POSTSCRIPTUM.

London, 27th June, 1843.

It is not expected by the public that a Quarterly periodical should resemble a daily, or even weekly newspaper, conducting the history of passing events to the period of its publication. Hence, on ordinary occasions, the political articles of the Church of England Quarterly Review speak of facts as they stand about the middle of the month prior to the first day of that which succeeds, and on which that periodical appears. The discussions of Quarterly literature are generally of such a nature as not to necessitate any special references to new phases in the events or plans under consideration, since principles, and not agents, are ordinarily the subjects of investigation and development. But there are exceptions to every rule, and one has just now occurred which compels us to deviate from our habitual custom.

The professedly Church and Conservative Government of this country has yielded to faction, clamour, and schism, and has withdrawn the Educational Clauses of the Factory Bill. This is an event big with the most important results, as well as with the most fearful admissions. They have not been withdrawn in deference to the expression of Church opinion, that the concessions they embodied were opposed to the just and necessary influence of the Protestant Church of these realms. They have not been withdrawn to substitute for them some other measure more Episcopal in its character, and more in harmony with the "Church and State" nature of our Constitution. They have not been withdrawn in deference to any expressed opinion of even a large minority in either House of Parliament, or because, after a most deliberate and protracted discussion, the votes were so nearly equal, that a withdrawal of the project would not be regarded as an evidence of defeat, but only as a project of conciliation, preparatory to a future effort, and to a somewhat modified bill. There has been no discussion. The merits of the clauses were not developed; the objections to them were not stated. The clauses were not with

drawn because county meetings had been held all over the land, and because the clergy and laity, the nobility and gentry, or the farmers, manufacturers, merchants, and yeomanry assembled at such meetings and petitioned against them. They were not withdrawn because, in large and influential towns, the local magistrates and public authorities had represented them as likely to engender strife, or to diminish the power, popularity, or permanence of the Government. They were not withdrawn out of respect to the opinions and sensibilities, the prejudices or mistakes of the habitual supporters of Conservative principles, and of a Protestant Conservative Government. So far from this being the case, those who took the lead in the uproar which has been raised in the "vestry" rooms of conventicles, or at the teatables of Dissenting teachers, were, with the sole exception of a few of the more respectable portions of the Wesleyans, all men connected with political associations, with " Anti-Corn Law League" agitations, and with men of the Whig-Radical party, who assisted, by their orations or by their pennies, the Manchester Convention, and who either urged on the Chartists, or pitied and pleaded for them. Yet the Educational Clauses have been withdrawn. Now, that there may be no possible mistake respecting the motives which led to the abandonment in question, we shall proceed to quote the very words of Sir James Graham, when he adopted this line of conduct. After having referred to what he had stated on the introduction of the bill, he continued

"I stated distinctly, what it is now my duty to repeat, that the success of the measure, in my estimation, and I framed it in reference to that consideration, was mainly dependent upon its being received generally throughout the country as a measure of concord and concession. I endeavoured so to frame it, I have so regarded it, and I can consider it in no other light after the best examination I can bestow upon the subject. After its first introduction it was quite clear that the great body of the Dissenters in this country had insuperable objections to the measure in its original form. By the permission of the house I was allowed to propose certain modifications in the original form of the measure, which I hoped might have met and obviated the objections stated on the part of the Dissenting body generally to the measure. In that hope I am bound to say I have been entirely disappointed. Those objections have not been removed by the modifications which have been submitted to the house; the opposition to the measure remains

unabated. On the part of the Church there has been a willingness, in the hope of obtaining that concord and concession to which I have already referred, to make some considerable sacrifices. There has been acquiescence on the part of the Church, in the hope of obtaining concord and peace; but there has not been any very cordial support of the measure. What, then, is the duty of the Government under such circumstances? I cannot conceal from myself that the great and formidable evil which this measure was intended to counteract has not been removed. The statement of my noble friend the member for Dorsetshire, with respect to the unhappy ignorance in which a large portion of the population in the manufacturing districts is involved, remains unshaken and the evil unabated. The measure I introduced was intended to meet that evil, and overcome it. Private exertions, without the aid of legislative support, having been found insufficient for that object, I, on the part of the Government, was anxious to give public and legislative aid to those individual exertions; but I repeat my assertion, that unless there could have been obtained general concord and co-operation in the mode of effecting this great object, even if we had succeeded in carrying this measure through the legislature, its only effect would have been to increase religious discord and dissension, to embitter many of the evils which we were most anxious to remedy, and to aggravate, instead of diminishing, the public danger arising from the present state of affairs."

