The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
?Rost THY DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
CHRONICLE.—On Saturday last we inserted a
letter signed " Historicus," which charges our leading
articles with having repeatedly done " cruel injustice"
to the Puseyites, by reprobating what seems to us the
insincerity of their cause, mad tracing that insincerity to
sordid motives. Other claims on attention prevented
our immediate notice of these allegations, which yet arc
too grave to be passed over in any manner that might
be construed into acquiescence. Indeed, did we acqui-
esce, it would become our duty not to do so silently.
The Puseyites maintain, says our Correspondent, " that
no difference of opinion whatever is capable ofjustify-
ing the sin of schism," and hence he infers that they
would " take upon their consciences what they esteem
a deadly sin" in separating from the Church of
England as by law established. As the distin-
guishing doctrine of the sect is that a church
cannot be established by law, we do not perceive
the conclusiveness of our Correspondent's
argument.
The Puseyites contend that a higher allegiance is due
to the Catholic Church than to the Church of England.
To every body but a Puseyite it is plain that our
national church is founded on the contrary assumption.
It stands in the denial of all such external authority.
It claims for the head of the State to be also that of
the Church ; and this supremacy, of which Puseyism
is a continuous denial. Pusey clergymen take pay for
preac •
hing Oar Correspondent overlooks the differ-
ence between belonging to a church, and teaching or
preaching in that church. Conscience may protest
against secession, but conscience cannot enforce the
receipt of emoluments for the promulgation of what the
individual deems error. This is what we complain of
in the Puseyites. We raise no question about their
obligation to secede, if they be content to hold their
tongues, and Comp their revenues derived from the
national funds. Dr. Pusey draws the distinction which
" Ilistorieus" disregards ; and coincides hypothetically
in our view of the case as opposed to that of his
apologist.
" Our own Church is the immediate, the Church
universal, the ultimate visible authority ; she is to tie
the representative of the universal Church, as the
Church universal is of her Lord ; our own derives her
authority from the universal Church, and cannot claim
any, contrary to her. We belong to her because we
were baptised in her, and she is the descendant of the
primitive Church in this land, and her Bishops the
successors of the Apostles ;' we receive as articles of
faith what she delivers to us as fixed by the universal
Church ; what she has by her private judgment de-
duced from Holy Scripture, we teach because we also
think it to be so deducible ; if we did not so think, we
should obey, must belong to her, but could not teach.
Her Sacraments we receive because she has received
the commission to impart them ; her rites, because she
has the power to ordain or to change them. To our
own Church we owe submission ; to the decisions of the
Church universal, faith."—Letter to the Bishop of Ox-
ford, pp. 3:2, 53.
The Church of England professes " the Protestant
reformed religion." The Puseyite repudiates and
anathematizes the word " Protestant," and mourns over
the " crimes" of the Reformation. That he revives the
observance of obsolete ceremonies will scarcely pass for
" simply acting out the written code" of his religion,
while he engages in ceaseless warfcre with the spirit of
that code. As a Protestant code, he is entirely out of
sympathy with it. The Articles, the Homilies, and the
assumption of a controlling authority in the civil power
—and these are surely the characteristics of Church of
England religion—are another gospel from that which
he preaches. We confess ourselves unable to conclude
that men so acute are unconscious of this fatal incon-
gruity. In fact, their writings yield abundant evidence
that they are conscious of it. The duty of silence, if
not of secession, follows by their own admission : of
silence, we mean, as Ministers of the National Church,
If the proof be not admitted, we see not by what evi-
dence the charge of insincerity can ever be established.
