^^i V^oo^'ph/ir&."K,o-vj-i^'>i ^^Th6 i^'d^i^e-s/Zd-v ' » • . • • • • • THE ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION: A COPIOUS SEEIES OF IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS, OF PERMANENT HISTORICAL INTEREST, ON THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC HIEEARCHY IN ENGLAND, 1850-1. 5 •! •>',«-» . LONDON: JAMES GILBERT, 49, P ATERNOSTER-K W Price Four Shillings hound ii> clofh. T33 Proof Impressions of the Portrait, with autograph specimfii of wiitiug and emhlenuitical ami ornamental borders, may be had, printed in a lar^e 4'to size, price 4d. ; or iu imperial folio, beautifully printed in gold and tints, price Is. INTEODUCTION AND CONCLUSION. The Editor of tlie series of pamphlets on the Roman Catholic Question, in bringing his labours to a conclusion, cannot refrain from making a few reflections on the present asj^ects and prospects of the interests involved in the contest which has shalien the kingdom from its propriety, and well-nigh put in jeopardy the progress of its constitutional government. The Editor, however, deems it necessary to state, for the first time, that he is, from long ancestral descent, a Protestant ; he was born, baptised, and educated in the Established Church, and amidst his very numerous relatives he does not remember a single instance of a contrary chai'acter ; thus miich for the Editor's predilections as to education and relative associations. In reference to the Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius the Ninth, and the Pastoral of Cardinal Wiseman, the Editor feels there are expressions which, to a Protestant influenced by a prescribed form of educational notions as to Christian observances and principles, are naturally calculated, if viewed through a civil and political aspect, to offend his opinions and excite his prejudices. Still the Editor feels that if these documents had been treated in the sense they were, to his judgment, evidently intended to be by the authors, strictly in a spiritual sense and applied to the members of the Roman Catholic Church in our common country, the agitation which has unhappily existed for so lengthened a period would never have arisen. He must express his conviction that the letter of Lord John Russell to the Bishop of Durham was a most unfortunate document to emanate from the First Minister of the Crown of these Realms — from one who, in his civil and political position, should have felt the necessity of his being, under any circumstances, an impartial observer of events, and who was bound in duty to his Sovereign as well as his countrymen to refrain from leading the Protestant portion of the kingdom into direct antagonism and uncharitable contrast with a third of the subjects of our beloved Queen. His lordship's letter appears the more marvellous when it is viewed as emanating from one who, ever since his first entrance upon the stage of political life, has been considered a sincere advocate of civil and religious liberty. It is lamentable to reflect how he has tarnished all his former laurels, and, it is to be feared, to a considerable extent destroyed his future usefulness as a member of the Legislature. It is not too much to assert, that the greater portion of the excitement has had its origin in this letter ; and, however just the noble lord might at the time have considered his reflections, the Editor must assert his conviction, that the author of it must now regret its publication ; at a period, too, when we, as a nation, are inviting people of all climes and of every variety of creed to visit our shores in generous emulation and fraternal harmony — ^how much more strange and ungenerous must such a letter appear ! The Editor does not feel inclined, neither is he qualified, to enter at any length into the religious arguments of the question, still he feels assured that the benign precepts of Christianity have been lamentably violated during the mifor- tunate agitation. It is painful to reflect upon the uncharitable reflections and arguments which have been cniinciated from platform and pulpit, and thouqh K-J ■J .M^ V if IV INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION. all have not emulated the exciting zeal and anti-Christian denunciations of the Bev. Drs. Gumming and M'Neile, still it must be a source of sorrow to every true patriot and sincere Christian that so much uncharitableness has been rife in our beloved country during this agitation. The reasoning faculties appear to have been almost deluged amidst the excitement of the question, whether viewed in a civil or religious sense. Our Catholic neighbours have not only been treated with great contumely by the members of the Established Church, but, strange to say, the Dissenters from our Church who, humanly speaking, owe all the civil and religious liberties which they now enjoy to former assistance generously ren- dered to them by the Catholic portion of the inhabitants of the kingdom, even these very Dissenters have taken a prominent joart against the Catholics in the agitation ; this, too, in the teeth of the fact that, if their present civil or religious liberties were put in jeopardy, the Catholic body would again come to their assistance and rescue. The Editor has felt some consolation in his onerous labours at the kindly feeling which has been so frequently shown him by members of the different religious persuasions with whom, in the performance of his duties, he has come in contact ; and in taking leave of his readers he cannot help impressing upon them the importance of their endeavouring to turn to their individual profit the argu- ments, good and bad though they may to some extent be, which have been advanced on the occasion. For himself he can truly say, that the vast correspondence which his duties have brought before him have tended to make him thinlc more seriously than heretofore of the two principal religious systems in this land, the Established and Catholic Churches : they both, doubtless, have their human defects ; but perhaps he may be permitted to say, that the Established Church of these realms, possess- ing, as it does, much more temporal wealth than any other Church in the world, ought to turn the present agitation to the consideration whether they might not be the means of far more usefulness, as to morals and religion, than they now are, and whether the poor and maligned Catholic Church in this land does not appear to care more efficiently for the spiritual and temporal comfort of the people com- mitted to its charge than its rich and powerful rival does for its members. The documents and facts which ha\'e for the last four months emanated from the bishops and clergy of the rival Churches have had a striking tendency to lead the popular mind to think more favourably than heretofore of the Catholic — though in many senses the reverse should surely be the effect. Finally, the Editor sincerely trusts that the recent agitation may rapidly subside, and leave as its fruits for the present and future generations a decided and efficient conviction of our duties as a Christian community, and that each and all may endeavour to put into more practical operation the benign precepts of our Lord and Saviotir ; and in choosing the communion of oiu' adoj)tion in this world, may select that one which tends to bring us the most completely in contact with the anticipated regions of future and eternal bliss. Note.— The Editor deems it necessary to st^ite his con\iction that all the important facts and dociimciifs velativi- to the " Uonian Catholic (Juestioii" have appeared in the lia^^es iif these paiiiplilets. Doubtliss dui-iiiij the ]irogress of the Keclesiastical 'I'itli s Assniin)tioii Jtill tliioiifih tile Ihaisesof I'arhanu lit many .speeches of inteicst will be niadi'; .still the K. 13-16 Hamilton, G. A , M.P., Speech by, s. 23,/). 5, 6 liarcourt, Admiral, his Speech, s. 2, p. 13, and s. Q,p. 1 Hawes, Benjamin, M.P., his testimony in favour of Cardinal Wiseman, s. 3, /;. 8 Hereford, the Bishop of, ou the " Romish Aggres- sion," s. 14, p. 13 Hexham, Pastoral by the Catholic Bishop of, s. 12, p. 13-15 Hierarcliv, Bishop UUathome on the, s. I, p. 6, 7 Rev. G. A. Denison, questioning the oppo- sition to its establishment, s. l,p. 11, 12 Hume, Joseph, M.P., on the, s. 8,/;. 1 — — Wilberforce, Archdeacon, on the, s. 8,/j. 8 Roebuck, J. A., M.P., on the, s. 9, p. 1-3 a Plain Appeal on the, by John Bull, s.i,p. 1-10 Card. Wiseman's Lecture on the, s. 10,/;. 5-11 Ditto, and in reference to the Address of the Bishops of the Established Church, and the Duties of the Catholic Church, s. 13,/;. 7-10 Irish Beneficed Clergyman's Opinions on the, *. 15,/;. 13-15 Bishop Ullathorne's Account of the Origin of the New, in a Letter to Lord John Russell, s. 19,/;. 15,16 Hope, H. T., M.P., Speech in the House of Com- mons by, s. 18,/;. 10-13, and ditto, *. 22, /;. 9 Howard, P. H., M.P., Speech in the House of Commons by,*. 21,/;. 16, and ditto, *. 22,/;. 1,2 Hume, Joseph, M.l'., on the Catholic Hierarchy, s. S,p. 1 Speech in the House of Commons by, s. 18, ;;. 13, and ditto s. 33,/;. 10, 11 lUi/s/rafed Loudon News on Cardinal Wiseman's Ajipeal, s. 7, n. 8-10 Immoral and blasphemous tendencies of the Pro- cession of " Guys" and the Burning of Etfigies, s. Q>,p. 7, 8 Inglis, Sir R., M.P., Speech of, s. 18, /;. 10, and ditto,*. 20,/;. 8, 9 Irish Beneficed Clergyman, an, on the alleged " Papal Aggression," *, 15,;;. 13-15 Established Prelates, Remonstrauce of the, to the Archbishop of Canterbury; with answer, *. ]6,/;. 16 Catholic Bishops' Address to their Flocks ou the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, *. 24,/;. 11-13 Jolui Bull's Plain Appeal to tlie People of England on the New Catliolic Hierarchy, *. 4,/;. 1-10 Keogli, W., M.P., Speech in the House of Commons by,*. 22,/;. 4-7 Kildare, Marquis of, Speech ou moving the Address to the (iueeu in House of Connnons,*. 18,/;. 6 LansJowne, Maripiis of. Speech in the House of uords, *. IS,/;. 5, 6 Laiigilali', llou. C, ou the Roman Catholics and Lord Johu llus.sell, *. Qi,p. 8, 9 Leader newsi)aper on Cardinal Wiseman's Appeal, *. 7,/;. 8 Leading Articles from the Public Press ou Cardinal Wiseman's Appeal to the People of England, *. 1, 5, 7 Lecture by Dr. Cummin;; uu the Uierareliy, *. 2, /;. 13-16 ou the Cardinal's Oath, *. 6, /;. 1-7 INDEX. VU Lecture by the Rev. T. Nolan on llic " Pope nnd tlie (iueni," s. 3, p. l-O by llonry Vinwnt on tlic I'oiie, the Bisliop?, and the Feoph;, s. 15, p. 1-10 Legal, Historiciil, and Practical Speech on the Eccle- siastical Titles Bill, by Serj. Slice, *. 34.,;;. M-IG Legal Arguments on the Ecclesiastical Assumption Titles Bill, by V. ScuUy, *. 24., p. 7-11 Letter Apostolic of Pope Piuii IX, s. I, p. lA Lichfield, the Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggres- sion," s. S,p. 9 Life of Cardinal Wiseman, j. 1, j/. 13, I't his Mother, *. 17, y^- 10 Lincoln, Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggression," s. 8, p. G, 7 Loudon, the Bishop of, Charge to his Clergy, at St. Paul's Cathedral, s. 2, p. 1-13 on the " Romish Aggression," s. 7, p. 11. on the Rev. Mr. Bennett's Resignation, s. 11,;;. 8-11 Correspondence vrith the Rev. Mr. Bennett, s. 12, p. 1-10 City of. Addresses to the Crown, *. II, p. 1-7 Loyalty and Patriotism of Card. Wiseman, s. 1, «. 1 1 M'Culhigh, W. T., Ul'., Speenh, s. 21, p. 0, 10 M'Neile, the Rev. Dr., his Pulpit Attack of the Catholic Confessional, with his reply to the charge, *. 13, ;5. 10-12 Masquerade, the Vatican, an article from the Weekli/ Dispatch, s. 3, p. 13-15 Maule, Right Hon. F.,M .P., Speech by, *. 23, ;;. 12, 13 "Ministers and the Pope," from the dmrierli) Review, s. 10, p. 8-10 Ministerial Crisis, Speeches on the, s. 24, ;;. 1-7 " Monster Lie" in reference to the " Taylor Be- quest," s. 0, p. 14., 15 Moore, G. H., M.P., Speech in the House of Com- mons by, s. 20, p. 2, 3, and ditto, *. 22, p. 13 Mornhiff Herald, the, on Cardinal Wiseman's "Ap- peal," s. 4-, p. 15. on the University and City Addresses, s. 1 \,p.l Morning Post, the, on Cardinal Wiseman's " Ap- peal," s. 5, /;. 15, 16 Morning Chronicle on ditto, s. 7, p. 7, 8, and on the University and City Addresses, s. 11,/;. Muntz, G. P., M.P., Speech by, s. 23, ;j 13, 14. Napier, J., M.P., Speech by, s. 22, p. 2-4. "New Batch of Bishops," an Article from the WeeMij Dispatch, s. 1, ;;. 9, 10 Newport, Pastoral of the CathoHc Bishoi) of, s. 8, p. 11, 12 Nolan, Rev. T., Lecture on the Pope and the Queen, s. 3, p. 1-6 Norfolk, Duke of. Letter from the, with an article thereon from the G(((zrc?/a« newspaper, «. 12, j». 10 Northampton, Pastoral by the Catholic Bishop of, s. 3, p. 9, 10 Norwich, the Bishop of, on the different view he takes of the Question, s. \'i,p. 13-15 Nottingham, Pastoral of the Catholic Bishop ol', *. 12, p. 11, 12 O'Connor P., M.P., Speech by, s. 23, ;;. 14 O'Connell, John, M.P., Speech in the House of Commons, s. 18, jo. 10 ditto, s. 19, ;;. 12, 13, and ditto, s. iQ,p. 8 Oswald, A., M.P., Speech by, s. 22, p. 11, 12 Oxford, Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggression," .J. 8, p. 4, 5 University of. Address to the Crown, «. 11, p. 1-7 County Meeting, Cardinal Wiseman and Mr. Rochford Clarke,*. 17, p. 14, 15 Pamphlets, Editorial Remarks on this Series of, S. 6, p.:, 8; S. 9, p. I; s. 12, p.l; S. 13, p. 12, 13 ; ^. 18, ii;. 1 "Papal Aggression," "What's it all About?" from " Tait's Magazine," s. 10, p. 1-8 Parliament, Opening of the Session of, s. 18, p. 1-16 Pastoral, the, of Cardinal Wi.seman, s. \,p. 1-0 of the Catholic Bishop of Northampton, s. 3, ;;. 9, lU of the Catholic Bishop of Newport, *. 8, 7>. 11,12 of the Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, s. 12, ;;. 11, 12 of theCatholic Bishoporilcxham,*,12,/;.13-15 of the Irish Catholic Bishops, s. 24, jO. I 1-13 " Papal Aggression," Lord John Russell's Letter on the, s. 1, ;;. 8 Disraeli, Benjamin, M.P., on the,*. l,jo. 12, 13 Rescript, Letter on the, by G. Bowver, Esq., *. \Kp. 10,11 Peel, P., M.P., Speech by, *. 22, /;. 10 ; and s. 23, ;;. 1-3 People, Church and State, *. 14, p. 1-5 Peto, S. M.,M.P., Speech of in the House of Com- mons, *. 18, p. Phillips, A. L., Letter of to the Earl of Shrewsbury, *. \,p. 14, 15 Plain Appeal to the Common Sense of the People of England, by " John Bull," s. 4. ;;. 1-10 Playfair, Dr. Ileber, Letter to Lord John Russell, *. 17,;;. 11-14 Pope Pius IX., Apostolic Letter, *. 1,/;. 1-4 and the Q,ueen, Lecture by the Rev. T. Nolan, *. 3, p. 1-6 the, the Bishops, and the People, by Henry Vincent,*. 15,;;. 1-10 and the Ministers, from the " Quarterly Review,"*. 16,;;. 8-10 alleged Aggression of the, by an Irish Bene- ficed Clergyman, *. 15, p. 13-15 Pope's Bull, the, and Dr. Gumming, *. i,p. 7 I'rayer for the Queen, Bishop Ullathorne's Letter on the, *. \,p. 7, 8 " Prtemunire," the Daily Neivs on, *. 5, p. 13, 14 Pownall, H., Speech by,*. 3,;;. 1 Protestant Agitation, by " Carolus," s. ]\,p. 11-14 Puscyites, tlie, and Lord John Russell, *. 12, p. 15, 10 " Quarterly Review," the, on the Ministers and the Pope, *. 16,;;. 8-16 Queen, Catholic prayer for the. Bishop Ullathome thereon, *. 1 p. 7, 8 • and the Pope, Lecture on, by the Rev. T. Nolan, *. 3,;;. 1-0 and the Pope, the Catholics' Address on, *. 4, jo. 15 Address to the, from the Bishops of the Esta- blished Church,*. 10,;;. 16 Addresses to, from the City of Lcmdon, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, *. 11, p. 1-7 Spiritual Supremacy, Observations on, by " G. C," *. 15, p. 15, 16 — — Her Majesty's Speech on opening the Ses- sion, *. 18, jB. 2, 3 Reflections by the Editor on the exciting influences and passions brought to bear on the Agitation, *. 6,jo. 7, 8- Remonstrance of the Irish Prelates of the Esta- blished Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury, *. 16,;>. 16 Reply to Dr. Cumming's Charges, by G. Bowyer, Esq.,*. 10,;). 13-16 Rescript, the Papal, Letter on the, by G. Bowyer, Esq., *. 14, JO. 10, 11 Reynolds, J., M.P., Speech, *. 20, p. 9-11 Ripon, Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggression," *. 8,jt>.2,3 Roebuck, J. A., M.P., Letter to Lord John Russell, *. 9,;;. 1-3 Speech in the House of Commons, *. 18, p. 6-10, and ditto, *. 19,;;. 9-12 Roman Catholics, the, and Lord John Russell, by the Hon. C. Langdale, *. 6,;;. 8, 9 Vlll INDEX. lloraan Catliolic Explanation of the " Papal Ag- gression," s. Ci,p. 11-13 Roche, E. B., M.P., Speech, *. 20, p. 1, 3 KoJen, Earl of, Speech, *. 18, p. C Rorailly, Sir John, M.P. (Attorney-General), Speecli, ^. 30,;^. ll-li Russell, Lord John, M.P., Letter to the Bishop of Durham, s. 1, p. 8 Dr. Cummiug's remarks thereon, s. 3, p. U —^ and Benjamin Hawes, M.P., s. 3, p. 8 and the Catholics, by the Hon. C. Langdale, s. G, p. S, 9 Letter to, by J. A. Roebuck, M.P., s. 9, p. ]-3 Letter to, by the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, s. 9, p. 3-13 Letter to, by Dr. Heber Playfair, s. 17, p. ll-li and the Puseyites, s. 13, ;;. 15, 16 Bishop Uliathorne's Letter to Lord John Russell on the origin of the New Hierarchy, *. 19,iB. 15, 16 Speech in the House of Commons, s. 18, p. 14-16 Ditto, s. 19, p. 1-9, and ditto, s. 33, p. 13, 13 Sadleir, J., INLP., Speecli by, s. 33, p. 6, 7 Salisbury, the Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggres- sion," s. 8, p. 8, 9 Scholefield, W., M.P., Speech by, s. 23, p. 14- Scotland, Episcopal Church of. Address to the English Bishops, s. \o,p. 15, 16 ScnUy, F., M.P., Speech by, s. 33, p. 13 v., lengthened Legal Argument on the Eccle- siastical Titles Bill, s. 34, ;;. 7-11 Sermon by Cardinal Wiseman, s. 10, p. l-l' by Dr. Doyle, s. 8, p. 13-14 Shee, Serj., Historical, Practical, and Legal Speech on the Hierarchical Question, s. 34, ;;. 14-16 Slirewsbury, A. L. Phillips' Letter to the Earl of, s. \,p. 14, 15 Sibthorp, Col, M.P., Speech by, s. 33, ;;. 13 Spedator newspaper, on Cardinal Wiseman's " Ap- peal," *. 7, p. 3-4 on the Cardinal's Oath, s. 7, p. 11 Spiritual Supremacy (the Queen's), Observations on, by"G. C," *. 15, p. 15,16 Spooner, R., M.P., Speech by, s. 22, p. 8, 9 Stanley, Lord, Speech on opening the Session, s. 18, p. 3-4 Speech on the Ministerial Crisis, s. 24, ju. 2-4 St. Asaph's, Bishop of, Letter to Lord Eeildin"- *. 3,^. 10-13 on the " Romish Aggression," *. 8, p. 5, 6 St. David's, the Bishop of, on ditto, s. 8, p. 9, 10 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in reference to the Bishops' Address to the Queen, s.l^,p.7 State, Church, and People, s. U<,p. 1-5 Stonrton's, Lord, Letter in support of the Catholic Hierarchy,* 13, ju. 10, 11 Sugden's, Sir E., Speech at Croydon, s, M, jo. 5-8 " Tait's Magazine" on " the Pap;il Aggression" — " What's it all About ?" s. 16, p. 1-8 Taylor Bequest, the, and Cardinal Wiseman, s. 6, p. 14, 15 Tendencies of the Processions of " Guys " and the Burning of ESigies, s. 6, p. 7, 8 Tiiompson, Colonel, M.P., Speech by,*. 23, p. 9, 10 2'Ae Times, a Letter to the Editor on Cardinal Wiseman's Loyiilty and Patriotism, s. 1,p. 11 on Cardinal Wiseman's "Appeal," *. 5, p. 12, 13 Ditto, s. 7, p. 5-7 - on University and City Addresses, s. 11, /;. 6 Uliathorne's, Bishop, Letters to the Times, s. 1, on the Prayer for the Queen, *. 1, ;;. 7, 8 Letter to Lord John Rnssell, giving an ac- count of the origin of the new Catholic Hierarchy, s.l9,'p. 15,16 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Addresses from the, to her Majesty, *. II, p. 1-7 " Vatican Masquerade," an article from the Weekly Dispatch, s. 3, p. 13-15 Vincent's, Henry, Lecfnreon the Pope, the Bishops, and the People, s. 15,/). 1-10 Vision of King Edward tlie Confessor, s. \,p. 15 Wall, B., M.P., Speech by, s. 33, p. 4, 5 Westminster and its Abbey, Reflections on, by Car- dinal Wiseman, *. 5, p. 9 Weekly Dispatch on " The New Batch of Bishops," s. \,p. 9, 10 on " Tlie Vatican Masquerade," s. 3, p. 13-15 Weekly News on Cardinal Wiseman's " Appeal," s. 7, p. 10, 11 Westminster Abbey, Interesting Remarks relating to it and the Founder, King Edward the Confessor, s. l,p. 15 the Good King's burial therein a few days after its Dedication, s. 1, p. 15 "What's it all About?" from "Tait's Magazine," s. 16, p. 1-8 Wiseman's, Cardinal, Pastoral, s. 1, p. 4-6 Loyalty and Patriotism, s. \.,p. 11 Birth and Education, s. l,p. 13, 14 Dr. Cumraing's Lecture on the Cardinal's Teaching, s. 2, p. 13-16 and Dr. Gumming, with a contrast by the latter, s. 3, ;;. 7 and Benjamin Hawes, M.P., *. 3, p. 8 Author of the English Catholics' Address to the Queen, s. 4, p. 15. " Appeal to the Reason and Good Feeling of the People of England," s. h,p 1-13 Oath, Dr. Curaming's Lecture on, s. 6, p. 1-8 Opinions of the leading Journals on the Car- 10, dinal's " Appeal," s. 4, 6, 7 and the Taylor Bequest, s. 6, p. 14, 15 Sermon at St. George's Cathedral, s. p. 1-4 Lecture on the Hierarchy, s. 10, p. 4-11 Oath, Dr. Cumming's Charges, and Mr. Bow- yer's Rejoinders, s. \0,p. 11-16 Second Lecture on the Hierarchy, with con- trast between the Catholic and Protestant Bishops, s. 13, ;;. 7-10 Letter from Mr. Bowyer, s. ] 4, p. 9, 10 Address to, s. 15, p. 11 , 13 Reply to Mr. Rochford Clarke's Attack on his Mother,*. 17, p. 16 Wiseman, Mrs. (Mother of the Cardinal), and Mr. Rochford Clarke, *. 17, p. 14, 15 her Birth and Life defended by Fitz-Patrick, *. 17. p. 16 Wilberforce, Conversion of the Rev. H. W., *. G, jo. 15, 16 Archdeacon, on the Catholic Hierarchy, *. 8, p. 8 Winchester, Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggres- sion," *. 8, /;. 5, and 10, 11 Wood, P., M.P., Speech by, *. 31 , p. 5-9 Worcester, Bishop of, on the " Romish Aggression," *. 8, p. G York, Archbishop of, on the " Romish Aggression," *. 7, p. 13 Zetland, Lord, Letter from Lord Beaumont to, *. 11,;;. 15 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC OUESTION. THE APOSTOLIC LETTER OF POPE PIUS IX. ; CARDINAL WISEMAN'S PASTORAL; THE TWO LETTERS TO THE "TIMES" BY BISHOP ULLATHORNE; LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S LETTER; THE "NEW BATCH OP BISHOPS," FROM THE "WEEKLY DISPATCH ;" T W L E T T E R S BY THE REV. G. A. D E N I S N ; A LETTER FR0:M BENJAMIN DISRAELI, ESQ., M.P.; REVIEW AND EXTRACTS FRQI\I .AIMBROSE PHILLIPS'S "LETTER TO THE EAK:u.OF.,SHRE\^;SSUR\^" CONCLUDED BV A BIOGRAPHY OF CAHDJ-X^^^ : WISEMAN. LETTERS APOSTOLICiiL— PIUS P. P. IX. The power of ruling the universal Church, committed by our Lord Jesus Christ to the Roman I'ontiff, in the person of Sf. Pcfrr, Prince of the ApostWs, hath preserved, through every age, in the Apostolic See, that remarkable solicitude by which it consulteth for the advantage of the Catholic religion in all parts of the world, and studiously provideth for its extension. And this correspondeth with the design of its Divine Founder, who, when he ordained a head to the Church, looked forward, by liis excelling wisdom, to the consummation of the world. Amongst other nations, the famous realm of I'.ngland hath experienced the effects of this Solicitude on the part of the Supreme Pontiff. Its historians testify, that in the earliest ages of the Church the Christian religion was brought into Britain, and subsequently flourished greatly there; but about the middle of the fifth age, the Angles and Saxons having been invited into the island, the affairs, not only of the nation, but of religion also, sutTered great and grievous injury. But we know that our holy predecessor, (ire^oiy the Great, sent tirst ^/ugustine the Monk, with his companions, who subsequently, with several others, were elevated lo the dignity of bishops ; and a great company of priests, monks, having been sent to join them, the Anglo-Saxons were brought to embrace the Christian religion ; and by their exertions it was brought to pass, that in Britain, which had now come to be called England, the Catholic religion was everywhere re- stored and extended. But to pass on to more recent events, the history of the Anglican schism of the sixteenth age presents no feature more remarkable than the care unremittingly exercised by our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs to lend succour, in its hour of extremest peril, to the Catholic religion in that realm, and by every means to afford it support and assistance. Amongst other instances of this care, are the enactments and provisions made by the chief Pontiffs, or under their direction and approval, for the unfailing supply of men to take charge of the interests of Catholicity in that country ; and also for the education of Catholic young men of good abilities on the continent, and their careful instruction in all branches of tiieolo- gical learning ; so that, when promoted to holy orders, they might return to their native land and labour diligently to benefit their countrymen, by the ministry of the Word and of the sacra- ments, and by the defence and propagation of the holy faith. Perhaps even more conspicuous have been the exertions made by our predecessors for the purpose of restoring to the English Catholics prelates invested with the episcopal character, when the fierce and cruel storms of persecution had deprived them of the presence and pastoral care of their own bishops. The Letters Apostolical of Pope Gregory XV., dated March 23, 1623, set forth that the cliief Pontiff, as soon as he was able, had consecrated U'illiatn Bishop, Bishop of Chalcedon, and had appointed him, furnished with an ample supply of faculties, and the authority of ordinary, to govern the Catholics of England and of Scotland. Subsequently, on the death of the said William Bishop, Pope Urban I'lIJ., by Letters Apostolical, dated Feb. 4, 1625, to the like effect, and directed to Richard ^mith, reconstituted him Bishop of Chalcedon, and conferred on him the same faculties and powers as had been granted to William Bishop. When the King, James II., ascended the English throne, the.''e seemed a prospect of happier times for the Catholic religion. /««o(r)i/ AV. immediately availed himself of this op- portunity to ordain, in the year 168.'), John Lei/bum, Bishop of AdrumeturK, Vicar Apostolic Price Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] [James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row; Of icliom vtay be had the Bishop of London's Charge, and Dr. Ciimming's Lecture, COMPLETE IN ONE r.KMrm,r.T, price onlif One Pmny. of ixll Jlnglaiul. Sylji-efjMcnUj', Ijy olhpr Lgttej-s Apostolical, issi.cd Jauuri|-y ;>(.), 1'''88, lic asso- ciated with I,ei/bnrn, as Viciirs Apostolic, three other bishops, wiih titles takpn from chuichc-s in partibii.s inji'li-liuvi ; and accoidlnrrly, with the assistance of 7'V;Y//»«;ir/, Archbishop of Amaria, Apostolic Nuncio in England, the same Pontiff divided England into four districts, namely the London, the Eastern, the Midland, and the Northern ; each of which a Vicar Apostolic com- menced to govern, furnished with all suitable faculties, and with the proper powers of a local ordinary. Benedict XIV., by his Constitution, dated May 30, 1753, and the other Pontiffs our predecessors, and our Conojregation of Propaganda, both by their own authority and by their most wise and prudent directions, afforded them all guidance and help in the discharge of their important f'lnctions. This partition of all England into four Apostolic Vicariates lasted till the time of Grcirimj VI., who, by Letters Apostolical, dated July 3, 1840, having taken into consideration the increase which the Catholic religion had received in that kingdom, made a new ecclesiastical division of the counties, doubling the number of the Apostolical Vicariates, and committing the government of the whole of England \n spirituals to the Vicars Apostolic of the London, the Eastern, the Western, the Central, the Welsh, the Lancaster, the York, and the Northern Districts. These facts that we have cursorily touched upon, to omit all mention of others, are a sufficient jiroof that oar preriecessors have studiously endeavoured and laboured that, as far as their influence could effect it, the Church in England might be re- cdlfied and recovered from the great calamity that had bf fallen her. Having, therefore, before cur f ye.s scjiflustnous.an exainple of our predecessors, and wishing to emulate it, in accoidance A'^'th the- ^iijiy oZ the Su.Dferre Apostolafe, and also giving way to our own feelings of affection towards that beloved part of our Lord's vineyard, we have pur- posed, from the very first commencement of our pontificate, to prosecute a work so well com- menced, and to devote our closer attention to the promotion of the Church's advantag? in that kingdom. Wherefore, havmg taken into earnest consideration the present state of Catholic affairs in England, and reflecting on the very large and everywhere increasing number of Catholics there; crmsidering also that the impediments which principally stood in the way of the spread of Catholicity were daily being removed, we judged that the time had arrived when the form of ecclesiastical government in England niight be brought back to that model on which it exists freely amongst other nations, where there is no special reason for their being governed by fhe extraordinary administration of Vicars Apostolic. ^Ye were of opinion that times and circumstances had brought it about, that it was unnecessary for the English Catholics to be any longer guided by Vicars Apostolic ; nay more, that the levolution that had taken place in things there was such as to demand the form of Ordinary Eftiscopal government. In addition to this, the Vicars Apostolic of England themselves, had, with united voice, besought this of us ; many also both of the clergy and laity, highly esteemed for their virtue and rank, had made the same petition ; and this was also the earnest wish of a veiy large number of the rt.st of the Catholics of England. Whilst we pondered on these thing-;, we did not omit to implore the aid of Almighty God that, in deliberating on a matter of such weight, we might be enabled both to discern and rightly to accomplish what might be most conducive to the good of the Church. We also invoked the assistance of Mary the Virgin, Mother of God, and of those Saints who illustrated England by their virtues, that they would vouchsafe to support us by their patronage with God to the happy accomplishment of this affair, In addition, we committed the whole matter to our venerable brethren the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church of Our ('ongregation for the I'ro()agation of the Faith, to be carefully and gravely considered. Their opinion was entirely agreeable to our own desires, and we freely approved of it, and judged th:it it be carried into execution. The whole matter, therefore, having been carefully and deliberately consulted upon, of our own motion, on certain knowledge, and of the plenitude of our Apostolical j)ower, we constitute and decree, that in the kingdom of England, accord- ing to the common rules of the Church, there be restored the Hierarchy of Ordinary Bishops, who shall be named from Sees, which we constitute in these our Letters, in the several districts of the Ajjostolic Vicariates. To begin with the London District, there will be in it two Seas; that of Westminster, which we elevate to the degree of the Metropolitan or Archi- episcoi)al dignity, and that of Southwark, which, as also the otheis (to be named next), we assign as Suffragan to Westminster. The diocese of Westminster will take that part of the above-named district which extends to the north of the river Thames, and includes the coun- ties! of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertford ; and that of Southwark will contain the remaining liart to the south of the river, viz., the counties of Berks, Southampton, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, with the Islands of Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, and the others adjacent. In the Northern District there will be only one Episcopal Sec, which will receive its name from the city of Hexham. This diocese will be bounded by the same limits as the district hath hitherto been. The York District will also form one Diocese ; and the Bishop vrill have his See at the city of Beverley. In the Lancashire District there will be two Bishops ; of whom the one will take his title from the See of Liverpool, and will have as his diocese the Isle of Man, the hundreds of Lonsdale, Amounderness. and West Derbv. The other will receive the name of his See from the city o,'' Salford and will have for bis diocese the nundreds of Ralford, Blackburn, and L?yi.-ind ; the county of Cliester, although hitherto lielongingto that district, \vc siiall now annex to another diocese. In the District of Wales there will be two Bishoprics, viz., that of Shrewsbury, and that of Menevia (or St. David's), united with Newport. The Diocese of Shrewsbury to contain, north- wards, the counties of Anglesey, Caernarvon, Denbigh, Flint, Merioneth, and Montgomery; to which we annex the county of Chester, from the Lancashire District, and the county of Salop, from the Central District. We assign to the Bishop of St. David's and Newport as his Diocese, northwards, the counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan, Pembroke, and Radnor, and the English counties of Monmouth and Hereford. In the Western District we establish two Episcopal Sees; that of Clifton and that of Plymouth. To the former of these we assign the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Wilts; to the latter those of Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall. The Central District, from which we have already separated off the county of Salop, will have two Episcopal Sees ; that of Nottingham and that of Birmingham. To the former of these we assign, as a Diocese, the counties of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester, together with those of Lincoln and Rutland, which we hereby separate from the Eastern District. To the latter we assign the counties of Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, and Oxford. Lastly, in the Eastern District, there will be a single Bishop's See, w-hicb will take its name from the city of Northamption, and will have its Diocese comprehended within the same limits as have hitherto bounded the district, with the exception of the counties of Lincoln and Rutland, which we have already assigned to the aforesaid Diocese of Nottingham. Thus, then, in the most flourishing kingdom of England, there will be established one Eccle- siastical Province, consisting of one Archljisliop, or Metropolitan Head, and twelve Bishops his Suffragans ; by whose exertions and pastoral cares we trust God will grant to Catholicity in that country a fruitful and daily increasing extension. Wherefore, we now reserve to ourselves and our successors, the Pontiffs of Rome, the power of again dividing the said Province into others, and of increasing the number of Dioceses, as occasion shall require; and in general, that, as it shall seem fitting in the Lord, we may freely decree new limits to them. In the meanwhile, we command the aforesaid Archbishop and Bishops that they transmit, at due times, to our Congregation of Propaganda, accounts of the state of their Churches, and that they never omit to keep the said Congregation fully informed respecting ail matters which they know will conduce to the welfare of their spiritual flocks. For we shall continue to avail ourselves of the instrumentality of the said Congregation in all things a|)pertainiiig to the Anglican Churches. But in the sacred government of clergy and laity, and in all other things appertaining unto the Pastoral office, the Archbishop and Bishops of England will henceforward enjoy all the rights and faculties which the other Catholic Archbishops and Bishops of other nations, according to the Common Ordinances of the Sacred Canons and Apostolic Constitu- tions, use, and may use: and are equally bound by the obligations which bind the other Arch^^ bishops and Bishops according to the same common discipline of the Catholic Church. And whatever regulations, either in the ancient system of the Anglican Churches or in the subsequent missionary state, may have been m force either by special Constitutions or privileges or peculiar custfoms, Will now henceforth carry no right nor obligation : and in order that no doubt may remain on this point, we, by the plenitude of our Apostolic authority, repeal and abrogate all ])ower whatsoever of imposing obligation or conferring right in those peculiar constitutionsand jirivileges of whatever kind they may be, and in all custums, by whomsoever, or at whatever more iincient or immemorial time brought in. Hence it will for the future be solely competent for the Archbishop and Bishops of England to distinguish what things belong to the executions at the common ecclesiastical law, and what, according to the common discipline of the Church, of entrusted to the authority of the Bishops. We, certainly, will not be wanting to assist them, with our Apostolic authority, and most willingly will we second all their applications in those things which shall seem to conduce to the glory of God's name and the salvation of souls. Our principal object, indeed, in decreeing, by these our Letters Apostolic, the restoration of the Ordinary Hierarchy of Bishops, and the observation of the Church's common law, has been to pay regard to the well-being and growth of the Catholic religion throughout the realm of Eng- land ; but, at the same time, it was our purpose to gratify the wishes both of our venerable brethren who govern the affairs of religion by a vicarious authority from the Apostolic See, and also of very many of our well-beloved children of the Catholic clergy and laity, from whom we had received the most urgent entreaties to the like effect. The same prayer had repeatedly been made by their ancestors to our predecesso'-s, who, indeed, had first commenced to send Vicars Apostolic into England, at a time when it was impossible for any Catholic prelate to re- main there in possession of a Church by right in ordinary; and hence their design in succes- sively augmenting the namher of Vicariates and Vicarial districts was not certainly that Catholicity in England should always be under an extraordinary form of government, but rather, looking forward to its extension in process of time, they were paving the way for the ultimate restoraion of the Ordinary Hierarchy there. And therefore we, to whom, by God's goodness, it hath been granted to complete this great work fir, nnvv hereby declare that it is very far from our intention or design that the Prelates 4 of England, now possessing tlie title and rights of Bishops in Ordinary, should, in any other respect, be deprived of any advantages which they have enjoyed heretofore under the character of "Vicars Apostolic. For it would not be reasonable that the enactments we now make at the instance of the English Catholics, for the good of religion in their country, should turn to the detriment of the said Vicars Apostolic. Moreover, we are most firmly assured that the same, our beloved children in Christ, who have never ceased to contribute by their alms and liberality, under such various circumstances, to the support of Catliolic religion, and of the Vicars Apostolic, will henceforward manifest even greater liberality towards Bishops, who are now bound by a stronger tie to the Anglican Churches, so that these same may never be in want of the temporal means necessary for the expenses of the decent splendour of the churches, and of divine service, and of the support of the clergy, and relief of the poor. In conclusion, lifting up our eyes unto the hills from whence cometb our help, to God Almighty and All-merciful, with all prayer and supplication we humbly beseech Him, that He would confirm by the power of His Divine assistance all that we have now decreed for the good of the Church ; and that He would bestow the strength of His grace on those to whom the carrying out of our decrees chiefly belongs, that they may feed the Lord's flock which is amongst them, and that they may each increase in diligent exertion to advance the greater glory of His Name, and in order to obtain the more abundant succours of heavenly grace for this purpose. We again invoke, as our intercessors with God, the most Holy Mother of God, the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, with the other heavenly patrons of England ; and especially St. iiregory the Great, that, since it is now granted to our so unequal deserts again to restore the Episcopal Sees in England, which he first effected to the very great advantage of the Church, this restoration also which we make of the Episcopal Dioceses in that kingdom may happily turn to the benefit of the Catholic religion. And we decree that these our Letters Apostolical shall never at any time be objected against or impugned, on pretence either of omission or of addition, or defect either of our intention, or any other whatsoever ; but shall always be valid and in force, and shall take effect in all particulars, and be inviolably observed. All general or special enactments notwithstanding, whether Apostolic, or issued in Synodal, Provincial, and Universal Councils ; notwithstanding also all rights and privileges of the ancient Sees of Eng- land, and of the Missions, and of the Apostolic Vicariates subsequently there established, and of all Churches whatsover, and pious places, whether established by oath or by Apostolic con- firmation, or by any other security whatsoever; notwithstanding, lastly, all other things to the contrary whatsoever. For all these things, in as far as they contravene the foregoing enact- ments, although a special mention of them may be necessary for their repeal, or some other form, however particular, necessary to be observed, we expressly annul and repeal. Moreover, we Ciccree tliat if, in any other manner, any other attempt shall be made by any person, or by any authority, knowingly or ignorantly, to set aside these enactments, such attempt shall be null and void. And it is our will and pleasure that copies of these our Letters, being printed and subscribed by the hand of a Notary public, and sealed with the seal of a person high in ecclesiastical dignity, shall have the same authenticity as would belong to the expression of our will by the production of this original copy. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, under the Seal of the Fisherman, this 29th day of September, 1850, in the fifth vear of our Pontificate, A. CARDINAL LAMBRUSCHINI. TASTORAL. Nicholas, hy the Divine Mercy, of the Holy Roman Chiu-ch by the Title of St. Pudentiana Cardinal Priest, Archbishop of Westminster, and yidministrator Apostolic of the Diocese of S'juthwark. To our Dearly Beloved in Christ, the Clergy Secular and Regular, and the Faithful of the said Archdiocese and Diocese. Health and Benediction in the Lord : If this day we greet you under a new title, it is not, dearly beloved, with an altered affection. If in words we seem to divide those who till now have formed, under our rule, a single flock, our heart is as undivided as ever in your regard. For now truly do we feel closely bound to you by new and stronger ties of charity ; now do we embrace you, in our Lord Christ Jesus, with more tender emotions of paternal love ; now doth our soul yearn, and our mouth is open to you ;* though words must fail to express what we feel on being once again permitted to address you. For if our parting was in sorrow, and we durst not hope that we should again face to face behold you, our beloved flock; so much the greater is now our consolation and our joy, when we find ourselves, not so much permitted, as commissioned, to return to you, by the Supreme Ruler of the Church of Christ. But how can we for one moment indulge in selfish feelings when, through that loving * Cor. vi. '-'. Father's generous and wise counsels, the greatest of blessings has just been bestowed upon our country, by the restoration of its true Catholic hierarchical government, in communion with the See of Peter. For on the twenty-ninth day of last month, on the Feast of the Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the Heavenly Host, his Holiness Pope Pius IX. was graciously pleased to issue his Letters Apostolic, under the Fisherman's Ring, conceived in terms of great weight and dignity, wherein he substituted, for the eight Apostolic Vicariates heretofore existing, one Archiepiscopal or Metropolitan and twelve Episcopal Sees : repealing at the same time, and annulling, all dispositions and enactments made for England by the Holy See with reference to its late form of ecclesiastical government. And by a Brief dated the same day, his Holiness was further pleased to appoint us, though most unworthy, to the Archiepiscopal See of Westminster, established by the above-mentioned Letters Apostolic, giving us at the same time the administration of the Episcopal See of Southwark. So that at present, and till such time as the Holy See shall think tit otherwise to provide, vve govern and shall continue to govern, the counties of Middlesex, Hertford and Essex, as Ordinary thereof, and those of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, and Hampshire, with the islands annexed, as Administrator with Ordinary jurisdiction. Further we have to announce to you, dearly beloved in Christ, that, as if still further to add solemnity and honour before the Church to this noble act of Apostolic authority, and to give an additional mark of paternal benevolence towards the Catholics of England, bis Holiness was pleased to raise us, in the private Consistory of Monday, the 30th of September, to the rank cf Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church. And on the Thursday next ensuing, being the third day of this month of October, in public Consistory, he delivered to us the insignia of this dignity, the Cardinalitial Hat ; assigning us afterwards for our title in the l)rivate Consistory which we attended, the Church of St. Pudentiana, in which St. Peter is groundedly believed to have enjoyed the hospitality of the noble and partly British family of the Senator Pudens. In that same Consistory we were enabled ourselves to ask for the Archiepiscopal Pallium, for our new See of Westminster; and this day we have been invested, by the hands of the Supreme Pastor and Pontiff himself, with this badge of Metropolitan jurisdiction. The great work, then, is complete ; what you have long desired and prayed for is granted. Your beloved country has received a place among the fair Churches which, normally constituted, form the splendid aggregate of Catholic Communion: Catholic England has been rtstored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished, and begins now anew its course of regularly adjusted action roimd the centre of unity, the source of jurisdiction, of light and of vigour. How wonderfully all this has been brought about, how clearly the Hand of God has been shown in every step, we have not now leisure to relate ; but we may hope soon to recou'-t to you by word ol mouth. In the meantime we will content ourselves with assuring you, chat, if the concordant voice of those venerable and most eminent Counsellors to whom the Holy See commits the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in Missionary countries, of the overruling of every variety of interests and designs, to the ren- dering of this measure almost necessary, if the earnest prayers of our holy Pontiff and his most sacred oblation of the Divine Sacrifice, added to his own deep and earnest reflection, can form to the Catholic heart an earnest of heavenly direction, an assurance that the spirit of truth, who guides the Church, has here inspired its Supreme Head, we cannot desire stronger or more consoling evidence that this most important measure is from God, has His sanction and blessing, and will consequently prosper. Then truly is this day to us a day of joy and exaltation of spirit, the crowning day of long hopes, and the opening day of bright prospects. How must the saints of our country, whether Roman or British, Saxon or Norman, look down from their seats of bliss with beaming glance upon this new evidence of the Faith and Church which led them to glory, sympathising with those who have faithfully adhered to them through centuries of ill repute, for the truth's sake, and now reap the fruit of their patience and long-sulfering. And all those blessed martyrs of these later ages, who have fought the battles of the Faith under such discouragement, who mourned, more than over their own fetters or their own pain, over the desolate ways of their own Sion and the departure of England's religious glory ; oh ! how must they bless God, who hath again visited His people, how^ take part in our joy, as they see the lamp of the temple again enkindled and re-brightening, as they behold the silver links of that chain which has connected their country with the See of Peter in its Vicarial Government changed into burnished gold ; not stronger nor more closely knit, bur. more beautifully wrought and more brightly arrayed. And in nothing will it be fairer or brighter than in this, that the glow of more fervent love will be upon it. Whatever our sincere attachment and unflinching devotion to the Holy See till now, there is a new ingredient cast into these feelings ; a warmer gratitude, a tenderer affection, a profounder admiration, a boundless and endless sense of obligation, for so new, so grejit, so sublime a gift, will be added to past sentiments of loyalty and fidelity to the supreme See of Peter. Our venerable Pontiff has shown himself a true Shepherd, a true Father; and we cannot hut express our gratitude to him in our most fervent language, in the language of prayer. For when we raise our voices, as is meet, in loud and fervent thanksgiving to the 6 Altni;^bty for the precious gifts bestowed upon our portion of Christ's vineyard, we will also implore every choice blessing on Him who has been so signally the divine instrument in pro- curing it. We will pray that his rule over the Church may be prolonged to many years, for its welfare ; that health and strength may be preserved to him for the discharge of his arduous duties ; that light and grace may be granted to him proportioned to the sublimity of his office ; and that consolations, temporal and spiritual, may be poured out upon hini abundantly, in compensation for past sorrows and past ingratitude. And of these consolations may one of the most sweet to his paternal heart be the propagation of Holy Religion in our country, the advancement of his spiritual children there in true piety and devotion, and our ever increasing affection and attachment to the See of St. Peter. In order, therefore, that our thanksgiving may be made with all becoming solemnity, we hereby enjoin as follows : — 1. This our Pastoral Letter shall be publicly read in all the Churches and Chapels of the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Diocese of Southwaik, on the Sunday after its being received. 2. On the following Sunday there shall be in every such Church or Chapel a Solemn Bene- diction of the Blessed Sacrament, at which shall be sung the Te Deum, with the usual versicles and prayers, with the prayer also Fidelmm Deus Pastor et Rector, for the Pope. 3. The Collect Pro Gratiarum Actione, or Thanksgiving, and that for the Pope shall be recited in the Mass of that day and for two days following. 4. Where Benediction is never given, the Te Deum, with its prayers, shall be recited or sung after Mass, and the Collects above named shall be added as enjoined. And at the same time earnestly entreating for ourselves also a place in your fervent prayers, •«•£ lovingly implore for you and bestow on you the Blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Given out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome, this seventh day of October, in the year of Our Lord Mnccci.. (Signed) NICHOLAS, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. By command of his Eminence, Francis Searle, Secretary. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, — As the only Catholic bishop now in England who has been immediately engaged in negotiating the re-establishment of our episcopal hierarchy, I beg to offer a few remarks, bearing reference to your strictures on that measure. It is an act solely between the Pope and his own spiritual subjects, who are recognised as such by the Emancipation Act. It regards only spiritual matters. In all temporal matters we are subject to, and are guided by, the laws of the land. Every communion in tlie land has its own territorial divisions of the country for religious purposes, with reference to its own members. The E[)iscopalians in Scotland, and the Wes- leyans in England, each mai k out territorial lines for their own purposes of spiriutal jurisdiction, and the administration of the temporalities of their Churches. These are acts of religious juris- diction ; and the Catholic community cannot exercise jurisdiction without the Pope. Now the increase of Catholics in England, not merely by conversions, but far more by the vast influx of Irish subjects, necessarily demanded an increase of bishops. Bishops cannot be increased amongst us except by the Pope, nor without a new territorial division. In 1688 England was divided into four vicariates. In 1840 thefour were again divided into eight. In 1850 the eight vicariates are again divided and changed into thirteen dioceses. This last change is the result of frequent and earnest petitions from the Catholics of England to the Pope. In 1840 two bishops proceeded to Rome with a view to this matter, on the ground of the spiritual wants of the Catholics of England. In 1848 another bishop was delegated to the Holy See, with still more earnest petitions for an increase of bishops and the establishment of the hierarchy. The arrangement was then brought to its conclusion, when the troubles which befel the Roman States put a temporary stop to its execution. In America, and in our own colonies, similar new divisions of territory have been con- tinually made with increase in our Episcopacy, without exciting a clamour at the spiritual wants of our fellow-Catholics being thus provided for as their numbers increased. Either the power is in our own hands of obtaining all necessary supplies for our spiritual wants as Catholics, or else a real emancipation is not yet granted to us. By changing the Vicars Apostolic into bishops in ordinary, the Pope, instead of increasing, has given up the exercise of a portion of his power over his spiritual subjects in this country; those not such are in no way affected by his act. It is difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend the technicalities of a Papal document. Hitherto, and for ages past, the Pope has acted not merely as chief pastor, but also as imme- diate bishop, in this country. He has governed throiigK J>iii o^n niwrs, bishops holding foreign sees, nominated by the Pope as his vicars, and revocable at his will. By establishing tiie hierarchy tht? Pope has divested hiinseii of the office of our immediate bishop, and has conferred it on Englishmen instead. Catholic Bishops in England are no longer the Pope's Vicars, but English Bishops, having power to form their own constitution of government by express concession, and no longer revocable at will, whilst their successors will be raised to their sees by canonical election. The entire measure has been one of liberality and concession on the part of his Holiness, and as such the Catholics of Enj^land understand it and receive it with gratitude. We feel that his Holiness has transferred from his own hands into ours the local episcopacy, and that even as sovereign Pontiff he has set limits to his power in regard to us, by consti- tuting the canonical order of things, and literally giving us self-government, retaining only his supremacy. It is unfair to confound this boon -of liberty to the Catholic Church in England with ideas of aggression on the l''.nglish Government and people as it is to confound the acts of Pius IX. as Pope with the notion of his temporal Sovereignty. For my part, engaged as I have been in the negotiation throughout, I know that no political objects are contemplated in it. It was an arrangement much needed by the Catholics of England for their spiritual concerns, and I am, with all English Catholics, thankful for it, and I have no fear or alarm for consequences. I am. Sir, your very obedient servant, W. B. ULLATHORNE. Bishop's House, Jfirmingham, October 22, 1850. The foUawing letter has been addressed to the Times by the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Birmingham, in answer to one which appeared in that paper under the signature of " Catho- licus ;"— S'R, — The remarks of your correspondent "Catholicus" upon my letter respecting the prayer for the Queen oblige me to offer a fuller explanation than I at first thought it necessary to trouble you with. I stated merely the facts, to which I must now add the reason. I do not know what passed between Cardinal Wiseman and his clergy, but gave the regulation made by the bishops. I said, also, that the form of words added to the Post-communion — \vhich is correctly given by your correspondent — was not authorised in any Catholic country. Since then I have found in the Decrees of the Congregation of Rites a remarkable exception to this statement, by tracing the origin of this prayer to a special privilege granted by Pope Pius V. to the kingdoms of Spain. This appears by two decrees, Nos. 144 and 2,921, in Garde lUni's Collection, which were designed to prevent any extension of the privilege beyond the original concession. This exception makes the general rule the more striking and obligatory, and explains, also, how the prayer came into use in London — viz., through the chapels of the Spanish Ambassador, and of other nations subject to Spain at the date of the original decree, as being the prayer for their own Sovereign. This without the bishops at the time adverting to exceptional decree may have come into general use, the fact that no extension of the privilege could be canonically made except by obtaining another decree to that effect, for no individual bishop has power to change the rubrics at will, and certainly not to add a Post- communion, anomalous in itself, without the permission of the authority that first granted the privilege within certain limits. And a difficulty adverted to by "Catholicus" stood in the way uf obtaining such a concession. It has always been a rule in the Church not to mention by name in the words of the mass any person who is not a member of the Church. It follows net from this that the Queen is not fervently prayed for in our churches, but that her Majesty's name is not publicly pronounced in the mass, though it may be in the private com- niemorations both of priest and people. The public prayer for the Queen must be after the mass or before it, and neither Cardinal Wiseman nor any Catholic bishop of England has power to make it otherwise. It does not follow from my former statement that the Queen is not prayed for where there is not High Mass. I stated the matter briefly and avoided details. Where there is no deacon, sub-deacon, or choir, of course the priest and congregation recite the prayers for the Queen. The usual rule is to pray publicly for the Queen at the principal service on each Sunday. I may add, that where the Antiphon is not sung, it is common to recite the Psalm beginning " May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation ; may the name of the God of Jacob protect thee." I may also remark that tlie prayer "Qusesumus," given in my former letter, is not only taken from the missal, but is the ancient one contained in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great. May 1 be allowed, before concluding, to make an observation upon the letters of the Bishop of London and Archdeacon Hale. So far as those letters lafer to the act of the Pope, they are met by a simple distinction founded in lact. The Pope does not legislate upon Thi* ' national estahlishmeiit, but for the Church over which he presides. That English Catholic; are the Pope's spiritual subjets, is recognised by the Emancipation Act every time that we ai\' designated as " Priests of the Church ot Rome." and as " Roman Catholics." Had the former laws and usages of our Church been left, as such, unahrogatpd. we might as Bishops li«.\c liecn suiijoet to pri;;li''v.;tics in the pvrl'orniain.'e of oui duties, not only witii reference to 8 what might or might not still remain in force, but also by being incumbered with regulations no longer applicable to our circumstances. We are now left to confirm anew whatever local regulations and customs may be still expedient; we are freed in our ministrations from those which are not suitable, and we have the whole ji'-s commune to draw from for what may be further required. In other words, his Holiness leaves us, as Catholic Bishops, to legislate for religious purposes as we see expedient, without any tie from the past. He deals not with the laws of the State, but with those of our Church. I remain, sir, your very obedient servant, W. B. ULLATHORNE. JJi.fhop's H'lUsc, liirminghnm, Oct. 31. LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND THE POPE. TO THE RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OF DURHAM. My Dear Lord, — I agree with yoti in considering "the late aggression of the Pope upon our Protestantism" as "insolent and insidious," and I therefore feel as indignant as you can do upon the subject. 1 not only promoted to the utmost of my power the claim/ of the Roman Catholics to all civil rights, but I thought it right, and even desirable, that ', ne ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholics should be the means of giving instruction '.o the numerous Irish immigrants in London and elsewhere, wlio without such help would '..:.c'j been left in heathen ignorance. This might have been done, however, without any ^-..ch innovation as that which we have now seen. It is impossible to confound the recent measures of the Pope with the division of Scotland into dioceses by the Episcopal Ciiurch, or the arrangement of districts in England by the Wesleyan Conference. There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have come from Rome — a pre- tension to supremacy over tlie realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsisttnt with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted even in Roman Catholic times. I confess, however, that my alarm is not equal to my indignation. Even if it shall appear that the ministers and servants of the Pope in this country have not transgressed the lav-;, 1 feel persuaded that we are strong enough to repel any outward attacks. The liberty of Protestantism has been enjoyed too long in England to allow of any successful attempt to impose a foreign yoke upon our minds and consciences. No foreign prince or potentate will he permitted to fasten his fetters upon a nation which has so long and so nobly vindicated its right to freedom of opinion, civil, political, and religious. Upon this subject, then, I will only say that the present state of the law shall be carefully examined, and the propriety of adopting any proceedings with reference to the recent assump- tions of power deliberately considered. There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than any aggression of a foreign Sovereign. Clergxmen of our own Church, who have subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles, and acknow- ledged in explicit terms the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, " step by step, to the very verge of the precipice." The honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the mutter- ing of the Liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it is written, the recommendation of auricular confession, and the administration of penance and absolution — all these things are jiointcd out Ijy clergymen of the Church of England as worthy of adoption, and are now openly reprehended by the Bishop of London in his charge to the clergy of his diocese. What, then, is the danger to be appreliended from a foreign prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the gates from the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself? 1 have little hope that the propounders and framers of these innovations will desist from tli.'ir insidious course. But I rely with confidence on the peojile of England, and I will not bate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of a nation which looks with con- tempt on the mummeries of superstition, and with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are now making to contine the intellect and enslave the soul. I remain, with great respect, &c., Doiriihiii-sfrfff, Xor. \. ,1. RUSSELL. 9 THE NEW BATCH OF BISHOPS. Orthodoxy is at last condemned to find the Risliop's foot in its soup, and to have its digestion spoiled by the dyspepsia of panic. Dr. Wiseman has been made a Cardinal — a " foreign potentate" has dealt out hierarchical honours among us, and the Pope has created Westminster into an archiepiscopal see of the Holy Roman Empire. It is not in her civil capacity that the Queen can be the head of the Church— if the Church be anything else than a mere political institution. "The kingdom of God comcth not with observation." The Founder of the faith of Europe has declared, " My kingdom is not of this world." If the Anglican Church be a member of tlie Universal Church, its head must have an universal authority, which in her civil capacity the sovereign of these realms has not. It is not in her secular, but solely in her spiritual character, that the Monarch can have ecclesiastical power ; and if solely in that capacity, then her political power can have no prevalence in the juris- diction. i5ut the soul knows no parish — the immortal spirit owns no country, or merely territorial allegiance ; universality of kingdom implies the absence of geographical boun- dary in the dominion of religion, and is, and must be, as ignorant of, as independent upon, topographical limit, as soul is in communion with soul. "The hour cometh, and now is, when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father, but in spirit and in truth." Then wherefore this furious outcry from the Times and its pre- tended correspondents against the assumption of Pontifical powers in England by the Pope ? Where is the " impudence," as it is with disgusting vulgarity and arrogance called by the fanatics of Anglicanism, of the head of the Roman Catholic Church exercising the un- doubted powers which are conceded to it by those who own its allegiance? As a purely ecclesiastical authority, that of the Pope is the most ancient, the most legitimate in its descent, the most venerable and august in its traditions, the most certainly lineal and legal in its universal reign, of any in the world. The whole of Europe at one time sincerely and unanimously prostrated itself before it. All other forms of ecclesiastical dominion are usurpations over it, revolutions in it. All other Churches are but mushrooms and upstarts, created solely i)y successful reason to, and overmastering rebellion against it. As a faith claiming to have sway over men's consciences, and rule over men's souls, it is infinitely more respectable, intelligible, rational, than that of the Queen, in these or any other realms. It is, at least, constituted by lineal apostolic succession. The Pope has, from the beginning of the institution of the office to this hour, been chosen and elected from among a regularly ordained priesthood, by the unanimous choice of the Faithful, at the call of the members of the Church, and by the election of a true ecclesiastical convocation of the Fathers of the Faithful. On what pretence ran any one of these signs of legitimate spiritual power be assigned either to that original ruffian, by Divine grace, Henry the Eighth, who made him- self a Pontiff by Act of Parliament, or to the present Queen, his latest successor, by whose dispensation not one of the sacraments of the Church would confessedly have any efficacy, and who was called to'' be the Mother of the Faithful, and head of the "Holy Catholic Church," at the ripe age of nineteen? The Pope and his people have all the decencies of logic, and all the proprieties of reason, clearly on their side in this competition of assumption. The world has first been astounded to observe that a whole conclave of ecclesiastics, with the strenuous support of the majority of their brethren in other dioceses, have refused to own the authority of their titular on the express ground that Dr. Hampden, the Bishop of Hereford, was a rank heretic. The pious have with no less astonishment seen a pastor having the cure of souls arraigned by his Bishoj), and convicted in the Spiritual Courts of heresy and schism, and afterwards declared by the Queen alone, as the ultimate and over-ruling interpreter of Divine truth, to be perfectly orthodox, and entirely worthy of spiritual acceptance. It would be to insult the plain utiderstanding of serious men to ask them which authority is the more respectable, the more v.-orthy of allegiance m ecclesiastical and spiritual questions — an ordained Priest chosen by the whole fathers of the Church, or a female minor — a " miss in her teens," whose only imposition of hands, and reception of the Holy Ghost, has been an Act of Parlia- ment, the Herald's Trumpet, and the Gazette. Nor is there any redeeming feature in the nature of Protestant Episcopacy or Presbyterianism which, regarded in the mere light of ecclesiastical institutions, should render it a duty in men to concede to them the virtue of recognising greater liberty of conscience, and entitle them to lay claim to the credit of having exercised a greater abstinence from spiritual tyranny than the Church of Rome, as a counterbalance to the greater consistency of pastoral authority, and a less anomalous and more legitimate tenure of religious power. It is not in the Churches of England and Scotland, but out of them, that we are to look for the sources of that Christian liberty which we enjoy in a greater measure than is conceded to the subjects of Catholic countries. Public opinion, the force of character, the intelligence of the people of this country, have wrested from established Churches those powers of persecution which they only praise themselves for not exercising because they are not permitted its use, b'lt which arc as emphatically asserted in their canons as they are practised by that Ohurch of 10 Rome the bitterness of their hatred to which is, that it too nearly resembles themselves, 'meir Athanasian Creed hands over all Unitarians to the Devil with chronological punctuaUty once a month. They drag a schismatic before the Ecclesiastical Courts, and punish him for contumacy by fine and imprisonment. The Westminster clergy, in their address to the Bishop of London, arrogate to tliemsclves the power to "banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doc- trines," and declare that " the Queen's IVIajesty, under God, is the only supreme Governor of this realm, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical causes as in temporal 5" while the Thirty-nine Articles, very distinctly assert that she should rule " all estates and degrees, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn." The " Visitation for the Sick" directs that "then shall the sick penson be moved to make a special confession of his sins I after vv'hich confession the Priest shall absolve him after this sort: — By his (Christ's) authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins." 