The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-18 00:00:00

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.
_ _

The first consignment of goods for the Exhibition
of next year arrived in London on Friday. As was
the case in 1851, these earliest contributions are
from Russia. The Government of the Czar are
thoroughly in earnest in this matter, and they are
resolved that the products, the industry, and the
fine arts of the empire shall be well and thoroughly
represented. Most of our readers will remember
.what interest the Russian department excited at
the last Exhibition, with its malachite doors and
jasper vases, its rich jewellery and gorgeous em-
broidery. Next year the products of Russia will
not be less interesting, and the description of
goods which have already arrived as well as of
those which aze to follow will serve to illustrate in
a striking manner the vast wealth and resources of
that great empire. The collections of pictures and
works of art will, we understand, be exceedingly
rich, and the treasures of art in the Winter Palace
and other residences of his Majesty have been in
the most liberal manner placed at the disposal of
the Russian commissioners, with a view to selec-
tions being made for the purpose of shipment to
London. The goods which arrived on Friday are,
we are informed, mainly raw products and manu-
factures of iron and steel, a branch of industry in
which Russia occupies a high position, and which
was acknowledged at the Exhibition of 1851 by the
award of one of the council medals. The reason
why these things have been sent at so early a period
was in consequence of the closing of the navigation
of the Neva; and had the packages not been for-
warded before the frost set in, it would have been
necessary to have sent them by a very circuitous
overland route.

DESIRUCTIV I? FIRES AND PROBABL
LOSS OF LIFE.

TO TRE CLERGY.

---T

Quo WARRANTO.

MURDEROUS POACHING, AFFAIR.

-
Early on Friday morning the neighbourhood of
Lambton Castle, the seat of Lord Durham, on the
banks of the Wear, was thrown into a state of great
excitement by the report that the Lambton game-
keepers had been severely handled during the night
iby a gang of poachers. It appears that a gang of
poachers have been suspected of making depreda-
tions in the woods adjoining Lambton Castle, but
nothing had been seen of them until between 2 and
3 o'clock on Friday morning. At that time four of
Lord Durham's gamekeepers, named Smart, Colpits,
Bowery, and Ferguson were going their rounds,
and when near to Pictree they heard reports as of
discharging guns. They heard about ten shots,
and from the direction of the noise they supposed
; the men to be in that portion of the wood adjacent
to the south turnpike. Suspecting that the men
2 had ceased poaching for the night, and that they
2 would in all probability make along the turnpike
2in the direction of the Barley-mow publichouse, the
7 watchers took a short cut from Pictree to the Bar
ley-
mow , mow and there lay in wait. The watchers had not
1 waited long before they espied a lot of navvy-
-2 looking men approachintr under the cover of the
4 hedge on the opposite side of the road. As the men
0 approached the watchers perceived that there were
3 eight of them, and they had some game in their
2
2 possession, and three guns. Smart, when the poachers
1 came opposite to where he was concealed, went up to
- them and asked where they were going, upon which
one of them felled him to the ground with a gun
from behind. Bowery, Ferguson, and Colpits rushed
to the assistance of their companion, but were im-
mediately overpowered and knocked down. The
contest was severe, and, in spite of the great courage
and prowess of the watchers, the superior number
of the poachers told severely. The men eventually
managed to make their escape, and left behind
them many traces of their desperate encounter.
The whole of the watchers are more or less hurt.
Ferguson seems to have been most fortunate, as
he es3aped with only a bruise or two on the body ;
but Smart and Bowery sustained several severe
wounds upon the head, besides bruises on other
parts of the body. Colpits, who had a severe and
determined straggle with two of the poachers, was
left in a hopeless state. After the melee he was
found lying on the road insensible, his head and
face covered with blood, which proceeded from
three large wounds on the head, caused by the butt:-
end of a gun. His companions had him conveyed
home, where surgical aid was called in. In
addition
to the wounds mentioned, it was found that Colpits
had two of his ribs broken away from the backbone.
The injuries, though very severe, have happily not
men have
been pronounced dangerous. Though the
got off the police are on their track, and are likely
to succeed in, capturing them all.

