The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1844.

The Bishop of EXETER, ;ike another Julians,
seems resolved to create a popular ferment by his
Letters. Scarcely is the ink dry with which he
penned his two former ones, when he issues a third
addressed to the churchwardens of two parishes in
Exeter. This last epistolary communication breathes
precisely the same spirit as its predecessors. The
language is studiously courteous—the tone firm and
unbending to a degree• "The voice is the voice of

.1. ACOB, htv..t the hands are the hands of Es iv." Like
o; I GEostoE the THIRD, the Bishop sticks firm to his
If rerog,ative. He will not tolerate even the slightest
,',liir aur of remonstrance against his decrees.. He is
tt T ire rigid martinet than even Colonel MARTINET
firm ;elf, the notorious dis'Plinarian in the days
of t he Grande Mona.•;.que. He has erdained that
then shall be changes le the Church service
faro ughout his 60eese, and changes there shall be,
Do r .latter how til.`stasteful they may be to the great
bol: y- of the Devonshire laity. He acknowledges
that , the ch',nges are of no great moment—that some
•W t hem '.re even of a trifling character—but his fiat
r espeer,ng them has gone forth, and—like the laws
< if the Medea end Persians—that sovereign fiat must
),!I'.eld immutable. In justification of the arbitrary
cP arse he is pursuing, the Right Rev. Prelate pleads
o' ..ae 'necessity of restoring peace and harmony to the
' t ;hurch. We acknowledge the necessity, but we
t env the wisdom of the means taken for bringing
u
1i
:, :
l ot
is tamong
:seek to place on the firmest fo(.ting—peace in the
'Church, which cannot ha secured without uniformity
. l the restoration
myfirs otf duties,"
s, ordern says amongthe the
Bishop, cl e r ,
g,
ty.
o
11 -'n the worship of ALmronTY GOD." What flimsy
sophistry is this ! How (1003 the substitution
<,.f the white surplice fur the black gown contribute
to secure uniformity of worship ? The question is
: lot one of cketrine, but simply one of form, and
therefore is in no way connected with worship. But
7 hen, says the Right Reverend Prelate, I enforce the

i-wearing of the surplice as a means of restoring peace
AR gle Church. The answer to this argument shall
,i.) given in the words of the Exeter Post;—" In the
1 ~.hurches of St. David, St. Sidwell, and many others
! that we could mention, several of the congregation
)t( )ok their departure the moment they saw the
1.-,i,ergyinan enter the pulpit in his surplice. The
fueling of all Church goers appears unanimously to
b a that this alleged rubrical ob,ervance is an innova-
t ion that calls tor an immediate manifestation of
, public opinion !" A. change, whose very first effect
I is. to produce such results as this, is
I ertainly one most happily calculated to restore peace
aad harmony! It is as if a man should fling a big
ni 'one into a lake, by way of keeping its waters in a
st ate of undisturbed calmness. The Bishop professes
to be quite astonished at the uproar excited against
,ii s changes in the Church service. They are so
7,r ifling—so innocent—that it is an act of positive
9 bsurdity to protest against them. " They will be
! ound so trifling," ha tells his correspondents, " that I
!, -enture to think you will be almost ashamed to re-
i I ollect that you have suffered the arrogant dictation
r ‘.y" London newspapers, or the baseless suggestions
.^r persons nearer home, to terrify you with
1t y')l r) mere a bugbear." If the changes in question
: >e. really so trifling and unimportant, why does Dr
PHILLPOTTS insist on them with such pertinacity ?
Why does he disturb the minds of his laity by enforc-
ing innovations which he himself directly acknow-
ledges to be of no earthly importance ? Is it worth
while to throw a whole diocese into an uproar for a
mere trifle ? But the Right Rev. Prelate knows
well—whatever he may choose to maintain to the
ontrary—that the surplice question is no such
:rivolous one. True, on the first blush of the thing,
I
i t seems to be of no great moment whether a clergy-
nan preaches in a black gown or a white one—for it is

pis doctrine, and not his dress that is to be regarded;

