The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-24 00:00:00

F 0 R A

newspapers in reporting and eventually in penning
comic essays, the memorable "Sketches by Boz,"
for the columns of the Evening Chronicle. Else-
where in our impression of this evening
will be found a carefully detailed narrative
of the rise to fame and fortune, to titles and hon-
ours of the eminent Lawyer and Author snatched
from life so suddenly but yesterday, Annalist of the
of our Chancellors, Occupant himself of the woolsack
—the glories of which it is especially worthy of
note, his pen has been chiefly instrumental in com-
memorating ! Peace to his manes—honour to his
memory. A Great Citizen has passed abruptly
from the midst of us. We have nothing left
now to do in his regard, but—laying well to heart,
of course, the impressive lesson of his Life and, let
us add also, of his Death—to cherish all that is
more worthy of being guarded in his memory, and
to consign his dead body with due honour to the
tomb in that great National Wallhalla—the old
Abbey down at Westminster.

Sir RICHARD BETHELL everyone at last looks to
as Lord CAMPBELL'S successor on the Woolsack.
The promotion is his, so to speak, by right—as
Attorney-General. It is his, if for no other reason
(and in Sir RICHARD BETHELL'S instance there are
many reasons), if for no other reason, we say—in
compensation for his many past disappointments.
The Great Seal has more than once before this
dangled all but within reach of the pre-
sent First Law Officer of the Crown. His
eminence in his profession is a fact long
since recognised as notorious and indisput-
able. Almost—we had said, and we surely
might without much hesitation say—his pre-emi-
nence ! For Sir RICHARD BETHELL, as a lawyer,
has a reputation second to no one among the
crowd of his own contemporaries. To pass over
Sir RICHARD BETHELL, in fact, again, would be
little else than a personal slight and a public in-
dignity. Convenient it might be, as a temporary
stop-gap, to induce Lord CRANWORTH to resume his
post as Lord Chancellor. But the public at large
will hardly rest satisfied if the Attorney-General
be not at length raised simultaneously to the two
dignities b e has by this time well earned—a Peer-
age and the Chancellorship. Sir WILLIAM
ATHERTON, the present Solicitor-General, will,
in that eventuality, be promoted (also by right) to
the Attorney-Generalship. And then—who will
occupy Sir WILLIAM'S vacated position as her
MAJESTY'S Solicitor-General ? That, in point of
fact, is the sole remaining question, the sole result
of all these changes left still, to this moment, in any
way problematical. The choice has recently been
narrowed by the regretted erasure of one con-
spicuous name from the list of the candidates.
Still, among the lawyers upon the Liberal
side of the House enough are still left
—and to spare—to enable the First Lord of the
Treasury to make a judicious selection. May the
consideration of the public advantage alone guide
Lord PALMERSTON in the delicate task of making
that selection of our new Solicitor-General !

CONVOCATION—It is a big-sounding word, and
time was when the thing itself might be somewhat
answering to the word. If it ever were so, it was
when, as representing the clergy, it was convened to
tax itself. The patriarch of the English Church,
however, ST. HARRY VIII., prudently took all the
power over Convocation into his own hand ; in duo
time its self-taxing powers vanished, and it has,
ever since been an assembly for conversation merely
—a kind of ecclesiastical soiree. But power is dear
to many men, to none more so than to ecclesiastics,
and hence of late years, as our readers well know,
the Convocationists, for they are a party in the
Church, have tried hard to talk a little more, and a
little more every year ; have appointed committees
to sit when Convocation was prorogued, have passed
all kinds of empty resolutions, and in fact verl'fied
so much that they have appeared to some as if
"doing business." " Where there's so much smoke
there must be fire," say beholders, and where there
are so many words there must be some deeds would
seem to be as natural an inference.

Nothing of the sort, however ; it is all literally,
vox et preterea nthil. They got the QUEEN'S
license to try their hands on so petty a mat-
ter as doctoring a Canon ; they have trimmed up
the 29th to the exigencies of clergy who cannot
find Godfathers and Godmothers for all the chil-
dren they desire to baptise ; registration of births
having been fatal to the old solicitude of great
numbers for a State Church Baptism. The
Methodist parson does it as well, without wanting
godfathers or godmothers either; the parents might
be willing to stand as godfathers to their own
offspring, but the 29th Canon forbids it—so even
the Bishop of OXFORD is forward to tamper with a
Canon ! If he cannot get non-parental godfathers
and baptism, too, let us, he says, have the baptism,
so he gets Royal Licence to amend the Canon, and
he does it—and now, after all is done, the highest
legal authorities whom they consult, tell them
it is all useless. The alteration is illegal !—and it
will not release the offending clergyman from legal
consequences for his act, What the clergy intend to
do with their new and illegal Canon we know not.
It seems as hard to reform Canons as to reform the
House of Commons.