'I'he Confession of [•'alth ot the Kirk of Scotland is still more impudently Papistical. Its 30tli Chapter asserts, with the most shameless effrontery, that to its (Section 2.) " officers the keys of the kingdom of Heaven are comrnltted, by virtue whereof they have power respec- tively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by word and censures, and to open it unto penitent sinners !" Its 20th Chapter, which, strangely enough, is entitled, "Of Christian liberty, and liberty of conscience." distinctly maintams the right of the Assembly to suppress " erroneous opinions or practices," by " the power of the civil miigistrate" (Section 4th) ; and Chapter 23rd, Section 3rd, " tells the civil magistrate 'that' it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be sup- pressed!" And they wind up their bastard Popery with this climax (Chapter 2Gth,and Section 6th): " The Pope of Rome is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God." The '• son of perdition !" Why? Is it for the powers of the confessional? Those are arrogated equally by the Anglican Priest. Is it for the assumption of the power of absolution? That is directly claimed, equally by the service of the Kslablished Church of England, and by the Confession of Eaiih of the Church of Scotland. Is it for claiming the right to prosecute for heresy ? That is a power distinctly vindicated and assumed by the Tliirty-nine Articles, and the Westminster Confession. Is it for its claims to infallibility? Where is that more distinctly avowed than by the Lutheran and Calvinistic clergy, who absolve horn sin, proclaim their possession of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, sit in judgment upon opinion, and, in the case of the Anglicans, claim descent and lineal succession from the Apostles, and the inheritance of exclusive powers to wash away original sin by water made holy by being taken into their apostolical hand. " See'st thou yond' justice rail at that simple thief? Change places, and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, and which the thief?" Why all this outcry about the assumption of mere names, and titles, and ecclesiastical jurisdictions? It is because the whole fabric of episcopacy is but a name, a title, a carnal polity ; it is because " New presbyter is but old priest writ large;" it is because men are opening their eyes to the fact that, if there is to be any human spiritual authoiity interposed betwixt God and man's own conscience, that which is claimed by the Pope, through unbroken tradition, by original ordination, by high antiquity, by ecclesiastical choice, and by separation to the office, is intinitely more respectable, consistent, venerable, and logical, than that which the Anglican priesthood thrusts upon the Queen, much in the same spirit as the Eastern Priests do in the elevation of a boy to the Godship of the Dalai Lama, not from any reverence for him, but for the success of their own imposture. We are glad tha'. Popery has at last come to the death-grapple with Episcopacy. We respect the consistency of those dreaming parsons who become " perverts," as they are called, to the Church of liome, but who arc really only honestly carrying Anglican principles to their logical conclusion. When parsons see that they cannot have their cake and eat it, the time will be at hand when they viill also see that they must either resign their priestly pretensions, or be contented to concede them to, and share them with, the Pope. It is only the higher classes who are moonstruck with these monstrous superstitions. At the very time when peers, parsons, and right honourables are becoming Anglicans and Papists, we see reports from nearly every Catholic diocese in Ireland of the alarming spread of conversion to Protestantism among the poor population of the sister kingdom. Superstition is spreading among the rich, and intelligent religion among the masses. The Bishop of Londt)n, m answer to the address of his clergy, observes, "The appointment of Bishojis to preside over new dioceses in England, constituted by a Papal brief, is virtually a denial of the legitimate authority of the British Sovereign and of the English Episcopate; a denial also of the valn.ity of our orders, and an assertion of spiritual jurisOiction over the whole Christian people of the realm." Well, this ilenial is no more than we make, than all Dissenters jjioclaim, than the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts formally made law. And the assertion of spaitual jurisdiction over the whole Christian people of this realm is not confined to the Pope, b it is e(iua!ly, (■ni-tU!ently, jitnl IhIscIv fiirogiiti-d by tlie Aiiglican piie;tiiuud, and with quiie as liltic, if (iot \Ml!( kiS it'iwwii. — '*''■■■'•'ie "Protestant" outcry against 12 something wliicli is Catholic, but which, by its many corruptions of the faith, and by its own formal decree, has separated from itself the Catholic Church of England. If there had not been of late years multiplied aggressions of the State of England upon the Catholic character of the Church of England, and so little sign of any real purpose and endea- vour on the part of the Church to vindicate her faith, it might well be doubted whether Rome would have judged that the time was now come for the move she has lately made, and from whicli, we may rest assured, she will not recede. Faithfully yours, GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. Rectory, East Jircnl, All Saints' Dai/. THE REAL DANGER OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. The brother of the Heresiarch of Salisbury has addressed the following letter to the Guardian : My Dear Sir, — What is the real danger of the Church of England .' It is that the state of England, being itself no longer Catholic, should succeed by direct assault, indirect influence, and refusal of rights and liberties, in divesting the Church of England, by successive steps, of her Catholic character. When this has been done — and I am not afraid to say that it is in rapid progress — then the choice left to the English people will be between infidelity and Rome. The last five years have witnessed five direct assaults : — 1. Tlie case of the appointment to the See of Hereford. 2. The Madeira Chaplaincy case. .'). The Gorham case. 4. The attempt to crush Church education. 5. The University Commission. Numbers 4 and 5 are instances of the combination of direct assault with indirect influence. The refusal to allow Convocation to sit and deliberate, and the prostitution of the sacred offices of the Church by compelling, under penalties, their indiscriminate and profane use, fill up the list. For how many more of these things is the Church of England going to wait .' In how many more is she going to acquiesce, uttering nothing but a feeble and very partial remonstrance .' With a great majority of her Bishops encouraging her to think that there is nothing to fear, and actually congratulating herself upon her position as compared with other Churches, though, in her corporate capacity, she is doing absolutely nothing to vindicate the faith. The Times newspaper, being well aware of the real state of the case, is playing the game of the State, and trying to divert the just indignation of Churchmen from the multiplied aggressions ot the Civil Power to the aggressions of Rome. Now, Rome neither has, nor can have, any real power or influence in England over the mass of tht people, but in exact proportion to the failure of the Catholic character of the Church of England. It appears to nie simple madness to allow ourselves to be influenced by the art, and the fallacies, and the blustering of the Times ; and I confess that I am, for one, (juite unable to understand why English clergy of the United Church of I'^ngland and Ireland, who have so long silently acquiesced in the existence and full development of the Roman hierarchy in Ireland, and have said nothing about tiie Vicar-Apostolic of Rome in England, should, all of a sudden, be excited to such vehement indignation by the appointment of a Cardinal Arch- bishop of Westminster. Let us look at home. Let tis amend the excess of the secular character among ourselves. I^ct us have more of luuniliation and less self-gratulatiou. Let us absolutely rei'use, at whatever cost, or under whatever pretext, to "render unto Cfpsar" "the things of God." Let US allow no consideration of any kind to bind us to the great haiiu and loss that is being inflicted every day by State power and influence upon the Catholic character of the Chuicli of England. Let us do something more than make speeches and protests, and pass resolutions. Let us. Bishops, clergy, and people, do not suffer for the Catliolic faith. And then wc need not concern ourselves about Cardinal Archbishops of Westminster. Very faithfully yours, GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. The following letter has been addressed to the Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Buckingham by Mr Disraeli :— .Mv Lord, — I have received nuuicrous appeals from my constituents requesting that I would co-opirate uitn lliom in addressing your Lordship to call a meeting of the countj', in order 13 that we may express our reprobation of the recent assault of tiic Court of Rome on the pre- rogatives of our Sovercig'n and the liVerties of her subjects. I think it very desirable that a meeting of the county should be called for that purpose, but, as far as I can gather from what reaches nie, great misapprehension is afloat respecting the circumstances which now so violently, but so justly, excite the indignation of the country. Men are called upon to combine to prevent foreign interference with the prerogatives of the Queen, and to resist jurisdiction by the Pope in her Majesty's dominions. But I have always understood that, when tlie present Lord-Lieutenant arrived in his Vice- royalty, he gathered together the Romish Uishops of Ireland, addressed them as nobles, souglit their counsel, and courted their favour. On the visit of her Majesty to that kingdom the same prelates were jjresented to the Queen as if they were nobles, aiul precedence was given them over the nobility and dignitaries of the national Church ; and it was only the other day, as 1 believe, that the Government offered the othce of V^isitor to the Qneeii's Colleges to Dr. Cullen, the Pope's delegate, niul pscui/u Archbishop of Armagh, and to Dr. M'Hale, the pseuilo Arch- bishop of Tuam. AVMiat uonder, then, that his Holiness should deem himself at liberty to ajjporlion England into dioceses, to l)e ruled over i)y his bishops ! And, why, instead of sup- posing he has taken a step " insolent and insidious," should he not have assumed he was acting in strict conformity with the wishes of her Majesty's (lOvernment. The fact is, that the whole question has been surrendered, and decided in favour of the Pope, by the present Government; and the Ministers who recognised the psfudo Archbishop of Tuam as a peer and a prelate, cannot ol)ject to the appointment of a pscudo Archliishop of Westmin- ster, even though he be a cardinal. On the contrary, the loftier dignity should, according to their tiible of precedence, rather invest his Eminence with a stdl higher patent of nobility, and permit him to take the wall of his Grace of Canterbury and the highest nobles of the land. The policy of the present Government is, that there shall be no distinction between England and Ireland. I am, tiierefore, rather surprised that the Cabinet are so " indignant," as a certain letter with which we have just been favoured informs us they are. I have made these observations in order that, if the county meets, the people of Bucking- liamshire may understand that the question on which they will have to decide is of a graver, deeper, and more comprehensive character than, in the heat of their laudable emotion, they may perhaps suppose. I have the honour to be, my lord, ^'our faithful servant, Hushenden Manor, Nov. 8th. B. DISRAELI. Cardinal Wiseman is now in his 49th year, having been born at Seville, on August, 2, 1802. He is descended from an Irish family, long settled in Spain. At an early id Series.— TiicQ Id., or 7s. per 100 for I'isti'ibution.] [James Gilbert. 49, Paternoster-row Of whom maij he had " The Ruh mi Catholic Question," First Series, price Id, 2 that the grace may be granted beforp, m, or after baptism." It is true, tliat Mr. Gorham asserts tliis ia some of his answers ; but in others he goes mucli fixrthcr, and advances positions from wliich it follows as a necessary inference, not only that there may be cases in wliich infants are not regenerated in and by baptism, but that they are in no case so regenerated ; that infants, duly baptised, may be regenerated, but that, if they are, it is before baptism, by an act of prevenient grace; and that so they come to baptism already re- generated ; that forgiveness of sins, the new nature, adoption into the family of God, the being made "members of Clirist, children of God, and inlieritors of the kingdom of heaven," are benefits conferred on " worthy recipients," " not in baptism, but by an act of prevenient grace given by God before baptism ;" so making tiiem worthy recipients ol the rite, that baptism is so far an effectual sign of God's grace bestowed beforehand, implanting a new nature, and strengthening and confirming faitli in niin Thus, according to Mr. Gorham, the strengthening and confirming of faith is the whole of the spiritual grace betowed in baptism, even on worthy recipients ; faith, forgiveness of sins, regeneration, the new nature, and adoption into the family of God, have been idl bestowed upon sucli, if at all, before baptism. It did not appear to nie possible to reconcile such statements as these with the plain and unequivocal teaching of tlie Cliurch of England as to the nature of a sacrament. They seemed to nie to be a plain denial of that whicb the Church asserts, that an infant is made in and by baptism (not before nor after it) a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. If there be any meaning in words, those statements are express contradictions of the trutli ihat in a sacrament the outward and visible part, or sign, is a means whereby we receive the inward and spiritual grace, as well as a pledge to assure us tiiereof. If this theory of Mr. Gorham's be true, then is baptism no longer a sacrament according to the Church's definition, nor can we, with a safe coiiscience, continue to teach our children that Catechism which yet the Cliurch declares is to be learned of every one of her members. It appeared to me, then, that these as- sertions of Mr. Gorham, which were passed over without notice by the Judicial Committee, but to wliich I could not shut my eyes, went to deprive holy baptism of its sacramental character, and utterly to evacuate it3 peculiar and distinctive grace. I am not now considering, nor was this the question befure tlie Judicial Committee, whetiier Mr. Gorham's theory be defensible as being cousistent with tlie language of Holy Scripture (which I am persuaded it is not), but whetiier it be agreeable to the dogmatical teaching of the Cluirch of England; whether it can be reconciled with the deductions which she has drawn, in accordance «ith the primitive Church of Christ, Irom the word of God, the one infallible source of truth? Now, that baptismal regeneration, including in that term the remission of original sin in the imjilanting of a new principle of spiritual life, is indeed the doctrine of our Church, is, to my mind, so jilain that I find it difficult to understand how any person can persuade himself of the contrary. 1 would repeat, with reference to this question, the observation contained in my charge delivered to the clergy of this diocese in 18-1'2 : " In the interpretation of the Articles which relate more immediately to doctrine, our surest guide is the Liturgy." It may safely be pronounced of any interpretation of an Article which cannot be reconciled with the plain lan- guage of the ofBces for public worship, that it is not the doctrine of the Church. The opinion, for instance, which denies baptismal regeneration might possibly, though not without great diiBculty, be reconciled with the language of the 27th Article. By no stretch of ingenuity nor latitude of explanation can it be brought to agree with the plain, unqualified language of the offices for baptism and confirmation. A question may properly be raised as to the sense in which the term "regeneration" was used in the early Church and by our own Reformers; but that regeneration does actually take place in baptism, is most undoubtedly the doctrine of the English Church ; and I do not understand how any clergyman who uses the office for baptism, which he has bound himself to use, and which he cannot alter nor mutilate without a breach of God's faith, can deny that, in some sense or other, baptism is indeed " the laver of regeneration." I cannot for a moment admit that the Articles contain the whole doctrine of the Church of England. "The Book of Articles," says Bishop Pearson, "is not, nor is it pretended to be, acomplete body of divinity, or a comprehension and explication of all Christian doctrines necessary to be taught, but an enumeration of some tfutbs which, before and since the Refurmation, liave been denied by some persons who upon their denial are thought unfit to have any cure of souls in this Church or realm." It was argued by Mr. Gor- ham's counsel tliat the Book of Common Prayer is to be considered simply as a guide to devotion, not as defining any doctrine ; but it appears to me to be a perfectly inadmissible supposition, that, in a solemn actof devotion, and especially in the celebration of a sacrament, any poiul of doctrine should be embodied as a certain and acknowledged truth, about which the Church entertains any doubt. This would surely be notluDi; short of addressing the Author of Truth in the language of falsehood. On the contrary, the assumption of a doctrine as true, in a prescribed form of prayer or thanksgiving to God, is, in fact, the most solemn and pos.'ive assertion of that doctrine wliich can possibly be made. Will any one maintain that if the articles ol religion had contained no direct declaration of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it would not have been expressly and most solemnly asserted by the Church when she directed her members to pray to tlie " Ilo'y, IBlessed, and Glorious Trinity, three persons and one God," or that becau.se the specijj work of the Holy Ghost in the economy of man's salvation, that of renewing hiin in the inner man, is not in terms asserted in tlie Articles; it is, tlierefore, not assorted by the Church when she ius'ructs us to pray, that having been regem rated and made the children of God, by adoption and grace, we may be duly renewed by His Holy Spirit P 1 do not understand bow any clergyman can doubt whether the Liturgy is binding upon him iu respect of doctrine, when he remembers the solemn declaration which he has made iu the face of the Church : " I do hereby declare my unfeigned aswnt and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in the book entitled ' The Book of Common Prayer.' " Not only, you will observe, his consent to use it, but his a-sent to everything contained in it. Again, it is prescribed by the Act of Uniformity, that every lecturer shall openly declare his " assent unto and approbation of the said Book (of Common Prayer) : and to the use of the Prayers, &c., therein contained and prescribed" — words which are quite incompatible with the notion that notliing more is required of the clergy than to declare their readiness to use the Book of Common Prayer. Dr. Waterland, speaking of the" case of Arian subscription, says of Dr. Samuel Clarke: " He was sensible that Atticles, Creeds, and Liturgy, must all come into account, and all be reconciled (if possible) to his hypotliesis. He made no distinction between the irulh of this and the use only of that, well knowing tliat truth and use are coincident in a case of this liigh moment, and that he could not submit to the use of these prayers but in such a sense as he thought true." liut all doubt a< ^ the bearing of the Book of Common Prayer upon questions of doctrine, at least with regard to \ne sacraments, is removed by the express language of the Canons, 'i'lie 57th Cn<-,c:fl ^w tinctly and authoritatively refers to the Book of Common Prayer as dechiring what the doctrlLe of tiu Church is with respect to the two sacraments. "The doctrine," it says, "both of Eaptism and the Lo)a('« Supper, is so sulliciently set down in the Book of Common Prayer to be used at adminittration of tko said sacraments, as nothing can be added unto it that is material and necessary." This is a direct assertw* that the baptismal and eucliaristic offices are dogmatic, as well as devotional , and were thii authoritfcUw declaration wanting, we should protest against the notion that, in the most solemn act of prayer OtA thanksgiving to God, our Church should have permitted herself to employ the strongest and most m^ qualified words, without intending them to be understood in their natural sense. This Canon, indeed, layi iio more than had been said by Bishop Ridley, in his " Last Farewell," written just before his martyrdo«j " This Church of England had of late, the infinite goodness and abundant mercy of Almiglity God, frrsat substance, great riches of heavenly treasure, great plenty of God's true and sincere word, the true asi wholesome administration of Clirist's holy sacraments, the whole profession of Christ's religion truly aa< plainly set forth in baptism, the plain declaration and understanding of the same, taught in the holy Ciitft- chism to have been learned of all true Christians." I need not consider the comparative authority of tbs Articles and the Book of Common Prayer in questions of doctrine. We are bound to admit the truth of both documents. If there be anything which wears the semblance of contradiction or diversity between the two, we may be sure that the frumeis of the Articles did not intend it ; and, witli resp 'ct to tha two sacra- ments, the express deolaratiou of the Canons put forth fifty years after the publication of the Articles, is decisive as to the point, that thoy are to be interpreted in accordance with the plain language of the offices in the Book of Common Prayer. If there be any ambiguity or want of precision in the Articles as to the effect of baptism, it is, I think, our obvious duty to have recourse to the office for the adminis- tration of that sacrament, for the purpose of ascertaining the Church's mind on so important a point of doctrine. THE CHuiicn's view of b.vptismal regeneration. It is not my intention to discuss at leu'^th the meaning and force of the 27th Article, nor would I deny that its language is less precise than that in which miriy other doctrinal questions are stated and deter- mined ; but I cannot believe that, if there be anything ambiguous in that language, such ambiguity was intentional, and studiously employed for the purpose of leaving the construction of that Article to the private persuasion of individuals, considering that the purpose for which the Articles were designed was stated to be " the avoiding of diversities," not merely in teaching, but of " opinions." Moreover, if there be some obscurity in the language of the 27th Article, when taken by itself (an obscurity which ceases to exist when that part of the article which relates to the baptism of adults is distinguished from that which concerns infant ))aptism), there is none when it is read in connexion with the 35tii, which declares the sacraments to be "not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but certain sure witnesse.s and effectual signs of grace and God's good-will to us, whereby he doth work invisibly in us." Therefore baptism is an ctTectual sign of grace, that is, a sign producing the effect which it represents, and by baptism God doth work invisibly in us. I could refer you also to another of the Articles, which seems to me very clearly to indiwite the sense of those who framed them as to the spiritu;il effects of baptism : 1 mean the ISth Article, "Of sin after baptism." It says : — " Not every deadly sin willingly committed after baptism is a sill against the Holy Ghost, and therefore unpardonable. Wherefore the grant o'' repentance is uot to be denied to such as fall into sin after baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may rise again and amend our lives." It appears to me to be an unavoidable inference from the Article that its framers considered the recovery of the Moly Ghost to be uniformly an effect of baptism, where no bar existe I on the part of the recipient ; and this inference is rendered certain by the language held by Cranmer in 153S. " Because," he say*, "infants are born with one original sin, they have need of the remisson of that sin; and that is so rem tted that its guilt is t^aken away, albeit the corruption of nature or concupiscence, remains in this life, although it begins to be healed, because the Holy Spirit is efficacious even in infants theawelves, and cleanses tliem." The precise nature and extent of the spiritual change which then takes place, the Church has no further defined than by the general assertion that it is a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness, and that every person rightly baptised is made thereby a member of Christ, a child of Gkid, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. This change is otherwise expressed by the single word "regeneration." I suppose that few amongst us will be found to deny that all who receive baptism worthily are, in some sense of the term, therein regenerated. The Church declares in very general and positive language, of all who, having been duly baptised, are afterwards bro\ight to be coufirmed, that Almighty God has vouchsafed to regenerate them by w.iter and the Holy Ghost, and has given them forgiveness of all their sins. But this declaration, it is said, is to be restricted to such as have received baptism worthily ; and this raises the quesiion whether all infants may receive baptism worthily. What is the ohce or bar which in any esse disqualifies an infant from the worthy reception of th;tt sacrament ? Actual sin it cannot be. Original sin, or inherited sinfulness of nature, is the only bar which can be imagined. But to remedy the conse- quences of this original sin is the very object of baptism. It is therefore so far from being a bar to tha receipt of that sacrament that it is the very reason for its administration. " Nothing," says Bishop Pearson, " in tha whole compass of our religion, is more sure than the exceeding great and most certain efficacy of baptism to spiritual good ; that it is an outward and visihle sign indeed, but by it an invisible graoo if signified, and the sign itself was instituted for the very purpose that it should confer that grace." "One baptism for the remission of sins." If this cred/rndim of the Universal Church be true, how can we admit the truth of an assertion that original sin must be remitted by a preve nient act of grace before an infant can be worthy to be baptised? The 9th Article, " Of original or birth sin," declare! that iu every person born into the world, tliis sin " deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of natur* doth remain, yea in them that are regenerate ; and although there is no condemnation for them that believe twi are baptised (in the Latin it is renati^), yet the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and loit hath of itself the nature of sin." Words cannot more clearly convey the notion that original sin is for- given to them that are regenerate, that is, to them who believe and are baptised, although its infection still remains in the lust of the flesh. And this, let me remark, by the way, points out the great difference ia point of doctrine between the Church of Rome and our own as to the effect of baptism, The one conteMda fLat not oaly the guilt, but the very essence aud beiug of original sin, is removed by baptism ; the other teaches that although the guilt is forgiven in baptism, the corruption of nature remains even in those who are so regenerate. This notion of the Church of Rome lies at the root of its grand error, tliat of justification by inherent righteousness. I am aware that a question has been raised vrlietber that cbiuse of the Nicene Creed, "One baptism for the remission of sins," has any reference to the forgiveness of original sin. But wliat other reference can it liave iu the case of infant bnptitra, \vlii--h we know fo have been the practice of tiie Universal Ciiurch when that creed was compiled? In truth, no quesion was raised about it till Pelatrius denied the doctrine of original sin. The writings of his great opponent, St. Augustine, abound with passages which prove the belief of the Church Catholic to have been that original sin was remitted in baptism, not before or ojier it. That reniiss-lun in baptism of the guilt of original sin, for the sake of the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ (Christ being the meritorious cause of their remission, baptism the instrument), is also the doctrine of our own Church, following in this, as in othei respects, the teaching of the early Church, cannot reasonably be doubted. It is plainly asserted in the Catechism, prayed for in the office of baptism, and made a subject of special thanksgiving both in that and in the office of confirmation. Nor is it less distin<;tly set forth in tlie homilies, from which the follovi'ing extracts may suffice : — " We must trust only in God's mercy, and that sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the son of God, once ofl"ered for us upon the cross, to obtain thereby God's grace aad remission, as well of our original sin in baptism, as of al' actual sin committed by us after baptism, if we truly repent, .{ind unfeisnedly turn to Him again." . . "Our office is not to pass the time of this present life unfruitlully or idly after that we are baptised or justified." . . . "We be, therefore, washed in baptism from the filthiness of sin, that we should live aftervv-ards in pureness of life." The same language was held by Cranmer, Ilidley, Latimer, Becon, Hutchinson, Bradford, following the steps of Luther and Melancthon, aU of whom taught that re'i^ission of sin and the gift of the Spirit were the effect of baptism. That this doctrine was held by our greatest divines is so notorious as alniost to render citation unnecessary. " Baptism," says Hooker, " is a sacrament which God hath instituted in His Church to the end that they who receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ, and so through His niost precious merit obtain as well that saving gnice of imputation which taketli away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue (jf the Holy Gliost whicii giveth to the powers of the soul their first dispositionjtowards future newness of life." With this plain and comprehensive statement of the beneficial efl'ects of baptism may be coupled ano'.her from the same great luminary of the Church, which, although it does not iu terms specify tiie forgiveness of original sin, necessarily includes it. " We take not baptism nor the eucliarist for bare resemblances or memorials of tilings absent, neither for naked signs and testimonies assuring us of grace received before [which is Mr. Gorham's theory], but as they are in deed and verity, for means effectnal whereby God. when we take the sacraments, delivereth into our hands the grace available un'o eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify." And in a passage immediately following that which has been quoted to show tliat Hooker considered the Church to speak of infants baptised only as the rule of "piety alloweth us both to speak and to tiiink," we find this statement, plainly slinwing that he believed all infants to receive regeneration by baptism, whether they be elect or not. Cartwright, whom Mr. Gorhain follows, had spoken of a grace that makes a man a Christian before he comes to receive baptism iu the Church; and Hooker says : — " When we know how Christ in general hath said that of 'such is the kingdom of hea\en, which kingdom is the inheritance of God's elect, and do withal behold how His providence hath called them unto the first beginnings of eternal life, and presented them at the well-spring of new birth, wherein original sin is purged — besides whicli sin there is no hindrance of their salvation known to us, as themselves [Cartwright and his party] will grant— hard it were that, having so many fair inducements whereupon to ground, we should not be thought to utter, at the least, a trutii as probable and allowable in terming any such particular infant an elect babe, as in prcsnming the like of others whose safety, nevertheless, we are not absolutely able to warrant." He then goes on to say that "baptism implieth a covenant or league between God and man, wherein as God doth bestow presently remission of sin, and the Holy Ghost, binding also himself to add, in process of time, what grace soever shall be further necessary for the attainment of everlasting life, so every baptised soul receiving tlie same grace at the hands of God, tieth likewise itself for ever to the observation of His laws." The question, yon perceive, of which Hooker speaks, is not whether this or that infant is regenerated in baptism, but whether, being regenerated, it can also be certainly pronounced elect. The early Calvinistie divines, who held the doctrine of election, predestination, aud perseverance, never doubted, on the one hand the certainty of baptismal grace, nor, on the other, its defectibility. " The ancient predestinarians," says the present Bishop of Bangor, "never questioned the certainty of regeneration iu baptism, because this doctrine was consistent with their theory ; for though they maintained that the elect, or predestinate, are endued with the gift of perseverance unto the end, and will fin;Jly be saved, yet they believe that God bestows at his pleasure every other kind and measure on tliose persons from whom He withholds this special grace of perseverance. They therefore held in common with the rest of the Church, that forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, are bestowed in baptism ; nor did they imagine that there is any necessary or indissoluble connexion between regeneration aud eternal salvation." Two names scarcely less illustrious than tliat of Hooker, are those of Barrow and Pearson. The former speaks of " each member of the Church singly being, in holy baptism, washed from his sins aud made regenerate, or adopted into the number of God's children, and made partaker of Christ's death." The latter declares it to be " the most general aad irrefragable assertion of all to whom we h.ave reason to give credit, that all sins, whatsoever any person is gnilty of, are remitted in the baptism of the same person." The settled opinions of the early Lutlieran divines, as well as of Lutlier himself, are apparent from the "Loci Theologici" of Gerhard, a text-book of Lutheran theology. " Infants," he says (I quote Mr. Arnold's translation), " do not resist the Boly Ghost and His operation, and therefore faith aud salvation are undoubtedly conferred upon them." Again: " They detract from the eflicacy of the sacraments on the side of defect . . . who argue that the sacraments are only signs of grace either already conferred and .received without the use of sacraments, or not to be conferred till some later time. Zuiuglius, especially, had disseminated this error in his writings." But this is precisely the error of Mr. Gorham. With these testimonies before me, I could not bring myself fo admit that Mr. Gorhani's theorj' of the comparative, if not the absolute, ineffieacy of baptism could be reconciled with the language of our atitho- relative formularies, according to any just rule of interpretation. It appeared to me that he went to much greater lengths in depreciating the sacramental character of baptism than any m-ifcr of our Churcli with whose works I was acquainted, except the opponents of Hooker — that he left far in the backg^-ound those who maintained the hyix)thetical, the conditional, or the charitable theory of baptismal efficacy, in his asser- tion that in all cases the forgiveness of original sin, the grace of regeneration and adoption into the family of Gdd, are not the effects or results of baptism, but of a prevenient act of grace, where a baptised infant possesses them, or of a siibscr|uent act of grace, where they follow at some later time after baptism. ''' Let nie add one word on the subject of prevenient grace. It has been well observed tliat the supposition of prevenient grace in the case of infants only shifts the difliculfy one step backwards ; for if infants be noj qualified to receive baptismal grace, how can they be qualified to receive prevenient grace? If their bein;^ born in sin unfits them for the one, so must it lor the other. The prevenient grace of which some of our older divines have spoken refers to the bajitism of adults, who must be predisposed by the Holy Spirit to seek for the benefits of baptism, and enabled to lielieve with the heart unto righteousness. Suffer me also to offer a remark upon the notion that the efficacy of baptism in some measure depends, in the case of infants, upon the faith and ]u-ayers of those who offer them at the font, that the sacrament is more or less efficacious as the parents who present their children to be baptised are more or less alive to th solemn importance of the rite, and more or less earnest in prayer for its complete and final effects. Not to dwell on the consideration that, if this notion bo true, it seems to exclude from the spiritual benefits of bap- tism all children of wicked or thoughtless parents, I must confess that it .seems to me somewhat akin to rhe error condemned in our 2Gtli Article, vi/,., that the uiiwortbiness of the mir.l : i-< hinders the effect of the sacrament, and the answer appears to be nearly the same in both cases — "That li'o effect of Christ's ordi- nances is not taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminislu i! i'loin such as by faith and rightly do receive the sacraments niiuistercd unto them, which be effectual, becau.sc of Christ's institu- tion and promi.sc, and although they be ministered by evil men." The Church considers the efficacy of the sacrameuts to depend upon Christ's inslilution and promise — the fulfilment of which depends upon their right admiuistratioii and worthy reception — and surely an infant's fitness to receive baptism cannot depend upon the ieeliiigs of those who present it. In the case of an adult this is perfectly clear. That the ultimate effect of baptism may depend in some measure upon the faith and prayers of parents and sponsors, none will be found to deny ; and this consideration cannot be too forcibly urged upon those who present their children at the baptismal font, and upon those who superintend their education. But this is a very different thing from making the immediate effect of the sacrament to depend upon the prayers of those who are present d ts administiaiion. To tho^e men who hold this notion, I would recommend the following remark of the truly pious and charitable Archbi.shop Leighton ; it is contained in a letter published in bis select works. " To jour other point touching baptism ? — truly, my thought is, it is a weak notion taken upon trust almost generally to consider so much or at all the qualifications of the parents. Either it is a benefit to infants or it is not. If none, then why administered at all ? But if it be, then why should the poor innocents be prejudged of it. for the parent's cause, if he profes.s but so much of a Christian as to offer his child to that ordinance ? For that it is the parent's faith gives the child a right to it is neither clear from Scripture nor any sound reason ; yet, in that, I heartily approve your thought, that you would make it, as it more fitly may be, ae inducement to the parents to know Him and His doctrine and hvc conformably to it, under « hose name they desire their children to be baptised." It is obvious to remark that much of the controversy which has so long (and, nnhn])pily, with so much of acrimony on both sides) been going on respecting the effect of baptism has arisen from the diffe'cnt meanings in which the word regenei'ation has been employed. It is greatly to be desired that some ag ree- ment should be come to as to the sense in which it is used by the Church. If this were done, I believe .hat the differences between contending parties would, in many cases, be found to be really much less than hey appear to be. I do not venture to give a precise definition of what is meant by the word regeneration, but I would offer a suggestion which may pave the way to a common understanding. I need hardly re lind you of the different passages of Holy Scripture in which a man is said to be born of water and o the Spirit ; to be born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God ; to 'lave been begotten again of God ; to be btirn again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible ; to have been begotten again of God unto a lively hope ; to have been born of God, and to -sin not ; to have been beg itten of God, and to keep himself. Now, he who is born becomes thereby the son of him to whom lie is bom, by whom he is begotten ; and, therefore, to be born of God, or begotten of God, means to be made a child ol God ; and regeneration, or the being l)orn again, means that a person is made the child of a father whose child he was not before. Regeneration by baptism means, then, the being made, by baptism, a child of God, and with reference to God's no longer regarding him with displeasure, but with favour, a child of grace. So in the Collect for Christmas-day, we are spoken of as being regenerate, and made the children of God by adoption and grace. It is obvious that this regeneration carries with it remission of sins, as the Churcli prays that the " infant coming to holy baptism may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration :" and afterwards thanks God "that it hath pleased him to regenerate that infant, to receive it for His own child, by adoption, and to incorporate it into His holy Church." So far, I apprehend, many vrill be found to agree with ns as to the nature and effects of baptismal regeneration, who will, perhaps, draw back or hesitate when we proceed one step further, and maiutinn that such a change of state necessarily implies the conferring of some inward spiritual gilt upon the subject of it. Now, it is surely unieasonable to suppose that wlieie there is a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness, there will not be given the principle of a new life of righteousness ; that where obedience is required there should not be imjiarted what Bishop Jeremy Taylor calls "a capacity obediental." As the tirst or camid birth carried with it the jirineiple of bodily life, so llie second or spiritual, conveys the principle uf spiritual life. " Being engrafted inio Christ or His Church," says Bishop Wilson, " we receive grace and a new life from Christ as really as a branch rcceivps life and nourishment from the good tree intc wJiicli it is t;rafted." In this sense, as well as with rt'lercuce to the general resurrection, it is true ths "As in Ad:mi all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." We cannot conceive of God that t> should freely receive into His (amily, by adfiption, those who are washed witli the laver of re^eneraticn, reiiKJving ibereby ihe bar of oiiginal sin which rendfred thenj, ns lonj; .'en, and fall into sin." We beheve that the grace so given is an initial and seminal grace, whicli must I eharithed and developed, and made fruitful by proper culture and training, and by a diligent use of all ihe means of spiritual improvement which God has given us in His Word, His Church, and &6 Sacraments. Not only is the first imparting grace necessary, but growth in grace is required, in order to the final efficacy of our baptismal privileges; and so theChurcli prays that the infants whom it has pleased God to regenerate with His Holy Spirit, and to receive for Kis own children, by adoption, may afterwards " crucify the old man and utterly abolish the whole body of sin." And at confirmation slie beseeches God that He will " iaily increase in them His manifold gifts of grace," and that they may " daily increase in His Holy Spirit more and more." Upon the whole, I am of opinion that the real doctiine of our Church, as to the effect of baptism, is cor- rectly stated in the following words of one of the most learned of her sons. Bishop Beveridge: — " Altliough our Blessed Saviour saith to Nicoderaus, that except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, yet He doth not say that every one that is so born shall inherit eternal life. It is true that all that are baptised or born of water and the Spirit are thereby admitted into the Church or kingdom of God upon earth ; but except they submit to the government and obey the laws established in it, they forfeit all their right and title to the kingdom of heaven. They are brought into a state of salvation, but unless they continue in it, and live accordingly, they cannot be saved. Bap' ism puts us in the way to heaven, but unless we walk in that way we can never come thither. When ne were baptised we were born of water and of the Spirit, so as to have the seed of grace sown in our hearts sulTicient to enable us to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit to overcome temptations to believe aright in Gfod our Saviour, and to obey and serve Him faithfully all the days of our life. But if we neglect to perform what we then promised, and so do not answer the end of our baptism by keeping our conscience void of offence towards God and towards man, we lose all the benefit of it, and shall as certainly perish as if we had never been baptised." Or I might adopt, as a still shorter expression of the Church's mind, the language of a late learned and judicious prelate. Bishop Van Mildert : — "They who agree with our Church understand by re^jeneration that first principle of holiness — that beginning of the spiritual life of wiiich baptism is not only the sign but also the pledf'e — assurini' us of its actual conveyance. Thus far, and thus far only, they extend the meaning of spiritual regeneration, and this they maintain to be given in baptism. The ultimate efficacy of the gift they acknowledge to be dependant upon our subsequent growth in grace." Tii;* doctrine is briefly and toucli- ingly summed up in the collect already referred to: — " Grant that we, being rej,eu-^r!ite audmade thy children by adoption and ^^race, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit." Those persons who charge the maintainers of what we believe to be the true doctrine of baptism, with the error of the Church of Rome touching the opvs operafum, appear not to understand clearly what that error is. I cannot do better than quote tlie words of the present learned Bishop of Bangor, to show what the real difference is, in this respect, between the two Churches : — " That baptism is the ordinary means through which God bestows the grace of regeneration, is a doctrine common to our own Church and to the Church of Rome. But the point on which our divines insisted, in opposition to the decrees and teach- ing of tluit Church, was that this grace is not communicated to or contained in the element, and from thence transferred to tiie soul, of the recipient ; that the outward sign is only an instrumental, the Holy Spirit the efficient cause of regeneration ; that it is not the water but the blood of Christ with which our sins are washrd away ; that the object of faith in the sacrament of baptism is not any virtue contained in the water, but the promise of God in Christ; aad that the necessity of baptism, when it may be had, depends not oa any supernatural quality communicated to the element of water, but on the positive comniandmeui and institution of Christ. It should be remembered that a canon of the Council of Trent anathematises those who afliim that the sacraments of the new law do not contain the grace which they signify." Before I dismiss this subject, I would desire you to consider whether the vague and uncertain notions respecting baptism which have prevailed in the Church during the last one hundred years, have not, in a great degree, been owing to the careless and irregular adn-.inistration of the sacrament itself — the oflBce mutilated ; the font thrust into a corner, out of sight of the congregation ; the directions of the rubric and «anons disregarded ; the definitions of the Cateciiism unexplained. J cannot but think that if the Churcli's orders with respect to the administration of baptism had been always and everywhere duly followed out — had the people been accustomed to hear the fioleran and affecting form by wliich their children were, or ought to have been, grafted into tlie body of Christ's Church, and to bear a part in it themselves — had the baptismal covenant been more carefully and systematically put forward iu the teaching of the clergy, in connexion with all the duties of after-life — the ordinance of baptism would have been better understood and more highly valued ; the Church's intention would have been less a subject of doubt, and extreme opinions on either side would have found less acceptance. And this leads me to remark that, deplorable as are the present divisions in the Church on the baptismal question, we may sec some reason to be thankful that any question of a purely religious nature should have excited so wide and deep a feeling in the nation at large. I cannot but regard it as an indication of the growtli of religious knowledge and principle in the jieople of this Christian country, when I see thtTi taking so lively an interest in an inquiry respecting an article of faith ; but at the same time, it may well suggest to us tiie necessity of caution and charity, le«t this awakened feeling should be hurried into either extreme — of superstitious reverence for outward forms, or a puritanical contempt of them. The thorough examination of the question before us cannot fail to iaeue in the establishment of the truth ; but that desirable result may be retarded, and it will certainly be attained at the expenst c:<" much detriment to tho cause of true religion, if the etani nation be conducted in a bitter and ceniorious spirH,aud if anything of personal feeling be mingled with ihat lore of truth which onpht to be the jjfuiuiiif;;' principle of all coslroversy : we may not abnndon nor compromise wna> we believe to be the truth, but we may let it be clearly seen that in our endeavours to establish it, we are actuated by a desire not to obtain u victory over our antagonists, but to bring them to an agreement with us ; or, if the truth lie on their side, to come to an apeenient with them. Nor is it to be forirotten that, althuiigb the truth can only be one, there may be various shades of error, more or less detrimental to the integrity of Christian doctrine — more or less obstructive of the ends which all doctrine is intended to produce ; and it is to the attainment of these ends that we should direct the minds of our people, rather than to differences of opinion, which are not likely to weaken the foundation of their faith, nor to impair the motives to practical piety and holiness of life. But I can hardly extend this liberty to those, if such there be, who teach their congregations to undervalue the importance of a sacrament, it.s privileges, or its obligations. PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DECISION OF THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE. I now proceed to offer some remarks upon the consequences which may he expected to follow from the judgment grounded on the report of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In the first place I consider that the error of Mr. Gorhain, which I have already pointed out, and which I hope is almost peculiar to him amongst the clergy of our Church, has not been sanctioned by the Judicial Committee. It has been overlooked by them — at least they have passed it by without notice. Those opinions of iMr. Gorham, which they have sanctioned, do not go to the extreme length of separating the grace of baptism from the sacrament, nor of denying " one baptism for the remission of sins." The notions which they have stated as those which are to be collected from Mr. Gorham's examination are vague and indefinite, and involve the necessity of putting an interpretation upon the plain language of the Church other than its natural sense. The .sanctioning of this principle of interpretation seems, it must be admitted, to open the door to an almost unlimited latitude of teaching upon the most important points of doctrine. But still the report of the Judicial Committee does not contain a distinct approval of what I consider to be the gieat error of Mr. Gorhani's theory — the absolute severance of the inward and spiritual grace of the sacrament from the outward and visible sign. So far it leaves untouched the sacramental doctrine of the Church. But, suppose it were otherwise ; suppose that the Judicial Committee had even gone to the length of sanctioning so grave an error as this, would such a decision have really affected the character of onr Church as a teacher of God's saving truth, and a dispenser of His holy sacraments P I think not. It might indeed, have exposed her in its consequences to the danger of being so affected at some future time, and to that danger, as one which may possibly follow, even from the recent judgment, we must not close our eyes. But let us bear in "'ind that it is not, properly ipeaking, the Church's act — that it does not alter a single sentence or word of her Creeds or Formularies — that it does not exempt any one of her ministers from the necessity of subscribing to her Articles in their " plain, literal, and grammntical sense," nor give them liberty to change or omit a single word of those offices, in which her orthodox doctrines are embodied, and ennunciated,and applied to practice. This is, indeed, an invaluable advantage possessed by the Chuicli in her Book of Common Prayer : that it is a standing coufuiation of erroneous doctrine — a stated procla- mation of Christian truth continually resounding in the ears, and carried home to the hearts, of all her members, and made familiar even to the most unlearned. As long as we retain unaltered our Book of Common Prayer, I do not think that we have much to fear from the diversity of opinions which may from time to time arise in the Church. A clergyman may sometimes preach strange doctrines to his people, but he must also formally contradict them as often aa he reads the Liturgy in his Church ; and the people in general are so habituated to its plain, .simple, forcible enunciations of Scripture verities, in the most affecting form, that of direct addresses to the Author of all Truth, that an occasional misinterpretation of them on the part of the preacher will not often loosen the foundations of their faith, nor rob them of the consolation which the Church's offices are so well adapted to impart. I am much inclined to agree with the late Mr. Alexander Knox, who, aa we learn from Bishop Jebb, " considered the Liturgy a ranch .stronger fence to the Church than subscrip- tion to the Articles." The latter was a single act, to which a man migl.t argue down or persuade his scruples. But no Arian who had a grain of religion or honesty could persist, week after week, in reading the Creeds. But, to return to the question more immediately before us, I would again urge the considera- tion that the teaching of the Church is .still to be found in its Creeds, Formularies, and Articles, not in the decisions of any Court, even the highest which is constituted for the purpose, not of making or altering laws, but of enforcing them. I admit that a series of erroneous judgments upon any important point of doctrine might have the effect of practically nullifying the Church's own assertion of it; but 1 still maintain, that this is a defect in the discipline of the Church, which requires, indeed, correction, but which does not, in principle, affect her doctrine. Until the decrees and canons in which that has been embodied are altered ; until her solemn assertion of the truth in her Liturgy is silenced by her own act, and by virtue of her own synodieal movement — the Church cannot be said to have given up any one feature of her system of doctrinal truth, nor to have ceased from asserting it. The highest judicial tribunal has no authority to alter one word of the formularies in which the Church has deliberately enshrined her belief : that can only be done by the Church herself, duly represented ir Convocation. For this reason 1 do not consider that we stand in need of any fresh synodieal declaration on the subject of baptism. The Church's language is sufficiently plain in her Articles, Catechism, and Offices ; and to attempt a more precise and stringent definition, at this time of day, would be equivaleul to an admission that she had hitherto left a most important point of Christian doctrine undeternimeu and uncertain. Besides, I should fear that if any attempt were made to obtain such a definition, it would open the door for an endeavour to tamper with the Book of Common Prayer, especially with the offices for baptism aed the holy communion. If some persons are of opinion that any one of the Articles is not sufficiently explicit on the doctrine of either sacrament, others think that the Liturgy expresses the sacra- mental principle too strongly ; and it is easy to imagine what disputes and confusion might arise, if the expediency of rendering the Articles more, or the Liturgy less dogmatical, were to be made a subject of synodieal debate. On this question I retain the opinion which I expressed sixteen years ago, in the words of the Rev. J. Newton : — " As to our Liturgy, I am far troin thinking it incapable of amendment ; though when I consider the temper and spirit of the present times, I dare not wish that the improvement of it should be attempted, lest the remedy should be worse than the disease." Of the attempts which would probably be made to strip our Common Prayer of its characteristic excellences, we may form some notion from the proposals already put forth by thoM who chU for its reformation, and who M'ould expunge from it 8 the Athaaasian Cree(», tlie assertion of baptismal regeiieralioii, some of tlie rubrics in ti.e office for the Holy Communion, the reference made in the preface to the ordinal to " ancient authors" as testifying to the existence of the three orders of the ministry in all ages of the Church, and many other portious of the Liturgy. Should tlie time ever unhappily come when such concessions shall be made, it will not be long belore our venerable and scriptural Liturgy is replaced for tlie second time by a " Directory for the public worship of God." In thus stating my apprehension of the consequences which might be expected to follow from any attempt to obtain a synodical revision of the Book of Common Prayer, or an explanation of any of the Articles, I would not be understood to express an opinion unfavourable to the removal of those restrictions which now- hinder the Church from deliberating in her collective capacity upon questions of doctrine or discipline. lu theory, and by her legal constitution, she possesses that right, but in practice she is restrained from exercising it. That restraint is no siiflicient ground for renouncing her communion, but it may well be thought a fit subject of complaint ; and its removal may be souglit for by all legitimate methods. It may be doubted ■whether the actual constitution of Convocation is the best that could be desired : it may be questioned whether the Church should not be represented by a body consisting of lay as well as of clerical members ; but even as Convocation at present exists, some questions might safely be entrusted to its consideration, nor should it be forgotten that the Crown can at any moment interfere to stop its proceedings, if they should transgress the rules of equity or of charity. But this subject is too large and difficult to be fully considered on the present occasion. PROPOSED NEW COURT OF APPEAL. With respect to the desirableness of substituting a new Court of Appeal, in suits involving questions of heresy, for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I think it unnecessary to trouble you with any observations. My reasons for thinking such a change advisable were fully stated in a speech recently delivered in the House of Lords, and since published. The attempt then made to obtain tlie consent of Parliament to a change in the constitution of the present Court of Appeal was not successful, but we need not on that account forbear from renewing it, nor despair of its ultimate success. It is on all hands agreed that some change is necessary; our object must be to obtain the sanction of the Legislature to such a change as shall be in accordance with the essential principles of the ecclesiastical polity. Those prin- ciples, 1 would remind you, remain unchanged. The law of the Church, whatever defects we may perceive in its administration, continues essentially the same. There is much in the actual state of things to excite our apprehension and to keep alive our vigilance ; but the difficulties which surround our Church, far from affording to any of her members a suiEcient reason for deserting her, and renouncing her communion, seem to me to require from them an increased degree of affection and dutiful obedience, and a more united and determined resistance to her adversaries. RECEKT SECESSIONS TO ROUE. With respect to those persons who have lately seceded from us, and passed over to the Church of Rome, it is manifest that the recent decision of the Judicial Committee, although it may have been made the pre- text, cannot have been the cause, of their secession. A supposed misinterpretation of the Church's mind upon a particular point of doctrine by a court of law can hardly be regarded, by the commonest under- standing, as a sufBcient reason for renouncing her communion, and embracing all the errors, both of doc- trine and practice, which the Church of Rome imposes upon the reason and conscience of her members; for it must be borne in mind that it is not simply a question whether that Church asserts any particular point of doctrine moie precisely and dogmatically than our own, but whether its whole system be such as to repre- sent more clearly and more fully the true faith and pure worship of God. Whoever desires to he in com- munion with the Church of Rome, must be prepared to embrace that system in all its fulness and complexity — every item of all the errors and superstitions which have at any time received the sanction of Papal in- fallibility, and not only so, but every new doctrine or practice which the same authority may from time to time impose upon the Church. It is not easy to say what the members of that Church are required to believe now — it is impossible for them to foresee what they may be called upon to admit as an article of the faith next year, or in any future year; for instance, till of late it was open to a Roman Catholic to believe or not, as he might see reason, the fanciful notion of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin, which had been opposed by some of the most eminent divines of his Church, and purposely lelt undecided by the Council of Trent. But the present Bishop of Rome has seen fit to make it an article of the faith, and no member of his Church can henceforth question it without denying the infallibility of liis spiritual sovereign, aed so hazarding, as it is asserted, his own salvation. vSuppose that the teaching of our own Church as to the effects of baptism were less clear and definite than it is, leaving to her ministers a greater latitude than is actually left to them by the recent judgment, would that justify any one of her members in throwing himself into the anns of a Church which teaches, and now more openly than ever insistsupon, his paying divine honours to a creature ? Is Mariolatry a less sin, or less a departure from the truth, than a low view of baptismal regeneration ? Is a belief tliat the grace of God is not tied to the outward and visible sign in a sacrament — a more pernicious error than the assertion that the priest's intention is necessary to the eflicacy of a sacra- ment? If the formtr notion be calculated to raise a doubt whether this or tliat infant be made by baptism a Christian, is not the other much more so? No man in the Church of Rome, who is bound to admit its doctrine respecting the priest's intention in administering the sacraments, can be sure whether ho is a Christian or not. This one dogma of that Church is more calculated to raise doubts and scruples in the minds of her members than any uncertainty which is supposed to exist in any of the Articles of out Reformed Church. This line of reasoning might be pursued at greater length with reference to the various r-orruptinns of Gospel truth, the belief of which the Church of Rome liinds nimn the consciences of all lier members as necessary to salvation. But I must content myself with the general observation, that he who deserts the Church in his baptism on account of some one supposed flaw in her system of discipline, or even of doctrine, and submits to an authority which demands an implicit belief in an indefinite numbei iif doginaa, opposed alike to Scripture and to common sense, some impious and some absurd, may be com pared to a man wlio, having observed some instance of doubt or hesitation in his guide, in order to avoiu mistaking the path on one side, rushes blindfold over a precipice on the other. But there is another very iinnortant consideration suggested to us by the recent lamentable secession! from our Church. It may well occur to us to inquire how far the way may have been paved for thwn, m some instances at least, by the growth of opinions and practices m ouv own llefovmed Church, at variance, if not with the letter, yet with the spirit, of its teachings and ordinances. 1 am unwilling to condemn, without reserve, tlie motives of those amongst tiie clergy who have thought themselves at liberty to imitate, as nearly as it is possible to imitate, witliout a posiiive infringement of the law, the forms and ceremonies of the Church of Home, or to insinuate without openly asserting some of the most dangerous of those errors which our own Reformed Church has renounced and condemned. I am bound to do justice to their zeal and devotedncss — their self-denial and charity. Inconsistent as I think their conduct has been with their duty to the Ciiurch of which they are ministers, I cannot suspect tliein of intentional heresy. They may, perhaps, have thought they were adopting the mojt likely method of retaining in our communioa persons of warm imagination and weak judgment, who were in danger of being dazzled by the meretricious splendour of the Komau ritual, or deluded ljy the false pretences of the Roman system of doctrine to antiquity and unity. If such has been their object, they have been grievously disappointed. Concessions to error can never really serve the cause ol trutli. If some few have been thus retained within the pale of our Church, many others have been gradually trained for secession from it. A taste has been excited in them for forms and observances which has stimulated without satisfying their appetite, and they have naturally sought for gratification in tiie Church of Rome. They have been led, step by step, to the very verge of the precipice, and then, to the surprise of their guides, have fallen over. I know that this happened in some instances. I have no doubt of its having happened in many. Then, with respect to doctrine ; what can be better calculated to lead the less learned or the less thoughtful members of our Protestant Church to look with complacency upon the errors which their Church has renounced, and at length to embrace them, tlian to have books of devotion put into their hands by their own clergymen, in which all but divine honour is paid to the Virgin Mary ? A propitiatory virtue is attributed to the eucharist ; the mediation of the saints is spoken of as a probable doctrine; prayer for the dead urged as a positive duty, and a su])erstitious use of the sign of the cross is recommended as profitable; add to this the secret practice of auricidar confession, the use of crucifi.xes and rosaries, the administration of what is termed the sacrament of penance, and it is manifest that they who arc taught to believe that such things are compatible with the principles of the English Church, must also believe it to be separated from that of Rome by a faint and almost imperceptible line, and be prepared to pass that line without much fear of incurring the guilt of schism. E,OM.