The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Upper House of Convocation, the Min informs
its readers, has been chiefly employed upon a modest
attempt made by the Bishop of London to establish the
principle that each clergyman is not to choose for himself
his ritual observances, either as to the amount or the kind.
That there should be even occasion for such a suggestion
will astonish the outer world. No doubt, however, at this
moment there are thousands of churches in want of some
such check upon ritualistic enterprise. It is evident that the
resolution would only be an appeal to the sense of pro-
priety, carrying with it no more weight than the opinions
of the bishops speaking or voting in its favour. Even as
this it has been criticised, challenged, pulled to pieces, and
finally mated with an equipoise. Such a rule implied, it
was objected, that it had a foundation in the fact of a
general uniformity, there being no such fact ; or that it
was possible to come to some actual uniformity, which was
impossible ; or that the bishops were generally agreed,
which thay were not ; or that the existing law could
accomplish a uniformity, which it could not ; or that it
could not accomplish a unformity, which remains to be
proved ; or that the question was not fairly open to
historical investigation ; or that Ritualism was to have
less justice done it than preaching, in which a large liberty
was now cheerfully conceded by common agreement ; or
that the resolution assumed a lighted candle to be a greater
error than an unsound doctrinal statement. Finally, a
diluted form of this exceedingly mild resolution, itself a
matter of course in any other Church, was adopted with
the pendant that uniformity had regard to defects as well
as excesses ; and that if too much was wrong, too little
was wrong also, and none worse still. Such was the
discussion carried on within sound, as it were, of
the tremendous and costly conflicts in the courts of law,
for which many thousand pounds have been subscribed,
for 'which clergymen are staking all their means and all
their happiness, and which other zealots, on both sides,
will always be found to take up. Ritualism is only
an engine of warfare. It is employed as the
proper defence and most stinging retaliation, not only
against what is called anti-ritualism and mere slovenli-
ness, but against Evangelicalism, rationalism, and modern
freedom of thought. A clergyman is allowed to publish
peculiar views on inspiration, eternity of punishment, and
to explain away mysteries. So, instead of refuting him
or moving the bishop with a view to legal proceedings,
the neighbouring clergy light candles, wear stoles of
quaint device, make processions, and practise movements
and gestures supposed to have the sanction of an un-
known antiquity. When people complain, the answer is,
" Why don't you complain of Mr. So-and-So, who
explains away our faith altogether? Which is worse, a
gilt cross or no cross at all, emblem or reality ?" Such is
the war in which the altar, the pulpit, and the reading.
desk are played one against another, while it is only too
evident that Convocation only adds fuel to the flame,
and that every year new men are throwing themselves
into the fray, if only because they have to figure in de-
bates at the Queen Anne's Bounty Office and the Jeru-
salem Chamber.

The Tdcgro ph considers a reconstruction of the Cabinet
to be probable, notwithstanding the recovery of Lord
Derby. Should the present First Lord of the Treasury
resign, Mr. Disraeli will, in our contemporary's opinion,
be the Prime Minister of England. These words mean a
great deal. The Premiership of England is a great prize;
to win it, to hold it, a man must certainly have a rare
combination of gifts. He must physically have a vitality
of constitution that can contend against hard toil and late
hours ; mentally, he must have resources ready for use at
any moment and on all occasions. He must not only be a
fluent speaker, but a rapid thinker ; he must not only win
the confidence of about four hundred gentlemen—the work-
ing majority of the House—but of over a dozen clever
men, members of both Houses, with position and ability
enough to fill high places, and yet prepared to accept him
as their chief. In this country, still largely influenced by
men of hereditary position and wealth, high birth will of
course go no small way to make up for deficiencies in some
of the necessary qualifications ; but the surprise excited by
Mr. Disraeli's success is, that he had nothing extrinsic in
his favour when he started in the race, and had many
things against him.

The object of the French Press Bill, as it is expressed
by its provisions, is, in the opinion of the Daily News, to
make the existence of an independent political journal as
precarious and difficult as possible, and to surround the
vocation of an independent political writer with a network
of dangers and disabilities, and to do all this in the name
of " the liberty of the press." It is worth remarking that
the provincial journals, which are generally, of course, less
influential than those of the capital, and more manageable
by the authorities, are much less severely taxed. It is
only fair to the Ministers who have charge of this bill to
acknowledge that they all profess to be anxiously con-
cerned for the liberty and dignity of the press, and that
the cruelty of some of the clauses of their press law is only
kindness in disguise. They chasten the liberty they love
in order to prevent it from falling into license, and drift-
ing. to destruction by its own excesses. What confounds
an English reader of these debates is, that MM. Rouher,
Baroche, and Pinard, in one_ and the same breath, do
homage to the strength of a Government which after six-
teen years' existence is not afraid to be discussed, and
insist on the necessity of protective legislation against the
power of a few independent journals, as if France
were a conquered country, and Paris in a state of
siege ; as though the chronic condition of the State
were smouldering rebellion and civil war, and the Second
Empire could be snuffed out by an article.

