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    November 25/1854.] THE LEADER. 1117

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    LUNATICS CKIMINAL ANX> MATRIMONIAL. The ...

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    Church Conflicts. Quekn Isabella The Sec...

    reading-it , although it touched the hearts of those that stood around , and won for her more cheers on departure than she had heard in her cold reception , might have signified anything or almost nothing . But when she went to the chapel of Our Lady of Atocha , —surrendered her carriage to the priest that carried the Host and walked on foot , —visited a sick woman , and witnessed the administration of extreme unction , leaving a gift of money with the sufferer , —then the people believed that she was in earnest , and became more reconciled to their " constitutional Queen . "

    In this Protestant country we laugh at the meeting of prelates of the Roman Church in the capital of St . Peter to discuss the interpretation of doctrines respecting ' the Immaculate Conception" or " the real presence ; " we say that there is as much superstition as piety in the act that made Queen Isabella surrender her carriage to the priest and witness the anointing of the patient on her death-bed ; but

    yet there are incidents in that ceremony which speak a profound truth . If it be true that there is a power greater than kings , —that in His sight the highest and the lowest are equal ; if it be true that the deepest instincts of our nature , —the love of life , the tribulation of the flesh , and the hope hereafter , —are common to us all ; and if it be true that it is good to testify to these common truths before each other for

    our mutual guidance and support , then perhaps there was more of truth than falsehood in the pageant ceremonial in which Queen Isabella took part . At all events , in this Protestant country we ought not to sneer too much at pageants or mockeries of religion . "We have George Anthony Denison , an archdeacon or bishop ' s lieutenant , asserting doctrines generally considered inconsistent with those of the Church , rebelling against his bishops , and yet endeavouring to evade a decision at the hands of

    the law of the land by pleading forms in bar of his episcopal prosecutor ! The bishop suspended him , and he carries the question of " real presence" into the Court of Queen ' s Bench . It is a new device for a martyr to seek a prohibition from the Queen ' s Bench or an injunction in Cliancery — a px * ocess that might have been valuable to Latiiner and Ridley , if they could have found the court to sustain them .

    Not long since a fellow-bishop of Mr . Denison's prosecutor , the Bishop of London , delivered a charge to his clergy , in which he insisted on the duty of the parish to maintain its church . Imitating the retort of the patient to his physician , tlie parish might tell the church to sustain itself—to look after its own means and business * We have already mentioned the pamphlet on Voluntaryism , whose writer seizes the statistics of Mr . Horace Mann , and shows that all the increase in population , or in the numbers of attendants at divine

    worship , has been appropriated by the Dissenters ; that in fact , although at present in a majority of actual attendants at divine worship , the Church of England is a . fixed quantity , and the increase belongs altogether to the Digsenters . What matters it to keep up the body of the church , if the spirit is thus ( led ? To sustain the parish fabric while the light lias thus shrunk , is to imitate in malice prepense that small monstrosity of nature , a shrunken

    and withered kernel rattling within n hollow shell . Where is the uso of paying churchrates to sustain an edifice whoso Ministers cannot fill it ? According to tho very ground taken by the Bishop of London , tho people may bo compelled to subsidise tho church , although they do not belong to it . What a confession , that tho Church of England is one which relies upon tho bailiff's broker , and would bo repudiated by the people of England savo for tho enforcement of tho law which tho

    "'"^^^ ' ^^ 'BI ^^'& H ^ KnBBBIP ^ MMS ^ gHQ ^ g ^ m ^^ gbg ^ Q- —^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ bulk of the English people regard as nothing better than a relic of past slavery . Take Bishop Bloorafield ' position at the best , and we find a practical admission that the Church of England is only the Church of the few , and that the people of England are without a church , only compelled to give tribute to a church whieh they do not use—do not pray in , and do not believe in .

    To talk of the « Church of England , " indeed , in the ordinary acceptation which those three words might bear , is a folly . There is no such thing as the " Church , of England . " There is a sect which , affects to look down upon all others , because it has had in the main the appointing of all official people . But while great numbers of the three kingdoms stand aloof from this so-called Church of England , we see evidence of progressive severance . Major Powys , hon . sec . to the Central Association ,