\xisixG i?;novations in public worsiiif. Then, with regard to the mode of celebrating Divine worship ; it has been a subject of great uneasiness to me to see the changes which have been introduced by a few of the clergy, at variance, as I think, with the spirit of the Church's directions, and, in some instances, with the letter. It has always been e.steerned an evidence of the wisdom and moderation of those tvho framed our Common Prayer, that they retained such ceremonies as they thought best to the calling forth of God's honour and glory, and to the inducmg of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition, putting away other things which they perceived to be most absurd, " as in men's ordmauces it often chanceth diversely in diverLj countries." But this principle has been lost sight of by the persons to whom I allude, and they have presumed, following their mere private judgments, and not the rules or intention of the Church, to introduce, one by one, those very forms and observances wliich the reformers of our Liturgy had purposely discontinued and laid aside, but which it is now sought to revive, some of them for the first time since the Reformation. These innovations have, in some instances, been carried to such a length as to render the Church service almost histrionic. I really cannot characterise by a gentler term the continual changes of posture, the frequent genuflexions, the crossing, the peculiarities of dress, and some of the decorations of churches to which I allude. They are, after all, a poor imitation of the Roman ceremonial ; and furnish, I have no doubt, to the observant members of that Churcli, a subject, on the one hand, of ridicule, as being a faint and meagre copy of their own gaudy ritual, and, on the other hand, of exultation, as preparing those who take delight in them to seek a fuller gratification of their taste in the Roman com- munion. I am by no means insensible to the value of the aesthetic principle in the externals of religiun, hut great caution is requisite not to lay such stress upon that which is material and emblematic as to detract from the importauce of that whicli is purely spiritual : to substitute, in fact, the mere machinery of religion for the eflects which it is intended to produce. I have always contended, and still contend, that we are hound to carry out all the Church's directions for the celebration of Divine service; but 1 con- tend also, that we offend against her order, not less by tlie addition of wnat it forbids or does not enjoin, than by the omission of anything that it prescribes. Suffer me to remind you of the language which I held to yon on this subject eight years ago. " Such practices," I observed, " which are neither prescribed, nor recommended, nor even noticed by our Church, nor sanctioned by general custom, throw discredit upon those decent ceremonies and expressive forms, which are intended to enliven the devotion of those who are engaged in the service of God, and to do honour to His holy name. In resisting an exaggerated spiritualism, we must be careful not to incur the charge of materialising religion, and, above all, we must beware of arljitrarily connecting the gifts of God with ordi- nances of merely human appointment, and of teaching our people to place the ceremonies which the Church has ordained, however .significant and laudable, on the same footing as the sacraments which have been ordained by the Lord Jesus himself." In 1S4G I again complained of the efforts which had, for some time past, been systematically made lo revive amongst the members of our communion opinions and ]nac- tices usually regarded as peculiar to the Church of Rome, and spoke of them as tending to perplex and un- settle sensitive and imperfectly-instructed consciences, and to prepare them for an acknowledgment of the paramount authority of that Church, which, as it concedes nothing, nor admits the possibility of its erring, even in the minutest feature of that complicated system, which was stamped with the character of unchange- ableness by the Council of Trent, has nianifestly a great advantage in dealing witli unstable and doubtful minds, whenever one step has been taken in advance towards that system. I had hoped that these distinct expressions of my opinion would have the effect of checking the innovations alluded to, and of awakening those of the clergy of my diocese who had departed the fuitliest Irom tlie simplicity of our reformed ritual to a sense of the danger of all endeavours to assimilate it to the Roman ceremonial, and to the inconsistency of such endeavours with their own obhgations, as ministers of our Reformed Church, bound by solemn pledges to observe her rules, and to carry out her intentions. That expectation has been di-appoiuted ; neither my puWic exhortations nor my private admonitions have produced the desired effect. I have been 10 told that T had no anfliority to forbicl atiyfhing wln'cli was not in express terms forbidden oy law ; and that practices wliicli, tlioiiph properly laid aside by tlic Cliurch, and so by implication condemned, liave not been actually prohibited, are therefore lawful, and that canonical obedience to a bishop is only that which he can enforce in a court of law, and so the innovations which I have objected to liave been persisted in, with additional chantres introduced from time to time, w ith the manifest purpose of assimilating the servicers of our Reformed Clinrch as nearly as possible to those of the Roman. Once more I declare my entire dis- approval of such practices, and my earnest wish that, while every direction of the rubric and canons is ob- served where it is possible, no form should be introduced into the celebration of public worship which is not expressly prescribed by them, or sanctioned by long-established usage. It is a duty at all times incumbent upon the members of our Reformed Church, t'specmlly npon her ministers, to abstain from everything which may seem in any way to countenance the errors of the Church of Rome, and lead any (lerson to believe that the dilTerence between us is less than it really is; to forbear from imitating its peculiarities, from recommending its books of devotion, from attending its services, even through curiosity, in this country at least; in short, to shun all intercourse with it as a Church. But this duty presses upon us with peculiar force at the present time, when that Church is advancing its preten- sions to spiritual dominion amongst us with an arrogance hitherto unknown. AGGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS OF THE PAPACY. It has been thought sufficient by all former Popes, since the time of the Refonnation, to provide for the spiritual care of their adherents in this country by the appointment of Vicars Apostohc, exercising, indeed, episcopal authority over them, not as Bishops of any English See, but deriving their titles from some imaginary diocese, in pnrtibvs hifideluim. The assertion now first made of the Pope's right to erect Episcopal Sees in this country appears to me to be, not only an intentional insult to the Episcopate and clergy of England, but a daring though powerless invasion of the supremacy ol the Crown. The Act of Pa>liament which restored that supremacy provides that " No foreign prince, person, prelate, State, or potentate, spiritual or temporal, shall use, enjoy, or exercise any manner of power, jurisdiction, superiority, authority, pre-eminence, or privilege, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm ;" and although, while the law in this respect remains unchanged, the pretended erection of a BishopV See in England, by the Pope's authority, can have no legal effect, it is manifestly the assertion, on his part, of a right to do that which the laws of England have forbidden. I cannot, therefore, but regard it as a measure against which, not only the Church, but the Government, of this country is bound emphatically to protest. It is evident that the Bishop and Court of Rome entertain very sanguine hopes of the conversion of this country, and of its return to *he bosom of their Church. The sad falling away of some, who seemed to be the most devotedly attached to the Church of England, has awaKened expectations, not unnatural, indeed, but destined to certain disappointment. I believe that the very boldness of the pretensions now put forth by the Bishop of Rome and his agents will prevent their success They may dazzle and confound a few weak minds, or captivate some ardent imaginations, but they will be instinctively repelled by the common sense and right feeling of the people at large. Popery, as demanding an entire prostration of men's intellect, before an authority which attempts to substantiate its claims, not by proofs, but by gratuitous and inconsistent assertions, cannot long retain its hold upon the mind of a well-educated people imbued with a knowledge of Holy Scripture. Its fundamental principle is, that men are not to examine, but to believe ; and, at the present moment, by the re-assertion of superstitions, which the more learned writers of the Romish Church have long ago exploded, and by the revival of legends, suited only to an age of the grossest ignorance, it seems to be pushing that principle to its very utmost length, as though its maxim were, that the more incredible a doctrine or history may seem, the more merit there is in beheving it. And this fearless contemjit and defiance of common sense has its effect upon some uninformed and humble minds, overpowering them by the very audacity of its pretensions, while tlie authority \iliicli displays it offers to relieve them from all the trouble and anxiety of a search after truth, assuring them that it is at once their duty and their happiness not to inquire, but to believe. But the Church of Home employs different agencies and instruments to different classes of men. For those whose education and habits of mind recjuire something like argument and evidence, she has her subtle dialecticians and persuasive orators, who do not fetter themselves with a very strict adherence to the canon of doctrine laid down by the Council of Trent, but insinuate, if they do not expressly teach. Various modilications of it, adapted to remove what they term the prejudices of their Protestant hearers, especially of those who are members of the Church of Ennland. You will readily understand me to allude to the Ciatoriaiis, as they arc called, and I nanie them principally for the sake of expressing my earnest hope that none of jou will uive the least countenance to tiicir proceedings, nor run the risk of impairing the strength of your own convictions, and of weakenir.g your attachment to the Church of which you are members, by attending any of their services or listening lo their lectures. INJURIOUS TENDIKCY OF GERMAN THEOLOGY. But, while ve are looking to the dangers which impend over us in one quarter, let us not close our eyes to those which threaten us from another. A natural principle of antagonism in the human mind makes it probable that some who fly off Ironi Popery will traverse the entire diameter of the rational sphere, and be landed on the antipodes of infidelity. I would desire you to consider whether some of those jersons who are disgusted with the departures now too common from the soberness and simplicity of our devotional offices, and with the exaggerated notions which are insisted on as to the authority of the priestly office, are not too likely to take refuge, not in Low Church doctrine, as the term is commonly understood, but in the boundless e.xpan.iC of Latitudinarianism, a sea without a shore, and with no pole-star to guide those who emliark on it but the uncertain light of human reason. I cannot but think that we have more to apprehend from the theology of Germany than from that of Rome; from that which deifies iiiiman reason than from that which seeks to blind or stiHeit; froni a school which labours to reconcile Christianity with its o«n philosophy, by stripjiing the Gospel of all its characteristic features, and reducing it to the level of liunmn s\stenis, tlian Ironi a Church which rejects and condemns even the soundest eonehisions of true philoscphy v\ hen tliey are at variance \\ith the (letciiuinalions of its own presumed infallibility. The llitolo; y, if it deher\es the name, t some of the Loudon clergy, and carried into effect by themselves, with the assistance of several lay members of the Church, of giving evening lectures on different branches of literature, art, and science, to the young men of London, with a view fo their improvement, moral, intellectual, and spiritual; affected as tliey are by the peculiar temptations of a great city, the modern practice 'jf early closing, and the advancing spread of knowledge. The benevolent efforts of "the committee have been crowned with a large measure of success; they have now ccnnmenccd the first term of the tliird year with forty-eight classes in seventeen different parishes, and nutnbering about eight hundred student?, most of them clerks or shopmen in commercial houses, some Scripture-readers, aud some national schoolmasters. It is scarcely possible to estimate too liighly the good which this measure is calculated to produce. Its moral and social effect is to be calculated, not merely by the improved tastes and habits of the students themselves, but by the influence which they will exercise upon those around them, their fellow-clerks and shopmen, their families and acquaintances. THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF \S5\. One other subject remains to be noticed before I conclude. The Great Exhibition of Works of Art and Industry, which "has been ,announccd for the year 1851, will cause an unprecedented influx of strangers into this metropolis from all parts of the world, but especially from the Continent of Europe. It is for others to consider in what manner that vast multitude is to be provided with lodgings aud the conveniences of life. It is merely a duty incumbent upon the ministers of the (Jospel to devise, if possible, some mode of furnishing them with the means of worsliiiiping God, and of profiting by the opportunities of tlie Christian Sabbath. Let us not welcome them to this great emporium of the world's comnierce as thougli we looked only to the gratification of our n,ational pride, or to mutual imiiroveuients lu the arts, which minister to tlie enjoyment of this present life, and took no thought of the si)iriti\al relation which subsists between all mankind as children of God, whom lie desires to be saved throngli Jesus Christ. Let us not incur the guilt of Ile/.ekiab, «ho displayed to the Chaldean messengers the house ot his luecious things the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house ot Ins armour^ and all that was found in llis treasures; but forgot, as it seems, to set liclore them the glory of the true God, and the beauty of holiness in His law, and in llis worship, and the history of Llis wonderful works It m.iy not be easy to mark out the precise line of dutv which we ought to follow iu this matter, or to devise any plan which may be equally applicable to persons of different languages and creeds ; but we should endeavour to provide for them the means of common worsliip, and to distribute amongst those who raay be willing to receive it. the Bible, and, where it may be done the Book of Common Prsyer, translated into the 13 kng\.>.ge of their respective countries. I caunot doubt but that the Society for Promoting Christifto Knowledge will lend its aid towards the fulfibnent of this design. Whatever measures of success may attend our endeavours, they will at least serve to convince our guests, that we are not mere worshippers of Mammon, that we are not entirely absorbed in tlie pursuit of mere objects which concern only the present life, but that we glory in possessing ourselves, aud are desirous of imparting to others, the unsearchable riches of Christ. DUTY OF THE CLERGY — CO.N'CLUSION. In conelusion, reverend brethren, I would again suggest to you that the most likely method of healing the wounds inflicted upon the Churcii by our intestine divisions — of softening that asperity of feeling whicU religious controversy is so apt to engender — and of bringing us by degrees to a common understanding upon (luestions of vital importance— is for every one of us, in his proper s;.here of action, honestly to fulfil the duty hiid by the Church upon all her ministers. See that you never cease your labour, your care, and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all that are or shall be committed to your charge unto that agreement in the knowledge and faith of God, and that ripeness and perfectness of afje in Christ, that there be no room left among you either for error in religion or for viciousness of life. I cannot but think, that if every clergyman were to direct all his energies and endeavours to the task of feeding the Lord's family with the wholesome food provided for them in the Bible and the Church, to the instruction of the ignorant and the conversion of the sinful with earnest prayer — the study of God's word, and a devout and punctual observance of the Church's rule, confining his efforts, except in special cases, to the field of labour wliicli has been assigned to him, he would do more to trantpiillise and strengthen the Cimrch than he could effect by stepping out ot his allotted station to enlist himsflf'in the ranks of angry ])olemics, under other banners than those of the Church herself, unfolded by the authorised standard-bearers. There are three promises which you have all made before God, and in the face of His Church, when you were invested with autiiority to preach the Word of God, and to minister Ills holy sacraments, wliich, taken together, and with a due regard to their bearings upon one another, will furnisli ynu with a ])eifecl rule of conduct in times of perplexity and disquiet. SulTer me to remind you of them. The first — " Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word P" " I will, the Lord bemg my helper." The second — " Will you maintain aud set forward, as much as lieth in you, quietness, peace, and love, among all Christian ))eople, and espfcially among those that are and shall he committed to your charge ?" " I will so do, the Lord being my helper." The third — " Vv'ill you reverently obey your Ordinary, and other chief ministers, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you, following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourselves to their godly judgment ?" " I will so do, the Lord being my helper." Whatever dangers may threaten us from without, if there be amongst us a spirit of firm adherence to the scriptural doctrine aud apostolical order of our Ciiurch, of mutual candour and kindness, and of cheerful obedience to legitimate authority exercised within reasonable bounds, a zealous devotion to our Master's work, and a si-.iiple reliance upon Him for tlic will and the power to perform it. He will assuredly bless and protect His Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without cud. — Amen ! DR. GUMMING ON THE ROMISH AGGRESSION. The Rev. Dr. Gumming having engaged in prayer. The Chairman said he legretted that so many persons should have been put to such inconvenience by the great pressure ; but it was an occasion which indeed called for all their energies, and he rejoiced to see that the spirit of true Protestantism was so stirred up in our land. (Cheers.) An event had occurred which threatened disastrous consequences to our country, and to that wliich was the sole found.ation to our prosperity— our national Church and religion. The Pope of Rome — the man of sin — the head of the apostacy — the head of that system which was designated in the Scriptures as the ministry of iniquity, Babylon the Great, the mother of liarlots, and the abomination of the earth, had had the boldness and audr.city to insult our Queen, our Church, our religion, and our laws; and they were called upon not to yield for one moment in sulimission to such an assumed authority as that. (Cheers.) The Cardinal Arch- bishop who had been appointed to begin the work had lost no time in commencing his mission. He had asserted that all spiritual jurisdiction in that country belonged to the Pope, and that he would govern in that countiy until the Holy See should be pleased to appoint another. That was the presumption with which Dr. Wiseman had begun his work. They were called upon to meet that effort. The society to which he was attached, aud at whose request Dr. Gumming had undertaken the lecture he was about to deliver, had been endeavouring for a long period to excite the Protestant feeling in Great Britain, and to warn the inhabitants of the stealthy but rapid progress of Popery. They had not been able to succeed, but what they could uot do the Pope had done for them ; and he rejoiced at that, because lie knew that it was onyl for Protestants to be aware of their danger to insure their victory and success. They had the power of truth upon their side, and they had the sword of the Spirit, which, when wielded in complete dependence upon the power of the Lord, never would be wielded in vain. (Cheers.) There was a certainty of success if there were a certainty of exertion. (Cheers.) He trusted, therefore, that this was only the beginning of numberless efforts to accomplish that which they ought to have doue long ago. (Loud cheers.) He hoped that the clergy ot this country would be stirred up to exert themselves, and that they would consider as their parishioners every Roman Catholic as well as every Protestant, and would seek to win them to the knowledge of God's truth. It was peculiarly gratifying to him that one had had his eyes opened to the present danger who had hitherto been ignorant of it — he meant their diocesan, the Bishop of London. (Cheers, and a hiss.) He rejoiced that their diocesau had not only renounced Popery, but that also which was still worse — that great pest which was stalking through our country, and was now called "Pnseyism." (Tremendous applause.) He rejoiced that the bishop had called upon his clergy to fight against tht inward enemy aa well as the outward opponent, and he trusted that his call would be responded to throughout the country. (Ch^frs.) There was only one fear he would express — lest the excitement, which was now cou- 14 Biderable, should die away. They must recollect that the work was to be canicd on with porseverance ; a >d they should come to a solemn resolution that they would exert themselves in evei-y way to root out Pope y from the land and to establish the Protestant religion supreme and all-powerful in this country. (Cheers, i The Rev. Dr. Gumming then presented himself, and was received with pre.it applause. He comiiienc.'d by expressing his gratitude to God that the popularity of Dr. Wiscni.in had brou|^lit together so large a number to protest against his innovations in this land. (Cheers.) Ho could not do better than conimen ;c the lecture which he had been asked to deliver by reading what he thought to be one of the most mcmj- rable documents that had proceeded from any official authority at any period or under any crisis in the hi- tory of our land. He alluded to that noble, Protestant, and faithful letter addressed by Lord John Russe 1 to the Bishop of Durham — (great cheering) — a document, he confessed, such as he had expected from his Lordship, believing his principles to be as they were there so eloquently and justly embodied, and a docu- ment which only just gave a crowning blow to the mighty and successful efforts that had been made by the metropolitan daily press to appreciate the crisis, and to arouse the sympathies of Protestants against this invasion. (Cheers.) It was perhaps altogether superfluous to read his Lordship's letter, but one part of it he could not but look at with delight — his Lordship said, " I confess, however, that my alarm is not equil to my indignation." (Loud cheers.) And he added that the present state of the law should be carcfull/ examined, and the propriety of adopting any proceedings with reference to the recent assumption of power deliberately considered. He (Dr. Ciuri'ning) did not doubt that that would be dune, and such a sentiment, came with greater grace from that distinguished nobleman, who had advocated what were called the claimi of 1829, than it did from those who had been despised as false prophets at that time, but who were now found to he faithful and true, who did not think that that measure was so desirah e as some supposed. (Cheers.) "Clergymen of our own Churcli," added Lord John Russell — and he believed that this explained much of the secret of the invasion : for he need not tell them that even the ch(dera itself did not strike its victim unless there were a contaminated air to act as its conductor ; and Dr. Wiseman, who personated a moral and spiritual pestilence, wonld never have been dropped in the midst of us if it had not been represented to the Pope that the atmosphere was morally tainted, and that he might expect lo meet with no little success— (cheers) — the Premier said thereforr', "Clergymen of our own Churcli who have subscribed the XXXIX. Articles, and acknowledged iu explicit terms the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, ' step by step, to the very verge of the precipice.' The honour paid to the saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the liturgy, 80 as to disguise the language in which it is written, the recoraiucndation of auricular confession, and the administration of penance and absolution — .all these things are pointed out by clergymen of the Churcli of England as worthy of adoption, and are now openly reprehended by the Bishop of London in his charge to the clergy of his diocese." (Cheers.) iSIow, having alluded to that letter, he begged to state thai, in addressing them that day, he had no pretensions to greater acumen than thousands of his brellireu in London; but he had felt that there was a possibility of the tide which had set in with such stipngih and force running in the wrong direction, and that it was just possible they might, in their hatred of this gross invasion, fly into the extreme of renewing pains and penalties, or of engaging in a persecuting pohtical course, which he conceived wonld be attended with no great practical advantage. He had no personal hos- tility to his Eminence the Cardinal, as he assumed to be, of Westminster. Cardinal Wisem.an was a distin- guished scholar, a most accomplished scientific writer, and any one who was acquainted with his woiks upon science and religion would be ready to own that he was a scholar of the very highest order in that particular department ; liut his being a perfect scholar afforded no proof that he need therefore be a perfect theologian and a true Christiiin. It was possible to know every star that shone in the tirmanient, and \et be ignorant of the bright and morning star; it was possible to know all the stores that were in all the golden mines in the universe, and yet to be ignorant of the uusearcliahle riches of Christ ; it was possible to know every flower that beautified the garden, and yet to know not the Rose of Sharon ; it was possible to have all the knowledge of all the encyclopaiclias in the world, and yet to be ignorant of that which even the Sunday scholar knew — the answer to the question, " What must 1 do to be saved ?" — " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou slialt be saved." (Cheers.) He had no desire, on the other hand, to interfere with the rights and privileges of his Roman Catholic countrvmen. Dr. Wiseman had as great liberty to tread the soil and to breathe the air of Old England as the A chbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. He did not wish to deprive him of his civil rights and privileges; but he protested that, wiiile Dr. Wiseman was entitled to all the rights of citizenship, he had no right, at the dictation of a foreign Prince, to parcel out Old England into Popish dioceses, and to claim all baptised n.en as the subjects of his power. Dr. Wiseman was a Cardinal — that was, a temporal prince; and if a foreign temporal prince meddled with the rights and privileges and governance of our Most Gracious Sovereign, judging from the letter of Lord J. Russell, and from tlie mettle and temperament of our countrymen, he would meet with that resistance which ivouhi tell him how great a blunder his master had perpetrated. (Cheers.) He treated Cardinal Wiseman now as a minister of the Gospel, himself teaching certain doctrines; and lie wished to ascertain, by sober analysis, whether Westniinsier wonld be very much benefited by getting rid of the ministers that now instructed it, and superseding them by his Krninftuce the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. But whatever his con- duct might be, they must be careful not to tread in the least degree upon the verge of what might be con- ndored persecution ; for he believed that persecution had never yet recovered a pervert, and never yet made a convert. If the sword were to be unsheathed, let it he by the friends of the Cardinal, and not by the friends of the Protestant Church. If the faggot were to be kindled, let it be by Pio Nouo and not by those who had learned a more excellent lesson; for if they persecuted, they might depend upon it that men's sympathy with the victim made them forget the deadliness of the error he preached, and they would only retard the end they had in view. (Cheers.) On the other hand, he asked them not to sympathise with those who wished to treat the Cardinal on what they termed mere ecclesiastical grounds. There was a class who said, " We won't send a bishop of Rome to preach Protestantism there, and we ask the same from you." He confessed if Protestantism were what the Pope designated it — a deadly heresy, and if Piqiery were what Cardinal Wiseman contended it was — a great truth, the Pope had doue an act of great kindness in sending a Canlinal missionary to instruct us. But if the case were llie very reverse, he could not symjia- thise with that compact which said to llii. Pope, "You keep your bishops in Austria, Italy, and Spitin, and we will keep ours iu England, Ireland, and the realms of her iMajesty." He warned iheui, iu whatever they had free trade, to have none with Popery; to have ho bargains — no compromise with tho Yope of IS Rome. They must protest against liim and his iirincjples as llidir fathers had done, conceding indeed the larjjest husk of prejudice, but not yielding tlie smallest living seed of vital Christianity. (Cheers.) Again, the Pope having i^rnored the Protestant Chureli, and stated that it was not a Church at all, and that its ministers were not ministers at all, he nondcrod that any one should have expressed surprise at this phenomenon. Inciilentally, lio^vevrr, this was worthy of remark. In the year 1848 a great convulsion shook almost the whiile globe, certainly Europe, to its very centre. It would be found, on examination, that in llome there was an ecclesiastic, of some sort or another, to every 30 persons, and that there was a priest for every 6U or 70. He argued, therefore, that if the docirine of the Church of Rome was so precious, it hud a most splendid opj)ortunity of bearing its fruits in what was called the capital of the Christian world ; so if Popery had failed in Rome, it had not been from the want of liaud-i to work it, or priests to represent it, but from some inherent faults within it. On the other hand, looking at Loudon, there was not a minister of any denomination for every 10,000 of the population, and it might, therefore, he justly argued, if Protestantism had filled in London, that it was from the simple fact that; it was not adeipiately represented and elficientlv carried out. But what were the facts? When that revolution shook Europe in 1848, the subjects of the Pope, in that model city of the world, whose people being at head quarters might be presumed to be the holiest in the world, whose contiguity to the papal chair should have made them,^ffr excellence, the most spiritual, holy, devout, loval, and perfect persons, rose en masse — his beloved subjects, his own dear metropolitan people, his own pet representatives of what Popery made people, murdered his Prime Minister before his face, dismissed himself in a footman's livery upon a coach- man's box, and, judging by the facts that since transpired, were the last people to wish him back again. (Cheers and laugl'ter.) The same wave that swept over Europe swept the metropolis of Old England. A few of the Cardinal's pioneers (?) began to disturb us with their crotchets and to agitate. And what was the result ? Why, England rose in one bndy, lined every street, put down the crotchets of the tronblesome, and rallied round their hearths and homes, ready to live for their Queen and to die for their religion. (Cheers.) If Protestantism made us so loyal, it was worth keeping; and if the Cardinal's crolcliet failed to make his own pet people loyal (?), it could be hardly worth preserving. Their controversy, however must not be lliat of person against person — it was not that of Church against Chu-ch, but it was a contro- versy of light against darkness, of freedom against slavery, of the rights and privileges rf our country against the attacks and assaults of Rome. It vvas the glory of our blessed Lord against him who ^at in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. The rev. gentleman then proceeded to mitice at great length, and by reference to numerous authorities, what was the teaching of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westmin- ster, and of the Romish Church — a portion of the lecture which we are compelled considerably to abridge. In the tirst place, when the Cardinal was made archbishop and received the pnllium, he repeated a solemn oath in Latin, which was to be found in the Pontijicale Romanum, and which, being translated, is as follows : — " AU heretics (that was Protestants) and schismatics (that was the Greek Church) I will prose- cute and attack to the utmost of my power (pro posse)." The following was a curse the Cardinal was to use if a parent attempted to remove a child who had, against his parent's will, entered the service of the Church : — " May he be cursed in his home and out of his home. May he be cursed in watching and sleep- ing ; in eating and drinking— walking and sitting. May his flesh and bones be con-uptcd. May there light on him the curse which the Lord sent by Moses. May bis name be razed from the Book (;f thf Living," and so on. Such was the declared cursing of Cardinal Wiseman, as printed in his own document, and which, when he had the pro posse, he would pronounce with all the accompaniments. The Doctor then proceeded to show what was the actual teaching of Cardinal Wiseman ; and as he had highly recommended for the study and guidance of the priests of his diocese the works of St. Alphousus Liguori, who was canonised by the proclamation of the Pope in 1839, Dr. Gumming quoted Liigeiy from the works of that worthy. St. Alphonsus said that the scriptures and books of controversy might not be printed in the secular tongue ; but let them not suppose, therefore, that Cardinal Wiseman denied the use of the Bible to the people. Oh, no. He allowed the French peasant to have it in Dutch, the Dutch in Russian, and the Russian in Hebrew — in fact any language they liked that ihey didn't understand (?). (A laugh.) Another doctrine was that for a good cause it was lawful to use equivocation, and to enforce that equivocation with an oath. Let them bear that in mind when reading Dr. Ullalhorne's letter to the Times, in which he had denied everything. Again, a confessor could affirm, even with an oath, that he did not know a sin that had been communicated to him in confession. Again, said Liguori, approved by Wiseman, " Whoever receives a loan, but afterwards returns it, can deny that he ever received the loan, understanding to himself, ' received it, so that I should pay it.' " Again, " he who eoines from a place falsely supposed to be infectious can deny that he came from that place, by understanding ' as a pestilent place,' because that is in the mind of the inquirer." Again, " if anybody be asked to dine, and the food he eats is unpalatable, and he is asked if he likes it, he can answer, though he dislikes it, ' I like it,' under- standing to himself, 'because it is good for mortitication.' " Again, Liguori taught that, let oaths be ever so valid, they could be relaxed by the Church. The Pontifex himself could render null and void all oaths whatever, and could decree that the Sabbath should only iast a few hours. As regarded the form of wor- ship, Cardinal Wiseman is said to have told them that it was easier to get to heaven by the Virgin Mary than through Christ (?) ; but we, as Protestants, needed not the Virgin or any of the saints of heaven to assist us, and if they were to proffer their services we might answer emphatically that we could do without them ! After some further reference to St. j\Jphonsus Liguori's works, and to the Psalter of St. Bonaveuture, also approved by Cardinal Wiseman, the rev. gentleman observed that he had now told them what Dr. Wiseman lield, what he was bound to teach, and what he was not ashamed to avow and proclaim in his writings as the teaching of truth. He trusted that that would lead them not to detest the man, but to shrink with horror from the principles he avowed. His own strong conviction was, that, inlalhble as he was, the Pope had made a ^ross blunder by his recent appointments. (Cheers.) Pius IX. had felt the pulse of the Pro- testants of England — because it was calm he thought it weak, because it was quiet he thought it indifferent. He imagined it so cold that Old England would bear a " Cardinal." He would find in a few weeks that Eng- land could not even bear a monk ! and if he might judge from the manly spirit exhibited in the Pwme Minis- ter's letter, she would not bear a Puseyit« even very long 1 (Cheering and laughter.) He solemnly believed that this appearance of the Cardinal in our capital had been like the appearance of the French otilla off Boulogne — one had raised the loyalty of Englard (?), the other had excited its Protestantism to the 16 1»oiliiig-point ! He believed, too, that another result of tlie Cardinal's presence would he. that Puseyism would disappear ! They would liave the real thing, and a sham one would not do. If the comparative merits of the two Churches were to be tested by the splendour of the ritual, by the gorpcousupss of the robes, by the grandeur of the service, then he must cxjircss his deliberate conviction that St.Barnabas-iu-the West would be swallowed up amid the splendours of St. George's-in-tho-Fields. (Great cheering.) If we were to have Popery at all, let us have Italian Popery under an Italian flag, and not under the flag of Old England. (Clieers.) This importation, he solemnly believed, would do much to unite all Protestants. He told the Churchmen in that room that they could not alTord to do without the dissenters, and he told the dissenters that they could not afford to do without the Ciiurch. (Cheers.) They might depend upon it tliat a crisis was coming that would demand the combined faithfulness and efi'orts of all. He believed that all the sects of the Protestant Church differed only in ceremonial details ! and that they agreed in all that was vital, permanent, and precious ! He believed that all our Churches were but trees planted of the Lord — each grew best in its native soil, but all their branches waved in the unsectarian air! aU their fruits ripened in the same catholic soil, and the roots blended with each other in the ground beneath, invisible to us, and all cohered with tlie roots of the tree of life that was in tlie midst of the Paradise of our God. (Prolonged cheering.) Let them, then, be brethren in arms — rivals only in renown. Let them accept the definition of the Bishop of London — that the Pope was not the centre of unity, but the Lord Jesus Christ ; and let them remember that uniformity was not God's law, but that unity was ; miiformity a tailor could produce by cutting all their coats ahke, but unity God alone could produce by changing all their hearts. If he were of Dr. Wiseman's school, he might go into a forest in the autumn, and, shaping each tree into a cone, miglit exclaim, " See what uniformity I have produced !" But going back in " leafy June" to behold once again his sylvan uniformity, he should find that every tree had shot forth branches at its own sweet wiU, and that the only trees which were just as he liad left them were the dead ones. (Cheers.) It was just so with the Churcli. Wherever there was life, there would be unity, but no uniformity ! — wherever tliere was death, there would be perfect uniformity, but no unity ! (Cheers.) Let tlieni, then, melt their common disputes, and, preferring each his own ecclesiastical communion, let all co-operate against Rome ! and in upholding Protestant and vital Christianity ! (Cheers.) He protested, as a loyal subject, against this chartered pre- sumption of the Pope — against this apportionment of England as if it were a colony of Rome — against this assumption of the prerogative that belonged to our Queen — and he said that it became every Protestant to shout "Down with the tiara in England, and up with Old England's Crowu." (Loud cheers.) If there were a Church under heaven — and he said it, liaving nothing to fear or to expect from it — that was cele- brated by the most splendid scholarship or possessing more faithful ministers thau another, it was the Pro- testant Church of this country; and the ignoring of such a Church was the ignoring of them all, so that tlie indignation which they felt should exceed their fear. (Cheers.) Ills weightiest protest, however, was not that Rome ignored them, but that she ignored the Church of Christ ! — not that she dishonoured our most gracious Queen, but that she dishonoured the Lord Jesus Christ ! His charge was that she inculcated doc- trines that must defile the purity of our firesides, and must disturb the wliole texture of social life ; and he hoped that the insolent attempt would kindle throughout England a feeling of enthusiastic antipathy to the principles and practices of Rome. (Cheers.) If the worst should come, let there be reproach to our names, confiscation to our goods, martyrdom to our ministers ! but let there be loyalty to our Queen, and faithfulness to our God. In the words of the great writer who so thoroughly reflected English feeling iu his great conceptions, — ' Thou can'st not, Caruiual, devise a name So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous, To charge nie to an answer as the Pope. Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England Add this much more : that no Italian priest Shall tytlie oi toll in our dominions.' '' A vote of thanlcs was then passed to the Rev. Dr. Gumming. The Third Ser'ufS contains the Rev. T Nolan's Lecture on the infjuliy whether "TheQween LONDON : FUBLISUED BY JAMES GILBERT, 49, PATERNOSTER-ROW. tfit: ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. THE REV. T. NOLAN'S LECTURE; LETTER FROM B. HAWES, ESQ., MP. ; THE PASTORAL OF THE CATHOLIC EISHOP OF NORTHAMPTON ; LETTER FROM DR. GUMMING ; LETTERS FROM THE BISHOP OF ASAPH & VISCOUNT FEILDING; AND THE "VATICAN MASQUERADE." THE REV. T. NOLAN\S LECTURE. "IS THE AUTHORITY OF THE POPE SUPERIOR TO THAT OF THE QUEEN?" The Rev. Dr. Gumming having invoked the blessing of Heaven on tiie present pro- ceedings, Mr. Henry Pownall (the Chairman) said it was a subject for great thankfulness that the impertinent intrusion of the Pope of Rome into the concerns of this kingdom, inter- fering as he did with the lawful prerogative of the Sovereign and the constitutional liberties of the subject, had raised such an unanimous spirit of indignation throughout the land ; and as Protestants desirous of maintaining their freedom and rights, they might rise to propose a vote of thanks to the Pope. (Cheers and laughter.) As English subjects they justly valued every prerogative that appertained to the Crown as links in the chain whicii bound the liberty and constitutional welfare of this country together. As soon would free-born Englishmen submit to the foreign potentate who might come to dictate war or peace, as to the dictation of one who, with the map of their country spread on the table before him, presumed to parcel the country out into spiritual jurisdictions at his own will, delegating authority to individuals to be named only by himself. (Hear, hear.) The only thing he regretted was this, that this new aggression of Papal authority was not made in the old-fashioned way— that the Pope had not sent twelve Italian priests to fill his newly-erected sees, and then they might perchance have learned more truly than they now did what was to be the future destiny of our country. Not only did this foreign potentate presume to parcel out England at his discretion, but he had ignored all the principles on which our rights had stood for twelve hundred years. But England would not submit to such dictation ; they would renew and reiterate that noble protestation which our ancestors made three hundred years ago. (Cheers.) He would not long detain them from the important facts which his reverend friend, Mr. Nolan, had to submit. They had had meetings for the expression of their opinion in their several parishes, and he hoped, too, they would have such meetings in the counties; he only wished to observe, that this great meeting had been convened for the purpose of more strongly impressing on public attention the true ciiaracter of that spiritual tyranny which was now sought to be imposed on this country. Sentiments had lately been put forth, in reference to this subject, which demanded a word of comment. (Hear, hear.) Their attention had, last week, been directed to the remarkable letter from the Premier of this country ; and every one who had read it must have felt that it was worthy of a scion of the distinguished house of Russell. (Cheers, j It was to be regretted that another letter, from one eminently distinguished in the political world, had since come forth, in which, address- ing the Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Bucks, the writer (Mr. D'Israeli) uttered these sentiments : — " The fact is, that the whole cjuestion has been surrendered, and decided in favour of the Pope, by the present Government ; and the Ministers who recognised the pseudo-Archbishop of Tuam as a peer and a prelate cannot object to the appointment of a pseudo-Archbishop of Westminster, even though he be a Cardinal." (^Disapproba- tion.) What had been surrendered? The right of the Pope to parcel out this land Third Series.— 'Price Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] l James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row • f)/ whiim mai/ fir huil ^''The Roman Catholic Qurslion," Firat nnil Srconil Serii'x. j)rirf ]'/. eai-li. into as many dioceses as lie pleased? Was that the surrender? (Hear, hear.) That was part and parcel of the prerogative of the Sovereign supreme in all temporal and ecclesias- tical matters ; and it was obviously a mistake to say that anything in that respect had ever been surrendered to the Pope. (Hear, hear.) Whether there had been perhaps a little more civility than was absolutely necessary was another question — (a laugh) — and when they found how that civility had been abused, it behoved them, perhaps, to be a little more guarded in their language for the future. (Hear.) It was not because the term " bishop" had been used in reference to Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, in certain commissions, that it was to be said that the English Government had surrendered all ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Pope of Rome. (Cheers.) As well might it be assumed and said, that because in the commission appointing a man to the magistracy he was styled esquire, all his family were to call themselves esquires to the remotest posterity. Nothing has been lost, nothing would be lost, if they were only true to themselves. It was said that the Pope had made a great mistake ; do not believe that. It w-as only an attempt on the part of the Pope to get the wedge in, in order that greater inroads on our liberties might be made. (Cheers.) It would only be a mistake if the Protestants of England suffered it to be so ; if, through the supineness of the people, the Pope was allowed to encroach on the lawful prerogative of the Sovereign of this kingdom. If they suffered this, then they would find that the Pope had not made a great mistake. Let them hope, however, trusting in the mani- festations which had been made of the determined zeal to preserve our dearly-purchased rights and liberties, that the future historian of England, in recounting the annals of Queen Victoria, would never have to drop his pen in sorrow, exclaiming, " O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth ? Why stood ye not fast in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free?" The Rev. Mr. Nolan, who was greeted with much applause, said — Mr. Chairman and Christian friends, the object and occasion of this lecture was sufficiently explained when you last met in this place, by my learned and eloquent friend Dr. Gumming. I desire, under the blessing of God, to direct myself to tlie special object of bringing under your consideration some facts of vital importance connected with the present crisis. Eager as I am to address myself to the subject of the present lecture — the supremacy, whether the authority of the Pope is superior to that of the beloved Sovereign of England — I wish to make one or two preliminary remarks, so far as to mention one or two large principles which it is my earnest desire to keep before me for my guidance. At the same time, I wish to disclaim one or two grave imputations which our enemies sought to fasten on us when we engaged in this warfare. The first principle, and it was not a vain thing we have contended for, is the free circulation of the blessed Word of God. (Cheers.) It was to this great end that the main efforts of the Reformers tended. The Church of Rome has, with invariable fidelity, adhered to the contrary principle. This has been the unvarying tenor of the encyclical letters of the Popes. Leo the Twelfth, Gregory the Sixteenth, and Pope Pius the Ninth have, like their predecessors, all acted on the policy of keeping the people in darkness. In the first encyclical letter of the present Pontiff, he insisted that the ,Word of God should be eSectually kept from the people No two systems can possibly be more antagonistic; and at the very outset of the question we come to this — either the Word of God must put down the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, or the tenets of Rome must put out the light of God's truth. This first tenet, the free circulation of the Holy Scriptures, is a vital first principle for which we contend. (Cheers.) There are other principles of great importance; but all dwindle into insignificance compared with that which is embodied in the phrase, the free circulation of the Bible. This is the first great principle which I would enforce on your attention, and the next is closely allied to it. As free-born Englishmen interested in the jireservation of the privileges and freedom so long the glorious characteristic of our beloved country, think on this; let the light be put out, let this infringement on your rights by Rome succeed, and where is the man who can promise to his children the con- tinuance, for half a century longer, of those blessings which England has enjoyed, and which have elevated her to so high a place in the annals of civilised glory ? (Cheers.) These arc the great principles involved, and placed in peril, in the question now under considera- tion. In passing, I would also advert to another matter. When I speak of Cardinal Wise- man, God forbid that we should seem to entertain any feeling of personal hostility towards him. For myself, I disclaim any such feeling as sincerely and truly as my learned friend. Dr. Gumming, did on the last occasion of our meeting here. As a private individual, he is free to entertain his own opinion ; he is free to come and go, as one entitled to live under our free Crotestant Constitution, and belonging to a land which has proclaimed liberty of conscience. But when I s])eak of him as the Cardinal Archbishop, I speak of a tcm])orai ])rince accredited from a hostile potentate, whose policy and aim is directly antagonistic to the maintenance of those rights and privileges on which our freedom depends. (Hear, hear.) We ask you to protest against this claim of a foreign usurper, to declare in language such that Cardinal Wiseman may report to his master, " England has spoken — This man shall not reign over us ; the surface of England shall not be parcelled out at his will ; nor shall tlie subjects of Queen Victoria be banded over to the jurisdiction of the Pope." (Loud cheers.) Let us renew the protest made three centuries ago, that the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of England. (Continued cheering.) Let it not be supposed, that the boasted civilisation of the nineteenth century, or that the gentler tone of the age, has in any degree mitigated the severity of the principles which have ever swayed the Court of Rome. In seeking dominion over us, the intolerance manifested by the Vatican breathes more of Constance and Lateran than of the mild spirit of Him who was meek and lowly of heart. We disdain any personal object or party view in promoting this movement. It has been alleged that it is inconsistent on our part to oppose the prin- ciples of our opponents and at the same time to profess love for them as individuals. What is love of God, but hatred and the most unsparing hostility to sin, with unbounded love to the unhappy victims of sin? — So much, then, for the principles which I avow and the imputations I disclaim ; I come now to the subject which more immediately demands our attention. And 1 take this opportunity of adverting to the circumstances under which the present lecture originated. I was present at a meeting of the com- mittee of the British Society for Promoting the Religious Principles of the Reforma- tion, when the subject of these lectures was discussed. It was at the time when the Synod of Thurlcs had come to an adverse vote on the subject of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland; and I suggested whether this and other practices of Romanism in that country might not be with advantage brought under the consideration of an English pubhc. (Hear, hear.) It was decided that the subject was worthy of discussion, and I now venture to direct your attention to it. My friends, the question of Ireland may be one of which you have heard much ; but at the present juncture it is most important that you should lend your most serious attention to facts which have received too little regard, and which have the most important bearing on the all-important question which now happily has created so much lively interest in this country. Ireland, to use the language of mathe- matics, is a diagram on which a great principle was to be proved ; it was the same prin- ciple which is now about to be introduced here. Ireland is the plate on which the problem has been worked out in all its variations. It is our duty to gather experience from the misfortunes of others. The liberties of England, her laws, her government, her free institutions, her very existence as a nation, now tremble m the balance. It is now to be decided whether as acountry she is to continue to enjoy the Word of God, or be condemned to worship in the dens and caves of the earth. (Cheers.) I would now point to these prin- ciples, and to the practical working of them in Ireland, and leave it to you to say whether the lawful and constitutional supremacy of our beloved Sovereign is consistent with the existence of this imjicrium in imperio. I come now to the consideration of the first point- to the doctrine known as the divine right of kings. I hold in my hands a work from the pen of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, one of the ablest advocates of Romanism the present generation has seen. He has now passed away — I believe, beyond question, rejoicing in the faith of Jesus. The letters from which I am about to quote are known by the signature "J. K. L." Writing to Mr. Robertson, a Member of Parhament, he says: "The ministry of England cannot look to the exertions of the Catholic priesthood ; they have been ill treated, and they may yield for a moment to the influence of nature. This clergy, with few exceptions, are from the poorer ranks of the people ; they inherit their feelings ; they are not, as formerly, brought up under despotic governments, and they have imbibed the doctrines of Locke and Paley more deeply than those of Bellarmine or even of Bossuet on the divine right of kings ; they know much more of the principles of the Constitution than they do of passive obedience. If a rebellion were rung from Carrickfergus to Cape Clear, no sentence of excommunication would ever be fulmi- nated by the Catholic prelates ; or, if fulminated, " it would fall," as Grattan once said of British supremacy, " like a spent thunderbolt." (Hear, hear.) The reason of the allusion to the doctrine of the divine right of kings will be manifest from the following facts. The college of Maynooth was started in 1795. The founders were upholders of the doctrine of the divine right of kings. That doctrine was maintained as long as a pretender to the throne of England was ahve. But when Cardinal York, the last member of the exiled family, died in 1807 (his brother, it may be remembered, died in 17SS,and his father in 17G.5), the principles of Bellarmine and Bossuet were given up, and those of Locke and Paley substituted. This fact, in a remarkable degree, illustrates the power inherent in the Roman Catholic Church of adapting its principles to the circumstances of time and country. (Hear, hear.) I next come to the important question of the power which the Romish Church assumes over heretical sovereigns. In a famous work, the " Secunda Secundse" of Thomas Aquinas, this is proposed in the twelfth question— " Whether a prince, on account of his apostacy from the faith, loses his dominion over his subjects, so that they are not bound to obey him V In answering the question, the writer quotes from Gregory the Seventh — " We, observing the laws of our holy predecessor, absolve, by Apostolic authority, from their en- gagements [sacra mento) those who are bound to persons excommunicated, in fealty, or by obligation of an oath, and strictly prohibit them to render any allegiance until the excom- municated make satisfaction ; but apostates from the faith, as also heretics, he execrated." And, tlierefore, as Aquinas concliides, " As soon as any one is denounced by a sentence, as excommunicated for apostacy, his subjects are, ipso facto, released from his dominion, and from the oath of allegiance by which they were bound to him." Such was the authority of the Romish Church, according to Thomas Aquinas. But why, it may be asked, do I now refer to so ancient an authority as Aquinas ? For these reasons : — At the time the College of Maynooth was cstablisiied, the opinions of St. Augustine, as introduced by Aquinas, were recommended as authoritative by the Propaganda. That was in 1795. And I find m the official report relative to the conduct of the College this strong confirmation of the fact, The Rev. Charles MacNelly, Professor of Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics, being asked a question as to the books from which he taught, replied, "The authorities, or works, to ■which I have occasionally referred are the following: — St. Thomas Aquinas's, of whose " Secunda Secundic" I have often spoken in terms of the highest commendation, as being, in my opinion, one of the best treatises on ethics." Now, let us see what is the position of England in reference to this matter. You endow the clergy for teaching principles which, when inquired into, you are bound by the fealty you owe to your Sovereign to punish as treasons ; for if these principles are carried into practice assuredly it is treason. In endowing that institution, you have made no provision for ascertaining what were the doctrines which were to be taught there ; you have only cared for the increase of the number to be taught there. (Hear, hear.) These are facts derived from official evidence. The next point for consideration was this — What are the powers really claimed by the Church of Rome over Protestant countries? So much has been said on this point, on many occasions, that I need hardly say more than name the Bull In Crena Domini, and the canons of the third council of the Lateran. It is enough to say that the bull excommuni- cates all Protestant powers. Discussion has arisen as to the eliect of this bull ; Dr. Doyle disclaims it, but it is notorious that it is still in force. By the third canon of Lateran, the Bishop — and, if the Bishop, it is to be presumed an Archbishop too — is bound, even in places where the office of the Holy Inquisition is in force, to take care to purge tlie diocese of all heretics. I pass these facts without further proof ; the necessity of adding any proof is obviated by the fact that these acts of Papal authority are only suspended ; they have never been rescinded. The attempt has never been made to deny that these bulls and canons still retain their original authority. (Hear, hear.) Another princijjle of the Romish Church into which we have now shortly to inquire is this — Over whom is this power exercised? On this point I cite the authority of Peter Dens- 1 quote from the second volume of his work, which is written in Latin, but I give a faithful interpretation of what he says on the subject. In answer to the question proposed, whether baptised infidels can be compelled, by corporal punishment, to return to the Catholic faith and the unity of the Church, he replies affirmatively, for the reason that they have been baptised. This is a point of great importance, and most worthy of attentive consideration ; for it is thus manifest that the Romish Church claims jurisdiction, even to the extent of corporal punishment, overall who have been baptised. (Hear, hear.) Having glanced at these various general points, I would now pass over to Ireland, and intreat your attention to some facts illustrative of the practical working of these principles. In 1829, Catholic Emancipation was granted. Large pro- mises were made, and the most sanguine hopes were entertained of the healing effects of that measure. In no one case was its provisions not carried out to the fullest extent, so as to leave Romanists at perfect freedom. Had they one cause of complaint ? I dare not ask the same question on the other side. The provisions were all carefully attended to, and where penalties existed they were disregarded. We take not into account what apostacy there has been in the bosom of our own Church, Standing up here as a clergyman of the Church of England, it becomes me, in the first place, to protest against any sympathy with those who within her sanctuary have not scrupled to betray her to the enemy — against the unfair course of policy (I care nothing for party) which has been pursued by the Government of this country in reference to religion in Ireland. (Hear, hear.) I allude particularly to the policy of the Government in reference to national education in that country, and to the colleges more recently established under the authority of Parlia- ment. It is deeply to be regretted that the ingenuous mind of Lord Stanley was too soon caught by the plausibilities of those with whom he had to do. He used to the Duke of Leinster the objection, that the bill originally introduced was contrary to the principles of the Church of Rome. Here it should be remarked, the objection came not from the Duke of Leinster, but from Lord Stanley. The National l^oard was established, and, alas for my country! education only became national by cejising to become scriptural. (Hear, hear.) In the next place, we have the endowment of iMaynooth, and not one spark of gratitude to England for doing so. (Hear, hear.) And what have you done for your own Church — for the branch of your own Church in that country ? Turn to your Prayer Books, and you will find it described as the United Church of England and Ireland. They were placed in the same boat, and launched together in the same sea. Beware that you suffer not your own Church to come within the peril of the same influence. 1 do not presume to say that she contains a monopoly of authority, but I do say, that should that great ship be suffered to go down, many of the smaller cralt in Kngland, that lie .safe 5 under her lee, if that shelter were removed, I would not give much for their continuance, nor would their existence be worth many years' purchase. (Cheers.) You have sacri- ficed ten sees ; you have confiscated one-fourth of the property ; you have exalted the power of one Cfiurch by diminisliing the power of the other. Hut the Lord is great; I sincerely believe that the Churcii was never in a more healthy and wholesome condition than she is now. (Hear, hear.) It is true that we see some of the clergy of England led by the wily ones to the bosom of Rome; but let us cross to Ireland, and we see the poor and the despised not only abandoning the errors of Popery, but becoming converts in spirit and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Cheers.) I approach the consideration of facts belonging to a more recent period. I come to the memorable year of 181s, the year which was to be marked by a rising from one corner of the land to the other, rhe priests of the ilomish Churcli only waited the course of events. By whom was this rebellion projected? By the very priests you have been educating at Maynooth ; who wished to carry out the principles of the third Lateran and the Cwna Domini. The priests urged on the rebellion to the last point, and only retired when they found that there was danger to themselves. At a later period our gracious Queen visits Ireland, and is received with the liveliest feel- ings of loyally and affection. Addresses poured from all corners witii the utmost unani- mity of feeling, save from one ([uarter : the newspapers affirmed, and the statement has not been contradicted, that when the Ilomish prelates met to consider an address to her Majesty, it was only carried by a majority of one. (Hear, hear.) That is a fact in strict consistency with their principles. 1 come now to another part of the subject, and a most remarkable one, I mean the Synod of Thurles. That was the last assembly of the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. The great object of deliberation on that occasion was the Queen's Colleges. The first things regarded by Lord Stanley were the principles of the Church of Rome. We take our stand on the scriptural foundation, and declare that we shall not be parties to any system which keeps the Scriptures from the hqart and eye of the child. (Hear, hear.) Look to the treatment of the minor by the law. By that noble Jaw of England it is declared that the child shall not be left without protection ; and the first law-ofiicer of the Crown is made the guardian of the child. We ask the same care for the spiritual birthright of the child ; we ask the Word of God as his most precious inheritance and blessing. On this principle we stood out, but Government thought diltV- rently, and, with the best intentions, destroyed this National Board. Into this question I cannot now further enter; I merely cite facts to show the disposition which was evinced to yield everything to the Romish Church at that day. But that Church is always grasping, and though it has had everything its own way, the Queen's Colleges are now denounced as godless, because Rome does not possess everything, because Protestant surgeons are permitted to give demonstrations in anatomy, and Protestant lawyers to read lectures on law — because everything was not placed in the grasp of Rome herself. At that meeting a subscription was begun for the purpose of establishing a Roman Catholic University. They were not satisfied with the liberality which has been exhibited towards them at Trinity College. A Roman Catholic may freely enter there ; he is exempted from the religious requirements of the University. The Roman Catholics have no right to complain; they are excluded from nothing but the fellowships and scholarships. Then, with regard to Majnootb, it was never intended that that institution should be supported, by public grant, but by donations. From 184.'' down to the present time no donations have been made to it. It was established as a hotbed of Jacobinism, and, so long as the war continued, money flowed in ; but from the time of peace, when victory was supreme, crushing the hopes of Romanism in Ireland, INIaynooth was left by Romanism to sink or swim. Tlie Synod of Thurles complain that the new colleges are godless, and therefore they have denounced them. You taxed yourselves to support them. You gave to Ireland, as you continue to give, with a generous hand ; but a Sovereign Pontiff, seated at Rome, is actually called on to decide whether the will of your Parliament and Sovereign is to lake effect. (Hear, hear.) I forgot, at an earlier period of my address, to refer to the per- mission which Peter Dens gives in his second volume on the subject of reading the Scrip- tures. The reading of the Scriptures is expressly forbidden, except for the purpose of deceiving unwary Protestants with the belief that the tenets of the Church do not forbid the free circulation of the Bible; but permission must be exclusively given by the Church before any one can have the free use of the Scriptures. To return to the decision of the Synod of Thurles, if the doctrines of the Church which have been adverted to were better understood, we should feel less difficulty than has hitherto been popularly expe- rienced in understanding this question. Ere we pass from Thurles let me offer a remark or two in reference to an important person who has lately appeared in Ireland, I mean Dr. Cullen, the Pope's legate in that country. It is worthy of particular note that so long as the exiled family of the Stuarts lived they pretended to the appointment of the Irish bishops, .