The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 1, 1868,

PROTES7ANTISM ENGLAND'S WEAKNESS

Although English Protestantism is looked
upon by continental thinkers, indeed by all
reasonable men who think at all, as a broad
farce, Englishmen themselves, who live in the
midst of it, and have been from their infancy
brought up in its contradictions, still feel that
it is a kind of religion which suits the charac-
ter of the people, and is most easily bent to
the requirements of the State. To an Italian
the idea of an apostle of Christianity with
the encumbrance of a wife and half a score
children—of a bishop of the Church going
about with his " lady," and talking of " the
truth as it is in Jesus," when he knows well
enough that the whole affair, according to his
principles, is an open question—of a woman,
the spiritual head of the English Church, in
this illuminated nineteenth century, and in
accomplished England, is too grotesque even to
be pleasantly amusing. All he can do is to
shrug his shoulders in that expressive way of
which he has a monopoly, and exclaim—" Eh,
be ! the volete con'sti matt' Inglesi !" and
then pass on to something which his faculties
will be able to understand. If any thinking
Englishman, who loves his country, and does
not want it to be an object of contempt to those
who live outside the magic circle of its falla-
cies, would take the trouble to read an article on
the Irish Church, in the last number of the
Civilta Cattolica, he would there see drawn
with great force of satire, and accurate know-
ledge of facts, the picture which his country
presents to learned and conscientious
foreigners.
And, in point of fact, that contemptuous
opinion which has been formed of English
religion as a display of consistency and logic,
is founded deeply in truth. The principle
of Protestantism is essentially destructive of
the human mind, if the human mind is a living
spirit made to think according to certain laws,
and live on the strength of certain conclusions.
It is the buoyancy and vigour of his animal
constitution—the muscular portion of his
Christianity—that enables our countryman
to vault over the broadest contradictions, and
the most, dangerous sophisms, without his head
becoming in the slightest degree affected. But,
though such performances may for a time be
kept up, it is certain, from the nature of the
human mind, that they will never satisfy
everybody, and that the time will come when
they will go out of fashion altogether. To talk
against the Syllabus, to decry the conscienti-
ous supervision of the Church, to proclaim the
rights of man to think, to speak, and to teach
whatever comes into his head, this is the
practice of an English schoolboy grown up into
an Englishman. We do not deny for a moment
that the principles of Liberalism have about
them something which attracts the merely
human side of the mind ; indeed, it is just
because they are in keeping with its bent, and
give a semblance of right and reason to its
cravings, that they have made so much way
in our generation. But what is pretty does
not always pay, and seldom works well. The
less popular principles of Catholicism, which,
because they lift man higher than himself,
are not so comfortable to his human side,
when days of struggle or periods of difficulty
approach, are sure to manifest their superi-
ority. To sail down the stream with a fair
wind requires very little seamanship, and not
a very first-rate boat ; but to direct her course
against tide, with a chopping sea, and a squall
of wind, requires skill in the captain and
soundness in the craft. As long as no diffi-
cult questions are touched, no immediate solu-
tions haveto be effected, Protestantism may
for the time stand ; but, in the face of danger
or contest, it reminds one of •

"That long-buried body of the King,
Which, at a touch of light, an air of heaven,
Slipt into ashes and wad found no more."

It is our conviction that the " questions of
the hour" are of such vital importance, and
so fundamental, that their solution must give
a violent shock to the Established Church of
this country. Thinking men will begin to
see more clearly than ever that Protestantism
cannot educate priests or statesmen,—that the
greatest leaders of thought partake of the
inconsistencies of that religion in which they
have been reared,—that placed in high position,
gifted with marvellous talents, and clearness
of intellectual vision, they become, from their
position, only the more consvicuous exponents
of the fatality in their own creed. Take, for
instance, three of the most influential men—
men overflowing with talent, each in his own
way, representative men of this day, and mark
the miserable intellectual position in which
they are placed—witnessing to the world from
high places the outcome of those principles
which are the weakness of great men, the
laughing-stock of the world, and the bewilder-
ment of the conscientious.

