The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-22 00:00:00

his children awaken pathos by as much pictorial
nudity as is decent and safe for their health.
Because we consider this, however, an excessively
ridiculous and absurd scheme we are not at all in-
different to the necessities of the poor clergy. But
there is a proper way of doing everything. Intelli-
gent and educated persons understand perfectly
well the condition of this class; they can sympathise
with the deep instinct of keeping up appearances
which there is in all society of a certain rank, and
at the same time see the sure consequence of that
attempt,—the pinching and positive want which
must go on underneath this exterior and for the
sake of it. They do not want a coarse appeal to
the eye or the actual sight of rags in order to move
their pity. It is to this intelligent class of society
that the appeal ought to be made in behalf of the
poorer clergy, and not to the mixed mass which
composes a common congregation. We do not see
the force in the least of the Bishop of Oxford's ar-
gument, that " millowners and great employers of
labour, who are casting their capital into business
and making great gains, cannot be expected to fix
charges on their capital, which must necessarily be
of a floating character, for the purpose of endow-
ments ;" but that these persons might be expected
t, give to the Offertory. We presume it is the
principle of the Offertory that these persons should
glve according to their means ; and, if they do,
there is exactly the same difficulty in adjusting
their liberality to a floating capital when the Offer-
tory is the channel that there is when a subscrip-
tion list or anything else is the channel.

THE ESSAYS AND .REVIEWS.