\fter the extinction of that family, inquiry was made at Rome on the point, and the answer was, that the Pope possessed the right, but he never insisted on it. Several names were usually sent to Rome, and the Pope laid his hand on the first name in the list. But now, for the first time, the Pope has bent one to be Primate cf Ireland who, though of Irish extraction, has lived thirty years in Rome. This is another striking fact illustrative of the change of policy on the part of the Roman See. Another fact Is most worthy of notice. When Dr. CuUencameto Ireland he was invited to become a member of the Charity Commission. He has refused to do so, and the reason assigned is this, that he was not disposed to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen. I state this fact on the authority of the newspaper, and the statement is uncontradicted. He has taken the oath to the Pope, and I am just reminded of the fact that our friend Dr. Cumming will resume this portion of his subject here next Thursday. (Cheers.) Dr. Cullen has taken the oath to the Pope twice ; but the oath to Victoria he has declined to take, and, so far as we believe, his reason was a reluctance to take that oath! (Hear, hear.) In the course of my observations, I have taken occasion to remark that we are in some respect ourselves guilty ; but, by the blessing of God, the lesson we have received will not be thrown away. If the Reformation was worth the cost at which it was obtained, it was worth keeping. If the principles of the Reformation are wrong, then was it] wrong in those who effected the Reformation to imperil the peace of the country three centuries ago. It is a characteristic of mankind to undervalue that of which they have held long possession. "Then the chief captain came and said unto Paul, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said. Yes. And the chief captain answered. With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said. But 1 was born free." With a great sum our ancestors purchased that blessed freedom which we now enjoy; but we have not been regardful of it, nor of the duty which has devolved on us to hand down that possession to our posterity. While I lament for tlie past condition of th.e Church of England, I fully believe that it is true at the core, and that there will be a prompt and ready resistance on the part of the majority of the clergy against this daring invasion of our rigiits and liberties by Pius the Ninth. But the main reliance has been on the laity of the Church. The undisguised efforts of Tractarians have been well touched on by our noble Premier. " There is a danger which alarms me much more than any aggression of a foreign sovereign. Clergymen of our own Church, who have subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, step by step, to the very verge of the preci- pice. The honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the Liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it is written, the recommendation of auricular confession, and the administration of penance and absolution — all these things are pointed out by clergymen of the Church of England as worthy of adoption. What is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign prince of no great power compared to the dang-er within the gates from the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself? (Cheers.) I have little hope that the propounders and framers of these innovations will desist from their insidious coui-se ; but I rely with confidence on the people of England, and I will not bate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition, and with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are now making to confine the intellect and enslave the soul." (Loud cheers.) These words cannot be too often repeated, nor the warning pondered, by the Church. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled "A Statement of Circumstances connected with the Proposal of Resolutions at a Special Cieneral Meeting of the Bristol Church Union, Oct. 1, 1850. By William. Palmer, M. A., Prebendary of Salisbury." In that pamphlet the author says: "No one admitted the claims or doctrine of the Church of Rome, but the general feeling was opposed to any censure of them." Wiiii such opinions openly expressed by the clergy, is it to be won- dered that the Church of Rome, ever on the watch to extend her power, should embrace the present opportunity; and that such demands as these should, in a recent number of the Catholic publication called "The Lamp," be put forth: — "A Bill for diplomatic relations with Rome, and on Rome's terms, must be passed by the British legislature. Britain must yield as the younger state. His Legate must be received at St. James's ; and that Legate must be a Cardinal. Verily too (and it is our impression), the Cardinal's hat will be quite as attractive, and as comely an object in a court cavalcade, as the jewelled turban of an Infidel, or even the variegated caftan of a Persian ambassador. . . . There is an admitted sanctity about her anointed servants that chills the audacity of the loudest brawler ; and where is the vitU))erator among them who would not shrink into his original nothingness beneath the jjjiance of his En)incnce the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster." fLoud laughter.) Of all the dangers by which freedom can he threatened, the most perilous hy far is the power of the Church of Rome ; not so much from its inherent strength as the insidious power of adapting itself to circumstances, and of concentrating ;dl its energies on a given point. The Pope, like lago, might say : " wlietlior he kill Ciwsio, Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other. Every way makes my gain." (Laughter.) The rev. gentleman concluded his lecture by an earnest appeal to his audience to use their best exertions to preserve the glorious privileges which had been connuiited to their trust, and to use their utmost etforts to iransmit them to posterity. DR, GUMMING AND CARDINAL WISEMAN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, — I think you have in some degree misapprehended the drift of my remarks, at the Hanover-square Rooms, on the recent Papal aggression. After some remarks on Exeter- hall, you say, " Such seems to be the Rev. Dr. Camming, who says that if the faith of the Pope be the true one, it is great kindness in him to propagate it amongst us, and that, therefore, the question to be considered is — Is the faith of the Pope true or false?" On re-perusing the very faithful report of my statement in your columns, I do not discover that 1 thus narrowed the question. What I did say, as reported in the 77;«ei your lordship's lfa>t wisl.es in tverv- tliin-'. l;t " I dare not be w.-intiri!^ in tlie fulfilment of my duty toK-ards God, even at the risk 01 forfeiting the good opinion of men : and I trust you will do me the justice to believe that, in acting as I do, I am following solely the dictates of my own conscience, desiring and l)raying only to be directed by Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. "That He may lead us both to see and to do His holy will in all things, as long as He vouchsafes to spare us in this world, is my continual and most fervent prayer. " IJclieve me, my dear lord, "To be ever, with the deepest veneration and respect, " Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, " The Lord Bishop of Si. As'iph" " FEILDING. " From the above letters it will be seen, that a building which was founded with a promise of its being appropriated to the Church of England is now, notwithstanding the presumed engagements entered into at the time of its foundation, to be alienated for ilomish purposes. " Under these painful circumstances, the Vicars of VVhitford and Holywell, anxious to supply the spiritual wants of the district, which was to have been assigned to it, and which is now threatened with the intrusion of the Romish schism, have resolved, with the full con- currence and sanction of the Lord Bishop of the diocese, to make an earnest appeal to the members of the Church, in the hojje that they may be enuhU'd to raise sutlicient funds to build and endow a di.strict church, and to erect a school-room and parsonage, in lieu of those which have thus been alienated. "The district to be annexed to the proposed church will include that part of the parish of Whitford within which the building referred to is situated, and a large portion of the parish of Holywell. It will contain a population of about 2,000, consisting almost entirely of miners, labourers, and small farmers, all of whom li\c at a considerable distance froiii any church. "In proof of the great need of additional spiritual pro\ision for this mountain district, it may be added, that the population of the parish of Holywell alone exceeds 11,000, for which there are only two churches and one licensed room, all at a very inconvenient distance from the proposed district ; and that, besides its remoteness from the two parish churches, the spiritual wants of its Welsh-speaking population cannot be adequately provided for in these, as, owing to the co-existence of two languages, there can be but one Welsh service in each of them on the Lord's-day. "As the inhabitants of the district are unable, through their [joverty, to provide a church for themselves, there is no other way by which tliis want can be met but by means of this general appeal, which it is fervently hoped will not be made in vain. " Subscriptions will be thankfully received by either of tlie undersigned, or at the North and South VV^ales Bank, Holywell, or tiie London and ^Vestnlinster Bank, London. " RICHARD BRISCOE, D.D., Vicar of Whitford. " November 1 1 ." " HUGH JONES, M.A., Vicar of Holywell. " SUBSCRIPTION PKOMISED : " The Lord Bishop of St. Asaph i.'ll^l> <>" THE A^ATIGAN MASQUERADE. " Fulham is a snug place — a veri/ snug place, If there is a comfent, a convenience, a creature luxury, to be come by from any quarter of the giobc, or capable of contrivance by the busy brain of obsequious inventiveness, there it will he found. If there is a softer sofa, a more downy bed, an easier carriage, a racier vintage, a more luscious conservatory, a better contrived kitchen-range, an ampler buttery-hatch in the world than anotlier, it will be met with at the palace of the metropolitan see. The Bishop of London admires money — has a respect for it ; but for all that he is ' regardless of expense,' when he regards himself. Good folks are scarce — in mercy to mankind, the excellent man is careful of his precious health. Celibacy is a damnable Popish error; therefore the Bishop of London is married. He has sons and daughters, atid has given them all, with admirable self-sacritice, to his country. ' He that provideth not for his own, especially those of his own household, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' The Bishop of London is a father of the faith, and is ir/^pi- than an infidel. He provides for his own sons prebendal stalls and deaneries, and for his daughters by making arciideacons of their husbands. He possesses a saving grace, as will in due time be proved by the probate of his will and the amount of the legacy-duty. He is taught to love his enemies — and his enemies, we are told in the catechism, are 'the devil, the world, and the flesh.' He is a pattern of 'practical godli- ness' in the management of his revenues and his patronage ; and a bright example of the (modest) 'assurance of faith.' Fie is an encourager of the (Protestant) Arts; and in his banquet-hall, groaning with gold plate, the choicest delicacies of the season, and the finest wines in Europe, he has an engraving of the picture of ' Melancthon discovering the luxury of the monks.' To whom could the 'Holy Catholic Church' turn, in this her extremity, with so much comfort, as to this ' flower of Christendom " To whom, with such pro- 14 priety, could be addressed the ' groans of the Britons ' in this modern invasion of Rome ? Of whom could the Bishop of Westminster be so appropriately the foil as the Bishop of London ? Cardinal Wiseman is married to nothing but his sacred office — the heretic ! He provideth not for his own, nor for his own household — neither a door-keeper's place for his flunkey, nor a berth in the Customs for his butler — the infidel ! He has neither sons nor daughters, except his flock — and has not the saving grace to keep the little that he gets, but spends as freely as he receives, and has not even the sense to let his left band know what his right hand doeth. He has no patronage to bestow, except that which it is a self-sacrifice and renunciation of the world to accept ; and with neither tithes to levy by distress, nor Church-rates to collect by the broker's man, and he is not worth a groat that is not voluntarily given him. If the ' impudent' pretensions of Rome to spiritual dominion in England involved a claim to seize Church property, to levy from the people, by force of bailiff and Queen's Bench warrants, 'tithe of all they possess ;' to renew leases at enormous premiums to be paid to one's self, and at nominal rents to be received by one's successor ; to regard the cure of souls as a ' living,' a sacred office as a ' benefice,' and the holder of it as an ' incumbent ;' to be silent when the flock were in peril, and howl out the scream of the ' Church in danger,' whenever there was any doubt about the possession of the fleece, we should understand what Cardinal W'iseman would be at, and would no longer be 'uneasy in our minds.' But 'the Man of Sin, and the Son of Perdition,' as the Churcii of Scotland, with its characteristic and usual charity, styles the Pope, as an agreeable variation of epithet and sex from that of the • — of Babylon, asks none of these thin ;s. He leaves all temporal things to the Anglican Church. He desires neither the aid of the law nor the powers of the Constitution, neither the prcstiffe of social influence nor the authority of political institutions, to help him. He says to Kpiscopacy, ' Keep my money, my endowments, my Church property, of which you have robbed me, on false pretences, in the name of the people of England, while you withhold it from them, and retain it to yourselves. I seek only the privilege of the appeal of soul to soul, and mind to mind, conceded by your Druids and heathen kings when my predecessors came among them and converted them to Christianity — which the very Athenians granted to Paul when, on Mar's Hill, he scoffed at their idols — which the worshippers of Olympus, at Corinth and Colosse, at Ephesus and Thessaly, vouchsafed to the Apostles. By the free will of your fellow- citizens, I send my spiritual ambassadors among you, at their earnest solicitation and with their most reverential allegiance. If you call them superstitious, they have a right to be superstitious. If you say they are idolators, the law permits them to worship idols if they please; and in this is no more tolerant than Darius when he suffered Daniel to box down before Jehovah, or Pharaoh when he made Joseph the heretic his minister.' We arc not surprised at the addresses, and meetings, and Pastoral Charges, and Zion College gatherings, and archidiaconal convocations, and the diarrhoea of Times and Chronicle letters from indignant correspondents, which such an act has called forth. If by such purely intellectual and spiritual influences as the Roman Catholic hierarchy possesses, without either purse, scrip, political position, or recognition by the State, they can make the I'^nglish people Papists, why let them — the people should be Papists if they have a mind to be so. If with the whole influence of the State, the entire powers of the Constitution, the whole dynamics of the social authority, tlie rank, the property, the oflacial example and support, and the enormous ecclesiastical revenues of this kingdom at their back, the English hierarchy cannot keep their flocks within their fold, or prevent them from desertion to Popery, armed only with the naked privilege of free speech and spiritual infiuences, that is a conclusive sign that English Episcopacy is in peril, and Popery is the real faith of the British people. If Anglicanism has anything to fear from the use of mere names, then itself must be but a name, having no real root in the human soul and the national heart. Calling a man Bishop of Westminster, in place of Bishop of Mesopotamia, will not make him Bishop of Westminster, any more than little Kteley is crowned King of the Cannibal Islands merely by acting as the Illustrious Stranger. There were Catholic Bishops of Montreal, Quebec, Louisiana, long before a Protestant set foot in America. J/'c have usurped their titles ; what right have we to complain that they have — not usurped ours, for there is no Anglican Bishop of Westminster, but changed false titles into real ones? Pres- bytery is the established form of the government of the Church in Scotland, where Prelacy was formally suppressed by law. Yet the Scottish Episcopalians have formally revived the ancient titular Bishoprics, have parcelled out the kingdom into their traditional ecclesias- tical jurisdictions, and their Bishops and Clergy describe, in their official documents, their dissenting sect as ' the Church in Scotland.' Nay, they have received Government grants in their ecclesiastical capacity. Our Queen has not hesitated to appoint an Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, without asking the leave of Sir Moses Montefiore, and in defiance of the Mohammedan priesthood. It is no apology for doing violence to the religious feelings of the Turkish people, and usurping the riglits of the Mussulman hierarchy, that the Sultan has permitted it. We would not softer the Queen to confer a similar privilege upon the Pope, without the consent of the nation; and that consent the powers that be arc too in- tolerant to concede. The time has come when it is essential that the people should dis- 15 tinctly ascertain whether the English Church is a mere material property or a spiritual institution, for tiie enlightenment and moral elevation of the community. As a public property it belongs to the public. Under its management pauperism, ignorance, drunken- ness, depravity, crime, have increased in a quite geometrical proportion. Even infidelity has frightfully advanced among the masses of tlie people. In many instances, where men have held fast by religion, they have abandoned the Church for dissenting sects ; and the present panic among the clergy appears to demonstrate that neither their own influence nor the principles of their creed have secured the ends they were to subserve, but that Protestant ascendancy has had the effect of strengthening and widening the reign of the Romish Propaganda. In Puff's tragedy, Don Whiskenuidos, through three acts, disguises himself as a beef-eater. At the climax of the plot, the leader of the armada throws off his cloak, and, thumping his palm on a fine waistcoat, demands, 'Am I a beef-eater now, sir?' Is it the fine waistcoat that changes the character of Cardinal Wiseman ? Is he less or more a beef eater because his cloak covers gold lace, or the want of it reveals the em- broidery ? He is either not Don Wliiskerandos now, or he was not a beef-eater then. Tilbury Fort was not taken for all the waistcoat. Westminster is not Romanised for all the Papal brief. There is now a (Popish) Bull-beef-eater in Westminster, in addition to an ox-becf-eater at Fulham. Do not let us be misunderstood. W'e cannot afford to ridicule the pretensions of Popery. It is spreading among the higher classes and in the bosom of the Established Church v.'ith most discouraging rapidity ; it is flying through the Anglican priesthood and hierarchy with the universality of a murrain and the malignity of a rot ; it seizes upon the squalid and the ignorant with the most pertinacious and epidemical tenacity, because its pastors are faithful, laborious, devoted, self-denying in their oflice, the comforters, the kind guardians, the self-sacrificing shepherds of the poor, the wretched and the world-forsaken, braving typhus, and cholera', and famine, not by proxy, not by hired town missionaries, and 15s.a-week Bible-readers, but in their own persons. While we have been wrangling about godless colleges and secular education, ignorance has been spreading, and superstition is the religion of ignorance. It is not by making men Pro- testants, but by making them intelligent, that we can save them from the Pope; it is not by promoting Anglican episcopacy that we can keep men Protestants. Prelacy is the high road to Rome, as is established beyond controversy by the fact that the faith of the English clergy has carried and is carrying them to Papacy, not in solitary perversions, but by the almost open apostacy of whole dioceses, and by the shameless avowal of many who are too sordid to abandon tlicir livings for the spiritual luxury of keeping a conscience. We would sound the alarm of the Popish invasion as loudly as most. Still, if Protestant Christianity cannot maintain its ground in public opinion against such a theocracy as Cardinal Wise- man, then orthodox evangelism cannot be true; because the very test and sign of truth are its victory in the arena of intelligence over all the subtle artifices, and all the Britannia- metal counterfeits of error. To go to the throne, or to the Legislature, and to claim the exertion, against the purely moral and spiritual encroachments of Popery, of the vulgar brute force of the law, and of that mere carnal weapon, the civil sword of the executive, is a denial of the first principles of religious liberty, and a confession of weakness and defeat. At least, before established orthodoxy can enter its plaint in this great suit, it must come into court with clean hands — it must renounce its own Popery, Puseyism, Anglicanism, before it can ignore the pretensions of a more consistent and ingenuous litigant. Upon a competition of the rival pretenders, we trust the honest public will calmly, and without interference, look, with imperturbable passivity, and suffer one spiritual disease to eat another out, as the most honuBopathic method. Where the essential difference lies betwixt raising up spiritual and ecclesiastical authorities within the kingdom who deny and utterly set aside the Queen's authority in matters of religion, and owning voluntarily the existence of such a power without the kingdom, it is for the Methodist Conference, the Scotch Bishops, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the central conclave of the Free Kirk, of the Synod of Ulster, or of the Remonstrant Synod, to point out. The late expulsion of the recusant Methodist preachers by the sole authority of the Committee, and in defiance of the voice of the people, is a pretty clear proof that it is not the Roman Catholics alone who raise up and own the sovereignty of an ecclesiastical power totally independent of, and in rivalry to, the mere royal authority. That one man calls himself, or is called by others. Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and another the Superintendent of the Welsh District, the Bishop of Edinburgh, or Moderator of the Synod of Merse and Teviot, or of Ulster, cannot surely establish any essential difference of constructive usur- pation, unless, indeed, Episcopacy is entitled to a monopoly of grievance, merely because ' Archbishop' is an office incident to its constitution." — ffeekly Dispatch. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILBERT, 49, PATERNOSTER-ROW. The 51st Thousand, price only Is. sewed, oris. 6d. bound (postage free, 4d. extra), with a very useful steel-plate Geiiealoaical Chart of the Sovereigns of England, >iiiES OF^ ElVftiaSI! HI?'' WITH Interesting Remarks on Manners, Castoms, Arts, Dresses, &c. BY HENRY INCE, IVI.A. Ill consequence of the rapidly extended sale and approval of tliis Yu>i-k, every page of ihe present Edition has been carefully extended and much improved. By a judicious enlargement of the width and shouUi be carefully committed to iiiemory, and aftei'\varcls filled up by means of oral instruction or reference ito lar°-er works. Lively ihapters of historical memoranda, and brief sketches of manners and customs, are appropriately introiUici>d. We can cordially recommend this well-digested m mual."— Sharpe's Magazine. " A neat arid accurate compendium, and «Titteu with perspicuity. The events of each reign are arranged under different heads, so as to give, at aglanee, a compreliensive view of tlie whole."— Atlien«um. "Anew edition, with improvements. It is a little ' Rapin' in its way, a history condensed into a nutshell; and we feel assured will, with its companion works, form the future text-book of the young of iiotli sexes. Works intended for the mental culture of the young are sure to meet our approval when properly deserving it : and in the present instance we feel inclined to extend the usual limit of oui- remarks in favour of the lucid and well-arranged books which Mr. Ince has issued for tlie rising generation. We could not forbear a smile on glancing over their contents, .at the recollection of the sundry fat quartos .and huge folios through which in boyhood we were oliliiied to wade for the acqiurement of a less amount of information than is here i>resenteit within the space of one hundred pages."— The Mirror. " Well-digested and aseful Outlines of our History, and deserves to be a standard educational work.''— Eclectic Review. ,. „ , , , »r. ^ .■ t> " Superior to anything of the kind ; here is a clear and comprehensive Outline of the whole History ot Eng- land. We cordially recommend it."— Weslev Banner. "This book is n"t undeserving of the popularity it has obtained; it is full of information, .and contains the substance of more knowledge of the social progress, manners, and customs of cm* ancestoi-s than many works of far larger ]jretensions."— The third review of the Athcna?um. " Botli the plan and style are perspicuous ; it is admirably adapted for what it is intended." —The Times. " A great deal of information in a small compass, .and the Author has availed himself of the latest authorities. We prefer the form of Outlines to Catechisms. It contributes to the formation of more logical vievvs, both by the teacher and scholar. Catechisms are the school-books of parrots." — Spectator. Price Is. sewed, or Is. 4d. bound, the 11th Thousand of BY HENRY INCE, M.A. " The Outlines of General Knowledge embrace a great variety of facts connected with the natural sciences. Even the names of all the divisions into which the moderns have classified knowledge, fill no inconsiderable space. Add to them the names and height of mountains, and names .and length of rivers, the names of con- stellations, the names of the chemical elements, the amount of population of the different kingdonis of tlie world, the amount of their respective taxation per liead, Kc, &c., and the mere nomenclature seems calculated to till a tolerably large hook. All this, and more tlian this, is collected in Mr. Ince's Outlines, and those not accustomed to the art of the author will wonder hov\- one small head could carry all he has brought togetlier." — The Economist. f " Well-digested Outlines, which shouM lie committed to everyboily's memory.''— Sharpe's Alagazine. , | "Contains for its size a remarkable ipiantity of interesting and well-arranged information. It would make a v.aluable present to Sunday Schools and lending libraries.''— Atlienaiuni. ' ' " A well-digested compendium, or ' multuin in parvo' of useful know lodge." -Eclectic Review. " An exceilen EncycIop:edia in miniature— let it be extensively iiitroduci'd into families, schools, and lending libraries.''— Wesley Banner. " Contains a consider.al)le amount of information of a very valu.able kind, on a variety of subjects, that in ordinai'j' routine of education are too much overlooked, an acquaintanee with which is every ilay becoming more aiid more indispensable. They are germs which cannot fail to vegetate in the mind, to fructify in tli'u head, .and eventually to produce a four-fold revvard to him who labours in the acquisition of them."— Sunday .School Magazine. "Calcnl.ated to instruct any one of common intelligence on every known topic of importance, and to star! him with a mind stored with the accumulated learning of 0,01)0 years." — The Mirror. In ISino, price Is. sewed, Is. fid. bound (postage free, 4d. extra), THK SIX'I'II KDITJOX OK OUTLII^'ES OF FltUA'CM MI STORY. ]3 E O IT (i ir T J ) ( ) A\' N T O ] SoO. With Notices of the Manners, Customs, Ai'ts, &c., of the different Pei-iods. BY HENRY INCK, MA. "Tt affords a very pleasing view of the whole History of Fr.ance. The autlior being gifted wit ha philosophical vniud and a classical taste, the subjects, though treatwl in a detached.aiv fiiv t'l-oin beiiig treaited 'in a dry ami vinentertaininir maniier."--The Times. " It is tmbellished with some capital engravings, and abounds in the narration of those romantic events which form the groundwork of so many delightful works."— -The Mirror. " Mr. Ince is not of those men who speak liiucli without saying anythhig; he says much in a few wonls."~ Frencli paper. " A very useful educational work."— Literary Gazette. LONDON: JAMKS GILBERT, 4 i), P ATE R X O STE R - R O W. Orders received by all Booksellers, Stationers, ikv. ^ALlSDl•KY, PBTNTEn, PKI.MBOSE IlIM,, ^ALlSIlfnV-SQVAKK. FI.EET-STRKET, ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. AN APPEAL, BY JOHN BULL; SPEECH OF THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OF BRISTOL; AND THE QUEEN AND THE POPE. A PLAIN APPEAL TO TIIK COMMON SENSE OF ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN OF GREAT 15RITAIX AND IRELAND.^- Fellow Citizens, — " Should this meet the eye" of any crazy victim of the newspaper gin, or platform brandy, which is now sedulously administered to all who desire to get mentally drunk, by ahte editors, prime ministers, lawn sleeves, and shovel hats, let him return it to the jiuhlisher, and take his money back again. It would thrive as ill witli me as Peter's jjcnce in the pocket of the Bishop of London. I address neither those who arc bitten by the mad-dog of polemical theology, tainted with the Scotch fiddle of i)ious excitement, tormented in their rest with the bugs of bigotry, nor over-run with the industrious fleas of fanaticism. There is no cure for the mange of the British lion, no specific for the spiritual morhus prdiculosus called a clergy. I must leave the patient to be eaten up by his parasites, and wish them a hearty appetite and better taste. They must have stout stomachs, and the digestion of an ostrich. The (Jreck citizen governed tlie roaring throats of the unreasoning rabble by exclaiming, "Strike; but hear me !" Mr. Miall has been struck, but he has not been heard. I'arsons are proverbially cowards, and fear is always cruel. Howled on by panic-stricken priests, I'.nglishnien have forgotten their character for fair play. Tiiey make a "clear stage" only to the rector, and show " no favour" solely to his respondents. The platform has for the time ceased to be the justice-seat of public opinion, and has been converted by the self-styled rriinisters of the Gospel of Peace into a mere arena for the scufHes of a parson-fuddled mob. I would speak to you the words of truth and soberness, were you not blown up into a froth and scum by thp prevailing "trade winds" of those who by this -"raft have their wealth. Faction is the madness of the many for the gain of the few; and tlie many, until butter of soft sawder and the brimstone of denunciation efi'ect their cure, must for the time be suflercd to run their course — " That nihbing the poor itch of their opinion 3iakc themselves scabs." You have established a censorship of the tongue, and denied to your neighbours the liberty of speech. The pen is not yet gagged, and, until it be, I shall use it freely. An ingenious ethnologist has divided mankind into two great genera — those who have been hanged, and those who have not. An equally subtle classification has been suggested by theologians, partaking less of the nature of a discovery than of that of an inventum. Deans and curates parcel out our population into the very simple denominations of Catholics and Protestants ; and as, in all controversies with Dissenters, they claim all as Churchmen who do not go to chapel, so, in this day of their tribulation, they find it exceedingly convenient to reckon all who are not Papists as practitioners of the principles of the Reformation. In this way they manage to constitute a sect of Roman Protestants as well as Roman Catholics; for it may be remembered that the policy of the " Mistress of the Ancient World" was to secure — as their allies to efl'ect their present conquests — those whom they intended afterwards to enslave, "as a monkey keeps apples in the corner of hisjaw — the first mouthed is the last swallowed." Mr. Gathercole is silent. \Ye hear no more the flattering announcement, " that all Dissenters are animated by the spirit of the Devil, and that the curse of God rests heavily upon them." The "sin of schism" is no longer whispered in the " ears polite" of practicable Independants. Baptists who can be " managed" will find a sudden pause in the elo(iuence of curates in their denunciations of " unauthorised teachers," " vulgar meeting-house pulpiteers, " and " greedy Gospellers." Even the words " Church " and " Dissent " will be suppressed in the vocabulary of agitation, and the sects which to the Establishment have been, hitherto, awithema * This very spirited article, froin the pen of a well-kuowa I'rotestant author and debater, is written expressly for appearance in this series of pamphlets on the " Roiuan Catholic Question." Fourth Series.— 'Price Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribntiou.] [James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster- vow Of ii'hitm may lie had '' T/ic linnuia ('tdhoUr Question.'' Xns. /., //., ami III. lENTERtD AT .STATIONERS' HALI. maranalhii, will he embraced on 1hc " common giound of the glorious piiiiciplcs of ihe Refor- mation." 'I'lius liie liorsc let tlic mnn on liis back that he might he revenged upon the lion ; but when the king of beasts was killed, the man refnsed to dismount, and the horse could never afterwnrds get the hit out of his mouth. Let Canterbury kill Rome, and where will the jack-ass of Dissent he, when he has suffered one of his'cnemies to momit him that he may help him to destroy the other? K honest men would keep their own, they will let rogues fall out. If your foes arc foes to each other, you have but to step aside, and the Kilkenny cats will bite and scratch till not even their tails are "to the fore." To help priest against priest is but to make one powerful Pope out of two powerless pirsons. When the Jew and the Quaker were locked up together, it was found at the erd of a week that there was no Jew left, but only a very fat Quaker. Bew'are of letting London and Exeter get fat by feeding them on Cardinals. They are not very dainty in their diet, provided they get enough. ^Yhen they have dined on Rome, they will take Dissenters for dessert. What, defined by the synonymes of history, is Popery ! Theology in power. W'hat is Pro- testantism ? Parsondom stripi)cd of State inlluence. It is not in the genius of a religion, but in the vices of human nature, that we are tcxlook for the spirit of persecution and intolerance. The nature of a nation's faith is to be found in the character of its people, not as a cause but as an effect. We are s])iritunlly free, not because we are Protestants, but because we love liberty ; and we are emancipated from superstition, not according to the measure of our religion, but to the extent of our intelligence. Calvin, Luther, Melancthon, were once monks. Henry the Eighth and Titus Dates were Protestants. Sir Thomas More, Pascal, and Fenelon, were Catholics. The peculiar people of the One True God, who shuddered at idolatry, put the first Christian to death, and persecuted his followers "from city to city," Liberty and know- ledge first planted their standard on the earth among the worshippers of Jupiter and Apollo, in the Grecian republics; and the Athenians heard with patient tolerance Paul denounce their idols on Mars Mill. Iwen Pontius Pilate refused to condemn Christ by the Roman law, and left him to the fate of rabbinical jurisprudence. Men are made persecutors, not by their prin- ciples, but by their passions. Give a sceptre to a president of the Methodist Conference, and he will become an inc[uisitor. Catholic France chose Guizot, a Protestant, Prime Minister, and is now a free Republic. Catholic Belgium elects a Protestant King, and endows the Protestant churches ; and because their pastors are married, pays to them double the allowance given to the national priesthood. British Dissenters endow the Anglican clergy, but groan in chorus at the whisper of a May- nooth grant; and would declare a republic if the Queen were to call Norfolk or Shrewsbury to her Cabinet. To compare for a moment the liberty of the subject in Protestant Prussia, and the Catholic Cantons of Switzerland, or among the Papists of the Netherlands, except for the purposes of contrast, would be as absurd as to liken the Bastille to the prairies. Is Protestantism a spiritual doctrine, or a secular principle.' It cannot mean a particular creed, because Episcopacy itself is fain to class within that convenient category tlie Church, the Baptist, the Independant, and the Methodist, the Ranter and the Unitarian, Swedenborg and Huntingdon, Muggleton and Barebones. It can only imply a social and political propo- sition, that conscience and opinion should be free, that the right of private judgment should be sacred, that in religion man should think what he pleases, and speak what he thinks, and that the nature of his faith should neither confer upon him privileges, nor subject him to disabilities which are not open and incident to all religious professors. That was the manifesto in sup- port of which the Reformers entered their protest. " Christ," says Calvin, " is abolished with respect to us, unless our consciences continue in their liberty, from which they are certainly fallen if thei/ can he ensnared in the hands of latvs and ordinances, at the pleasure of men." Luther declares, "We have not received any authority or power to compel belief. . . . words and arguments are the only weapons of our warfare." Melancthon observes, " Let all liave full liberty to teach and maintain whatever opinions they may choose to teach and maintain ; let them all be listened to, and let them be judged by all." "No preacher," continues the Institutes of Calvin, " can reejuire implicit belief to what he utters ; only to the Word of God in the Scriptures." "The Scripture," adds Zuinglius, " explains itself, and has no need of an interpreter." "By the religion of Protestants," says Chillingworth, "1 do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon ; . . . . The Bible, 1 say, the Bible oidy, is the religion of Protestants 1 am fully persuaded that God does not, and therefore man ought not, to require from any man more than this; to believe the Scriptures to be God's word, to endeavour to find the true sense of it, and to live according to its commandments." When the sage described to Rasselas the attributes retjuired for the composition of a true poet, the prince interposed with the declaration, " I perceive there never was a poet in the world." Measure the foregoing definitions of tlie noun "Protestant" by the jiractice of its professors, and wheie will be found a Protestant? " New presbyter," exclaims Milton, "is but old priest writ large." Religious reformers have liccn but impostors, wearing the fleece of the lamb to cover the jjcltry of the wolf. Papists more honest, if more brazen, assert the right of ]iprsecntion ; Protestants, more false if also more cunning, rise and thrive u|)on (Catholic spoliation, by denouncing Popish princi- ples, and ouipractisiiig their example. It is not the want of will, but the want of jiower, that keeps mrn tolerant. F.vcn Atheists prrs."cuto when unbelief is in odice. Wo spend yearly trca-iines in convtrlins Papists to Frotf st:iiiti.srn ; we shonM fulfil the (irior eontlition of con- verting I'lOtestiinls to Christianity. We discovered the art of printing and put the Bible in the world's hands, hi:t you cannot evangelise Europe by merely teaching it to read. Popery is consistent when it claims infallibility, dictates a creed to the soul, and withholds the Bible. But Protestantism, more cruel and less logical, gives manllward VI. the death- warrant of Joan Bocher, a gentlewoman of Kent, for distributing copies of the liible. Parre, Legate, Wightman, and many other.'', were burnt or beheaded by the Anglican Church. Biddle was only rescued by Cromwell from execution by the Puritans. Ncneonformists were judicially murdered without mercy ; recusants fined, imprisoned, kidnapped, and beheaded. The Protestant statutes, which may be read on our records, and many fof which are still unrepealed, are filled with such pains and penalties against Quakers, Anabaptists, Unitarians, Papists, and Dissenters in general, as Draco might have blushed to sanction. Th» Scots' Acts attach the penalty of death to the denial of the doctrine of the Tiinity, and were enforced against a stripling of eighteen on the gallows in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. While the miscreant James IL and the monster Jefferics sold to the plantations, tortured, hanged, and quartered Dissenters, the Church encouraged and supported them with all its inlluence. When the Covenanters were, without distinction of age or sex, shot down on the moors like partridges, or drowned within high-water mark like rats, by Claverhouse's butchers, it was Protestant episcopacy alone that did it. When the Catholics of Glcnco were murdered, even to the very infants, on the northern mountains, in the wild winter snows, by their guests, it was William III., the founder of the Hanoverian succession, who gave the order. The siege of Limerick, the confiscation of the whole Catholic property of Ireland, the imposition of the Anglican Establishment on that Popish country, the torture and execution of millions of its people solely on account of their relii>ious profession, was entirely the work of the Protestant Church. Are you idiotic, or utterly omninescient, or entirely bereft of memory, or crazy? You b.awl, " No Popery?" — " Down with the Pope ?" Why ? It is just tv.'enty-one years since seven millions of Catholics were, solely on the ground of their theological opinions, denied the rights common to all British subjects, and were only emancipated in spite of tlie furious opposition of the Protestant establishments. It is just that time since, year after year, the bench of bishops refused to liberate the West-Indian slaves, or to deliver the staff of life from the fangs of the tax-gatherer. It is within a more recent period that they moved heaven, earth, and a place with which they claim to be more profes- sionally familiar than either, to ignore the title of the people to representation. Has Mr. P.inney or Dr. Cumming forgotten in spite of whose vehement protest it was that Protestant Dissenters were first permitted to possess civil rights, by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts ? And, above all, has Mr. David Salomons so little remembered the past, and so utterly failed in the consciousness even of the present, as not to know that Baron Rothschild, because 4 he refiucs to deny his faith, and to hecome an apostate, still stands on the thiesliold of Parlia- ment, and finds the bench of bishops slapping-to the door in liis face? Is it, or can it be ON ACCOUNT OF ANY CIVII- OR POLITICAL OBJKCTION WHATICVER THAT EpiSCOPACY STILL PER- SECUTES THE Jews? It is openly and distinctlj' avowed by the legal representatives of Protes- tantism, that it is solely on account of the religious opinions of tiie Hebrews that tliey are degraded from their civil rights. Then on what ground of consistency does Episcopacy call for penalties against the Catholics, for claiming lor their liierarcliv', or opinions, supremacy in the State? Is history an old almanac? Do we require to rake up the ashes of the past to discover the glowing embers of Episcopal persecution ? Fain would Churchmen entreat Dissenters to " wipe it up, and say no more about it." Abjectly, in the extremity of their craven fear, do they implore me to "kiss and be friends," to" sink all minor differences in a common danger," and to "forget and forgive!" " i'orgei. ! forgive! I must indeed forget when I forgive !" I need not look back. Measure the future by what is before you now. There is no such prin- ciple as Protestantism extant in existing practice; all are popes or popelinis — Bunting, I'hil- l)Otts, Knight Hruce, Charles James, PioNono, the General Assembly, the Remonstrant Sysiod, the Three Denominations, or the Queen, are a".l Pontiffs in their way. What is it to you, poor .lackass, which gains the victory ? Will Wiseman put a heavier load in your panniers than Exeter and the spiritual courts? The records of the American colonies will prove to you that there is not a cruelty endured for conscience sake perpetrated by the Papists, that has not its parallel in the practices of the New England Puritans, and the proclamations of the Pilgrim Fathers. They but fled from persecution in the Old World, to persecute, in their turn, in the New. Nor is it necessary to go far a-field to discover Papists among Reformers, and the genuine spirit of the Vatican clothed in the integuments of a Protestant profession. There is not, there never was, a true Protestant Church in the world. The Pope has many enemies, but Popery is universally followed. The Queen is our Pontiff, confessedly supreme in matters ecclesiastical, although controlled in things civil by the other estates of the realui. She alone ran convoke councils to confirm or alter articles of belief (Art. 2[) ; by her solely can bishops be appointed (36) • her priesthood can alone wash away original sin (27) ; and so spiritually omnipotent is her power, that all who receive her commission, ipso facto, are endued with the commission and authority of Jesus Christ, so absolutely, that their ministry is competent to regenerate and absolve, be they ever so infidel, so vicious, and even criminal (26). Nay, so absolute is her s])iritual efficacy, that "that person which (3), by open denunciation of the Church, is rightly cut off" fromtlie unity of the Church and e.icoinmunicntcd, ought to be taken of tlLe whole multitude of tlic J'aithfu.1 as an heathen man and a puhliean" (33). And as the " conclusion of the whole matter," the law and the articles deiare that "she should rule all the estates and degrees committed to her charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, &\-\Axe%lv?An^'\X.\\\.\\Q eicil sword the stubborn;'^ and she has but recently appointed Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford, and inducted l\Ir. Gorham to Bampford Speke, in the face of the solemn declaration of some of her bishops, n.any of the clergy, and her own spiritual courts, that they are heretics and schismatics. That there may be no rcom left for ciuibbling on the term " ecclesiastical," the Westminster clergy, in their address to the Bishop of London, assume the power to " banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines, and assert that the "Queen's Majesty, under God, is the only supreme Governor of this realm, as well IN ALL spiritual and ecclesiastical causes as in temporal." The Church of Scotland is equally explicit. It, indeed, claims for Christ the sole headship of the Church ; while it concedes to the Queen, to Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Episcopalians, or indeed to any man, woman, or child who has money enough to buy the right of presentation, the sole power of setting any minister they choose over the care of immortal souls. But these ministers, so appointed, must receive the faith, not " as it was once delivered to the prophets," but as it may be delivered to them i)y an Act of Parliament made by Catholics, Anglicans, Socinians, Baptists, Quakers, Infidels, and Atheists. Such is the authority from which they derive their faith. Once declared, the Assembly has jwwer (Confession of Faith, cap. 20) to suppress " errt)neous opinions and practices" by " the power of the civil magistrate ;" and " it is his duty (cap. 23, sec. 3) to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, tliat the truth of Ciod be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed." Now, there is no accounting for tastes. Brother Jonathan considers that to be " aland of liberty where a man can larrup his oim nigger;" and when Lapstone, administering the oil of strap to his spouse, was interrupted by a by-stander, the cobbler's wife clapperclawed her champion for daring to question the marital supremacy of her cobbler, liut for my jjart, if I am to have a Pope, I should rather he sat at Rome than at Buckingham Palace or Edin- burgh. If a spiritual autocrat is to domineer over our consciences, and dictate or proscribe our opinions, the further he is off the better. To my soul and immortal spirit, a queen, an archbishop, a moderator, or a justice of the peace, is as much " a foreign jiotentate" as a i'ope; and I had much rather underlyc the spiritual decrees of an impotent Italian priest, who is suiroiuuk'd with no temjioral power to execute tiicn\ upon me, than those ot a home-made I)oritiir, who does not " bear the sword in vain," bii*\vho beggars mc in spiritual courts, then casts mc into prison, or seizes my tables and chairs to pay the costs of the paraphernalia of what the Prime Minister brands as " rriummeries and superstitions,'' and calls upon "the multitude of the faithful" to treat mcas a "heathen man and a publican." Have the Methodists forgotten the tjection of their ministers by the Conference? Do the Presbyterians forget their exclusion from the Biijic Society ? or the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster from the Synod? or the Unitarians their being skinned of the llcwley endowments by the Baptists and Independents, on the very ground tliat no man in England should be suffered to hold property, be he Jew or Unitarian, who denied their doctrine of the Trinity? The word Protestant, in the mouths of the self-styled orthodox, is a living lie — and the Pope but honestly professes what he has no power to enforce, and that which his enemies daily and temporally practise. Who will presume to plead that although in theory Protestant Churches constrain men's consciences, and claim the power to proscribe opinions, and suppress " heresies," as tiiey style whatever diverges from their Paternoster, yet substantially, in Protestant countries, every religious opinion is tolerated? I have proved historically that this is utterly false. Paine, Hone, lietherington, Southey, Byron, Carlile, were persecuted by the Attorney-General within living memory. Our common and statute law are full of pains and penalties for Dissent. It is in sjiiif of Churches and Governments, in defiance, and against the frantic exertions, of parsons, ministers, and their creeds, that juries have snatched opinion from the fangs of bigotry ; and does any man pretend that the Pope can in England do that which public spirit and national intelligence have been too strong to enable either the Government, the law, or the constitution to execute ? In Catholic Germany religious opinion is as free as air; in Pro- testant England it is a slave on ticket of leave, clankmg with iron at every motion of liberty. The very praise which episcopacy arrogates to itself is an insult to the subject. It calls itself a " tolerant Church." What right has Parson Surplice to talk oi lolcrathiff vie ? 1 thank him for nothing. " Religious toleration "' is ecclesiastical impudence. I would as soon ask my scullion leave to live in my own house. I pay him, or he plunders me, to teach what I don't believe : and then he patronises his paymaster with the volunteer of his forbearance. I am citizen of a State, as well as, I humbly trust, a loyal, though unworthy, sulijfct of the King eternal, immortal, and invisible. 1 have, in these realms alone, seven millions, or a fourth of the whole i)eople, as Roman Catholic freemen. 'J'hey have rights of conscience, they have civil jirerogalives. I have not forgotten the long account of cruelty, persecution, confiscation, banishment, and judicial or military murder, which all the kindness, ami more than all the restitution we can render, would fail to cancel. But for Papists, where would Dissenters be now ? Are we idiots as well as ingrates ? It was the Catholic cause which redeemed opinion from the bondage of prelacy. The Irish members achieved for us the Reform Bill. It was Irish and Catholic majorities which, step by step, and inch by inch, ugainst English Churcluncn, obtained for us Municii)at Reform, the repeal of Tests, the abolition of Negro slavery. O'Conncll and his tail mustered for the people in every division to Citend the franchise, to abolish monopolies, to emanci[)ate trade, to untax bread, and untar butter. Dissent would now be lying prostrate before prclatic ascendancy, the rotten boroughs would be extant, the corporations and magis- tracy would be closed to nonconformity, the loaf would be little and dear to this hour, but for Catholic intlucnee and Popish votes. But for these, Lord John Russell would not have rejjrc- serited London, and a Tory would have been Prime Minister. Show me a British Catholic, and I will show you a Liberal. Let me sec a genuine prelatic Churchman, lay or clerical, and there you will find the champion of prerogative, the enemy of tlie common rights of British subjects, the apologist of slavery, the foe of freedom in trade, pen, and tongue. If " by their fruits ye shall know them," in which professor should you place reliance? There was once a proclamation pasted upon the door of an episcopal cathedral, "There is a purpose of marriage betwixt the Church of England and the C.iurch of Rome," and under- neath was written, "I forbid the banns: the parties are within the forbidden degrees." What is there in Canterbury that is better than the Vatican ? Wherein does the presbyter differ from the priest? Ground is'consecratcd, bread, v>-ine, in England as in Italy. The eucharist is administered by the parson alone, and to single communicants only. It is not "elevated," indeed, in London as tlie Host is in Naples; but it is snugly conveyed in the rector's bag, v.ith his cliurchrate-washcd surplice, to the bed-side of the dying, and there the jjarting-spirit receives what in Britain is called the " Holy Communion," and in Italy goes by the convertible term of the "Viaticum," and that, too, in the face of the Article which forbids it to be "carried about." If the doctrine of the "Real Presence" is heterodox, where is the h.irm of it? It is only, after all, a /;'/(-;•«/ interpretation of the t'W/ «'o»v/.v of the founder of the ordinance, "This U my body and blood." What right has a Protestant to judge what is metajihorical and what literal in Scripture? The Quakers are exempted from oath-taking by .Vet of Parliament be- cause they Uterallt/ obey the commandment to "swear not at all." The Baptists complain that we too literally interpret the practice of the I'vangelists in christening infants. Sir Robert Harry Iiiglis insists u|)on retaining judicial strangulation, by literally rendering the declaration, " Whoso sheds nian'.s blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But, after all, in what does the consubstantiation of the Church of England ditier from the transiibstanliatiun of Rome ? Bulli 6 declare virtually the "real presence" in t^e cucliarist. "The hrcad which we brcal< (Art. 2H) is a partaking of /ki: bodt/ nf C'lrisl; and likewise tliG cup ol' blessing is a jturla/^hig- of the Mood of Christ." ^' The hudi/ (f Chrht is given, takvn, and c^r/t-ra in the Supper, only after an licavenly and spiiitual manner;" but it w given, and taken, and eaten, and is actually there, although only spiritually, at least so say the Thirty-nine Articles, and they should know, else it is high time we should get our money back again. We should fain hope that such free and easy souls as ofncer what may now be fairly called the church militant, are not too much scandalised at the practice of auricular confession and priestly absolution. Perhaps they only act upon the principle of the butler, who, upon being taxed by his master with drinking his wine, answered, "Yes, I do; but I take care that nobody else does." In fact, they hold Popery too good a thing to be wasted, and would allow nobody to be Papists but themselves. " The sick person," says the Prayer Book, shall " be moved to make a special confession of his sins," and " the priest shall absolve him after this sort :" — " /absolve thee from all thy sins." "To the oiTicers of the Church," says the ^Yestminster Confession (Cap. ?>0, Section 2) " the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins." This is the faith of the Church of Scotland — the Free, Relief, Burgher, and Ulster Synods. It would seem that they each claim exclusively the Bramah key and Chubb lock of the treasury of salvation, and accuse all others of spiritual burglary, effected by the skeleton keys of heresy, the crowbar of superstition, or by picking the lock with " insolent and insidious" Popish 13ulis. But they all equally deny that the door is open, and none of them will leave it ajar, if they can find queens or laws to help them to shut it. " Whosoever," says the Morning Prayer service of the English Church, " will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." "Adam," asserts the Confession, imparted his sin to us all, " descend- ing by natural generation." (Cap. 6, Sections 2 and 3.) We are thereby " utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." (Section 4.) "With- out any foresight of faith or good works, or any other thing in the creature moving him thereunto" (Cap. 3, Section 5), God, of the " pleasure of his good-will," chose to predes- tine a few to " everlasting glory," " the I'cst he was pleased to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath, to Xhe. praise of his glorious justiee." (Section 7.) " Men not professing the Christian religion," a category in which may be embraced ninety-nine out of every hundred of the human race, are to be damned eternally, " be they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess ; and to assert and maintain" the contrary "is very pernicious and to be detested." (Cap. 10, Section 4.) In perfect consistency with these comfortable doctrines, Edwards avers that " there are infants in hell a span lung," and that we "shall roast through an eternity yet." Boston declares that godly children will sing hallelujah at the burning of "tlie lather that begot them, and the mother who bore them;" and Watts has set to music a hymn which assures the "rebel worm" that liery billows will "beat upon his naked soul in one eternal storm." Lord Chancellor Bacon's definition of a Christian is, throughout, an antithesis of contradictions, and a logical contrast of mutually destructive paradoxes. And to such a pitch of blasphemous extravagance is Anglican orthodoxy carried, that Prior, the poet, explains how " Ahnig'lity luiiguislicd, ami Eternal died, And Earth profaned, yet blessed with Deicido ;" while the pious Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his dictionary, defines Deicide to be "the murder nf God, the act of killing God. It is only used in sjieaking of the death of our blessed Savicjur." Even Bishop Jeremy Taylor bids men console themselves for a "thin table," by the rclleetion that "the King of heaven and earth was fed with a little breast-milk." Such is the State religion, such the Protestant faith of this country, which I, and you, and all of us must swear to maintain, if we would represent the people in Parliament, and must pay to propagate whether we are represented or not. I put it to your candour and your honesty (if parsons have left any to spare), can a believer in " Deicide" afford to scoff at the elevation of the host — can the professor of faith, in the feeding of the Almighty on " a little breast-milk," venture to ridicule " wafer Gods ?" Is the disciple of rwMsubstantiation entitled to persecute the abettor of /^-awsubstantiation ? Is the Anglican priest to hear confession of sin, and to grant absolution, or the Presbyterian minister to have " power to retain and remit sins," and deny the jirivilcge to the Cardinal? Is the Moderator of the General Assembly to liave a monopoly of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and to refuse a duplicate to the suc- cessor of Saint Peter? In fine, is the elevation of the Host profane, and the carrying about the iMicliarist in a carpet-bag sacred? — or shall the parson take the Holy Communion to the bedside of tin- dying churchman, and deny the Viatieum to the expiring Papist? Orthodoxy is vi;/ doxy, and heterodoxy is every other man's doxy. The intelligent faith of to-day is the grovelliTig superstition of to-morrow; and the time will ccnne when the creed of the loudest denouncer of '• mummeries" will be regarded as too extravagant for the most crazy fanatic. Truth and God, indeed, never change ; but man's knowledge of what is truth, and his conceptions of God, alter and enlarge with the progress of his powers. Bacon hilicvcd in witchcraft; Socrates, crc he coirpo oJ himsiir to dcalh. facrificcd a cock to I'^sculapius ; More was a Mariohilor; Aristides th; Just bent the i)iotis Uiiec to Olympus, and Cicci <) reasoned liis way to the immortality of the soul, as lie discoursed upon the nature of the heathen gods. The founder of the inductive piiilosophy believed "three to be one, and one to be llirce ; a father not to be older than his son ; a son to be equal with his father; and one pro- ccudiiig from both to be cqial to both — three persons to be in one nature, and two natures in one person ; a virgin to be the mother of a son, and that very son of hers to be her maker ; him to liave been a weak child, carried in arms, who is Almighty ; and him to have died who alone has life and immortality in himself." How shall he dare talk of mummeries who devoutly repeats the barbarous jargon of mutually destructive propositions contained in the farrago of Athana- sius, or strain at tlie gnat of the Real Presence while he swallows the camel of that " eternal l)rocession," which tiic jjious Clarke called "eternal nonsense?" I.s the Trinity of llindostan even, an "old wife's fable," and the Trinity of Canterbury, which I.uther said, "sounds oddly, and is a human invention," and Calvin pronounces "barbarous, insipid, jjrofane, a human invention, grounded on no testimony of God's word — the Popish God, unknown to Jesus Christ and the xVpostles,'' alone worthy of respectful acceptance? Who is to be the judge of the line which separates a mystery from superstition, or why should the voracious ajjpetitc of the believer, who bolts whole the contradictory genealogies of Matthew and Luke, and digests the doubtful canons of the first two cliapters of th^se gospels, with the miraculous conception, and the notorious forgery of 1st John r>th and 7Lh, contract his gullet when men eke out from the Fathers doctrines which, more honestly and candidly than their censors, they confess their inability to derive from the canonical Scriptures ? What separates the Apocrypha from the Bible l)ut the thin partition of the mere groping labours of unstable word- mongers, guided only by self-created canons of criticism? What made the Book of Revela- tions a i)art of the received text, but a majority of one at the Babel Council of Trent ? 1 am no Roman Catholic, altliougli I trust I am a Christian. But if my only alternative is to choose among contending creeds, I frankly own that I prefer the comfortable soul-repose which is to be found in the bosom of an infallible Church, to the Mahometan fatalism of Calvin, or the i)criilcxing uncertainties and contradictions of Anglican theology. I am not surprised that the devout soul flics froni the Presbyterian Thor or Odin who roasts infants a span long "to the praise of his glorious justice," to pine for rest in the arms of a priesthood who, w-ith quite as probable a warrant, promise to absolve him from sin, and baptise his babes into salva- tion. I would far sooner believe that the prayers of just men, which avail much, and the intercessions of a living and human hierarchy, can beg my soul off from destruction, or beseech the spirits of even the worst of departed sinners out of hell, than iu an inexorable jjredes- tinator, who, out of mere caprice, and without any reference to faith, good works, or " any- thing in the creature moving him thereunto," ordains a few to everlasting glory — but whom nobody can conjecture, because no sign of virtue or devotion will indicate — nnd jdctisai to pass by the rest of mankind, and to destine them to dish. :^'~-^ur and wrath, for sins which, by natural generation, he has compelled them to commit. ' Sooner," said Channing, " would 1 believe in gods who fell in love with the subjects of thci. own beautiful creation, than in an inex- orable tyrant who sentences men to continual torments for sins which he has formed them with an utter inability to avoid." Were I to predicate the social and moral results which the con- tending systems are calculated to produce, what sane man would hesitate to prefer even nuimmcries and superstitions, an infallible interpreter and a tyrant hierarchy, who, and which, would lead the world to believe that, by piety, prayer, penance, and priestly absolution, all would be well with them, to a creed which proclaims to all that the utmost endeavours of mankind to frame their lives according to the light of natural conscience, and to the religion they profess, would not save them from eternal torments, and which em|)hatieally assures every human being that neither faith, works, the strictest virtue, nor tlic purest piety, goodness, and trutli, would ill the least determine their everlasting fate; that they are not even permitted to be moral or religious ; tiiat they are forced to sin by descent, which they could not help, from Adam, whom they could not preserve from evil ; and that tiic divinest or the most criminal life arc ciiually indifi'erent to a God who settles our destiny according to no principle of desert or virtue. It is this demoniacal system which drives many to Ik'dlam, more to Rome, most of all to the " Everlasting No," and which only docs not lead the desjiairing victim of a gloomy superstition to vice, as being indistinguishable in its results from a course of virtue, simply because the prominent doctrines of the Church are neither tauglit by those who are sworn to teach them, nor practically believed in detail by those who profess them in the lump. It is Calvin and Luther, London and Exeter, who recruit the arniy of Pio Nono. Burns believed that even the Devil will be saved — Peter offers salvation to the worst ; it was reserveci for Jack and Martin to assert that even Plato would be damned — for Athanasius to consign Milton, Locke, and Newton to an anti-triuitarian pandemonium, and for the Anglican and Scotch Churches to send Pascal and Fenelon to keep them company. When Wiseman oflVrs you Pio, you answer, "No — no!" A creed is a Pope, and you have endowed two of them. If the Queen has spiritual supremacy a/zc is a Pope. I have never heard that the Catholics own Pope Joan. Exeter and London, York and Canterbury, Jabez Bunting, a Moderator, a Conference, or a Conclave, arc but diJicrcnt names for the same tyranny. " Of all horses," says Carlylc, " your worst is a dead liorsc." A living Fopc may change his interpretation of the Scriptures as criticism improves, learning enlarges, archaeolo- gical theology discovers. But the three hundred pretenders to infallibility who, two hundred and seven years ago, took the Bible from us, declared it to be no longer the religion of Pro- testants, digested their authoritative interpretation into the jargon of the Westminster Con- fession and Thirty-Nine Articles, put it into an Act of Parliament, endowed it witii the whole wealth which they had plundered from the poor and the priests, and declared that that should be the religion of the free people of England and Scotland, .sfrctdn in .sreculonuii, were ilcad Popes, to whom the age can make no appeal, and from whom common sense can get no redress. The world has outlived, and out-thought, and out-informed them, as it has done Rome and its Vicar, but in vain. Intelligent Churchmen, even bishops and clergy, have de- clared that they do not believe, although they subscribe, these jumbles. Tillotson wished the world well rid of the Athanasian Creed, and Parr would never repeat it. But there still stand the immutable Bulls of the British Vatican, tossing and goring all, and still worshii>ped as abjectly as the Bull of Phalaris. The Pope pretends to do no more than to interpret Scripture ; lie claims no light to wiffX-c it. If men reject his digest of it, he alleges that they deny Ihc Scripture. What more and what less does every creed-maker ? It is in vain that the Unitarian appeals to Scripture from the doctrine of the Trinity ; the Book of Common Prayer tells him that without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. In vain does the Univcrsalist point to the evangelical proclamation of the inexhaustible benevolence and the impartial paternity of the Almighty. The Calvinist, like the Pope, assures him that it is not in his face that he flies, but in that of Divine truth, in denying the exclusive salvation of the elect, and the eternal torments of the whole of the rest of mankind. Should the Arminian, like the Apostle, in(iuire, " If any man saith he hath faith, can faith save him? Show me thy faith without thy works, and 1 will show thee my faith by my works"— he shall be answered by the Predestinarian, that no foresight of faitii or good works, or anything in the creature, shall avert the sentence of the Divine executioner ; and that to differ with the creed-monger is to dissent from the Bible. If Gorham, or Campbell of Row, if Hampden, or Shore, propose to " open the Scriptures, and reason from them daily, and search them to see if these things are so," the Assembly or .Exeter tell them they talk beside the question ; that the Confession and the Articles are the authoritative canons, and final interpreters of Divine truth, and that if he dissents from these he dissents from inspiration. These dead and buried — if we are to believe their disciples, wc ought to add — and perhaps damned, infallibilities, sit like hideous spiritual nightmares on the consciences of living men, and crush the free breathings of the immortal soul with the Mcsmer paralysis of their prcsun-.ptuous and insolent absolutism of dictation. Is it wonderful that the free spirit of progress and intelligence has rebelled against these scandalous machinations, for "making the Word of God of nonetfcct by your vain tra- ditions?" — that we have at last arrived at that humiliating state of unfaithfulness and hypocrisy which sees a clergy subscribing creeds they do not teach, and a people professing a faith they do not believe? — that an archdeacon, and a professor of moral (ihilosophy, should vaunt that "he could nut all'or.l to keep a conscience?" — and that the sciupulosities of common honesty are punished as the contuinacities of recusancy? "I am not al'raid, my lords," said the senator, " of men of scrupulous consciences; but I will tell you whom I am afraid of, and they are the men that believe everything, that subscribe everytldng, and that vote for everything." Verily the Church would keep him in a perpetual panic. Too truthfully did Lord Chatham, looking hard attiic bench of bishops, declare that " we had got a Popish liturgy, an Arminian clergy, and a Calvinistic creed." I am no Papist ; my complaint is that there is no Protestantism. We anathematise claims to infallibility ; we denounce spiritual supremacy ; we fulminate our priestly thunders against persecutors and believers in the legitimate absolutism of the Pontiff ; and, to prove our sin- cerity, we sedulously follow his example. " The villany he teaches us we will execute, and it shall go hard but we will better the instruction." A dissenting alderman from the bench " has no doubt that a little imprisonment v.'ould do the Cardinal good ; but he understood he had already received notice to (piit London in forty-eight hours!" The tyranny of Metter- nich and the police of Austria introduced into I'.ngland, and a London citizen — the wish being fathei to the thought — hopes that Government will trample on the Constitution because a fellow-subject is a cardinal ! A moral idiotism seems to seize the rabid Papophobiast, and he would persecute to enforce toleration, and emancipate the conscience by measuring every man's corn by his own bushel, or setting himself up as the sole judge of the lawfulness of his neighbour's faith. If I am to own the spiritual supremacy of any jjoor^worm of the dust, frail and fallible like myself, let it be by some more decent title than a piece of parchment. " I will," said Lord Wharton, " respect a l^arliamentary king, and cheerfully i)ay all Parliamentary taxes ; but 1 will have nothnig to do with a Parliamentary religion, nor will I worship a Parliamentary god." The Pope is at least set apart to the ministry from his early youth, and segregated for life to religious studies and i)ious ofiices. He has " received the Holy (Jliost," the imposition of hands, if it be an imposition, and by ecclesiastical transmission, .v"(7; as it is. He is in regular orders, and is elective by a legitimate clerical convocation. The proprieties of a 9 spiritual call respect the consciences of tlie devout; and the solemnities of choice, do reverence to the piety of the faithful. Roman Catholics at least respect themselves by enforcing the decencies of hierarchical order, and do no outrage to sincerity in the logic of their eccle- siastical economy, if they ofl'end the colder severity of a costive faith. lUit what must be the hypocrisy or shamelcssness of that moral obtundity which could look upon George IV., drunk in the midst of his harem, as his si)iritual sovereign — which could contemplate with com- j)lacency the advent to the pontifical throne of Saint James's ot the late Duke of York, who was also ]5ishop of Osnaburg — or which could claim, as the interpreter of his faith, or the dictator of his theological conscience, the " Sailor King'^" 'Jlie nalai-lama is a boy caught by priests, imprisoned, and worshipped, as the easiest instrument of sacerdotal imposture. We call to our throne, without election or other (jualification than that of hereditary descent, a princess of eighteen, and thrust upon her the attributes of spiritual supremacy ! — and now we make the power we ourselves create the pretext for denying the right of others to make a better choice, who only do greater homage to religion, and display a livelier sensitiveness of devotion, by refusing to i)rostitute a sacred ollicc to the exigencies of a political institution. I deny the Queen's spii-itiial supivnuacy. I I'eject the Pope's; but he is a traitor to tlie rij^hts of his fellow-subjects, and an enemy to the rights of conscience, who claims tho privilege of owning the Queen as his pontifT, and refuses to others the liberty to claim ecclesiastical fealty to Pio Nono as his Tope. I will bow the knee of my soul's stature to no erring an I'aris loses me my spirit's sovereign. Is the Church of England a merely territorial Church, confined in its prerogatives and the etricacy of its ministrations ? If so, tho Queen's ecclesiafjtical suprenuicy is geograjdiically bounded by the Atlantic, the German Ocean, and the Baltic. Grant that — concede that it is only by right of the legal esta- blishment of her spiritual sn])iemacy in Kngland that she has a title to coni]daiu of the iuterfcreuce of the I'ope, and then it is demonstrable that she has committed the very act she denounces. She has a))pointed a bishop to Jerusalem without the consent either of the Jews or the Syrians. She ordains one to IMadras, and another to Calcutta. Is the Church of I-'ngland established by law in New Zealand, in Gibraltar, in Malta, in Corfu, in Australia,, in Tasmania? Ask our fellow-subjects there if they admit our right to legalise, or if they have recognised, or will ever consent to establish, any Churcii whatever, as a state religion. The Queen, then, has no spiritual supremacy in our colonies, anil yet she has ecclesiastically invaded a territory over which she has no more spiritual prerogative than the I'ope, and has not only ordained, Init ]>aid out of the British Exehes in every one of them. Is sauce for tho goose sauce for the gander? or are we to live on, verifying the adage, that one man may steal a horse, while another may not look over tlie heshod English, and to exclaim with honest Snncho, " God bless the giver I A gift horse should never be looked in the mouth." But the favourite term of " insidious,'' wliicli is so pojtularly employed to characterise the recent conduct of the Pope, reminds me forcibly of the simple gentleman who, upon being called a liar, retorted, •' What do you mean to insinuate?" and, when kicked tlown stairs, ventured to add, " 1 hope you mean nothing personal ?" Insidious I Why, tho " Apostolical Letter" was published to all the world ; it is as explicit as a cat-o'-nine-tails, as downright as a tea ton hauuncr, as plain as the 10 Minister's letter is pleasant — and a great deal plainer. It claims no snl)jucts, it asserts power over no territory, it nssnmcs no titles of rceojjniscd sees, it carcl'nlly avoids mention cither of Cantcrl)ury or York, Exeter or London. It calls tlic ecclesiastical division it declares "districts;" it assigns the entreaties of seven millions of the loyal subjects of the Queen as the sole moving cause of his own intervention ; and the express object, avowed and transparent, of the whole movement, is to throw off the servitude of the English Catholics to Rome, and to confer upon them a perfectly national and inde- pendent hierarchy, absohite in its own authority, responsible only to its ov.