The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-26 00:00:00

A correspondent of the Boston .701t142iil writes from
Mount Desert, Maine About a mile and a half from
our camp a party of men are engaged in ' digging for
treasures' under the direction of two spiritualist mediur
They have been working at it all summer, and then
who owns the land and is to have one-fourth of all that is
found as his share of the proceeds, tells me that in about
two weeks there will be developments that will astonish
the world. He was an unbeliever at first, but he has
become convinced now that the results of Captain
Kidd's piratical expeditions are buried among the
ledges of his farm. The mediums have told the
diggers that there are twelve rooms elaborately finished
and covered with a roof of polished Egyptian marble,
which are filled with treasures stolen by Kidd and his
companions, and the owner of the land has spent consider-
able time in trying to convince us that a common trap
ledge, smoothly worn by glacial action, is the roof of
polished marble. The spirit who speaks through the
mediums purports to belong to one of. Kidd's companions,
and he exhorts the men who are digging to make good use
of whatever they may find. They have spent the summer
in making excavations which they expect will lead
them to independent fortunes, and if they are disap-
pointed they will have poor provision for the winter.
The farm which is now thought to be so rich in treasure
cost its present owner one hundred and twenty-five
dollars for some two hundred acres of land, but he
says that no amount of money would induce him to
dispose of it now, although he is still in debt for about
half the purchase money. He says there are several other
deposits richer than the one which they are now at work
upon, and he professes to firmly believe that most of the
money and valuables ever stolen by pirates will shortly
come into his possession. My impression is that he can
make more money in catching lobsters and selling them at
two cents each than in digging for Captain Kidd's ill-
gotteh booty."

MR. STANSFELD ON THE IRISH CHURCH.

On Friday night Mr. Stansfeld addressed a meeting at
Halifax on the Irish Church and Irish land tenure ques-
tions. He said the report of the Irish Church Commission
had come too late, for the. question no longer was, could
the Irish ChurCh prolong ? but whether on broad
grounds of policy and of justice that establishment should
not be swept away. Having examined into the state-
ments and recommendations of the commission, he
said the Irish Church had been defended because it
was national, and because it was a mission Church ; but
he denied that it was a national Church, because it had
not fulfilled its functions, and as a mission Church there
were parishes and benefices where its operations had
ceased to exist. He was for the disestablishment, the
disendow•ment of the Irish Church. He held this to be
by far the most important and the most urgent political
question of the day, and he hailed with gratitude
and delight the fact that under the leadership of Mr.
Gladstone evasion and delay were no longer possible.
That Church was a mischievous imposture and a sham,
and he for one demanded its disestablishment as a mea-
sure of justice to Ireland and a measure of peace. What
was justice but equality? and how could they have
equality between religious sects ! They might have
equality by what was called levelling up, or levelling
down ; but, all honour to the Roman Catholics
of Ireland, they refused endowment. Having adduced
evidence on this point, he said that disestablishment
and disendowment, as an isolated fact, would not
and ought not to suffice. It must be followed by other
legislative acts, and by a constant, patient, and continuous
policy, which in the end would reap its own reward. He
would whisper a word to the friends of the Established
Church who feared that the disestablishment of the Irish
Church would endanger their Church ; and it was, that the
disestablishment of the Irish Church was the sine qua non
to the continued safety of the English Establishment,
because if they were to be told that the churches in
England and Ireland were indissolubly one, he said
that the Church of England and Ireland contained within
itself and represented a minority—ay, and not a large
minority—of the population, and if that was any justi-
fication of the English Church, in that case it would itself
be tottering to its fall. He could not undertake to say
what might be the future fate of the English Establish-
ment, but he would venture to lay down certain
alternative conditions dependent upon the action of the
Church, and which would affect its future and its
fate. If the Conservatives could, by some miracle,
have leapt from the dark into the light, if they could have
summed up the insight and foresight for such a step, and
had themselves proposed the disestablishment of the Irish
Church, or perhaps, what would be still more difficult to
human nature, had frankly and cordially accepted its pro-
posal from the Liberal party, then undoubtedly they
would have given new vigour and new youth, and added
years to the Establishment they desired to protect and
defend.