The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF lIIE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Saturday Review says that Mr. Disraeli is very
fortunate in one respect. If he makes a joke, it is pro-
nounced, as a matter of course, to be a good one. What-
ever he likes to hazard is welcomed as a triumph of
audacity and art. That what he says should be constantly
accepted as a pleasing and outrageous extravagance, a
hing quite apart from real life and to beregarded only as a
part of the performance he is engaged to offer, does notin the
least injure him, lower his character, or weaken his position.
There is not the slightest use in being severe; or moral, or
indignant about him. There he is, successful in a peculiar
way as few men in any nation or any age have been suc-
cessful ; and as the world has crowned him with glory,
there- is something of folly in harping on the audacious
manner in which he appeals to the passing credulityof his
hearers. He had nothing to say on current politics that
would bear saying. Twice lately he has tried startling
effects as if he were serious in using them, and both times
he has failed. IT.. first thought that it would have an
excellent sensational success if he asserted that the dises.
tablishment of the Irish Church would be a worse evil to
the country than a foreign conquest. But this would not
do at all. It was too absurd, and everybody laughed
at him, and not with him, for trying it. The "No Popery"
cry has equally disappointed him. It seemed as if simple.
honest, unreflecting people might be trusted to be a goon
deal agitated and alarmed by a Prime Minister declaring
that if the Irish Church were disestablished there would no
more be any Protestantism anywhere. But the English
public, if not very wise, could not stand this. It was obvious
that a Prime Minister who spoke in this way must think
Protestantism a very poor, and even ridiculous thing. If it
would fade away directly like a dream in the morning
before the rising sun of Romanism unless the Irish bishops
sat in the House of Lords, it must be one of the hollowed,
and most trumpery religions that ever deluded civilised men.
That Mr. Disraeli spoke merely in joke when he delighted
and bewildered his hearers by talking of an assured Con-
servative majority was assumed by all who listened to
him on Monday, and by most of those who criticised him
on Tuesday. But it is just possible that he really was in
earnest. It is whispered that, in the very highest Conser-
vative circles, a belief prevails even now that the Govern.
ment will have, if not an absolute majority, yet a follow-
ing short by a very small number of an equality of votes.
It was bad enough, if he meant the joke, that he should
have to make it, and that he should have thought auda-
cious jesting was the only road to the approval of his
hearers. But not to have meant a joke at all, and to have
been merely describing what he believed to be the real
position of the Conservatives and then to have been
greeted as a most successful humourist telling an after-
dinner bouncer in his best style, must have been a mortifi.
cation even to a man who has leavnt to bear all modifica-
tions with the patience of his race.
The Imperial Review remarks that Mr. Disraeli is Bala
by his enemies to have studied of late years, not without
considerable success, the Palmerstonian method in the
treatment of political affairs ; and it may certainly be
admitted that since that sagacious Minister was borne to
his grave, just three years ago, there has been nobody
found to compete with Mr. Disraeli in that profound
knowledge of human nature, and more especially of the
nature of English politicians, by which his lordship con-
trived to keep in order the proudest and most independent
body in the world—the British Parliament. Nor is Mr.
Disraeli merely the copyist of an example so well deserv-
ing the attention of English statesmen as that of his
departed rival. The singular felicity of language which
has always distinguished him, the exquisite grace with
which he contrives to express in one or two happy sen-
tences, thoughts which any of his contemporaries would,
only be able to bring out in the space of three or four
lumbering paragraphs—and would even then mar in their
collocation; the consummate ease with whichire marshals
all the considerations which tell in his favour, and the
poetic originality of his mind, ever ready to present to his,
listeners some new idea or some novel illustration likely t 9
modify their views on any particular controversy—all
these traits of Mr. Disraeli's genius have combined to
make him the model of an orator for an occasion which,
without ,losing sight of its festive associations, has yet
something of a national significance.