-n convoca- tions, and removable only and exclusively by its own national courts. Had the letter called Wiseman a moderator, and Ullathorne a superintendent, Churclr ministers would have been as mute as church mice. President or Presbyter, Synod or Assembly, come not betwixt the wind and Exeter's nobility. Russell, like Croaker, in the play, mistakes a love-letter for the anonymous threats of an incendiary, and has the sharp scent of the -'id lady who felt "a strong smell of thieves in the house." But to my nerves the Papal brief sounds exceedingly like the successful endeavour of a plain man to say exactly ■what he would be at; and if it fails in emulating the staid courtliness of phrase, and the prudent reserve of lang'.iage, which Lord John Russell alone can reach, the Christian mildness of Mr. ]\Iiall's clerical prize-fighters, the ethereal charity of our orthodox platform pulpiteers, the refined taste of a Nolan or a Cunnning, the dignified simplicity of Campliell's Mansion-house eloquence, or the chastened oratory of Binney, the Wcigh-Iiouse prophet, we must just make allowance for the inferiority by the reflec- tion that we cannot have a Protestant Pope. If heavy jokes were attempted by a Chief Justice about ti'yiug the Archbishop of Canterbury as a criminal, and promising him as fair a trial as if he were a thief, or by a ])ulpit-drunn;icr about braiding over the Primate of England to the police, and placing him in the dock, or by a clerical stcntor in designating the Bishop of London " an old idiot," and his charge as " blasphemous nonsense" — they might run the risk of being mistaken for vulgar ruffianism. But the earth belongs to the saints, and we are the saints, and sliall we not do what we like with our own ? What have the Protestants of the United States been about ? Every county and every state has been parcelled out by the Pope into ecclesiastical sees, and by the Episcopalians into Anglican bishoprics, and yet orthodoxy actually sleeps quietly in its bed ! It thinks if it can keep open its universities to all, while we shut ours against the majority, and shut its senate against priestly intrusion, while we send our bishops to rule Dissenters in the House of Lords, it can afford to laugh at the Pope and whisper to us, " Physician, heal thyself!" Nay, 1 am not without the misgiving that it may ask, " Is it a greater offence for the Pope than for the Queen's own subjects to pass her by, as the fountain of honour, and call themselves Bishop of Glasgow, or Moderator of the Free Kirk, or Pre- sident of the Conference?" Call a Sovereign and a Pope "insolent and insidious" if you please, but beware how you insult a Binney, or scoff at a Bunting. You may swallow the Athauasian conundrum whole, but yon must choke upon the riddle of the Real I'rc- sence ; you niay insert in your Bible the notorious forgery of 1 John, .5th and 7th, " teaching for doctrine the commandments of men," but you may not borrow help from the Fathers to elucidate thejtext, you may chain the souls of a people to the traditions of an Act of Parliament creed, or tie the nation's mind to the stake of the Westminster divines, but yon must not quote Bellarmine, or pin your faith toChrysostome. You may be daily committing that terrible, because anonymous and undiscovered, sin against the Holy Ghost, but the affrighted and frantic soul may not lly from the known terrors of un- known crime, or the consequences of the "ignorant sin" which has driven thousands to JBedlam, to the human comfort of a peace-speaking priest. If the I'ope is a clerical i)oaclier, and a spiritual licence i-equires a Governmen.t stamp, what are we to say of the first Cliri.stian who conniianni liis snpcrior knowledge oi" tlieolojry. ])r. Cumniinjj grndges Rome the iidviinta^^', and con)])lains of the vehemence of hei* anathemas, jjiobahly because, as Ucnesis begins with a natural curse, and Revelations ends with a S]>intMal one, he con- siders that excommunication is a luxury in which the pious Erskine might indulge when he handed over liis father to tlic devil from the paternal pulpit, ami which may occa- sionally be granted to Protestants in the connninatiou-sei'vicc, but which ought not to be made too common by being hawked about by PriMi^t?;, pud slK.nld be reserved for British bisliops aud our native sjjiritual courts. I rejoice to announce that " I.oi'd John Is amazingly popular in the city." That "noble letter"' aud his "most constitutional speech" have justly earned for him the patronage of Sir Peter Laurie, and liis handsijme ofler to "put down" Popery. Ihit is there not something ominous in the disappearance of Gog and I\Iagog with the advent of a Cardinal? What will the braziers and tinmen say of the zoological innovation of elc[diants, stags, autl camels, upon the rights and privileges of civic chivalry, of the clia.mpiy the chloride of Calvinism and the whitewash of prelacy. But — will " the steam keep up (" Parliament is along v,;iy ofl'. The platform ammunition of excitement may be expended in reviews when it should be reserved for the battle, lievenge sleeps, but never dies. Seven millions of Catholics, who arc also Britons, will not, and ought not to be, insulted with impunity. I'arsondom must stir the lire and blow the coal till its cluMdcs crack, else the orthodox couilagration may go out when it is most wanted, and the cold water of deliberation thrown upon it, may generate the steam of retaliation. Puseyisni declines tlie })aituership of universal Protestantism, and will have "all or none." Even the Bishop of Lonlcs of the Jewish Faith,'' or, in other words, Baron Rothschihrs creed. It is simple as truth. It believes that God is the Creator and sustainer of all — that he is One and idone— that he is a Spirit — that he is Internal — that he is the only proper object of religious worship — that the Hebrew I'rojdicts are true Projihets, of whom Moses was the chief — that the law given to him is that wliich is recorded in tlie Old Testament — that that law is immutable, like its author — that Gtid is tlie searcher of hearts, rewards those who kce)) his commandments and punishes those who transgress them — that the Messiah Avill come — that there will be a last day, and " a resurrection of the dead, as a memorial for ever and ever. Amen." ])r. Cumming may buy this creed in Hebrew and English for a penny. I will make a present of my co])y to the Bishop of Oxfoi'd for the asking. I will print it in r.vlauso in my next edition, if it is desired. Is there anything in that plniii and wise creed which should incajiacitate its professor from the offices of legislation i Compare it with the Confession of Faith, or the Thirty- nine Articles, and say, as an honest man, whether, as a secular, civil, political, and social guide, there is a word in it calculated to make its professor a bad subject, a bad neigh- bour, a bad rulci-, or a profane worsliipjier ? Is orthodoxy to run with the hai'e and hunt with the hounds ? Is it to crush the sjdritual liberty of Catholics because they profess to abet persecution, aud persecute the Jews because they do not lielieve as it does ? Here is the trial-test of the sincerity of the present clerical agitation. If they do not make men responsible to them for their belief, why do they deny civil rights to Israel? If they do make themselves lords of the conscience, what plea have they for becoming inquisitors upon Rome ? The Jews keep "the faith once delivered to the prophets" — their prophets are ours — their commanroaches — I will be at my post, as sure as mv name is plain Bow Bell, .III Saint's Ihnj. ' ' ' JOHN BULL. SPEECH OF THE VERY KEY. THE DEAX OF BRISTOL (DR. GILBERT ELLIOTT). At a Mcdlncj of Clergymen, held at Bristol, Gi/i JVovcmLer, 1850. After some preliminary remarks, the Dean spoke as follows : — The Po])e lias determined to place the Episcopate, which he had hitherto exercised in I'.ogland through Vicars Apostolic, on the same footing in every sense (as 1 understand) with the Episcopate which at present exists amid the Roman Catholics of Ireland. He has determined also to extend the Roman Episcopate in England. The Pope might ha%'e carried out his eletermination in a calm and unobtrusive manner, i)lcading the spiritual wants of those who adhere to his communion in England. If he had thus done, the act ought, nevertheless, to liavc arrested attention, and to have caused most anxious iiujuiry. The reason for the change and extension ought to have been considered; and if it were found true that Romanism had increased, and was increasing;, ordy too much reason would have been given for the anxiety which has brought us here to-day, and for the impression that I presume wc all entertain that a duty lies on us, in God's name and under God's grace, to stem and abate the evil. But the Pope has thought tit to carry out his determination iu no such quiet, or unobtrusive, or apologetic manner. He has proclaimed his determination in terms of unwonted boasting, arrogance, and contumely. He seems purposely so to have culled his phrase, as might enable him, with most daring, to challenge the supremacy which this nation has placed in the Crown, and to bid defiance to the injunctions of its laws. He contents himself not with rule over those who voluntarily submit to him, but, as the delegate of C.od, claims dominion over every baptised soul within this realm. He comes amo- g us, not as e)nly tolerated annd a national Church, but upbraiding us as faithless to God, and branding us as heretics and outcasts. It would be more than strange if this utterly foolish, and presumptuous, and taunting con- duct had not excited correspondent feelings, indignation and resistance. Very undoubtedly, then, both the substance of the measure and its manner require separate consideration ; and the latter as undoubtedly demands, and I trust will meet with, ])roper reprobation. 15ut passions, when awakened, are apt to clamour tion ; hence their doctrine of an inherent righteousness in baptism, of justification by something else than faith ; hence their doctrine of purgatory (for this, in fact, if not in word, many Tractarians hold) ; hence their doctrine of communion for the dead, and the dead receiving refreshment from the priest offering sacrifice in their behalf ; hence their notion, with Rome, that it is enough if the ])riest transact the service of worsliip in the name and stead of those who only need to give their personal attend- ance; hence their indill'erencc that their services be conducted in a way " not understood of the people ;" hence the impious pride which distinguishes between the laity and the priest; hence the setting apart of the chancel, and the presence there of the Clergy only, because they are "more holy than others." And yet this verv error of a priesthood, to stand between man and God, and to control the ofhce and work of His Holy Spirit, this very error that God has instituted a visible hierarchy, set apart arbitrarily to govern and direct those baptised unto Him, 1 fear may, by a Tractarian, be said to lurk in one ))hrase of that memorial. I am most jierfectly aware that some who have signed that memorial and have done much true service in the Church of God, would rather have suffered their hand to have been burnt off than to have affixed their signature consciously to any thing which might, by any ingenuity, be wrested to the recognition of any such doctrine ; hut yet, I verily believe that position will be said to have been meant, to have been conveyed, and to be guarded in the phrase which speaks of "the schismatical intrusion upon the Bishop's rightful authority in the Church of Christ." I trust I may not appear pre- sumptuous, and I would not be thought to blame, but I must confess that as yet the only result that I have been able to see of the haste of the Protestants to meet what they call the emergency of this crisis, has been to strengthen the Tractarians. It seems to be agreed that no direct allusions should be made to them, that their errors should be overlooked, in order that they may be induced to commit themselves against Popery. Some concession is made to meet them, and that concession appears to me the acceptance of the very basis of all their error. Every artifice is made use of by the Tractarians and their friends to save this principle from condemnation, and even to obtain covertly its recognition. Wc condemn Popish doc- trines in the lump, and they aflhm they are ready to condemn Popish doctrines and practices also with us ; only, in their own mind, they reserve much of what we call Poi)isli, by calling it to thetnselves Catliolic. We think wc are carrying the Tractarians with us; in fact they are tricking us into su|)port of them. To them, this demonstration, so long as it be carried on in heedless, angry haste, is matter luncly of congratulation. It is as the tub thrown to the whale. By adhesion to the ambiguous declarations yet made they appear to coincide with us, and so disarm the long suspicion with which they have been watched, and obtain to themselves the freedom from observation so necessary to their unhallowed work. The I'.ishop of London desires his clergy to preach against Home ; but what right has the Church of England to jireach against Rome, if Tractarianism be consistent with the Church of England ? What right have we to condemn, if it can be retorted with truth, if it can be afiirmed, as it is vehemently affirn-.ed, by clergymen professing to be dutiful members of the Church of England, that in all ei-sential doctrines we arc the same with the Church of Rome? And how are we to grapple with Tractarian juacticcs, which the Bishops are either unwilling or unable to forbid ? How are we to deal with practices, with directions, with vcu- o//ices, ■with suspected Romish customs, when the Tractarians use their utmost endeavours to conceal what they arc, and the Bishojis will not drag them into light ? What hope have we to coun- tervail this direct effort to lead to Rome, if the Bishops will not interfere with a hand which, when they please, can be made sufficiently heavy and strong? Now let it be remembered, with burning shame before man and with deep sorrow and humi- liation before God, that it is from the Church of England that Popery has viainlif derived the emivcrts (f u'liich it honst.t. And let no one be SO wilfully blind as not to see that this is so because the Church of I'aigland has not been willing, or has not had strength, to repudiate and cast from it the Tractarian leaven. Is it not high time, then, that the Church should cease to be misrepresented and betrayed ? Is it not high time that the Tractarian treason should no longer be permitted to train converts 1o Rome, that Tractarian presumption should no longer ride rough-shod over the really faithful and mourning servants of the Church ? Are we to forget who taught us that it is better to pluck out a right eye, or cut off a right hand, than that the whole body should perish ? Surely the Reformation was meant to be something real. Surely it was not for what they deemed a shadow that our martyrs laid down their lives. Why came they out of Rome, and called her Babylon, and her throne that of Antichrist, and built up another Church, if they did not mean that Church to be a witness against Rome, and to draw men out of the road which was in darkness and which led to destruccion, unto that which led to the glorious liberty of the children of God, and unto consolations here, and salvation here- 10 after? Surely we owe it to our country, and mucli niore we owe it to our Saviour, that we should do something to preserve this Church to llim. We should fear, for tlie sake of worldly policy, to be found by Him neither hot nor cold. Surely we are not wrong, if we think it to be that God, in His most kind providence, has now opened up to us a great opportunity for ■vindicating the noble and beautiful Church which He has committed to oin- charge; for attracting again to us the too much abated confidence of our people ; for evincing before him, by our tidelity and courage, that we can yet value it as the next great mercy and blessing to the unspeakable blessing of His revelation in Christ, that He gave to man the wonderful and glorious Reformation. THE QUEEN AND THE rOPE. The follovvine: Address of the Catholics of En;zland to her Majesty, from the pen of his Kiui- hence Cardinal Wiseman — a fact which gives additional importance to it — "has been lyinji; at the various Catholic churches and chapels, with the view of obtaining signatures to it, to testify to the loyalty of the Catholics of England to " Her Majesty's royal person, crown, and dignity :" — "TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. " May it please your Majesty, — We, the undersigned subjects of your Majesty, residina; in England, and professing the Roman Catholic relipion, beg to approach your R'lajesty's throne, there to express our sentiments of unimpaired and unalterable fidelity to your Majesty's royal person, crown, and dignity. " At a moment when attempts are being made to impeach our loyalty, we consider it a duty to give fresh utterance to those our feelings. " During centuries of exclusion from the privileges of the constitution, and from the rights enjoyed by their fellow-subjects, the Catholics of I'aigland reni.-iined true to their allegiance to the Crown of tliis realm, and yielded to, none in their readiness, at all times, to defend its rights and its prerogatives against every foe. And nf)w that, under your Majesty's wise rule, we enjoy eipial participation with others in the benefits of the cf)nstitution, we are more than ever animated with the same sentiments of fidelity and attachment, and are equally ready to give proof, whenever occasion may present itself, of the sincerity of our loyal professions. "The dearest of the privileges to which we have thus been admitted, by the wisdom of the British Legislature, is that of ojienly professing and jiractising the religion of our fathers, in communion with the See of Rome. Under its teaching we have learned, as a most sacred lesson, to give to Cajsar the things that are of Ca?sar, as we give to God the things that are of God. In whatever, therefore, our Church has at any time done for establishing its regular system of government amongst its members in this island, we beg most fervently and most sincerely to assure your Majesty that the organisation granted to ns is entirely ecclesiastical, and its authority purely spiritual. But it leaves untouched every tittle of your Majesty's rights, authority, power, jurisdiction, and prerogative, as our Sovereign, and as Sovereign over these realms, and does not in the leastwise diminish or impair our i)rofound reverence, our loyalty, fidelity, and attachment to your Majesty's august person and throne ; and we humbly assure your Majesty, that among your Majesty's subjects there exists no class who more solemnly, more continually, or more fervently pray for the stability of your Majesty's throne, for the preservationof your Majesty's life, and for the prosperity of your Majesty's empire, th.'in the Catholics of England, in whose religion loyalty is a sacred duty, ""d obedience a Christian virtue." The Fifth Series \A\\ contain an elaborate analysis and review of Cardinal Wiseman's " Appeal to the People of England," and Leading Articles of Times, Unih/ Nnvx, Jlfornintf Jlirtilil, M(inii)ii^ CUroniele and H/nrjiiin;' /'o\/. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILBERT, 10, I'ATRRNOS'I'KR-ROW. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION, CARDINAL WISEMAN'S APPEAL (ANALYSED AND REVIEWED), AND THE LEADING ARTICLES OP THE "TIMES/' "DAILY NEWS/' AND "MORNING POST." An Apj^eal to the Reason and Good Feeling of the Enylish People, on the snbject of the Catholic Hierarchy. Bv Cardinal Wiseman. London : Richardson and Son. 1850. Pp. 32. TO ENGLISHMEN, IRISHMEN, AND SCOTCHMEN. Fellow-Countrymen, — There arc three ways in which the "Three Denominations," to use a polemical phrase now so much in fashion, may live together — for live togetlicr we must. We arc triangularly married, politically, geographically, and socially. We may dwell together like other married folks, merely because we can't help ourselves, on scarcely speaking terms. Wo may adopt the cat-and-dog plan of partnership, scratching and snarling at the same hearth ; or we may pass our days like loving spouses, each doing their part to make their com- mon cheerful fire-side the abode of mutual security, comfort, confidence, and i)eacc. Con- ciliation Hall recommends the first jilan, the Prime Minister advises the second, and Cardinal Wiseman prefers the third, by precept and example. As dismemberment is better than civil war, I think of the two former alternatives, the first is the least dangerous. Divorce is preferable to strife. Better that snarling dogs should each hunt his own separate ground, than that they should be buckled in a leash to sit and bite, when they should be pursuing their common game. Better still, that, as our interests, origin, language, and history are the same, we should, " if it be possible, as much as in us lies, live at peace with all men." The Prime Minister has wounded the self-respect, the feelings, and the faith of one-third of the Queen's subjects, and by far the largest single religious denomination in the empire. The Lord High Chancellor, in his INlansion House (loving) cups, volunteered his hollow offering of afl'cctcd bigotry to fat-cared ignorance and " wholesome" civic prejudice. And the Lord Chief Justice (if we are to credit the Tiwfs report), with a jaunty Jcfl'erics jocularity, the good feeling of a Scroggs, and the praiseworthy earnestness of an Oates, suggested that he might have 1o try as criminals a Sovereign in Europe, and the ecclesiastical chief of the most jiopulous sect in the Empire. It but required the resurrection of that zealous anti-papist, Dennis the hangman, with the Protestant Manual in the one hand, and the halter in the other, to have rendered the judicial establishment complete. I trust Sir Peter Laurie will not lose a moment in looking up Calcraft's principles, and putting him down, if he has wandered from the faith of his predecessor. Let him hint that we must have no boggling about knotty points — that we must ilraic the line somewhere — that we cannot drop the subject, or give him ro])e cnoiirih. He that is not for us, is against us ; and in these ticklish times we must not only have staunch judges, but consistent and faithful finishers of the law, as in the good old George Gordon times, when George the Third was King. I must put the question to myself and to you, "\^'hat is all this to end in ? Arc we to go back to persecution, ox* onward to the full measure of religious liberty ? Are ve to emancipate the Jews, or rc-enslavc the Catholics? It is one thing to keep from a man that which ho never had, and another to take back what wc have given. While the people inherited the curse of the Corn-laws it was practicable to tax their bread. The ports are now open : let me sec the man or ISIinistcr who will dare to shut them. There are eight millions of Eoman Catholics in these our islands, of our own flesh and blood, enibued with our own free spirit, British in heart, in thought, in love of liberty. Fifth Series— Trice Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution. [ [James Gilbert, 49, Fatcrnoster-row ; 0/ whom ma;/ lie lind " The Eoman Cntholic Question," Nos. I. to IV., price Id. each. [E.NTEBED AT STATI0?!EBS' HALL. We may outvote those who have so often helped us to outvote our eneuiies. We may carry Acts of Parliament by storm, to dishonour the Fathers of their faith, to outrage their feelings, and do violence to their deepest and most sensitive convictions. But a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot afford to part with the sympathies, the nationality, the loyalty, the cordial union of a third of our own numbers, even if the rest were all heartily combined against them, and thei'e never had been a 10th of April in our annals. Of all sources of civil distraction, religious strife is the bit- terest. Since ministers of religion have become demagogues and incendiaries, it is time that you and I, fellow-subjects and fellow- citizens, interested in the peace of our hearths, the happiness of our homes, the neighbourly communion of mutual kind offices, and the strength and glory of our country, which disunion would imperil, and distraction destroy, should come to a perfect understanding of our interests and our rights, and " Leave all meaner tliiugs To low ainhition, and the pride of IchujsP We must be statesmen, when statesmen become alarmists. We must think for the nation, when our natural guides hatch anarcliy in the closet, and bring forth tumult in the press. The people of these realms must stand by each other and their own order, when the depositaries of our institutions, the trustees of the powers of faith and opinion, con- spire to invoke the spirit of discord among the Commons, to beat the pulpit drum eccle- siastic to the gcnerale of violence, and to trade in popularity upon prejudices which should be forgotten, ignorance of which we should be ashamed, and ancient grudges which wise men would hide, and prudent men would bury. Thieves get up street mobs, that in the confusion of the scramble they may have room to ply their trade. We can only save our pockets from being picked of our liberties, by keeping out of the crowd until the streets are cleared. Leave parsons and prelatists their platforms, parish meetings, and petitions. " Rubbing the poor itch of their opinion," the operation of " claw me claw thee" is the natural compact of the infected. Curates address bishops, and bishops graciously reply. Chapters read memorials to deans, that deans suspected of Puseyism may have the advantage of a public recantation. A pander press prints the gentle dulness ; and because the columns of the journals ai'e full of fudge, men bamboozle each other into the belief that the whole nation is at their back. Let these gentlemen alone. They can get on, or at least seem to get on, very well without us. If peaceable scot-and-Iot citizens will but keep the house, the rioters will be marked, and the riot will cease. I have read Cardinal Wiseman's appeal to you, to myself, to all of us. If it has beguiled some of their tears, you yourselves shall judge whether they were drops of weakness, or the dew which sometimes wells out of the justice of the English heart. It has flushed the cheek as well as moistened it — for it has given Protestants cause to blush for Protestantism. But here, like a garrulous host, I linger on the threshold, when the guest would enter and seat himself at the feast. Bear with me, for I am an editor, and, like other commentators, I am given to bury the text in my notes. The appeal commences with an INTRODUCTION, which gives a brief history of the hierarchical state of the British Roman Catholic Church from the early period of its persecution in 1023, until 1850. It shows that so long as it was illegal to have a regular hierarchy, the Church was ruled by vicars apostolic, directly the nominees and servants of the Papal see ; that the people desired and frequently beseeched the Vatican to grant them an independent and national hierarchy, so that they might be removed from foreign influences and command the administration of their own ecclesiastical economy ; that so far was the Pope from desiring to adopt the step which is now so fiercely denounced and grossly misrepresented, that public State documents record the repeated refusal of the Court of Rome to com])ly with the reiterated and urgent entreaties of the British Catholics to do that which has now been rather wrung from, than suggested by, the supi'cme Pontiff; and that if there is any impropriety in the act, the Queen has to settle her account, not with the Vatican, which reluctantly conceded, but with eight millions of her Majesty's own subjects, who demanded, and are no doubt prepared to maintain, their lawful rights. "Such was llie main and solid ground on wliicli llie hierarchy was liumhly solicited hy Catholics from tlie Holy See. It was one that referred to their own internal organisation exclusively. Thoughts of aggression never entered the heads of the petitioners or the petitioned ; nor were the hishojis moved by slupid ideas of rivalry wilh the Established Church, in what forms its weakness, nor any absurd defutnce of national preju- dices. They knew that they violated no law in asking for «hat was needful lor their religious existence, and they acted on an acknowledged right of liberty of conscience. "Other motives were added, to show the expediency of granting this boouto the English Catholics; as, for example, that it had been granted to Australia, and was about to be granted to other colonies, without complaint from any one ; and it looked like a reju-oach to the mother country to withhold from it what Jiad been granted to its daughters. "All this time there was no coucealraent, no attempt to take people by surprise. All Catholics knew of the intended measure ; the papers announoed it ; so notorious was it, tliat the Dean iind Chapter of West- minster petitioned Parliament against it ; and a friend of the writer's heard tlie Dean of Westminster say, most openly, ' Well, he may call himself what lie pleases, hut at least he can never be Dean of Westminster.' " Bravo, ])ean ! When the clerk told the rector that the flock were leaving the church, and going over the hill to the Methodist chapel, he wisely retorted, " I)' ye see any of the titlu going over the hill to the Methodist chapel?" Times are altered, and mankind have degene- rated. The flock have now an awkward habit of carrying away the fleece on their back. In these days of economy and free-trade, the world begins to pay only for what it gets, and to buy not only the bread that perishes, but the bread of life, in the cheapest market. Unless the ptoplc can be stirred up to cry, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" what is to become of the goldsmiths? When the gamekeeper's wages depend upon finding game, it is time to look after the poachers. The APPEAL to which the foregoing is an abstract of the Introduction, opens with a vigorous sketch of the instrumentalities of the excitement which it is the object of the writer to allay. "Unpa- ralleled" in the history of modern agitation, violent as a whirlwind, its fury rendered a claim to a hearing impossible. A pause ensued, only to brew the storm. The newspapers of all shades and every humour combined to crush, denounce, and execrate. " Nothing was refused, however unfounded, or however personal, even by papers whose ordinary tone is courteous — or at Icait lo ell- bred." "Every invocablc agency, from the Attorney-General to Guy Eawkes, from d^ pra-munire to a hustling, was summoned forth to aid the cry, and administer the ven- geance of those who raised it." " There soon sprung up from amidst the first confusion, a clearer and more natural agent, interested in promoting it." The Established Churcli looks ujjon the new constitution as a rival existence, " and it is but natural that its clergy should keep up an excitement whicli beam the appearanee uf attachment to themselves." (Really, this is too bad !) By degrees the agitation has subsided into a "mere clerical and parochial movement." (Worse and worse !j "At (he present crisis, the Catholics of England had no right to expect any co-operation from the Govern- ment of the country — tlicy asked for none ; but they had the right of every citizen to impartiality. They naturally miiijht have expected that he lo whom was entrusted the helm of the Shde u-oidd keep himself above those influences of party-fceliiuj which disqualify the mind for tjrarc and (jcncrous counsels ; would preserve himself uncommitted htj any hasty or unofficial expression of opinion ; would remain on the neutral ground of his public responsibility, to chec/c excess on every side, and moderate dangerous tendencies in any party. Instead of this, the head of her Jlajesty's Govcrnracut has astonished, not this country alone, hut all Europe, by a letter wliich leaves us hut little hope that any appeal to the high authority which rules over the empire would be received, to say the least, with favour. "But another and a still graver power in the State lias allowed itself to he swayed, by the passing blast, from the upright and inflexible position which Eughslimen have ever considered natural to it : been accus- tomed to feel sure that the fountains of justice would retain their surface calm and unruflled, and their waters cool and pure. But on the present occasion the storm has been strong enougli to disturb tiic very spring of cijuity. Instead of waiting till, from the woolsack or the bench, he might have been called upon to speak with impartial solemnity on what may be thought a momentous cpicstion, the Lord Iligh Chan- cellor has preferred xo deliver his award against us from behind the fables of a Mansion-house banquet, and to elicit the anti-Popish cheers of his civic companions [^Is this to be borne?], rather than the hononred approbation of the peerage of the bar. llis compeer in high judicial duties sat by and listened ; was indig- nant, and justly censured ; should he survive to be his biographer, let him, for the honour of More's crm'ne, suppress the undignified and un-English jjhrases lohich he heard ; for no one here, however raised up, has a right to talk of placing his keel vpon even the covering of another's head, who, however humble, is as much a British subject and a freeman as himself, and claims equal protection from, as he pays equal deference to, the law of his country. "AVhile thus the avenues to public justice seem closed against us; while the press has condemned and raised our death-whoop, in spite of proferred explanations, deaf to every call for a fair hearing ; while we may consider that the door of the Treasury may be barred against us, if we knock to ask, not for pensions or funds [It is of no use for Papists to look to Downing-street for drops of fatness, which are only to be found in the paths of waiters upon Protestant Providence], but for a reasonable hearing ; when the very high.est judicial authority has prejudged and cut olf aU appeal from us ; what resources have we yet left? what hope of justice? One in which, after God's unfiiiliug Providence, we place unbounded confidence. There still remain the manly sense and honest heart of a generous jjcople ; that love of honourable dealing aiul fair play which, in joke or in earnest, is equally the instinct of au Englishman ; that hatred of all mean advantage taken, of all base tricks and paltry clap-traps and party cries employed to hunt down even a rival or a foe. [Is fair play, then, to be granted even to ' the Pope, the Devil, aud the Preteuder?' I trow not.] " To this open-fronted and warm-hearted tribunal I make my appeal, and claim, on behalf of myself and fellow Catholics, a fair, free, and impartial hearing. Eellow-subjects, Englishmen, be you, at least, just and equitable ! You have been deceived — you have been misled, both as to facts and as to intentions. I will be plain and simple, but straightforward and bold. I will be brief also, as far as I can, but as explicit as may be necessary. " I begin, therefore, at once, with — " Section 1. — Tlie Royal Supremacy, and Bishops named hyMe Crown. " At an early period Catholics used to be put to death for their denial of the kingly ecclesiasticiU supremacy. The QYCfdcst and bcsl of English jvjf/es, Uic Chanrelhtr Sir Thoh;as More, uas beheaded fur (levying that supremacy, and mniniuininrj Hie Popes. " In the year 1S29 was passed the Catliolic Emancipation Act. By this, Catholics were freed from all obligation of swearing to, and consequentiy of acknowledging, the royal ecclesiastical suprenr\acy ; and an oath of allegiance was framed peculiarly for tlicm, wjiich cxchided all declaration of belief in that principle. "A Catholic, therefore, before 1829, in the eye of the law, was a person wlio did not admit the royal supremacy, and therefore was exehuled from full enjoyment of civil privileges. A Catholic after 1829, and therefore in 1850, is a person who still continues not to admit the royal supremacy, and nevertjielcss is admitted to full enjoyment of those privileges. " The royal su]]reniacy is no more admitted by the Scotch Kirk, by Bajitists, Methodists, Quakers, Inde- pendents, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and other Dissenters, than by the Catholics. Kone of these recognise in the Queen any authority to interfere in their religious concerns, to appoint their ministers for them, or to mark the limits of their separate districts in which authority has to be exercised. "None of these, any more than Catholics, recognise in the bishops appointed by our Gracious Queen, in virtue of her supremacy, any authority to teach them or rule them. The real sway, therefore, of this spiritual prerogative is confined to that body of Christians who voluntarily remain subject to the ecclesi- astical establishment called the Church of England. " "When, therefore, the Sovereign ajipoinfs a new bishop to a see, the Catholic, and I suppose the Dissenter, divides tlie act between two distinct powers. As Sovereign, and as a dispenser of dignities, tiie king or queen bestows on the person elected digniiy, rank, and wealth, lie is made a lord of Parliament, receives a designation and title, heromes seised of certain properties, which entitle him to fines, rents, and fees. [Yes, and means to keep them, too, so long as law can keep down that dangerous sj)irit of Jacobin innovation which won't let us sleep quietly in our beds. What is tlie i'iltli of November good for, if squibs and crackers can- not preserve our tithes?] To all this they assent ; they may protest, but they do not refuse the honours due to one whom the king is pleased to honour. The title is accorded, be it ' His Lordship' or ' His Grace' [It is in vain to protest against these vulgar sarcasms, lie will fling a text at our heads about the Gentiles exercising ' lordship,' while so it shall not be among Christians] ; his peerage is admitted, with all its con- sequent distinctions, and his fines and fees are paid as to any other landlord. [Is not this an act of schism?] " If, in virtue of this commission, the bishop publicly teaches or denies, as the case may he, the doctrine of laptisnial regeneration, [Why rip up old sores?] a Catholic no more heeds his teaching tlian he dors that of a Dissenting minister. If he comes into a town, and invites all to com.e and be contirmed by him on a given day, no Catholic takes more notice of the call than he does of the jiarish beadle s notices, among which it is fastened on the church door. [Let this be a hint to 'keep ourselves more select.'] If he appoints a triennial visitation, for correction of abuses and hearing of complaints, no Catholic troubles himself about his coming. And what the Catholic docs in regard to those fiiiiclions of an Anglican bishop, an Independent does just as much. " The commission given to civil and military ofllcers flo^s from the temporal sovereignty, which none may impugn ; while that to the ecclesiastical luncfionuries proceeds from the spiritual jurisdiction, which may be, and is, lawfully denied. "When a Dissenter denies the royal supremacy (always meaning by this term the spiritual or eccle- siastical jurisdielion attributed to the Crown), he substitutes, perhaps, for it some other authority in some synod or conference, or he admits of none other to take its place; but when the Catholic denies it, it is because be believes another and a true ecclesiastical and spiritual supremacy to reside in tlie Pope, or Bishop of Rome, over the entire Catholic Church. With him the two acts resolve themselves into one — denial of the royal supremacy and assertion of the Papal supremacy. And as it is perfectly lawful for him to deny the one, so it is equally lawful for him to assert the other. Hence Lord Chancellor Lyndiiurst, in the House of Lords, May 11th, 1816, spoke to the following efl'ect: — " ' He said that it was no crime in the Roman Catholic to maintain and defend the supremacy of the Pope; but that if he did it for mischievous purposes, and circulating immoral doctrines and opinions, he was liable to punishment by the common law ; but if he merely maintained and defended, as he was hound to do, the spiritual autliority of his superior, then he said that he was guilty of no olTence against the laws of the country. The right rev. in-elatc (the Bishop of Exeter) liad'asked his opinion and that of the learned judges as to tlie right of the Roman Catholics to maintain and defend the supremacy of the Pope in spiritual niatters. He said that it was no otl'ence at common law for them to do so.' "The bishops and clergy are, of course, turning the crisis to their own best advantage, and associating their jirctcnsions with the rights of the Sovereign. They are endeaviiuring, and will endeavour, to regain that influence which they have lost over the hearts of the peojile, and think to replace, by one burst of fanaticism, the religious ascendancy which years have worn away. But this will not be permitted them by a people too much euliyhteued on the subject of religious toleration, as enjoyed in England, to be easily fooled out of the privileges which it possesses. The nation will watch with jealousy any attempt to curtail or to narrow them, even though Catholics be the victims. ]5elieve me, at this moment, tlie danger to the religious and civil liberties of Englishmen is not from any infringement on them li\ the Pojie, in granting to English Catholics what I hope to show you that they had full right to obtain fVom iiini,bi.t from those who are t(d;ing advantage of the occurrence to go bach a step if they can in the legislation of toleration, and take away from a large body of Englishmen what at present Is lawful to them in the regard to the free exercise of tlieir religion." This is what Dr. Cumming and his associate of Exeter avow. They decry the Emancipation Act as a blunder, and call for its repeal. Even the Minister hints in his letter a doubt of its results, and a disapiiointmeiit in his anticipations of its ctVects. Nay, he pledges himself, if the law is not strong enough to persecute, to make a law with which Truro may work and Campbell may grapple, if, upon mature deliberation, it may he advisable to legislate upon the subject. We shall see — what we shall see ; and so will the Catholic mcmbersin both Houses. Meanwhile, with the Cardinal, we shall consider the answer to the inquiry: — '• jSjdioji '2. — Jf-'/ial was the Exlenl of RdhjUjii-t Tolcralloii granted io (JalhoUcs ? Have they a r'ujhl to jnossess JSis/iojjs or a Hierarchy ? " Tlie Act of Catholic Emaiu'ip.iliou was oonsiileicd, not only liy those wliom it benefited, hut by all who consented to it, as an act of juslicc rather than of favour. It was deemed unjust to exclude from fair participation iu cousiitutioiial rights any Englislmiaii ou account of his religious opiuions. By this act, therefore, preceded and followed by many others of lesser maguitude, tlie Catholics of the British empire were admitted U) complete toleration — that is, were made as free as any other class of persons to profess aud practice their religion in (-very respect. ' If the law,' obsetved Lord L\ndhurst, 'allowed the doctrines and discipline of the ilomau Catholic Church, // should be allowed to be cirricd oii /jerfcctly and properly.' " Hence to have told Catholics ' Vou have i)erfiK't religious liherty, ijut you sliali not teach that the Church canuot err ; or, you have complete toleration, but you must not presume to believe holy orders to be a sacrament,' would have been nugatory and tyrannical. "Now, holy orders require hishops to adminisler them, eonsetpieiitly a succession of bishops to keep up a succession of persons in orders. " Hence tin; Catholic Church is esNCntially episcopal ; and to say, ' You Catholics sliall have complete religious toleration, but you shall not have bishops among yo\i to govern you,' would have been a complete contradiction in terms — it would have amounted to a total denial of religious toleration. " When, therefore, emancipation was granted to Catholics, full powin- was given them to have an episcopate — that is, a body of bishops to rule them in communion u itli the I'ope, the avowed head of their Church. " To have said to Catholics, ' You are perfectly free to practise your religion, and to have your own Church government, but you shall not be free to have it in its ' proper and perfect' form, but only in tite imperfect form in which it has been tolerated while you had not liberty of conscience,' would have been a tyranny, and, in fact, a denial of tliat very liberty ot conscience. " But the fact is a simple and plain one, that the law did not say so, and did not put on any such restriction: and we are to be governed bylaw, and not by assertions. If the Catholics are at liberty by law to have bishops at all, they are as much at liberty to hare local bishops as to have vicars apostolic." Nothing can be more unanswerable than this to any except those who, seeing as if they did not see, know as if they did not nnderstand. To ;ulopt any other eonstrnction of the dealings of the nation with the implied compact of peace with the Irish ii.ition and the English Catholics, wouKl be to convert u charter of liberty into a ciingc d'clirc, which gives the chapters leave to elect any bishop they please of their own free choice, bnt threatens them with a prtf-miuiirf if they elect anyone bnt the Queen's nominee. Well may the Archbishop of Westminster ask — " Then why all the clamour that has been raised? On what ground does the attack made upon us rest? Why have \\e been denounced — why held up to imblic haired? Why pointed out to public fury? 1 have not seen one paper which, during the violence of the storm, thought it worth while to look into the question of law, and calmly inquire — -' Have tlie Catholics violated or gtnic beyond the law of the land ? If not, why should they he thus perseveringly abused?' " Is it because the Church of England is supposed to he attacked by this measure of the Catholic Church, or its securities are threatened? This is the great ami natur.d grievance of the Anglican clergy in their remonstrances. To this I reply, first, that, even when, in the Emancipation Act, Catholic bishops were restrained from taking the very titles held by the .\nglican, this restriction was not intended or sup- posed to give the slightest security to the Englisli Church. Speaking of it, the Duke of Wellington remarked, that ' the [restrictive] clause was no security ; but it would give satisfaction to the United Church of England and Ireland. According to the laws of England, the title of a diocese belonged to persons appointed to it by his Majesty ; bnt it was desirable that others appointed to it by an assumed authority should be discountenanced, aud that was the reason why the clause was introduced. This was one of the instances wliich showed how ditlicnlt it was to legislate upon this subject at all. He was aware that this clause gave no security to the I'lstablished Church, nor strengthened it in any way ; but it was inserted to give satisfaction to those who were disturbed by this assumption of title by the Catholic clergy.' " Even, therefore, our being restrained from adopting its very titles could give no security to the Esta- blished Chundi ; so that we may eonclndc that still less seciuaty would be given to it by our bciur/ forbidden to assume tiflcs which are not theirs. The legislation on this subject had clearly no bearing on the security of the Church of Kngland ; and if we are to be considered guilty of an aggression against her, and have to be dealt with by fresh penal legislation, for the purpose of proppiiuj her up, I do not sec where you can iiio\), roiisiste/dly, short of forbid'/iny Catho'ii-s to hare any bishops at all. You canuot make a law that they shall only be governed by vicars-apostolic, which would be acl.iiowledyiny directly the Pope's power in the realm {which the rroicstaitt bishops vnder oath cannot do) ; still less can you proceed to forbidding them to have hishops of any sort, which would put them, back i/do a worse condition than they were during the. operation of the penatJaws. Any step backward is a trenching on the complete toleration granted us. "The appointment of a Catholic hierarchy docs not in any way deprive the English Establishment of a single advantage which it now possesses. Its bishops retain, and, for anything that the new bishops will do, may retain for ever, their titles, their rank, their social position, their pie-eniincnce, \\\v\v domestic comforts, their palaces, their lands, their incomes, without diminution or alteration. U'hatcrer satisfaction it has been, to you till now to see them so elevated above their Catholic rivals, aud to have their vants so amply prodded for, you will still enjov as much as hitherto. And the same is to be said of the second order of clergy, "Not "an areheaconry, o"r deanery, or canonry, or benefice, or liciny, will be taken from them, or claimed by the Catholic priesthood. The outward aspects of the two Churches will be the same. The Catholic episcopacy and the Catholic priesthood will remain, no doubt, po:r, unnoticed by the great, and by the powerful {so soon as the present commotion shall hare subsided), without social ran'c or pre-eminence. If there be no security for the English Church, in this overwhelming balance in its favour of worldly advantages, surely the exclusion of Catholics from the possession of local sees will not save it. It really appears to be a wish on the part of the clerical agitators to make people believe, tliat some tangible possession of something solid in their respective sees has been bestowed upon the nev>- bishops— ' something territorial,' as it has been called. Time will unmask the deceit, and show that not mi inrli of land, or a shilling of money, has been taken from Protestants and given to Catholics." Flesh and blood really cannot bear this ! Why should a doubt be insinuated of the eagerness of the people to secure "domestic comforts, palaces, lands, and incomes," to such a deserving body ?^a Church that indeed measures its own deserts by -what it takes, a good deal more accurately than by what is given to it. And why this cruel cut about inches of land, or shillings of money. Does the satirist forget that he is speaking of the " Poor man's Church " — or, in other words, of the Church which makes a man poor? Oh, fie ! I thought he had known better ! But hear this : — "Nor is an attempt made to diminish any of the moral and religious safeguards of that establishment which views our new measure with such watchful jealousy. Whatever that institution has possessed or (lone lo influence the peojile or attach its affections, it will still possess and may continue to do. That clear, definite, and accordant teaching of the doctrines of their Chvrch, ihu.t familiaritg of intercourse and facility of access, that close and personal mutual acquaintance, that face to face huowledge of each other, that affectionate confidence and warm sympathy, which form the truest and strongest and most natural bonds heticeen a pastor and hisfioch, a bishop and his people, you will enjoy, to the full, as much as you have done till now. The new bishops will not have occasion to cross the path of the prelates of I he Anglican Establish- ment in their sphere of duty. They will find plenty to do, besides tlieir ofticial duties, in attending to the wants of their /)oor spiritual children, especially the multitudes of poor Irish, whose peaceful and truly Catholic conduct under the whirlwind of contumely \^hieli has just assailed tliem proves that they have not forgotten the teaching of their Church — not to revile when reviled, and when they suffer not to threaten." Now I do not know how this is relished by the establisheresent advantage, our religion docs advance, docs win over to it the learned, the devout, and the ebaritiblc — does spread itself widely among the poor and sim]>le — then you will not check its progress by forbidding a Catholic bishop to take the title of Hexham or of Clifton." This is wdiat a sensible rector would call a romantic notion. But luckily, it will only go for what it is worth. The idea of quitting the vantage-ground of State power, and betaking one's self to reason and logic, and all that sort of thing, is too ridiculous. "Those other realities " are what "prove the cause" of Anglicanism "to be divine," and will prove too strong for all the dialectics in the world. But to the next head of the discouso. "Section 3. — ITow could Catholics obtain their Hierarchy ? " We have seen that, not only we possess a full right by law to be governed by bishops, but that we have an equal right to be governed by tlicm according to the jiroper and perfect form of episcopal government, that is, by bishops in ordinary having their sees and titles in tlie country. " If we have a perfect right to all this, we have no less a perfect right to employ the only means by whidi to obtain it. " We have seen that Catholics are allowed by law to maintain the Pope's supremacy in ecclesiastical and religious matters, and one point of that supremacy is, that he alone can constitute a hierarchy or appoint bishops. Throughout the Catholic world (his is the same. Even where the civic power, by an arninge- nuiit with the Pope, names, that is proposes, a person to be a bishoi), he cannot be consecrated witiiout the Pojie's conriiniation (ir ncceiitancc ; ami if consecrated already, he can luive no power to perform any func- tions of his ofliee witlmut tlu' same sanction. " If, therefore, the Catholics of this country were ever to have a hierarchy at all, it could only be tlirough the Pope. Ho alone could tyrant it. " This is no new or iiiikiiouu doctrine ; it has long been familiar to our statesmen as well as to every one who has studied f'atliolic principles. " Lord Jolm llussell, in his speech in ihe House of Commons, August C, 1840, thus sensibly speaks on tlio subject : — ' It docs not appear to me that wc can possibly attempt to prevent the introduction of the Tope's bulls into this country. There are certniu bulls of tlic Pope which are absolutely necessary for the appoiutinont of bishops and i)astors belon;^ing to the Roman Catholic Church. It would be quite impossible to prevent tlu^ i)ilroductiou of such bulls.' "Lord Chancellor LyiuHiurst : ' They tolerated the Catludic prelates, and they knew (hat these prelates could not carry on tlieir Church establishments or conduct its discipline without holding communication with the Pojjo of Ptomo. No Roman CathoUc bishop could be created without the authority of a bull from the Pope of Rome ; and many of the observances of their Church required the same sanction. Tiie moment, therefore, that they sanctioned the observance of the Roman Catholic religion in this country, they by implication allowed the communication [witli the Pope] prohibited by this statute, and for wliich it imposed the penalties of high treason. If Vhe law allowed the doctrines and discipline of the Roman Catholic Clmrch, it should be permitted to be carried on perfectly and properly ; and that could not be without such communication. On these grounds he proposed to repeal the act.' (13th Eliz.) " These quotations prove that iu both Houses of Parliament the principle has been clearly laid down, that if Catholics arc to have bishops at all, the Pope, and the Pope alone, caa make them for them. Then it enters as completely into the principles of religious liberty that the Pope should name the hierarchy as that Catholics should have tlie right to possess one — a right as necessary for them as is for the Wesleyans that of having Conferences with superintendents." Now I need scarcely say that, as an intelligent successor of the Apostles — for a rural dean — observes, " all this is mere reuxoning." As the little Usher of the Black Rod said to Lord Tliiirloe, when he swore at hini and his "messages from the other House," "You may damn the House of Commons as much at you please, my lord, but you must not damn me '. " It is one thing for a Catholic prelate to take the titles of those vulgar fellows, the Methodists, but quite another to come too near the rights, privileges, and immunities of the Church established by law. Bumble must reign without a rival to his "own porochial authority." 1 am about to introduce a novelty in the pr.actice of editors — give a chapter of the text without a single commentary. Peiliaps some ingenious Church friend may help me out with a few notes in the next edition ; hut meanwhile I confess my inability to add a word of cri- ticism to the work of the author. " Section 4. — Does the appohdmcnt of a Catholic Hierarchy trench on the Prerogative of the Croion ? " This is, indeed, a delicate question ; and yet it must be met. Every address and every reply of bishops and clergy assumes that the royal prerogative has been assailed. "But this i.s nothing compared with the address to her Majesty, signed by some 100 members of the bar, to the eifect that, by this measure, ' a foreign potentate has interfered with her Majesty's undoubted pre- rogative, and has assumed the right of nominating archbishops and bishops in these reahus, and of con- ferring on them territorial rank and jurisdiction.' " One naturally supposes that those who signed Ibis memorial, being professionally learned in the law, have studied the question — liave come to a deliberate conclusion as to the truth of their assertion. On ordinary occasions one would bow to so overwhelming an authority ; on the present I think we shall not be wrong in demurring to its award. " There is one point which I would beg respectfully to suggest to the consideration of persons better versed in law than I am. " In this document, and in many other siraOar ones, including the Premier's letter, the Pope's acts are spoken of as real, and t;\king effect. The Pope has ' assumed a right,' he ' has parcelled out the land ;' he has named sirchbishops and bishops.' If, according to the oath taken by nou-Catliolics, the Pope not only ou;;bt not to have, but really ' has' not power or jurisdiction, ' spiritual or ecclesiastical,' in these realms, it follows that, according to them, the Pope's ecclesiastical acts with regard to England are mere nuUities, and are reputed to have no existence. " I am confirmed in this view by Lord John Russell's explanation of the Protestant oath. 'The oaths now taken arc not altered. We shall continue to take the oath, that "the Pope has not, " &c. ; though at the same time there is no doubt, in point of fact, that he exercises a spiritual authority in these realms. I have .always interpreted the oath to be, that in tlic opinion of the person taking it the Pope has not any jurisdiction which can be enforced by law, or ought not to have.' Now, no one for a moment imagines that the Pope, or the Catholics of England, or their bishops, dream that the appointment of the Hierarchy can be ' enforced by law.' They beUeve it to be an act altogether ignored by the law ; an act of spiritual jurisdiction, oidy to be enforced upon the consciences of those who acknowledge the Papal supremacy, by their conviction and their faith. " Has this assumption of titles been within the terms of the law ? Is there any law forbidding the assiunption of the title of bishop ? A certain Dr. DiUon assumed it, and ordained what he called Pres- byters, and no one thought of prosecuting him. The Moravians have bishops all over England; and so have the Irvingites, or ApostoUcals ; yet no one taxes them witli illegality." I am a Liberal as well as a Protestant, and would fain remain a "steady party-man." But I find myself in the predicament of the sister of the Horatii. If I stick by Lord John, I cut off his political tail; and if I hold on by the tail, what is to become of the head? A brother dies if love prevails, and a lover perishes if a brother triumphs. However, the fight must come off, and with all the impartiality of a critic let me breathe the heroic sentiment " May the thickest skin stand the longest out ! " Thus proceeds the Cardinal:— 8 " Section 5. — Has ihe Mode of Estalllslihuj the Hierarchi/ hcen ' Insolent and Insidious ." " The words in this title are extracted from the too memorable letter of the First Lord of the Treasury. I am williiif; to consider that production as a private act, and not as any manifesto of the intentions of her Majesty's Government. Unfortunately, it is difficult to abstract one's mind from the high and responsible situation of tlie writer, or consider him as unpledged by anything- he puts forth. There are parts of the letter on which I would here refrain from commenting, because they might lead me aside, iu sorrow if not in ansjer, from the drier path of my present duty. I will leave it to others, therefore, to dwell upon many portions of that letter, upon the closing paragraph in particular, which pronounces a sentence as awfully unjust as it was uncalled for on tjie religion of many millions of her Majesty's subjects, nearly all Ireland, and some of our most flourishing colonies. The charge, uttered in the ear of that island, in which all guarantees for genuine and pure Catholic education will of necessity be considered, in future, as guaran- tees for ' conllning the intellect and enslaving the soul ;' all securities for the Catholic religion as security for the ' mummeries of superstition,' in the mind of their giver ; guarantees and securities which can hardly be believed to be heartily otfered ; the charge thus made, in a voice that has been applauded by the Protest- antism of England, produces in the Catholic lieart a feeling too sickly and too deadening for indignation ; a dismal despair at finding that, where we have honoured and sujiported and followed for years, we may be spurned and cast otf the first moment that popularity demands us as its price or Ijigotry as its victim." If this be a specimen of the cardinal virtues, it is clear that "virtuous indignation" is one of Ihem. He has forgotten that he wears a hat, and that in iMigland a cardinal's hat is a caput-u\ offence, to say nothing of the red stockings which usurp the uniform of her Majesty's Church militant, the regiments of the line. Besides, although farthingales are obsolete, they are not repealed, and our grandmothers can tell us that to that truly British habiliment cardi- nals bear a dangerous resemblance. And what is a Protestant storm but a farthing-gale, a tea-cup tempest, a hurricane of church organ bellows? Those who can smell a rat should get their noses ready. The foregoing quotation must have prepared the reader, as it has done many zealous country clergymen, for what they call " a great deal of stuff." I wish \\ could get rid of it with that brief, free and easy dismissal ; but my business is to edit, not to skip, and I must proceed on my " Canterbury Pilgrimage" with such palmers as choose to follow me. "It was notorious that not ouly in Ireland the Catholic hierarchy had been recognised and even royally honoured, but that the same forjii of ecclesiastical government had been gradually extended to the greater part of our colonies. Australia was the first which oljtained this advantage, by the erection of the arehiepisco]ial see of Sydney, with suifragans at ]\Iaitland, llobart Town, Adelaide, Terth, Melbourne, and Port Victoria. 