(Prom the Daily News.)
The learned and very reverend author of "Latin
Christianity," in the second book of that valuable
history, contrasts with striking effect the differ-
ence between a Church Council as devout minds
love to conceive it, and the picture which his-
torical impartiality is compelled to draw. No-
where can Christianity appear in such command-
ing majesty as in a sacred synod. It includes, of
course, the most distinguished clergy ; a lofty and
sacred piety governs all its proceedings ; profound
and dispassionate investigation exhausts every sub-
ject ; human passions have no place amid the
awful interests it contemplates; its conclusions are
grave, harmonious, and temperate; and even con-
demnation is so tempered with charity as gradually
to win backsthe wanderers to the still open fold.
Such is the -fond dream of a pure and single-minded
enthusiasm. History shows the melancholy reverse.
"Nowhere," says Dean Milman, "is Christianity
less attractive, and if we look to the ordinary tone
and character of the proceedings, less authoritative
than in the Councils of the Church. Injustice, vio-
lence, decisions on authority alone, and that the
authority of a turbulent majority, decisions by wild
acclamation rather than after sober inquiry, detract
from the reverence and impugn the judgment, at
least of the later Councils, The close is almost in-
variably a terrible anathema, in which it is impos-
sible not to discern the tones of human hatred, of
arrogant triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation
imprecated against a humiliated adversary." Such
is the judgment of history.
It appears to be worth the while of some of the
clergy to demonstrate how vigorously the old vices
of their assemblies survives the power which made
them at least respected. The Convocation of the
Province of Canterbury is a body which unites the
impotence of a French Senate with the pettiness of
a parish Vestry. But the Senate is at least digni-
fied, and the Vestry useful. Nobody knows why
Convocation is allowed to meet. The very Bishops
mercilessly ridicule its pretensions even in their own
chamber. From the day, some dozen years ago,
when a Minister contemptuously permitted its re-
vival, until now, it has done nothing, and it meets
on condition of doing nothing to affect the real in-
terests of the Church. The speeches delivered in
both Houses to sustain the appearance of business
have been models of an ingenuity exerted to con-
ceal tke real barrenness of their proceedings. Its
friends talk of it as if, instead of being a repre-
sentation of a portion of the clergy of
the United Kingdom, it was a representation of
the Church of England. But the first attempt
to deal with the rights of the laity, whose repre-
sentative* are to be found not there but in Par-
liament, would show the futility of this pretension.
It was inevitable that Convocation, brought to-
gether without useful occupation, should go astray
—that some mischief should be found for its idle
hands to do, The wonder is that this did not hap-
pen before. But early in the present year the
temptation presented itself at the meeting of the
two houses with irresistible fascinations. Half-a-
dozen of the clergy had published a book which
made the judicious grieve, and which might bring
some of its authors under the censure of the Church
Courts. The matter, if it was to be touched at all
in Convocation, required very judicious handling.
The Bishops had united to publish an expression
of opinion unfavourable to the writers of the volume,
and the religious opinion of the country was unani-
mous. The commonest prudence would have sug-
gested that such a state of things was the best that
that could be hoped for in the interests of the ortho-
doxy. But a restless party, to whom disputation
is as vital air, refused to accept it with contentment.
There are some men who would as soon be martyrs
as persecutors, but will insist on being one or the
other, and Convocation offers specimens of the class.
In the Upper House the Bishop of Oxford, and in
the Lower House Archdeacon Denison succeeded in
destroying the prosperous unanimity which had been
maintained, and provoked from a right rev. prelate
and a very rev. dean the first words that had been
spoken in public on behalf of the Essayists and Re-
viewers. Still the mischief was not past repair,
and it seemed as if Convocation was about to rise
above the traditional weakness of synods when, set-
ting aside Dr. Jelf's motion inviting the Upper
House to join in condemning the obnoxious volume,
the Lower House quietly associated itself to the pub-
lished expression of the Bishops' opinion. But it
was not to be so. The deliberate vote of the Lower
House having been taken a trick was resorted to
on a subsequent day which would have been im-
possible in any assembly of laymen in England,
America, or Australia. When the Lower House
had been reduced, by departures, to thirty-eight
members, twenty of those who stayed behind united
in a prayer substantially identical with that which
the Lower House had formally rejected, and, with.
the aid of Archdeacon Bickerstetb, acting as Pro-
locutor in the absence of the Dean of Bristol, ac-
tually palmed it on the Bishops as the vote of the
Lower House, an act which was indignantly cha-
racterised as it deserved by Canon Wordsworth and
others from their places, as soon as it became
known. This application to the Upper House is the
foundation of the proceedings which we have this
theri bringing g
deprecated
reported at so great length. The twenty
house
bodiesbusy-
to
which succeeded
engrecate down upon the d
task of appoint.
ing a committee to make extracts from " Essays and
tchceeeyded inbelong
Reviews," and report thereon. It is much easier to
make a hole than mend it, and the most able, ex-
perienced and sober members of Convocation have
spent an athious week in trying to find some way
of getting rid of the business. The proposition of
Archdeacon Denison, seconded by Dr. A. M'Caul,
from whom better things might have been expected,
is virtually that Convocation proceed to what they
are pleased to call " synodical action" on the
opinions of the incriminated book. In other words,
to condemn and place in the Index after the man-
ner of Rome, a work which everybody agrees to
call most erroneous. The folly of this course was
pointed out in clear and earnest language by the
Bishop of London in the March sittings of the
Upper House. The Bishop warned his brethren that
the Protestant people of these islands do not value
at a straw the sentence which Convocation may
deliver on opinions respecting which they have
already judged for themselves, as they are well able
to do. Since then the relative situation of the
' several parties has been changed in an important
respect. One of the authors of " Essays and Re-
views" has been prosecuted by his diocesan for
heresy. Archdeacon Moore pointed out the
course which common decency dictates in such a
case, but he could hardly get time to ask whether
they were to assume the functions of a court, and
pronounce a solemn judgment against a man
already on his trial, before the vociferous Denison
interrupted him with a stolid and unblushing
" Yes." Canon Wordsworth also, after warning the
Convocation that they were .contemplating an
illegal and unconstitutional act, the assumption of
high and solemn functions without authority,
showed how much harm would be done if by their
conduct heresy were associated in the eyes of the
public with oppression, and orthodoxy with injus-
tice. He asked Dr. 111‘Caul how he and others,
probably the great body of the members of Convo-
cation, who had united in signing the condemnation
of this book, "having taken upon himself the duties
of Attorney-General, could superedd to them those
of the Lord Chancellor, and not only prosecute the
book, but sit in judgment upon it"?' Appeals of
this kind, however, are never listened to in synods.
Zeal blinds men to consequences, and too often, in
proportion to the singleness of mind with which a
right end is espoused, are all means thought
allowable if they but premise its attainment. Con-
F vocation is no worse than other synods, but rather
better, as composed of Englishmen accustomed to
the habits of a healthy public life, and amenable to
' English public opinion. But it cannot escape the
vicious tendencies inherent in its constitution ; and
' Churchmen, whether lay or clerical,. may be thank-
ful that their liberties and nr ;
T-14e.13,es are not at
the mercy of an assembly of priests, but, rest on
the basis of law, interpreted and
administered ac-
cording ti?. fixed rules, under the Protection of the
P,Upreare authority in the State.