Int then it should be borne in mind that the surplice
a virtual encroachment on old principles and asso-
' dations—is, in fact, a revival of one of the principal
,yinbols of Catholicism, and was abandoned as such at
,he period of the Reformation. It is in this light
,hat the laity of Exeter seem to regard it ; and
whether they be right or wrong in their view of the
luestion, we do think that the Bishop is hound in
ustice to make a concession to their conscientious
prejudices—more especially as he himself admits that
;he surplice is a change of so purely a trifling cha-
racter as to be hardly worth a moment's serious
consideration. We say nothing of his charge of ar-
rogance launched so unceremoniously against the
" London journals." Ile should be a good judge of
what is, and what is not, arrogant, for no man has
dealt more largely in this commodity than himself ;
:ind we suppose he is jealous at seeing—or fancying
that he sees—his favourite monopoly invaded by the
:Metropolitan Press. We have not yet done with the
_Bishop of EXETER, for we clearly foresee that for
,some time to come he will be constantly before the
aniline, in consequence of the popular turmoil which
lie is exciting so officiously throughout the length and
,)readth of his diocese.

We regret to perceive, by the advertised resolu-
tions of a meeting of bankers, landed gentry, and
others, of the county of Lam rk, held at the County-
hall in Hamilton on the I.sth instant, the Right Hon.
Lord BELHAVEN in the chair, that there is still an
influential portion of the Scottish people whose op-
position to the monetary legislation of Sir R. P.nal.
is based upon a very limited, and, therefore, very
dangerous view of the question. Keenly alive to the
impolicy and mischief of endeavouring to substitute
for a national symbolic currency (of small bank-
notes) a gold circulation of positive intrinsic salon
(and for that very reason of fearfully fluctuating
quantity), the Lanarkshire requisitionists appear to
have no sympathy with the sufferings of this enormous
portion of the empire. Sir R. PEEL'S fatal con-
trivance of 1819, with its " complement" of 1843
is all very good, it seems, for England; yet the same
Minister's infatuated propensity for tampering in
Scotland with the same species of monetary system
which those measures have overthrown and extin-
guished south of the Tweed, is justly denounced by
the same requisitionists as an uncalled-for and mis-
chievous experiment, having for its object to over-
throw a condition of things under which, for one
hundred and fifty years, Scotland has steadily ad-
vanced in her marvellous career of agricultural, com-
mercial, and social improvement. IVe own, with
pain, that unless we could imagine the Lanarkshire
meeting disposed, at the sacrifice of their own better
convictions and practical experience on the subject,
to bespatter Sir ROBERT PEEL with eulogies for the
desolation and decay which he has brought upon the
debtor interest and the enormous masses of the in-
dustrial producing classes of this country, by a
scheme of currency imposing inevitable limitations
and restraints on commercial enterprise, a permanent
tendency of increasing depression in prices and
wages—unless we can imagine the Lanarkshire meet-
ing willing to make so unworthy a compromise with
,the sound principles they advocate, in order to en-
ure, if possible, the concession of them to the case
of Scotland, exclusively, at the expense of England
and of Ireland, we cannot reconcile the antagonistic
assertions of one resolution with the avowed doc-
trines of another. Thus, the ninth resolution affirms
" That this great success of the banking system of Scot-
land" (i.e., with (special reference to i!ei issue of small
bank-notes under 51., long since abolished in England in
favour of a currency of gold sovereigns) " has been
mainly owing to the perfict freedom of iti action, and to
the absence of all I,giAlatire interference; and, therefore,
Lhis meeting carm stly deprecate any intermeddling now
with a sysoem which has filth. rt. worked so w,fl;, unit
has proved so undeniably Leueacia to all classes of the
country."

Now, this was also the condition of things in
England when it pleased the present Premier to
saddle her with his cruel bun-len of a currency founded
on his own Act of Parliament unaltering price, as to
that currency, of a commodity fluctuating from day
to day and hour to hour, in both price and quantity, in
the open markets of all the world outside of the four
walls within which he persuaded Parliament to sanc-
tion his nauseous nostrum. The embarrassments of
1822 ; the hideous panics of 1825 ; the wholesale de-
solation ( f every house connected with our vast trade
to the United States, in 1836, extending through
1837 and 1838 ; the downfal of eminent metropolitan
bankers ; the paralysing shocks sustained by com-
mercial confidence ever since the accelerating down-
ward pressure on prices; the grinding reduction of
the wages of labour and industry ; the spread of pau-
perism ; the thus engendered between the
crippled possessors of property and the starving ap-
plicants for work, which cannot be given to them;
the yearly perishing away of some branch or other
of our foreign trade ; the successful competition of
:he foreign manufacturer with our best and oldest
customers; the despondency of our shipowners who
can no longer earn remunerative freights; these
are some few among the more remarkable fruits
which the gold standard of Sir ROBERT PISEL has
bequeathed to be gathered by his country during the
last five-and-twenty years. These are the fruits
which, so long as his "convertible paper" is to be
payable on demand in gold, at the Mint price instead

of the market price, she will continue to be doorriod
to gather. And it is of such bitter, such poisonous
fruits as these, that the resolutions talk in this com-
mending strain—always on the assumption that the
indulgence in such luxuries is not to be extended to
Scotland :