A FEW PLAIN WORDS ON THE CHURCH-RATE
QUESTION.
You, or most of you, think it right, as I may pre-
sume from yOur proceedings in vestry, to uphold
Church-rates and to compel Dissenters to pay them.
You think it, perhaps, not only right, but of posi-
tive advantage to the Church, to keep this obnoxious
impost alive. I venture most respectfully to tell
you that it is neither right nor to your advantage NO
to act. And I invite you to a brief and friendly
discussion on the subject.
Let us begin at the beginning. What is "the
Church ?" Ido not mean the Church of England.-
We will have no confusion in terms. What is the
Church" which existed before England was known ?
It comprises, as you know, all everywhere, Dissen-
ters as well as Churchmen, who heartily accept
the great truths of Christianity. This is the
Catholic Church, or Church universal. A
particular Church is a section of this comprehen-
sive Church, and the rightful members of every par-
ticular Church are members of the great universal
Church. Whether a man worships in a "steeple-
house" or a "conventicle"—in a barn or a cottage
—if only he does worship Him to whom worship is
due, he belongs to "the Church"—to that Church
which is older than the Church of England, and of
a much broader and firmer foundation—to that
Church which recognises a truth which one of the
Fathers asserted concerning it, in its particular
form, " Übi tres suet, Feelesia eat, licet laid."
You Church-of-England Clergymen claim for your
limited Church the rights and prerogatives of an
only and exclusive Church.• You map out all Eng-
land into parishes, ignore other members of " the
Church" who do not belong to your Church, and
assume the authority of acting in all things as if
the Church of England were co-extensive and in-
deed identical, with the aforesaid Church of the
broad and firm foundation, which we call the Ca-
tholic Church, or, the Church universal. If this be
a mistake on your pa. t, it is a most unreasonable
one. If not a mistake, it is an attempt at deception.
Now, bvery man has .a right, and an equal right
with all others, to worship God freely according to
his conscience. No man comes icto the world with
a higher right in this respect than another. There
is no royal road, no clerical road, no Church-of-Eng-
land road to heaven : all must walk the same way
and on the same level. If one man may tax another,
or if one class or sect may tax another, for the sup-
port of that one's religion, then a special favour is
enjoyed by one, and a special burden and disadvan-
tage is imposed upon another, in this matter of
worship where all are rightfully free and equal.
But it should be put to you, who have the
education, refinement, and status of gentlemen,
whether it is not a most contemptible thing that the
Church of England, which has tithes and endow-
ments amounting to several millions a year, and.
nearly all the aristocracy and great landowners on
its side, should pretend to need an exaction from
Dissenters—aye, even from the very poorest of
Dissenters—to keep the rich Church agoing—to pay for the sacramental elements, and to defray the ex-
penses of religious service down to the washer-
woman's bill for cleaning your surplices. Can you
bring yourselves to believe that it is right—that it
is as the good loving Master would have it—that
brother Christians not of the Church of England
should be &strained upon and imprisoned, for taxes
levied for relief of communicants of that rich
Church of yours?
You think this state of things right, do you ?
How do you justify it ? You appeal to the law of
the land. Christianity, you know, is above and
beyond the law, otherwise Christianity would have
been abolished—at least in its genuine form--long
ago. The Church—that is, the true Church—rests
on Divine law: it belongs to the supernatural. "The
Bible, the Bible only," we are told, "is the religion
of Protestants." As Protestant clergymen, then, I
may fairly ask, Where is your authority in Scrip-
ture for levying Church-mail on the people ? The
Jews, with a religion which all the nation ac-
cepted, and amongst whom, therefore, were fonnd
no Dissenters, had no compulsory exaction of any
kind for religious purposes. Their tithes were
free-will offerings, and were not enforceable by '
secular power, as are Church-imposts of modern
times. Christianity, alas ! which came to free men
from every form of bondage, has found, by means
of the Church of England, a yoke and a burden
unknown to the stern and rigorous code of Judaism.
But still it is the law of the land, you say again.
Yes ! if the majority approve. But does that make
it right ? Are the laws of the land necessarily
right ? Why do we repeal a small cart-load of them
every year, if they were not probably, to a large
extent, very, very wrong ? Yes! you say, it is the
law of the land. We have but one response, and it
is this—" More shame!"
But now we ask you whether it is desirable for
the Church of England that it should continue to ha
a tax-gatherer and an oppressor ? Surely not.
People instinetivo/y diolike what is forced on them,
especially in matters of religion. To threaten a
man with a constable and the lock-up is not the
best method—certainly not the Christian method—
of gaining his heart for your Church or your
Master. Can you possibly think it is.
You probably have never thought on the infe-
rence which reasonably and necessarily follows
from your expressed apprehension that to abolish
church-rates would be to ruin the Church. What
becomes of the Divine foundation which you claim
for your. Church, and where is your faith in the
Almighty protection which guards and preserves
His truth ? You preach faith, and have it not.
You. speak of your Church as of a, rock against
which even the gates of Hell cannot prevail, and
then turn pale because an enlightened Parlia-
ment is likely to take the unchristian power
of persecuting away from you! Christiait
surely has some better defence than Justincesy warrants and the police. But as these seem
going, you are, or affect to be, in terror lest the
Gospel itself should go with them ! The Gospel
was ushered in by a heavenly host, and Heaven has
ever since been for all faithful ministers, martyrs,
and confessors an exhaustless treasury of help. But
in addition to the heavenly powers you want the
police ! Reflect, clergymen of the Church of Eng-
land, before you ever say again, that your Church
cannot do without Church-rates.
You studied logic, probably, at Oxford or Cam-
bridge, I give an argument which you may put
to the test :—The Church of England either needs
Church rates, or it does not. If it does need
them, it is not Divinely founded, nor is it Heaven-
protected. If it does not need them, there can be
no:ground of complaint if they be abolished.—Yours
faithfully,