The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-14 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1845.

In the year 1845 we were really unprepared to see
anything like the revival of those sanguinary wars,
waged in the name of religion, which have always
been the disgrace of humanity. We had indulged
the hope thai the world of civilisation was at length
awakened to the foLly as well as wickedness, the im-
piety as well as the ma,; less, of committing whole-
sale murder on large sections 017 the human family in
the name, and for the vindication of, tt;..?.SUPREME
BEINQ, the fountain of all mercy as well as of all ex-
istence. With the boasted advance of knowledge, the
diffusion of education, and the increasing participa-
tion of the people in almost every European
State in the control as well as the enjoyment
of political institutions, we would have fain
hoped that the day was gone by at which men
oould be moved from the plain and direct path of

social duty—the adaptation of their own inherent,
natural, and private rights to that rule of conduct
which is imposed by the exigencies of the common
weal—the interests of the public welfare—by the
artful excitements of selfish and designing Church-
men, bent really on the aggrandisement of their own
order, though loudly professing to act only for " the
glory of GOD ! " As if persecution were of GOD,
or bigotry could be identified with the worship of
Divine Truth; as if the majesty of DEITY could
regard, with favour, their exclusive pretensions to an
accurate estimate of its nature and its requirements
who have steeped their dogmas in the blood of age
and infancy, of women as well as of men, of the
martyred recluse and the intrepid patriot. These
wars of religion, for some reason or other, appear to
have been always the most sanguinary and vindictive
in mountainous countries. The exterminating cru-
sades against the Albigenses and the Waldenses,
which the Romish Church waged in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries at Bezieres, at Minerba, Larvaur,
and other parts of Languedoc, Narbonne, Provence,
&c., were ominous prototypes of the fierce religious
feuds between Romanist and Wickliffite, Papist and
Huguenot, which for many centuries afterwards dis-
tracted Germany, France, England, Ireland, and
Scotland which led to the appalling catas-
trophe of St. Bartholomew's, and strewed the
purple heather of the wild hill-sides of our
Northern Highlands with the best blood of
the sincere and enthusiastic Covenanters. But since
the period of the accession of the House of Hanover
in this kingdom, and that of the Regency of Orleans
in France, this religious fury seems to have generally
vented itself through the safety-valves of angry dis-
cussion, and all the varied ebullitions of polemical
controversy. We make no account of the occasional
returns of the " mark of the beast," among the other
atrocities of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. These re-
turns, though tinctured, as indeed they had been in
the two Scottish Rebellions of 1715 and 1746, with the
old leaven of cruelty and fanaticism, were mere inci-
dents to—not component features or necessary ele-
ments of—those political struggles. But the present
troubles in Switzerland, already stamped with the
unmistakeable and disastrous character of civil war-
fare—(of warfare among those mountain Cantons
which cradled the infant liberties of Europe, and
maintained their own precarious independence solely
by the union of the front which they presented to the
military despotisms arrayed, on all sides, against
them)—these troubles, we regret to perceive, bear
about them the frightful evidences of their pestilential
origin. They arise out of that antipathy of sects—
that odium theologicum—which is the bane of social
peace, the destruction of order, the scourge of hu-
manity, the implacable enemy of civilisation, the an-
tagonist or evil principle arrayed in immortal battle
against the essential good whose development is truth
and knowledge.
We are not undertaking to decide at present be-
tween the merits of the two causes ; that of the Roman
Catholic Cantons in its identification with the es-
tablishment and pre tensions of the Jesuits, and that
of the Protestant Cantons, asso elated with the de-
mands for a larger infusion of the popular element
into all their municipal institut ions, &c., which are
vigorously advocated by the Swiss Radicals. We do
not know enough of their merits, were we inclined to
tender our opinion upon them. "Non nostrum
tantas componere lites." But we look to the results.
Whether the men of Basle were the aggressors in the
first instance against the people of Lucerne, or the
people of Lucerne were driven, in a righteous self-
defence, to make battle on the men of Basle, we
may soon be in ‘ti position to determine. All that we at
present certainly kno s, is, that the Roman Catholic
and Jesuit party of Lucerne has signalised its superior
power in a very severe and disastrous defeat of the
forces moved against it by its Protestant and Radical
opponents. A vast number of dead were left on the
field of their conflict, and many prisoners were taken.
One of these, if not more, had already, according to
the announcements of the last advices received in
Paris from the scene of action, been tried, condemned,
and shot I We yet hope and trust this account of the
fate of Dr. STEIGEE is unfounded ;—that if it be un-
happily true, we do trust that the Great Powers of
Europe will reverse the policy of former and more bar-
barous ages, and boldly interpose their authoritative
mediation between the contending Cantons, on the
broad ground that neither the Christianity, nor the
civilisation—the honour nor the repose—the public
feeling nor the public interests of Europe will tole-
rate war in any one of the Continental States on
grounds of purely theological differences.

