The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-23 00:00:00

£flørni'ni

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1844.

Mr. O'CONNELL'S new scheme of a Federal move-
ment, which was formally propiunded in the las
manifesto issued from Derrynane, does not appear t,
have been received so favourably by the Repeal agi
tators as the lion. and Learned Gentleman antic-
pated. We say " anticipated," because there was :
confident tone in his communication on the subject.
which implied his belief that Federalism, on his puis-
sant recommendation, would be welcomed wits
eagerness by his trusting countrymen, and occup
their attention to the exclusion of total and unqua
lified Repeal. But on this occasion Mr. O'CoNtsp.in
seems to have been somewhat out in his reckoning, ani-
to have over-estimated his own influence. Symptoms
dissatisfaction are beginning to exhibit themselve
among the Repealers and their organs, who do not a.
all relish the idea of being compelled to stop half-
way, when they had made active preparations fo:
going baldly on to their journey's end ; and more
than one journal has pretty openly intimated its
,opinion that Federalism is little or no better than a
humbug, calculated only to amuse and divert the at-
tention of the people, without being productive of any
substantial, comprehensive, or permanent good. The
Belfast Vindicator, which seems nervously solicit-
ous to speak the truth in the gentlest and least
offensive manner possible, says with marked sig-
nificance—considering the peculiarly awkward
position in which it is placed—" There is
no concealing the fact that some discontent has been
expressed by many parties that Mr: O'CONNELL, ap-
pears to have forced the adoption of the Federal prin-
ciples upon the people." Two of the principal Dublin
journals have expressed themselves to.a similar effect;
and Mr. GAVAN DL'FFY, the sanguine and energetic
editor of the Nation—who, it may be remembered,
rushed from the undesired embraces of the Richmond
Penitentiary about the same time with his great leader
—thus records his opinion of Federalism in a respect-
ful, well-written letter to Mr. O'CONNELL :--" Fe-
deralism, as it is interpreted by some of the soundest
men of that party, demands local Parliaments for the
three divisions of the empire, and an imperial
one in common. Now, if this principle be in-
sisted on, Federalism is an impracticability, for it
implies a re-organisation of the British Constitution.
Apart from any other objection to it, it raises a new
andtremendous difficulty, which does not exist against
Repeal:
of which
We want to restore an institution
we have been, robbed • the Federalists, who insist
on
pushing their principle as far as it will go, want a
reconstruction of the empire upon a
am not deceived in believing Ilis to be thebasis. If
the party, are we not wooing shipwreck if object of
we embark
in the same boat with them ? Moreover,
the Federalists would give us a legislative scoomuen ofl
consisting of only one chamber. Here we have a'
second innovation, and, of course, a second difficulty.
They- ask a thing foreign to the British Coast':
tution, and a thing which, for that reason, would un-
doubtedly be refused." In the above passage Mr.
DUFFY clearly proves, not only that Federalism is
an impracticability, but that it is an impossibility—
Repeal itself not more so. His opinions are, at the
present crisis, well worthy of attention ; for, as editor

of the Nation, he exercises an influence over a large
body of the more uncompromising Repeal agitators
and this influence it is pretty clear he will
be exceedingly reluctant to exert in favour
of Federalism. From these and other indica-
tions, it is manifest that Mr. O'CONNELL will
have to encounter a more decided opposition
than he had calculated on, in his endeavour to substi-
tute Federalism for total Repeal ; and we should not
be at all surprised were his next manifesto from
Derrynane to announce his abandonment of the mea-
sure in deference to the popular wish. For our own
part, we regard the one crotchet in precisely
the same light as we regard the other—that
is to say, we think them both equally imprac-
ticable, and if practicable, pregnant with hazard
not only to England but to Ireland also. Impressed
with this conviction, we are by no means too sorry to
see the Irish mind beginning to be divided between
the three visionary schemes of Triennial Parliaments,
Federalism, and a total Repeal of the Union, for by
such division the agitation for unconditional
Repeal will be greatly weakened, and the
question will cease to wear that alarming
aspect which it wore throughout the memo-
rable year of the monster meetings, when Ire-
land bade fair to be at length united on the subject
of the restoration of her domestic legislature. We
have said that we do not regret this division among
the Irish agitators ; we should add, however, that
in one respect it is to be regretted, inasmuch as it

will tend to impress Sir ROBERT PEEL with the belief
that the Repealers are not so united or so formidable
a body as he had imagined them to be, and conse-
quently furnish him with a plea for conceding less to
the sister country than he had previously determined
on, for all the world knows that he is one of those
statesmen who yield nothing, except from the pressure
of necessity.

