The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.-SUN OFFICE, DEC. 17.

InEltuomarEn, Lowest, 36 ; Highest, 40 ; Noon, 41.
BAROMETER, 30.5.—W1ND, E.S.E.
NOTE.—The figures which follow the words "Lowest" and
" Highest" denote the lowest and highest state of the
Thermometer during the preceding twenty-four hours. All
the other observations are made at noon. Water freezes at
32 ; 55 en Thermometers is marked "Temperate," and on
Barometers "Fair" is generally placed opposite to 30', and
" Rain" at 29; but there is no certainty of dry weather
when the mercury falls below 30.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE THIS DAY.
El) minutes after I j Evening... 49 minutes after 7

ponents of Catholicism in every form and variety
that the Establishment ever possessed. He was a
more uncompromising Protestant, if possible, than
even Lord ELDON. The ablest pamphlets he ever
wrote were written in a spirit of furious opposition

to Catholic Emancipation. He ransacked the Eng•

lish language for the most violent terms wherein to
express his horror and detestation of Popery, its
principles, its ceremonies, and its usages. The Pope
was to him Antichrist, and the priests the undoubted
issue of his antichristian loins. And yet we now
find him giving his insidious, indirect encouragement
to Puseyism, which, as all the world knows, is but a
modified species of Catholicism 1 His past principles
are all forgotten, or regarded with shameless in-

difference, and he can now endure, through the
medium cf a Pastoral Letter, to give the heaviest

blow and the greatest discouragement to the reformed
Protestant Establishment that it has met with for

many a long year past! For let no one suppose that
the mischievous effects of the Letter in question will
be confined to the diocese of Exeter alone. They
will be felt far and wide. The more zealous and de-

termined among the Puseyites will be confirmed in
their heretical tenets by the high sanction of the
apostolic PIIILLPOTTS, and will carry on the war
against sober, rational, moderate-minded Protestant •
ism, with more energy than ever. When once the

flame is fairly lighted, who shall extinguish it—who

shall say at what point the conflagration shall stop
The Archbishcps and Bishops may meet, if the,

please, in solemn conclave, but we wholly despair of
their being able to effect any substantial good by
their deliberations. If they attempt to conciliate, as
CHARLES JAMES LONDON did the other day, the
fanatical Puseyites, they will egregiously fail, for

when was fanaticism ever yet conciliated ? If, on
the contrary, they bring all the weight of their
episcopal authority to bear against thorn, they will,

in the first place, only confirm them in their heresy,
by impressing them with the proud, flattering idea
that they are martyrs to their conscientious scruples ;
and, secondly, they will expose the weakness of the
Church—its dissensions, its distrusts, and the heart

burnings raging within its bosom, in a broader, fuller
light to the public gaze, than bas yet been the case.
Alas ! tor the- gstablishtnent, once so lofty in its
tone—so firm and self-confident of its authority !
We greatly fear that this Puseyite or Tractarian
heresy is but a symptom of " the beginning of
the end."

Madrid journals of the 9th instant have been re.
ceived, but they bring no news.

The. Three per Cents. closed at 311 cash, and
31 15-16 at 60 days. The Five per Cents. 21i at
60 days ; the Coupons at 25 at GO days ; and the
Floating Debt at 73a for the 18th of January.

The accounts from Switzerland in the Path papers
confirm the statement which appeared in The Sun of
yesterday, that tranquillity had been re-established
for the time at Lucerne, though faint hopes were en-
tertained that it would be of long duration. The
Jesuits had gained a temporary victory, and they are
resolved not to rest till all their enemies—that is, the
friends of liberty and the enemies of priestcraft, are
put under their feet. Will the Protestant Cantons
and unprejudiced Catholics, however, submit to their
dominion ? The Coustitutionnel of Sunday takes a
gloomy view of the affair and looks forward to a civil
war. " The inhabitants of Lucerne," it says, " who
had risen against the Jesuits, have been dispersed,
their chiefs are in prison ; many have been killed, but
the Rev. Fathers are not satisfied; they care not for
civil war breaking out in the Cantons; they will
lend aid to it if necessary, and they will strengthen
their influence by the ruin of the Protestant States,
and those Catholic States, which will not sub-
mit to their dominion. Application will be made
to the Diet for ample satisfaction, and if that
is refused the Catholic population will be
excited against the Protestants, i.nd war will
ravage Switzerland, and the Jesuits will

