The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-08-18 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS

SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE CHURCH.
(From the Cork Constitution.)
There is, in a forthcoming pamphlet by the Bishop
of Exeter, a letter which reflects high honour on Sir
RObert Peel. It is in confidential communications of
this kind, if anywhere, we may expect to get at the
motives which actuate the statesman ; and when Sir
Robert declares, as he does in his correspondence with
the bishop, that his object is " to promote the true in-
terests of the Church of England"—to give real sta-
bility to the church in its spiritual character," and that
rather than consent to anything which he believed
" prejudicial to the great and sacred object" iorwhich
it was established, he would " most willingly return to
private life, and make the very, very small sacrifice of
office"—few, we are sure, will doubt that when Sir
Robert thus speaks, he speaks in sincerity and sober-
ness the sentiments of an ardent, an enlightened, and
a disinterested friend. It is not by making the church
subservient to purposes of policy that we consult either
its own safety or the people's welfare. Purposes of
policy," and of the best policy too, it undoubtedly pro-
motes, but if it rested here it would fall far short of
the end of its institution. That end we must endea-
vour honestly to work out, and it is the duty of each
of us to aid in rendering the means and the machinery
of the church as available and as effective as we can.
We know not how this can better be attempted than
on the plan and in the spirit recommended by Sir Ro-
bert Peel.
It is the fashion to abuse Sir Robert. He is too cold
for some—too tardy for others—too unconciliating for
all; and he is lectured as liberally as though he had
nothing to do but bend his ear to the reproofs so au-
thoritatively addressed to him. Time after time during
the—we may now call it past session—would they have
had him wrest the reins of government from Lord
Melbourne, without troubling themselves to ask whose
were the hands they would next be held by. Every
rational man felt that the court was not prepared for a
conservative administration, and that had Sir Robert
taken the course on which he was so arrogantly urged,
it would have but enabled the premier to fix his foot
more firmly in the palace of Victoria. It is not by im-
patience that the interests of a nation are advanced ;
and the censors of Sir Robert have yet to learn that
there is oftentimes wisdom in knowing how to wait.
Errors Sir Robert may have committed, and we be-
lieve has ; but to which of us is it given to be always
right t It is easy, very easy to find fault; but have
those who censure, laboured with the same diligence to
support ? Have not tongues been busy while hands
were idle ? Has not " Register, register !" been on
many a lip, while not a finger was moved to give it
practical effect ? If we would take away the reproach
that cleaves to us—if we would place our party in the
position in which it ought to stand—if we would see
Sir Robert at the head of the councils of his country,
and that country delivered from the bonds by which
she is held in thrall, we must bestir ourselves more fit-
tingly. Never was there a period when exertion was
more called for than at present. If conservatives hold
together, they can save the empire from dismember-
ment. Separation," though now the imprudent out-
burst of a priest, will be by and by the adopted watch-
word of a people; and so much more potent will it
prove than the mercenary and mongrel menace of
O'Connell, that nothing but an united and a deter-
mined stand will be able to resist it. This, however,
leads us away from the object with which we started,
and which was to draw attention to the following letter,
written nearly six years ago by Sir Robert Peel. The
Bishop of Exeter has now, with Sir Robert's permis-
sion, given it to the public in a pamphlet which was
occasioned by some observations made in one of the
debates on the ecclesiastical duties and revenues bill.
" (Most Private.) " Whitehall, Dec. 22,1834.
"My dear Bishop of Exeter—l felt assured that I did not
go beyond the limits to which you were prepared to advance
on the questions of the Church Reform (I include in those
terms the various pending subjects for discussion,) in the ad-
dress which I thought it advisable to issue. I solemnly de-
clare my main object is to promote the true interests of the
Church of England. I will most willingly return to private
life, and make the very, very small sacrifice of office, rather
than consent to anything which I conscientiously believe to
be prejudicial to the great and sacred objects for which the
Church was established; but my earnest advice is that the
Church should avail itself of this, possibly the last, opportu-
nity of aiding its true friends in the cause of judicious Re-
form, by enabling us to go all the lengths we can go with per-
fect safety, and to make, if possible, a satisfactory and final
settlement.
" The haste in which I am writing, and the imperfect man-
ner in which, I have no doubt, I am expressing myself, will
account to you for my omitting now to enter on the much
greater question of Church Reform. Here again I say, let us
do all that we can do consistently with our own conscientious
conviction that we are making no concession hurtful to the
true interests of religion.
" I should be most happy to hear from you on this great
point, to which I am confident your attention must have been
anxiously directed. I need hardly assure you that all mete
political considerations—all views of Churoh preferment, as
being subservient to party interests—are as nothing in my
mind compared with the great object of giving real stability
to the Church in its spiritual character : and that I believe
enlarged political interests will be best promoted by strengthen-
ing the hold of the Church of England upon the love and
veneration of the community.—Believe me, my dear Bishop,
most faithfully yours, _

" R. PEEL."

" Whatever you write to me I will receive in the siriCtest
confidence, until I have your permission to consider it other-
wise.
" The Lord Bishop of Exeter."