Next, at the instigation of Archdeacon DENISON,
the Convocation proposes to sit as a High Court of
Heresy, and it seems to have pronounced itself com-
petent. It is an odd sort of court, to be sure, for
that purpose. It consists of an Upper House of all
the Bishops—a Lower House of 22 deans, 53 arch-
deacons, 24 canons, and 44 proctors of the inferior
clergy—we are not learned enough to know whether
the new bishoprics have added any members to the
Lower House. It is a body representing little that
we know of, unless it be, with very few exceptions,
all the erocheteers, all the fussy ecclesiastics, and
all the clerical immobility, and " old fogieism,"
of the day. Quite like a windfall
the famous &yen Essays and Reviews have dropped
among these loquacious priests. They first ap-
pointed a committee to scarify
the book, and to
drag out all the tares of false doctrine, that they
might be burned in the furnace of Convocational
wrath. With heart and good-will the committee
went to work, and soon produced a report full of
selected heresies enough to shock all believers in ,
the Prayer-book and the Bible. These the chair-
man, Archdeacon DENISON, he of Tractarian noto-
riety, proposed to send up to the Upper House,
with the information that the Lower House found
in them " sufficient grounds for proceeding to
Synodical Judgment on the book." And on this
proposal about 40 of the 143 clergy debated for
two whole days ; an' intimation from the Upper
House that they would he in a few hours relieved
from their Convocational labours for a long time,
having induced them to pack their speeches into a
small compass on the second day and to come to
voting. Forty, save one, voted, and of these
thirty-one affirmed the proposal of Archdeacon
DENISON, and eight opposed it. Thus virtually
affirming that Convocation could act as a Synod,
and could act judicially.

This conclusion, as we have seen, was
not reached without considerable debate. The
minority was strong in common-sense; though
no match for the rest in votes. Of course, the book

which had so frightened all the Bishops themselves,
was universally condemned—none ventured to de-
fend, or to excuse. One speaker had the audacity
to mention the seemingly unwelcome fact that there
were "some good things in the book"—but it seemed
impossible to find adjectives enough in the language
to consign it to ecclesiastical and to literary per-
dition. It was at once " heretical and pernicious,"
" illogical and silly"—" most perilous"—" unwise"
—full of" German infidelity," " to be viewed with the
greatest dread," " a reconstruction of Christianity,"
and one of the speakers haying read it, we suppose
at a friend's, " longed to get home and burn it."
And such language which was all but universal,
was by no means confined to those who desired to
make Convocation a Court of Heresy, it was largely
used by those who opposed such a step, being ap-
parently a necessary protest to save themselves from
accusation of favouring such " wicked errors."

It should be mentioned that the amendthents
almost equalled the number of the minority—they
were directed not to apologising for the book ; but to
the avoidance of Synodical action and judgment.
It was argued that such a step could not be legally
taken without the QUEEN'S licence, and this cer-
tainly seems highly probable. Of course, however,
the convocationists would not be stopped in their pro-
ceedings by weak, unmanly fear of human law. That
objection overleaped, others came forward, some of
which seemed to trench on the dignity of the
august assembly; it was even said that the Essayists
were just the men not to care a straw for the.judg-
ment of Convocation ; also that the young men at
the Universities would all be eager to read what
Convocation judged bad ! Nititur in vetitum. Also
that they were now advertising the book, and
would do so yet more by a formal judgment. The
moral competency of the tribunal was arraigned;
it was said that the heresy-hunting committee who
had made the report were all of one theological
party ; that the greater part of the members of
Convocation had already openly accused the book
on which they now proposed to sit as judges ; that
they could not have the authors and evidence before
them; and that to proceed, as proposed, would at
best liken the Convocation to a House of Com-
mons, proceeding by the now obsolete law of attain-
der. Englishmen, it was said, resented above all
things unfair proceedings against even those whom
they believed to be guilty; and hence an unfair
trial and judgment would, isy awakening public
sympathy, only do the Essayists good. Perhaps as
formidab2e an objection as they had to meet
arose from the action of one of the members
of Convocation itself. The Bishop of SALISBURY
had commenced proceedings in an ecclesiastical
court against one of the Essayists, and it
was unanswerably maintained that on the prin-
ciples of English law no man ought to be tried
before two tribunals for one offence; also that by
delivering a hostile judgment they would unfairly
prejudice the case of the defendants, who were yet
to undergo their trial. We might perhaps inquire
whether the defendants, if Convocation proceeded
illegally, would not have fair ground of action for
damages against it, if they lost their cause in the
Ecclesiastical Court.

