The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-27 00:00:00

FOREIG

1

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1844,

" We feel it incumbent on us," says the Post of
yesterday, " to offer a brief and respectful allusion
to one very painful subject connected with her
MAJESTY'S present excursion. On the occasion of
her former visit to the North, she sojourned for some
days at the palace of Dalkeith. There was no Epis-
copal Church within a convenient distance. But her
MAJESTY declined attending the Presbyterian places
of worship, and Divine service was performed within
the palace by Dean RAMSAY, of Edinburgh, accord-
ing to the rites of the Church. The QUEEN is now
at Blair Athol. There is an Episcopal chapel on the
spot, but through some inauspicious influence, the
nature of which we care not to particularise, though
nothing would be more easy than to do so,
her MAJESTY has been actually prevailed on
to appear at public worship, not in the chapel
where the Episcopal worship is celebrated according
to the rites of the Episcopal Church, but at the meet-
ing-place of the Calvinists or Presbyterians, to whom
Prelacy—the Prelacy her MAJESTY has sworn to
maintain—is the object of implacable hate and ab-
horrence, and the symbol of damnable abomination."
The spirit that pervades the above passage is the most
bigoted it is possible to conceive, and is far more
suitable to the days of LAUD—that most intolerant
and ceremonious of Churchmen—than to the more
enlightened nineteenth century. Why should not
her MAJESTY, if it so pleases her, attend Divine ser-
vice at a Presbyterian place of worship ? Is there
anything in the doctrines there inculcated at variance
with real Christianity ? On the contrary, does not
the Presbyterian maintain the true principles of the
Christian faith with quite as much earnestness and
>incerity as the most orthodox Churchman that ever
upheld the infallibility of the thirty-nine articles
We have no patience with such gross intolerance as
that exhibited by our Contemporary, who evidently
confounds religion with sectarianism, and deems
it a subject of legitimate regret that her
MAJESTY has " been prevailed on" to sanc-
tion with her presence any other form of
worship than that adopted in our State Church.
Surely, to pay a decent respect to Presbyterianistn,
in the country of that persuasion, is not to show in-
difference to orthodoxy; but rather to rise superior
to mere schismatic prejudices, in the innate conscious-
ness of a real religious feeling, and to set an ex-
ample of toleration which is worthy of all praise
Illiberality in these matters has too long been the
bane of England; the Churchman has been
too long in the habit of distrusting, despising,
and holding aloof from the Dissenter; and her MA-
JESTY deserves the respect and gratitude of every
sincere and enlightened Christian for endeavouring,
by her influential example, to encourage habits of
toleration and good-will among her subjects of dif-
ferent persuasions. It is not a synagogue, nor a
Unitarian nor a Swedenborgian Chapel, that our
youthful SOVEREIGN has attended, but a place where
Christ Crucified" is preached with quite
as much impressiveness and strength and holi-
ness of feeling as in any of our national
cathedrals. What, then, is there to regret in her con-
duct P Are the prayers sere offers up herself, or hears
the Presbyterian Minister offer up, less acceptable to
the ALMIGHTY than those which are offered up in the
Chapel Royal of St. James's ? We cannot under-
stand these nice distinctions in religious matters,
which, in our view of the case, savour not of a sound
devotional feeling, but of the essence of bigotry and
uncharitableness.

We are glad to find that the rate-payers of the
Bradfield Union continue to manifest a determined
and vigorous opposition to the oppressive deportment
of the Poor-law Commissioners. In our paper of
Tuesday last, in reference to the election of a master
to the Bradfield Union Workhouse, we narrated the
circumstances attending the appointment, by the
Guardians, of the elected candidate, a Mr. BRING-
WIN ; the objections of the " Comtnissionery "
to that individual ;—the reply to, and disproof of, those
objections by the Board of Guardians ;—the subse-
quent arbitrary edicts for BRANGWIN'S dismissior,
and the election of a successor iu his stead, issued by
the Infallible Council of Somerset-house ;—the sue-
cessive resignations and re-elections of the indestruc-
tible BRINGWIN ;—the haughty but ridiculous inter-
positions of the Infallibles ;—the renewed communica-
tions addressed to them by the Guardians on this
case ;—and their supercilious and arrogant treat-
ment of those communications.
That the Pour-law Commissioners, at the distance
of half a hundred miles from Bradfield, should be bet-
ter judges of the fitness of a man whom they never
saw, for a particular office in that locality, than eight-
and-twenty Guardians of the poor (resident inha-
bitants within the Union limits), cognisant of the

conduct, history, and reputation of the individual, and
personally associated with him for five years at the
same Board, where they describe him to have been an
active and zealous coadjutor) ;—all this may surprise
common men of common minds. But the New Poor-
law Act has ruled it so ! That the notion of " elec-

,on " supposes not a purposeless ceremony, but a
proceeding to be perfected by the induction of the
elected into the office for which he is chosen, is a de-
lusion naturally enough misleading those who, as to
such inferior matters as the exercise of a Parlia-
mentary electoral franchise enforce the prompt and
jealous recognition and protection by Parliament it-
self, of the objects of their choice. But still it is a
delusion. Such a notion is contrary to the whole
scope of the jurisdiction assumed and practically ex-
ercised by the Autocratic Commissioners—(which is
everything)—although it may be strictly conformable
with the intentions of the Legislature—(which are
nothing)—in the framing of their most unconstitu-
tional and extravagant Commission. That these pre-
tensions, and this mode of enforcing them, on the
part of the Commission, are an insult on the under-
standings, an infringement on the civil privileges, and
an impertinent interference with the official functions
of Poor-law Guardians—may be true. But the Le-
gislature has smuggled into the darkest corner of one
of the multitudinous clauses of that dirty labyrinth of
a Bill, some vile and unsuspected authority for such
outrages, which, like an obscene bird of prey, never
sees the light except when it darts from its dirty
hiding-place to oppose the advance of some unsus-
pecting explorer who would penetrate too intrusively
into the mystery beyond it.
These are large concessions of fact. They are not
meant to involve a single concession of principle,
On principle, of course, we concur with the Guardians
and rate-payers of the Bradfield Union in indignantly
protesting against such insufferable assumptions of
despotic authority
" Commissionery," founded,
agthoeyi nee e
ssa r 1 by the
,hon
such
premises as positive
infallibility, and an intuitive, Mesmeric swceptibi-
lity to the qualifications of workhouse masters—how-
ever remote, unseen, unknown, uncommunicated with!
But there are questions, both of fact and of principle,
involved in 13setivvai's:case, which it maybe well to