The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-12 00:00:00

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O'N -kT

—we have not laid waste or depopulated the land as our
predecessors in conquest, the Mogul and Mahratta
princes, did—we have ruled with justice and mercy ; we
have not added bitterness to conquest by the horrible
institution of elavEry—•the Hindoo under British rule has
always been a free man : we have not drawn a revenue
and exacted a tribute to be expended in governing the
mother country,but all the revenues have been expended
in governing the country itself. We have never treated
the superstitions of the Hindoo or Mahometon with dis-
respect, still less have we made the banner of the cross
an ensign of persecution. God forbid we should boast
of these things ; but still God permits us to find comfort
in looking back to them. I am convinced that, by God's
help, we shall not lose India. He has agreat task for us
to perform. If we were driven from India we should
infallibly leave it to devastation and ruin."

We Could cite passages from other sermons to the
same effect, and we make such extracts much more
willingly than those which we could so easily mul-
tiply, in illustration of our general objections.
grom the opening of Mr. Spurgeon'o discourse
we Were cheered with a hope that he was about to
thunder at the ♦ulgar fanatical notions on the sub-
ject of Divine judgments, springing as they com-
monly do out of an uncharitable spirit, and based
as they are on the vanity of men presuming to
pierce the skies, and pretending to read the counsels
of eternity.

Some religionists, he observed, treated every accident
which happened to man in the indulgence of sin as if it
were a judgment. The upsetting of a boat on the river
on a Sunday was in their view a judgment for the sin of
Sabbath-breaking. The accidental fall of a house in
which persons were engaged in any unlawful occupation
was supposed to be a special judgment for the special sin
committed. All these were childish notions ; but there
were many who carried the opposite doctrine to an ex-
treme, and who were apt to deem, because God did not
usually visit each particular offence in this life upon the
transgressor, that there were no judgments at all.
And then Mr. Spurgeon went on not only to pro-
fess his belief in special judgments on a grand na-
tional scale, but he informed his immense audience
that he knew and would tell them some of the
crimes for which England was now afflicted.
He would be as honest as he could with his audience,
and would tell them what were the sins for which, if it
were true that God was now punishing us for sin, we
were probably suffering. There were, he said, sins
openly committed in this community which ought never
to have been allowed ; such, for instance, as the infamous
nuisance in Holywell-street, and the barefaced indecency
which was permitted in the Haymarket, Regent-street,
and our places of public resort. If there were a crime
for which God would punish England it would be for
allowing infamy to stalk our streets in public, exhibit-
ing itself decked in the robes of a harlot in such a
fashion as to insult the modesty of every decent person
who approached it. He saw representatives of the press
present, and he trusted that through them this
frightful evil would be exposed. The press could sting
sharply when it chose, and he trusted that it would sting
so effectually as to infuse a little virtue into our gover-
nors. He then touched upon the nature of our public
amusements, and observed with regret that " lords and
ladies-frequently sat in theatres to listen to plays which
were a long way from decent."
Can human presumption go beyond this ? How
like the old maid of the Spectator ! We wish the
press could infuse a little sobriety into popular
preachers, and worthy notions of the Supreme
Being ; we should not then be told by Mr. Spur-
geon that our wives and daughters have been
butchered in one hemisphere, because improper
books are sold in another, or because a few hundred
inhabitants of London go to the opera to witness
the Traviata. We are sorry we have to censure
the same extravagance in such a cultivated man as
the Dean of Westminster ; but he was quite as wild
as Mr. Spurgeon, only that his advices from above
ara not to the same effect. The Dean is, indeed,
more positive on the subject of opium than the
fanatical preacher at the Crystal Palace about
Holywell-street and the Haymarket.
" He could not keep silence," yet silence would
have been better than speech, when the speaker had
nothing to say sounder in doctrine, or corrector in
fact, than what follows :
If there was one thing which more than another was
the "accursed thing" in England's relations with her
Indian possessions it was the traffic in opium. It was a
hideous fact that the Government of India raised a re-
venue of some millions from trafficking in this poisonous
dreg, which was so destructive both to the body and
soul of millions in the East. The East India Company
annually exported 100,000 chests of opium, forcing it
upon unwilling nations, upon China above all, despite
of their laws and their remonstrances. This was their
crying sin, but it was also ours, for the Government of
England was so constituted and so responsive to the
national views and feeling, that whenever the people of
England were resolved that this thing shalt not be or
that other thing shall, those who administered their
affairs were bound to put the resolution into effect.
Is Dr. Trench a member of the supreme cabi-
net ? When was he let into the state secrets of
the other world 7 When was he initiated into the
spiritual conduct of this ? His statistics of opium
may indeed have been revealed, for he could not
have had them from any earthly source of informa-
tion. Had he consulted the latter he would have
found his 100,000 chests reduced to 8,000. The
sin is of course independent of the quantity ; but
upon that point we shall say no more in this place,
having expressed in another (not for the first time)
our opinion upon that part of the subject.