Mr. Cave has just introduced a bill authorising the
Board of TraCe to extend, under certain conditions, the
time granted by Parliament for the construction of rail-
ways. By an Act passed last session the board is em-
powered to permit the abandonment of railways, after
hearing all the persons interested in the construction of
the lines, and the right honourable gentleman has found,
from his "experience of the working of that measure, the
want of the minor power for which he now asks. An
extension of time would, he says, often be the best corn-.
Promise that could be made between the promoters of a line
asking leave to abandon it, and the property-owners and
others who object to the abandonment. If Parliament (argues
the Herald) can entrust the Board of Trade with
authority to release promoters entirely from their obliga-
tions, it may certainly give the office power to suspend
the performance of those obligations ; and we de
not suppose that Mr. Cave's bill, which merely
proposes to re-enact an expired Act passed twenty
years ago, and which during the time of its operation was
found to work beneficially, will meet with opposition in
any of its stages. Mr. Watkin, indeed, hinted a distrust
of the proposal which deserves attention as an expression
of the present phase of the railway mind. The honour•
able gentleman was afraid that if such a bill should pass
there would not be so many railways abandoned. The
Herald is sick of hearing these reproaches of Parliament
from chairmen and directors of railway companies who
were themselves mainly instrumental in leading Parlia-
ment to perpetrate any follies of which it has been guilty.
Mr. Watkin is chairman of at least two railway companies.
The question cannot be dealt with entirely from the stand-
point of the railway chairman, who wants to close his
capital account, and is horrified at the idea of increasing
his working expenses by the opening of branches which are
not iikely to yield any very large amount of traffic.
The Standard: in calling attention to the tale told by
" Investigator " of captives in the Sonmali district, re
marks : " Misfortunes," it is said, "never came singly."
Just at the moment when we are spending, millions of
money in an expedition designed for the release of the
British captives in Abyssinia, another case, almost equally
pressing, is brought under our notice in so urgent a manner
that we cannot refuse to attend to it. " Investigator's "
letter must have enlisted the sympathies of every one who
read it on behalf of the unfortunate men whom we have
reason to believe to have been groaning in a thraldom
twice as long and twice as hard as that which has been
endured by Captain Cameron and his comrades. The
widely-extended repute of this Government of ours, which
is able to make its power and its influence felt in the
remotest corners of the world, as well as in the most civi-
-1 ed, is supposed to invest it with the responsibility of
watching over the interests and defending the liberties of
its subjects in whatever part of Gods earth they may
happen to be. The victims whose case has been so ably
brought under our notice 'a're even more obscure in rank
than those for whom we are making war against the im-
perious Potentate of Amhara. They are, however, Eng-
lishmen like ourselves, and have an equal ric,ht with any
of us to such protection as can be afforded by cur diplo
macy or our arms.

As by the Factory and Workshop
;make
wham he does not
talc the employer who engaes 11 Regulation Acts wo
know to have attended school -
, certain cases,
responsible for the payment of school fees ; and empower
him to deduct such payment from
theuwsages of children
into
i-tplace every
in his employ ; so is it now open
e education
labour master on the same footing, and to
juvenile
the one universal and indispensable condition
industry. A law of this kind would, the Post
work well and easily in towns, and meet with .littlelieves'
oppo-
sition ; but it must be admitted that the difficeulty—
enforcing its observance in agricultural districts would I°f
be considerable, at all events for a time. The farmer
e
might be required to furnish returns of the children in Ms
employment, as he is required to furnish returns of his
taxable dogs, carriages, and so forth ; but it would be
didlcult to ini.11Z...! Lim do so. Farmers abhor returns, as a
rule, and evade' them it 13 possible. As for any.
11- "-4--rn they would resist it to
I,e a half-title .7„ , ,
til;! nii,l G7ll' colltinporary does not think that
tht,y do so v•-ith,qit eis'm.
The Ftrir, commenting on the "strange news from
Natal" (which is to the effect that the Supreme Court
fn
tlle colony have refused to ta,:e notice of a decree of, toe
Queen in Council), remarks : 1)1.. Colenso is as much at
liberty as any man to be as sceptical as pleases him ; he
may even elect to express his scepticism in the least reve-
rential and most flippant forms. The real q i uestion s,
whether the majority of the members of the Church can
be said to have liberty, when they cannot, as Churchmen,
avoid the necessity of recognising a bishop whom they
believe worthy of excommunication as a member of the
Christian community to which they belong. Our contem-
porary offers no judgment upon Dr. Colenso's opinions, or
upon the indispositiim of the majority of the communica-
ting members of the Church of England to tolerate him
ns one of .themselves.