The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC jOITRNALS,

The Times remarks that the great Church and State
meeting at St. James's Hall cannot well be called a failure,
since it probably realised all the expectations of its pro-
moters. As a demonstration of sympathy with the Irish
Establishment it was sufficiently effective, and this, we
must presume, was the main purpose for which it was con-
vened. As a means of arresting the action of Parliament
or influencing the verdict of the nation, it could not, of
course, be otherwise than futile, and it was rendered more
futile by a grave strategical error in its organisation. No
one could doubt that an imposing array of eminent
Churchmen could be mustered on a London platform
in the height of the London season to protest against dis-
turbing the existing relation between Church and State ;
but, in order to give any significance to such a protest, it
was above all things necessary that it should appear to
proceed from the laity. This meeting, on the contrary,
was essentially a clerical meeting. Not only was
the Archbishop of Canterbury in the chair, but
the chief speakers were members of the Episcopal
bench, and the few laymen who took part in the pro-
ceedings were noblemen of just such a type as bishops
might desire to associate with themselves in an
ecclesiastics,' synod. As for the platform and the
body of the hall, they were crowded, not with lawyers,
merchants, and men of business, but with eager and
excited clergymen, while the galleries were occupied in
force by the ladies. The result is, that nothing was proved
by the meeting, except what everyone knew perfectly well
before. It would have been strange indeed if the arch-
bishops and bishops of our own Churchhad not sympathised,
at least outwardly, with their Irish brethren in the hour
of danger, or if an audience thus composed had not carried
by acclamation all the resolutions put to them. The
only speaker who fairly grappled, or at least attempted '
to grapple, with the claims of the Irish nation, was the
Bishop of Oxford, and the attempt only served to defeat
itself. It is idle to expatiate on the blessings of a con-
nection between Church and State in England, when the
very first conditions of its success in England are signally
wanting in Ireland. No doubt, if we are to persist in
legislating for the two countries as if they were
essentially one in spite of six centuries of experience,
the dissent of four million Roman' Catholics must
be regarded in a different light ; but then so vast an
Addition to English dissent must needs weaken the moral
ec ndition of our own Church. On this point the Bishop
of Oxford and others who followed him gave expression
to a very common, but, as we venture to submit, a very
transparent confusion of thought. Because the Liberation
Society, which has taken the lead in agitating for the abo-
lition of the Irish Church, does not conceal its desire to
bring about the downfall of the English Church, people
are led to believe that if it succeeds in the former enter-
prise it will have gained a vantage ground for prose-
cuting the latter. There is just enough truth in this
idea to make it delusive. It must be allowed that if
the • experiment of disestablishment is tried on
Ireland, and carried out with greater facility and less
mischief than is now apprehended, a great deal of unrea-
soning aversion from organic changes will probably be
overcome, and what is now scouted by most people as a
revolutionary project will become more familiar. So far
there is some ground for the impression that it is safer to
resist its being tried at all, but there is another considera-
tion which is left quite out of sight. The more the raison
d'etre of the Irish Church is considered the more effectually
will the vital distinction between it and the English
Church be brought out, and the more convincing will the
case of the latter appear by contrast. If, indeed,
all inquiry into the merits of either could now be
stifled, it is possible, though by no means certain, that
the stronger would be able to keep the weaker afloat for
a generation or two longer. But these are not the circum-
stances under which the problem is presented to us. We
are called upon to maintain an institution of which the
anomalies are patent and notorious, and which no one
defends on independent grounds, lest by abandoning it we
should imperil another institution, of which the chief re-
proach is its constitutional union with the former. Unless
we are the slaves of a blind law of political necessity, it is
absurd to suppose that the Established Church of Eng-
land has anything to gain by casting in her lot with the
Established Church of Ireland. But it does not follow
that she has nothing to lose, and it would he truly
deplorable if her own hierarchy should induce her to
repudiate her best title and to forfeit the confidence of
the people by leaning on the broken reed of indefeasible
rights.

