The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-22 00:00:00

SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY, 22, 1861.

11 subsequent elections not more than ten had been
admitted, though the number of applicants on each
occasion averaged 115. On those facts Mr. Moore
argued that there is room for at least another insti-
tution of this kind in the metropolis, and for half
a dozen more in the provinces. He spoke in high
terms of the progressive improvement in the treat-
ment of poor persons afflicted with
incurable diseases,
in the City of London Union in particular, and
others, and of the aid rendered by the Workhouse
Visiting Society. He expressed his belief that
many of the unfortunate creatures who applied in
vain for admission to the Royal Hospital had after-
wards been driver_ to despair, and had died of actual
starvation. Arnle obtained at the Royal Hospital
that every applicant for admission was to be visited
at his or her own home before election to the founda-
tion ; and Mr. Moore dwelt with natural pathos
upon the painful and lasting impression which those
visits had left on his mind, revealing as they did
inconceivable scenes and incidents of wretched-
ness, especially in the cases of persons—and there
were many—who in the hey-day of life had lived in
comfort and even in affluence. Nothing in the
whole course of his life had affected him more. He
added that it had pleased God to place him in a
position to do good, and he desired to do good.
For those reasons his sympathies would always be
riveted to the Royal Hospital, though, for reasons
which he gave, he had been constrained to retire
from its board of management. He spoke at some
further length in favour of the project for establish-
ing another institution of the kind, and then
seconded the motion of Mr. Bevan, which was car-
ried unanimously. Dr. Brady, M.P., also bore
testimony on his experience as a medical man to the
necessity of such an institution, as did also Dr.
Stewart, the latter of whom suggesting at the same
time a name for it less alarming to patients than
the one proposed. On the motion of Colonel Cust,
a series of rules, carefully prepared by a committee
of upwards of 20 gentlemen, for the government of
the HomeAwas adopted. The Marquis Townshend
was appointed President ; the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, the Lord Mayor, the Bishops of London
and Winchester, the Duke of Buccleuch, and other
noblemen and gentlemen were nominated vice-
presidents ; the Lord Mayor and Colonel Cust,
treasurers ; and Messrs. James Peek, George Moore,
Charles Hood, and John Osborne trustees. A care-
fully selected board of management was also ap-
pointed. Donations to the amount of £1,400 and
£575 in, annual subscriptions were announced at the
close of the proceedings, and that there was a sum
at the bankers of £1,653 odd. On the motion of
Lord Raynham, the thanks of the meeting were
voted to the Lord Mayor, for granting the use of
the Mansion-house and presiding on the occasion.

THE SCOTCH DISSENTERS AND THE

CIVIL COURTS.

