The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-28 00:00:00

of the Constitution the followers of Emanuel Swe-
denborg and Johanna Soutlicote, and would exclude
Newton and Locke were they in life. No matter
how much more men may believe than they ought,
hut woe to them if they happen to be unable to be-
lieve as much as their neighbours ! In the debate
on Tuesday night, the numbers of the Dissenters
were, we think, very much understated. This, no
doubt, happens from the circumstance of reckoning
only the grown people among them. When we
..:peal.; of a population, we speak of old:and young;
.and in speaking of the Dissenters as contradistm-
guished from the Church, we should include men,
'.women, anti children. If we do so, we shall find
the Dissenters more numerous in England than
those belonging to the Establishment. Let us con-
sider only how large a proportion of the people of
England live in towns of 2,000 inhabitants and up-
wards ; and then that in all such towns the Dissen-
ters form the majority; in the great towns, a very
great majority. It is true, that the Church is enti-
tled to reckon in her list, all who belong to no
communion whatever; but even with this allowance,
".-e are sure that though much more numerous than
any one body of Dissenters, the Churchmen are
less numerous than the whole of the Dissenters.—
The Dissenters must have doubled within the last
twenty years.—lbid.

For some time past the state of his Majesty's
health has formed a very general subject of conver-
sation, though, for obvious reasons, the Newspapers
have seldom ventured to allude to the reports. The
holding of a Cabinet Council yesterday at Windsor
has led some people to entertain apprehensions
which, we are assured, are without any foundation.
His Majesty, we are happy to state, is free from
indisposition, though the weakness of his limbs still

Lord John Russell submitted last night, his motion
for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.
Thirty-eight years have elapsed since the last at-
tempt was made to procure the repeal of these ob-
noxious Laws. If the Dissenters have been passive
duriog this interval, the circumstance affords a strik-
ing proof of their patience, for the proportion which
They bear to the members of the Established Church,
has become greater and greater every y ar. In fact,
Chapels are springing up constantly in all directions,
and often in neighbourhoods where no new houses
have been erected, which affords aloft° a presumption
that the Dissenters have more than kept pace with
a!ie increase of the population. They are very' in-
discreet friends of the establishment, who thus pro-
voke the Dissenters to muster their strength in this
manner, and irritate, without any conceivable object,
so large a party of the inhabitants of England. The
Act of indemnity passed every year, freeing Dissen-
ters from the penalties to which they are liable under
these obnoxious Acts, prove that they can have no
other object than that of outraging the feelings
of Non-conformists. Even admitting, for the sake
of argument, that the passing of such laws as the
Test and Corporation Acts was justified by necessity,
the plea of necessity can no longer be urged ; and as
was forcibly observed by Mr. John Smith, " if any
Ministry were mad enough, and any House of Com-
Mena weak enough, to attempt to enforce these
laws now, they would in a little time be assailed by
A band of zealots, who would tell Mr. Speaker and
those about him to go and seek the Lord elsewhere,"
But Acts that cannot be enforced, and the effect
of which is obviated by Annual Indemnity Bills,
cannot, as Lord John Russell observed, " be recon-
ciled with any principle of justice or policy ;" and
The allowing them to remain on the Statute-book
only serves to diminish the respect of the people for
the laws. The idea of a law rendered perpetually
inoperative by annual laws, which are not conceded
to favour, but to necessity, is so absurd, that one
would think those who could gravely entertain it,
might be passed into a County Asylum at once
-without the certificate of a physician. Lord John
R;kssell gave a very clear narrative of the circum-
stances which led to the passing these obnoxious
Acts, and shelved that justice, policy, and expe-
diency alike demanded their repeal. The Motion
was carried by a majority of 44 in a full House.—
That the minority was so large in a question like
this does not say much for the " march of intellect"
among the higher classes of Englishmen. We are
aware that something must be placed to the account
of sinister interest, and that if Members could have
given an unbiassed vete, the majority would have
been perhaps greater ; but making every allowance
for men circumstanced like Mr. Peel, the number
chargeable only with honest imbecility must have
s'ormed by far the larger proportion of the -minority.
With respect to Mr. Peel, he reminds us of the Ita-
lian Actor who was obliged to take the parts of both
the Doctor and Pantaloon. He has two characters
to perform. One day lie appears before us as a Re-
former, willing to pay homage to reason, treating
the wisdom of our ancestors as little better than
folly, and trying the laws by the standard of
But our admiration of this Solon of our
times has hardly well subsided, after one of those ex-
hibitioias, when to with the same grave air, the same
earnest aaal supplicating tone, with which lie
delivered his oraelea of reason, he pours out stores of
bigotry and puerile absurdity, too rich, one should
think, even for Oxiord Divines, as if he wished to
heighten the effect of his wisdom by the contrast of his
folly, or the effect of his folly by the contrast of his
wisdom. But we have become accustomed to this
duality, and can make allowance for it. We con-
sider him in one case as Mr. Peel in his own proper
person, and in the other as the Representative of all
and prejudice, which still have
the folly, paasion,
;their abode in Oxford. Bet we confeSs we were
not equally prepared for the part acted last night by
Mr. Huskisson. This Right Hon. Gentleman has
not surely given guarantees to Liverpool, that he
shall, on certain questions, endeavour to rival Mr.
Peel in absurdity ; nor can Mr. Peel have exacted
guarantees from him, that in return for the support
of the system of free trade, he shall prostrate his
inderstanding at the shrine of Orthodoxy. Be this
.a.a it may, certainly the Right Honourable Gentle-
-man did surprise all who heard him last night not a
little. Last year he saw no reason for the continu-
ance of the Test and Corporation Acts. This year
he has found one ; and it is this, that exclusions,
founded on injustice, are necessary for the upholding
the ,i,,Apremaey of the Church of England, and if the
Test And Corporation Acts were to -be repealed, the
Catho?ics alone would suffer from exclusion; and as
the exclusion would be particularly hard on the Ca-
tholics, as it would imply the existence, on their
part, of a double allegiance, while exclusion is, at the
same time, indispensible, it is necessary to add one
piece of injustice to another, and punish the Dissenters
without a cause, in order that the Catholics may not be
-without company. Gracious God, what a mess of
alasurdity ! But let us hear him speak for himself.
`` The great object in leaving these laws untouched
apptars to have been, that the Supremacy. of the
Established Church might he recognized. But if
we vote for the repeal of the Test and Corporation
Acts, what becomes of this general rule ? It will
stand as nothing : for the moment that we consent
to that repeal we shall create as exception, and the
Catholics alone will be the sufferers. The general
rule that has been made will cease to exist, and its
application will be levelled and directed against the
Catholics alone. We shall create in them a dis-
tinguishiog exception, when they now only form a
part of the excluded. The supremacy of the
Church either requires exclusion, or it does not; if
it does not, why then exclude the Dissenters ?—if it
does, why exclude only the Dissenters? But Mr.
licakisson is an advocate of the Catholics; and while
he contends for the exclusion of the Dissenters for
the sake of the supremacy of the Church, he
s
con-
tends for the admission of the Catholics, on the
ground of their sufferings from exclusion. f.;uppose
the Catholics admitted, would he still hang rae
and Corporation Acts over the heads of Ihe Dis-
senters ? If not, why would he hang the a now?
If there is injustice done to the Catholics, is 'hat in-
justice less likely to be remedied, because ta. mass
of injustice to be remedied is diminished ? If the
doing justice to the Dissenters will make the in-
iustice.to the Catholics appear in a more taring.