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    November 25 , 1854 . ] THE L E'ADER . 1117

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    reading ifc , 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 hei 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 Mghest 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 Chancery — a process that might have been valuable to Latimer and Ridley , if they could have found the court to sustain them .

    Not long since a fellow-bishop of Mr . Demson'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 , the parish might tell the church to sustain itself—to look after its own means and business . Wo have already mentioned the pamphlet oix 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 Dissonters ; 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 Dissonters . "What matters it to keep up the body of the church , if the spirit is thus fled ? To sustain the parish fabric while the light haa thus shrunk , is to imitate in malice prepense that small monstrosity of nature , a shrunken

    and withered kernel rattling within a hollow shell . Where is tho use of paying 1 churchrates to sustain an edifico whose Ministers caunot fill it ? According to the very ground taken by tho Biahop of London , tho people may bo compelled to subsidise the church , although they do not belong- to it . What a confession , that tho Church of England , is oho which relics upon tho bailiff ' s broker , and would bo repudiated by tho people of England save for the enforcement of tho law -which tho

    bulk of the English people regard as nothing better than a relic of past slavery . Take Bishop Bloomfield ' s position at the best , and we find a practical admission that the Church of England is onl y the Church of the few , and that the people of England are without a church , only compelled to give tribute to a church which 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

    &e ., 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 tetter 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 property 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 lay 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 be the Church of the people of England . Could we arrive at such a condition as that , we might , perchance , find less quarrelling amongst ourselves about 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 .

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    which is not given to other young ladies ? Many an honost girl falls a victim to a reokless and selfish man , without tho Lord Chancellor's interfering in tho least degree , or so much as thinking- about it . Tho reason is , that Miss Thornhill arid other voting ladies who are so favourod have property There is not tho same care for voung ladies without a " consideration . " Tho practice originates in an old tyrannical claim by the Crown . After tho 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 him a proper quota towards his army ; and thus , when land fell iuto the hands of a female , the king arrogated to himself the right of seeing that she was furnished a proper husband—proper , that is , fi-om the royal and military point of view . Hy 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 wlio 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 ean 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 5 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 Luaatics , 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 ; 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 . 13 ut , in thus providing , the existing law commits : i 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 .

    Tho 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 be found upon arraignment insane , the Court , before whom such trial shall bo had , shall order such person in strict custody , in . such placo and in such manner as to the Court shall seem fit until her Majesty ' s pleasure bo known . " Hereupon a royal warrant issues , committing tho prisoners to safe custody until her Majesty ' s pleasure l ) o declared . Strange to rolato ,

    however , the royal pleasure is never declared m these cases . Every year somewhere about thirty persons are thus left in gaols and county asylums , forgotten and neglected , awaiting in vain a declaration of tho royal pleasure . They are never released but by death . Their case is not improved by being cast indiscriminately amongst , tho most < lq > raved felons of the gnola , or the woiwfc cases of insane criminality in tho asylums . So that after repeatedly declaring that such persons arc not really criminals—after

    LUNATICS CRIMINAL AND MATRIMONIAL . This Thornhill-Chicheator-Ferrers case reminds us that there has been a commission overhauling many subjects of law which 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 the court , Miss Thornhill has been rescued from an improper marriage by the intervention of tho JLord Chancellor ; but why should Miss Thornhill enjoy that peculiar superintendence and favour ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 1117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2066/page/13/