The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-14 00:00:00

To return, however, to the more appropriate
ground of the secular journalist, we desire to point
out the clue which ought, we think, to guide our
legislators ; it has been furnished them indeed long
ago, and like almost all other legal proposals of the
same great thinker, it must be accepted sooner or
later—the rule to let every witness give his evi-
dence, leaving it to a jury to estimate its value. The
jury will rarely fail to do this easily enough under
the guidance of an English bar and an English
bench. The most lying and perjured witness on
earth may be of material service. It generally
requires extraordinary skill to concoct a self-consis-
tent lie, and probably did not a too lazy practice of
relying on what is sworn to, interfere, the cases
would be few indeed in which falsehood could be
palmed off for truth in an English Court.
It would be open to counsel to question

witnesses on their religious belief so far as
it affected their veracity —it would be
open to them to adduce evidence that their avowed
religious opinions were such as would, in the opinion
of the jury, impeach their credibility. The folly
lies in rejecting any evidence whatever on account
merely of a person's character, instead of letting
character and evidence go to the jury together. We
do this now continually in the case of witnesses who
have taken oaths. There should be one clear rule
for all witnesses.

Perhaps to conciliate the timid a little—those we
mean who think speaking the truth entirely depen-
dent on the selfish fear of future punishment—it
might be allowable to double the punishment in this
world of persons who "affirmed" falsely, or who dis-
believed the existence of a God and of future punish-
ments. If we accept Mr. WALTER'S natural history

of man and beasts, yet even the YAHOOS would be

amenable to fear, and in prospect of heavy penal-
ties would refrain from saying " the thing which is
not." Anything the advocates of swearing please,
only let them not deprive us of evidence which we
can turn at least to some account.

_ Elsewhere in our columns this evening will be
found a letter from Mr. W. H. BARBER. It
is a statement of his case—very frankly put by
himself—eminently worthy of consideration. It
explains in the clearest manner possible, the way
in which he received the £5,000 already
paid over to him by her MAJESTY'S Government.
That instalment, as we may at once call it, of the
pecuniary compensation due to him from the Go-
vernment,was paid not so very long ago, as many may
have been led to imagine. In effect, Mr. BARBER
only received the money in 1859, then giv-
ing a receipt for it, as he tells us now, simply
in acknowledgment of that amount. In the very
next session, that is no further back than last year
(1860) his claim for a final settlement was brought
forward in the House of Commons by Sir FITZROY
KELLY, Lord DERBY'S late Attorney-General.
The validity of the claim in itself is as
clear as anything of the kind could
well be. Mr. BARBER is endeavouring—
not to make money out of his misfortunes, but—
simply to be reimbursed by the State to the extent
of the money he himself has been actually com-
pelled to pay away, by reason of the State's unjust
ti
men
nea
not cve we s n t
have mandoubt
condemnation and fearful punishment of him,
while he himself was all the while a perfectly
i
but!
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Mr.
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fact,
e doneota p ebnys ahtei or nilwAi
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ernm e
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Commons—au act of simple justice being thereby

o°llollo sterling, last night
no Eastth e r Indian
x 4 ,00
0.1.: 11111, involving an
advancehe n
oe
fwa
T,
duly passed through Committee in ithe House of
Commons. Not, however, without
eliciting the
avowal of many objections to it from those who
(like Col. SYKES) find reason to distrust Mr. LAING's
budget, and to condemn his e3timate of expenditure,
as framed upon a scale marked by its extravagance,
as well as from those who (like Sir HENRY
WILLouGHBY) find it difficult not —to express
grievous apprehension that great complications
must arise from mixing up railway matters with
the sufficiently complex and problematical
subject of General Indian Finance. Upon
the reasonableness of this last-mentioned class
of objections we have already ourselveii I

conclusion. The House already sees so far as to
own that if a man have a religious scruple
against taking an oath, he may be relieved from
taking it. This scruple is indulged in both criminal
and civil cases in regard to Quakers and certain
specified sects, and, in regard to civil cases only, the
judge may allow all persons who have a religious
scruple against taking an oath to make an affir-
mation. A rather misty horizon this to limit the
vision of our elite 658. Affirmation being sufficient
precaution for truthfulness in one large class of
cases, but not in the other half. Sectarianism is
held equivalent to an oath in criminal cases, while
accordance with the sectarian opinion on the part of
a person who does not belong to the non-swearing
sect, does not give his affirmation the value of an
oath ; no, not even should he bear on his
person the marks of violence which could be in-
flicted only by a weapon belonging to the villain
who had attempted to mutilate and rob him! How
can all this square with the ready professions of
every member of sincere respect for religious liberty.
The fact is, our legislators were mystified by
the argument that by the present bill it was not
proposed to meet religious scruples, but defect of
religion. The Home Secretary rested the weight
of his opposition to the bill on this argument. In
.
the cases in which relief is now given, he argued,
in fact, that there was a surplus of belief—the ob-
jectors were too scrupulous—religious over much;
a state of mind which has worked intolerable mis-
chiefs and cruelty in the world ; still excess of re-
,ligious scruple, it is supposed, (especially with the
penalties for perjury to keep it sober) might be
trusted ; but who could trust the word of a man
without any religious faculty—or whose religious
sentiments, if so they can be called, evaporate into
Atheism, or are attenuated into Pantheism ? The
I'member for Berks, Mr. WALTER, reduces such per-
sons to the same category as Americans do their
slaves—they want, he says, the distinguishing cha-
racteristic between the man and the brute. Ac-
cording to the oracle from the Dordona of Bearwood,
it might be worthwhile for a commission of surgeons
to examine the person of Mr. HOLYOAKE, and ascer-
tain whether in body as well as in mind they could
not find in him an illustration of the development
theory—whether Fleet-street would not furnish
an example of progress from the Gorilla to the
subdivision as we should now think it—BIMANA
Cuv. We cannot stay—indeed, it is not our pro-
vince—to argue theologically or metaphysically
but we would ask these objectors a question or two.
Do they, or do they not believe in moral sentiments,
instincts, or faculties—we care little about the term
employed—or not; and do they believe in them as
a part of human nature ? If they do, then we ask
how can they be sure of those instincts being dead
even in the heart of an avowed Atheist ? The
truth is those sentiments are indestructible. They
may be dormant in the mind of a Theist as well as
of an Atheist ; but believers in a God and in the
Bible must believe in the moral nature of man, and
ought to trust it.