There is Mr. Gladstone, a man of great in-
tegrity, of vast range of mind, of astonishing
versatility, one whose forte is, looking to every
side of a subject, and, as far as may be, down
into its depths—one' would have imagined
that he, at least, on a cardinal point of religious
and political thought, would have seen his
way along the straight road of truth. But
no. Protestantism—its uncertainties, its con-
tradictions, its deficit of solid, stable, lasting
principle, has affected his powerful mind, and,
like some poisonous drug, has weakened his
intellectual vision. Now he is for the disesta-
blishment of the Church in Ireland. He be-
lieves in the Protestant Church. He is not,
as we are, a believer that it is a counterfeit,
and a propagator of deadly error. He believes
it teaches saving truth. But, carried on with
the stream and the flow of current Protestant-
ism in its rationalistic manifestation, he be-
comes spokesman in orle of its contradictions.
It is " Separate the Church from the State "
now. Some years ago he wrote—" A nation,
then, having a personality, lies under the obli-
gation, like the individuals composing its go-
verning body, of sanctifying the acts of that
personality by the offices of religion, and thus
we have a new and imperative ground for the
existence of a State religion."

If Mr. Disraeli is not a man of that serious
conscientiousness which all ascribe to his rival,
still he is acute, farseeing, subtle, and gifted
with the power of appreciating the action of
principles when applied to life. Though a
Jew, he has been Protestantized. The same
flow of contradictions attaches itself to his
course. Surely, he should have been aware
of the fundamental principles of State craft
and religion ? But, just as one day Mr. Glad-
stone was violently for Church and State, and
now is as violently against that principle in
Ireland, so now Mr. Disraeli, who some years
ago made that memorable speech which ex-
presses Mr. Gladstone's present views, is,
with great ingenuity, upholding its contra-
dictory. " It is," he said, the other day, " in
the alliance between Church and State—an
alliance between equal and independent
powers, which entered into a solemn covenant
for the national good—that one of the prin-
cipal causes may be recognized why we have
enjoyed those two great blessings of freedom
and order. . . . I am at a loss to know
how these duties can be fulfilled if the State
be not in intimate relation with an order of
men set apart, who, by their piety, their learn-
ing, and their social devotion, not only guide
and control, but soften and assuage the aspe-
rities of conflicting creeds." Protestantism
is the juggler, Disraeli and Gladstone are the
balls, and the British public form the audience
which, far from being struck with shame and
sadness at the manner in which their minds
have been tossed and shaken now to the right,
now to the left, consider it simply as part of
a play resulting from the genius of the con-
stitution of th House of Commons. But
far more painful and more saddening is the
spectacle of a venerable, learned, and pious
man, whose name has been given to a party in
the Church of England, endeavouring to swim
upon the surface of the multitudinous contra-
dictions in which he threatens every moment
to be engulphed. Perhaps there is no more
telling specimen of ecclesiastical contradiction
and unlogic than Dr. Pusey. With a mind

stored with a vast amount of indigested learn-
ing, with a heart all tender and overflowing,
with a meekness which saturates the ill-
constructed and muddy sentences, which
convey the yearning of his imagination rather
than the conclusions of right reason—with a
large following, an ascetic habit, and a high
position—he exhibits at once many most a
miable qualities of the man, together with all
the weaknesses and inconsequences of the
religion into which he had the great misfortune
to be born. He: must know well enough that
Protestantism is religion, not as by Christ
established, but as by Parliament established.
He must be aware that the very principles
on which he justifies himself in creating a sect
in the midst of his own Church, are not to be
confined in their application to himself alone.
He must be aware that if he has liberty to
judge of doctrine and discipline, and come
to his own conclusions ; so have all others an
equal right. The same claim he makes to
interpret the Lord's Supper, Baptism and other
essentials of religion according to his mind;
that same claim other men must be allowed by
him in coming to their conclusions. Still, lie
complains with true Protestant inconsistency,
and with his known goodness of heart that
"every sacred truth is questioned, even to
the being of the God who made us, or of our
own eternal existence." Of course it is—and
so it will be. And according to your principles
so it must be. Again, "Better," he says,
" disestablish, not the Irish only, but the
English Church, better undergo the loss of
all things temporal, than that a Minister should
have power to treat our clergy as civil servants,
and to threaten them with the. loss, not of
their temporalities (these would, I trust, be
made up), but of their spiritual offices too, if
they should do any act to disown one who has
been lawfully deposed from his office of a
bishop, and has been excommunicated as a
heretical denier of God's' truth, one of those
grievous wolves of whom St. Paul spoke, who
spare not the flock of Christ. •As well be under
Nero or Claudius at once. They could but
banish or burn Christians for not denying
Christ. This Minister has not denied that he
threatened with loss of a spiritual office those
who would recognise any other bishop than
one who has denied Christ." Here the good-
ness, piety, moral rectitude of the man come
out, and display all the more glaringly the in-
consistency of his position. What business has
Dr. Pusey to call any man a heretic ? Is he
infallibly directed in all saving truth ? Has
he a greater certainty of what God's law is,
according to his principles, than that Minister
•—that representative of the head of Dr. Pusey's
Church, whom he speaks of with such severity?
We might consistently compare a Government
which trod on our spiritual leaders to that
of Nero and Claudius ; we might even say
that those pagan monsters were preferalTh.
But Dr. Pusey is powerless. The very prin-
ciple on which he lives out of the Church,
and contradicts her, gives his enemies a right
to take a different view from his view, and
contradict him. In a word, Mr. Gladstone,
Mr. Disraeli, and Dr. Pusey, the three most
conspicuous men in England just at present—
perhaps the most gifted, each in his own- sphere
—are far from being a strength to the reli-
gion of the land. They manifest its weakness.
The growth of its follies, inconsistencies and
fallacies in their large minds, assumes a pro-
portion which must make a deep impression
on all thinking men, and lead them to the con-
clusion, if not, with foreigners, that English
Protestantism is a farce, at all events that it
is England's weakness.—Westminster Gazette.