than it is -worth, bait will persist in maintaining that
it ii the most absurd notion that ever entered into
the brain of a political day-dreamer Let Mr.
O'CONNELL come forward with some practicable re-
medial measures for Ireland—let him agitate the
landlord-and-tenant question, a reform in the Irish
Church, or an improvement in the national edu?.ation
system, and he will find a great portion of the Eng-
lish Press ready and even eager to take part with
him ; but he cannot in reason expect us to coincide
in his views of a Repeal of the Union, when we
know and feel, in common with the majority of
our countrymen, that while such a measure would be
highly injurious to England, it would be absolutely
ruinous to Ireland. Indeed Mr. O'CoNNELL himself,
whatever he may choose to allege to the contrary, is
at length awakening to a conviction of this truth.
We hear no more about the plan of assembling the
three hundred delegates in Dublin, each with a hun-
dred pounds in his breeches-pocket---no more proposals
for monster meetings—no more confident predictions as
to the exact year and month when the Irish
Parliament will assemble in College-green, with

Tom STIELE for its Speaker—all these schemes and
prophecyings are at an end ; and we have instead, what?
—a vague exhortation to Irishmen to " be up and stir-
ring," with a view to the acquisition of Repeal some
time or other! " Oh, lame mad impotent conclusion !"
Whenever a Vestry agitator has nothing else to say,
he invariably makes a point of exhorting his fel-
low-parishioners to " be up and stirring," and usually
adds, that the " eyes of Europe are upon them !" In his
speech at Waterford Mr. O'CoNromr, has not thought
it beneath him to take a leaf out of the Vestryman's
book, for, after strenuously recommending his hearers
to "be up and stirring," he winds up by assuring
them that " the eyes of Europe are upon them," or—
to quote his own words—" we have already made
Ireland a subject of consideration to all the nations of
the earth 1"

, The ferment throughout the diocese of Exeter, in
consequence of the Bishop's late Pastoral Letter, still
• continues unabated. The parishioners of Tavistock,
and several other towns and villages, have already Es-
: sembled, or are about to assemble, in vestry on the
subject, while in the cathedral city of Exeter itself
there is scarcely a single parish that has not expressed
itself strongly in disapproval of the'proposed innovations.
St. Martin's is among the latest, though not the least
active, of those that have entered into the field of
controversy ; and at a vestry meeting which took
place in that church on Saturday last, it was moved,
among other equally emphatic resolutions, that, be-
lieving the safety of Government to be founded on
the purity, unity, and truth of the Established Re-
ligion, purged, as it has long been, of the errors of
Romanism, the parishioners were extremely jealous of
any attempts to restore dormant rubrics, canons,
Forms, ceremonies, or vestments, which might have
the effect of making even a true religion suspected to
be a false one. In consequence, evidently, of this
strong expression of public opinion throughout his
diocese on the part of the laity, the Bishop of EXETER
has deemed it expedient—as Sir ROBERT PEEL would
say—to address a letter to a rural dean, wherein he
states his readiness to permit his clergy to postpone
the use of the surplice in preaching till the first
Sunday in January next, but after that time, as we
gather from his communication, they are to wear it
on peril of incurring his sovereign displeasure. "If
there are any so perverse," adds his Lordship, "as to
deny to the Bishop the right to make such an order,
and if they threaten to leave the Church on account
of it, use with them all Christian persuasion ; let them
see that it is not really the surplice which is here the
point at issue, but it is the right and duty of the
Bishop. The real question, in short, is, whether there
shall be authority or not. Those who say there shall
not, must, be already separated in heart; and we dare
not sacrifice a necessary principle to their pleasure."
It will be seen by the above extract from his letter,
that, notwithstanding his studious affectation of the
conciliatory, the Bishop of EXETER sticks firm to his
text, and will insist—no matter how distasteful his
innovations may be to the laity of his diocese—on
the fullest and mzst unhesitating obedience being
paid to his orders. For three weeks longer his clergy
may still continue to preach in the old accustomed
black gown, but after that time, on must go the white
surplice ! Fiat juslitia, ruat catlum. The episcopal
mandate must be obeyed, even though obedience
involve the safety of the Established Church. We say
nothing of the Right Rev. Prelate's rash and intempe-
rate conduct in insisting on the revival of this and
other obsolete usages, but think of his glaring in-
consistency ! For many of the best years of his
life he was one of the most active and determined op

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SECOND EDITION.