The Spectator pronounces it the greatest of mistakes to
imagine or believe that the main issue before the country
in this election is the fate of the Anglican Establishment
in Ireland. The removal of that injustice is only the first
of a series of measures intended to bind Ireland to the
empire, to
.end for ever the civil war which, under more
or less patent disguises, has raged been the two islands for
six hundred years, to weld the three kingdoms for the
first time into one united, contented, and therefore
powerful realm, presenting to the world, to America no
less than to Europe, one unbroken front. If the Tories
triumph, if the Liberal majority is even decreased, if the
majority is not great enough to cow all opposing forces
and pulverise all opposing interests, the last hope of
reconciliation will have passed away ; for Great Britain,
solemnly summoned to do justice to Ireland, will as
solemnly have refused. To refuse to sweep away the
Irish Church is to dismiss the Irish suit, to declare once
for all, in the presence of the whole world, that Irishmen
are not equal members of the family, not partners
in the concern, not even allies, but dependants, who
may be kindly treated, but must wear the livery of
their masters, go to church as they are bid, live on
all essential points a life regulated by wills other
than their own. It is to bid five millions of men,
possessed of every natural, moral, and legal right that we
possess ; men who have died for us in heaps ; who at this
moment, in every quarter of the world, uphold not only
our rights, but more than our rights—our claims, sometimes
far in excess of right—whom we trust everywhere with
power, and who in the long history of the empire have
never yet betrayed the trust ; whom we should send to-
morrow against any foe on earth, never doubting their
fidelity—it is to bid them, we say, see once for all that
their solitary hope is in rebellion ; that while they main-
tain their fidelity their will can never be respected, their
consciences never honoured, their idea of social order
never allowed free play, that they will not be even welcome
guests in the house they have helped to build. This
election will determine the drift of British policy for years;
and if the Tories win, for years Great Britian will remain
unaltered, a land ruled by a tolerant feudalism, in which
all are happy except the multitude, all claims are
acknowledged save those of manhood, all rights are
respected save those of free thought, all aspirations are
welcomed save those which tend towards equality.
There is a leader in the London Review upon the letters
of Mr. Rathbone Greg. Our contemporary remarks that
pure Erastianism is out of date. The Irish Church is de-
fended by three classes of persons—those who are fanati-
cally in dread of the Pope; those who believe in Protes-
tant domination in Ireland ; those who with religious and
social zeal treasure the existence of the English Establish-
ment as essential to the welfare of this country. Mr.
Greg is utterly an outsider from all these classes of Church
defenders, and an outsider who defends orthodox
institutions from amidst sceptics does more harm
than good to the objects of his unnatural solicitude.
An Erastian such as Bolingbroke or Disraeli is tolerated
because it is part of his hoilour to make tools of sacred
things ; but we shall never see another Hobbes ; and Mr.
Greg, even if he had the strength of that Ulysses, would
bend his bow in vain. Amongst a few whimsical minds
there lurks a disposition to maintain religious establish-
ments without religion ; but the real tendency of the age
is towards the maintenance of religion without religious
establishments. The Established Church of England is in
no danger, because it does not contradict or hamper the
religious life of any section of the community, and because
every day lessens the social disabilities of Nonconformity ;
but its worst enemy could not prejudice this age more dis-
tinctly and bitterly against it than by identifying its
character and fortunes with those of a sister establish-
ment which is neither missionary nor national—which is
condemned to be pruned away wherever it has any chance
of doing active good, and which is maintained wholly
without reference to any spiritual purpose.
The John Bull thinks it was not till after the elderly
female of tradition had exhausted all her energies in a
fruitless chase after the recalcitrant ducks that she hit
upon the milder method of appealing to their feelings in
the well-known formula, " Duckie, duckie, duckie, come
and be killed." And so the " leading journal "—we are
Conservative enough to adhere to an old-fashioned title,
though it has long ceased to be applicable—after writing
on Thursday as if disestablishment was a dire punishment
to be drawn down upon the devoted heads of the clergy
by their folly and obstinacy in opposing its mandates and
rejecting its favourite, devotes a leading article on Friday
to convince them that if they did but know their true
interests, it would be the best thing in the world for them
to Lc robbed " of all they most prize as ministering to their
prPe and exaltation." There is something refreshingly
cool in the whole tone of the article. The most feeble-
minded duck could hardly be tuken in by such
an invitation to proffer itself for the slaughter. 'The
line of argument is, that it is better to fly to
ills you km w not of thou endure those you Lave.
The testimony of Mr. Spurgeon to the starvation system
of Giant Voluntaiyism lo:s apparently been forgotten by
the Times when it makes the reckless assertion that it is
ac evi:lent and conspicuous fact that every poor clergyman
'• would under a voluntary system have done better for
himself, and would even now be able to do better for him-
self." It is the less strange that Mr. Spurgeon's unwilling
confession should have been forgotten, when even the
oracle's own words of wisdom pass so soon from its memory.
The echoes of its remarkable article on the rectory of
Donnington must have died away, when we find that the
scandal of the low rate of payment of the majority of our
clergy is "not redeemed, but rather aggravated, by the
existence of rich preferments and high dignities, distributed
by private and political patrons."