The debate on Friday in the House of Commons on
the grant to Maynooth, possesses more than ordinary
interest, because it involves a religious principle—the mcst
difficult of all to control, and has reference to a question
of the highest importance to the united empire—the cor-
dial union of Great Britain and Ireland. The speakers
were few ; and if we except OMr. COLQUHOUN, who took
a one-sided view of the proposed measure, and Mr.
D'lsaaeet, who seemed much influenced by per-
sonal considerations, the discussion was eonfined to
Mr. GLADSTONE and Mr. ROEBUCK, and admi-
rably did they perform their parts. They ad-
mitted the great regard which one man was bound
to show to the religions opinions of another, and did
justice to the Protestant feeling which pervaded the
country, while, at the same time, they took a higher
view of the points at issue—points which not only
included the safety of the empire, but the
very existence of the Reformed religion. We
recommend Mr. GLADSTONE'S speech to the at-
tention of all parties. It did not contain one par-
ticle of bigotry, it was devoid of all political parti•
sanship, and breathed throughout an honesty of pur-
pose, and a spirit of Christian charity, which left no
doubt of the sincerity of the speaker, and
of the high religious principles with which
his mind is imbued. But while he did not forget his
religious duty, he remembered his duty as a good
citizen and a lover of his country, and proved, as clearly
as words can prove, that if the various religious sects
with which the country abounds, were each to claim
precedence and demand that their doctrines should
be paramount, nothing but endless war and ulti-
mate ruin must be the consequence. " With regard
to those," said he, " who contend that it is contrary to
their religious duty to make grants of this kind, I think
that they confound the principle which should actuate
them when acting in their individual capacity with that
principle which should influence them when combined
with the state. In our individual capacity we are guided
by our own will and conscience, which no man can force ;
but a political state can only subsist by a combination
of mutual wills and a mutual surrender and conces-
sion. If all those who live together in our situation were
to insist upon his own opinions being established, and
that no others were to be recognised in the laws of that
state, the whole empire would be thrown into utter
confusion." Here he looks only to the political ques-
tion, but in another place he calculates the lamentable
result even to true Christianity. After adverting to
the agitation in Ireland, and to the no less violent agi-
tation in this country, he justly remarks:—" I deprecate
all agitation, on one side as well as on the other. I
trust that a gentler and wiser spirit will preside over the
minds of the Members of this House than seems to pre-
side over the minds of so large a portion of the country;
and I trust that in Ireland, as well as in England, parties
will come to the conviction at which I have arrived,
without any previous bias, that this is a surrender that
ought to be made of rival claims and of extreme
views. If, on the other hand, the doctrine is held that
in Ireland this will be a premium and an encouragement
to agitation and a reward fur misbehaviour, and
if parties are told that the cause of religion
is involved in the question and is absolutely at stake,
and that we ought not to allow of any secondary con-
sideration, I ask what is to be the state of the country—
what is to become of society ? It must be helplessly
tern asunder by religious disputes, to the loss, I fear, of
that religion which the parties opposed to this Bill pro-
fess to have so much at heart." Mr. ROEBUCK deserves
the highest praise too, tot so much for his speech, ex-
cellent as it was, as for the manly, independent and
statesmanlike view of the mewure proposed by Sir R.
PEEL. In the city which he represents, it is well known
there is a very strong feeling against Catholics; the
inhabitants, Churchmen as well as Dissenters, are
strongly impressed with the belief that concessions
are dangerous, and that it is their duty toI resist
them; but while Mr, ROEBUCK felt the force of
such sentiments, and the influence which they
might have at a future election, like an honest man,
be preferred truth, and justice, and mercy to all
other considerations. What is Bath to him, compared
with a pure conscience ? " When I look," said he, " to
the state of Ireland, to the circumstances under which
you come to give your vote, it does behove you to place
yourselves above the agitation of the crowd, to set the
example to the people you represent, and do your duty ,
boldly, and act up to the views which you think right