The Daily News congratulates the managers of the St.
James's Hall meeting. The audience was most fashion.
able. When from the audience it turns to the orators,
and proceeding a step further, considers rather what was
said than who were the spokesmen, the purpose and cha-
racter of the meeting become involved in some doubt. If
reporters could have been excluded, if the names could
have been given, and the speeches omitted, the effect
would have been greater than it is likely to prove. The
parts were well " cast." The Archbishop of Canterbury
exhibited that bland dignity which makes him so excellent
a type of the English ecclesiastic. The Bishop of Oxford's
oratory suits the platform as well as the pulpit and the
House of Lords. The Bishop of London displayed the
simplicity and earnestness which give to his manner and
address a peculiar fascination. The Archbishop of York
shewed the characteristics of the politic and secular
Churchman of an earlier age. Dean Stanley's mild
wisdom and large candour seemed somewhat out of place
in an assembly bent on maintaining in Ireland the symbol
of conquest and the memorial of ascendancy; and the
interruptions which greeted and shortened his efforts
to speak shewed that the sense of incongruity which
he might have been expected to feel was present to
the minds of his audience. Turning from the performers
to the drama, it may be observed as the most marked
feature of the speeches of last evening, and the only
thing common to them all, that very shy recognition was
given to the Irish Church Establishment. It could not be
left out altogether • but it received a poor relations's
acknowledgment. 'Respect for the family made a certain
show of courtesy necessary ; but regard for and pride in
the individual were evidently at a low ebb. The speakers
preferred to dwell in safe generalities upon the abstract
question of the union of Church and State. The Daily
News skews no disrespect to Bishop Wilberforce, Bishop
Tait, Archbishop Thomson, and Dean Stanley when it
says that on this subject they are not likely to add any-
thing to the discussion with which the names of Hooker,
Warburton, Coleridge, and Arnold are associated ; nor is
the topic one which is suited to a fashionable meeting in
St. James's Hall, or a time of party excitement.
The Standard lays down most decidedly that, in point of
character, influence, and numbers, the meeting at St.
James's Hall is without parallel in recent experience.
The spacious hall was crowded from end to end, from floor
to ceiling. Every inch of space was occupied, and thou-
sands were compelled to go away for want of space. The
platform was thronged by faces familiar both in the Legis-
lature and the pulpit, and among them the whilom sup-
porters of Mr. Gladstone might be counted by hundreds.
The Primate, who occupied the chair, was supported by
a crowd of his brother prelates and a numerous array of
members of both Houses of Parliament, of eminent dig-
nitaries of the Church, and representative lay-
men. The enthusiasm of the densely-packed audience, in
its unanimity and spontaneity, was something marvellous
to witness. In its constituent elements it answered com-
pletely to the description we ventured to give of it by
anticipation. It was not merely a clerical demonstration,
but a meetin,7 of clerics and laymen of all grades and all
parties, fused into one body and acting harmoniously
under the pressure of a common peril. The speeches
(saving Dean Stanley's unfortunate and somewhat
impertinent attempt to chew that the Liberal party
is heartily in favour of preserving the union between
Church and State), were cheered to the echo, the strong
points were taken up with electrifying enthusiasm, and
the resolutions were carried without a single dissentient
and amid rounds of fervid applause. It was a demonstra-
tion which bespoke a sense of power in those who took
part in it. There wag no trace of despondency or faint-
heartedness in the tone either of the speakers or the
meeting. The prevailing sentiment was one of calm deter-
mination, backed by a consciousness of strength, and no
speaker elicited heartier plaudits than the Bishop of
London when, after exposing the injustice of the proposed
disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church,
he declared emphatically, " The thing cannot stand ; it
can't be done."

The Post protests against the matter of the Irish Church
being decided entirely in reference to parties. Whether
it is or is not true that the Liberal party would best find
its own account in waiting a better time to turn out the
present so-called Ministry—whether there would be any
difficulty of reconciling the claims of too numerous a body
of candidates for office, and whether there would or would
not be found a lawyer ready and worthy to take
the Lord Chancellorship—all this matters little when
the interests of the country are at stake ; and that
they are at stake nobody who believes in the advantages
of good government can doubt, unless indeed they
are prepared to believe that good government can
be attained by the retention in office of a Ministry too
weak to initiate or even to support measures founded on
its own convictions, and compelled on every occasion to
run into the deepest extremes that are to be found within
the breasts of an overwhelming Opposition. It is not
good for the country that a responsible Ministry should be
kept on the Treasury bench to divine and carry out the
will of its comparatively irresponsible critics, and there-
fore it is that the Pcrt protests most strongly .against the
demand that such a state of things shall be indefinitely
prolonged, and that it calls upon those with whom the
matter virtually rests not even for the sake of their party
to make themselves parties to the unholy compact by
which such a consummation is wished to be carried out.

• Many years have elapsed, says the Telegrarh, since Lan-
cashire began a campaign intended to establish County
Boards of Control, and, failing to carry any measure
through Parliament, it allowed the agitation to die away.
Now the cry for reform comes from the counties in all
parts of higland—Essex, Line°lnsliire, Devon, for
instance—as represented in the Chambers of Agriculture
and other local bodies. The rural magnates admit in prin-
ciple the justice of the claim which those who provide
income set up to control expenditure ; but they dispute
the means. Mr. Wyld has brought in a crude bill, and
the House of Commons has very properly referred it to a
select committee. The Central Chambers of Agriculture
have now debated the question, have agreed with the pro-
vincial councils in affirming the principle of control, and
have taken steps to watch legleation and to support their
views in Parliament. Some such reform is most desirable,
and the fact is acknowledged even by those who most
emphatically insist that the bill already introduced must
be thoroughly remodelled before it can become law.