The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 341, 14 August 1849, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1849.

With the exception of the consideration of the remaining clauses of the Crown Lands' Bill (which, with a few corapnratively trifling alterations, passed through Committee) the public interest of the proceedings in the Legislative Council on Saturday was mainly centred in the steps taken and the conversations raised respecting the Marriage Ordinance. A Memorial from the Wesleyan Ministers in Auckland, signed not only for themselves and their own congregations, but also for their whole Church in the Colony, (according to the declarations and prayer of a Memorial prepared by the body of their Ministerial Brethern at their District Meeting last year), was presented by the Surveyor General, who introduced it with an energetic speech, in which he not only gave strong "sxpression to his disapprobation of the obnoxious enactments, but took occasion to pay a warm tribute to the zealous and successful efforts of the Wesleyan Missionaries in New Zealand, and to the loyalty and general good conduct of the numerous Natives whom tfyey have been the instruments of elevating fiom barbarism and heathenism to the enjoyment of a large measure of the blessings of civilization and Christianity. The hon. member's address was as creditable to his own spirit of enlightened catholicity, as it must be gratifying to those on whose services to the colony he dwelt. The Memorial agreed on at the Public Meeting of Tuesday was presented by the Colonial Treasurer. We cannot but regard this as a document of great importance, whether we consider the insidious and germinant nature of the grievance against which it protested, the liberal and sound principles on which it was based, the tone of respectful but uncompromising firmness in which those principles were enunciated, or the number and character of the signatures appended to it. Within the short time that it lay before the public, it received no less than 249 names ; and amongst these names were many vf those best known and most respected in Auckland and its vicinity, , We have before adverted to the pleasing fact that not a few members of the Churches of England and Rome, although themselves exempted from the sectarian pressure of the Ordinance, are not only willing but strongly desirous that the inequality by which others are placed beneath them in point of privilege, should be at once and entirely swept away* The signatures bore ample testimony to this ; and, from the

favour with which the object of the Memorial was generally regarded, there can be little doubt that, h&d there been time and opportu - nity to bring the matter fairly and fully before all classes of the community, the result would have exhibited an array of moral and intellectual, as well as numerical force on the side of religious liberty, which might well have put to the blush, if not confounded, the adherents of ecclesiastical exclusivism and intolerance. But here we find ourselves again employing terms, which judging from the observations made in the Council on Saturday, grate dissonantly on the ears of one or two members of that honourable assembly. Some caustic remarks were made on the introduction of such phraseology ai we have now used, into the Memorials. The gentlemen referred to, having been parties to the enactment of the Ordinance, complained that the censure pronounced on it, necessarily implied censure of them. That, we submit, is entirely their own concern. The memorialists made no personal allusion ; they, in good, plain, straight foiward English, characterized the obnoxious provisions of the measure by terms which they did and do believe were just and appropriate. They said what they meant, and meant what they said ; and if the fashion of their speech does not please those gentlemen, they cannot help it. A spade is a spade, call it what you may to suit the fastidiousness of ears polite. We deferentially suggest, that it would be more to the purpose, if honorable and learned objectors would set themselves to prove that the Ordinance does not deserve the condemnatory epithets applied to it-~that it is not sectarian, unjust, vexatious, oppressive, an infringement on religious rights, and so forth"— than to give vent to petulant complaints because it is se designated, as if some attack had been made upon themselves personally. In the discussion which the Surveyor-General's proposed motion will probably raise to-day, they will have as convenient an opportunity a» they could desire of rolling away any reproach that has been connected with the measure, and proving, if it ba proteable, that it is tolerant, j and catholic, framed with enlarged views of equity, and instinct with a spirit of religious freedom. Will they attempt to do so t We shall hear, note, and faithfully report. At a later hour, in answer to the Colonial Treasurer, the Governor stated that the Ordinance had not been allowed by the Queen, This was confirmation of intelligence which, as we mentioned on a former occasion, had reached us from another source. The Bill has not been dia-allowed, but simply not allowed. The fact we beliete to be, that it has never been forwarded with the Governor's recommendation that it should be submitted for her Majesty's approval. A* we have just intimated, the Surveyor General has given notice of a motion for this day, which is calculated to bring the wholesubject more directly u«der View than it has hitherto come during the present session o£ Council. The consideration of the Estimates will probably be entered on to-day. The vote for theColonial Secretary's salary will be one of the earliest ; and whatever may be the general merits of the scheme laid down in the Financial Minute respecting the regulation of salaries, we should regret to see it applied in the reduction of the income of an old, tried, and faithful officer in one of the highest departments of the Government service. From the tenor of Hia Excellency's observations, however, it is not likely that this regulation will take place.

