The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC

The Saturday Review, pointing out the inconsistencies in
the Ritual Commissioners' Report, speaks of it as waste
paper. It may not be an objection to the commissioners'
report that it seeks to restrain variety only on one side,
but not on the other, and that it prohibits excess over and
beyond the appointed order or usage, but says nothing
sboi;t defect ; because it may be pleaded that the existence
of the commission was occasioned by a one-sided complaint,
awl because it may be suggested that, some day or other,
the commission may inquire into absolute neglect of
prescribed order, as they have already inquired into extra-
ordinary zeal beyond prescribed order. But it is a pave
objection to the report, that it seeks to set aside law by an
authority which is above or beyond law. As things stand,
lighted candles at Communion are lawful ; the Court of
Arches ha.,; pronounced them to be lawful ; but the com-
missioners say that, however legal, they are henceforth to
be, net prohibited by law, but prevented by what is not
law. For what they propose is, not a new law, but a new
executive. They ask that the bishop shall be forced to
forbid what the law has not ventured to say is unlawful in
one case, that of vestments, and which the law has actually
declared to be lawful in another case, that of lighted can-
dles. In other words, the report proposes to give to the
bishop, or rather to impose on the bishop, the necessity of
doing an illegal thing. And under what circumstances ?
The inculpated and objectionable usages are to be put a
atop to only on complaint. Where there is no complaint
they may still be retained. But where there is a minority
of dissentients, and such a microscopic minority as amounts
to three per soil., the very thing is to be disallowed in one
parish which is to be silently permitted in another. This
is a new way to seek the Church's peace and ensue it, and
to secure uniformity by providing that one man should
impose his views of Church order on three hundred and
thirty men, or that, ex hypothesi, five parishioners should
override fifty thousand. It is almost incredible, but it is
unfortunately true, that this wonderful eirenicon is
seriously proposed as a " precaution against frivolous
applications to the bishop." And certainly the force of
jesting could no further go when these grave and learned
personages, two-thirds of the commissioners, fully im-
pressed with the necessity of the National Church enjoy-
ing those "rightful liberties" which flow from its consti-
tution as " including men of varying shades of opinion,"
actually prohibit observances which may be " welcome to
some "—say a thousand—" but are offensive to others "
say three. And who are these three or four in a thousand
who are to regulate the public service of the Church?
Of course, the salt of the earth, the saints of the saints,
the cream of the Church's cream ? "Three resident
parishioners, who shall be householders, and declare
themselves to be members of the Church." The Tory
Reform Bill bears early and promising fruit, and the house-
hold suffrage of the majority in politics is now converted
into the household suffrage of the minority—three in
a thousand in religion. A whole and perhaps united con-
gregation of many hundreds is to be dictated by three
persons who may make themselves churchmen for a single
emergency, or a single vestry meeting. The commissioners
inform us that they have other work in hand, and that
they are engaged in revising rubrics, and doing a good
many other things, in which, among other qualifications,
it is probable that common sense may be required.
Having hitherto, in their many labours in preparing two
reports, drawn but little from the stores of this quality of
common sense, which undoubtedly many of them possess,
and some of them in other departments of duty generally
exercise, we shall expect that their future reports, if they
Venture upon any, will be distinguished by a business-like
and practical Character which the present recommenda-
tions of these venerable and dignified personages cer-
tainly do not possess.' It is, however, premature to speak
of future reports, since it may perhaps be generally consi-
dered that the commissioners may be relieved from further
labours.

The Spectator comments uprn the extraordinary nature
of the attempted murder of a distant relative by two boys
in the City. It never heard of such a case before. What
caa be the cause of an extraordinary attempt to murder
like this ? We have here two children, with a home they
appear to have regarded with some love, designing and
carrying out a war against society with all the cruel and
hard unscrupulousness of men who had measured them-
selves against the world, and decided that they would prey
upon it, instead of belonging to it. Can it be that that
faculty of woßde,r, which belongs most to the early stages
of knowledge, and which, in children accordingly, usually
exaggerates the awfulness of law and public authority,
and the dangers, both physical and moral, of transgressing
their commands, can ever be totally absent, so that the
conscience of children is neither more nor less startled by
crime than by ordinary childish guilt ? Evil as these
wretched little boys' acts have been, they seem to us not
so much more guilty, as much more unnatural in their
type of guilt, than the usual sins of boyhood. Most chil-
dren brought up by respectable parents are guaranteed
against such crimes by the mere awe which law and all its
paraphernalia inspire—through the mere fear of the world,
inexorable rules, and its carelessness for individuals—
V:rough the mere contrast, of. which they are so keenly
aware, between the safety of the home and the dangers
which accompany all drifting in, and, still more, defiance
of the big, hard, unknown world. These boys, one would
think, can have, had no safeguards of this kind. They
must have felt like men who had ceased to need the pro-
tectiun of the home, and who had ceased to feel awe of the
unknown severities which society keeps in store for those
who make war on it. They must have had little or none
of that imaginative dread which awakens children's con-
sciences, even when the sense of right is feeble. The fear
of violence and blood, and all the accessories of crime,
wears off with old criminals, but here it does not seem to
have existed. They robbed and slew, or apparently
intended to slay, when other children at worst pilfer and
lie and torture dumb animals. We doubt if the moral
guilt is worse, hut there is a strange and lurid absence of
social wonder about the deed—of that faculty which makes
children shrink from pitting themselves against the
visible and acknowledged forces of society, even when
they not shrink from secret indulgences at its expense.

THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE FINE

ARTS.

