The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-22 00:00:00

fled and embellished by the lessons of OUT holy religion.
Another feeling, closely connected_ with the former, is
their steady and active friendship for those distinguish
ed individuals who 6.1 directed their youthful ener-
-.lpdge and the study
gies in the pursuit of useful -orous
. of divine truth. This elevated and gels...
preciation of the " debt immense of endless gratitude,
to him who had directed the important business
of . education was never more deeply felt, more
promptly or more durably displayed, than by that
immortal Statesman to whose transcendant genius
and indomitable firmness England is indebted for
her moral and political pre-eminence among the nations
of the earth. The first individual to whom William
Pitt announced his elevation to the post of Prime Mi-
nister was his former tutor, Dr. Prettyman. So inhe-
rent and so active is the principle that analagous in-
stances may be found among the mere Whigs. The
agency of a similar feeling might be traced among the
warriors and legislators of antiquity, and the intense-
ness and activity of the feeling were in the direct ratio
of the intellectual superiority and energy of him whom
it actuated. In the estimation of Alexander the invalu-
able caskets of Darius were the only suitable depository
for the works of his master Aristotle. The existence
of the feeling we have alluded to may, in a great mea-
sure, be traced to a something, " Gothic and Monkish"
—for " such," as Mr. Burke has said, "it is in the
groundwork"—in the discipline of our Universities,
and in the system pursued there. This ecclesiastical
tinge, this early and habitual association of sacred and
of scientific truths, has given a somewhat sombre colour-
ing to the national character, habits, and manners. But
on the other other hand, to the permanent operation of
the same salutary system must be ascribed all that is
most dignified and valuable in the character of the
English Gentleman—all that elevates our aristocracy
as a class above the moral and mental level of that of
any other nation—all that enables them, to use the
language of Milton, " to perform justly, skilfully, and
magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public,
of peace and war." The intellectual and moral cha-
racter of our educated classes is formed by our Eccle-
siastical Universities, and by those domestic habits
which, through successive generations, have re-
ceived their tone from the same source. Those
learned bodies, at once the offspring and the auxiliaries
of the Established Church, are animated by her
spirit, and identified with her interests and ob-
jects ; their separate beings are essentially and
inextricably interwoven ; they reciprocally inter-
penetrate each other ;* nor can we conceive the
possibility of detriment or deterioration in the one,
without a corresponding injury to the other. It is not
the friends of the Established Church who are of this
opinion ; her enemies entertain a similar conviction.
Hence their inveterate hostility to the existing privi-
leges of the national Universities, the nurseries of the
Ministers and champions of the Established Church,
and the able and unflinching supporters of that union
between Church and State which it is object of all
their efforts to destroy. The enemies of the Church
(in other words, that section of the Destructives
which is con nosed of political Dissenters) are at this
moment the mo't dangerous, because the most ac-
tive, enterprising, ‘,7 nd unprincipled of the fac-
tions which for some yees past have kept the public
mind of England in a ferc?ent. Religion is with
them the mask of faction, and congf:i'Vntious scruples
are the cloak of personal and sectarian ambition.
It is not our intention, in the present article, to en-
ter into the discussion of the modest pretensions or
those Jacobins in masquerade to nullify the ancient
privileges, to abrogate the statutes, and to revolutionize
the systematic discipline of our Universities. To the
redress, or rather to the removal, of the few remaining
disabilities to which Dissenters are subjected, to grant
to them the most comprehensive measure of relief as
citizens and subjects, compatible with the essential
conditions of our civil and ecclesiastical polity, is the
course dictated by reason and by justice. To do less
than this would be unworthy of the liberal and en-
lightened policy of the Church of England and of our
Conservative Cabinet. To do more it would be im-
possible for a conscientious Dissenter to expect
,or to
desire. The great subject of Church reform must soon
occupy the attention of the Legislature. The de-
termination of the Prime Minister on this subject
is expressed with equal simplicity and precision ;
and his recorded promise to enter on the considera-
tion of this momentous subject " with the sincerest
desire to remove every abuse that can impair the
efficiency of the Establishment, to ektend the sphere
of its it.sefulness, and to strengthen and confirm its just
claims upon the respect and affections of the people,"
does honour to his principles as the Minister of a Pro-
testant Monarch, on earth the supreme head of the
English Protestant Curch, and entitles him to the
heartfelt gratitude of this Protestant people. The
declaration of Sir Robert if el on the subject of
Church Reform was as opportune it was explicit,
and is equally creditable to his sagacl`ty and to his
firmness. The concurrence of Sir Robert reel in the
comprehensive measure of 1829, which co:needed
more than to many zealous adherents of the Es.a-
Wished Church seemed advisable, gave additional va-
lue to this document. There is a point beyond which
a British Minister cannot advance in the path of a
concession without compromising at once the honour
of the Crown and the interests of the people. In
times like the present, when the agitated surface of
society betrays the potent agency of the spirit which
disturbs its depths, the calmest and the coldest, the
firmest and the proudest, must syripathise, more or