When " Historicus" asserts that the Puseyites have
" conscientiously and rigidly endeavoured to live up to
what they nominally profess," we take his testimony
with so much weight as belongs to that of one who is
" most remote from any connection, either personal, or
through their opinions, with Puseyism." The remote-
ness tells more for the impartiality than for the suf-
ficiency of the testimony. But when he appeals to
us as knowing that " they are abandoning all hope
of further advancement in worldly advantages," we
can only say that we know no such thing. In com-
bination, not rare, with its obtrusive asceticism a
wordly spirit seems to have pervaded the whole move-
ment. It began in consequence of the interference of
Earl Grey's Ministry with the temporalities of the
Irish Church. A Committee meeting of Clergymen,
at the house of the Archbishop of Canterbury's chap-
lain, coming by discussion to resolutions, for counter-
acting such danger as threatered the Church by that
measure, is rather a singular fountain for the pure
stream of a spiritual revival. From a daily journal
which acted as its organ, we take the statement that
" the younger Clergy are said to be very gene ally of
this school ; it has no want of advocates among their
seniors ; it has penetrated into both Houses ef Parlia-
ment ; and we are confidently informed (we suppose,
therefore, upon some foundation) that it has met with
countenance from the Bishops themselves." The dan-
ger of aay great sacrifice of worl sly advantages in form-
ing such a pert), is not mare obvious than the chance
of profiting thereby. Bishops cannot be very hostile
when their chaplains are friendly ; nor would it be
difficult for less unworldly part.zens to obt tin docu-
ments through such confidential functionaries, by
which the peril of future hostility might be materially
abated. Little indifference to temporal advantages can
be ascribed to a sect which, while affecting to despise
the periodical press, contrives to get hold of news-
papers, daily and weekly, of magazines, and of a
Qnarterlu Review. In one instance, it is before the
public that the attempt to obtain this sort of influence
has been made by appealing to the most sordid mo-
tives. The battle now fighting at Oxford for the
Poetry Professorship is no token of indifference to
worl Ily position as a party, and the advantages thence
arising. Mr. Williams must write much better verses
than any we have yet seen, for us to plead guilty to
" cruel injustice" in not interpreting the struggle on his
behalf as altogether the result of a conscientious ap-
preciation of his fitness for the office in question. If
the sect have all the virtues ascribed to them, it is eery
unfortunate that they should look so like proficients in
the arts of priestcraft. NV hen clergymen use " disparag-
ing language' of the articles to which they have sworn;
when they represent those articles "as a bondage rather
than as a safeguard ;" and when they suggest that their
ambiguity is " to be palliated for the present only
by a forced strain of the grammatical meaning," it
implies no great breach of charity in the looker on
to treat them as we have treated the Puseyites. And
this description is not ours, but their own. We borrow
it from the deprecatory letter, written when censure
was apprehended, of their professor of moral philo-
phy. We have advanced to argument against the in-
clusion of Puseyism, or any other ism which obtains a
lodgment in the national mind, within the comprehen-
sive limits of a national church. But this is not the
position for which the sect struggles. It claims to be
the Church. And it does so, with a marvellous lack
of evidence and plentitude of pretension. We would
have it dealt by precisely as the opposite extreme of
theology would he dealt by under similar circumstances.
A Pusey has no more business in the Church than a
Strauss would have. For the one, there are profes-
sorships, livings, and canonries ; for the other, there
would probably be prosecutions. Yet, whatever his
errors may be, Strauss is the better Protestant of the
two ; and the people's ample fund for spiritual culture,
its millions sterling per annum, are paid for teaching
the Protestant reformed religion. They are not legally
applicable to the support of the rationalism of Ger-
many ; neither are they applicable, either legally or
morally, to that of the bastard Popery of Oxford.
TIMES.—We were never among the number of
those " moderate politicians," mentioned by one of
our Irish correspondents in yesterday's Times, " who,
a short time ago, were sangeine enough to have sup-
posed that Mr. O'Connell, disheartened by the seces-
sion of so many of his supporters, and alarmed at the
effect produced on the minds of thinking men by the
cogent epistles of Sherman Crawford and the sensible
addresses of some few Roman Catholic clergymen op-
posed to a further agitation of repeal, was about to
dissolve the association, and take refuge under the
banner of Reform." We always knew Daniel too well.
We saw that the common sense, the intelligence, and
the virtue which might have been found among the
ranks of his supporters while it was possible for en-
thusiasm to connect his exertions with the good of
Ireland, had gone from him ; we knew, that whatever
there was of piety among the Roman Catholic priest-
hood had declared against him ; but we did not
imagine, either that all the Roman Catholics of
Ireland were pious, or that the motley forces of agita-
tion would disappear in a moment at the command
of intelligence and virtue. Far less did we conceive
that any change could come over the spirit of the
great hierophant of sedition himself. It was enough
for us to perceive that his practical influence was
gone—that with a strong and just Administration, and
with the moral faeling of the better portion of the Irish
people, scithout distinction of creed, decidedly against
him, he could no longer do any serious mischief to his
country, or cause any. formidable embarrassment to the
Government. He might go on amusing himself with
the echoes of his former power, he might continue to
trade at some pecuniary profit upon its miserable re-
mains, without giving more than a harmless vent to the
appetite for gasconade which he has been so instramen-
tal in creating. In this point of view, we have derived.
much entertainment from a perusal of the Report of
the " Grand Repeal Demonstration" which came off in
the county of Louth on Saturday last. We really feel
surprise, long and frequent as has been our experience
of the gullibility of the class of which Repe alers are
made, at the excessive slenderness of the bait and the
transparency of.the hook which he hung out for these
poor people. There is a broad humour in his way
of addressing them, which .makes us almost in love
With his impudence ; and though he does unques.