and proper, and which involve the happiness of this
great country." This advice was responded to with
loud and general cheers.
We may here add that we have received a communi•
cation from the Secretary of the Dublin Protestant
Operative Association and Reformation Society, re-
questing us to support their views, and regret that we
cannot comply with their wishes. Their language is too
violent for a question of such serious import, as may be seen
from the conclusion of their petition to the Commons for
impeaching Sir ROBERT PEEL. It is in these words:-=.,
" Though the conduct of the Prime Minister may not
have so far violated law as to warrant his impeachment
at the bar of your Honourable House, your Honourable
House may still be pleased to present an Address to her
Majesty, calling upon her Majesty to remove Sir Ro-
BERT PEEL from her Councils, as one who has
disgusted all parties, who ousted other men
from their places merely to adopt their plicy,
and who, if he have succeeded in replenishing
the coffers of the exchequer, has done so while carrying
out measures calculated to draw down the wrath of
heaven on the land, divest the kingdom of its best and
only security, and thus to render it but a richer spoil to
the first foreign foe who may, in the just judgment of
GOD, be raised up to scourge the realm for national un-
faithfulness."

On a calm review of the career of the United States
from the date of their Declaration of Independence to
the present time, we are compelled to conclude that in
no modern state has the tone of national feeling so ra-
pidly deteriorated as in the great federal Republic of the
West. Little more than sixty years have sufficed to re-
duce the generous enthusiasm of public virtue and na-
tional spirit which prompted her original resistance to
the far-reaching pretensions and taxing übiquity of the
mother country, into the sordid elements of intense oa-
fishness and unscrupulous rapacity. They commenced
by unfurling the flag of civil liberty, and proclaiming
their territory for her universal asylum, their constitu-
tion for her protector, to all the world. They are now
signalizing—and, it may be, are about to conclude—it by
the most deliberate violation of their honourable engage-
ments to their national creditors, and the most insolent
aggressions upon the territorial rights, the honour,
and authority of independent nations with whom
they are connected by all formal relations of amity and
alliance known to the law and usage of nations, and
under the favour and security of those very engagements.
Without entering into any historical recapitulations, it
may be sufficient to point, for the exemplification of her
broken faith, to her public creditors, to the fraudulent
bankruptcies of the repudiating States of the Union, and
for indications of the effrontery with which that Union
avows its purpose to exert might over right, to its recent
deportment throughout the whole of the affair of the
annexation of Texas. We pass over for the moment
the spirit in which she has pushed to the extreme point
of arrogant dematid her claims to the exclusive sove-
reignty and occupation of the Oregon. We dis-
miss, in like manner, the specific and general
bearing of the United States Government in re-
lation to other questions of high public interest, but
which are of too recent occurrence to call here fur more
particular notice. But we have no doubt of the concur-
rence of our readers in the opinion, that the United
States have manifested such a consistent and increasing
spirit of aggressive encroachment upon the rights of all
other nations, in pushing their own claims and views to
the utmost verge of those limits within which they can
be preferred in a manner not absolutely involving insult
and dishonour to the Powers with whom their negotia-
tions have been conducted, that Great Britain, for ex-
ample, is fully justified if she put the most stringent
construction on their overt acts as illustrative of these
secret tendencies of their policy. Thus, the purchase of
Louisiana from France, in 1803, by America, and its in-
corporation into the Federal Union in 1812 ; her suc-
cessful negotiations for the cession of Florida to her by
Spain, under the treaty of Madrid of 1819 ; and her
recent intrigues for the annexation of Texas to her Fe-
deration, are all links in the same chain of antagonistic
movements against the influence and power of this coun
try, especially on the continent of America. If any
doubt could remain as to this fact, the impudent case
set up of a paramount and exclusive title to the Oregon
must have by this time dispelled it. Now, what is the
course it behoves us, under this state of things, to adopt?
Shall we trust alone to negotiations for the chance of
bringing them to the perception of the moral equity of
the case on any of the unsettled questions between them
and Great Britain ? Why, the lapse of a quarter of a
century has not advanced that object one point. Shall
we rely on the moral influence of our moderation and
good faith in conducting these negotiations ? They
have universally repaid us with exaggerated demands,
and more unreasonable extravagance and diminished re-
spect or courtesy in their manner of preferring them.
What, then, can be the cause of this perversity of
conduct on their part ? Clearly, a gross miscon-
ception of the principles that have regulated our
own demeanour to them. The moderation of our na-
tional strength is mistaken by America for the " bated
breath and whispering humbleness" of maternal weak-
ness. The forbearance of a Government, responsible
for its integrity to the highest possible standard of pub-
lic opinion,is construed intoan evidence of feebleness by
another which is amenable to the impulsive and irre-
galar action of a mere public excitement. We say, by
no means let us depart, by one iota, from the line of
dignified moderation we have, under all changes of do-
mestic administration here, so long and so consistently
maintained in all our diplomatic intercourse abroad.
But, in the language of those homely proverbs which
are said to represent the concentrated wisdom of nations,
we also cry, " Fore-warned, fore-armed." Whether we
shall have war or peace, in the final event of these unfor-
tunate dissensions, at least we have had warning enough.
If, on that account, we are also fore-armed, good ; but
better still, if we be steam-armed too.