The two besetting sins, and most characteristic
distinctions of our days, are, certainly, cant and cox-
combry. A meddling patronage jobbing Prelate is
the type of the one—a ceremonial-loving, priestcraft-
preaching parson of the other. Of such Prelates, the
" Church-multiplying-principle" Bishop of LONDON—
and of such parsons, the Puseyite crotchetty Vicar of
Ware, are about the most obtrusive examples that
occur to us. The readers of The Sun cannot have
forgotten the account we gave some months ago, of
the rise and progress of the parochial polemics which
had then involved, and have ever since retained, the
contumacious vicar and his offended parishioners in
terms of mutual but mast unseemly dissatisfaction
with one another. The Bishop, being appealed to by
the men of Ware, did interpose, to some extent, be-
tween them and their pastor ; but so reluctantly and
ungraciously, that, like a certain other peace-maker,
his intervention did but " worse embroil the fray."
The churchwardens addressed a respectful letter to his
Lordship. The Right Reverend Father snubbed the
churchwardens in reply, with no more of forbearance
or meekness than one of his prelatical predecessors
would • have exhibited to a body of disputatious lay-
men in the palmiest days of the Popedom. Tl:e
churchwardens renewed their representations ; but
brought down only a rude and ill-bred notice from
the Right Reverend " CHARLES JAMES'S" secretary,
haughtily intimating—if we rightly remember—
that the churchwardens, having thought fit to publish
their correspondence with that gentle Bishop, with-
out previous permission obtained from him, his spi-
ritual Lordship declined to favour them with (the or-
dinary civility of) an answer. Therefore the church-
wardens and the parishioners, who were of the Esta-
blished Church, left to their own remedy, and finding
the vicar inflexible in his resolution to uphold the

literal injunctions of the Rubric, even as to those ob-
servances which they deemed most offensive to the
opinions of the great bulk of the Church in the pre-
sent day, and utterly opposed to the practice of its
ministers during the last century and a half, had re-
course to other modes of proceeding. They required
that, having declared himself bound by the letter of
the Rubric in all things, he should in all things con-
form his official deportment to it, and, inter alia, pub •
tidy catechise the children of the parishioners after
the second lesson. This observance the vicar could
not well escape from, and therefore complied with,
until almost a month ago, when he discontinued it, on
an alleged pretext which will be found to form the
main subject of a further correspondence, terminating
only a few days ago, that we print in another
column.

From this last correspondence it will be seen that,
notwithstanding the lofty pretensions of indefeasible
religious duty and solemn convictions, operating with
the Puseyite vicar to follow the letter of the Rubric,

"even in the event of his being enjoined to the con-
rary" by his spiritual Lordship, they have not been
sufficiently founded in the good faith of primitive
Christianity, or the stern truthfulness of a pure mo-
rality, to induce the Rev. Gentleman to redeem his
own pledge to his parishioners (as to his concurring
on the certain conciliatory " arrangement" referred to
in Mr. COBHAM'S letter to the Bishop), or to with-

hold him from starting, at the eleventh hour, a pe-
cuniary difficulty, of-his own suggestion, as the flimsy
plea for his departure from his reverend word. This
fact supplies "le mot d'enigine." Nothing can exceed
the Lord Bishop of LONDON'S disinterested anxiety to
multiply new churches within his diocese, except--
his interested anxiety to secure the presentation pa-
tronage which they give him. So this reverend

vicar, Mr. CODDINGTON'S, enthusiastic reverence for
the Rubric commentary on a discipline and doctrine

which the ritual enjoins, among other things, a lowly
And charitable bearing on the part of the minister to

16 flock—is to be moved from the inflexible ad-
lesion of a Puseyite "purist" to the letter—of his

