The Sun.
London, England, 1827-05-21 00:00:00

and apparent fervency die away at once the mo-
ment the exciting cause no longer exists. There
are some curious illustrations of this in what
may be considered our own times. The Unita-
rians have been always more distinguished for
their property, commercial and manufacturing
activity, and intelligence, than for their numbers.
We do not believe they ever will be a numerous
sect. No sect ever yet rooted itself deeply in a
country which addressed itself to the reason of
the people, and the Unitarians have no other re-
source than dialectics. The Ranters, in little
more than twenty years, have multiplied like lo-
custs over England, being, we suppose, at least
ten times more numerous than the Unitarians,
by the use of means which leave it problematical
whether they have passed the boundary between
the hallucinations of enthusiasm and the ravings
of downright lunacy. Now, in the present day,
when no pains are taken to agitate the people
on the subject, we do not believe it occurs to a
single individual that our religious liberties
are in danger from an Unitarian Parliament
or that our bodies are in danger from Unita-
rian fires. Yet it is not forty years since an alarm
of this kind was spread by several influential
clergymen, countenanced by the higher autho-
rities. Every one who knows the history of that
period, knows that the Rev. Mr. Madan was
as distinguished a man in his day as the Bishop
of Chester or Dr. Philpot is in the present.—
Mr. Madan was one of the organs of a large
and most influential party in the church, who
held themselves up as possessed exclusively of
zeal for our Protestant Establishment ; and the
riots at Birmingham and other manufacturing
towns may be said to have been caused by them.
The alarm lately expressed on account of the
Catholics, was not really greater than that
expressed on account of the poor harmless Uni-
tarians. In the well-known letters to Dr. Priest-
ley by Mr. Madan (Dodsley, 1787), we have
the whole gradation of awful consequences now
denounced, as likely to flow from Catholic
Emancipation, placed to the score of toleration
of Unitarians. " You may perhaps think,"
says Mr. Madan, addressing himself to Dr.
Priestley—" you may, perhaps, think, that the
professions which you make of tolerancy must
exe.mpt you from the charge of persecuting ;
but if your attempts to promote a repeal
of the Test Acts had succeeded, and by
degrees we had had a Socinian, or, if you
chuse to call it, an Unitarian Parliament—an
Unitarian Army and Navy—how long should we
have kept a Trinitarian Liturgy—a Trinitarian Es-
tablishment ? or how long should we have been
suffered, with the Apostles and first Christians, to
worship, or—to express it in Scripture language—
to call on the name of Jesus Christ, both their Lord
and ours ? The zeal which you shew in your wri-
tings to make proselytes to your opinions, gives us
but small hopes of your tolerating what you have
undertaken to prove to be blasphemy and idolatry,
if once it were in your power to be intolerant."
There were hundreds of thousands ready to shout
this extravagance at that time. Multitudes are sel-
dom twice made in exactly the same way ; but we are
not sure if it were the wish of those members of the
State who have the leading of the Church, that a cry
should once more be raised against Unitarian Parlia-
ments, Unitarian armies, and Unitarian persecution,
that notwithstanding the increased intelligence of the
age, a very tolerable bawl might not be obtained. Now
with respect to the No Popery cry, a few days have
produced a wonderful change in its intensity. That
which appeared to be the cry of a large part of the
people, comes now from few throats. We see the
Universities disdaining to identify themselves with
it. We have a sort of exemplification of the trans-
formation which suddenly took place when Charles
the Second landed among us. The roads and streets
swarmed with Royalists, and the wonder was where
they could have concealed themselves. A day or two
before the difficulty would have been to discover one.
Mr. Peel understands these things (for it is not in his
head that he is deficient), for he did not hesitate to
avow the necessity of patronage to keep alive the opi-
nions which he had been so unfortunate as to select.
Without patronage to keep the alarm alive, we shall
see it quickly yield to the good sense of the country;
and we, doubt not, if we live but a little while longer,
we shall have the satisfaction of seeing all those who
affected an alarm which their understandings did. not
allow them to share, profoundly chagrined at the
result of their speculation.—Morning Chronicle.

The Whigs are exceedingly anxious to con-
vince the world, that Lord Lansdown's accept-
ance of a seat in the Cabinet, without office, is a
convincing proof that his Lordship is not actu-
ated by any " lust" (as they call it) for place.—
What strange people these same Whigs are. Be-
cause they happen to have among them one man
indifferent to the mere salary of office, they cry
that one circumstance up as a kind of prodigy—
forgetful that their whole tribe is just the re- j
verse. No one ever suspected Lord Lansdown
of caring for the sweets of office ; a self-denial,
to be sure, uncommon enough among the
Whigs. But though his Lordship may be, and
doubtless' is, regardless of himself, he is far from
being so about his friends, and has taken good
care at least to carve out comfortable births for
his own two nominees lit Caine. But what, we
would ask, has the country gained by the Noble
Marquis's self-denial ? Not one single far-
thing. The place and the salary which, but for
his original coyness, the Noble Marquis would
have held, are now filled and enjoyed by an-
other ; while the country has in exchange a gra-
tuitous
and irresponsible Minister, and one who
has taken good care to saddle his own immedi-
ate dependants upon her. So much for the
wonderful interestedness of Whigism. We are
not less amused with another ground, which
717e-Whigs take upon this occasion. They tell
us, that becoming a Member of the Cabinet
without office, is a return to the good old times
of Queen Elizabeth, who, they say, called to her
council' whom she pleased, totally regardless of of-
fice orno office; that her Secretaries of State were
merely what their names impart, recorders and ex-
ecutors of the Council's orders; and that as for a
Cabinet, no such thing was ever heard of till the times
(the unwhiggish times, we suppose) of King Wil-
liam. If any thing can more than another disgust
one with the names and principles which politicians
assume, it is the facility with which they so often
retain the one and lay aside the other. That the
Whigs of the present day should decry the times of
King William, and cry up those of Elizabeth, is of
a piece with the consistency of those who can now
join in an Administration with a man who, if he pos-
sesses one tittle of consistency, has been consistent
all his life in holding them and their principles up
to ridicule and reproach. But the country at large
sees through all this shallow artifice, which resolves
itself into a mere hunger and thirst after power and
place obtained upon any terms. It is evidently a
great improvement in the Constitution that the
King's immediate Council should be composed of
persons holding high, ostensible, and responsible
offices-in the State:: To have a Cabinet composed,
in whole or in part; of any but such persons is a re-
turn, as far as it goes, to the bad times of the Con-
stitution-0 those times which the real genuine
Whigs spent their lives in reforming,. and the mo-
dern apostate Whigs, who can attempt defend'.
that which is a manifest outrage upon the principles
which gave them name, must be, to all intents and
purposes, as lost to common sense and decency, as
the man who should stand up and tell us that the
terms Whig and Tory, as at present used, mean any