We shall ever consider that the gallant Sir CHARLES
NAPIER has rendered at least as signal services to his
country in the House of Commons as he has upon the
high seas, by the persevering zeal and intelligence with
which he has aroused the attention of the Legislature,
and awakened the solicitude of the whole kingdom to the
unspeakable importance of incessant progress and im•
provement in our naval architecture and armament
generally, but in our steam navy in a special degree.
He has succeeded, we rejoice to own, in arousing the
Admiralty from that unaccountable lethargy whose
" Castle of Indolence " is yet too permanently fixed at
Whitehall. He has brought them to public confession of its
own prescriptive fallibility and the possible errors ce,
even a surveyor of the navy. He has enlisted the acting
first professional Lord among the advocates of the
enormous improvements in armament, in structure, in the
location of machinery—the deficiency of which has
hitherto made even what progress we have accomplished
in the organisation of a steam navy little more than a
comparative failure. But we have now, as Sir CHARLES
himself tells us, war steamers in rapid progress to com-
pletion, which certainly will be what this country has a
perfect right to expect that its executive departments
Jhould turn out—matchless and magnificent perfections
in that class of force which is assuredly destined to over-
whelm every other in any future maritime contest. But
we are anxious to urge upon the Admiralty that, allow-
ing them the full benefit of Sir GEORGE COCKBURN'S
assertion, that we have already a steam navy force, fur,
very far superior to any which even France could put
upon the seas against us, and altogether beyond any
with which America could now attempt to cope with us ;
we have not yet by any means extended our improve-
ments or enlarged our force to the scale on which the
grandeur, the prosperity, and the renown of this country,
the welfare of the present generation, and the permanent
independence of our posterity, demand that these
should be pushed to. We must have no more favouritism
at head-quarters ; no jobbing ; no sacrifices of our naval
strength ; no hazard of our naval supremacy, in favour of
the claims upon official patronage. We hope that Sir
CHARLES NAPIER will allow the Government no respite
until it is ascertained that all the accessions to, and im-
provements in, our steam navy force, dimensions, con-
struction, armament, working, and efficiency, be, not ob-
jects merely contemplated, but purposes actually ac-
complished.

Madrid papers of the 4th have been received. The
Committee appointed to examine the Electoral Bill had
made their report, and recommended an increase of the
number of deputies. The Government have acceded
to their scheme, which will give oae deputy for every
30 000 inhabitants. The Herald° states that France is
u3ing her influence for the recognition of Queen IsA-
BELLA by Austria and Prussia, with every prospect of
success.

The Three per Cents. closed at 334 at 60 days; the
Five per Cents. at 251 at 60 days ; the Coupons at
60 days; and the Debt without Interest at 8i at 60 days.

The French Chamber of Peers have adopted an im-
portant clause, proposed by the Count BEUGNOT as an
amendment to the first clause of his Colonial Bill. This
clause gives the slave the power of demanding, and ob-
taining from his master one day in the week (Saturday)
to himself, on condition that he agree, in return for
such advantage, to provide himself with food for the
whole seven days. At present he has only if. 60c. for
food during the whole week, or about twopence-fartbing
per day. The amendment was adopted by a large ma-
jority. The third clause, which fixes the working hours
of the slave from six in the morning till six in th•

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