" That, in return for these certain evils, it has been
stated that there is a claim upon Scotland to adopt a
gold currency, not far any practical benefit to herself,
but that thereby she may contribute her aid to the re-
served fund of the precious metals which the Legisla-
ture has wisely provided should be held by the Bank of
England for the ratification of exchanges, and of com-
mercial and other dealings with foreign countries ; but
it appears to this meeting that the burden alleged to he
imposed upon the Bank of England is for the general
benefit of the empire, and in return for important immu-
nities conferred, of which Scotland, in the shape of taxa-
tion and otherwise, contributes her fair proportion, end
that London, as the great centre of commercial and
muletary dealings, is obviously the place where *the.
the d( rangernents referred to can be rectified, the re-
mit muffs in specie to our merchants being all directed
thither.

•` That while this meeting, therefore, fully appreciates
the value of the reserve of the precious metals referred
to, and the periodical publication of its amount as a%
important beacon, alike to the statesman, the banker, and
the merchant, they must, at the same time, wholly dis-
claim the belief that whether the three millions of cir
culation in Scotland consisted of gold, or of bank-notes
convertible into gold on demand,' any perceptikle ab-
straction could be made from it in aid of that reservk d
fund, while the amount of circulation is restricted, as at
prcsvnt, to the mere necessities of the country, as a me-
dium of exchange for its daily transactions."

The "reserved fund" of the precious metals "wisely
insisted upon by the Legislature," quoad England,
forsooth ! If so, Ns by were it not wise to make Scot-
land a party to the scheme ? The requisitionists
know better. Their first resolution declares that the
intention of the Government to withdraw from the
circulation of Scotland all small bank-notes under 5/.,
has occasioned in that country a degree of alarm
hich the meeting (notwithstanding their respect for
the high authority of those who deem such alarm to
be without foundation) do not fully concur in. But
the second resolution, as comprehending the chief
points of political and social importance in that mone-
tary system which Sir ROBERT PIdEL seems either not
to have sufficiently appreciated, or to have strangely
overlooked, we give at length :
" That the banking system of Scotland, since its com-
mencement, a century and a half ago, has through suc-
cessive generations become more and more deeply in-
terwoven with the whole social 53 stem of our country.
Its monetary power, now based upon twetve millions of
capital, and, at least, thirty millions of deposits, has grou7u
up with the increasing wealth and prosperity of Scot-
land, in agriculture, commerce, and the useful arts, all of
which it has powerfully promoted; and it never posses, ed
the confidence and attachment of all classes of the e,,m-
munity more fully than at present. That it has also
eaercised a most salutary influence upon the moral and
derly habits of the people ; by the perfect security
orered, and by the allowance for the shortest period, mid
upon sums so small as 51. or 101., of a reasonable and
equal rate of interest, industry, frugality, and sober
habits, have been encouraged through all classes, and
Scotland has thus enjoyed, for many generations, the
benefits which have been only conferred at the present
day upon England, by the establishment of savings'
banks."

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth resolutions, like-
wise point to these invaluable, and assuredly indis-
putable results, after describing the economy and
security of the Scottish banking system, the perfect
efficiency and competency of its scheme, and its ope-
ration for all the purposes proposed to be accom-
plished by it. But will Scotland he at once so unjust
and so unwise, so unreasonable and so short-sighted,
as to desire that England should continue to groan
under a burden of which she herself so well under-
stands the oppressiveness, in order that she may
enjoy a fancied exemption from it ? Can she forget
that England is the great mart for that produce
which her hitherto undisturbed system of a paper
currency has enabled her to raise with so much
benefit to herself? Can she be blind to the fact that
when England sinks under that burden, as she v, ill
assuredly do in a very brief space of time, if she do
not succeed in indignantly throwing it off her shoul-
ders, Scotland must sink with her P But we Nsill not
believe that the proceedings of the Lanarkshire
meeting represent the sense of a majority of the
Scottish people, on a subject in which they have such
ample reason to take a deep and honest interest.