    & c , refuses to recognise Roman . Catholics . Our fellow countrymen who make the sign of the cross have laboured as hard as any of the obscure and anonymous in the performance of their duties in the Crimea ; but the self-constituted administrator of a charity finds that Protestants alone are deserving . Bishops are suggesting coercion to wring money for their church from a reluctant people , while the Dissenters , on the strength of Mr . Mann ' s statistics , are proving that it is they who possess

    the growing numbers of the people . The nation , therefore , scattered * unimpressed by reverence for the Church , is leaving that Church as nothing letter than a privileged sect—" a corporation of soothsayers , " whose most distinctive relation with the people consists in its being the only sect with a right of local taxation . It is not the Church of England , though it has "wrongfully succeeded to the pro ^ perty of what was once the Church of England . It has no right to the parish church , because

    the Church of England could only be a church embracing the people of England . With the amplest opportunity , the so-called Church of England throws away its . chance of becoming connected with the body of the people . If we desire to have a Church , we must adopt such an arrangement as will permit the Church of the minority to la y aside , at all events for purposes of practical compulsion , the distinctive rights of this corporation , break down exclusive

    antagonisms of creed , overlook minor details , and consent to bo the Church of the people of England . Could we arrive at such a condition as that , we might , perchance , find less quarrelling amongst ourselves abdut the dry lumber or the ' * filthy lucre" of ecclesiastical establishments , and might learn a little more of that genuine feeling which makes the Spanish people reconciled to their Queen when she appeals to a divine truth through an idle ceremonial .

    November 25/1854.] The Leader. 1117

    November 25 / 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1117

    Lunatics Ckiminal Anx> Matrimonial. The ...

    LUNATICS CKIMINAL ANX > MATRIMONIAL . The Tliornhill-Chichester-Ferrers caso reminds us that there has been a commission overhauling many subjects of law winch fell under tho purview of the civil courts , but as yet we have had little more from it than a Blue Book or two , According to the judgment of tho court , Miss ThornUiU has bqon rescued from an improper marriage by tho intervention of tho Lord Chancellor ; but why should Miss Thornhill enjoy that peculiar superintendence and favour , which is not given to other young- ladies ? Many an honest girl falls a victim to a reckless and selfish man , without tlie Lord Chancellor ' s interfering in tho least degree , or so much aa thinking about it . Tho reason is , that Miss ThornUiU and other young ladies who are so favoured have property There is not tho same oarofor young- ladies without a " consideration . " Tho practice originates in an . old tyrannical claim by the Crown . After the Conquest , tho

    king claimed to be the lord of all lands ; he also could exercise a right of seeing that every land was in such custody as to secure Mm a proper quota towards his army ; and thus , when land fell into the hands of a female , the king arrogated to himself the right of seeing that she was furnished a proper husband—proper , that is , from the royal and military point of view . By degrees this duty was delegated to

    the Lord Chancellor , and it has now degenerated into nothing but a special solicitude on the part of the state for the protection of young ladies who possess property against adventurous suitors . It is very desirable to protect women against machinations of the kind , but in the United States they get at the same object by a way that is much more rational , and that extends the protection to all women whatsoever . The woman has a share in the

    proprietary right ; and although , we believe the husband can have some claim upon her property , as the wife has upon the husband ' s , she has a distinct title of her own to property coming to herself . This is a general law , and it is free from all the cumbersome ^ and sometimes cruel , interference that attends the privilege of the ward in Chancery . Excellent as Lord St . Leonards' Bills

    respecting Lunacy are , they still leave something to be desired ; for English reform would think itself culpable if it were to do its work effectually , and , were so " extreme" as to be thorough-going-. Besides wards in Chancery , there is an unhappy set of persons who undergo the protection of the law ; they are the Criminal Lunatics , who may be divided into two classes— -those who become _ insane during the period of their penal servitude , and those who are either found to have been insane at

    the time of the offence , or who become so immediately afterwards . There is no difficulty in dealing with the former 5 they are committed to some public asylum , by the Secretary of State ' s warrant , until cured , and when cured , they are sent back to the place whence they came . With the other and larger class of lunatic offenders , the case is different . We learn that the number of persons who are annually found insane on arraignment , or acquitted on the plea of insanity is somewhere about thirty . No doubt can be felt that the state should have a care of them . The lunatic

    afflicted with a homicidal mania must not be allowed to go at large ; though not morally amenable to the laws , nor capable of responsibility for their acts , the safety of the community requires that these thirty persons should be placed under proper restraint , and , if possible , cured . But , in thus providing , the existing law commits a great wrong . The effect is to place these unhappy people in a far worse position than if they had been found guilty of crimes while in a sane and accountable state .

    The law made and provided in these cases enacts that , " If a jury acquit a person on account of insanity , or a person indicted for any offence bo found upon arraignment insane , tho Court , boforo whom such trial shall be had , shall order such person in strict custody , in such place and in such manner as to the Court shall seem fit until her Majesty ' s pleasure bo known . " Hereupon a royal warrant issuos , committing tho prisonors to safe custody until her Majesty's

    pleasure bo declared . Strange to relate , however , tho royal pleasure is never declared in those cases . Every year somewhero about thirty persons are thus loft in gaols and county asylums , forgotten and neglected , awaiting in vain a declaration of tho royal pleasure . They are never released but by death . Thoir caso is not improved by hoing cast indiscriminately amongst tho most dopravod folona of the gaols , or tine worst cases of insauo criminality in tho asylums . So that after repeatedly declaring that such poisons aro not really criminals—after

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25111854/page/13/