THE PRESIDENT'S LAST VETO.

(Frum the Anglo American i imes.)
When the mail left New York on the 13th inst.
the people were speculating on the PRESIDENT'SaCIiOn
regar ling the Bill admitting Arkansas to represent:-
Con in Congress. It was generally thought that AN-
DREW JOHNSON Would allow the ten days to lapse,
so that the act might become law without any exer-
cise of his authority, his s leuce being a sufficient
roof that h: dissented, though he might not desire to
waste time and to stir up bad feelings by a uselass
oppEition. But Impeachment must have wrought
a strange change in ANDREW JOHNSON'S StlibbOrti
nature if he bated an inch of his power to thwart,
and those who knew him best wen prepared for
the telegram from Washington, dated June 20,
announcing that the bill had been vetoed. Of course
it was at once passel over the veto in the Repre-
si:ntaAves by 110 vntc's against 31, and in the Senate
on June 22 'by the necessary majority. Therefore
it is now law, and runs as follows:
"Whereas, the people of Arkansas, in pursuance of an
Act entitled " An Act for the more efficient government
of the 'Rebel States, pissed March 2, l8:37, and the Acts
supplementary thereto, It ore framed and adopted a Con-
stitution of State Government whi,h is Republican in
form, and the Legislature of said State has duly ratified the
amendment to the Constitution of the United_States pro-
posed by the 39th Congress and known as Article 14 ;
therefore—Be it. enacted by the S:nate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled, that the State of Arkansas
is entitled and admitted to representation in Congress
as ono of the States of the Union upon the fol-
lowing fundamental condition :—That the Constitution of
Arkansas shall never be so amended or changed as to
deprive any citizen or class of citizens in the United States
of the right to vate, who are entitled to vote by the Con-
stitution herein recognized, except as a punishment for
such crimes as are now felonies at common law, whereof
they shall have been duly convicted-under laws equally
applicable to all the inhabitants of said State, provided
that any alteration in said Constitution, prospective in its
effect, may be made in regard to the time and place of
residence of voters."

