The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-12 00:00:00

.41t

LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1844.

The Dublin Evening Mail, which is the leading
organ of Toryism in Ireland, professes to be not s
little perplexed and grieved at the recent elevation of
Mr. EITLE to the judicial bench. Sir ROBERT PEEL
:argues our Contemporary, should not have presumed
to make any such obnoxious appointment. He should
have deferred to party prejudice, and surrendered all
.opinions of his own on the subject. What, though.
ERLE be one of the soundest lawyers of the day,
and every way qualified to do credit to the high office
of judge; what, though he be moderate in his politi-
cal views, exemplary in point of character, placid
:and forbearing in temper, and just of an age to
enable him to discharge his official duties with
spirit, judgment, and punctuality ?—what, though
he possess all these valuable judicial qualifica-
tions, and even more ? he is a Whig ! that
is to say, he has been seen sitting behind Lord JOHN
JIUSSELL on the .Ministerial benches, though his voice
has seldom or never been heard in Parliament; and
this fact alone should have decided the Premier on
rejecting his claims to a judgeship ! A Tory only
should have been appointed to the post left vacant by
the resignation of Mr. ERSKINE, even though he might
not happen to possess one single qualification for it.
Such is the tendency of our Dublin Contemporary's
arguments, who, in the bitterness of his spleen at Mr.
ERLE'S promotion, takes the opportunity of de-
claring—what, by the bye, we knew before—
that the Irish Tory party are, to a man, in a
state of grievous discontent with Government,
and by no means solicitous to give it any very
active support. " The Roman Catholics," says the
Mail, " are disaffected to British institutions ; the
Protestants are discontented with the mode in which
those institutions are at present administered. Both
parties are dissatisfied, to the fullest extent of the terra,
\with the existing posture of affairs." Our Contem-
porary then goes on to state on what terms the Irish
Tories will renew their alliance with Government,
abandon all distrust and jealousy, and throw the
whole weight of their influence into the Ministerial
scale. "It is for Ministers to consider," he adds,
" whether they will still hope to tide over a year or
two, trusting for safety to the continuance of divi-
sions and discords among the Irish people; or
whether. they will adopt the larger and more
statesmanlike policy of linding to themselves,
by an extended care of ' the great interests
of the country, a powerful and permanent party,
at the same time eschewing paltry connexions,
and declining the retail purchase of petty foes, or still
paltrier hireling friends." The meaning of the above
passage, carefully as it is worded, is very obvious. If
Sir ROBERT PEEL will consent to throw the Liberal
party overboard; give the lie direct to all the declara-
tions he has made since his accessionto o office in
favour of Free-trade ; fling all idea
offiunrdthe.r Re-
form in Church or State to the w
abandon his intention—formally
announcsesi' and'n
the House of Commons towards the close of the
last session—of increasing the, annual grant to

Maynooth, and placing the Irish education sys-
tem on an improved and enlightened hasis ;
if the Premier will only consent to stultify and
degrade himself in this fashion, and submit without
a murmur, as in the olden time, to the imperious
mandates of Toryism, then the Irish Orangemen will
gladly give him their most strenuous approbation and
support; but if he will not so demean himself, but
will insist, instead, on acting in accordance with the
dictates of his own judgment, then he must be pre-
pared to encounter their bitterest hostility, for no
Minister will they condescend to patronise who is
not prepared fully to acknowledge the great principle
of Tory ascendancy. Verily these are modest pro-
positions on the part of Irish Toryism, and their
modesty will appear the more remarkable, when we
take into consideration the declining state of that
party in Ireland and elsewhere. It has lost much of
its old influence, the course of events is daily work-
ing more and more to its disadvantage; and,
as if this were not quite sufficient humiliation,
it is no longer an united party, but is split into two
distinct sects—the Moderates and Immoderates. And
yet it presumes to dictate terms to Sir R. PEEL, just
as though it were once again lord of the ascendant in
this, as well as in the sister country ! But the Pre-
mier, if we mistake not, will be far too wise to close
with the terms proposed to him by these noisy, swag-
gering political bigots. lle knows his own position
too well to be likely to compromise it by any decided
retrograde movement, such as a renewed alliance with
Toryism would be sure to involve him in. It is far
more probable that he will effect a junction with the
Liberals than with the Tories, for the strength of
the former, both within and without Parliament, is
increasing in exact proportion to the decline of the
latter.

