The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-24 00:00:00

more.

Resolutions and Bills are coming forth with great
rapidity. Already a resolution is before the Finance
Committee to remit the duty on the importation of
arms in Northern ports since the Ist of May, unless
the duty has been actually paid. The Pennsylva-
nian iron masters will be obliged, probably, to
submit to this, since the BUCHANAN Cabinet had
left them but a scant supply of arms in the North,
and the Government does not know how to arm the
volunteers which proffer their services half fast
enough. Another Bill has been introduced to re-
peal all laws creating ports of entry in the South,
which is thus to be cut off from legal commerce
as well as blockaded; a bill, the most important of
all in some respects, is also introduced to " repeal
the Tariff Act of 1861 and to restore that of 1857."
It comes a little too late, but truly enough in this
case, better late than never, since the American
Exchequer has been a serious loser, while we have
still on hand what they stand so much in need of
both in texture and hardware goods. Some Southern-
minded men began it seems to suggest proposals and
make speeches in accordance with their predilections,
but they soon received an intimation which quieted
them completely, and we shall probably hear of
little but nearly unopposed northern Bills and re-
solutions. Congress has put a kind of limit on its
own action by adopting a resolution that the house
will, during the present extraordinary session,
only consider bills and resolutions concerning
military and naval appropriations fof the
Government and financial affairs connected
therewith, and that all bills of a private character,
and all other bills and resolutions not directly
connected with the raising of revenue, and military
and naval affairs, shall be referred without debate
to the appropriate committees, to be considered at
the next regular session of Congress. All, how-
ever, that is of importance can easily be connected
with military, naval, and financial matters, just as
Mr. LOVEJOY did the resolutions respecting the
Fugitive Slave Law. Resolutions of a pacific kind
were, in like manner, connected readily enough
with war and its expenditure.

Religious liberty is almost as favourite a topic
with Englishmen as civil liberty. The persecutions
of the past, those of Queen BEss as well as those
of Queen MARY, and those of CHARLES 11. as well
as of HENRY VIII., have burnt into English minds
the conviction that civil and religious liberty must
go together. They are indeed one. A man has
not all his rights as a citizen unless he has full
protection in worshipping his GOD as ho pleases,
unless indeed he is in all civil matters on perfectly
equal terms with his fellow citizens, be his creed
what it may. Perfect religious equality of all citi-
zens in the eye of the law is the right of the be-
liever in JOHN WESLEY'S Hymn-book, as well as
of those who do not scruple subscription to the
Articles and Prayer-book.
It seems, however, that the Free Churchmen of
Scotland demand something far more transcenden-
tal than this. Perhaps not many of our readers
thought that the " Cardross Case," in The Sun of
Monday, concerned them much, ant' when they
saw that it was an affair of Scotch law, the utter
unintelligibility of the legal jargon of the North—
our own being bad enough in all conscience—sent
them in search of something more entertaining.
We will not trouble them with one Scotch law
term, and, stripped of these, they will find the case
itself one of peculiar interest. The substance of
in ordinary English is this :—A Scotch minister A*
the Free Church is accused of faults meriting sts-
pension from his sacred office. He contended that
the subordinate courts of the Church had not p.o-
ceeded regularly. The case comes before the General
Assembly of the Free Church. While it is fend-
ing he appeals as a man civilly aggrieved to the
temporal courts. The Assembly calls him to its
bar, asks him whether he has appealed to the tem-
poral courts—" Yes," or "No." He replies in the
affirmative; for which they then and there depose
him from his office altogether—his inexpiable crime
not being a moral, but an ecclesiastical delinquency.
He had appealed from the sacred and supreme
" Assembly " to the Civil Courts—this was, in their
phraseology, the crime of " violating the Crown
noblestow
Rights of Emmanuel." Of those rights they con.
ceive that the Assembly is the depositary.
Now, the
voluntary Free Church
associationsis
fel nl
Dissenters one of the
in
Great Britain, Its
contribution Its sacrifices, and its liberality in
, claim for it all commendation ; but it
in this case, confused the civil and
rightsreli-
gious of Britons rather strangely. When
has Surely, ely
summoned before the first judge, the Lord Ordi-
nary, they refused to produce any of the records
pertaining to the dispute, on the high ground that
it was a spiritual matter, with which the temporal
judge had nothing to do. The judge, acknowledg-
ing
that he had nothing to do with their spiritual
regulations, took the ground that a member of their
Church complained to him of a civil wrong;
the question of wrorg could be determined only by
that
the conditions under which he became a minister
of their Church. Those conditions were the con-
tract, and if they had been violated, so far as civil
consequences were involved, the law of the land
would certainly give redress. Of course the ques-
tion was one of pure law. The complainant, might,
or might not, make his case good—but the judge
would not admit that their being a Voluntary
Society would enable them to enter into a contract,
and break it, and then constitute themselves the