So debated and so :ended its work, the Lower
House of Convocation; doctors, and proctors, deans,
canons, and archdeacons—a snug little theological
party somewhat under forty. There can be but one
opinion on the relation of the whole proceeding to
its objects. One object was, as some present
plainly intimated—for priests of one theological
party to denounce another. The High Church
especially; aided by the Evangelicals, to cry down
the Broad Church. That object they have at-
tained—only, what cares the Broad Church for it ?
The Convocation was distinctly told, for instance,
that Professor JOWETT was already a great favourite
with the young men of Oxford, and he would now
be a still greater favourite. If another object was
to discredit the Essays, nothing, in England, could
they do more sure to gain attention to them. Every
successive denunciation has been immediately
followed by an edition or two. This last will doubt-
less call forth yet another. The truth is one good
book—of seven Counter Essays—as ably written
as the obnoxious seven—a candid book, appreciating
the true and good in them, and fairly exhibiting
and refuting the bad and false, would be worth
twenty synodical condemnations, in regard to nulli-
fying any possible mischief. The Anti-Essayists
have but to employ equal talent and equal candour
on their Counter Essays, and theirs would be in
turn the popular book of the day.

The Federalists have had an important success
and a somewhat bloody repulse. They have com-
pelled the enemy to abandon Harper's Ferry, not,
however, till they had burned and destroyed
the Government property there. The Federal
troops evidently succeeded in their intention of so
threatening -the communications of their opponents
that the latter should be driven from their posi-
tion without fighting. It is said to be a strong
military fort ; but with what was destroyed
when the Federal troops left it, and what is now
destroyed, the place as an arsenal can be of little
value. The Federal honour is, however, so far
retrieved.

Brigadier-General PIERCE was not so successful.
He attacked the enemy's position nine miles from
Fort Monroe, but he lost, we are told, his presence
of mind ; two of his regiments fired on one another,
and, after sustaining a galling fire for an hour from
the Confederate batteries, he:was compelled to re-
tire, with a loss, so far as yet known, of thirty
killed and one hundred wounded. The num-
ber of his runaway slaTes, however—" con-
traband of war" have increased to seven
hundred, and he is waiting reinforcements. Still,
this sad bloodshed, which is perhaps the first that
has occurred in a fair military conflict, shows the
North that it will not be entirely child's play to
occupy Virginia. The Secessionists are now said
to have abandoned the whole line of the Potomac,
and to be concentrating their strength at Manassas
Gap Railway. They intend at this position to
cover Richmond, the capital, on which General
SCOTT has, it is said, determined speedily to ad-
vance.

An important item in the news just arrived is
the attempt of the Governor of Missouri to raise
50,000 men to defend the State against the Fede-
ralists. The General of the latter is in pursuit of
Ihim, since he has abandoned his State capital, and
is concentrating what forces he has further West.
Missouri has such a comparatively small proportion
of slaves that the Union feeling is as strong there as
it is in Kentucky, and probably a short time will
decide the course now of those two important
border Statcs. The result of the news seems to be
that west of Washington the North is triumphant,
with a serious crisis impending in the further West ;
while in the East, or the Bay of Chesapeake, the
bloody probably do far more to arouse
theN eorrthl)atllisc will
antoembolden the South.

The frightfully destructive character of this new
Fire of London must be attributed in some measure
we cannot but think to the lamented death of Mr.
BRAID WOOD early on Saturday evening, that is al-
most immediately after the Fire's commencement.
We are led al most.irresistiblvto this conclusion with-
out implying thereby any invidious condemnation