tionably presume
too far upon their unsophisti-
cated natures, we find it impossible to quarrel with
him for what affords us such a hearty treat of
laughter. No doubt there is some disloyalty, some
Jacobinism, some gloating over the distresses of Eng-
land in his speech on this occasion ; but this may be
passed over as no more than the usual garnish of all the
.. Right Honourable Gentleman's" speeches. We soon
get into the smooth water of blarney, and then the
drift of everything becomes perfectly apparent. Money
is the true subject, scope, aim, object, and purpose
of the whole harangue : if he inveighs against
a " grievance" with any sincerity it is because it touches
him in the purse ; and if he devises plans of refor-1
mation, they all centre equally in his own breeches'
pocket. In the Dandalk oration we first get a sight of
the real business of the day when he comes to the tithe-
rent charge. His spirit stirs within him when he
thinks of it. "He struggled," he said, '• for Repeal, be-
cause it would enable Ireland to get rid of a hostile
Ministry, and every other grievance, even that immense
tithe grievance now called a rent-charge, but which he
hated under one name just as much as under another."
" There was that abominable tithe rent-charge, the very
reflection on which prevented hint from sleeping in his
bed." We make no doubt of it. The original grievance
of tithe to Mr. O'Connell was, that it was some-
thing which Mr. O'Connell was required to pay, and
therefore he resisted it, and made a good thing of his
resistance till agitation overreached itself and led to re-
form. Tithe ceased to exist, and Mr. O'Connell found
that be had got to pay a round sum by way of rent-charge
instead, with this difference, that the clergyman had a
more efficacious remedy, and the agitator less chance
of keeping him by violence from his right. No wonder
that Mr. O'Connell chafes; no wonder that be now
protests that " new rent-charge is but old tithe writ
large." No wonder that " the reflection prevents him
from sleeping in his bed." There is no way of escap-
ing ; the money must be paid ; and the only device for
making things straight again is to levy fresh contribu-
tions, with interest, upon the " finest pisantry in the
world." All our readers have heard of mountebanks.
There is a good specimen of the original sort in Ben
Jonson's play called the Fox : but we avow that the
performer of Dundalk beats him all to nothing. l' This
blessed unguento, this rare extraction," says the imagi-
nary vendor of ointments, " bath power to disperse all
malignant humours that proceed either of hot, cold,
moist, or windy causes ; to fortify the most indigent and
crude stomach ; a most sovereign and approved remedy
for the vertigine in the head, the mal-caduco, cramps,
convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired
nerves, ill-vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver,
the stone, the stranguary, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio ;
stops a dysenteria immediately ; and cures melancholia
hypochondriaca." " The repeal of the Union," says
Mr. O'Connell, " would cause the exclusion from Ire-
land of everything that was not of Irish manufacture.
It would revive and extend the manufactures of the
country ; it would enlarge her commerce, it would give
fair play to all, it would confer upon every man twenty-
one years of age a right to vote, it would protect him
by the introduction of the honest and holy ballot, and
it would restore Ireland to the full noontide of justice."
" Being taken and applied according to my printed re-
ceipt," continued the poet's Fox, "'twill cost you eight
crowns. And (Zan Fritala, prithec sing a verse extem-
pore in honour of it) you all know, Hon. Gentlemen, I
never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight
crowns ; but for this time I am content to be deprived
of it for six. Six crowns is the price, and less, in cour-
tesy, I know you cannot offer me ; take it or leave it,
howsoever, both it and I arc at your service. 1 ask you
not as the value of the thing, for then I should demand
of you a thousand crowns. But I despise money." Listen
now to the modern Volpone. " Would they not join him?
But patriotism and cheers were not alone sufficient, al-
though the cheers of so many thousands of his fellow-
countrymen delighted his heart and made him feel
young again. But it would not do. Every man,
woman, and child, must enrol themselves in the Repeal
Association. It was the easiest thing in the world.
He asked only a farthing a week, a penny a month, or
a shilling a year. Let them grant his request, and he
pledged himself that in six months after he had ob-
tained 3,000,000 of Repealers he would have a Parlia-
ment in College-green. It was not the shilling, but
the man at the back of it, that produced the effect ;
and that was the way in which he wanted his exertions
to operate and to tell." Mr. O'Connell proceeded to
lavish his compliments upon the Queen (towards whom
he said that" his allegiance almost warmed into paternal
affection"), observing that " he delighted to look upon
the smile which beamed on her lovely face when the
the Irish Members passed before her." We can
easily believe that her Majesty does sometimes smile
on those occasions ; but if the exterior deportment of
the honest Repealers produces such an effect upon her,
what would she say if she could be regaled with such an
exhibition as that presented to the peasantry of Louth
on S'atarday last ? We fear it would require all the
virtues of our Italian friend's ointment to restore her
Royal nerves to that graceful and dignified calmness for
which she is in general so remarkable.