The Sun.
London, England, 1829-09-25 00:00:00

blame for the present deplorable state of the Church?
He did think the Government of the country, in
the first instance; the neglect of the performance of
heir duty on the part of the generality of the Clergy,
in the second; and the consequent supineness of the
Laity, in the third.,--(Hear, hear.)—Every layman
formed a component part of the Church ; and a
number of individuals constituted what was called
the church militant. Now, take away all the mem-
bers of the Church of England, and it ceases to
exist, except in name. Therefore they were all
Members of the Establishment, whose duty it was
to come forward at the present crisis, in order to
point out what was wrong, and propose what may be
best calculated to effect good—not: to stretch out
the right band of fellowship to those whose glory it
was to be instrumental :in crumbling the fabric of
the Protestant Church to dust."
Lord Mountcashel and his friends are part of
the church, are entitled to participate in the spi-
ritual advantages for which an establishment is
appointed ; and if, from the existence of abuses,
they are denied these advantages, they have a
right to call for the removal of the abuses. The
property of the establishment is held in trust for
the performance of certain duties; and if, from
the distribution of the property, the duties can-
not be discharged aright, there must be a power
somewhere to effect such an alteration in the dis-
tribution as shall remove the obstacles in the
way of amelioration. " The reform shall begin
from the church herself." From the church, cer-
tainly, but not from that part of the church in-
terested in the perpetuation of the abuses com-
plained of. No one seeks an alteration in any
of those particulars which give to the church its
distinctive character. No one seeks to put lay-
men in the place where ecclesiastics ought to be,
or ecclesiastics in the place of lawmen. But
there are points respecting which laymen are en-
titled to a voice as well as ecclesiastics, and all
regulations respecting temporalities are peculiarly
of the number. If laymen are not to interfere
with church abuses, by what right does the Pro-
testant church enjoy the temporalities formerly en-
joyed by the Catholic church ? It was not the
clergy in England that effected the reformation in
the church. On the contrary, the reformation was
forced on the clergy, just as reformation must
Always be forced on those who are themselves
the authors of the abuses complained of. Cler-
gymen, like all other men, are naturally par-
tial to those abuses by which they individually
profit. In England, the State has inter-
fered again and again, not merely with the pro-
perty, but with the discipline of the church.
" In King Edward the Sixth's reign," says Dr.
South, " the divine worship was twice altered
in two new Liturgies. In the first of Queen
Mary, the Protestant religion was persecuted
with fire and faggot, by law and public council
of the same persons who had so lately- esta-
blished it. Upon the coming in of Queen Eliza-
beth, religion was changed again ; and, within
a few days, the Public Council of the nation
made it death for a Priest to convert any man to
that religion, which before with so much eager-
ness of zeal had been restored. So that it is
observed by an author, that in the space of 12
years there were four changes about religion
made in England, And that by the public
council and authority of the realm." It still
becomes, therefore, the Protestant Establish-
ment—the creation of law—to object to reforms
by die public councils to which it is indebted
for its being. " The Clergy," says Mr. Mill
(Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. 2, p. 231),
" have invented a name for their own ease. It
is love of the Church. This means the love of
the interests of the class ; of the wealth, power,
and dignity of the Clergy." But the:interests of
the Church and the interests of the Clergy are
not always identical. It is the interest of the
Clergy to obtain, to receive as much, and to do
as little as possible ; it ie, the interest of the
Church that the Clergy should receive a just
recompense, and should labour assiduously.
The Clergy, by prosecuting their separate inte-
rests, may destroy the Church. " Was it not
impossible," said Lord Mounteashel, " that a
few working Clergymen could instruct the great
bulk of the inhabitants in the doctrines of their
religion ? And was it, therefore, to be wondered
at, that thousands upon thousands had di-
verged from the Establishment and joined
themselves to the Dissenters and Catholics? So
that with the Jesuits and Priests in general on
one side, and the Dissenters of all grades on the
other—all lopping from the Church, and each
anxious to promote its own system—the Church
of England, whose doctrines bid defiance to, and
whose precepts challenged the world, would, in
the course of a few years, have faded away, and
left but the name behind." It is by not keeping
constantly in mind the difference between tile
interests of the Clergy and the interests of the
Church, and that the love of the Church is al•
ways strongest in the Clergy when the interests
of the Church are the least attended to, that the
Reformation has made so little progress in Ire-
land. The Clergy of the Protestant Church of
Ireland purposely set themselves against the in-
terests of the Church, by discouraging, in every
possible way, the communication of the Pro-
testant doctrines to the native Irish in the only
language accessible to them. Even at this day
there are, according to a table in a recent pub-
lication, by Mr. Christopher Anderson, not
fewer than 3,740,217 of the population of Ire-
land understanding only the Irish language. It
is obvious that the Irish could not be converted
except; through the medium of their own lan-
guage. But the Church resolutely withstood
all attempts to furnish them with the Scriptures
in Irish. Those pious Members of the Esta-
blishment who were actuated by G. better spirit
were persecuted by their brethren. The suffer-
ings of Bishop Bede', on account of his exer-
tions for the natives, will always remain a blot on
the Church. But the Church rested not on the
number of its adherents, but on the arm of the
law. It was an Orange Church. But on a fu-
ture day we may enter more fully into the state-
ment of the conduct of the Clergy, which will
show how little reliance is to be placed in any
reform beginning with that body.—iilorn. Chron.

We have received a mass of letters of late,
from various Correspondents, relative to the dis-
graceful condition of the streets of. London at
the present time, for want of an effective police.
One of our Correspondents says, " It is hardly
necessary to state that the hordes of abandoned
women who now infest every thoroughfare of
the metropolis, and its subuths, have latterly,
under the incessant And maddening stimulus of
gin, assumed a chataeter of hardened ferocity,
and addicted themselves to habits of plunder, so
systematic and atrocious as to render them a:
this moment the most dangerous and efficient
agents in the march of demoralization.' " To
the truth of this repulsive picture of the open,
undisguised, and unrepressed depravity of the
streets of this great metropolis of the " most
moral country' in the work!, we can give the
testimony of our personal observation. The prin-
cipal thoroughfares are absolutely taken poss„..
iton of after dusk by gaup of licentious and