The recent defections of many members of the
Church of England ordained ministers, some of
them—to the Church of Rome, are a remarkable in-
dication of the danger that results from postponed
reforms in institutions which are admitted to require
amendment, by those, even, who most strenuously
resist the adoption of any remedial treatment. Since
the reigns of the last two STUARTS, under whom
the principles of the Anglican Church and the disci-
pline of its clergy were subjects occasionally en-
forced upon public notice, and therefore matter of
salutary discussion, notwithstanding the general
laxity of morals which pervaded the whole aspect of
society, from that period to the present time we
have had a succession of polemical authorities—
Bishops and divines of the Establishment, pious Non-
Conformists, and (more lately) enthusiastic sectarian
teachers, who have all concurred in denouncing the
decay of earnestness, of zeal, of singleness of pur-
pose, of apostolical simplicity and disinterestedness in
our clergy, and the growth of an indecorous and
slovenly administration of the sacraments and cere-
monial of our Established form of worship. Yet the
Establishment has drowsily nodded on, though occa-
donally disturbed by such shocks as the imprison-
ment of the seven Bishops, or the High Church fac-
tion of SACHEVEREL, or the Anti-Popery cry of
1779, renewed at various subsequent intervals, as in
1793, 1807, and 182.8. The last uneasiness she has
experienced, owing to the matured growth and de-
velopment of the Tractarian heresy, does seem to
n've at last alarmed her. She apprehends—and
with reason—that the "disturbing force" in this
movement, must be of deeper seat and more formid-
' ab:e intensity than that of which she has heretofore
experienced the action ; and she has almost aroused
herself to attempt, in good earnest, the serious in-
vestigation of the causes that have engendered it.
She may is,l the work too much for her, if she
cannot rally all ;:er energies for its accomplishment.
Of the very ch:ldrets,,whotn she has reared, there are,
it seems, those who denounce her as a nuisance;
who not only abjure, s,tut reject and execrate, in the
race of the world, the first elementary charter of
her rights and authority ; whd Anathematise Pro-
testantism by name; and deplore, ‘',i.th wailing and
in ashes, the mighty "Reformation" onamenced by
[IENRY VIII. in 1534, and completed by recog-
iition and profession of ELIZABETH, at her aces."'"
.n 1558. Foremost in the rank of these desertet'
ire—not the influential laymen (and yet they are not
few), who have leaped her pale and betaken them-
,elves to that of Romanism—but priests and deacons,
ho have been ordained according to the tenor of her
institutes; have expounded the Scriptures, according
ta her rule of construction ; and habitually solemnised
Divine worship in her churches, and according to her
ritual. It is hard for her to be repudiated bi those
whom she has received into her bosom, and carefully
nourished, and at parting has (in some instances)
4enerously endowed. The course of their proceed-
.ngs is, in truth, marked with the signs of original
tuplicity and ulterior falsehood. They set out with
t pretence of effecting a sort of approximation of the
Inglican to the Roman Church, in matters indifferent,
with a view to the ultimate conciliation of the two
great denominations of the Christian world. This
was wisely projected. Any proposition for knitting
ind uniting together the hearts and affections and
worship of all classes of Christian men in one great
.piritual unity, is, abstractedly considered, calculated
:o enlist the attention—and, if proved, to realise the
suppart, of an intelligent community. The first
steps, too, openly taken in the same direction, were
yell judged. The prevailing laxity of discipline in
the Establishment had been not only insisted upon
Ind lamented by some of its Bishops, in charges to
their clergy, and in speeches delivered in the House
,f Lords; but many Bills had been passed for its
correction, and the extension of the jurisdiction
if the diocesan in the repression of this evil, which
the Legislature had been as often vainly called upon
to pass. The Tractarians cleverly advocated a more
strict adherence to the rubrical instructions contained
n the Book of Common Prayer, in matters that re-
carded the rites of our Church and their administra-
don. They instanced, at first, one or two ; and after-
wards, from time to time, advocated a similar ob-
ervance of others ; but it was not until after the
issue of a century of " tracts," and numberless con-
troversial pieces in answer to the various challenges
these had excited, that the amount of their object
was avowed, namely, to enforce conformity with the
whole of the Rubric as incorporated into the au-
thorised " Common Prayer" of 1548, with all its
admixture—by implication—of doctrines—and—ex-
pressly—of ceremonials, including some of those
most strenuously insisted on by the Church of Rome,

and most distinctly renounced by the Reformed
Church of England as superstitious, human, non-

essential, and inconsistent with the purity of its re-
formed doctrine. The controversy waxed "fast and

furious," till at length the impetuosity of the Trac-

tarians accomplished the repeated predictions of their

antagonists. From simple dissentients or non-con-
tents, the latter have become (in the persons of

some of their most eminent leaders) irreconcileable

enemies of the former. They have gone over to the
Church of Rome, renounced the ecclesiastical alle.

giance they had vowed to the Anglican Church, and
following the rule of almost all bigoted proselytes
they bid fair to become the most rancorous persecu•
tors of the fold which they should have guarded, but
have quitted.

For our own parts,- having a sincere respect and
affection for Protestantism, we are very sorry for
what has occurred. But we cannot shut our eyes to
the proof it affords of the variety of mere forms as

- ..._
defensible outworks or securities for the substantive

doctrines of religion. The moral of the case resolve;
itself into the terse apostrophe of Earl GREY to

the Bench of Bishops. We must say to the
Established Church at large, " Set your house

n order." Let those who have the best means

and most efficient authority for such a work, examine

vigorously into the elements of her constitution, and
the manner of their working; let them remove ex-

crescent bodies, which mar the action of the machine,

and defeat its unity. Let them supply omissions and

deficiencies, whilst they extirpate unseemly redun-

dancies. . If thiE revenues of the Church be indeed (as

her enemies charge) so unequally divided, that the

working parson, or his still harder worked curate, is
in. a vast proportion of cases scandalously under-

paid, and subjected to the most sordid evils of
poverty, whilst he is upholding, by his example

and preaching, the great truths he has been

called to teach; let the vastly over•-paid Bishops
(the Bishop of LONDON knows we do not point
at Llandaff, or. Rochester, or Bristol, or Bangor,
or Bristol and Gloucester, dr Oxford) contribute from
their enormous incomes and the fines accruing under
their life interest in the sees they hold, funds ptopor-
tionally large towards the adequate payment of all the
acting clergy of all orders. A Commission ttiight