The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times says that both Dissenter and Churchman
assume that the disestablishment and disendowment of the
Irish Church will lead to that of the English. In the
opinion of our contemporary there is a vast difference in
the position of the two, and it is enough to deal with
the Irish branch by itself at present. All experience
proves it best to deal with one question at a time, and upon
its own merits. If one settlement may possibly lead to
another, the second settlement is not deferred or alleviated
by the denial of the first. The Churches are unlike in
their national aspect and in their relation to the
habits and tastes of the several populations. They
are like in being State institutions ; they are like in
being under a Government which inherits and exer-
cises a quasi-Papal authority over them ; they are
like in having bishops and pastors, it may almost be
said, in partibus infidelium—that is, in the midst of popu-
lations more or less disaffected to them. The position of
the Church of England has often been alleged as the best
reply to Protestant objectors against Papal supremacy;
but the position of the Irish Church is vastly worse, and
therefore a still better retort. If the British Parliament,

expressing in this instance English duminion, may force a
Church and a doctrinal system on the Irish people, and
demand for it even an extravagant maintenance, why may
not the Church of Rome claim obedience and support
frcm willing subjects everywhere, without regard to their
nationality? It is this very aspect of the " Unitcd
Church," as the dictation of one people and one Church
to another, which is most dangerous now to the Church of
England, and therefore most to be reprobated. How it
may be on this side the Channel, and what ills or what
deliverances are in store for the old Church of England,
is beyond human ken. Let the question be dismissed
altogether. What is to come will come, and the worst
that men fear may possibly prove the best when it comes.
But the Irish Church is the matter iu hand, and there is
neither sense nor fairness in compelling candidates to
commit themselves one way or the other on questions not
yet before us.

The Herald remarks that the Conservative candidates
for South-West Lancashire have at length taken the field,
and henceforth Mr. Gladstone will speak under the
wholesome check of prompt correction. It bad become
quite necessary that the right bon. gentleman should no
longer be allowed to monopolise the ear of the constituency,
and that the charges and insinuations he had levelled
against the Government should be answered on the
spot, and without delay. Judging from their speeches
at Southport on Saturday, at the crowded and
enthusiastic meeting with which they opened the
campaign, Messrs. Turner and Assheton Cross are
fully equal to this part of their duty. Mr. Cross has
replied to Mr. Gladstone's charge of profligate expendi-
ture on the part of the Government, by quoting the
words of Richard Cobden, delivered in 1862, in which he
said the Liberal party was the most extravagant Govern.
ment ever known in this country in a time of peace. The
Conservative candidates shew a very earnest and intelli-
gent appreciation of the true character of the issue upon
which the approaching contest will be fought out. As
Mr. Turner says, the questions before the country are
whether we are to have a Radical or a Conservative
Government, and whether the union between Church and
State shall be maintained or destroyed. That Mr.
Gladstone should link his candidature with so extreme
a politician as Mr. Grenfell gives additional significance to
the first point, while the second condition of the quarrel
has been affirmed by him over and over again, and even so
recently as in his speech at Newton on Saturday. It is
true that the right honourable gentleman pretends to
limit the application of his principle to Ireland, but, as
Mr. Cross asks, when he is besieged by his own followers
with demands that the English Church shall share the
fate of the Irish Church, does any one believe that Mr.
Gladstone will hold out at the sacrifice of the position he
has won by tvking the first step towards universal dis-
establishment and dif.endowment ?

The Daily News holds that the parish clergymen and the
country gentlemen whose votes in 1865 displaced Mr.
Gladstone from the representation of the University of
Oxford rendered a real service to their country. They
humiliated the university, and they inflicted, no doubt,
some temporary mortification on the statesman by whose
election they had for nearly twenty years done themselves
honour. But they liberated Mr. Gladstone from the
exceptional restraints which his political connection with
the university imposed. That grave, reverend, and learned
body, silently revolving the weal of the nation, does not
allow itself to be disturbed by the intrusion upon its deli.
berations of even the candidates for its suffrages. It does not
permit them to plead their cause and urge their respective
claims before it. It takes counsel with none but itself.
Written addresses are contrary to university etiquette,
and speeches, of course, could not for one moment le
tolerated. Possibly, the university would choose
members more wiFey if it to( k the ordinary means cf
informing itself on public questions. Country gentlemen
and clergymen whose politics are taken out of the county
paper and the " bi-weehly " religious journal, need more
rather than less stimulus to keep them well up with the
questions of the day. Be this as it may, Mr. Disraeli
must lament, as he has good reason for doing, the
Oxford University election of 1865. He would
probably give all that he holds most dear-- Mr.
Gathorne Hardy, say, or Lord John Manners—to have
Mr. Gladstone back again at Oxford. If the leader of the
Opposition were compelled to be silent now, the elections
in some places might go differently. Mr. Gladstone, as a
candidate for Oxford, could not have issued that written
address to his constituents which has enabled the country
to contrast a statesman's policy with the arts of a place-
man, and the language of conviction and purpose with
mystic ambiguities which a doctor of the Cabala might
envy.

