The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-15 00:00:00

from the chances of war. The demoralization is
another question, but it is a serious one, for
which, if there be justice in Heaven, an account
will one day be demanded of the Legislature of
this country. The Aristocracy no doubt laugh
at this, conceiving, as they do, that religion, ex-
cept in so far as it produces money, is a non-
entity.—Morning Chronicle.

The more Dr. Curtis labours to excuse his -
publication of the private letter Of the Duke of
Wellington, the worse he makes the case for
himself. He at first declaredthat he made the
contents of the letter known in . order
,to ." gra-
tify the multitude," who had come„to a know-
ledge of -having received a letter from the Duke,
in consequence of its having been " franked in
his' own hand." This was indeed a very awk-
ward attempt to account for a Tereach of confi-
dence—but no sooner was its absurdity
exposed than .the Doctor shifted his pound,
and took up a new position, inconsist-
ent with the first. He says, in his letter to
the Editer of a Dublin newspaper, " Pexpect
you will have the goodness to acknowledge, in
your paper, as soon as possible, that you neither
had, nor know that any other has, received
any sort of direct or indirect consent from
me for such publication. Indeed, I rtgret it
exceedingly, and used every means in my
power to prevent it, though in vain ; as
being an event that might lead those unac-
quaiiited with me into the erroneous opinion
that I had betrayed the confidence reposed in
me by those eminent personages, and fallen into
the puerile weakness of giving uncalled-for
publicity to my own answer." We caenot'un-
derstand the above sentence, unless Dr, Curtis
means to confine the word " publication" to the
limited sense of " publication in the news-
papers." But in his former letter he had ad-
mitted that he published the letter to a few
chosen friends, in order, as we have before stated,
to " gratify the multitude." Now, what readier
way was there of making the contents of the letter
known to the " multitude" than by the publica-
tion of it in the newspapers ? The " chosen
friends" of Dr. Curtis could not take a better
way of effecting his intention than by newspaper
publication—for he could not expect that those
friends would go about and read it to every in-
dividual of the " seven millions," or proclaim it
with a loud voice at the market-cross of every town-
in the kingdom. Yet, strange to say, although
he wished his " chosen friends to make the con-
tents
of the letter so widely known, that the
multitude might be put in possession of them,"
he " used every means, though in vain, to pre-
vent its publication." if this be a specimen of
the casuistry of the Romish Church, we think
it need not be envied a monopoly of the article.
But again, the Doctor says, " I never once
imagined that their benevolent authors could
have any objection that their patriotic 'sentiments
should be thus prudently, though widely, ex-
tended ; for they were manifestly not meant for
my personal information exclusively " As far as
this sentence applies to the Duke's letter, it
means thaUt was not a private one, although the
Doctor had apologised for publishing it on the
ground that it was a mere personal communica-
tion. The Doctor is an old theologian, but we
suspect the art of reasoning is new to him.—
Moneing Herald.