On Friday the First Division of the Court of Ses-
sion gave judgment in the case known as the ".Car-
dross Case," which has excited so much interest for
two years past in Scotland and also among Dissent-
ing bodies south of the Tweed. The pursuer, McMil-
lan, asks the civil court to repone him against the
sentence of suspension and deposition pronounced
against him by the General Assembly of the Free
Church of Scotland in 1858, on the ground of al-
leged irregularity and informality in the proceed-
ings against him, and the Free Church resists the
action in its present stage on the ground that the
proceedings were of a spiritual character, and not
subject to the review of a civil eourt. The judges,
on Friday, unanimously sustained the judgment of
the Lord Ordinary, adverse to the claim of immu-
nity by the Free Church. The Lord President, in
giving his opinion, said he could not accede to the
demand of the Free Church. The question did not
arise out of the proceedings of any institution on
which the State had conferred jurisdiction, or to
which it had delegated power or authority of any
kind, but out of the proceedings of a voluntary as-
sociation, tolerated by law and enjoying its pro-
tection in the exercise of their religious rights.
That body had a constitution and rules, to which
its members had voluntarily subjected themselves,
and in so far as they had done so the civil courts
would not hold that they were entitled to complain
when these rules were observed, unless there was in
them something contrary to the law of the land,
and in the view he took of this case it was not ne-
cessary to inquire whether there was in them any-
thing of that character or not. The pursuer alleged
that the constitution and rules to which he had sub-
jected himself were violatedin the proceedin g against
him, to his loss of emoluments and injury to charac-
ter, and he asked this court to repone him and to
give him damages. The statements of the parties were
completely at variance, and it was quite plain that
till the facts were investigated the court could not
know whether there had been any breach of con-
stitution or violation of contract. He could not
assent to the defenders' plea that, however flagrantly
these rules may have been violated, no redress could
be given by the civil court. He thought redress
might be given, and in the form in which it was
now asked—in the form of damages. There was no
incompetency, but, on the other hand, expediency,
in accompanying the claim for damages with a
conclusion to reduce the sentence. There was no
proposal here to reduce the sentence on its merits, or
in any proper and technical sense. That demand of
the pursuer must be construed with reference to the
object of the action—namely, to have the sentence
declared null, so as to open the way to the restora-
tion of his right to temporalities, and it must also
be construed with reference to the power of the court
to which it was addressed. The Court might not
have power to restore the pursuer to the ministry,
but it might deprive the sentence of-any validity as
an obstacle to the prosecution of his civil rights and
interests., The defenders were exercising an abso-
lute and uncontrolled power in depriving the pur-
suer of his office, but they were bound to exercise
a lawful right in a lawful manner—namely, in ac-
cordance with the rules to which the pursuer had
submitted himself. It might be that the Assembly
had not violated their rules, and that they were
entitled any morning to take six ministers' names
from the ballot-box and depose them, and, if so, the
pursuer could get no redress, unless again there was
something in these rules which the law could not
recognise. But the Court must inquire into the
terms of the contract, and into the facts of the case,
before they could determine whether the pursuer
was or was not entitled to such redress as this Court
could give.—Lords Ivory and Curriehill concurred.
Lord Deas, in a lengthened opinion, pointed out the
right and duty of the civil court to give redress for
civil wrong sustained by ministers of religion, as
well as other members of the community. This
Court, he said, dealt only with the civil or patri-
monial interests and consequences involved, and
while vindicating or giving redress for these, it
refused to go beyond them. , A minister was just
as much entitled to rely upon his compact as any
other man, and a breach of that compact, whereby
he and his family were thrown upon the world
to starve was a wrong which could only be left
without a remedy in a country where law was un-
known. If, said his lordship, the ministers of the
Free Church choose to agree that a majority of their
General Assembly, or any other committee of the
association, shall have power to depose all or any
of them at pleasure, without cause assigned, let them
do so. No man in this country has any power over
another, in matters either religious or civil, beyond
what the civil law itself confers, except by that
other's own consent. But there is great latitude
in the extent Ito which this consent may be car-
ried. It may go the length of enabling any leader
of a Dissenting Presbytery, Synod, or Assembly,
who can command a bare majority at the moment,
to have any leading member of the minority at once
deposed, without cause assigned; or to enable thcm
to depose the whole minority. But such consent,
to be effectual, must be clear on the face of the
compact. The law will neither presume nor readily
infer such consent where civil interests are in-
volved. The liberty of the majority may be the
slavery of each individual, and of the whole mino-
rity. That is not the kind of liberty which the
law of this country favours. Still less does the
law favour or even recognise the liberty of one
party to a civil contract to break it with impunity,
or to interpret it in his own favour to the prejudice
of the other party. The interpretation of all con-
tracts belongs, in the first instance, to the civil
courts, to the effect of ascertaining whether they in-
volve civil rights; and, in the next place, if they
do, of vindicating or giving redress:for the viola-
tion of those rights; and, although every human
tribunal must be fallible, history has shown
that nowhere else can these powers be more
safely lodged. Rightly viewed, they are, in us,
not powers but duties, which, when required by
any of her Majesty's subjects, be their religion
what it may, we have no choice but to perform.
The interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary was affirmed,
with expenses. It is probable that the judgment
will be appealed by the Free Church to the House
of Lords.