'J'hose prelates, iu every document, take their titles, and they are acknowledged and salaried, as archbishop and bishops respectively, and this not by one, but by successive Governments. "Our North American possessions next received the same boon. Kingston, Toronto, Bytowu, Halifax, have been erected into dioceses by the Holy See. Those titles are acknowledged by the local Governments. In an act ' enacted by the Queen's excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the province of Canada,' (12th Vic., chap. loC.,) the Right Ilev. J.E.Guignes is called ' Roman Catholic Ijishop of Bytown,' and is incorporated by the title of ' the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Bytowu.' "In an act passed March 21, 1849 (12th Vic, chap. 31), the Right Rev. Dr. Walsh is styled 'Roman Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Halifax, Nova Scotia.' " Lately, again, after mature consideration, the Holy Sec has formed a new ecclesiastical province in the West Indies. "Galway was not an episcopal see till a few years ago. The Holy See changed the wardensliip into a bishopric, and appointed the Right Rev. Dr. Brown, since translated to Elphin, first bishop of that diocese. " In 1 842 her Majesty \\ as advised to erect, and did erect (."i Victoria, chap. C^^, a bishopric of Jerusalem, assigning to it a diocese in which the three great Patriarchates of Autioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were mashed into one see, having ei)isco]ial jurisdiction over Syria, Clialdea, Egypt, and Abyssinia, subject to further limitations or alterations at the royal will. No one supposes that, for instance, the consent of the King of Abyssinia, iu \;liieh there is not a single Protestant congregation, was asked, ilr. Bowyer also shows that J5ishop Alexander was not sent merely to British subjects, but to others owing no allegiance fo the Crown of England. Suppose his Majesty of Abyssinia or the Emir Beshir had pronounced this to_ be an intrusion ' inconsislent witli the rights of bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual ir.dependencc ol the nation,' how much would this country have cared? " Under the same statute a Bishop of Gibraltar was named. His see was in a British t(!rritory ; but its jurisdiction extended over ]\Iidta — where there was a Roman Catholic archbishop, formally recognised by our Government as the Bishop of Malta — and over Italy. " Under this commission Dr. Tomlinson olliciafed in Rome, and, I understand, had borne before him a cross, the eii'blem of archiepiscopal jurisdiction, as if to ignore in his very diocese the acknowledged ' Bishop of Rome.' He conlirmed and preached tliere \> ithout leave of the lawful bishop, and yet the news]ia]iers look no notice of it, and the puljiits did not denouiu'c him. But, in fact, the statute under which iliese things were done is so coniprehcusivc, that it empowers the Archbishops of Canterbury or York to consecrate not only British subjects, but subjects and citizens of any foreign state, to be bishops in any foreign country. No consent of the respective Governments is recpiired ; and they are sent not only to British subjects, but (o ' sucli other Piotestanl congregations as may he desirous of placing themselves under his or their authority.' " If, therefore, the royal s\ipreniacy of the English Crown could thus lawfully exercise itself where it never has before exercised authority, and when! it is not recognised, as in a Catholic country— -if the Queen, as head of Ihe iMiglish Church, can send bishops into Aliyssinia and Italy, surely Catholics had good right fo supjiose that, with the full toleration grant<' would Ijc ]icrniitled to them without censure or rcljul.e.'' a Doctor Tonilin.son otttciiited at Rome ! Then the igiioring of established bishops has not been all on one side, and the Queen's prelate has committed an act of schism ! I see how It js — tiie Cardinal's invasion of England was "insolent and insidious," but Tondinsou's intrusion into Rome was only an act of " true and manly IJritisli spirit." The awkward part of the affair is, that we are not allowed to enjoy a monopoly of toleration and Christian forbearance, but must be contented to go snacks in liberality and charity with the " man of sin and the son of per- dition!" It is clear that, unless we take to persecution, we shall not be able to keep up the distinction betwixt a Protestant Bishop and a Pope. "In I81d, or ISlx', wlieu fur the fu'st time the Holy See thought of erecting a hierarchy in North America, I was cuinmissioiiecl to sound the feelings of the Governmeut on the subject. I shall not etisily forg(!t the url)anity of my reception, or the interesting conversation that took place. U\\ the subject of my mission, tlu! answer given (by Lord Stanley) was somewhat to this elTect : — ' Wliat does it matter to lis what you call yourselves, whether Vicars-A])ostolic, or ISishops, or Muftis, or Imauins, so that you do not ask us to do anything tor you P Wc have no right to |)rcvent you taking any title among yourselves.' lu the debate on the Catholic llelief Bill, Lord John llussell sjioke to the following elfect :—' lie believed that they might repeal tiiu.se disallowing clauses which prevented a Pioman Catiiolic bishop assuming a title held by a bisliop of the Kstaljlished Church, lie could not conceive; any good ground for the eontmuanee of this restriction As to preventing persons assuming particular titles, nothing could bo more absurd and puerile than to keep up kucIi a distinction.' " I (piute liaise passages, nut fur the purposeof charging Lord John Russell with incousistency, but merely to justify ourselves, and siu)w how little reason we eir press which sends forth caricatures of ecclesiastical dignitaries or throws ridicule on clerical avocations. With us the cause of truth and of faith has been held too sacred to be advocated in any but honouraljle and religious modes. We have avoided the tumult of public assemblies and farthing appeals to the ignorance of the multitude. But no sooner has an opportunity been given for awakening every lurking passion against vs, than it has been eagerly seized by the ministers of that establishment. The pulpit and the platform, the church and the tovni-hall, have been equally their field of labour ; and speeches have heen made, and untruths uttered, and calumnies repeated, and flashing words of disdain, and anger, and hate, and contempt, and of every uripriestly, and unchristian, and unholy sentiment have been spoken that could be said against those who almost alone have treated them with respect ; and little care was taken at what time, or in what circumstances, these things were done. If the spark had fallen upon the inflammable materials of a gunpowder-treason mob and made it explode, or, what was worse, had ignited it — what cared they ? If blood had been inflamed, and arms uplifted, and the torch _ in their grasp, and flames had been enkindled — wliat heeded they ? If the persons of those whom consecration makes holy, even according to their own belief, had been seized, like the Austrian General's, and Dl-treated, and perhaps ma med, or worse — what recked they ? These very things were, one and all, pointed at as glorious signs, should they take place, of high and noble Protestant feeling in the land — as proofs of the prevalence of an unpersecuting, a free-inquiring, a tolerant gospel creed ! " Thanks to yon, brave, and generous, and nuble-hearted people of England, who would not be stirred up by those whose duty it is to teach you gentleness, meekness, and forbearance, to support what they call a religious cause by irreligious means ; and would not hunt down, when bidden, your unofi'ending fellow- citizens, to the hollow cry of ' No Popery !' and on the pretence of a fabled aggression. " Thanks to yon, docile and obedient children of the Catholic faith ; many of you I know by nature fervid, but by religion mildened, who have felt indeed — who could help it ? — the indignities that have been cast upon your religion, your pastors, and your highest chief, but have borne them in the spirit of the great head of your Church in silence and unretorting forbearance. But whatever has been said in ignorance or in malice against us, or against what is most dear to us, commend with me to the forgiveness of a merciful God, to the retributions of his kindness, not to the award of his justice. May he not render to others as they would have done to us ; but may he shower down liis kindnesses upon them in proportion as they would have dealt unkindly in our regard. The storm is fast passing away ; au honest and upright people will soon see through the arts that have been employed to deceive it, and the reaction of generosity will soon set in. Inquiry is awakened, the respective merits of Churches will be tried by fair tests, and not by worldly considerations; and truth, for which we contend, will calmly triumph. Let your loyalty be xinimpeachahlc, and your faithfulness to social duties above reproach. Shut thus the mouths of adversaries, and gain the higher goodwill of your fellow-countrymen, who will defend in you, as for themselves, your constitutional rights, including full religious liberty." I have not suffered my pen to come betwixt the reader and the author. If this passage is too good for an archbishop, the anomaly may be accounted for by the fact that he is poor, and cannot afford to be stupid. Is there in all our six-millions-a-year hierarchy put together a8 much genius, v/it, eloquence, and nervous dignity, as is competent to produce a peroration which will for ever remain a jewel in the diadem of British classics? If Wiseman be not an Englishman, I am sorry for it. Plis nativity is worth contending for. If he be, he is a countryman to be more proud of than all the fat-eared bed-ticks of episcopacy that " rot themselves in ease on Lethe wharf," while poverty, ignorance, vice, and crime rise, and riot, and glare around them, a scandal to the nation, and a terror to the thoughtful. They have raised the storm ; Ignorance, the Faustus-monster of their neglect, comes at their bidding, and will become formidable to its creator who has put together its clay, but forgotten to breathe into it a soul. If it do not turn again and rend him, it is because he shows it another victim. But even a rabble are obedient to the voice of Charity and the charmed words of Reason. The Christian and the faithful shepherd will make his call heard above the roaring of the storm, and the tempest whicli the Cardinal could not avert his Appeal will allay. " Ac veluti, magno in populo cum saipe est Seditio, sa^vitquc animis ignobilc vulgus ; Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arnia miuistrat; Turn, pietate gravein ac mcritis, si forte virumquem Conspexere silent, arectisque auribus astant : ]lle regit dictis animos, ct pcctora mulcct." Upon the bigotry, fanaticism, and hypocrisy ot this scandalous agitation, I despair of even this splendid Address making any impression. It is in vain to point to its disproof of the charges of persecution which are charged exclusively on the spirit of Romanism. If Catholics are liberal, they are accused of indifference; if they are strict, strait-laced, and exclusive, they are taunted with intolerance. Earl Grey, a Cabinet Minister, in his place in Parliament, proclaims his conviction that Popery should be established by the State as the religion of Ireland ; and his colleague denounces the mere erection of Westminster into a dissenting see, as " insolent and insidious," and the worship of his fellow-subjects as " mummeries and superstitions." It is not the first Irishman that he has given reason to exclaim — " You might have dissembled your love, J5ut why did you kick me dowu stairs ?" 11 I have lived long enough in the world, and seen enough of it, to cease measuring a man's natural character hy his religion. Tiie circumstances of hirth, Imhit, education, and tempera- ment, choose our fiuth /hr us, and do not make it hi/ us. Tiie same creed is no( the same to the ignorant and the intelligent. The callous and the cruel seize upon the terrors, while the kindly cling to tiie mercies of the same common law. The Catholic faith, we may be certain, was not read in the same spirit by a More and a JeflTerics. The worship that could inspire a Pascal, and t;uiJc the life of Fenelon or Borromco, cannot he far from that kingdom of heaven on the threshold of which Christ found the young man who yet would not follow him. There is, indeed, but one fmc faith, but much truth in even false ones. If our high estimate of our own be correct, there is much more Protestantism in an intelligent Catholic, than in an ignorant professor of the principles of the Reformation. Look abroad over your country. Mark the squalor, the animal grossness, the heathen ignorance, the pauperism, the drunkenness, the vice, the crime of the population. The masses of the jieople are Infidels — they are never seen in our churches, never invited, never drawn there. The shepherd is looking after the fleece. He is wanted to make a fourth hand at whist at the village dowager's. What would you have ? Rather that the flock should remain practical Atheists, than be drawn to think of God and an immortal soul by the Romish priest, who, when all the world forsakes them, comes to the abandoned with his Master's messsage, and his Master's peace ? If the light of heaven cannot enter by the window of the understanding, or through the crannies of the conscience, what other inlet is there than through the keyhole of the senses? What are mummeries and superstitions of the wise, are the alphabet of ignorant devotion. It takes a large soul to take in the conception of eternity, an enlightened heart to see God in spirit and in truth. Wc are yet, all of us, but on the threshold of the true worship. We are but chained to our Mount Gherizim, or soul-bound to our Jerusalem. A time will come when man will neither need history, tradition, nor faillj to lead him to the Universal Father — when the One True God will be an axiom of the understanding, and the beauty of virtue will be an intuition of the intellect. But it is better that Deity should be seen afar off, than not seen at all ; better that, with the savage, he .should be made with men's hands, than that the fool should say in his heart, "There is no God." In superstition there are the germs of religion ; in unbelief there rest but the shadow?, clouds, and darkness of a chaos without form and void. The very Copt who kneels to the crocodile is groping his devious way to the unknown God. He who sees God in everything is guiding the future sage to see everything in God. It is in vain to rail at Popery. I speak not of its past glories, of the service it has rendered to civilisation, of the nations which sat in darkness whom it has brought to the knowledge of the living God. It is yet, like Protestantism, in the infancy of its development. Truth never changes, and the Almighty is immutable ; but man is ignorant and erring, and his concep- tions of Truth and its Author are limited by his faculties, and bounded by his capacities and knowledge. Catholicism supplies a great want in the human heart, which no agency that is not virtually Catholic can supply. There are many who cannot be religious by the cold assent of the under- standing, and cannot be led to their knees by the thorny path of the logical propositions which go by the name of Calvinism. The passions, the senses, the imagination, the lower affections of man, are incapable of a pious direction except by the service which will first catch the ear, and fill the eye, and help the flaggmg soul upward by the veiled idolatry, the secondary con- ceptions of the presence of the Deity, which fill the anxious benches of tiie Revival, faint, and sob, and cry aloud in the Irving Conventicle, or bow in awe before the Host, and thrill with the solemn harmonies of the pealing anthem. To scoflf at, revile, or suppress these agencies, is to neglect the very means which, in the construction of human nature, the Creator has appointed for the creature slowly to grope after Him, if haply he might find Him; for arc not the whole human race, by very instinct, idolatrous? Is it, indeed, possible that we can know God as He really is, until we see Him face to face by being " like Him as he is?" And if our conceptions of God are any other or any less than what He is, are we not virtually worshipping a spectre of our own raising, not the King eternal and invisible. To us He is still, thus, the unknown God; we worship we know not what, or ignorantly worship. " Man 1 frail man ! Dressed in a little brief authority, Mosf- ignorniil of what he's most assured. Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, As makes even the angels weep ! We are such stuff as dreams are made of, And our little life is rounded with a sleep !" The chryslais must crawl to heaven by earth steps and feelers ; when it has its wings, it needs no element but heaven's ether. Religious forms are the ladders of the soul, without which it has not strength to leave the earth. Without the steps it would not seek to go, for it ceases to desire that which it cannot reach. The great heart that can grasp the thought of 12 eternity, and pierces througli the infinite to tiie everlasting, needs and asks no medium of assent, but springs at once to tiie source of its origin and the end of its destiny. But how are our millions to be gathered into the fold by shepherds whose voice they cannot recognise, and whose guidance they will not trust? The gospel in any shape, faith in any form, is better than to live without God and without hope in the world. Offered but in one stereotyped aspect it will be rejected by millions in whom, otherwise recommended, it might have the rude germ, at least, of repentance and newness of life. There is only one name in Heaven, but many ways to it. Is nut Romanism one of them ? " Other sheep have I," said the great Teacher, " that arc not of this fold." "If ye believe not Me, yet believe the workx, that they are of God." What is even idolatry, but God veiled to the soul, not yet capable of gazing on the naked spirit of the Ineffable? What saint worship but a far-ofT homage through the spirit of the just man tnade perfect, the " friend of God, " to the unapproachable Majesty, in the temper of him who lowly said, " Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter?" The gross mind, the warm imagination, the heated fancy that cannot even pray without the alloy of human passion, «•/// materialise religion. His soul is not self-sustaining. It can no more worship without the integuments of ceremonial, than Egypt could kneel without its hieroglyphs. It is not successful y/nc//?!i;- alone, but earnest seavching after, God, that reveals Him who of a surety is no respecter of persons, but is the rewarder of him who dili- gently seeks him in ever;/ clime and country. To doubt that under many forms and through various outward adits frail man draws near Him according to his lights, is to deny the wisdom of His providence, and that His tender mercies are over all his works. The fields are white unto harvest : why should the labourers be few '-. A nation is lying in wickedness: shall we not welcome etw// willing reaper? Must the crop rot on the ground rather than be gathered by other than privileged labourers? Believe me, we cannot spare one influence which can ever so remotely soften the hardened heart, and elevate or refine the gross affections. I profess a faith with few doctrines necessary to be believed, and many duties necessary to be performed. I ask for no middleman to stand between me and the Eternal Throne — no tradition to strengthen my assurance — no symbol to materialise the con- ception of that spirit which cannot be realised to the fervent fancy unless surrounded by, and enveloped in, the integuments of sacerdotal accessories. But I read the history of the world, and look out over the present seedfield of humanity, and can nowhere see the " Great Spirit" approached through such meagre service, or made present to the soul with so bare an usher- hood; and I trace in the seen instincts and universal tendencies of human nature a providential law whicli as God has made so he will bless. He hath made all things beautiful in their time, and He winked even at the times of ignorance. Go on, then, cardinal — toil, bishop — labour you, presbyter — there is room and need for you all; let each grow together to the harvest, in the assurance that to labour is to worship, and that he worships best who best brings man to virtue and the sense that he is immortal. I do not despair even of the ministry of the " dapper divine, who preaches from the text, ' Let not your good be evil spoken of;' and after showing first the nature of good, and second the nature of evil, perorates a sensation by con- cluding with the 'sin against the Holy Ghost.'" If I dfspair of the efficacy of any minis- tration, it is that of those who boast of the purity of their faith and the simplicity of their doctrine. With George Selwyn, I believe that the uses of a teacher and a priest have a higher oflRce, and a more edifying purpose, than that of " palavering God Almighty, and buUragging the devd." If war still must rage, may it be a Christian warfare. Forget not your common Master in zeal for His service. Let Catholic and Protestant alike remember that — "The greatest One that ere wore earth about lliin AVas a sufft'rer. A meek, sweet, peaceful, hiunljle, tranqtdl sjjirit — The lii'st true (jcnUeman that ever breathed." That all may thus adorn the doctrine of the Great Teacher is the fervent desire of. Fellow-countrymen, ■\our faithful Friend, JOHN BULL. (¥ntm the " Times," A'oc. 21, 18.50.) We have now before us, in "The Appeal" of Dr. Wiseman, which appeared in our columns yesterday, and in the pamphlet of Mr. Bowycr, so frccpicntly referred to in "The Appeal," all that can be said, or at least all that it is deemed i)rudent to say, in defence, or rather in pallia- tion, of the recent attack upon the Established Church of England and the feelings and prin- ciples of her people. The question thus raised is well worthy of our most attentive considera- tion. If we have i)ronounced an opinion against the I'ope and the Cardinal unheard, it lias not been from any wish to deny them fair play, but because they did i,ot condescend to give us any more tangible ex|)lai)ation of their acts than was to be gathered from empty gasconades and pompous manifestoes, the very sweepings of a literary wardrobe now nearly worn out, and never very tastefully selected. We congratulate I'r. Wiseman on his recovery 13 of the use of the English language. If the popular demonstrations with which the arrival of the new Cardinal, who has come with a commission from Rome to govern half-a-dozen of the dioceses of our Church, and some two of the kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy, have not been all that was agreeable in other respects, they have, at any rate, as the Scotch say, brought him to his English. We hear no more in "The Appeal" of the planetary system either of Cullen or Copernicus ; suns, planets, and comets dance no more in the mazes of metaphorical confusion. Kngland is suffered to remain where she is, and is no longer forced, to the great discomfiture of the continent, to revolve round the Eternal City. The golden chain of St. Peter rings no longer in our ears, and the adjacent islands to the Doctor's diocese, Thanct, Dogs, and all, do not once appear above the horizon. Grateful for the relief from the constant strain on our imaginative faculties, we can only express a wish tluit it were consistent with the rules of orthodoxy and infallibility that the Church of Rome, as she has one head, one faith, one code of morality, one system of politics, would be pleased to add to these multifarious unities the unity of language, so that her advocates might be spared the necessity of writing long arguments to prove that her public and authorised documents mean exactly the reverse of what they say. If Dr. Wiseman meant, as he and Mr. Bowyer say he did, that he merely came amongst us as a Dissenting minister, the head of a voluntary associa- tion, to manage the spiritual aflairs of the Catholics scattered up and down England — if it was never intended to assume any rights, save those which arc cheerfully conceded to a Wesleyan or a I'.aptist, why, in the name of common sense, could he not have said so? And why is it only when the unmistakcablc response of the people of England has shown him that his inflated pretensions will tend but little to the glorification or advancement of himself and his Church, does he first inform us that counties do not mean counties, but the Roman Catholics residing in them — that England is not restored to the Roman Catholic Church, but that her scanty Romanist population has received a new form of government? It is because the Roman Catholic Church has two languages, an esoteric and an exoteric — the first couched in the very terms of that more than mortal arrogance and insolence in which Hildcbrand and Innocent thundered their decrees against trembling kings and prostrate emperors, the second artful, humble, and cajoling, seizing on every popular topic, enlisting in its behalf every clap- trap argument, and systematically employing reasoning the validity of which the sophist him- self would be the last to recognise. But, let her speak what language she will, the spirit of that Church is unchanged. Pliable and ductile without, she is stern and unbending within. Within her pale is salvation, wMthout is heathen darkness. The Greek, who diflers from her in thinking that the procession of the spirit was from one person of the Trinity instead of two, is, according to her, as far removed from salvation as the worshipper of Vishnu or Siva. Claiming universal dominion, to be esta- blished to the exclusion of all other forms of faith, is an essential requisite of her existence. Toleration to others she has ever regarded as a crime; toleration to herself, theoretically at least, as an insult. The commonly recognised distinction between dc facto and de Jure is no distinction with her. In her authorised documents whatever is not within herself is treated as non-existent; her language, her logic, are all founded on this principle. Whatever is not her own she absolutely ignores. The Pope employs the same style in constituting an Archbishop of Westminster as in appointing a prelate of some petty town of Latium. The exist once of the Crown, of the prelates, of the mighty people of England, he cannot acknow- ledge ; all he sees is the land, a few Roman Catholics scattered up and down it, and those bishops among whom he divides it ; the rest to him is nothing. It was much to have tolerated such a Church as this ; it was much to have extended to the Roman Catholics that toleration which, it was well known, if they were true to their faith, nothing but their weakness could render mutual. It was a fiery trial to the spirit of toleration when it was proposed to be extended to those who greedily caught at those immunities to the prin- ciple of which they are eternally opposed. Happily, and justl}', as we think, the prin- ciple of toleration triumphed, and intolerance itself was tolerated, after the example of Him who makes his sun to rise and his rain to descend as well on the just as the unjust. But the Roman Catholics arc no longer content with toleration. "True toleration and religious liberty,'" says Mr. Eowyer, speaking by authority, "consist in more than the absence of persecution and the possession of equal civil rights." That something more the Roman Catholic clergy do not ask from our generosity, but seize as their right; and the person whose fiat clothes them with these rights is a foreign Prince, having no diplo- matic relations with this country. The momentous question is thus raised whether, the Roman Catholics being, by their own confession, free from persecution, and possessed of, equal civil rights with the rest of her Majesty's subjects, we are not to concede to them, but acquiesce in their seizing, the further right of developing to their natural and inevi- table I'esults the constitutional tendencies of their Church ; and, if so, at what particular point of the development we are to say, " You shall go no further ?"' If the erecting of a new episcopal hierarchy, and the assigning to them, to use the words of Dr. Wiseman, " a territorial ecclesiastical jurisdiction without pei'sonal limitations" — that is, without designating the persons over whom such jurisdiction is to be exercised — ought not to excite any feeling in England, because it is oiily a matter of the internal government of 14 the Catholic Church, where is this development to stop ? We know from history that the infallible Roman Catholic Church developed her internal government after this fashion, till the world was astounded by the spectacle of three Popes at the same time reciprocally excommunicating each other; but the practical English mind, which, being unversed in these holy mysteries, has never yet seen two persons claiming rival episcopal jurisdiction over the same spot of English land, is still disposed to ask, " If this be development to your Church, is it not aggression on mine ?" {From the "Daily I^ezvs," iXov. 21, 1850.) It has now become incumbent upon every Protestant of this empire to consider well, and by his opinion aid in determining, upon what terms we are to live politically with our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. For the last half century and more, liberal men amongst us have entertained but the one idea upon the subject, and directed their efforts to the one aim, that of removing from the Roman Catholics all those marks of inequality or subjugation which were unfortunately, but inevitably, imposed upon them, as the consequence of that great struggle, in which Protestants made the principles of constitutional and religious freedom triumphant over absolutism of government and of creed. During the half century's effort of the Liberals of this country completely to eman- cipate the Catholics, their prelates and leaders, both here and at Rome, preserved, with some Irish exceptions, a policy and a demeanour calculated to aid and strengthen that effort. Had that policy and that demeanour been continued, English and Irish Liberals would have advanced to the completion of the great work by some equitable settlement of the Church question in Ireland. Cardinal Wiseman, however, and the present advisers of the Pope, came to the opinion that the long, and brotherly, and fruitful alliance, so long subsisting between Catholics and liberal Protestants, had endured long enough. They do not want Protestant aid. They mock at fraternity ; they fling alliance or con- ciliation to the winds. A Papal Bull, insulting to the nation, to its history, its noble struggles, and its as noble tolerance, is flung in tlie country's face. The most lofty of dignities is created, and titles assumed, in the rudest possible defiance and discourtesy of a Queen whose every act has been marked by liberality, kindness, and conciliation towards the Roman Catholics, their prelates, and their claims. And when this produces a national natural outburst, and a degree of intemperate indignation unavoidable under such a provocation. Cardinal Wiseman, who came in his own wolPs clothing to provoke, puts on the lamb's for a moment to expostulate, and inquire what is the matter? In truth, we almost prefer the open insolence of the 13ull to the plausible and feline humility of certain portions of the .Appeal. The question, unfortunately, that Protestants are now obliged to put to Catholics is. If we struggle and succeed in placing you on an equality with us, will you, in turn, consider us on an equality with you ? We believe that there is a large body of Roman Catholics who would say, yes: and, as Protestants, Ave would desire but that one small and simple affirmation. We would sink every grudge, and smooth away evei-y difference. But the ultra-montane Catholics, the CuUens and the Wisemans, do not want any such fraternity, and will not tolerate any such equality. In their eyes we are rebels, heretics : the great and noble protest of the Reformation against errors which Roman Catholics themselves no longer hold, is looked upon by them as a crime ; and the great struggle for civil liberty bound up with that religious protest, which has made this nation great and free as it is, that is another heinous sin. The object, therefore, of these political Romanists is to undo all tluit we have been doing for the last two centuries ; and as long as wo aid them to equality they accept that aid, but merely as a step towards re-establishing their old superiority and ascendancy. With English Catholics we might have equality and peace. But Dr. Wiseman tells us that, in his Catholicism there can be no " national Church." The Gallican Church of Louis XIV. and XV. in France; the Prussian Catholic Church, where education is secular and free, and where no prelate can be chosen by the chapter unless he be agreeable to the King — Cardinal Wiseman will have none of this. The new rule of the Court of Rome is to grasp all it can, immunity even from criminal and political jurisdiction in Piedmont, and the sanu>, ii<> doubt, here, as soon as there is power to demand it. Against such a political sect as this— for ultra-inontano Catholicism is more a political than a religious sect— it is tiie duty of the State of England, even more than of its Church, to make a stand. It is ordained by statute, and supported by the law of nations, of common sense, of national intci-est and pride, superior and anterior to any statute, that no foreign poten- tate shall have dominion in this country, cither to confer rank and dignity, or authority and power. If the mortmain law can be evaded, the weakness of the death- bed taken advantage of to transfer the property of landed gentry to an agent of the Pope of Rome in this country — as wo have shown to bo the case — it is for Parliament to look 15 to it. If all education is to be renderod null, and if colleges voted by Parliament for the instruction of those who voluntarily repair to them are to be denounced by authorities appointed in this country by a foreign court, the same authorities can, in case of war, take part witli a foreign enemy against us, and dissolve the people from their allegiance. All tlicse are the attributes and characteristics of a political religion ; and though the State may have nothing to command or prohibit in the way of dogma, it cannot suffer a political impcrium in imperio. According to some, all these difficulties and dangers may be met by separating Church from State, and by rendering the Government above and indifferent to the disputes and authorities of churches. That may be so, if the State retain the power of education, of regulating the laws of marriage and bequests, of monastic establishments, and of the temporal authority of vicars apostolic. But in this case the State, however separated from the Church, would have to exercise a stern resistance to the pretensions of a political Church, such as Dr. Wiseman, with one foot on the Vatican, with French and Austrian influence dominating there, and with another foot in Westminster, would exercise. Voluntaryism itself would not free llie State from the duty of that kind of resistance which we think ini])erative. We shall not follow Cardinal Wiseman into his disvowal of the Queen's supremacy, or into his pleading that by the establishment of a hierarchy, with himself at its head, by virtue of the l^)pc's Bull only, he has not broken any statute. This will be for the law authorities to decide. He asserts that all this was done by the desire and petition of the Roman Catholic prelates and clergy. We ]>elicvc this to be the very reverse of the trutli. The Roman Catholic prelates and clergy in England desired no sucli thing. They desired local freedom and a national Church, having for its spiritual summit the authority of the Roman Pontiff, but not subjected to the absolute control of a self-appointed Roman agent. The Roman Catholic clergy in England are as much in Cardinal AViscman"s power, as ever Hungary was in that of Haynau. They of course say nothing. But the rcifiiii': that has been establislied is as galling to them as insulting to Englisluneu. The differences, however, between Dr. Wiseman and his clergy, Dr. Wiseman and our law authorities, are not matters for us to decide. It is for the Attorney-General to give an opinion as to whetlier he has committed the breach of a statute ; what we complain of is, that he has broken that tacit and long subsisting pact between the great Liberal party in England and the Roman Catholics tlironghout the empire. AVe thouglit them, and still liope to find theui, Englishmen. But he would make them Romans, or Austrians, or the intellectual serfs of any empire or ambitious power that may ha])pen to dominate in Central Italy. It seemed wise and just to our Ministers to abet and recommend the introduction of constitutional govermnent into the States of Italy, as the best way of reconciling the interests of the Sovereign with the spirit of the people. Not the Pope, indeed, but the Austrian and Neapolitan Cardinals, into whoso hands he has fallen, have thought proper to take umbrage at our liberal advice. And they liave entered in consequence into a system of petty and personal rivalry and retaliation, as despicable as it is unjust, impolitic, and illiberal. As this absolutist party in Rome employed Archbishop Franzoni to disturb Piedmont and create emban-assment to all Liberal Governments, so it has sent Cardinal Wiseman hither on the same errand. And we forthwith find him at loggerheads and personalities with our Ministers, just as Franzoni was with Azeglio. Not all the sopliistry of Cardinal Wiseman can conceal these political moves, which we shall not cease to resist and expose, far more as Liberals than as Protestants, {From the " J/oniing- Post," Xor. 21, 18.")0.) The much-looked-for manifesto of Cardinal Wiseman is now before the world; and it is from this Englishmen have to learn the best that can be said in defence of the recent act of the Pope towards this country. The Cardinal must have a bad opinion of the understandings of our countrymen if he supposes that he has any chance of deceiving them by an eloquent state- ment, which but faintly alludes to that which lies at the root of the question ; which simi)ly passes by every legal and political argument urged by the whole press of England, as "clamour," devoid of all reason ; and tells us that we have been stirred up by our bigoted clergy (who yet have lost all hold on our respect) to a mere interested outcry against a harmless and oppressed race, the loyal Catholics of England and the meek martyrs of Ireland, who bear it all without as much as a complaining word. England will yet tell Cardinal Wiseman that she knows what she is about better than he supposes. We have our own way of viewing and stating this great national question, and we shall not cast it away for the Cardinal's. We believe that this venturesome prelate is born to work out the fact that Popery of the ultramontane school is utterly incompatible with the pro- gress of civilisation in Europe, or the existence of good civil government anywhere. But let him state his own case. We pass over, for the present, the numerous topics demanding exposure — if he be not hardened against a mere moral infliction of that kind — Ifi and we put the pith of the matter in his own few words before our readers, tliat they may see the paltry dilemma in which these cunning ecclesiastics, the Cardinal and his friends, imagine they have caught this great nation : — "You cannot make a law (he says) that Catholics shall only be governed by Vicars-Apos- tolic, which icould he acknowledging direclly the Pope's power in this realm (which the Pro- testant Bishops under oath cannot do) ; still leis can you proceed to forbidding them to have bishops of any sort, which would put them back into a worse position than they were in during the operation of the penal laws. Any step backward is a trenching on the complete toleration granted us.'' So tlie conclusion which we are required to deduce from this passage is, that we have com- mitted ourselves, by our foolish generosity, to anything which may, under the cover of " spiri- tual " pretences, be attempted by the priests of Rome ! \Vith unmatched effrontery, we are told that we have admitted practically the Papal power among us, and, " for better or for worse," we now must needs have it. Our "liberal" concessions of former years are calmly quoted as tying us to results which were deemed impossible at the time, and the suspicion of which was said to be utterly unworthy. What was then proffered with English sincerity is to be now levied and demanded with more than Italian craft. The Cardinal, in plain words, puts us to this : " Roman Catholics arc now aljsolute subjects of the Pope. We give you no option. You shall admit us as ultramontanes, or not at all ; persecute us again, if you dare! but if not, the Pope shall absolutely 'govern' his dioceses and 'counties' in England and Wales, in ' all spiritual things,' and give no account of his matters." We put it to the calm judgment of our readers, that the time is now fully come to try this question : — Whether such an amount of power as the Pope arrogates — the Pope of De Maistrc, and not of 15ossuet — is compatible with any government on earth ? We ask whether, if Eng- land is not to be as disorganised and demoralised as all Europe, this " spiritual wickedness in high places" must not be put under a sterner restraint than statesmen have yet contemplated ? A religion which binds all its subjects to obedience to one man, and that man a foreign priest; a religion which holds all its members by secret and compulsory bonds; a religion which is, in fact, a most exactly organiseil social system, apolitical combination, is something viore than a religion, and must be dealt with as something more. Such is Romanism ; a most formidable combination in any country, and the more formidable the more free. Such is Romanism ; and it has pledged its absolute allegiance to the Pope, who will wield it at his will. The sophistries of this Jesuitical "appeal," by which the laity of England are to be cajoled at the expense of their clergy — Anglican laymen, according to Cardinal Wiseman, being all just, and generous, and manly, and fair, and Anglican clergymen all full of avarice, unchari- tableness, and venom — must be laid bare with no sparing hand. Our social system is at stake, as well as our " Ccnstitution." *^* It lias been found imimssiblc to get in all the Leading Articles intended I lie remainder, with a variety of Letters, &c., from Bishops of the Established Church, will appear in th Seventh Series. C O N T E N T S. THE " ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION." EiEST Series. — The Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius IX. ; Cnrdin;il Wiseman's Pasioral ; the two Letters to the "Times" by Bishop Ullatlioriie ; Lord John Russcirs Letter; the "New Batch of Bishops," from the " Weekly Dis])ateh ;" \\\o I>ettcrs by the Rev. fi. A. Denison ; a Letter from Benjamin LTtraeli, Esq., M.P. ; Review and Extrncts from Ambrose Phillips's " Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury ;" concluded by a Biogra])by of Cardinal AVisem;ui, Second Sekies. — The Bishop of London's Charge, at St. Paul's Calhcdrnl, Nov. 2, 1850; and the Rev. Dr. Cumming's Lecture, at Ilanover-squarc Rooms, Nov. 7, ISRO. TiiiEn SETiiEs.— The Rev. T. Nolan's Lecture ; Letter from V>. Hawes, Esq., M.P. ; the ra'toral of the Catholic Bishop of Northampton ; Letter from Dr. Cumming; Letters from the Bishop of St. Asaph and Viscount Eeilding ; and the " Vatican Jlasquerndc." EouRTii Seiues — A Plain Appeal to the Common Sense of all the Men and Women of Great Britain and Ireland, by John Bull ; Siiccch of the Verv Rev. the Dean of Bristol ; i-.nd the " Queen and the Pope." EiETii Seeies. — An Aiqieal to the English Peo]ile, by Cardinal Wiseman, Arehbishop of Westminster, cojiiously iinalysed by John PjuII, Editor and Commentator; and the Leading Artielcs of all the Morning Papers of November 21. Sixth Sekies. — The Second Lecture of the Rev. Dr. Cummin"; the Letter of the Hon. Mr. Lang- dale ; the Birn)ingliam I\Iemorial ; the Letter of " Catliolieus ;" and the Conversion of H. W. Wilberforcc, .111 at the crtranrdivari/ low price of One I'einii/ each Series, LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAMKS GILBERT, ID, rATERNOSTER-ROW. TiTE :m GATEQhK QUESTION. m<. CUMMING'S CONCLUDING LECTURE, and a note by the editoe ; ll:tter of the hon. mr. langdale ; the birmingham memorial ; a roman catholic explanation of the "papal aggression;' cardinal wiseman; and conversion of mr. henry w. ^yilberforce, DR. CUMMINU'S SECOND AND CONCLUDING LECTURE. Admiral Harcourt occupied tlie chair, and after the Divine blessing had been asked by Dr Cumming, The gallant Chairman rose and said, that he rejoiced at a;;ain seeing that room so crowded, for it exhibited an anxious desire on the part of English Protestants to acquire a knowledge of that system of Popery which was now threatening to envelope the land in darkness and superstition. (Cheers.) He rejoiced that their Protestant feeling had not abated, but was well kept up ; and he trusted that it would continue to be kept up in a right and proper spirit, with a solemn and serious conviction of the necessity and the duty of opposing that which was evil and promoting that which was good. (Cheers.) He warned them against Ih.e craft, the deceit, and the subtlety of the Papacy ; for whatever it might say, its real intent was to obtain a victory over Protestantism. (Cries of "It never shall," and cheers.) Its object ever was and ever would be " supremacy" — (hear, hear) — but that we never could and never would surrender. (Cheers.) He was happy to say he had just learned that the clergy and ministers of Hastings had begun the delivery of a series of controversial lectures against Popery. (Hear, hear.) Thft was the right way to begin ; and he rejoiced that the movement was not isolated to one portion of the community; that it was not the clergy of the Establishment alone, but that other ministers of the Gospel had joined in the noble work. (Cheers.) They greatly stood in need cf union, for union was strength ; and what he wanted to see, was all their energies and active- ness put forth in the great and holy cause of Protestantism. He had recently been attending several meetings at Chelsea, and he was hajipy to say that in every niemorial there adopted, Puseyism had been denounced, as well as Popery. (Loud cheers.) And he was delighted to find that the Evangelical minister.^ of the Church of England were not hiding the matter secretly within their own bosoms, but were openly denouncing the Puseyite ministers of the Ksta- blished Church as the most insiduous, crafty, and dangerous enemies of the truth. (Great cheering.) It was the laity of the Establishment who must be looked to for the destruction of the Puseyite heresy; and their first duty should be to memorialise their bishops to ordain none of that sect — (cheers) — to memorialise the Queen that she would endeavour, as far as !ay in her power, to check the spread of this awful heresy; and especially were they called upon to carry on this work in a spiiit of humility and prayer. (Cheers). The motto on their banneis should be — "No peace with Rome." (Cheers.) Dr Wiseman professed that he would be veiy diligent amongst tiie poorer class of the population ; but what would be said of the man who, professing to carry food to the poor, supplied them with poisoned bread to their souls' destruction ? (Cheers.) Romanism was the embodyment of error and superstition. Pre- testanism was founded upon God's Word — the Word of truth. And " He is the freeman vilmm the truth luaies free, And all are slaves beside." Dr. CUiMMiNG then rose tc address the meeting, and his doing so was the signal for an ex- traordinary demonstration of feeling. The whole audience stood as one man, and cheered for several minutes, the act being accompanied by the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. When silence had been restored, Dr. Cumming proceeded to say that he was anxious to preface his remarks with one request, and it was this — that owing to the importance suth Seiies.—Trice Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] [James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row; 0/ whom may be had "The Roman Catholic Question," Nos, I, to V. ^~ of the words he was about to utter, and especially as Cardinal AViseman had not thought fit to appear, but had, within a few minutes, sent him a missive, the audience would notice well and weigh well the ipsissima i'e;-6« that he should now employ. (Hear, hear.) In the Times newspaper a day or two ago, he found the report of a sermon preached on Sunday last, by Dr. Doyle, in the Eoman Catholic cathedral in Southwark, and in that sermon the following words occurred: — "Amongst other things, they have spoken of an oath which they assert every cardinal, upon his appointment, takes before the Sovereign Pontiff." Now his (Dr. Cumming's) precise words upon that subject in the speech he delivered on Thursday week were these : — " Let me presume, that when the Cardinal was made an archbishop, he received the pallmm, a robe woven from certain sheep, tended I believe, by certain nuns ; ceremoniously spun, ceremoniously woven, and ceremoniously put upon the archbishop. When he received the pallv.im, he repeated a solemn oath, which will be found in the ' Pontificale Romanum.' I have the book, and have carefully examined all that he must say. It is the edition of Clement YIIT., Antwerp eiiition, 1627." Now Dr. Doyle said his statement was, that as a " cardinal,"' every cardinal upon his appointment made a certain oath ; but his (Dr. Cumming's) statement was, that every " archljishop," upon receiving the pallium, made a certain oath. A cardinal was a tem- poral officer, with temporal jurisdiction, who might be made Pontiff and Sovereign of the States of the Church, as well as chief bishop of the Roman Catholic communion. An archbishop was an ecclesiastical officer; and he (Dr. Cumming) stated, speaking on the documents of that Church, authorised, accredited, signed, supersigned, and of all dates, that the "archbishop," on receiving the palliinn, mwHt repeat the oath, which, asabishoj), when consecrated, he had taken before. Dr. Doyle went on to say — " I declare that the accusation is a falsehood — no such oath has been taken by his Eminence. It has been commented upon at public meetings and in the newspapers, and the public mind has been thus inflamed against the Roman Catholics. It has been even said that the Cardinal had to take that oath at the footstool of the Pontiff. Now, I declare that there is no oath of the kind taken at all." Mark what followed : — "There is an oath taken by a bishop; but there is no such oath taken by a caidinal. Let me inform you what the oath taken by a bishop is. He promises in that oath to pursue and combat error, and to uphold the sacred doctrines of the Church." Then he went on to say — " Tliey talk of the edict of Queen Mary, and lay it at the door of the Catholic clergy. I deny that that is true, and I refer our detractors to that history which they so wilfully pervert. What is the fact with regard to this very edict of Queen Mary ? And now that I may presume that many Protestants are present, let me impress upon them the justice of paying attention to what I am about to state. Now, the true version of Queen Mary's edict in connexion with the Catholic clergy Is this ; on the very day that that edict was sent forth, that great, and good, and fearless friar, Alphonze de Castro, when he preached before the Court, in the presence of her Majesty, denounced it," and so forth. But he would come to this by-and-bye — to return now to the oath. If they had heard that a certain individual had been made a bishop according to the rites of the Church of England, and they wished to know what those rites were — what would they do ? Open a Prayer Book and read the forms and orders for the consecration of bishops and would they not say, if any one had been made a bishop contrary to, or with the omission of, what was there authorita- tively enjoined, that there was wanting in that bishop's consecration something which in the view of a churchman was essential, necessary, and dutiful? (Hear.) He (Dr. Cumming) had quoted first of aU the "Pontificale Romanum," published at Antwerp, and the date of which he had given. To be perfectly sure, he had brought with him now a copy of that work, with the notes of Catalano. Here was one volume out of the three. It was called the " Pon- tificale Romanum ;" or that book according to which every bishop must be consecrated, every archbishop receive the jxillium, every priest be ordained, every bishop bless, every bishop curse, every priest baptise, every officer excommunicate. It was the " Pontificale Romanum," as revised and issued upon the authority of two Popes, viz., Clement VIII. and Urban VIII., and was dated Rome, 1738. That they might be perfectly sure of the force and value of this he would read a single sentence from the bull of Clement VIII., which was prefixed to it. In that bull the following words occurred (in Latin) : — " Resolving, that we withdraw all former editions, and determine that the aforesaid Pontifical shall, in no part, be changed, that nothing shall be added to it, that nothing shall be subtracted from it ; and that whosoever shall perform sacred offices are bound to observe it, and that otherwise performing them by omitting anytiiing, or subtracting anything, have not observed the conditions or duties attached to it." He would refer now to the 236th page of Catalano's edition, in which an account was given of the pallium, and its reception by an archbishop. There it was stated that ihc forma J uramenfi was exactly the same as at the consecration of a bishop ; and turning to another page for that Ojth, he found that it contained a clause which was exactly as he had quoted it in his pre vious discourse : — " Jlerrticos, schismaficos, et rebctles Domino nostra, vel suctcssoribu.s preedictis, pro posse, persequar et impugnabo;" which being translated, meant — "All heretics, schismatics, and rebels against our lord the Pope, or his aforesaid successors, I will persecute and attack to the utmost of my power." Anxious to ascertain if he had translated this passage aright, he opened an admirable sermon preached by a first-rate man upon the subject — Dr. Wordsworth the Canon of Westminster, who had quoted it in the following way:—" I, Nicholas (applying it to Cardinal Wiseman), elect of the Church of Westmin!^ter, to the utmost of my power will persecute and wa^re war with heretics and schismatics." Now he (Dr. Cumming) had bvien charged with giving a mis-translation, but the Rev. Canon Words vvorth had translated it much stronger tluin he had done; and he observed that his friend Mr. Burgess, the rector of Chelsea, had declared that to enable Eng- lislnuen properly to understand it, it ought to be translated, "I will persecute and pilch into." (Cheers, and roars of laughter.) Referring to the " Pontificale Romanum" again, he found it stated there that as soon as tlie elect archbishop had taken the oath, lie received the pallium at the altar, "(A' a/lcii accipil." (A Voice. — " VViiat do they call a. pallium?" — laughter.) It was a robe wovEn out of wool produced from certain sheep, which sheep belonged to the nuns of St. Agnes. (Oh, oh, and laughter.) He (Dr. Cumming) put it to the meeting, then, that according to a documen to which nothing was to be added, and from which nothing was to be subtracted, the archbishop in receiving the pallium, as he stated that he did receive it, had to make the oath, a portion of which he had read to them, and the remainder of which lie would discuss by-and-bye. (Hear, hear.) But lest it should bo supposed that he had (|uotod from an obsolete book, or that the ceremony was changed, he had been at great trouble within the last few days in hunting up Roman Catholic books upon this subject ; and in fact Roman Catholic books had furnished him with most of his ammunition to-day. His search had been successful, and ho liad found out an edition of the same work — " The Pontificale Romanum" — in three volumes, published at Mechlin, and dated 11545. Opening this book he found, not only the horrible curse which he had read from the older edition, but that the arch- bishop, in receiving the pallium, was to make precisely the same oath that he had so read to them : — Hereticos, schismaticos, et rebelles Domino nostro, vel successoribus prsedictis, pro posse, pcrsequar ot impugnabo." (Cheers.) Ami prefixed to it were the bull of Urban VHI. and the bull of Benedict XIV., quoted by Cardinal Wiseman in his defence, and the latter of which said, '' This, our pontificale, restored and reformed, we command to be observed by all the churches of the world" — " omnibus, tcniversi terrarum orbis ecrleiiis." " Resolving that the aforesaid pontificale is in no part to be changed, in no part to be added to, in no part to be abstracted from." What was the inference from all this ^ Why, that if there were any truth in this book, if there were any authority in this Pontificale, Cardinal Wiseman ditl swear, " Omnes hereticos, schismaticos, et rebelles Domino nostro, vel successoribus praedictis, pro posse, persequar et impug- nabo." (Cheers.) A few minutes before he (Dr. Cumming) entered that room he I'eceived a letter from St. George's, Southwark, with a cross prefi.xed to it, and signed "Francis Scarle,"' which was the name of the gentleman who acted as Cardinal Wiseman's secretary. That letter inclosed another, which it stated had been forwarded to the editor of the Timei- on Tuesday last, but had not yet appeared in that journal. The iuclosure was as follows : — "to the edtior of the times. " St. George's, Southwark, iVov. 19. " Sir, — Dr. Cumming, in his letter in your paper of to-day, gives an extract from the oath taken by bishops and archbishops, copied from the 'Pontifical,' printed at Antwerp in 1627, and states, 'I presume, that Cardinal Wiseman, on receiving the pallium, took that oath.' To prevent further misunderstanding, I have the Cardinal's permission to state to you that, by a rescript of Pope Pius VII., dated April 12, 1S18, the clause quoted by the rev. doctor, and so subject to misunderstanding, is omitted by all bishops and archbishops who are subject to the British Crown." (Cheers, oh, oh, hisses, and laughter.) This showed, at all events, what was the splendour of that Crown, if it were true, and what was the pressure of the subjects of that Crown, even upon the Vatican itself— if that were true. (Cries of " hear.") The writer went on to say :— " The authorised copy, now lying before me, used by our bishops, is headed — "'forma juramenti. " ' Pro Episcopis et Vicariis Apostolicis Episcopali dignitate praeditis, qui in locis Magnae Britannia; subjectis versantur, prascripta a SS. Pio P. VII., die 12 Aprilis, 1818.' "In the copy of the 'Pontifical' kept at the episcopal residence in Golden Square — the copy, perhaps, generally used in consecration of bishops in England — the sentence is can- celled." What a sleepy archbishop to go and consecrate bishops, and not to know what they were doing — not to know wliether these things were done or not. (Cheers.) He proceeded— " Dr. Cumming is at liberty to inspect this if he will arrange with nie for that purpose," — and call at the episcopal residence, in Golden-stiuare 1 (Loud laughter.) " I'll go there," exclaimed Dr. Cumming, with much emphasis. (Great cheering.) But, continued the rev. doctor, he had some disclosures to make with respect to Dr. Doyle's statement andDe Castio's book that would horrify all England. He wanted this to be riveted upon their minds. He did not want Dr. Wiseman to escape by means of his Jesuit sophistry. (A voice, " Go with the police;" — laughter.) No, he was not afraid; he would go alone. (Loud cheers.) Did they ever hear of a Scotchman who was afraid of anybody ? (Great cheering.) The letter addfc] — " 'A hen Cardinal Wiseman was consecrated bishop, in Rome, 1840, he took the English form tf oaih. On receiving the jjallht7ii, at which ceremony I assisted, his Eminence took no oath, cardinals being exempt. Had he been required to do so, he would, no doubt, have repealed the same form." vAliY, what laws had this man? Here was a solemn Pontificale which he was bound to observe, under the most solemn conditions, with the most solemu bulls prefixed ; here was a document which all priests, bi&hops, and archbishops viere bound to observe, on which Catalano wrote notes, and v. hicii stated that when the archbishop received \h(: pallium he must take that oath. and tlat until be had taken that oath he could not receive the pallium; and yet the Cardinal Archhishop of Westminster said that he did not take that oath. (A voice, "Oh, it won't do" — chcejs.) Now suppose that he did not take that oath. Urban VIII. and Benedict XIV. both stated that nothing was to be chang'cd in, added to, or subtracted from the Pontificale 5 but Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. said that anything m.ight be added to or subtracted from it and that it miuht be treated in any way Dr. Wiseman pleased to suit the British Crown. (Hear, hear.) The Church of Rome assumed that it was the united Church, and that we heretics v\ere ail at issue with one another. But what was really the case with Rome ? Why, two Popes said, ''You must not add to, subtract from, or do anything contrary to this Pontfi- cnle;" vbii?t other t-Ao Pcpcs Gregory XVI. and Pms IX. said, "You may chop and change, and do anxthing )ou like with it." If such were the boasted unity of the Church of Rome, then h(- (Dr. Cunimiig) tliotight we had much better have the disunion of Protestantism. (Loud cheers.) If this work were true, what was the fact ? That the Pope was not only the interpreter of law, but the creator and changer of law, making the whole Papacy suit the specific and untoward circumstances in which its subjects were placed in this gloriously Protes- tant country. (Cheers ) If this were true, the bishops for the time being were the minions, the creatures of the Pope, subject to him, sworn to him, and must be obedient to him. (Hear, hear.) Was it not very odd that the very clau.'e in the oath which he had read, and which he had i-hown to be inconiparible with loyalty to the Queen or charity to her subjects, was the clause whici) Cardinal Wiseman shbffled about, and said that he did not take it? But more than this , he found that Dr. Doyle, who was merely the mouthpiece of Cardinal Wiseman, had staled that the bishops did take an oath ; and though Cardinal Wiseman said he took an oath v. iih that clause omiited. Dr. Dnyle declared that he took an oath the words of which were th:(t he promisi d to pursue and combat error. This surely gave enough of catch- word to enable us to see that that was the very clause alluded to; and yet Dr. Doyle gave it In a form ill which the Cardinal said he did not take it at all. (Cries of " Rank Jesuitism.") Choose betufcn them! He (Dr. Cutnming") solemnly declared that the letter of Cardinal VViseman aiid the sermon of Dr. Dovle had turned over a new leat in the dread chapter which would be unfoinid in this country, with all its terrible results, if Protestants were not true to the Bible, and Eiiglishnen not true to the Constitution. (Loud cheers.) Bishop Doyle, in preaching fii.iii lie pulpit, alter a conver^atl(>n with his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman, ^aid that thestate- nidit that Queen Maij's bloody edict was sanctioned by the Church, was contradictid by the lact iluit that feailess, that great, that good friar Alphonso de Castro, when he preached before the Couit in the preserice of her Majesty, denounced them as most intolerant, unju.^t, and in every degree opposed to the glorious principles and spirit of the holy religion and it was the same Church now as in the day that De Castro defended it against the acts of those who were Einniiig against it. Would it not be inferred from this, that when that great, that good, that courageous friar denounced the persecuting edicts of Queen Mary ; and when Dr. Doyle said that the principles and spirit of the Church of Rome were precisely what they were, as exem- plified by Alphonsus de Castro; would it not be inferred that this De Castro was a grand ex- ception, had never persecuted heretics, and had denounced everything like confiscation of propeity, destruction of life, deposition of Queens, and release of subjects from oaths of allegiance? (Hear, hear.) Would it not be inferred that the writings of this Alphohsusde Castro breathed ail that was beautiful and amiable in Christianity, and depictured Rome as she herself would desire to be exhibited under the British Crown? He (Dr. Gumming) had, at much trouble, been able to procure a copy of De Castro's works; and here it was. De Castro, who had been a friar, was made an archbishop just before his death ; and, no doubt, if he had lived long enough, he would have been created a Cardinal. The title of this book was " De Justa Herelicorum Punitione" — that was, concerning the just punishment of heretics— the Madrid edition, 1773. This was the gentleman who had been recommended by Bishop Doyle as the true exponent of the principles of his Church. This was the gentleman who, he said, rebuked the sanguinary edicts of Queen Mary, and was the true representative of what the Church was and should be. Dr. Gumming then translated and read several passages from this work. At chapter b, page 98, it stated that " there were various punishments which ecclesiastical law sanctioned, and imperial law ordered, heretics to be visited with. Some were corporeal, and affected the body. Among- the corporeal punishments, one which very much annoyed the heretics was the confiscation of their property." (Laughter.) The second punishment, mentioned in chapter 1, page lOo, was the deprival of every sort of pre-eminence, jurisdiction, nnd government which they had previously exercised over persons of every condition. This authority was lost by manifest heresy ; so that a king, having become a heretic, was, ipso jure, deprived of iiis kingdom ; and a queen, being a heretic, was deprived of her sceptre : and not only so, but a duke, being a heretic, was deprived of his dukedom. (Laughter, and "Oh ! Let them only tell the Duke of Wellington that." Roars of laughter and cheers.) Nor ought, it went on to say, any one to wonder that the Pope, on account of the crime of heresy, deprived a king of his dignity and stripped him of his kingdom ; because kings, like other subordinates, were subjects of the Sovereign Pontiff. (Sensation.) Tl)on it was asked, if the king became a heretic, ou whom did the sovereign power devolve ? To which this answer was given — Not on the emperor, especially if the king be not subject to the emperor, such as the King of France, of Spain, or of England. Again, it was stated that if an heretical king had no heir, or if the heir were a heretic; then, if the nation were not infected with heresy, it had the power and the right of electing a king ; but if the people were infected with the pestilence of heresy, they would be deprived, i/jso jure, of the power of choosing a king for themselves, and the whole business would devolve upon the Sovereign Pontiff. The last punishment of the body for heretics was deatii, " with which we will prove, by God's assistance, that heretics ought to be punished." At page J2.3, chap. 12, De Castro stated, that in order to create a horror of so gri^at a crime as heresy, and produce in others a detestation of it, it was just to inflict the puaisliinent of death on an incorrigible iieretic ; thut there was no crime for which one might be more justly put to death than for fixed or incurable heresy; that if Martin Luther, when he begun to paur out his poison, and after being admonished would not repent, h>id been capitally pimished, as he deserved, his followers would have been terrified, and there would not have burst forth so many heresies in Germany. The author also described the dilferent modes in which heretics were to be punished. He said, "We have shown that a heretic may be put to deatli ; but in what manner he niay he put to death is of very little consequence — (laughter) — for, whitever the way, it is always to the good of the Church, because a nuisance is removed, which if alive he might create, and terror is struck into others, so tiiat they shall not dare to teach and preach th.