The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-12 00:00:00

2/11-11.

LONDON, THURSDAY. DECEMBER 12, 1844.

The LEAGUE, whose death the monopolist journals
had announced with great joy and exultation, re-
appeared, in more than its pristine vigour, at Covent-
garden Theatre last evening. COBDEN, and \\Timor,
and VILLIERS, and BRIGHT, are all alive, and, as the
farmers' friends will find to their cost, kicking too.
There is no appearance of mortality about them, or
the army that supports them. The house was crowded
to excess—not with females who, at Exeter Hall and
some other places, are mustered to make a show--
but with men evidently intent on a purpose, intent to
destroy every incubus on trade, and deprive the land-
owners of a tax raised on the rest of the community,
which, as regards its oppression, and especially
the mode of levying it, has nothing like it in the Sta-
tute-book. It stands alone. To no other tax but
the landlords' tax is the sliding-scale applied. When
our misguided Contemporaries pronounced the League
defunct, they mistook silence for death, and seemed
more ignorant than our Gallic neighbours, who could
always judge of the terrible onset which was to follow
the death-like silence of the brave !

If the enemies of the corn-laws have been quiet,
they have not been idle. They have been arranging
plans for a new campaign, collecting statistical
details of registrations and elections which will
make an i:npression in higher quarters than Stowe
or Goodwood, and realise in right earnest the
memorable saying of Sir R. PEEL, that the battle of
the Constitution is to be fought in the registration
courts. On this subject the speech of Mr. WILSON
is replete with important facts —facts as cheering for
the present, as pregnant with promise for the future.
Already ninety-eight boroughs, out of one hundred
and eight, have been shaken to their foundations, and
the Monopolists are quaking in the terrors of corrup-
tion; and should a general election take place to-
morrow, thirty-two seats which now support the
Corn-laws would be changed into free traders, making
a difference of sixty-four votes ! This is a fair be-
ginning, and time and perseverance will work the rest.
As with the boroughs, so will it be with the coun-
ties—the strongholds of the landlords. What the
CIJANDOS clause has done to fortify the aristocracy in
..their domination over the connties, the forty-shilling
freehold will speedily neutralise, and eventually
destroy. The Monopolists have presumed so long on
the patience of the people, that they fancied they
might go on for ever. But the exertions of the
League will soon convince them of their error. As
Mr. VILLIERS truly observed, they will find that the
-"enormous wrong" of the corn-laws has at length
roused the country not only to think, but to
act too. Endurance has had its limit, and
x
The oppression must give place to justice.
"'Ace of reason ha 3 gone forth, and
'Ends a ready echo in eveery unprejudiced mind.
This is the true secret of the etsrsutohf
wt
eLhe
ma gaukee
s;
and it is their conviction of
that
the Monopolists tremble.

We will not discuss the merits of the several
speeches here—to be fully appreciated, they must be,
read. We never heard more soul- stirring eloquence,

and the vast assemblage seemed to feel its
force by their mute attention for the moment—and
their simultaneous bursts of hearty enthusiasm when
the chord of feeling was touched. It was altogether
a scene to be witnessed—not described. Sir ROBERT
PEEL will do wisely to take heed in time. Such
meetings as that of last evening must eventually
carry the purpose for which they assemble—
that purpose being, not for the advantage of a class,
but for the general good. How much better, then,
would it be for him to yield, while conces-
sion would be grace, rather than be com-
pelled to grant that emancipation to commerce
which he formerly did to conscience ! The very
tendency of his acts points to free trade—why then
does he hesitate—when a prompt avowal would so
much redound to his own fame, and conduce to the
permanent prosperity of the country ?