.iwn undertaking, by a "pecuniary difficulty." We
ire really disgusted with the disgraceful exhibitions
which this fashionahle purism—this " favourite fancy"
of fanatical incumbents and ambitious prelates, whose
blw•els yearn for the re-installation of Romish power,
with Romish forms, in the ministers of the altar—
.his vain and insidious Puseyistn, in short, is con-
stantly tempting our Protestant Churchmen to make
f themselves. The evil it works to the cause of the

Lle.foruied Church as by law established"— an

,pithot of constitutional modification which your
l'usevites naturally detest—are incalculable. Whole
-!nngregations desert her service, and are forgetting
:ier communion. In another town of Hertfordshire,
not long since, the offended parishioners fitted up a
Dissenting meeting-house, we are told, for the cele-
bration of the form of worship which should have been
presided over by their minister; but he had become
tainted with this spiritual coacombry—(we know no I
setter designation fur it). And when the Church at
large finds its own Prelates abetting the mischief—
like our sleek Bishop, in his correspondence with Mr.
COBHAM, as representative of the churchwardens of
Ware—it will soon begin to doubt how far its alle-
giance can be tendered to a hierarchy of which some
leading members so ill discharge the reciprocal duties
of protecting it from vain and schismatic innovations,
whether of ceremony or of doctrine ; and of meek
and Christian patience and gentleness in communing
with their flocks. Does the Bishop of LONDON prefer
to aid the peace of the Church or the progress of
Pusey ism ? Do his notions of pastoral love and epis-
copal responsibility attach the stronger claims upon
his countenance and favour to the respectful but
earnest remonstrances of a congregation, devoted to
the religion, and the modes of worship, adopted by
them, after their forefathers, for many past generations ;
—or to the fussy mummery of a Pusey-struck vicar ?
Does the Right Rev. Prelate opine that the Church

was instituted for the people, or for its bishops ?
Does he hold it better, wiser, mere Christian-like, to
vindicate the freaks of this Mr. CODDINOTON, or to
cut off from the Church the congregation she has

hitherto possessed at Ware ? Will he have Puseyism
or Protestantism ?

Intelligence has been received from Lisbon to the

16th instant. The Minister for Foreign Affairs re-
cently called on the Chamber of Deputies, to take
into consideration the proposed abolition of the privi-
leges of the conservatory tribunals, possessed by
foreigners. The Report of the Committee ap-
pointed to inquire into the use made of the ex-
traordinary powers granted to Government dur-
ing the late troubles (of which Committee the
brother of the Minister CABRAL was a mem-
'
ber) was favourable to the Government. The
documents referred to in the Minister's report of the
use =de of those powers were moved for, and their
production opposed IT the Government. The ac-
count of the expenditure of the loan of 2,000 contos
for the suppression of the revolt were likewise

moved for, and refused, but prom;sed to be
produced at some futvre period. The report
of the Committee appointed to inquire into
the legislative decrees of the Government, pro-
mulgated during the recess, speaks in very doubtful
terms of the licitness of those measures, but ends by
recommending the Chamber to grant for that time
only a Bill of Indemnity, in order to avoid greater
evils from discordant relations between the legislative
body and the Government.

A Bill introduced into the Chamber of Peers for the
abolition of slavery in the Portuguese possessions in
Asia, by the Count DE LAVRADIO and the Viscount
SA DE BANDEIRA, was opposed by Ministers, and
lost by a majority of 23 votes against 18. The right
of appointing bishops to the Asiatic sees, in places at
present or formerly under the dominion of Portugal,
in virtue of what is termed "the Royal Padroado,"
had been recently referred to a Committee of the
Chamber of Deputies, in whose report the right is
asserted of appointing to the Bishopric of Bombay.
The right is contested by the Court of Rome, and
if we mistake not, about two years ago Dr. WHELAN)
an Irish ecclesiastic, was elevated to the Episcopacy,
placed in possession of the See of Bombay, and re-
cognised in his episcopal capacity by the East India
Board.

Madrid Journals to the 14th instant have come to
hand. Intelligence up to the 17th has, however,
reached Paris by telegraph. The following is the—