Hardly anyone, the Times thinks, will be missed from
the House of Commons more than General Peel. His
popularity with all parties is decidedly great, and his
faculties are so unimpaired in power that it is hard
to believe in the age he has attained. On his own side
of the House his place can scarcely be filled, for his
professional and official experience have given him
singularly accurate and yet comprehensive acquaintance
with one of the most important and controverted
topics of the day. It was something to be able to explain
the real direction and application of the vast expenditure
actually entailed by our present establishments, and that
information General Peel could always furnish. He took
the estimates to pieces with practised dexterity, and put
the figures before the House in the clearest manner. He
could make even the Army Reserve schemes intelli-
gible, and give us the exact measure of every successive
failure. Such a special faculty as this, derived not
only from study, but from long personal experience,
represents a rare and valuable gift, all the more
valuable because in this instance it was combined with
recognised uprightness and sincerity. It is strange,
indeed, to reflect that a man who bad carried his
political honesty so far as to oppose even his own brother
on the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829 should have
survived to take part nearly forty years later in the first
debates upon the: consummation of that measure as repre-
sented in the disestablishment of the Irish Church. But
from one end of his public career to the other General
Peel bas preserved the reputation of an irreproachable
politician, and the loss to the Legislature occasioned by his
retirement will assuredly be felt by all parties in the
House as well as by the public at large.
The Standard says one of the devices most in favour
with the Liberal party just now is that of exchanging
certificates of good character. In fact, the Liberal leaders
have constituted themselves into a sort of Mutual
Admiration Society. A vouches for the excellence of B's
principles, and C has an earnest conviction of the moral
worth of A. C, in his turn, receives the homage of B, and
soon till the circle of compliment is completed. It is a
pleasing and innocent game, which seems to afford every
player in it unlimited satisfaction, and contributes
not a little to the gratification of the public.
Lord Amberley recommends Mr. Mill, and Mr.
Mill becomes earnest for Mr. Bradlangh. Mr.
Bradlaugh is not ungrateful, and Northampton
rings with the praises of Mr. Mill. Thus the whole party
is hound together by a chain of reciprocal obligation, and
each member of it is a kind of general bail for the rest. If
the public are nr,t by this time convinced that every
Liberal leader is an angel of light, and a fountain at once
of good morals and correct principles, the fact must be
attributed to the ineradicable prejudices of vulgar human
nature. Mr. Gladstone is specially favoured. The cheers
of a hundred mobs, the spontaneous homage of several
physical demonstrations, the admiration and sympathy of
Fallen, have testified to the great statesman ; the letter of
the head of the llornish Church in England crowns him as
orthodox Protestant. TI e value of this last document,
as to the perfect sincerity of Mr. Gladstone's religious
policy, could hardly have been greater had the Pope him-
self been Mr. Gladstone's witness. Tory calumniators,
for their own miserable ends, had accused bar. Gladstone
of being swayed by his RAmish friendships in his more
recent religious policy. They had fastened upon the
sponsorship of his son as evidence of a leaning towards the
side of the illustrious godfather. '.These and all other
suspicions (for whatever mysterious purpose they may have
been circulated) are henceforth silenced. Archbishop
Manniog himself comes forward to vouch for the religious
fidelity of Mr. Gladstone. _Roma locuta, masa jinda est.

The Doily Tdcgraph remarks that the reporters of the
press seem to usurp the functions of' the dignitaries of the
Church, and newspapers arc I; —d te step in to
" i counteract the -negligence indifference, or timidity
" the
of
1
'bishops. In these dreadful C tlays of innovation, w
licentiousness of the press" bas attained wide scope, we
presume that we must forgive the intrusion ; but we hope
no sacrilegious writer will suggest that the bishop's salary
should be transferred, even in part, to the gentlemen
who have done his work. Though bishops inay be as
meek and decorous in demeanour as St. Paul advised,
there is a limit to the patience of eventhe gentlest of men,
and that limit is passed when the temporalities of any
Church are even partially touched. In everything else
latitude is allowed ; one clergyman may preach Calvinism,
another Popery, a third Rationalism, a fourth Erastian
views ; bat the funds " once delivered to the Saints" must
be kept sacred "roes daring hands,