-se things." Various punishments for heretics were then described as being in use in France, Sp.iin, and Flanders. Englishmen would recollect what the Papists did with WicklitFe's reaiiins. Whenever he (Dr. Cumming) went to Lutterworth, he recalled to mind th;it bright and blessed star, and how they dug up his bones and cast them into the Avon. " The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to tiie sea ; And Wickhffe's dust shall spread abroad Wide as the waters b»." And so it was. They thought to extinguish the glorious truths which that faithful one preached and preaching and holding which, he died in peace. (Cheers.) But what had been tlie fact ? That the Avon which carried his dust to the Severn, the Severn which carried his dust to the sea, and the sea which carried that dust to all the shores of the world, had awakened civilised humanity to a sense of that horrible transaction. (Cheers.) He (Dr. Cumming) had no v given them the opinions and sentiments of Alphonsus de Castro, of whom Bishop U.)yle iiad, in the pulpit of St. George's Cathedral, spoken as " the great, the good, the fearless friar." (Loud cheers ) It must now be acknowledged that he had completely identified Cardinal Wise- man with Alphonsus Liguori and his sentiments, and Dr. Doyle with the theology and senti- ments of Alphonsus de Castro. Next, he wished to identify the master of them both, Pope Pius IX., to whom they owed allegiance, and of whom they were the subjects, with Pius V. and his sentiments. Now, Pius V. had been made a saint, and Pope Pius IX. had chosen him for his patron, and said that the example and sentiments of that celebrated Pope were to be his example and sentiments. But what was the history of this Pius V. ? First, he was a great supporter of the Inquisition ; and next, the author of the infamous bull for dethroning Queen Elizabeth. In that bull he said, " Christ has constituted me over all nations and realms, to pluck up, destroy, scatter, demolish and build up. The said Queen Elizabeth we deprive of her pretended right to the kingdom, and of all dominion, diginity, and privilege whatever ; and absolve all the nobles, subjects, people of the kingdom, and whoever have sworn to her any oath of duty or fealty whatever." That was the man whose example and teaching Pope Pius IX. had declared that he would follow. (Hear, hear.) Now. this was what he (Dr. Cumming) wished done. Let the Queen or Parliament say to Pope Pius IX., " You, Pope Pius, are a foreign Sovereign. You have sent here a certain bull, parcelling out the country in dioceses ; we care not a fig though you may call the act merely ecclesiastical or spiritual ; you take back your bull. \Ve bid you do so, or, as sure as you live every bishop, that the bull constitutes shall be put on board a 120-gun ship and sent back to you. You take your hull as publicly down the Thames as you publicly brought it up the Thames. And if you don't do so— you, a foreign prince and a foreign Pontiff — then a 120-gun ship, with Admiral Harcourt in command, shall carry those bishops, created by that bull, to the banks of the Tiber, and there leave them in congenial darkness to settle the whole matter. (Repeated volleys of cheering.) I have great faith (continued Dr. Cumming) in the public sentiment upon this question. The lightning is strong — the thunder is strong — the earthquake is strong; but there is an inspired, pure, Protestant, scriptural, public sentiment which smites the loftiest cedars and brings down tlie strongest fortresses, and which the Pope and his rescripts will not long be able to withstand. (Loud cheers.) There was another clause of the oath which Dr. Doyle did not deny, and which promised fealty to the Pope, which fealty was defended in ancient Romish writers. In looking into one of the Maynooth class-books the other day, he met with the following statements : — " The Church commands that, as far as possible, the canons be observed. She indulges in cases of necessity that they be occasionally relaxed. And she tole- rates whatsoever she cannot punish without inconvenience." ^Yhat light did not that cast on Car- dinal Wiseman's letter ? The oath which he had taken, and which he said had one clause omitted when it related to England, had still a clause left which made the Cardinal say that he would support the royalties or regalia, that was the sovereign pretensions, of the Popes and their successors. And Baronius, the celebrated Catholic historian, stated in his " Annnls," that the political power should be subject to the sacerdotal power. The same doctrine was tj be found stated in the Corpus Jm-is Canonici, and in the Bull of Sextus V. Pope Pius V., now cano- nised, had acted upon the principle, and deposed Queen Jiiizabeth ; and it was also to be found in a decree by Boniface VIII., and in a bull of Leo X., renewing and approving the constitution of Boniface VIII., in General Council. Now, the most infallible thing with a Roman Catholic was a General Council and a Pope at its head. The Italian said that the Pope was infallible, the French said it was the General Council ; but Cardinal Wiseman said that it was both together. Yet both together had decided that the civil power must be subjected to the spiri- tual power. Now either the Church of Rome, as represented by her Popes and Councils, had erred, and proved herself fallible, or Dr. Wiseman must hold out that Queen Victoria's sceptre was subject to his crozier. (Hear.) Let him take which horn of the dilemma he pleased. If he would not pitch upon one, he (Dr. Gumming) would throw him upon the other. (Loud cheers.) The Cardinal had stated that one reason why he required the consti- tution of the Papal hierarchy in England was, that the canon law cculd not be set up here under the vicar apostolic; which implied, in fact, that the canon law, which authorised and commanded the extermination of heretics, was now to^ be set up in this country by the Cardinal. The canon law also laid it down that oaths which might be con- sidered contrary to the utility of the Romish Church were not to be observed. Also, if the secular power refused to exterminate errors within a year, let it be told to the Sovereign Pontiff, and let him release the subjects of that power from their fealty, and give the country to Catholics ; who, after exterminating the heretics, shall remain and enjoy it themselves. (Laughter, and " Oh, oh.") Such was a portion only of that canon law, which was now to he set up in England, under the auspices of Cardinal Wiseman ; but which, when set up, would be soon set down again. (Loud cheers.) In his manifesto, as it was termed, Dr. Wiseman said that the royal supremacy was not admitted by the Scotch Church, the Baptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or Methodists. First, he said the Scotch Church did not admit the Queen's supremacy. And here he had proved himself most fallible; for the Queen or her representative must sit on the throne in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Now, if that Church passed a law which touched her supremacy, what then was done? They were brought to account, and made to keep within their own bounds. (Hear, hear.) He said next that the Dissenters did not admit the Queen'.s supremacy. Well, but if they did not, neither did they admit the supremacy of any foreign prince or potentate. (Loud cheers.) If the civil power trampled upon the rights of the Independents or the Wcsleyans, they would complain — they would ask redress. If they could not obtain it, they would suffer. But if the civil power trenched on the rights of Cardinal Wiseman, the Pope would absolve the subjects of the Queen, and release them from their fealty. There, then, was a broad, a very broad distinction. (Cheers.) Again, the Dissenting minister did not preach in a chapel without a license from tlie Queen to preach there ; but Cardinal Wiseman parcelled out whole dioceses in the Queen's dominions, and ruled them without a license from any one except the Pope. (Hear.) When the Cardinal issued his pastoral, he stated in it, that at present, and until such time as the Holy See should see fit, he governed, and should continue to govern, the counties of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertford. Now, if he had wanted spiritual jurisdiction only, he would have said, "we shall teach, and shall contiiiue to teach, the Roman Catholics" in those counties. But no, that did not satisfy him. He would be content with nothing short of " government." (Hear, hear.) The other day he saw a statement quoted from the Dumfries Couriei;\n an able article in the JMomivff J/o-fil/l upon this subject, to the effect that Dr. Gillies had declared tliat, if the appointment now made should be reversed, the Catholic powers of Europe would interfere and take care to prevent it. (Tremendous groans axid hisses.) He (Dr. Gumming) was ashamed of the Scotchman who, though he might be a Papist, could go into the pulpit and make such a declaration as that. (Cheers.) Surely the Pope had quite enough to do just now to keep himself in his own seat. (Loud cheers.) The common notion which was abroad, that Cardinal Wiseman merely governed the " faithful," or the Roman Catholics, was incorrect, and might be seen to be so on reference to Liguori, who stated that the bisho]) was bound to purge his diocese of heretics. Dr. Cumming then proceeded to ask what had been the fruits o* Romanism in these countries over which it had exercised the most complete [sway, and read an eloquent passage from Mr. Macaulay's " History of England," in which the degraded and miserable condition of countries like Italy, Portugal, and Ireland is contrasted with the highly-civilised and prosperous countries of England and Scotland, and a beautiful and favourable picture is drawn of the superiority of Protestant over Roman Catholic nations. In bringing his remarks to a close, Dr. Gumming said that the charge against Cardinal Wise- man was not that he had been teaching as a vicar apostolical certain dogmas, but that he had brought with him the missive of a foreign prince assuming power and jurisdiction in the land ; and that from Westminster, as from a Popish fountain, he would spread and diffuse principles which must delude the loyalty of the Roman Catholics themselves in i)roportion as they embraced them, and impair that homage which was due to the Queen as the head of the nation, and which she deserved as the noblest, purest, and best beloved Sovereign that had ever swayed a sceptre. (Cheers.) If we were to give spiritual allegiance to any body, let it be to some one within the realm, who was a subject of the Queen, and not to a potentate without it, who was neither subject nor loyal. (Cheers.) He had no fear respecting the ultimate issue of this question. Let us be inspired by pure religion and Bible principles, and he was certain that the present excitement would never plunge us into excess, but we should do that which was loyal and became us as subjects, and that which vt'as right and became us as Christians. (Loud cheers.) " Hate not the error," proceeded Dr. Cumming, "so much as you love the truth. Do not forget, in your detestation of the cardinal's hat, that an immortal soul is under it, which needs to be saved. Love the poor misguided victim, but protest against his prin- ciples. Pray against their spread. Petition the Throne and Parliament ; and speak what you feel and know. We are at the commencement of a great crisis. The thin end of the wedge has been introduced. (Hear, hear.) Let us make that protest, and have that Protestantism which has all the fixity of an everlasting principle, and all the fervour of an undying passion. (Loud cheers.) Let us not look behind to see what numbers follow to encourage us — let us not look before, to see what numbers may be opposed to us, to frighten us. If we are told, as Luther was once told, ' Luther, the whole world is against you,' let our noble reply be, 'Then we, England, will be against the whole world.' (Vehement cheering.) Let yours be that Protestantism which in little things is yielding as the ozier-bough, but which in this and all great things is like the old British oak, which grows on old British soil, its gnarled roots interwoven with the everlasting rocks, its proud head raised careless whether the storm- cloud bursts over it, or the sunshine smile upon it, and equally prepared to overcome the one or to be refreshed by the other. If this be our Protestantism, then all the bulls the Cardinal can bring from the arsenals of Rome shall be inoperative, and all the weapons which Jesuits can wield against it shall lie in splinters at its glorious roots, or hang upon its branches, memorials Of the Pope's impotence, and trophies of England's strength, the stability of the Throne, and the glory of our common country. (The reverend gentleman cancluded his lecture amidst a succession of the most boisterous and deafening volleys of cheering.) " God save the Queen" was then sung by the audience with a right loyal and enthusiastic spirit, and the proceedings terminated. [It is with some degree of reluctance and doubt that we print Dr. Cuniming's lecture. There is throughout this and the previous lecture such an imitation of the excitements of platform discussions, such a tendency to disturb the imaginations and passions of the thoughtless portion of the multitude, that we fear the Rev. noctor's lucubratiuus arc not calculated to aid iu bringing about a reasonable solution of the various impor- tant matters now in dispute, arising out of the recent "Papal Aggression." Giving the Rev. Dr. Cumming credit for the best intentions, still there is, like his prototype, the late Rev. Edward Irving, far too much of the result of the bewildering wanderings among fulfdled and unfulfdled prophecies in most of what the Rev. Doctor writes and says, that we fear to be led by his dicta, and arc compelled to hope that his end may not be like his once celebrated predecessor. It is impossible for the Editor of these pamphlets to depict, in proper terms, his opinions on the serious and important question at issue in the " Roman Catholic Question;" still he cannot help expressing his con- viction that all good men should endeavour to bring their thoughts and actions to bear upon the various spiritual and temporal interests involved in the (piestions now in contention, more in accordance with the good examples of Apostolic times ; endeavouring to imitate the combined human and divine examples of our Saviour — and whilst emulating the seaching power and decisions of St. Peter — the impetuous zeal and heavenly advice of St. Paul — not to forget to reflect on the doubtings and convictions of St. Thomas — in the fncts and arguments they may either advance themselves or listen to from others. To a thoughtful luind it is a seri(nis reflection how much sin is now being committed in this country through the heated debates of the platfomi and lecture-room, and the painfully reasoned articles of too many of the public pripts. The excitements of these times have a strong tendency to give vent to the worst passions of !;uman nature ; if a well-constituted Christian mind would only calmly and deliberately reflect on the immoral tendencies to the multitude of the processions of " guys" in our streets, the burning of Popes and Cardinals in our fields, the ribaldry of pictures, the profane language of literary squibs — if, w'e say, the good and thoughtful of our countrymeu would seriously think on the tendency to blasphemy and irreligion of these things, they could not fail to see not only bow much of an unchristian spirit is mixed up with them, but that, to a considerable extent, the same inlhicnces which are now too much at work iu our beloved country, are almost identical with those which led to the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour, eighteen hundred years ago; and it is a fearful and awful thing to thiuk on and assert, that these influences must, if not discouraged iu time by the good of the laud, tend to bring about a dreadful relapse against the " established," or any other kind of religion iu tins kingdom. 8 Tlie per-nnai experioiioes of ihe Editor of these pajiipliK-'.s justiiV lii;a in ^tinini;-, wi'Llimit ret'efence to names of persons or placrs, tli;it a fearful amount of bhisphemy, irreverence, and crime h.v-. been evidenced as the result of too mr.ny of tlie r,-cent assemblings; and a multitude of conimuniciUions lie lias rereiv body's mouth : what precisely does it mean? The origin and grov\th of that portion of our statute law which, previous to the Reformation, constituted the main defence of king and people against the encioachments of the Papacy is not very difficult to trace. Rome during the reigns of the Plantagcnets was at the zenith of its political power Nearly the whole of Western Christendom owned its spiritual suzerainty. EtTiperors and kings, free cities and fierce barons, held in turn the stirrup of its ambition. 'I'he net-work of its subtle polity was spread over all lands; and feudalism itself bent beneath the weight (if its authoiity. As feofs were held of the Ciown, so kingdoms were dis|)()scd of by the arrogant successors of St. Peter. Henry II. did not disdain to accept the lordship of Ireland as a gift from Adrian, and his son was not ashamed to execute a formal surrender of the tiown to Innocent III., and to receive it again at a rent of 1,000 marks a year! Ecclesiastical courts asserted an aljsolute independence of civil control, and claimed for all persons in holy orders exempiion from all responsibility save to their peculiar jurisdiction. Vast wealth became accumulated in the hands of the regular and secular clergy. Landed pro- perty was every yiar to a greater extent inclosed within the impenetrable fence of mortmain. Finally, the benefices and bishoprics of the National Church were grasped at by the insatiable cupidity of Rome. The spirit of the nation, which had complacently endured every other species of indignity and encroachment, revolted against this new usurpation. In the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Edward I., a statute was passed which Coke declares to be the foundation of that edifice of ecclesiastical liberty eventually perfected by such gradual care and raised to such a noble and con.'picuous elevation. 'I'he provisions of this early act, however, proved ineffectual for their purpose ; and one of the weighty charges against the ill-fated Edward II. was his allowing of Bulls from Rome to be brought into the kingdom for the unlawful disposal of Church prefer- ments, and the like. His successor strove at the beginning of his reign to induce the Papal Court to come to some reasonable understanding. But his expostulations seemed only to provoke fresh ebullitions of insolence ; and in reply to his remonstrances he was reminded that France had recently humbled herself before the universal lord of nations, and that the Emperor of Gerinany was equally submissive. Edward 111. replied, as became him, that though every Prince and State should league together to maintain this scheme of usurpation, he and his people were resolved to vindicate the ancient freedom of the realm. Nor was this an idle boast. Several acts were passed declaring all presentments made by Rome to livings or bishoprics, and all pretended acts collating persons to other benefices, void, and rendering those who should procure or accept any such appointments liable to fine and imprisonment. In the following reign the law was rendered still more stringent ; special provisions were introduced against the holding of any ecclesiastical preferment by aliens, or persons born out of the legiance of the King ; and all liege men of the Crown accepting benefices by "foreign provision" were put out of the protection of the law. These enactments were denounced at Rome as impious and schismatical, and threats of excommunication were hurled against those 1-4 who should presume to execute or obey them. But the Parliaments of those days were of one mind on the subject; and by tlie 16th Richard II., ch. 5, they not only re-affirmed tlie most important prin.ciiiies embadied in former statutes, bat further enacted that whoever should " procure at Home any bvMn, processes, e.xcotamanications, in-straments, or oilier things, which touch the King, against his crown and realm, and all persons aiding and assist- ing therein, should be put out of the King's protection, their lands and goods forfeited; and that they should be attached by their bodies to the King and his council, or process of prcemunire facias should be made out against them." This last-recited act is generally called "the Statute of Prasmunire," from the title of the writ under which proceedings were taken against its violators. From the resohite unanimity with which its policy was sustained by the nation, no efforts on the part of the Italian priest- hood were able to defeat it. In vain Pope Eugenius assumed the right to appoint a bishop to fill the see of Ely ; the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to consecrate him, and another was duly enthroned, whom the chapter had chosen and the King approved. In vain Martin V. commanded the archbishop to endeavour to obtain the repeal of the IGth Richard II., — llud e.v C/ct/i;<.! statutiim, as he called it ; and upon the refusal of the primate, affected to suspend him fro.u his functions. The University of Oxford, both Houses of Parliament, and the Sovereign, each seat embassies to deprecate the pontiff's wrath; and the struggle was allowed to die aw^iy] In Tudor times, many stringent laws were passed, securing the royal supremacy. The most important, perhaps, was the 5th Elizabeth, chap. 1, by which to maintain the spiritual juris- diction of Rome within the realm was made an offence, punishable as in cases of praemunire the first timcj and as in cases of high treason for the second. This was followed bymany others framed in a like spirit for the enforcement of uniformity in public worship, &c. And though in our days these enactments have always been treated as practically obsolete, it was not without reiterated discussion during three successive sessions of 18J4, 1845, and 1846, that Lord Lyndhurst and Sir James Graham were able to prevail on Parliament to abrogate formally the barbarous penalties already mentioned. The ancient statutes themselves were suffered to remain unrepealed, as landmarks of the national polity ; and the friends of tolera- tion were glad to see their excessive and impracticable severities done away- Th.e Emancipation Act of 1829 in no respect removed or lessened the force of those dis- qualifying statutes whereby Roman Catholics are rendered incapable of holding preferments itr the established Cliurch either of England, Scotland, or Ireland. On the contrary, the I6th section explicitly recognises and re-enacts, in the most comprehensive terms, the disabilities in- that behalf existing. Nothing that has since been done by Parliament tends to weaken that exclusion. Episcopal and capitular revenues, tithes and offerings, fines, dues, and perquisites,, to th? Uttermost farthing remain secure. And the Sovereign of these realms might stili exclaim, In the language of her remote ancestor, six centuries ago, " No foreign priest shall tythe or toll in my dominions." Then, as to ecclesiastical titles; the wide distinction ought to be borne in mind between those which imply and are plainly intended to assert territorial jurisdiction, and those which are but prefixes of respect and courtesy to the names of individuals. ?>erybody knew, for example, that during the last seven years Dr. Wiseman was called by ids friends and adherents " Bishop ;" and nobody cared to dispute his claim to that appellation. It implied no usurpation of any other person's ofiice. It gave no just cause of offence, therefore, to anyone. Neither would any sane or sober-minded Protestant have troubled iiimself to inquire why the Roman Catholic priesthood, who considered Dr. Wiseman as their spiritual chief, had chosen to give him the novel title of archbishop, the Pope consenting thereto. All these matters were, strictly speaking, affairs with which the nation at large had nothing whatever to do, and in v-,'hicli, consequently, they were not likely to have ever dreamt of intermeddling. But the case is wliolly different when Pius IX., a foreign sovereign, publicly pretends by his own authority, and of his own will, to create a new territorial dignity within the realm, to append thereto a definite and specific territorial jurisdiction, and to confer this territorial title and territorial jurisdiction. Dr. Wiseman is not in the position of a Roman priest elected by his brethren to preside over them in Westminster. He claims to be, by the nomination and appointment of an Italian prince, metropolitan archbishop of England. This is the cause of offence, not the assumption of the clerical style and title of any particular rank or degree. "A MONSTER LIE! CAEDINAL WISEMAN." {From the " British Banner" of 20th November, 1850.) Never i.s falsehood more contemptible and odious than when it has become mincrled with truth, and found a place in endeavours to support the greatest of all causes — the cause of God among uic.i. Such, however, is human nature, and such the diUicnlty, where millions arQ talking:, and the multitudes are writing, to preserve, in all cases, truth without mixture ; and hence if is only to be expected that, occasionally, grievous misrepresentations will creep into 15 \iiibiic discussions. Of these we have the means of correcting one, and, in our estini.itio n, a verv serious one. Opposed as we are, heart and sou), to Popery, and to Cardinal ^Vlseulan as its chief type and representative in these realms, yet far be it from us, in the sliirhtest conceiv- able dc|rrce, no matter how indirectly, to aid the propagation of a falsehood, which is calculated most nuitt-rially to d.image him. We 'lavc, therefore, the utmost pleasure in ,!,Mving currency to the fciilowini,' correspondence : — TO THE EDITOR OF THE "BRITISH BANNER." "Sir, — Seeing a report in your paper, copied from the Daili/ News, charging Dr. ^V'iseman •ivith a piece of glaring fraud, I wrote him o.i the subject, telling him I was a Protestant, but hated misrepresentation, and woidd contradict the report if I could do it. He this morning sent me a letter, a copy of which 1 send you ; and as it is most candid and satisfactory, you will oblige me, and do" an act of justice," by giving it an early insertion in the Bamier, or so much of it as will set the Doctor right. — Yours faithfully, " Sittmgbourne, Nov. Ifi, 1850. "JOHN DEAN. »< p.S. — I have read every Number of the Banner, and taken it from the commencement." CARDINAL WISEMAN'S REPLY TO MR. DEAN. "St. George's, Southwark, Nov. l.o, 1850. « Sir, — I am much obliged to you for your manly and straightforward application to me Had the same feelings animated others as you display, much misunderstanding would have been avoided, and much clamour spared. You will, doubtless, be surprised to hear that I never in my life saw, nor spoke to, nor corresponded with, the late Mr. Taylor, of \\'eybridge ; that he died before I came to London ; nor had any connexion with the Catholic Church here, and that I am not named in his will. " Since coming to London, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his excel- lent family, have visited them at Weybridgo, where they are kind enough to receive mc at any time, and am on terms of perfect 'good understanding with Mr. James Taylor, the supposed disinherited son, who, with his sister, enjoys every farthing of his father's property. He has kindly and unsolicited offered to give any contradiction I please to the calumny. \ou are at perfect liberty to make anv use you please of this statement and letter. Again thanking you for your kindness, and assuring you that there is as much truth in other anecdotes concerning me which have been, copied from paper into paper, as in the one of which you have written to nie, " I am vours verv faithfully, ' «N. CARDINAL AYISEMAN." CONVERSION OF MR. HENRY W. WILBERFORCE. The following account of the conversion of Mr. Henry Wilbcrforcc appeared in the Times of November 13 : — "Mr. Henry William Wilberforce, vicar of East Farleigh, in the diocese of Canterbury, made his solemn abjuration of Anglicanism on the l.ith of September in the chapel of the Company of Jesus at Brussels. This new conquest of the Roman Catholic Church is important in many respects. The new convert belongs to one of the most respected and popular families of England. He is the son of the celebrated William Wilberforce, one of greatest orators of his day, the friend of Pitt, and a member of the House of Commons for more than half a century. This illustrious man was only six days beyond the required age (21), when called by his native town, Hull, to represent it in Parliament. Si.\ years later he was returned for York. About this time Mr. William Wilberforce, seeing the disorganised state of society, conceived the idea of reinstating it according to the Christian model. In 1797 he brought out his 'Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems.' According to the ' Bibliotheca Britannica' of Robert Watt, this book had passed through nine editions up to 1312, and since then it has been reprinted many times, and may now be found translated into several ditferent languages. This work created a great sensation in England, and has contributed much to a change of morals, more particularly among the higher classes, many of whom were thus prepared for the change of faith they later adopted. One may almost say that Mr. Wilberforce was the advance guard of Puseyim, and that he smoothed the way to changes that are now taking place, of which his son has recently given so courageous an example. Mr. Henry Wil- berforce is himself a very distinguished man ; he is 4.3 years of age, and for tlie last seven years has enjoyed a benefice of the value of 1,000/. per annum. His taste for the more serious studies made him familiar with the holy Fathers, the great Catholic theologians, and the principal controversialists of the day, and it was only after several years of deep study that he decided to take the step and make the noble sacrifice. Determined to embrace tiutli, v.-hatever might be t!ie co&f, Mr. Wilbei force joined prayer, fasting, and good works to study in order to draw down light from Heaven. The first point that struck Mr. Wilbcrforce was, that tlie Anglican could not possibly be the true Church of Jtius Christ. He could not discover the great characteristic of Catholicity — universality, in a Church confined to a portion of the subjects of Queen Victoria; neither did he see in it apostolicity, since Henry Vjll., its founder, cut it off by schism from the ancient trunk of the Roman Church, ivir. WHbirforce sought in vain within his own community for that infallible judge in controversies whicli is indispensable for maintaining unity in dogma and discipline. Of this the C4orham ca.-e furnished a new and striking ])roof. It became now evident to him he must cither leave the Anglican Church or run the risk of falling into Rationalism, and it only remained for him to enter the fold of tlic Roman Church, in wiiich he recognised all the characteristics of truth, unity, universality, apostolicity; he found she , was one in her chief and in her doctrine, the same in all times and in all countries, from • St. Peter down to Pius IX., from one extremity of the earth to the other. i " Arrived at this point in spite of the prejudices of education, before taking the final sttp, ;to mature, as far as possible, his deliberation, Mr. \Vilberfurce decided upori passing some idays in retreat, and for this purpose chose the house of the Jesuit fathers at Brussels. Up to ithis time he had no personal knowledge of a single member of the Company of Jesus. He i had, however, from the perusal of a single work by one of its members, conceived so high an [(•pinion of the order, and particularly of its sainted founder, as to give the riame of Ignatius Ito his youngest child. Mr. Wilberforce could now no longer liesitate, and he now claimed I to be admitted into the Catholic Church. He was baptised sub coiiclitione on the 1.5th of September, according to the full ceremonial prescribed by the Ritual, iVIessrs. Morgan and Ryder standing as godfathers, Mrs. Wilberforce being also present. From this time our new and illustrious convert has enjoyed a calm to which he had long been a stranger. lie received confirmation on the 21st of September at the hands of his Eminence the Cardinal of Malines, in the chapel attached to the seminary." CONTENTS. THE "ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION." EmST Seeies.— Tim Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius IX.; Cardinal Wiseman's Pahtoral ; the two Lptters to the "Times" hy Bishop UUathorne ; Lord John Russell'b Letter ; the "New Batch of Bishops," from the " AVeekly LispiUch ;" two Letters by the Rev. G. A. DeTiison ; a Letter from Bcnjaiiiin D'Israeli, Esq , Jl.P. ; Review and Extracts from Ambrose Phillips's "Letter to the Earl of Slirtwsburv ;" concluded by a Biography of Cnrdinid Wiseman. Second Sekip.s.— The Bishop of London's Cliargp, at St. Paul's Cathedral, Nov. 3, 1S50 ; and tlic Lev. Dr. Cumming's Lecture, at Ilanovcr-tquare Pioonis, Nov. 7, 1850. Third Skrifs.— The Rev. T. Nohm's Lecture; Letter fiom B. Hawes, Esq., J\i.P. : the Pastoral of the Catholic Bislmp of Northampton ; Letter from Dr. Camming ; Letters from the Bishop of St. Asaph and Viscount Peiidiug; and the " Vatican Masquerade." Eour.TH Series.— A Plain Appeal to the Common Sense of all the Men and Women of Great Britain and Ireland (an oriuinal article), by John Bull ; Two Speeches of the Very Rev. the Deau of Briotol ; ar.d the "Queen and the Pope." EiFTii Series.— An Appeal to the English People, by Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster, copiously analysed by John Bull, Editor" and Commentator; and Leading Articles from the Morning I'apers of November 2\. Sixth Selies.— Tlie Second Lecture of the Rev. Dr. Cumraing, and a Note by the Editor; the Letter of the lion. Mr. Langdale ; the Brrmingham Memorial; the Letter of "Cathobcus;" Cardinal Wiseman; a Roman Catholic explanation of the Papal Aggression; and the Conversioii of 11. W, Willerlbrce. The Seventh Series will contain some Leading Articles from the Jonruals ou Cardinal Wiseman's Appeal ; and several Letters from Bishops of the Established Church. All at ike cxtraorcUnanj lev: p-'icc of One Vemvj eavh Series. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAME§ GILBERT, 49, PATERNOSTER-ROW. TIIK ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. LEADING ARTICLES ON CARDINAL WISEMAN'S MANIFESTO, FROM THE DAILY AND WEEKLY PRESS; ALSO LETTERS AND REPLIES FRO.AI THE BISHOPS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. CARDINAL WISEMAN'S ADPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OE ENGLAND. {From the " .-i/lnt," .Vo(>. 2:1«/.) Cardinal Wiseman is at once tiic most polite ard tlie most astute reasoncr of his time. Ko wonder the Pope chose him for his first English metropolitan. The manifesto just issued by this most oily of argucrs is a somewhat inconveirient reminder to this country of admissions and theories which it never expected to see fairly put in practice. We have all of us in some relation of life granted a license to those about us which is all very well as long as it is in abeyance, but whicli grievously tests our temper whenever it chances to be claimed. We yielded in the first instance to the sense of right or of necessitj', we got rid for the time of an unwelcome clamor, and we hugged ourselves on the quiet wo had purchased by a cheap concession. Bat the concession is sure to be used, sooner or later, and then woe to the man who chances at such a moment to cross our tempers. We have yielded to the Roman Catholics, one aftur another, those privileges which were demanded by the spirit and toleration of ihe age. We weie lo'erably convinced at tie time that those privileges involved no danger to the principles of Protestantism. Even now, amidst a'l our excitement, we have no real dread of their effect. Yet we are aKvays irritxled whe:i- ever we see them pnt in practice. It is not from apprehension of the results that we cannot persuade omselves to regard them quietly, but because they are a direct reminder of the exist- once amo.T'st us of a large sect, whose profession jars on all we hold most dear to our liberties. We cannot endure to be practically compelled to reflect that there arc amongst us many millions of men, who, in a nation peculiarly jealous of foreign interference, owe allegiance to a foreign potentate, who, in a nation abovaall others proud of independence of thought, would compel that thought to submit meeldy to an Italian conclave, or to the decrees of Asiatic bishops, fifteen hundred years dead and buried, who in their mildest tone betray a latent fierceness — who in their eternal quotations of their own longsuffering exhibit an innate sense of the ri^ht to domineer, anci a fixed assertion of the penal doom of their opponents. It is thus that the Papal Bull, in its mere assertion of the principles of Popery, has roused the kin°-dom from one end to another. There is nothing in tlie Bull more aggressive than the bare existence of Romanism amongst us. It denies the Queen's supremacy: good — the Roman Catholics have always denied it. It creates a Romanist hierarchy; but the very essence of Romanism is a.hierarchy. Throughout the Bull there is nothing new which is a""ressive, and nothing aggressive that is new. But we don't like the reminder. Conscious of the existence of a party inimical to our dearest interests, so long as the party remains quiet we forget to be anxious. But, whenever it moves, though its movements arc in accordance with all that we have been allowing and admitting for many a year past, we cannot restrain our indignation. And thus we put into their handi a series of unanswerable reproaches against the variance of our profession with our practice. Cardinal Wiseman can (|uote the tolerant phrases of every man now in ]>ower, to prove the innocence of what he is doing. He can call to his aid the rights of man, and the enlightenment of the nineteenth century. There is no answering his arguments upon his own ground, because Protestantism has taken up a false Seventh Series.— Ytice Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.' 'James Gilbert, 49, Patern'st r-.ow ; Of tfhom mni/ lie had " The Roman C tthnlic Qucsth)), ' Xos. I, to VI,, price \il. t\irh. one. It lias levelled leironcl.Gs cine to the very existence of the religion against the natural use made of that existence. It acknowledges the one, and tiicn ignores the other, although its most simple consequence. The giant buried under Etna has turned on his side, and tlic cruiition follows of course. Mhen the present commotion shall have subsided we shall be ready to acknowledge that Roman Catliolicism under thii teen bishops is neither richer nor more formidable than it was under eight vicars apostolic. We may even feel more secure than ever, inasmuch as the recent outcry may assure us of the depth of the popular feeling in favour of Protestant liberty, and of the readiness of Protestantism to place itself on its guard. Fortified ourselves with the consciousness of all this, we may not begrudge the Romanists themselves the internal con- venience which the new regulation will probably secure to them. It may be that the detested Bull may have the singular felicity of advantaging both of the rival sects ; increasing the religious security of the one, and the religious comtorts of the other. {From " The Spectator," Xov. T.Srd, 1830.) Cardinal Wiseman has thrown himself into the fray, and at present hears the brunt of the Protestant assault. He addresses through the press " An Appeal to the Reason and Good Peeling of the English People;" and if one does not feel that he exhibits the missionary xmction and a converting meekness of spirit, there is no doubt at all of his controversial power. Whether confuting the Premier on grounds of political precedent, meeting eccle- siastical opponents with appeals to principles of spiritual freedom, rebuking a partisan judge, or throwing sarcasm at the "indiffusive wealth" of a sacred establishment which has become literally hedged from the world by barriers of social depravity, he equally shows his mastery of dialectical resource. He proves himself a skilful wielder of the most effective and '"slashing" reviewer's style : in the admiration of his literary ability he will, perhaps, not care to miss any acknowledgement that he has contributed extremely little to settle the polemic which the rulers of the Roman Church have unwisely stirred. That Cardinal Wiseman has acted with propriety in making his appeal to the justice and fair play of the people of England is not to be doubted. Before the tribunal of public opinion " he and his Church are arraigned, and by its verdict must they finally stand or fall. What effect his apology will produce upon the masses of our fellow-countrymen we have no means of yet deciding, nor can v.e form any very certain conjecture. Whether his explanations will have more influence in convincing the judgment and assuaging the indignation of the laity, or his relentless sarcasms succeed better in lashing into furious anger the outraged susceptibility of the clergy, remains to be seen. Allowing their full meed of controversial cleverness to the sallies of irony with which he has relieved his clear exposition of facts and his skilful arrangement of arguments, we think he might more wisely have confined himself to a calm statement of the motives which led to, and the reasons which seemed to warrant, a restoration of its normal government to the Roman Catholic Cbuich in this country. The man of letters, the religious liamphleteer, has, we suspect, gained a victory over the prince of the Church, the wily eccle- siastic, which he may find cause to regret. At least, his habitual knowledge of the English ])eople, his habitual diplomatic skill, must have forsaken him, if he thought to advance his cause, to lay the storm of mdignation and alarm, by sneers however refined, by taunts how- ever effective, directed against the shortcomings (f our National Church, against the faults of our Bishops and Cathedral dignitaries. Great licence as we Englishmen take in occasionally abusing both — chiefly because they are not sullicicntly Protestant, not sufficiently national and comprehensive — we greatly mistake our countrymen if they will, even those of them who most widely differ in doctrii.e and ritual, join in hallooing on a Romanist prelate to his game, or chuckle at the hard hits he succeeds in planting on his adversary's face. One im- pression that this Ajipeal has clearly made, is that of extreme surpiiseat its contrast in style and tone with the pastoral address by which the Cardinal- Archbishop solemtiiscd his appoint- ment to his JNIetropolitan see. In spite of the attempted exi)lanation, that the one was a formal document, necessarily couched in official language, while the other is the unfettered discourse of a citizen to his fellow-citizens, all will feel that the two are not only different but irieconcileable, except upon that conventional distinction between the man and the ofTicial which has long been held nj) to ridicule and scouted In the indignation of honest penplc. And we know riothmg more likely to kecj) alive the suspicion and dislike which Knglishn.cn genei ally confess towards the Romanist system and its ecclesiastics, than to find oneol the most eminent of those ecclesiastics one week putting forth a solemn instrun^ent whose arrogance is only not appalling because it is ludicrously applied, and the next stepping into the popular arena and protesting againj.! a literal understanding of that instrument — declaiing its loidly presumption to be merely official, and its leal ])iirport to be meek, unassuming, and inoffensive. At any rate, we sue e,l a loss to decide which is the genuine exinession of the man andof his system ; and most of us will be more inclined to attacli importance to that which con'.es stamped with the authority of the Cardinal-Archbi.-hop of \\eslminster, than to place implicit reliance on the deprecatory explanation of Nicholas Wiseman. We must not, however, allow ourselves to be prevented by considerations of this sort from giving to the facts and arguments brought forward in the Appeal a fair judicial consideration. The question at issue is, Has the Pope violated our laws, enci-oached upon the limits of tolera- tion established by the Emancipation and similar subsequent Acts, and ofl'tred insult to our Sover^gn and our nation, by constituting 15ishops in England with English sees? Looking to the tone and manner of thn liuU by which this was effected, and the pastoral address by which it was inaugurated, we called it a wanton aggression, an imbecile impertinence ; and we con- templated the possibility of Parliament lieing required by the angry people to visit with penalties the assumption of English titles conferred by a foreign prince. The perusal of Cardinal Wiseman's Appeal confirms us in our view. There seems no good ground for sup- posing that the Pope's proceeding is contrary to our statutes. There is especial force in the argument that the express prohibition against Romanist prelates in this country assuming the titles of the sees of the Established Church acts as a tacit permission to assume those of any other sees they may choose to constitute; though it yet remains to be seen whether our judges may not construe this prohibition as extending to titles derived from any place contained within the prohibited sees; in which case, the recent assumption would of course be illegal and invalid. Still, as such extension was not, we believe, contemplated by the framers of that clause, we hope that, as in the case of all penal and disqualifying enactments, a liberal inter- pretation will be the one adopted. It does, moreover, seem to follow, as Lord Lyndhurst says, that "if the law allows the doctrine and discipline of the Roman Cathylic Church, it should be allowed to be carried out ijcrfi ctly and properly." This can, of course, only be done through a normally-constituted hierarchy ; and th 3 again must be called into existence by the Pope. So far we only recognise the strictly logical result of the Romanist Church system, and of the Emancipation Act of our own Legislature. It is against the next step that wc take arms. Had the Romanists acknowledged as their religious head one who was neither a foreign potentate nor the tool of foreign potentates, they might then, like the Methodists and every other sect, have received from tiiis heatl any organisation he or they pleased — the people of England would not have troubled themselves about the titles their district officejs assumed. But so long as the Pope is not only the l-.ead of the Catholic world, but the temporal ruler of Rome, and in that capacity the ally or the foe of other temporal Sovereigns, and likely, as the conscc[uence of his miuulanc amijitions and embroilments, to interfere in the civil affairs and rccpiire the military aid of other iiuropean Governments, we cannot practically regard him as merely the supreme ruler of the Church, nor allow him to make arrangements and bestov/ titles in our country, which have been in past times, and may be again, notoriously influenced by quite other than spiritual considerations, and made to subserve quite other than either Catholic or English aims. What, then, may be asked, were loyal English Catholics to do? To violate their duty to their country and Sovereign, or to mutilate the organisation of their Church? Neither was necessary, we conceive. There was one way out of this dilemma, which would have reconciled the conflicting claims of patriotism and religion ; a way, too, which the concessions of the English Parliament and the known tendencies of English states- men seemed expressly to suggest. An appeal to the nation and the Parliament — backed, as we believe it would have been, by all the statesmen of the day — to carry out to its full com- pletion the act of 1829, by sanctioning a regular government of the Roman Catholic Church in England, under such stipulations and conditions as should be deemed necessary for securing the independence or calming the fears of the people, would doubtless have met with temporary opposition, but would have finally prevailed over clamour and apprehension. Such, however, lias not been the course adopted by the persons who arc responsible for the proceedings now called in i|uestion. Addressing themselves directly to the Pope, and letting escape only the obscurest hints of what they were about, they have come down upon us with their new eccle- siastical constitution like a thief in the night ; and, in well-affected surprise at the confusion and dismay excited l)y their act, they profess that what they have done is the most natural and necessary thing in the world, and what was to be expected, and, indeed, only the strictly logical consequence of acts of our own. This it is which we call a wanton aggression, an imbecile impertinence, on tlie part of Pope and Prelates : that whereas there was a way of effecting a perfectly legitimate object in a perfectly inoffensive manner, they have chosen just the most offensive, and probably the least effectual, method of gaining their desired ends ; and all that Cardinal \^'iseman has quoted from the speeches of our statesmen, or stated of the actions of o\ir Government, to justify himself, oidy increases our sense of the wantonness of the aggres- sion and the imbecility of the impertinence. For the more strongly those speeches were in favour of giving to the Roman Catholics in England even a more unrestricted freedom than they have themselves assumed, the more the actions of the Executive tended towards con- cession and respect, surely the greater obligation was imposed upon the Pope and his advisers to compass their ends in the manner most plainly in harmony with the Constitution, and least offensive to our Queen and her Protestant subjects. One word upon the sarcasms which the Cardinal has, with such evident relish and such elaborated point, levelled against the Protestant Establishment. That they are tellingly plirased and artistically balanced no one will deny. True, that the English Church has no "clear, definite, and accordant teaching" upon many propositions which the Holy See has irrevocably asserted. It has not definitely pronounced that the sun moves round the earth, and so put itself in eternal opposition to science. It has never deliberately set its sanction on the murder of lliose wl>o differ from it, by striking a mc-diii and instituting a solemn thanks- giving to God in honour of a Protestant St. Bartholomew, and so been ever after as! aned of history. It has never organised a'conspiracy against activity of thouglit and the sanctities of domestic hfe, and so fjund itself I'.t once antagonist to pliilosopliy and morality. These tilings it has not done; and we can excuse it for being less definite than its rival upon the immaculate conception, and more reserved in its claims to infallible authority and miraculous powers. So, again, when he contrasts "the little paradise of comfort, cheerfulness, and ease,'' which in ancient times would have clustered round a wealthy cathedral establishment, with the haunts of squalid wretchedness which now present themselves " in frightful contrast, though in close cootact," with the magnificence of the Abbey of his see, we can take comfort from remem- bering, that while the Church whose tender care of the people he artfully insinuates has fostered sleek idleness and self-despairing inaction, it has ever been found to check the com- mercial prosperity and the political development of a nation, except when, as in the case of Belgium, these have been pushed forward by forces opposed to its influence and too powerful iOr its control. (From the " E.raminer," Xov. 2:>r(L) It is a very different jierformance from his pastoral letter, little objectionable in style, often felicitous, decorous in manner, dexterous in argument, and not wanting in telling hits, espe- (^ially those against the riches of our hierarchy. On the other hand, the Doctor is " unible" in the spirit of Uriah Heep, and his profoundest humility is assumed to humiliate most bitterly the opulent Church to which he is antagonist. He sues \n forma pauperis, to shame the wealth and state of the Protestant Establishment. Withal, he has no scruples in seizing any ground of vantage, whether real or ad vaplandmn ; and seems best pleased to turn the works of the old champions of Catholic Emancipation against them, and to make them api)ear answerable for all that is now exasperating the public mind. "Eaten bread" is proverbially soon forgotten, but the eaten bread in this instance is well remembered in order to be pleaded as warrant for encroachment; and the relief conceded to Catholics by our State is made the express ground for the present offensive jjretensions by the power ignoring our State — not ignoring its past liberality and justice indeed, recollecting them so to repay them— but ignoring its present existence and rights. The whole gist of the argument, indeed, is, "You have granted us so much that we must take all. You have rendered to us what is ours so unreservedly that v.e must take what is yours. You have yielded us our equitable place in the country, so your country shall be brought under the authority and jurisdiction cf Rome." We will not say that there is ingratitude in this, for concessions of justice raise no claim on gratitude ; but there is no good spirit, and much insolence in it : and though there is no actual injury there is the confessed intention of injury; for Dr. Wiseman does not shriok from the avowal that Romish aggrandisement at the expense of Protestantism is the aim of this innovation. There is a passage in the Appeal with apart of which we thoroughly and sorrowfully agree:— " Believe me, at this moment, the danger to the religious and civil liberties of Englishmen is not from any infringement on them by the Pope, in granting to English Catholics what I hope to show you that they had full right to obtain from him, hut from those who are takiiiif {idi'untagc of the occurrence to !>o back a step if they can in the legislation of toleration, and take nwatj from a lanre bodi/ of Englishmen what at present is lauful to them in regard to tlf! free exercise of their religion." The language which is hegiiming to be held, and t j find, we grieve to add, partial approval. At the City meeting on Nov. 21st, Mr. Alderman Lawrence is reported to have said : — " They were all arrayed there agiiinst the bigotry and intolerance of the Roman Catholic Church. Its hostility to spiritual freedom was constant; its intolerance was never ceasing, and could only be met by intolerance. (Cheers, and loud cries of " No, no.") They who were the friends of civil and religious liberty would gain in advocating freedom and toleration ; hut if its extension would lead to aggression he would he for removing toleration. (Cries of "No, no.") Toleration is but another word for equity ; and as well might Mr. Lawrence argue that if a man attempted to do him an injustice, he had the right to do him an injustice in return, or that if a thief endeavoured to ))ick his pocket, he, in retaliation, should rob him of his coat. Protestantism is strangely vindicated by pi incipks so alien to Christianity. Dr. Cumming, whose fealty to toleration was so lately mentioned by us with praise, now coolly proposes, amidst loud cheers, that her Majesty shall cause all the Romish Bishops to be shipped off and transported to Rome. Dr. Wiseman records llje very sensible remark of the Dean of Westminster as to the meditated invsision of his title: — " All Catholics knew of the intended measure ; the papers announced it ; so notorious was it,-that the Dean and Chapter of Westminster petitioned P.iiliament against it; and a friend of the writer's heard the Dean of Westminster say, most openly, 'Well, he may call himself what he pleases, but at least he can never he Dean of Westminster.' " He also quotes the opinion of I.tnd Stanley to the same ell'ecl : — " In 1841, or 181-', when, for the first limr, the Holy Scctliought of erecting a hierarchy in North America, I was coiiiiiiissioncJ to sound the feelings of Government on tlic biilijcct. I came up to London for the purpose, ami saw (lie Under-Secretary for the f'ulonies, of wliich L(jrd Sraul"y wns t!ie secretary. I shall not easily forget the urhanity of my rccc])tion, or the inteiesting conversation tliat took ))lace, in winch miv !i was spoken to mo which has since come literally true. But on the subject of my mistion th.c answer given was somewhat to this effect : -' What docs it matter to us what you call yourselves, ■whether Vicars-Apostolic, or Bishops, or Mufti=, or Imanms, so that you do not ask ns to do anything for you i AVe have no right to j)rcvent you taking any title among yourselves.' '' But they might have taken their titles, and played out their ma.'-qnerado. without ignoring the Protestant nati'm, and cl:iiiniug the whole kingdom as pertaining to Bomc. His Holiness treats Kiiglanoral ground, and shall not 1)0 suffered to frustrate the ends of legislation. It is not in the power of law to control the double allegiance in the hearts of Bonian Catholics, but it is in the power of the law to pursue in the field of action, anil punish, the perversion of the spiritual autliority of foreign derivation to temporal misuses and troubles. [From tin- " Times" of Xor. 22, 18,")0.) Is tlie division of I'^nghnd into Koman Caiholic hisliojirics witliiu the letter of the law? Is it the legitimate find perfect rievelupment of the Roinnn Catlioiic religion as a system? Does it trench on any one's rights ? These are the ihrt e cpiestions upon wliich, according to Drs. Wiseman, Newman, nnd Bowyer. the merits of the (piestion now at issue between the Pope and the people of England depend ; and they answer them accordingly. Now, as to the first, we have never been referred by any one to any l.iw of this country the letter of which h:is been infringed by the Pope or his emissaries. Our whole conduct has been inconsistent with such a belief. Had we thouglit that what has been done could he redressed by the jurisdiction of our ordinary tribunals, we should never have dreamt of invading the functions of a jury and rouiiiig tiie indignation of tlie public against persons in the unfortunate position of State criminals ; it is because we believe there is, at pio-ent, nb bar, save that of public opinion, at wldcli these bold men can be arraigned that we devote our columns to the exposure of their fallacies and the resistance of tlieir aggressions. We are therefore quite willing to concede to Dr. Wiseman tliat his ingenious evasion of the Emancipation Act may avail him at the Old Bi-.iley ; and that the clause which forbids the assumption of the titles of Kiiglish Idbhoiis by Roman Catliolics would not in a criminal case be held to extend to titles newly coined in the papal mint of honour. We also concede that the Roman Catholics are not bound to acknowledge the Queen's supremacy in spiritual matters, and we have no ohjcction to allow that the Roman Catholic religion, in its high and palmy state, requires a territorial dominion co-extensive and co-equal with the land it inhaiiits. But surely the adndssion of all this, which is all that tl;e Cardinal and his two doctors have proved or attempted to prove, goes no way at all towards establishing that the indignation of the people of Kugh.nd is unjust, that their jealousy is unfounded, or that their grievances are imaginary. All that lias been propounded by these learned personages was perfectly well known to every speaker and writer of the most ordinary intelligence who has taken-pait in the discussion which the rashness and insolence of a few ambitious ecclesiastics have in an evil hour for themselves forced upon us. The people of England regard this question neither from the legal or Old Bailey point of view, nor yet with tliPjCyes of those one-sided reasoners who can see nothing but the development of their own faith. It is on national, on loyal, on constitutional grounds that they take their stand. The Church of England is not merely a voluntary asso- ciation, enjoying peculiar privileges, as Dr. Wiseman insinuates; it is a part, and an integral part, of the ancient constitution of this country. The Sovereign is and must be its head; it is fully represented in the highest court of judicature ; and though it tolerates the widest dissent from its opinions, it is only on condition that no act shall he done subversive of its temporal or spiritual pre-eminence. Within these limits Roman Catholics and Dissenters arc ?t liberty to develope their own sy^cms as fully as they jdease. If the letter of the law suffer them to go beyond this, they cannot avail themselves of it without infringing the spirit and gerdus of our institutions, and arousing the just susceptibilities of the nation, which, when its will is once deliberately Riatured and] clearly exjiresscd, is as little disposed to tolerate evasion or permit disobedience as the successor of St. Peter himself. We might be well content to rest cur answer here, satijficd with pointing out that to invade the spiritud jurisdiction of the Established Church under a claim not merely of co-ordinate but of paramount spiritual authority derived from a foreign prince is not merely an attack upon a rival sect, but an aggression on the Crown and Constitution of tliese realms, because of that Church -the Crown is the head, of that Conbtitution the Church is a jjart. But the case docs nnt rest here. The Roman Catholics have not, that we are aware, violated the law, but they have evaded it : they have the letter on their side; the people who made the law have the spirit on theirs. And what is that law ? It is the Emancipation Act of 1829, won for them against unparalleled difficulties by the generous exertions of the members of that very Ciiurch which they are cajoling, betraying, and invading — in a breath, it is the charter of their political liberties and spiritual freedom which they now seek to elude and undermine by all the arts of sophistry and chicanery. Either the Emancipation Act was a boon conceded to a suffering class of her Majesty's subjects by the grace and favour of the British people, or it was a great act of national reconciliation — a solemn compact between the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority, by which, in consideration of the removal of all civil disabiltics, the Roman Catholics covenanted so to use the spiritual liberty which was granted them as not to infringe upon the temporal or s])iritual rights of others. ^Mr. Bowycr in his pamphlet admits that the relations which, according to the law of the land, the Roman Catholics bear to the See of Rome clearly appear from the oath contained in the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act ; in other words, that this oath fairly embodies the understanding as to the conduct and dispo- sitions of the Roman Catholics upon which this act was passed. The words he quotes are the following : — "And I do further declare, that it is not an article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any other authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by any other person whatsoever. And I do declare that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person. State, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectli/ within this realm." Thus far Mr. Bowyer. We request our readers to attend to the sequel of the oath, which, for obvious reasons, he has not thought fit to insert: — " I do swear that I will defend to the utmost of my power the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws. And I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church establishment as settled by law within this realm. And I do solemnly swear that I never will exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant Government in the United Kingdom." "The question, then, is reduced to a very narrow issue. This oath, by the admission of Mr. Bowyer, contains the relation of the Roman Catholics to the See of Rome, and therefore, by necessary consequence, to the Church and State of England. Is the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, with his territorial jurisdiction without personal limitation, true to the terms and spirit of this compact ? Is not the conferring of titles of honour — purely spiritual honour, if he please — by the Pope, at least indirectly an act of civil pre-eminence within this realm ? Does the Roman Catholic ecclesiastic who assumes the primacy of England for the See of Westminster without limitation or qualification, and therefore to the exclusion of the present primate, do his utmost to defend the settlement of the Church within this realm, or is he not palpably the aggressor against whom it must be defended? Is it no disturbance of the Pro- testant religion or Government of tliis realm of England to establish in it an hierarchy co-extensive, co-equal, co-ordinate with the Protestant hierarchy, which, as far as words and professions can go, is wholly ignored, and set aside? Is it to strengthen or to weaken the Protestant religion that, according to Dr. Wiseman's own statement, this step has been taken? His words are " Many minds allowed themselves to be influenced by the apparent advantage of ecclesiastical position on the other side." It was, then, to create a state of things upon which a controversial argument to icmhcn the case of the Church of England aS against the Church of Rome might be founded that this change, according to the evidence of its promoter, negotiator, and defender, was made. Most true, Dr._\Viseman disclaims any but spiritual jurisdiction, and in a spirit of armgant humility and insolent self-abasement expresses his willingness to leave the temporalities of the English Church to their present possessors, provided he be allowed, holy and humljlc that he is, to pursue his noiseless and unol.trusive ministry amid the poor and afflicted. Surely here is a little confusion bttween giving and taking. 'I'he Pope frives all, spiritual and temporal, without restriction or (pialitication. The Cardinal takes exactly as much as he can get. We have little reason to thank him for his moderation. The grapes arc sour ; but if he be indeed a faithful representative of that Church which sold the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the license to commit sin, which has ever regarded its sjiiritual claims as mere means and ai)|)linnces to its temporal aggrandisement, and which surfeited on the plunder of Christendom till the human mind, even in the days of its darkness, rose up against its insatiable avarice, he will not, longer than he is absolutely obliged, content his a])petitc with hungry spiritualities. It would be as reasonable for a privateer whieh sheers off from a vessel it dares not attack to deny possession of a Itttir of marque as for the Cardinal Archbishop of We&tminstcr, with the full commission of the Pope to clutch all he can in his pocket, to affect a contempt for the temporalities of the Church of England. .We may be well assured that if he be reduced to the state of primitive simplicity of which he boasts, it is not because a R'jinan Catholic ecclesiastic desires little, but because we will not give more. (From the "Morning Chronicle," Xov. 21, 18.50.) We published at length in our impression of yesterday Cardinal Wiseman's voluminous and ably written " A])peal to the People of England." It was not difficult to anticipate its tone or its tenor. Tiie same skilful adaptation of manner to circumstances which induced the titular metropolitan, in his inaugural address to the faithful, to assume the. pompous and confident tone of a i3unstan or an a'Becket, is illustrated by tlie mild resignation of his plea for con- tinued tolerance among a Protestant community. The No-I'opery agitation, which has unfortunately been excited by Lord John llussell's ill judged attempt to acquire popularity by an appeal to religious bigotry, furnishes the Cardinal with the most plausible and effective portion of his argument ; and should his obvious endeavour to enlist on his side the feelings and convictions of the Protestant Dissenting community be attended with a success propor- tioned to its dexterity and tact, the rc.