The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-15 00:00:00

teal as, perhaps far more effectual than, a more
manly and Christian treatment, in multiplying
its readers. That, however, was not the
intention of the clergymen and bishops,
who in various ways, and even in that
ecclesiastical Hades, Convocation, have protested
against it. But the fact to which we call attention
is, that hitherto we have had scarcely anything
but protest. This is what we, as Englishmen, object
to. Protest, in cases like these, is dictation—and,
if we mistake not, resentment to this kind of dic-
tation has had quite as much to do as curiosity,
with the vast and still increasing popularity of
the book. Protest is fair when the protester has no
other resource left—as when, for instance, a weak
Power like Portugal was shamelessly coerced by
France in the affair of the slave-trading French
ship—but between combatants each having the use
of the same weapons, and on the part, too, of a
great, wealthy, and learned majority, to protest
against the minority is something really ludicrous.
The common-sense of England says to the well-
endowed protesters—" Right Rev. Fathers, there
is the printing-press; here are pens, and ink, and
paper; plenty of pulpits, too, if you like—try your
hands at argument." Indeed, a shrewd suspicion
is apt to creep over the minds of lay-men that
there must be some difficulty in meeting the seven
by argument ; else they say, why not, instead of
protesting, announce that a reply was in hand, by
the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of this or that place,
and a second by another and so forth, and, then,
indeed, in this match of " the Seven against all the
Bishops of England"—the public would wait with
approval and patience the issue of the theological
match. Under the circumstances, in the opinion
of the vast majority of educated persons, we are
certain that protesting is—solemn cowardice.
Another thought occurs at once to most observant
persons who have watched public matters for the
last thirty years. And that is, that far
worse, or equally bad, errors in doctrine
and practice, have called forth no protest.
Not only does such gross simony as the sale
of souls at GARRAWAVS, or by private contract
—not only do all the jobs in building Episcopal
palaces with money which ought to relieve the
wants of poor clergymen—not only does Episcopal
nepotism, even to bestowing £1,300 a year on a
prelate's son-in-law, because he fell in love with his
daughter—not only do numberless such disgraceful
doings call forth no protest—but the theological
and ceremonial delinquencies of which these essays
are but the reaction, never that we can remember,
were met by an Episcopal protest. Nothing can be
more certain than that the Oxford Tracts for the
Times, and the Romanising follies of Young Oxford,
which began nearly thirty years ago, was the
direct cause of the counter movement which
has reached its culmination in such books
as the Essays and the Reviews. The
great majority of English Protestants looked on
this Romanising movement with perfect disgust;
they doubted the honour and morality of the men
who could hold livings and possess emoluments in
the Protestant Church of England, and yet endea-
vour to defend the worst errors of the Church of
Rome, and try to ape her showy ceremonials. But
the Romanising movement was one which idolised
bishops. They became a kind of demi-gods, their
parentage being carefully traced through the
Vicar of CHRIST at Rome to the times of the
Apostle, a goodly padding of fiction making all
soft and easy where history failed them. But not
one protest, so far as we can remember, was heard
from the Episcopal Bench all the while. The old
ludicrous figment—lie is the better word—of
apostolic succession was preached, bishop-worship
was taught, the ordained of bishops were repre-
sented as capable of such magic wonders as
baptismal regeneration and all but transubstantia-
tion, the English ritual was made as like that of
Rome as possible, the congregations were annoyed
by dresses more appropriate to a theatre than to a
church—but all the time we heard of no protest !
The why and the wherefore English laymen think
they quite understand ; they also think they quite
understand why this reacting swing of the ecclesi-
astical pendalum is met with a protest while free
play was given to the other.
A very clear and fair account of the case between
the protesting bishops and clergy and the seven
" Essays and Reviews " is given in a tract before
us. Mr. WILD appears to us completely to make
good what he professes on the title-page. We
recommend the pamphlet to all readers of the
Essays and of the protests against them.*

" Who shot the dog ?" was the question shouted
in the ears of every volunteer as he walked the
streets of London by every urchin, till the Hyde Park
Review silenced the ragamuffins for ever. " Who
pripged the note ?" is the question Sir G. C. LEWIS
will hear again and again till he makes a clean
breast of it, or till something in the Home-office,
equivalent to a Hyde Park review, consigns to obli-
vion petty larcenies in behalf of foreign despots.
The question was last night asked and pressed in
the House of Commons, which we believe we were
the first to ask out of it, " Who stole the note?"
We are glad, yet sorry to say, the question was
unanswered there. Glad, because it is pleasant to
see English Ministers ashamed of such a dirty job;
sorry, because the principal and the tool, the cor-
ruptor and the corrupted, in this un-English job
ought to be branded with a disgrace equivalent to
six months on the treadmill.
This business must not rest where it is. Our
Home Secretary tells us that to the best of his be-
lief no detective was employed to procure the note,
cad that no improper agent, such as Mr. BRIGHT
described, was induced by corruption to give in-
formation. Now we take upon us to say, as men
of business, that this statement must be false, though
Sir G. C. LEWIS may think it true. Without
roguery somewhere, neither the representatives of
Austria nor Sir RICHARD MAYNE could have pro-
cured the note. Either, as we have already affirmed,
a person must have been paid to abstract one, or a
rogue in the employment of Messrs. DAY was sharp
enough to think he might get a reward for the stolen
article, and have taken it to the Receiver. The only
possible difference of degrees of guilt on the
part of the thief, is that between a man
who was prompted by another to steal
and a man who stole because he was a thief by
nature. And the corresponding difference between
the parties to accepting and using the stolen note
is, that between men who would receive and use
stolen articles knowing them to be stolen and the
men who would promise to pay for them if stolen.
Into the casuistry of these shades of guilt it is
not our intention to enter, We only say that such
meanness, such encouragement of men to tamper
with their master's business, such employment, in
fact, of pilfering spies for Foreign Governments, is
not a thing which Englishmen will tolerate.
In a printer's office, as much as in an
attorney's, a considerable degree of honour