Mr. H. Ottley, according to annual custom, has deli-
vered a discourse "On the Art Season," at the rooms of
the Society for Encouraging the Fine Arts,before a numerous
assemblage of members and their friends. The speaker
made a rapid but comprehensive survey of the art history
of the year, including all points of interest connected with
public works, and the products of art as displayed at the
exhibitions of the season and in the printsellers' windows.
In the first-named branch of his-subject he referred par-
ticularly to the late competitions for the law courts and
the National Gallery, which had each resulted in a dead-
lock, and which had been so unsatisfactory that
he hoped they would be thrown aside altogether and the
questions reopened anew. There had at least been gained
this negative advantage from these abortive contests, that
the competing artists as a body had shewn themselves
utterly unappreciative of the special characteristics and
purposes of the buildings they proposed to erect, and that
this had been acknowledged to be the secret of their
failure. In any future competitions a lesson, it wns
to be hoped, would be taken from the past, and
buildings be produced as the result, which, withc.ut
adventitious ornamentation, too often incongruous with
the main purpose, should meet all the essential require-
ments of each particular case. Speaking of the hundreth
exhibition of the Royal Academy, now just opened, Mr.
Ottley said that, whether considered as a whole or in its
parts, it did not warrant the repetition of the hackneyed
description of newspaper critics, as being "fully up to the
average of former years." On the contrary, he considered
that it was an unprecedentedlybad exhibition, and one dis
creditable to the arts of the country. Tic did not think
there was a picture in the range of it which the country
would be prepared to put forward, whether at
home or abrcad, as fairly repres:nti the s'attt 3of our art.
This was a sad reflection, and on this hundredth anniver-
sary of the foundation of the Academy the question thrusts
itself upon the mind how far that institution would have
to be held responsible for the result as it stood before
them. The votaries of art amongst the community
had increases a thousandfold in number and intensity
of appreciative feeling during this eventful century.
The artists had also greatly increased in point
of numbers during the same period, but had the Cha-
racter of our art improved, had the number of artists
of first-rate merit increased amongst us in anything like
the same proportion? He thought not ; certainly there
were not three artists amongst us at the present day to
compare with Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hogarth, a
grand tr;univirate of the last century, f whom
owed anything to academic instructions. The discourse,
which excited considerable interest by the boldness of the
Principles asserted in it, was followed by a discussion in
which several artists and connoisseurs of distinction took
part.

The canonry in Well 3 Cathedral, vacant by the
&Ali of Canon Pinder, has been given ty the Dean
and Chapter to the Rev. Prebendary Bernard, rector of
IVa!eet.

The Bishop of Salisbury has now sufficiently
recovered from his recent severe illness to be able to resume
his confirmation tour in the Dorsetshire portion of his

Alocese.

Sir Wm. Jenner, Dart., M.D., has (says the
he;ll.:h Medical Journal) entirely rooovered from his indis-
posltion, and has returned to town. It has been arranged
that on her Majesty's visit this year to &MUNI ahe will
be attended by t. of CQWO,

THE Bl_ SHOP OF OXFORD O 2 THE
CHURCH.

The Bishop of Oxford lately attended a crowded meeting
at the Town Hall, Colchester, presided overby the mayor
of the borough (Major Bishop), in aid of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In his
opening observations his lordship said he conceived
that in the settling of our race in different parts of
ttie earth we were following the Providential law, and
enabling them to reproduce in the land of their adop-
tion the religion of their forefathers. (Hear, hear.)
Take, for instance, the hundred TY illions who dwell in
India, and for whom the Crown of England was respon-
sible. It was but that very morr:ag that, in answer to an
argument for maintaining our own Established Church in
Ireland, there was a taunt thrown out that we ought to
establish our Church in India. It was as easy as possible
to shew any sensible man the fallacy of this argument. It
was one thing to keep and another to found. (Hear, hear).
But these things always pointed to some truth. There
was never any smoke, be it ever so blue or faint, .a
tint, but there was the smouldering of a little fire that
caused it, and when men pointed out such inconsistencies
as that, they pointed to a truth, and that truth was this
—that if the people of Great Britain were for maintaining
religious establishments at home, because they believed it
to be the duty of a Christian Government to maintain such
aids to religion, they must be inconsistent in leaving the
multitudes in India so little taught as Christianity at
home leaves them taught at present. (Hear, hear.) His
lordship then read some extracts from a letter from the
Bishop of Calcutta, giving Most encouraging accounts
of the stir in the rative mind that was taking place in
India. But what were we doing (continued the bishop)
if we took from these people by giving them our
own science and our own doubts, and set before them
our unchristian leaven, and shaking in this way
all their own belief in that which once did lift them
up, if we were giving them nothing in the place of it?
But this work could not be done by the Government or
Parliament of the country, and for this plain reason—our
divisions at home made it impossible—it would make it
unjust to attempt to do it. The first duty of each Chris-
tian community within our common land was by earnest
endeavours within itself to do that which belonged to
its proportion in the whole community on the common
work, kccording to the consciences of those who did it.
Their cLairman had alluded to some threatening of our
Church at borne—to talk of disestablishment and the
like. Thank God it was nothingmore than talk at present.
(Applause.) Like many other mischiefs, it spent itself
in a little talk. (Hear, hear.) Political necessities, we all
knew, were very strong—if they could accomplish their
work by a little talk, and we could come in afterwards and
turn their talk into vapour, he thought it would be very
well for us. (Hear, hear.) His lordship then alluded to
the evil inflnehmes which were constantly going from this
country, citing as an instance the instructions that were
sent from England for the recent dastardly attempt to
destroy the life of our Prince Alfred in Australia. But,
thank God, said his lordship, there had been in that
Australian land a settlement of our English Church, and
on the previous Sunday there were prayers offered in all
the churches for the life of that young prince, and who
could doubt but that angels' hands had turned aside the
point of that weapon of death in answer to those prayers?
(A pplause.)