less,. in the general movement of the Mighty mass. If
-within the limits of the British Empire there are two
men whose character and whose experience qualify

them to meet the emergencies of the present crisis ; to
controul the elements of disorder ; to prescribe limits
to the wild and fearful spirit of innovation, which me-
naces with outrage and utter ruin all that is valuable,
or. _venerable, or holy ; to save the Monarchy, the
Church, and the Constitution ; to serve the peo-
- pie, and save them from themselves ; those men are the
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.—Morning
- Port.-

Our contemporary, the Standard, forgetful of the
. denunciation in Scripture, is somewhat apt to deal
with two measures. The parsons of England are the
great canvassers for the Tories. This, of course,
:,::finds•favour in the eyes of our contemporary. In a
lborough in the East of England, which we could
r'°--name, the individual employed in bribing the electors
'`crtiallced down the principal street, arm-in-arm with the
i{ 'ory candidate and a canvassing parson. But the
s,llgman Catholic priests, also, take an interest in the
elections, and they do not exert themselves in favour of

the Tories. This is a heinous offence in the eyes
of our contemporary, who, with amusing inconsist-
.ency, a the very moment he is filling his columns
with authorities against the Parliament which
proved an overmatch for Charles the First, recurs to
parliamentary precedents, in the reign of the same
Monarch, against clergymen of the Establishment, for
preaching about the election of Members of Puha-
• ment, with a view to the punishment of the Irish Ca-

_ .
tholic priests. "We have already," (says the Stan-
dard) laid before the English reader the address of
the notorious priest, M'Hale." Our readers will re-
collect that we also alluded to this address, and that we
'demonstrated that Dr. M'Hale was not only justitial
_in denouncing the heinous crimes of perjury and bri-
bery, but bound as a Christian pastor to enlighten all
who were under his charge on the subject. The diffe-
rence between Dr. M'Hale and the Reverend Canvas-
sers for the Tories is this, that the former uses his influ-

ence against crime, and the latter in favour of it. "In a
late number of the Ikblin Freeman's Journal (conti-
nues the Standard) we read similar addresses issued seve-
rally to their clergy by Priest M'Mahon, usurping the
see of Killaloe, Priest Murphy, usurping the see of
Cork, and Priest Nolan, successor to the well-known

Di. Doyle, in the usurped see of Kildare and Leigh-
lin." Why not ? Has our contemporary already for-
gotten that he subscribed to the justice of our
remarks in the case of Dr. Hale, and wished

the Protestant clergy to profit by the arguments
we advanced in justification of the interference
of the Catholic clergy in political matters ? Our

contemporary, however, now invokes the aid of
Parliament against the Catholic clergy, for pre-
suming to raise their voice against bribery and
corruption—for wishing to snatch the souls of
their flocks from the perdition into which their Tory