As it does not appear that the Council deem ift. necessary to issue bulletins of the health of their Chaplain, and as that reverend gentleman's numerous and deservedly attached circle of friends may be naturally anxious to know how far there has been a fulfilment of the gloomy vaticinations of hon. and learned members respecting his probable fate if the Colonial Treasurer's proposition for prayer should be adopted, — we are happy to report that no very serious symptoms of death from exhaustion have yet been noticed in the venerable patient. Indeed we question whether his physical condition would have attracted any particular attention, had not councillors— "honourable men— all honourable men" — spoken of him as a martyr, a sacrifice, one about to die in the harness, and so forth. Never in the days of primitive self-devotedness did martyr advance to the stake with less of craven fear and more of resolute purpose than his Reverence manifests on entering the Council Chamber : and never did high-souled confessor in the agonies of the torture maintain more self-possession and unruffled tranquillity than he exhibits during the five or six minutes,—the three or four hundred long long seconds,—during which, every alternate day, he toilsunder the crushing weight lately imposed on him by a "righteous overmuch" Assembly. He labours in his " harness," that is, in his black gown, with a truly edifying submission to his afflictive doom, and retires giving no visible sign to approaching dissolution. What restoratives and other appliances of nursery care may be in readiness through Mr. Coates's watchful solicitude, we cannot tell : — of course that meritorious and considerate officer has not failed to make due preparation for the worst; but certainly,, so far as outward symptoms go

there seeinstobe as yet nothing arisingout of the effects of this overwhelming exertion that would warrant an Insurance Company, in demanding a very largely increased premium on a policy on the Chaplain's life. If anybody, with a morbidly excited organ of Destructivness, is attending the Sessions of Council in order to be present on the fatal day when the reverend gentleman shall " die in the harness "—(as it is said that a man in England actually followed Van Amburgh, the " Ron-tamer," from place to place, in the belief that some night or another the wild beasts would undoubtedly tear their quondam subdner in pieces, and a desire to" assist " (as the French say), at the catastrophe)— he will probably have to wait a while for the tragic consummation. Seriously, we think that a very unjustifiable liberty was taken with Mr. Churton's name, and, by implication, with his ministerial character, when a profession of regard for his health and life was made the stalking-horse to conceal other and more operative motives of hostility to Mr. Shepherd's proposal that the sessions of Council should be regularly opened with prayer. Had the duty been really an oppressive one, — (instead of consisting merely in the reading of a fpw short prayers every second day for two or three weeks), — still its nature and objects were such that no minister of religion who was at all alive to the responsibilities of his sacred vocation could hesitate to undertake it ; and, at all events, to put the matter on the comparatively low ground of cemmercial integrity, it was one that any clergyman, so long as he retained an office which, like that of our Colonial Chaplain, has more of honour and emolument than of privation and harassing labour connected with it, must, as an honest man, have felt himself bound $a perform. But Mr. Churton is well known to be diligent, conscientious, and hard-working in the discharge of his various duties ; moreover he had., in this particular instance, explicitly declared his willingness to attend to the proposed service -, and it was unfair to make him and his individual concerns ostensibly the chief obstacle to the adoption of stated prayer for the Divine blessing on the deliberations of the Council. If hon. gentlemen disapproved of the Colonial Treasurer's motion on its abstract merits ; or, if while they admitted the importance of public prayer on behalf of the Legislature, they yet believed that the good to be anticipated from it was less than the evil to be apprehended from the possible contingency of its being some day offered up by a Minister who had not received Church of England ordination, why did they not frankly and manfully say so 1 Why drag the name and personal interests of an active and estimable clergyman into the forefront of their opposition ? The transparency of the " ingenious device" here, where Mr. Churton is known and valued, may not prevent an unjustly prejudicial impression being made at a distance, by the fact that it was a subject of rather lengthened discussion whether a Chaplain, receiving £200 a year from the funds of the colony, could or would statedly read a few Collects at the Sessions of the Le • gislative Assembly.