We can only guess the reasons given by the PRE-
SIDENT for vetoing the first Bill presented to
him after Impeachment. Doubtless he will strongly
deny the right of Congress to impose conditions
of representation upon States other than those
recognized by the Constitution, and this he will
greatly enlarge upon. This merely opens up the
old question, and back we go to the position of the
rebellious States when the war ended in their sub-
jugation. It is a fearful defect in a ruler when he
cannot discern the difference between words and
things. rilu PRESIDENT has his policy : it has the
misfortune of being impracticable; what its merits
are may be an interesting question for the future
historian, but useless for those who have to act at
once to waste time in discussing. But ANDREW
JOHNSON cannot see this; and that his consistency
may be maintained, the old battle is renewed im-
mediately after the late desperate close. The veto
in the Arkansas Bill will of course be followed by
the veto of the " Omnibus Reconstruction Bill,"
which was passed on the 10th inst. in the Senate
by 31 to 5, and is now before the PRESIDENT. The
Act includes Alabama, although Senator TRUMBULL
moved to strike that State out, the Constitution
having failed for want of the required number of
the registered votes for its ratification, but he was
defeated by a majority of eight. The same condi-
tion is imposed on North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama, as on
Arkansas, with the a 1 lition for Georgia, that the
provision against enforcing contracts made before
the year 1865 be struck out. It is also enacted
that the PRESIDENT shall, within ten d lys after
these S ates have complied with the terms of
the measure, notify this to Congress. It is
doubtful if the Senate will pass the " Omnibus"
Bill over the PRESIDENTS veto in view of the
fact that it includes a State which, according to the
provisions of the Reconstruction Acts passed by
Congress, failed to ratify the Constitution. The
best evidence is also before the Chamber that public
feeling in Alabama is averse to the Constitution.
General MEADE arrived at Washington on the 10th
June, and as Alabama is in his military district, he
took uponhimself to protest against forcing the Con-
stitution on the people. If the " Omnibus" Bill be
passed over the PRESIDENT'S veto, a question of
great interest will arise—What will be Mr. JOHN-
SON'S action in reference to the part expressly dele-
gate Ito him by the Act ? Will he report to Con-
gress, as directed? If so, he recognizes its legality.
which, in all probability, his veto Hiil strenuously
d any ; if not, there will be another inf&i►gement
of law, arid, conseq zently, a case for Impeac!iinete.
ludeed, some assert that the dilemma has beet.
carefully prepared for the PRESIDENT, an l Congress
is like the angry bull with head down and
eyes glaring, threatening oir ANDY, who takes
a singular di lig h t in flaunting a red rag
before the enraged brute. Mr. JOIINSON has dex-
terously escaped the effects of the last charge, and
in the " Omnibus" Bill it may be that the horns
are being lowered for another. But it may be that
the Senate, in which TRUMBULL'S amendment to
exclude Alabama was only rejected by a majority
of 8, will not pass the bill over the veto (always
supposing that it must be vetoed) by the two-thirds
majority. From all that we can gather the policy
of Congress is working well in the South. Such is
the testimony of independent travellers ; and
from Florida, the " Italy of the Union, " where
many last winter sought a climate, un-
usually genial, the general report coincides with
that of Mrs. BEECHER STJWE, who says " the
Southern people are no more inclined to re-
sist the laws, or to foster the spirit of rebellion,
than Vermont is." The planters are beginning to
discover that they will rule under any circumstances,
as their influence over the blacks cannot be de-
stroyed, and certainly not by the riff-raff which
finds its way from the North. In South Carolina
the late local election showed that thousands of
negroes have voted the Conservative ticket, having
swun g round from the Radical platform, to which
they had at first been enticed. We therefore
regret the PRESIDENT'S continued opposition
to a policy which on the whole is working favour-
ably in the interests of the South, and it is the more
culpable, as Mr. JOHNSON confines himself to de-
nouncing the Congressional policy without substi-
tuting anything in its place. We want to see the
Civil Governments restored, to see the Southern
Senators and Representatives in their seats in the
Capitol at Washington ; and this is the object of
the bill which the PRESIDENT has vetoed in the case
of Arkansas, and will surely veto in the case of the
other States. lie stigmatizes Congress as an illegal
body in so far as it does not represent all the States,
yet he rejects and counteracts every effort of Con-
gress to bring iu the representatives from the South.
lledenounces,military government in the States lately
in rebellion, yet lie refuses his sanction to the mea-
sures by which Congress would sweep away the
military rule and restore the States to the Civil
Constitutions framed and adopted by their own
inhabitants. Mr. JOIINSON cannot urge with truth
objectionable conditions as the reason for his oppo-
sition. Putting all the vile party cries aside, Con-
gresi has but one end, which it is the PRESIDENT'S
duty to forward—the security of Negro Emanci-
pation. And if ANDREW JOHNSON would but show
how best to attain it, instead of denouncing Con-
gress, he would more usefully employ his time, of
which surely enough has already been sacrifice], as
well as that of the Legislature by him, all of whom
are paid servants of the nation.

Our article was finished More the telegram dated
Washington, June 25, was received. As every-
body anticipated, the " Omnibus" Reconstruction
Bill was vetoed by President JOHNSON, but the
serious part of the affair is that the Senate by 30
votes against 8 has passed it over the veto, and the
Rept., se❑tatives by 105 against 30. If it really be
the intention to drive Mr. Joilmos into another
infringement of the law, upon which to ground a
charge of Impeachment, the LeBidlture is in the
right path ; but neither the Executive nor Legisla-
tive branches at Washington will benefit in public
estimation while thus engaged is playing at Go-
vernment, not the harmless farce enacted by chil-
dren, inasm'ich as it may be productive of infinite
mischief but of little good.

THE TEA TRADE, June 29.—The deliveries iu
London estimated for the week worn 2,085,3841 b, which
is an increase of 152,36-t as compared with the previous
statement.

llornhilit':; Pa:•e T 13.13 Si. h^r p.mitlc,7l2(tx,;•.
2 500 agents—confectioners in Loudon, and chemists in
the country—aro constantly rceoiving fresh supplies of
these long-avrroved teas. Sold only in packets.