We have received Madrid journals of the 13th, but
they contain no news. The Chambers had not met
for several days, and for once we are spared the pain
of announcing more executions.

NADRID BOLIESE7 DECEMBER 13.—Three per
Cents. 32k at sixty days. Fire per Cents. (same
period) 22 ; and Floating Debt, 781 at forty-five days.

The leading articles in the Paris journals are not
of much interest to the English reader, if we except
a short and a very well-drawn character of the
Jesuits, which appears in the Journal des Debate.
The writer seizes the opportunity of the late melan-
choly disturbance at I Lucerne for the purpose of
pointing out to the French people the dangerous
tenets if the sect, and warning them against the en-
croachments which the Jesuits in the Gallic Church are
meditating both against liberty and the present system
of education in France. The article is the more important
as it applies with equal force to: other churches, and
to none more than the Puseyite Church of England.
Were the tenets of PUSEY, NEWMAN, WARD, and Co.,
and we may add, the tenets of a majority of our
Bishops, to become dominant in this country, the glo-
rious system of liberty which England enjoys, and
which she owes to the Reformers—especially the ca-
lumniated Puritans—would in a few short years be
scattered to the wind. It is a melancholy truth,
which cannot be controverted, that with a very few
exceptions, those churches, to whom the education of the
p,..0p1e have been entrusted, have been more anxious
to increase by that means their despotic power than
the moral and pure religious education of the people.
It appears from the article to which we refer, that the
Government of Lucerne, in a fit of blindness, had
invited the Jesuits into the country, and for this the
unhappy people now suffer. " There is a fatality,"
says the Journal des Debate, " attached to this Order
since its origin, that wherever it appears, discord
arises in the State and in the Church. Were the
Jesuits even as inoffensive as they pretend to be, their
aid would be too dearly purchased at the price of the
blood of the citizens ! Priests, influenced by a verit-
able spirit of charity, would have stopped short
before this blood which was ready to flow ; they
would have said, We will not enter amongst you
over the dead bodies of your brothers 1' We parti-
cularly disapprove of the Grand Council of Lucerne's
having invited the Jesuits to assume the direction
of the Episcopal School. This was intimating a
wish to have all the clergy Jesuits, and to favour
the pretensions of this Order, which aspires to
absorbing the Church itself. Deep politicians
as they are, the Jestrits willingly yield to others the
external eclat and apparent rights attached to eccle-
siastical dignities. They care little about not being
cures or bishops, provided there be no cure or bishop
who has not passed through their hands. What they
want is the direction of the ecclesiastical schools,
great or small. They know well that the world is
ghseened by education, and that the master of the
child remains in general the master of the man.
When once placed in possession of the ecclesiastical
schools, they would form a clergy which would only
recognise their maxims. By this clergy they would
lord it over the whole of the Catholic world, and move
kingdoms. It would no longer be permitted to any
one who is not a Jesuit to call himself a Christian.
And God only knows what would then become of
this liberty, to which they make an arm of at present
to arrive at domination ! Simple indeed are they
who imagine that liberty is the last word the Jesuits
will pronounce I When we demand liberty of con-
science we demand it as the right of man ; for the
Jesuits it is a means. Their empire once re-esta-
blished, you shall see how they will respect liberty."
The National has a long article on the decay of
French commerce, wnich, it says, is menaced with
speedy destruction, unless men engaged in trade will
struggle courageously with their competitors in Lon-
don, Berlin, and Boston.
The French Funds continued firm on Thursday.
The Three per Cents. closed at 851. ; the New Loan
at 86f. 700. ; the Five per Cents. at 120 f. 55c. Or-
leans Shares, 1,140 f. ; Rouen, 1,060 f.; Havre, 815 f. ;
Avignon, 930 f. ; Strasbourg, 313 f. 75c. ; Versailles
(right bank), 517 f. 50c. ; and Ditto (left bank),
392 f. 50c. Spanish Actives, 33i ; Three per Cents.,
371; Passives, 6 ; and Belgian Two-and-a-Half per
Cents., 62f. 60c.

The subscription for public baths in Birmingham
already amounts to 4'6004, a fair earnest of the accom-
plishment of the philanthropic purpose in view,