to the affectionate performance of religious duties,
exists in any community of the world more warmly
or more purely than in these kingdoms. It is to be
found in all ranks of society, but especially amongst
tlie middling classes, who have the good sense to
. know that Christianity and opulence are seldom
convertible terms. They shrewdly suspect that there
is much of hypocrisy and of the worst species of politi-
cal subserviency in the hearts of those men who cry
out that the Church is in danger, when, in fact,
nothing is in peril but some hundreds of thousands of
pounds. They feel, too, how much more brightly,
with what infinitely more gracefulness, the doctrines
of Christianity would shine out, if they were divested
of the external trappings with which they are at pre-
sent encumbered. Never, we venture to affirm, will
religion be more truly loved by the mass of our commu-
nity than when it shall stand out in its own Majestic
simplicity, free from the tinsel by which it has been
loaded during the most ignorant ages of the world.
We may further predict, that those men amongst us, who,
in defiance of all the maxims of Christianity, dare still to
claim for it an enormous proportion of worldly wealth,
will eventually fail to produce any o ther results than those
of perpetual distraction, infuriated at intervals to sangui-
nary civil war. Discontent, bloodshed, hatred, are the
natural offspring of principles which are the reverse of
those inculcated in the sacred writings. A rich
Church is the prolific parent of all the evils which
have so long afflicted Ireland—a Church known to
the people only by the extent of its exactions—by the
murders which have been perpetrated in order to ex-
tort money for its coffers. A rich Church is a sole-
cism in religion, it is opposed to all the •interests of
society, and must of necessity injure those interests as
long as it exists...l7h- 4o,see. therefore, are the best
friends of reliOn, -rightly understood, who would di-
vest it of eve outward feattiii.:.. that is not in perfect
harmony wit(
,
title girt 'of-illqospel. We must
admit the fait it Ox,li.i.it i agsan to on all sides—
that the effort ti t9.'tka 6,0-Wee or persuade the
people of Irelan -a ,tift ,r ad religion have sig.
j
Bally failed, T f the inhabitants of
that toautry are at is the rational way

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