So the clauses were withdrawn-the Factory Bill, without the clauses, has been postponed: the Government has distinctively stated that it has no other measure to propose; it has refused to apply for additional educational grants for the Church schools and for the National Society; and although it has admitted the existence of a mass of misery, ignorance, and vice, juvenile depravity, and crimes, sufficient to call down the vengeance of Almighty God upon this land, yet that same Government is apparently satisfied with having obtained peace at the sacrifice of the most solemn obligations, and with having signed a treaty, not of amity (for that is impossible), but of a cessation of hostilities, with the agents of faction, clamour, and schism.

A treaty thus entered into is an evidence of cowardice on the one hand, and of victory on the other. The enemies of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Great Britain have triumphed over that Church-over its clergy, its schools, its system of teaching, its formularies, its doctrines, principles, and its union with the State. They have done so by adopting, in all its length and breadth-reckless alike of means and of agents-a system of intimidation. They have done so by causing the most heart

less and unprincipled juggleries to be resorted to, in order to ́obtain signatures to petitions. To the ignorant they have said— "The movers in this measure are Papists and Puseyites; and if you do not sign this petition, the Pope will educate your children." To the Sunday-school teachers they have said—“ If this bill passes you will no more enjoy the luxury of doing good; and these blessed children, whom you love to instruct in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will be removed from your care." To the masters and mistresses of Lancasterian schools they have said "If this bill shall pass you will lose your places; the schools will be shut up; none but masters and mistresses selected by the clergy will be allowed to instruct the children of the poor; the Church is in the hands of the Puseyites; and the Puseyites will, in a very short time, take over the children and the schools to the Church of Rome." To pious and conscientious people they said "The instruction proposed to be given will be of a mere formalist character; there will be no instruction as to the sinfulness of the human heart-the depravity of our fallen nature-the mercy of God in Christ Jesus-the doctrine of the atonement-the necessity for a new birth-the cardinal doctrine of justification by faith without the deeds of the lawthe sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit-and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures without the aid of tradition or antiquity." Alas! the pious have been deceived; the cajoling scheme of the united schismatics has been believed in; and parchments have been signed by tens of thousands of persons who knew no more-i. e., as far as personal examination and investigation were concerned—what the bill against the petition really was than the Emperor of China is acquainted with the proceedings of the Independents at Highbury College!!

The Dissenters are not less astonished at their success, than they are delighted at their triumph. But it is the triumph of fraud the most organized, of misrepresentation the most unprincipled, and of the union of cunning with violence, and of hypocrisy with enthusiasm. The efforts which were so made are thus described by one of the societies which represents the "movement party." It states that it has "observed with soulcheering complacency, the wide spreading, active, unslumbering,

self-denying, and unparalleled exertions, that have been made by ministers and laymen, by youthful enthusiasts, and by the hoary and the wise, by the Deputies, the Freedom Society, and religionists of every name throughout England and Wales." And then follows a description of the sacrifices of principle and conviction they have all made, in order to hunt down the Educational Clauses; for what other fair interpretation can be given to the following passage? "Who (i. e., the united opponents to the bill before spoken of) have suspended strife, forgotten existing rivalries, and united with ardent zeal and generous combination in an undaunted, unintimidable resistance, worthy of the descendants of the old Nonconformists and Puritan fathers, and of the British name, and which shall present to their children, and children's children, and to future times, lessons never to be forgotten of the essential importance of constant jealousy and unslumbering vigilance, as to all legislative measures that may even remotely encroach on existing rights," &c. &c.

This is the opposition which has succeeded! This is the character of the confederation which has so alarmed the Secretary of State for the Home Department and all his coadjutors, as to induce them to authorize Sir James Graham to admit, in his place in the House of Commons, that the Church of England Conservative Administration of Sir Robert Peel had been signally defeated.

It

It is this fact, and the thoughts to which it leads, as well as the apprehension and conviction of the results which must follow, which has induced us to add to our present number this POSTSCRIPTUM. And let not this mournful fact of the withdrawal of the Church Educational Clauses, in deference to faction, clamour, and schism, be thrown away upon any one of us. is not at a moment when three hundred respectably dressed farmers in Carmarthenshire head, on horseback, thousands of the Welsh mountaineers, and attack the county town-it is not at a moment when the whole of South Wales is agitated by a spirit of the most lawless and desperate character--it is not at a moment when the Churchmen of North Wales are indignant at the attempt which is persisted in to unite the sees of Bangor