We quote the following significant communica-
tion from Exeter, which appears in the columns of
a morning Contemporary :—" Considerable sensa-
tion was created in this city on Sunday last by cer-
tain rubrical adoptions in the performance of Divine
worship at all the parish churches, according to the
instructions issued by the Bishop of EXETER. The
first was at St. Sidwell's Church, where the ceremony
af christening was performed in the middle of the
service. In every one of the parish churches the
sermon was preached in a surplice instead of a gown,
and several of the congregations were so offended by
this innovation, that they quitted the church the mo-
ment they saw the minister, so attired, enter the pul-
pit. It is said that the churching of women will in
future be performed in the middle of the Sunday
morning service, and a very strong feeling exists as
to the indelicacy and impropriety of such a practice."
Such are among the first-fruits of the Bishop of
EXETER'S late Pastoral Letter to the clergy of his
diocese. Though a minister of the gospel of peace,
he has contrived to scatter the seeds of discord far
and wide throughout his see, and to put its clergy
and its laity in a position of direct antagonism to-
wards each other, the extent of whose evil conse-
quence no one can at present foresee. Already have
the parishes of St. Lawrence, St. John, and St.
George, Exeter, sounded the tocsin of alarm, and
warmly remonstrated against the alterations in Di-
vine service proposed by their diocesan, adding,
that these alterations are the revival of practices
which having universally fallen into desuetude by the
common consent of the Bishops and the laity at large,
have been pressed upon the latter by only a small
minority in the Church; and they deem it not merely
inexpedient but unjust, that the majority of the clergy
and laity should be compelled to bend to the example
of this crotchety minority. The flame of discontent
once lighted in Exeter will not be confined to that
epi-copal city, but will be sure to spread like wild-
fire, and in a short time we may expect to see the
whole diocese a prey to dissensions, heart-burnings,
and jealousies of the most harassing and unchristian
character. And will not other sees, too, catch the in-
fection? Assuredly they will, and not a zealous
Tractarian minister in England, but will be encou-
raged by the sanction of the Bishop of EXETER, to
persist in the revival of absurd, obsolete usages. tThis
rash, officious Prelate is, we suspect, little aware of
the nature of the apposition he is raising up against
himself. Not only will'he have the common sense of
the male portion of his flock arrayed in vigorous hos-
tility to his decrees, but if it be really true that, among
other ridiculous, exploded usages, he has sanctioned
the churching of women publicly in the middle
of the Sunday morning service, he will have
ill the females also of his diocese in arms against
rim; and justly so, for we cannot imagine any-
, .hing more offensive to their. sense of propriety
ban their being exposed during the ceremony of
churching—which hitherto has been in some degree
of a private character, usually taking place either
before or after the evening service—to the full, broad
gaze of a crowded congregation. If once the female
portion of his flock declare unanimously against him,
we would not give much for the Bishop's chance of
success in his innovations ! He will be beaten to a
dead certainty, and have ample cause to rue the hour
when he brought a hornet's nest about his ears. As
regards the question of the surplice, which
teems to have given such °Renee to the
good people of Exeter, we can scarcely wonder at
their dislike of the innovation, for trifling
as it is in itself, it becomes of consequence when
taken in connexion with the revival of other wages
notoriously borrowed from the Church of Rome. It
is evident, indeed, from their present conduct, that
the Tractarian clergy, and those in authority who
approve of their tenets, are endeavouring by degrees to
habituate their flocks to Romish practices, and to wean
them from their long-cherished distrust of Popery.
Already they have succeeded, to some extent, in their
jesuitical attempts ; and it is high time, therefore, that
a bold, resolute stand should be made against
them. 'We will even go further, and add, that
no clergyman who advocates the Tractarian heresy,
should be allowed any longer to minister at a Pro-
testant altar, or receive the emoluments of the Pro-
testant Establishment. He should be looked on as
a wolf in sheep's clothing, and be driven from the
fold without delay. It must come to this at last,
and the sooner, therefore, the Tractarian zealots are
thus summarily and vigorously dealt with, the better
it will be for the interests of that great national
Establishment, which is now placed in imminent peril
by their underhand practices.

Madrid papers of the 3d instant have been received.
The accounts from Logrono, and the north'of Spain
generally, are some of them of a painful character.
According to the Castellano, the disclosures made by
ZURBANO'S BOBS led to the apprehension of M. GAM..
BOA, General ITURBI, the Advocate OYNELBY, and
a number of other persons, who have been conducted
to Logrono. If this information be correct, we fear
there has been some foul play in the business; for it
is not likely these young men would have made any
disclosures whatever, unless on the understanding
that their lives would be saved. The Eco del
Comercio publishes a letter from Logrono, stating
that ZBRBANO'S country house had been levelled to
the ground, the furniture burnt, and the cattle killed.
Two hundred persons were seised at Saragossa on the
26th ultimo, eighty of whom have been thrown into
prison. A Council of War had been constituted
for the trial of the insurgents in other dis-
tricts. On the 11th, NARVAEZ, in full uniform,
appeared in the Chamber of Deputies, and presented
a Bill for " granting pensions to the families of the
officers put to death, after being made prisoners, by
the rebels in their recent attempts on the frontier of
the province of Huesca."
The following paragraph appears in the letter of a
Bilbao Correspondent :—" A Spanish vessel, which
has just entered this town from Havannab, after a
passage of thirty-two days, left that town almost de-
stroyed by an earthquake. The finest buildings have
been subverted; there have been a large number of
victims, and a part of the population is fled to the
con ntry."