^ult will be largely due to the short-sightedness of the former patron of "civil and religious liberty" in affording so excellent a handle to the Papal divine. We have anticipated, and we concur in, Dr. Wiseman's just complaint of the factious and dishonest conduct of the ermined partisan, " who preferred to deliver his award against us from behind the tables of a Mansion-house banrjuet, and to elicit the anti Popish cheers of his civic comjianions, rather than the honoured ap|)robation of the peerage and the bar;" nor are we surprised at his remarks on the flippant language which a more honest and respectable functionary was temiitcd to use with respect to "the religion of many millions of her Majesty's subjects, nearly all Ireland, and some of our most flourishing colonies." "The charge," he adds, " uttered in the car of that island, in which all guarantees for genuine and pure Catholic education will of necessity be considered in future as guarantees for 'confining the intellect and enslaving the soul' — all securities for the Catholic religion as security for ' the mummeries of superstition' in the mind of their giver — guarantees and securities which can tiardly be believed to be heartily offered — the charge thus nv.ide, in a voice that has been ap|)lauded by the Protestantism of England, produces in the Catholic heart a feeling too sickly and too dead- ening for indignation ; a dismal despair at fuidingthat, where we have honoured, and supported, and followed tor years, we may be spurned and cast ofl' the first moment that popularity demands us as its price, or bigotry as its victim." In this passage. Dr. Wiseman only expresses the feelings of all lloman Catholics with respect to the Prime Minister's attack upon their creed. Mr. Howard, of Corby Castle, publishes his " conviction that the phrase ' mummeries of super- stition' can only be looked upon as a deliberate insult to the faith and religious practice of at least one-third of the loyal subjects of the British realm." The singular altempt which has been made to defend the grave indiscretion of the Premier's manifesto, on the pretext that it was intended chiefly to express his antipathy to a party in the English Church, has only brought into a stronger light the exclusively sectarian purpose of his interference. I5y combining a rebuke of the Romanist aggression with an insult to those who may hold particular theological oijinions. Lord John Russell abandoned his tenable position as a national statesman for the questionable character of an ill-informed controversialist. If the party on which he volunteered a censure has anything in common with Rome, it is certainly not its political ambition nor its intrusion of a foreign territorial episcopite. Its " superstitious mummeries" can only be those of the Roman Catholic Church, and its steps approach the verge of no "precipice" except that of Popery. Neither Dr. Wiseman nor his lay co-religionists will easily be persuaded that a denunciation of a supposed aiiproximation to the distinctive doctrines of their Church, issued on the occasion of a measure in which that Church was exclusively concerned, was a mere ex- pression of inelcvant and illogical si)itc against a party in the Establishment who were entirely opposed to the measure which formed the subject of complaint. We regret that the false position taken up by the Prime Minister should have enabled Car- dinal Wiseman to assume, with so much i)lausibility and success, the defensive position of re- presentative of an injured and insulted community. He shows much ingenuity in pointing cut the inconsistency of the officials who arc so greatly surprised at the new Romish aggres- ^ion, and so eager to attribute it to theological tendencies which they are pleased to stigmatise as heretical. With a malicious pleasure he recapitulates the successive acknowledgments which the No-Popery Ministers have found it expedient to make of the pretensions of Romanist prelates to territorial authority in the empire. The recognition by the Government of the lloman Catholic hierarchy in Australia, and the legal sanction conferred by provincial Acts on the titles of the bishoiis of the same Church in various parts of our North American provinces, are not unnaturally put forward in contrast with the zeal which, not content with resenting the encroachments of the Pope, extends to the condemnation of his "superstitious mummeries." The Bishop of Exeter, in an address to his clergy, which will perhaps remind Lord John Russell of former unpleasant collisions with that able prelate, curies Dr. Wiseman's well- founded arffumrntam ad hi)mi>icm into instructive detail. He further quotes a speech of Lorliop may well "stand agiiast at — 1 will not say tiie unfairness, I will not say t'.e unmanlines? — luit I wiil fay the );rodigioi!S hardihood of the noble lord's reliance on such foigctfulnrss of recent facts, or such utter disregard of truth and justice, as he is thus jtlcased to attribute lo the people of England." If it is possible to disabuse Exeter Hall of its faith in its new and distinguished convert and champion, Dr, AVi.seman's statement, that the Government was, three years ago, officially informed of the scheme which has now been accomi)lislictit by what their enemies say of them. When Cardinal Wiseman promises that he will visit the shrine of St. Kdward, " and medi- tate on the olden times when tlie church filled ^vithout a coronation, and multitudes hourly worshipped without a service," he administers a reproof not the less valuable because it comes from unfriendly lips. When he adds, "that he will pay his entrance-fee to go into West- minster Abbey like other liege subjects; that he will resign himself meekly to the guidance of the beadle, and listen without rebuke when he points out to his admiration detestable monu- ments, or shoW'S a hole in the wall for a confessional," it is impossible to deny that the Roman Catholic dignitary, however much he may err on the doctrinal and theological points in dispute, has discovered and assailed a weak point in the administration of the Abbey. It has been too long a subject of scandal tl at an admission-fee should be demanded at the doors of our metropolitan catlicdrals, and that these magnificent edifices, the pride of London, should only be known by their outsides to the great masses of the pco()le. The CarfcHoars criticism, as regards the "detestable" monuments, might have been spared; but, in other respects, however unpalatable it may be, th.erc is too much foundation for his, hard words lo allow them to fall unproductively. We heartily wish, for the sake of the Church of Kngland, that his still keener criticism upon the spiritual destitution of the district immediately around Westminster Abbey were not supported l)y facts. " In ancient times," he says, " tlie existence of an abbey on any spot, with a large staff of clergy and ample revenues, would have sufficed to create around it a little paradise of comfort, cheerfulness, and ease. This, however, is not now the case. Close under the Abbey of Westminster there lie concealed labyrinths of lanes and courts, and alleys and slums, nests of ignorance, vice, depravity, and crime, as well as of squalor, wrelehedncss, and disease ; whose atmosphere is typhus, whose ventilation is cholera ; in which swarms a huge and almost countless population, in great measure, nominally at least, Catholic ; haunts of filth, which no sewage committee can reach — dark corners, which no lighting-board can biightcn. This is the part of Westminster which alone I covet, and which 1 shall be glad to claim and to visit as a blessed pasture in which sheep of Holy Church are to be tended, in wliich a bisho[)'s godly wcirk has to he done, of consoling, converting, and preserving. And if, as 1 humbly trust in Cod, it shall be seen that this special culture, arising fron> the esta- blishment ot our hicnirchy, bears fruit of order, peaccfulness, decency, religion, and virtue^ it may be that the Holy See shall not be thought to have acted unwisely, when it bound up the very soul and salvation of a cliief pa.stor with those of a city where tho name indeed i.s glorious, but the purlieus infamous — in which the very grandeur of its ])ablic edifices is as a shadow, to screen from the public eye sin and misery the most appalling. If the wealth of the Abbey be stagnant, and not difl'usivc — if it in no way rescue the neighbouring population from the depths in which it is sunk, let there be no jealousy of any one v,bo, by Avhatever name, is ready to make the latter his care, without interfering witli tlie former." If th'c sarcasm of Dr. A^'isoinan, and his too faithful description of the wretehcd purlieus of Westminster Abbey — without exception, the most immoral and degraded j^ortion of this great nieti-0]>olis — shall stir up the zeal of the clergy who participate in the revenues and enioliimciits of the Abbey to investigate the condition of the po])ulation around thein ; if it shall induce them to establish addi- tional schools for the swarming children of poverty and vice — to visit more frequently the outcasts of society in their miserable homes, and to sit with more kindliness and zeal at the bedside of the expiring sinner, somcthin^bcttcr than theological rancour will have been excited, and good will have flowed cvcuTronj so unwelcome a source as the assumptions and presumptions of Popery. ' 10 We earnestly hope that, amid many other good results Avhich may be expected, sooner or later, from the shock which the Church of England and the feelings of the people have received, a revival of sympathy between Churcli and people may be the most con- spicuous and the most lasting. The lesson has been a rude one, but it cannot -with truth be said that it was not needed. (Front, the. " fVeekli/ News," Nov. 23r(l, 1850.) " Acer Romanus in armis Injusto sub fasce viain quum car])it, ct hosti Auto expectatuni positis stat in aginine castris." ViKG. Georg. iii. 31-7. The Cardinal has astonished the natives. Our anti-Popeiy zealots hardly knew that Dr. Wiseman had left the " Flaminian Gate" when, lo 1 he appears, and issues a Manifesio, in which he certainly deals slashing blows, right and left, among liis assailants, even if he does not suc- ceed in parrying all those that liavc been aimed at his own party. We have seldom read an abler specimen of controversial writing than this document, and the grace of its style, the simjile clearness of its language (where it suits the writer to be clear), the polished keenness of its sarcasms, and the occasional beauty of its descriptions, make it as agreeable to the reader as it is able. The injudicious exhibitions in which certain grave judicial personages liave lately indulged for the sake of acquiring popularity liy their Protestant zeal, are admirably criticised by the calmly severe and courteously cruel Catholic champion. The pomps and riches of our Anglicati clergy arc made adroitly prominent, when their ecclesiastic thunders against the new unen- dowed rival hierarchy are referred to. There is a skilful and seemingly fraidc appeal to the national iove of fair-play, and a well-worded protest against the mob-violence with which the Catholics have in some instances been threatened during the recent excitement. Where the Cardinal handles our statesmen, he exposes their inconsistencies and vacillations in merciless though in apparently bumble style. It is, in short, an admirable reply to a great number of bad advocates of the opposite side, so far as regards the exposure of their advocacy. But, whether it grapples fairly with the substantial merits of the case, and proves its writer to have the best side of the cause, as well as the greatest cleverness in conducting it, is quite another affair. ^ Dr. Wiseman maintains two points respecting the recent Papal parcelling out of England into new bishoprics, and establishment of a Catholic hierarchy. , He ma-ntains, first, that it is strictly within the letter of the law of the land; and, secondly, that there is nothing in it at wliieh tJie English nation might fairly be expected to take offence. These are the real points of his Manifesto : not, indeed, thus expressly stated ; for he is too adroit a disputant for that but they form in substance his defence of what has been done ; and it is essential to his suc- cess that he should prove both. In our opinion he has proved neither. In the first place, as to the strict legality of the appointment of this hatch of Romish Bishops. The Cardinal argues very skilfully and learnedly that no law is broken by himself and his suffragans assuming episcopal titles in England, provided they do not assume the titles of the sees of the English Church. We do not say whether he is right on this or not. But the cunning Cardinal, while he is copious on the topic of the titles, wholly shirks the matter of the illegality of bringing the Pope's Bull into this country, without which Catholic Bishops cannot be created. There is no denying that the introduction of Papal Bulls is still forbidden by her statute law. We have here, then, a manifest misdemeanour, and it is i:n|)ossible to maintain that the law has not been, and must not be, broken in every case of making Catholic Bishoi)S in this country. So much for the mere letter of the law. Now for the far more important point, wiiether what has been done was calculated to give reasonable offence to the great majority of the nation. V. e call this the more important point, because we should not think very much of the neglect of an old penal statute, if it occurred in the course of any measure not of itself offensive. The Cardinal gives many reasons why it is desirable that Catholics should have Bishops ; he quotes many cases in which our Legislature has sanctioned the existence of Catholic Bishops in Ireland and in our colonics. But all this cannot prove the propriety of such a step as the present. The Pope suddenly appoints a whole hierarchy at once for England, lie carves our island out into teiritorics, each of which is tc^e under a Catholic prelate, subordinate to the Roman Ponliff, and not to the English Sovereign. We must insist on the fact that I'io Nono's new Bishops are to be Bishops of distiicts, not Bishops of the Catholics in each district; that Dr. Wifcman is to be Metropolitan of England, not Metropolitan of the Catholics in England. This is far from a verbal distinction. Dr. Wiseman once or twice (forgetting his usual caution) drops the phrase, that there is nothing new in the claim of the Pope to do all this ; and that be is only assuming the same rights as his predecessors. We know this full well ; anil we also know what the Papal claims were and are as to their power, and that of their clergy in their cj)iscoi)atc8. Dr. Wiseman says, that Ibe English Catholics asked for Bishops, V«'c know that Ihcy did ; 11 but it was for an episcopate of a very different kind to that which the Pope has given them. The English Catholics wished their Bishops to be nominated here in England, from among themselves, subject to the Pope's ratification. Under that system we should at least liave had the more moderate and enlightened j)arty among the Catholics represented in their prelates. But now we are to have them appointed direct from Rome : from Rome, where the most narrow-minded and intolerant party is predominant. Look at Prin.ate CuUen, whom the Pope has just inflicted on Ireland. It would be impolitic at first to send such benighted and be- nighting bigots to England; hut it cannot be doubted that ultra-montane Catholics will soon be in possession of all, or nearly all, the Papal ICuglish Sees. But say what you will about Bishops, what excuse can there be for sending us a Cardinal? Dr. Wiseman prudently holds his tongue about this. ' Of course it would be egotistical for him to speak too much about himself. It must be remembered ^at a Cardinal is one of the highest grandees of a foreign temporal Sovereign ; as well as a dignified ecclesiastic. All the objections to the subjects of a foreign ruler bearing power and office here are aggravated tenfold in Dr. Wiseman's own promotion. An ordinary Catholic may (and we believe does) bear true allegiance to Queen Victoria, but we cannot understand liow Cardinal Wiseman can help feel- ing under a superior obligation to Pope Pio Nono. The time, too, at which all this has occurred, has been seemingly chosen with a view to parade the advancement of Catholicism nio?t arrogantly, and to excite the anxiety of sincere Protestants most widely. The I'ractarian traitors in our Church have been lately growing more and more active, and more and more presumptuous. The open converts from tbtir I'auks to Popery were numerous. We were told, and had reason to l)elieve, that the secret converts wlio still lingered in our camp were more numerous still. The whole Tractarian party was, and is, justly regarded as Semi-Papistical. While things are in this state, a troop of Catholic hierarclis is suddenly organised, and sent among us, as it were to take possession of the fortress from the willing garrison. The Pojjc and his clergy, both here and abroad, put forth decrees and thanksgivings, and sermons, in whieh the coming conversion of England was spoken of, as if the land were an isle of savage heathens, in which an enlightened few wore longing for the proclamation of their spiritual sovereign's creed. "Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph ?" says Othello, and, in truth, the Romans and the Tractarians triumphed a little too soon. England is Protestant at heart; and legions of Puscys and Wisemans will try in vain to make her otherwise. I- In thus controverting Cardin-d Wiseman's assertions, we have no wish to see him or his sutfnigans either indicted or mobbed. Let them alone. Enough has been said and done to convince them and their traitorous Tractarian allies of their error in thinking England ripe for Romanism. If the establishment of a rival hierarchy shame our own into a little more active Christianity, we shall have cause to rejoice at the appearance of the "Illustrious Stranger" among us. There is ample room for such competition. There is a wide and dense field of misery, ignorance, and vice, to the reformation of which the Romanist, the Anglican, and the Dissenter, mny apply their energies, and where, in the practice of the virtues of their common Christianity, they may forget the evil passions of their sectarian distinctions. THE CARDINAL'S OATH. {Frointhe'' Spectator," Xov.'li,\%:)Q.) " A great point in the theological controversy has been grounded on a persecuting passage in. the oaths to be taken by Roman Catholic bishops at their consecration, and by cardinals on their receiving the palliidn. In the lectures which, at the request of the Society for Pro- moting the Religious Principles of the Keforniation, Dr. Cumming, tlie Presbyterian orator of Crown Court, has been delivering to immense audiences in the llanover-square-Rooms, the oath was (juotcd from the " Pontificalc Romanum." The persecuting clause reads thus — "Ilereticos, schismaticos, ct rcbelles Domino iiostro, vol successoiibus, proposse persequar et impugnabo." So eminent an ecclesiastic as Dr. Wordsworth quoted this passage from the pulpit of Westminster Abbty itself, on Sunday the 3rd instant, with an emphatic translation of it for the more cft'ective stirring of the heretical and schismatical Protestant mind, and an intimation that Cardinal Wiseman, having duly swurn to " persecute and make war upon heretics," might be expected to act accordingly. But all this appears to have been staled, whether by Dr. Wordsworth in the pulpit or Dr. Cumming on the platform, under a grand mistake. The terrible clause was expunged from the oath as administered to British eccle- siastics, by Pope Pius the Seventh, in April, 1818. Dr. Wiseman took th^ oath in its amended form when he was made a bishop in 1840; the recent bishops took, or will take, the same amended oath ; and Dr. Wiseman, on receiving the pallium, took no oath at all, cardinals being exempt. These particulars are communicated in a letter signed " Francis Se.ule," of St. George's, Southwark ; who assisted at the cacmony in which Cardinal Wiseman received the pallium. 12 THE AllCHBISIIOP OF CANTERBURY ON "THE ROMISH AGGRESSION." TO THE ARCHDEACONS AND CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OE CANTERIJURY. I am much gratified by receiving the address of the Archdeacons and Clergy of my diocese of Canterbury, " protesting against the act of aggression upon our Church recently committed by the Papal sec." "-I was well aware that the clergy o{ my diocese were animated by the same sentiments which have been so generally expressed by the Churc!i of England concerning this extraordinary measure, and 1 have waited for your address, considering that it wotild afford the most suital)ic opportunity of declaring my own sentiments upon the occasion. You ju'tly observe that the appointment of bishops to take spiritual charge of the several counties <}f England and Wales is in direct opposition to the statutes of a country which affirm that no foreign prelate or pntcntate liatli, or ought to have, any jurisdiction or authority within this realm, in wliich tlie Queen's iNL-jesly, under God, is the sole supreme governor. " When a foreign potentate assigns particular districts of the realm to be ruled over by his episcopal idekgates and nominees," lie certainly assumes to himself a pre-eminence and power which is opposed to the spirit and purport of our law. We therefore have just reason to declare our indignation at the present invasion of our rights, and the assumption on which it is avowedly grounded, that our Protestant communion is unsound, and even heretical. But whilst we are indignant, we need not be surprised. All religion, whether false or true, must be in a certain sense aggressive if it is sincere, and it is the known characteristic of the Roman Catholic religion to be not merely a,ggressive, but encroaching, and to rest satisfied with nothing short of absolute domination. Wc shall therefoie act wisely if we look around us and inquire whether any peculiar circumstances atnongst ourselves may have caused the present time to appear to the Court of Rome a fiivourable opportunity for the movement of which we complain. Ten years have elapsed since 1 thought it necessary to warn the clergy of another diocese against the danger of adopting principles which, when carried out, tend naturally to those Romish errors, against which our forefathers protested, and which were renounced by the Anglican Chinch. The result has proved that this judgment was not harsh, or the warning premature ; on the contrary, certain of our clergy, professing to follow up those principles, have proceeded onward fro:n one Romish tenet and one Romish practice to another, till in some congregations all that is distinctive in Protestant doctrine or Protes; ant worship has disappeared. Other circumstances might he mentioned, such as the titles and precedence allowed to the Roman Catholic dignitaries in Ireland and our colonies, which have afforded some colour to th.e belief that a change had come over the spirit of our land, and that an act of Romish aggression inight be ventured without risk of serious notice or national ojiposition. Hajjpily, the event has proved tl^at the errors were on tlio surface, and confined to few ; the heart of the nation adheres to the Word of God, and rejects the traditions of men. Our tirst duty, therefore, in the present crisis is to retrace our steps wherever they have tended towards Romish doctrine or Romisli superstition ; and, wliilst we appegl to the Legi.>lature to protect our Church from foreign invasion, to he especially careful tlint we arc not betrayed by enemies within. But another duty is incumbent on us, of still greater urj-cncy. The corruptions of the Romish Chuicli aie very congenial to the human mind, and especially to the uneducated, unawnkened mind. Amongst the population of our crowded towns and our rem.ote villages, too many, unhappily, are little able to test the truth of any religion which is proposed to them by its only sure standard; the Bible. 'I'iiese may easily become a prey to teacliers so subtle, so skilful, so insinuating as Romish emissaries are known to be. There is likewise a constant immigration from Ireland of men who have imbibed superstitiun from their cradle, and by companionship, or alli.-.nces amcmg their fellow-workmen, are too likely to aid the exertions of priests and Jesuits, of nuns and Sisters of Charity. It beci)mcs doubly necessary for the clergy to guard their people against this danger by every means through which scriptural knowledge may be diffused amongst them ; acquaintance with the Seriptuics is the sure defence againit Rome. The laity must lend their aid and supply the means of adding to tiie number of clergy, together with a provision for household visitors and Serii)ture readers, without which it is impossible to make head against the ignorance and apathy of an untaught multitude. If the recent assault upon our Church should thus become the means of extending scriptural instruction, tin measure which was designed for our injury may, imder a gracious Providence, result in an eventual good. The enemy has shown that he considers we have a weak point. It is our business to strengthen that point, and guard it from attack ; and not to allow the ignorance of any part of our population to betray them into the haiuls of Rome. The clergy who have addressed me may dcjicnd upon my using whatever inlliicnee belongs to the Ingh office and station to which I have b, en called, to maintain her Majesty's "royal prerogative and title, and to assert the rightful claims of the Church of England." And 1 have full con- fidence that they, on their part, will never be wanting in their endeavours to render harmless any attempt which may be mode to weaken or subvert the Protestant faith, of which they are tiie appointed guaidians. Lamhvth, Xuv 21, 18")0 J. B. CANTUAR. u THE ATiciiBisiior or york and his clergy. TO THE CLERGY OF THE RURAr, DEANERY OF DONCASTER WHO SIGNED THE ADDRESS. My Rev. Brktiiren, — I have received with great satisfaction your temperate and season- able address. 'I"he opinions therein stated have my full concurrence. 'I'he indignation you feel "at tlie attempt now made hy tlie Bishop"of Rome to cstablisli a complete Papal hierarchy in tliis kingdom," appears to be almost universally felt. But the manly and courageous letter of the Chief Minister of the Crown will relieve us of much of our anxiety on that head. I cannot state more exactly my agreement with the sentiment expressed in your third paragraph than by the following extract from a charse delivered by me to my late diocese, in June, 1845 : — " We have good reason to believe that (Christianity was first introduced into these islands by the labours of an .\postle, or of A|)ostolic men, and had made much progress, long before the missionaries of Rome ever touched our shores. And if, in the course of time, in asres of ignorance and darkness, our Church became so closely connected with her, and through her usurpations so subjected to her power, as to partake of her corruptions and her sins, at length the burden was too grievous to bo borne, the bondage was broken and rent asunder, and our present p\nity of fuitli and jiractice was restored on the authority of God's Word and on the testimony of the primitive fathers, .^re you now, after three centuries' enjoyment of freedom, to be again burdened with a heavy yoke which your fathers could not bear, and to be again brought under the tyrannous nde of one who 'sitteth in the temple of God, exalting himself above all that is called God' — usurping a title and a dignity which cannot be proved to have any foundation in reason, in Scripture, or in historic truth? Against the multiplied and dangerous errors of Rome, our venerable Reformers testified unto death. Are we so degenerate as to be beguiled into the snare which her ever wakeful ambition is con- tinually plotting for our captivity, entanglement, and ruin ?" It required, perhaps, no great reacli of foresight to be able to predict the dangers that were ai)|)roaching. They were foreseen and foretold, and the voice of warning was raised in various quarters against the sure and inevitable tendency of the Romanising spirit in which too many of our brethren in the ministry so freely and rashly indulged. You truly describe as " of exceedingly dangerous tendency, both to themselves and their flocks, their adoption of opinions and practices whicli are in conformity with those of the Churcii of Rome, and foreign to those of that pure and reformed branch of the universal Church so happily established in these realms." You next allude, in words of deep import, to the solemn oath taken at your ordination, as 'm other subsequent occasions, wherein you "declared your assent to the principles embodied in the Orc'inul, Articles, and Canons of our Church — that the Queen's Majesty, under Gcd, is the onl> supreme Governor in this realm, as well in all spiritual or eccksiaslical causes as in temporal." You aie aware that some clergymen, in the unrestrained indulgence of their rights of private judgment, have narrowed the interp. etation of the obligation under which they were bound, whenever and as often as they subscribed the three articles of the 36th canon, contracting its force and meaning within limits (to common apprehension) little accordant with the plain language of that canon and with its known purpose and object, as confirmed by the 2nd and 27th canons of the same year. No wonder, therefore, when our abjuiation of all foreign pretensions is nullified by such a construction, that the Bishop of Rome, ever on the watch fur regaining and re-establishing his ascendancy, should step in and claim us as part of his heritage ; for it is an acknowledged rule of his Church, that not only those who submit to and continue in his communion, hut all who, like ourselves, have long ago renounced and quitted it, are, nevertheless, still under his dominion. This is evident from the catechism published by order of Pope Pius V. : — " Non ncgandum, tamen, quia in ccclesiic potestate sint hajretici ct schismatici qui ab ecclesia dcseruerunt, ut qui ab til in judicium vocentur, puniantur, et anathcmate damncntur." The same doctrine is stated more recently in a celebrated work, " De ]']cclesiil Christi." " Ecclesia suam retinet jurisdictionein in omnes apostatas, liaTCticos et schismaticos, quanquam ad illius corpus non jam pertineant." So that we are all accounted as part and parcel of that spiritual dominion which we have forsaken and abjured. I rejoice, therefore, that you have entered your timely and " indignant protest" against this intolerable and usurped authority, and that you will not suti'er yourselves to be again brought under its sway; and I cordially join with you in the hope that this "audacious movement of the Papal See will be overruled for good" by Him at whose disposal is the issue of all events, so that the true faith of the Gospel may continue and be universally held among us throughout all generations. Believe me to be, Rev. Brethren, your faithful Friend and Servnnt, T. EBOR. 14 At a meeting of tlie President and Fellows of Sion Collej^c, the following reply of the Bishop of London to the address from that body was read to them ; — "Fulham, Xov. 5, 1850. " Rev. and Dear Brethren, — I expected nothing less from the President and Fellows of Sion College than an expression of the indignation with which tlicy regard the recent usurpation of authority by the Bishop of Rome, in pretending to re-divide the kingdom of England, which has formally rejected and cast off his tyrannj-, into new dioceses, and appointing new Bishops to preside over them, treating as mere nonentities the ancient Archbishoprics and Bishoprics of England, recognised as they have been by his predecessors, although existing independently of them. "In order to avoid doing that which is forbidden in terms of the laws of our country, he has done that which is a palpable violation of the laws of the Catholic Church, even of that division of it over which he ])resides. ' Hsec est modcrna Ecclesisc descriptio' (says Van Espen) 'ut, et Episcopatum et Archicpiscopatum, sive Metropolcon, institutio, sen erectio, non nisi authoritate Patris, intcrveniente, tamen principis consensu, imofere non nisi id ejus postulationem liat.' In fact, tlie recent proceedings of the Pope can be defended, even upon the piinciples of his own Church, only on the ground that this realm of England is in partibus mjiddium, or that he treats us not merely as heretics or schismatics, but as unbelievers. "You have justly designated this novel and presumptuous movement of the Court of Rome as a bold attempt to undermine and destroy our constitution in Church and State. The extension of Papal authority is as little compatible with the safety of the latter as it is with the independent purity of the former. <^None of the decrees by which former Popes have asserted a right of interference in the government of a country have been abrogated or disowned. All the offensive weapons of the Romish Church are susi)ended in her armoury, ready to be taken down and wielded when a fit season shall occur. The recent act of the Pope is virtually an interference with the Government of England, and ought to be denounced and resisted as such. 'As it is lawful,' says Bellarmine, ' to resist the Pope if he should invade our bodies, so it is lawful to resist him invading ojir souls or troubling the commonwealth.' 'It is of perilous consequences,' says Dr. Barrow, ' that foreigners should have authoritative influence upon the subjects of any power, or have power to intermeddle in affairs,' — one of the wise observations so thickly strc\ved over that masterly treatise in which he has effectually destroyed the notion of the Pope's suprenuicy. " But it is for us, the ministers of a Church which, by God's blessing, cast off the slough of Romish corruptions at the Reformation, to warn our people against this daring attempt of a. foreign Bishoji, as being an open aggression upon the purify of our faith and worship, and upon our religious freedom. Let us warn them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and ' not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage.' Let us be careful to impress upon them the true nature of the differences that separate us from the Church of Rome, and the grounds upon which our own, as a true branch of the Church Universal, claims and merits their allegiance. "If you arc faithful to cur trust we shall have no cause to fear. The li^ht which was re-kindled at the Reformation, far from being extiriguishcd by the emissaries of darkness, will burn more brightly still upon the Church or golden candlestick, and the people of England will rejoice more and more in its l)rightness. " I thank you, reverend and dear bretlu'en, for the assurance of your prayers on my behalf, and commending you to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I remain your affectionate friend and Bishop, "To the Rev. President and Fellows of Sion College." " C. J. LONDON. The Bishop of Exeter has made the following reply to an address presented to his lordship by the churchwardens and a deputation of lay members of the parish of the Holy Trinity, Exeter : — "Brother Christians, and Brother Churchmen, — I receive with great satisfaction the address which has' just been read to me. The reccni acts of the Bishop of Rome, affecting, in direct contradiction to the canons of the Catholic Church, to place bishops in this land, which is throughout already occupied by an Episcopate nearly as ancient as that of Rome itself, cannot fail to have excited in every fatliful mend)erof Ciuist's Church amongst us a feeling of indigna- tion at its presumption, and a lirmer resolution than ever to resist the unrighteous and un- calholic spirit which lias prom|)ted it. "AVhether this act be indeed, as you designate it, an 'aggression on the constitutional rights and sovereignty of the Crown of England,' after all tlie ciianges in our constitution which modern legislation has introduced, I do not jiretend to say. If it be, it is manifestly the duty of the advisers of the Queen to take steps to vindicate the outraged rights antl honour of their royal mistress. " But periiaps there is too m\ich reason to fear tliat the innovations which have been made within the last few years in oui' fundamental daws, have, in truth, removed all impediments to the intrusion of such bulls from Rome as that wliicii is the subject of our present complaint. If this shall prove to be the case, it will become the peopU' of lingland to blame their ow 15 culpable tlisrcg'anl of tiioir liiiflicst interests, in spite of warnings repeatedly pressed npon them, rutlicr t|iun to indulnc; in fiinons but idle invective against the wary adversary who has turned their inipnidencc so hu-gely to his own account. "Be this, however, as it may, it is a branch of the subject on which it does not become mc here to dwell. In Parliament, so lonf;- as it shall please Uod to give me strength lo go thither, my voice shall ever be raised, as it always hitherto has been raised, however feebly and inelfcct- ually, to assert tlic ancient principles of EiTglish law, principles which, so long as they were permitted to retain their force, were the security alike of the majesty of the Crown and the best interests of the [)eople. " But, out of Parliament, my duties are of a spiritual character. When called on, tligrcf'ore, as 1 now am, to address a highly valued portion of Christ's flock, over which he has constituted me the pastor, I would cunfiiie myself to the religious aspect of the case before me. Looking at it thus, I cannot but invite you to discern, in the jiresent occurrence, a new proof of the wise dispensations of God's Providence, overruling all the designs of men, and all the events in life, to the accouiplishment of 1 1 is own blessrcl |)uri)oses for the ultimate good of His Church, and a fresh call on us to use faithfully, and thankfully, the great blessing which He has bestowed on this favoured land, by planting in it a true branch of that Church, and plicing over it, and empowering with His authority, in unbroken succession from the Apostles, those of whom the great Apostle of the Gentiles himself has commanded all Christians * so to account, as ministers of Christ, and stc-wards of the mysteries of God.' "Human policy may be at a loss in dealing wisely and effectually with the out-breakings of Papal presumption, backed as it is by a powerful and pampered parly, which has hitherto been suffered to preserve its course almost without control. But, there is one simple and sure way of securing ourselves against all our dangers. Be we faithful to our own Apostolic Church, be we in earnest when we call ourselves Churchmen, be we sincere in showing forth our sense of the value of that holy ordinance which, by God's bounty, we enjoy— your bishop feeling, as he ought, the lawful force of those special obligations which he incurred when admitted to his sacred office — the people testifying tlieir reverence fi)r that othce — God's ordinance, I repeat, for their edification, not, indeed, by a bliiul and unreflecting, but by a ready, a dutiful, a con- fiding spirit of attachment to him who bears it — and then, I will not say wc may l.iugh to scorn — for scorn is not a feelitig wliich ever becomes a Christian — but we may view, with calm reliance on an Arm more powerful than man's uplifted for i)rotcction, the most daring displays of Roman ambition, revelling in the proud assurance of legal impunity — if our laws do, indeed, permit such doings to pass with impunity. " Mean\( bile, I must not omit one consideration which forcibly impresses itself npon me. Far be it from me to forget the demand of Christian charity, that wc 'rejoice not in iniijuily,' still we uiay rejoice, thankfully rejoice, in hoping that this shameless demonstration of the true character of Papal Rome will do much in awakening to a better, a more truthful mind, those amongst us who, feeling with distemiiered acutcness the fancied or the real deficiencies of our own system, may have been tempted to look with too much complacency to a quarter which henceforth no consistent, no true Catholic, can hesitate to regard as most schismatical. " In conclusion, accei)t — what is worthless, indeed, to .all who deem it worthless, but what will never be lightly valued by any who regard it as it is, the voice of any one who speaks, be he himself as unworthy as he mav, with the authority of God's appointed minister — accejjt yi'm- Bishop's blessing. The Lord bless yon, and 'Keep you ! The Lord make His face to shine npon you, and to be gracious unto yon ! The I^ord lift up His countenance npon yon, and give you peace — together with the Spirit of Peace — both now and evermore V The close of his lordship's address, the E.iiter Gazette states, was delivere;! in the most emphatic manner, and was responded to with an audible "Anieu" by those on whom the solemn benediction was bestowed. The Bishop of Bath and Wells has issued the following letter to his clergy : — " To the Reverend the Clergy of the Diocese of Bath and Wells. " Reverend Brethren, — You will have heard with feelings of shame and indignation (shame at an act so disgraceful to a minister of Christ, and indignation at the insult offered by him to the Sovereign and people of England), that a foreign Prelate — the Bishop of Rome — has taken upon himself to set at defiance tlie laws, constitutions, and recognised usages of tlie Church Catholic, by assuming to himself the spiritual jurisdiction of this kingdom, and by parcelling out into pretended dioceses of his own devising a country which has been ruled by its oun bishops from the earliest period of Christianity. "This most deplorable work of schism affects to transfer the episcopal charge of the county of Somerset trom my hands to those ot a pretended Bishop of Plymouth. " Such an act calls for a [u-onipt and decisive course of condemnation and resistance, as from the entire clergy and laity of England, so, on our own gccoiint, front those of this diocese. " In such a course I recommend you to proceed without delay. I am never willing to advise the clergy to introduce controversy into their pulpits ; but in a struggle for life or death (which this may pro\e), the physician must not sbrink from unusual remeclies ; and therefore I must urge you, both in your public and private teaching, to bring the subject of this letter under the u\ immediate attention of your people, displaying to them at the same time the true character of the Romish schism, its pestilent errors, its unchanged and unchanging character of evil. "I exhort you "to take care that, as far as in you lies, your flocks, from the higher to the lowest rank, shall be instructed on these points ; so that the humblest cottagers in our villages, and the youngest children in our schools, shall be made to understand both the nature of this recent act of Papal aggression, the injury intended to be inflicted on them thereby, and the dangers which threaten them. " Having thus roused the attention of the whole Protestant population of the diocese, I would recommend you tj invite them to join with you, first, in a solemn protest against, and an un- quaHfied renunciation of, the intended and usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome ; and secondh', in an urgent appeal to the Government of the country, to take such steps as shall vin- dicate the Queen's authority ; as sluiU demonstrate that no foreign Preh te hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within these realms; and as shall neutralise and render ineffective the measures devised by the Bishop of Rome, and frustrate all his further attempts on our Church and State. " Earnestly desiring your prayers, and earnestly praying for you, and for your flocks, that in these d:uk and dangerous days we may have light given us to see the course of duty, and grace to adhere to it unflinchingly, I remain, your atl'eclionatc brother in Christ, and Bishop, "BATH AND WELLS. "Blithjleld, Staffordshire, Xuvcmhcr 2, 1850." The Durham Chronicle contains the address from the Dean and Chapter of Durham, to which the Lord Bishop replied as follows: — "Auckland Castle, AW. 5, 1850. " Dear Mr. Dean, — I have read the address of the Dean and Chapter of Durham with the purest satisfaction, as expressing, in language firm and moderate, the Protestant feelings of so many enlightened clergymen. It is scarcely necessary for me to assure you and your brethren that I entirely assent to every principle you have asserted, and every expression you have em- ployed. Nor will any effort of mine, if called for, ever be wanted in an endeavour to check the arrogant and obtrusive spirit of popedom, and to assert the undoubted rights of conscience, as maintained by our forefathers at the Reformation, and transmitted to ourselves as the most precious birthright of Englishmen. I had much more to say upon this occasion, but the subject ills happily been taken up by a more powerful han.d. I am rejoiced to have an op]>ortunity of stating here, I have this morning received from Lord John Russell an able and satisfactory statement of his opinions and intentions upon the subject, with full permission to publish it, if I think fit. I am, in consequence, about to communicate it to the press, because I am sure it is calculated to do much good, and to calm the minds of all who have been disturbed by the late unwarrantable assumptions of Rome. I feel assured that you will peruse this document with as much pleasure as I have done. — Believe me ahvavs, dear Mr. Dean, vours most failh- fuUv, "E. DUN ELM. "Verv Rev. Dean of Durham." CONTENTS. THE "ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION." First Si.UTF.s — The Apostolio Letfer of Pope Pius IX. ; Cardinal Wiseman's Pastoral ; the Two Letters to tlie " Times" by IMshop rUatliorne ; Lord John llussell's Letter; the " New Batch of Bishops," from the " Weekly Dispatcli ;" Two Letters by the llev. fi. A. Denison ; a Letter from lieujamiu D'lsraeli, Esq., M.V.; Review and Extracts from Ambrose Phillips's "Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury ;" concluded by a Biography of Cardinal \\ isunian. 8i:(;0M) .SekiES— The Bishop of London's Charge, at St. Paul's Cathedral, November :2nd, l<^.-)0; and the Uev. Dr. Cumming's Lcctnre, at llanovcr-square-Rooms, November 7th, LS.jO. 'J'liiRD Skkies— 'I'lie Rev. T. Tsolan's Lecture ; Letter from B. llawes, Esq., JVI.P. ; the Pastoral of the Catiiolie Bish(jp of Norlluuupton ; Jx'tler from Dr. Cummiiig; Letters from tlie Bishop of St. Asaph and Viscount FciUliug ; and (he " Vatican Masquerade." FoiniTU Skries— A Plain Appeal to the Common Sense of all the Men and Women of Creat Britain and Ireland, by Jolui Bull ; Two Speeches of the Very Rev. the Dean of Bristol ; ;aul the " Quecu and the Poiie." Sixth Sr.Riy.s— The .Second Lectnre of the Rev. Dr. Cumming, and a Note from the Editor; the Letter of the Hon. l\Ir. Langdale ; the Birmingham Memorial; the Letter of " Catlmlicus ," Cardinal Wiseman ; a lioman Catholic Explanation of the Papal Aggression; and the Conversion of II. \\'. Wilberforee. EiouTU Series — will contain the conchisiou of Letters from the Bishops, and a variety of other Articles. --/// at the extraordinarif low price of One Pennt/ each Scriex. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILBERT, -19, PATKRNOSTER-ROW. Tfit: LETTEPt FRO:\[ JOSEPH lllTMh; ESQ., -ALP.; FOURTKEX LETPEiW l'PvO:M I'.rSHOP.^ OF 'rU!-: EST.VP.Ll^^iil:L) CIIUUCII; DR. DOYLE'S SELIMOX, NOV. 17: CATHOLIC BLSHOr 0''^ NEWPORT'S PASTOlfAL; AXD A i;i'rrT]:R from a correspoxdext. JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M.P., ON THE PAPAL AGGRESSION. {From till- " Hull Adi-ei-tiscr,'' Xovvmber 22n(l, 1850.) Our renders will observe that the venerable patriot, wiio now may be regarded as the f.Jther of the House of Comtnous, estimalei Lord John llujsoll's letter at the same value which we do. Mr. Hume sees in it a dc.Kterous movement by which the retention of power is secured, and real reform postponed for an indtfinite period. Lord John Russell cares no more for th-,: Church question — propciiy so called — tiian we do ; and moU likely views with complacent contempt the manifestatiotis of zeal which his letter has provoUed, Hut his lordship cues a great deal about keeping out the Protectionist?, and ntaining in his own hinds the reins of power. The following is Mr. Hume's letter : — \" liiirnly Hall, Great Yafinoutk, 18/A Xovcinhcr, ]8,")0. "My dear Sir, — I cannot lay down the Hidl Adoertiset- of the l.'ith ins'., without offering some remarks on matters therein specially noticed. "I approve of the manner in which you treat the Papal episcopal appoi-itments, and show the danger to religious liberty by the proposed interference which many, i)erhaps all, of tlu- addresses to the Crown would recommend. "It is well for the clergy of the Church of Ligland to pretend to be nlarmfd at the pro- ceedings of the Catholics, in their nominal and voluntary distinctions ; but, if the attempt of the Anti-State Church Societies be well considered, there will be more danger to the Established Church from them than from the Pope'.s P.nli. "The purpose so de.\.terous!y laid hold of by Lord John Russell, of throwing (as I stated some days ago to a friend) a tub to the whale, to slop the course of I'arliamcntary and fiaan • cial reform for a time, will, I fear, be answered, and the relief I had hoped to be afforded to the country by timely reform be postponed. Tlic Chartists decided the purpose oi Lord Jolm at a critical period, and the Pope will now do the same ! How weak mankind arc .' " It has been stated, and 1 fear with truth, that Lord John Russell and his lady have been of the party who have followed Mr. Bennct, of Pimlico, in all his Puseyiie and Romish principles and practices, even to the very verge, as Lord John says, of Popery; and, therefore, it wears a suspicious appearance in him now to turn round, among the first, to blame the internal traitors to the Established Church, he having, by his example and proceeding, given encourage- ment to that section of the Puseyites, and been one of then- leaders. " I can understand why the clergy of the Church, who have neglected those duties (as so cleat ly shown by Sir Benjamin Hall in the ca-,c of Wales), may be desirous of raising an outcry of 'The Church in danger from tlie Pope,* to divert public attention from the real danger fronithe neglect and incompetency of the clergy within the Church. " Your view of the subj^'ct will be adopted as soon as the thinking part of the public can get their eyes opened to the real merits of the alleged innovation. I say alleged, because Mr. C. C. Greville has shown that the Pope is warranted in all he has done, by the proceedings of Sir R. Peel's Government, which were not at the time objected to by any person except by Sir Robert Inglis an.l his limited class. " I remain, yours sincerelv, " E. F. Collins, Esq.. Hull." "JOSEPH HUME. Klguth Series.— Price Id., Or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] [James Gilbert 49, Paternoster-row. Of whom mill/ he had "The Roman Catholic Question," Xo.i. I. to J'll-, and IX LETTERS AND REPLIES FROM BISHOPS OE THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. Palace, Jiipon, November 7, 1850. My Reverend Brethren, — You do me no more than justice in believing; that I willinffly receive at all times the expression of your sentiments on those subjects which are of general interest to the Church or the diocese ; and I desire to assure you that, on the present occasion, I entirely sympathise with you in the feelings of indignation which you have expressed at the attempt recently made by the Bishop of Rome to establish a schismatical hierarchy in this kingdom, ia violation of one of the canons of a General Council of the Universal Church. It is in vain to plead an excuse, as has been attempted, that this act does not essentially differ from the former practice of the See of Rome, in ajipointing Vicars Apostolic for this country, to attend to the spiritual interests of the members of the Church of Rome within it. The pre- sent proceeding-, as one of the accredited organs of the Roman Catholics has just confessed, is a public declaration in the face of Christendom that the Church of England is no Church at all; it is a denial of the existence in England of any spiritual jurisdiction save that of the Pope , it abrogates the authority of all existing sees, and pronounces invalid all acts proceeding from the Bishops of the English Church who occupy them ; it transfers the primacy of Canterbury to the new Arcliiepiscopal See of Westminster ; it substitutes the See of Southwark for that of London, and the See of Beverley for those of York, Ripon, and others, by virtue of the usurped prerogative of an universal Bishop. Has the Bishop of Rome forgotten that one of his predecessors, whom he must deem infal- lible, branded such an assumption with the epithets "profane, blasphemous?" Has he for- gotten the confident assertion of Pope Gregory the First, in the sixth century, when the Patri- arch of Constantinople attempted the like usurpation, that " whosoever doth call himself Universal Bishop, or desireth to be so called, doth in his elntion forerun Anti-Christ, because he, pridingly, doth set himself before all others .' " We might, indeed, be inclined to pity the blind infatuation which leads that foreign prelate to imagine that the Reformed Church of England is preparing to retrace her steps, and again submit to the usurpation and errors of the "Church of Rome ; we might smile at the delusion of those dreamers who fondly fancy that there is a prospect of union between them while Rome persists in clinging to her abominations, and be templed to pass over this act of absurd ari-o- gance in silent contempt. But we dare not do so, lest our silence should be construed into consent ; lest we should be supposed to acquiesce in the pretensions which the Bishop of Rome has now put forth in a form on which he has never ventured since the Reformation. The occasion seems to me to require that we should, each in our several spheres, proceed to deal with this proceeding as it merits ; and I rejoice to receive from you the emphatic assur- ance of your firm resolution to adhere to the principles of the English Reformation, by main- taining the integrity of our Church, in its Protestant as well as its Calliolic character ; and I shall readily comply with your wishes, by offering you such suggestions as appear to me to be fitting in the present emergency. In the first place, I should recommend that protests repudiating this usurped supremacy, now practically assumed for the first time since the Reformation, sliould proceed from the clergy and laity of every parish in the diocese, as a permanent record of their resolution to resist this act of foreign aggression. Next, I should advise that petitions be addressed to both Houses of Parliament, craving that a statute may be passed, forbidding all, save those by law authorised so to do, from assuming or using the title of any archbishopric, bishoinic, or deanery, now existing or hereafter to be created, derived from any place within these realms. This will be a fresh indication of the royal supremacy on the part of the Legislature of this country, and will serve, I should trust, to quiet the consciences of those who might otherwise feel a difficulty in taking the oath in favour of it, so long as the Legislature seemed tacitly to acquiesce in the Papal assumption. I need hardly add, that, in your own parishes and districts, the utmost vigilance will be requisite in ascertaining what attempts are being made to tamper with the faith of your i>eople by the emissaries of Rome. You will tlien be able to judge for yourselves how far it may be necessary to meet these aggressions by instruction from your puljiits on the points of contro- versy between the two Churches ; by the distribution of tracts setting forth the errors cf the Church of Rome ; and by yet more diligent visiting from house to house, that so you may in every way labour to drive away those erroneous and strange doctrines which the head of that Church is now especially bent upon inculcating. I believe that he has miscalculated the effects of the step he has just taken ; and that it will result in a more firm adherence on the part of the people of this h-uid to those ])ure and »m- adulteratcd trutlis of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which our forefathers vindicated in protesting against the corruptions of Rome ; while it leads many who have been inclined to regard that Church with too favourable an eye to acknowledge that her spirit is unchanged, that it is impossible to acquiesce peaceably in her pretensions without betraying the cause of their own Church, and consenting to the destruction of which the idle sentence has now been launched forth against her. That some sucli reflections as these may tend to \inltc all the members of our own Apostolic Church in the bonds of lirnipr attachment to her, and of brotherly love to each other, is the sincere prayer of your faithful and affectionate brother, C. T. RIPON. The Rural Dean and Clergy of the Rural Deaneiy of Leeds. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol has replied to an address from seventy- four of the cleriry and deanery of Bristol, complaining of the presumptuous appointment of a Bishop of Clifton by the Pope. His lordship writes : — "My Rkverend Bretiiken, — I beg to assure you of my sympathy with the sentiments which you express on tlu' surprising presumption of the Bishop of Rome in erecting a See of Clifton, with a jurisdiction oxttnuling over the uliolc of this diocese. "Perhaps I oiiglit, in candour, to disclaim any feeling of sorrow on the occasion, being sincerely of opinion that tiiis attempt to grasp at spiritual sovereignty, by parcelling out England and Wales into Romisli Bishoprics, will have the effect of opening the eyes of our people to the real character of the Papal system, and removing all notion that it had reduced its pretensions, or modified its spirit of domination. "The biief itself, in pfiyetuam rei meinoriiim, which comprises this act of pretended power, exhibits in glaring colon is the charactciistics of a corrupt religion, and will, in all succeeding a^es, bear a ])rouiiiu'nt figure in the annals of the Papacy. It terms the Reformation, wi;eu,by the Church was purified from doctrines and practices which had no warrant in Scripture, 'The Anglican schism of the sixteenth century,' speaks of 'consoling the Church of England for its immense disi^races;' and that no doubt may exist of the nature of the worship which the new hierarchy is to introduce into this country, it twice speaks of the invocation of ' the mother of God and the blessed saints, the patrons of England, whose virtues have made England illustrious.' " That the present act is sciiismatical there can, I think, be no doubt. That it is also an outrage upon the Queen's prerogative as supreme head of the Church seems to me evident. Should you view it in the same light, I see no reason why you should not humbly address her Majesty, with assurances of your determination to maintain her rightful prerogative, and petition Parliament to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect the royal supremacy from similar invasions. " As you desire my counsel and direction in this emergency, I feel myself bound to declare frankly, and without reserve, my conscientious opinion as to the course of conduct most likely to unite the hearts of tin; whole community in love and affection for our pure and apostolical branch of the Catholic Church. Select associations of clergymen for etfecting particular objects of improvement in our institutions, however good their views may be, cannot fail to cause agitation and disquiet, prejudicial to the general spirit of our commission, and will bi foimd in i)ractice rather to secularise the clerical character, and to produce disunion amor g our brethren. " One more piece of advice I cannot refrain from suggesting. No one can help perceiving that the daring step which the Pope bus been advised to take owes its origin to the '-ecent instances of persons educ.iied in the faith of our Church having abandoned its worship fo'- the doctrines and practices of Rome, and still more to the introduction of a few obsolete foi ms and ceremonies into some of our churches, which, though indifferent in their nature, are generally thought to bespe.dc favour and inclination to Romanism. Indeed, the Papist;} themselves avowedly ground their presumptuous hopes upon those desertions and those practices. The instances of converts to Romanism, though individually to be deeply lamented, are still not sufficient in number (n- character to cause alarm to the Church, or triumph to its enemies j but the fact that some of them had, before their desertion, practised and recom- mended similar alterations in the forms of our Protestant worship, has caused uneasiness in the minds of a large portion of the laity, and tends to diminish confidence in their spiritual guides ; a result in every way to be deplored. That the practices which have caused this alarm have arisen in most cases from the warmth of pious and devotional feeling, and that they are consistent with abhorrence of the idolatrous parts of the Romish system, I firmly believe. Nevertheless, no person can fancy that he is obeying the calls of duty when over- stepping the injunctions of his Church, while the evil consequences are too palpable. I therefore take this opportunity of earnestly and affectionately cautioning you, one and all, against such things as tend to a suspicion, however ill-founded, of your approving the peculiar habits and practices of Romanism. Believe me to be, with esteem and resard, your affec- tionate friend and brother in the Lord, "J. H. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL. " Stapletoriy November 6, 1850." TO THE REV. W. B. OTTER (RURAL DEAN), AND TO OTHERS, THE CLERGY AND LAITV RESIDING IN AND NEAR COWFOLD. Rev. and dear Brethren, and dear Brethren in Christ, — The address you have presented to me affords me much comfort and satisfaction. Humbled as we may feel that the Pope of Rome should have deemed this country open to his arrogant pretensions, we must yet naturally derbe coneolation aud support from the unanioiity with which his unchristian intolernnce hns been rebuked, nnd his tyrannical attempts rejected. The audaciotis aegrcssion luis, indee(i, only served to show how firm and unmoved is the Protestant heart ot our beloved country. AVe bciit l),.ck his futile ass:iini)tion with the indignant declaration tliat v,e are Catholic nnd he ?cliisniatical ; that we are trne to our pure Apostolic Reformed Cliurch, and will admit neither the corrnjitions of the faith nor ihe degrading superstitions and practices which Ronie li»s engrafted on priiuitive Christianity ; that ■we are loyal to our Sovereij;n, and will maintain her rightful snprtmacy against him and every other usnrjiing claimant whomsoever. We tell hiai that our Cluuch and nation enjoy, by God's blessing, the free, nniestricted use of G(.'irs holy woid; tiiat for ouiselves and our |i( 8tS'"ity Me will never surrender that sacred inheritance into his hands, or into those of any arthbish ips or bisho] s deriving a pretended jurisdiction over us frou) his baseless, unscriptural auiiuirity ; and, finally, ve bid him prove himself in truth a minister of God's word by ooeuing it to those over whose minds he now tyrannises by closing it against them, and by submitting himself and his pretensions to be judged by what is there written. AA'e remind him that for three centuries we have appealed, and we avow our trust that ere long all Christendom will learn to ap])cal, from tlie Bishops of Rome to God in His own word. AVe are as confident as he is fearful that then w ill tlsere be a speedy end to his arrogant and vain assumptions. Nor need any one fear that unity will sufter ; on the contrary, it will be promoted by the restoration of the Church at large to the freedom in which it was at first r.ursed. Independent national Churches will, as in the earlier centuries, ascertain each for itseit the warranty which Scripture gives for the fundamental articles of the faith, and so com- bine to hold and transmit them pure and untainted as the Church of those earlier days sent them onv.-ards towards us. Christendom, disabused of the errors v.hich riow bird so large a portion of it in slavery to one man, will live, not in pilgi images to iniaginary iclics, nor in a vain terror of a purgatory unknown to Scripture and antiquity, but in the light of a free access to God for pardon for sin through His blessed Son, and through Him only who ever liveth to make intercession for us. That light is trutli ; communion in Christian truth is union and unity in Christ. Error impairs that union and consequent uiuty in pnipoition to the intensity of the error; and if it be of so malignant a nature as to rob God oi the honour and worship due to Him alone, by exalting a creature to intercept and retain it, except as that creature shall be pleased to pass it on to Christ, or the Father, or tiic Holy Spirit, can union with Christ, which is the foundation of the unity of his followers in Him, co-exist with such an error — with such apostacy from the truth ? Fmaliy, my brethren, let ns be earnest in prayr r, that we may not be led, in defending our own religious liberty, and the truth wiiich we hold so dear, to forget the charity wdiich we owe toothers — even to ihose fiorn whom we most differ. We may d-. fend ourselves from this aggression of the Bishop cf Rome, and yet cherish a brotherly desire for the spiritual and temporal welfare of our Roman Caliiolic fellow-subjects, and all others of that persuasion. We are told they pray for our conversitm to the form of (Jhristianity they profess. Let us not be wanting in conduct so truly Christian ; but, remembering the precept, " Let l.im that thinketli he standelh take heed lest be fall " (1 Cor x. 12), while wepray humbly and earnestly to God that He will ctiable us to walk stodfastly in a pure ftdtb, "in the bond of peace and in righteousness of life," let us also pray that He will be pleased to enlighten our Roman 'Jatholic brethren, and enable tliem to throw oft" the errors in which they are now entangkd. Committing you to the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 remain, Rev. and dear brethren, and dear brethren in Christ, Your affectionate friend, and, as 1 huinblv trust, faithful bishop, Palace, Chichester, Nov. \^. ' A. T. CICESTER. An address having been presented to the Lord l^i.shop of Oxford from the clergy of the deanery of Woodstock, " protesting against the recent assumption of authority hy the Bishop of Rome, in claiming spiritual jurisdiction in this realm," and "earnestly n questing his lordship to suggest such measures as might seem most fit to be adopted in the present crisis," his lordship has been pleased to return the following answer : — " Cxtdde.\don Palace, iXov. 13. "My Rev. Brkthren, — I have this day received with great sat isfnct ion your seasonahle address upon the recent aggression of the Bisliop of Rome, in pretending to divide our lan.l into dioceses, aud apjjoint to them intrusive iiishops. Againvt this insoleiit assumpiion, which denies at once our holding any place in the Holy Catholic Church, aud our being an indepen- dent nation under the lawful sniiremacy of our Queen, it is our duty to protest as subj 'cts of the Crown of England, and as being, through God's n.ercy, members of a reformed branch of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. "To the spiritual claims of this corrupt and domineering comnuinion, we, niy Rev. brethren, will never, God helping us, with His Imly word in our hands as our guide, and the Primitive Cliurch betore us as our example, yield place by suiijection — no, not for an hour. " This new assertion of its old claims hv the Roman See should lead us, first, to instruct our flocks with more earnest tliligence at once in those great truths which our fathers re-asserted at the Ri-formation, and which must u'terly part those who hold them faithfully from the deep and unchangeable corruptions of the Papacy; and also in the greatness of the blessing vouchsafed to them in their belonging to a Church which, of God's mercy, is at once pure in its doctrines and apostolic in its orii^in ; and, secondly, to renew solemnly our protest against the unscriptural doctrines and unfounded claims of the Koman See. For this purpose, I have invited the cUmsjv of the diocese to meet me at Oxford on Friday week. " The insult offered to our Queen and nation ha^, I fear, been invited by a policy which in Ireland and in our colonics has acknowledged similar appointments. But we may hope from the professions we have recently read, that such claims will now be firmly resisted by her Majesty's Government. As to this, I advise you to maintain a careful watch. Professions, h.ouever loud, will not suffice. We need acts. We would give the fullest religious liberty to our ll'Miian Cilholic fello-v-suhject.=i. but we would not allow their ambitious PontifiF to thrust in Ins claims to exercise a foreign jurisdiction in our land; and if the law, as it at present stands, be found too weak to guard tliis jewel of our Crown Imperial, I would suggest to you the duty of petitionmg for such enactments as may be found necessary to preserve our land from such foreign intruders. "That in this, and in every other hour of trial, you may be guided and strengthened by our God and Saviour, is the earnest prayer of your affectionate biothcr, *'S. OXON." The following address has been pre.sented to the Bisliop of Winchester: — " To the Right Rev. Charles Rieharrl, by Divine permission Lord Bishop of IVinchcster. "We, the undersigned clergy of the diocese of Winchester, resident in the Isle of \\'iglit, appro ich yonr lords'iip with renewed expressions of reverence for the sicred office you sustain, ;nid of attachment for llic [luteruul spirit in uhicli its duties are administered. "'I'hese feelings have received an additional impulse from the aggression which has been re- cently marie by the Bishop of Rome on *.!ie functions of that sacred office, in their exercise in 111 s diocese. " AVe, for our part, hasten to avow our unshaken and inalienable submission to yo.ir lord- ship as otir diocesan, and our readiness to follow your godly admonitions on this as on every ether occasion. "That occasion it is v.hich pro:npts our present appeal. " The supremacy of our Sovereign and the juris;liction of our bishf p hav^' been alike inraded, and our.ailegi ince to both impels us to resist the invasion. " And in this resistance we are pers.iaded we shall have the symiathy and c )-< p 'ration of our several parishioners. "They, equally with ourselves, will gladly receive the indicition of any constitutional mode of opposition uiiich your lordshij) may sag.i'st, and we pray the great Head of the Church so to giiide the counsels ot our ;;;>irilual anil temporal rulers, that, in opposition to those who would turn religion into rebellion, and faith into faction, the throne of our Sovereign may be established in righteousness, and the Church of our land rendered a praise on the earth." St. Asaph, Nov. 15, 1850. JIv Rev. .vnd Di::VU Brkthkkx, — T am vcjuiceu (o ilud tiiat the views regarding the proceedings of the Biiliup oi' Ivunie tnkeii by yourselves, aud the country geneiaily, correspond so fully with those which I have iiiysi'lf been led to entertain. As to the attack made on the civil power of England liv thus partitioning the kingdom into new hishoiirica, you have done most wisely in addressing yourselves to her Maje.sty. and promising that fidelity with which every loyal subject will resist any endeavour to lessen tlie autliuiiiy of the Crown. With respect to the feliismatinal attempt thus to treat a eovtiitry which may probably owe its Christianity to the times of the Apostles, and of which it is hardly too much to say 'bit we believe the See of Rome to be older thun any of those in Wales chiefly because Roms lies geographically uearer to Jerusalem — an attempt to treat as if lying " in panibus iuiiJ.diunf ' a Church as ancient as tlu ir own, it is oiiiy necessary to state the facts of the ease in order to expose it, not merely to the just indignation of every British Christian, but to the wondiT inul aiiiazenii-iit of all those who are m (|'iaiut«l with the first principles by which Clirisliau societies have always regulati-d their intercourssi wiiii each other. Fori believe that [m:iy say with truth that an attempt so utterly contrary to the regain ions of the Universal Church was nevsr be!'orc made. There is, however, a lesson \\liieh we may all h-arn I'roni this invasion of our Cliurch and its just right*, Wlionever men guided by worldly policy, aiid for^iell'iil of the rubs of Chrisliaii charily and apostolical regulations, attempt to invade systcmatieally tlie rights of others, they will soon find themselves deci-iveti ill their eaieulations, ami blimlly hurried into steps wliicli can only cu:l in ovcrJiirowiiip their own projects. Tne Churcii of Rome will, 1 trust, discover that this act of tlieirs has awakened amongst ns a spirit of Cliristiau watcblulness and zeal for our oun Church, which they have treated as if it had no existence. And if in His mercy the Alaiigbty di'stiues a blessing to tbiw to us from this unprovoked act of hostile aggression, liis gracious purpose will be aceoiiiplished by raising up aaiong us a spirit of brorluu'ly union aud of Clu'istinn exertion. May we, one and all, rally round the Throne to protect the rights of our Cuurch and of il8 earthly head. 7,l3y \i-8 meekly seek the aid cf Flira ^ho '« ill tif ^ rr desert uS; ^\vl be V.elt up iu oiir most holy faith and in Christian love, so that we inaj' eacli perform our several duties with more fidelitj- and zeal, and iiud an end of those divisions wliich have heretofore weakened our strenjrth in a cordial and energetic endeavour to serve God witli sinceritj' and holiness, and to honour our Queen, to whom He has committed the temporal government of His Church. I have the honour to be, Your friend and Diocesan, To the Rev. the Rural Dean of Llanrwst. THOJiIAS VOWLER ST. ASAPH. The ]5ishop of Wor-ester has made the following reply to an address from the minister, churchwardens, and sidesmen of the parisli of St. Thomas, Birmingham : — "Gentlemen, — I am much obliged to you for the address which you have transmitted to me on the part of a pubhc meetiug of the inhabitants of St. Thomas's parish, Birmingham, assembled to consider the late aggression of the Pope upon the authority of our beloved Queen, and the independence of our apostolic Church. " The expression of the sentiments which that address contains is the more valuable to me, as evincing the strong Protestnnt feeling which prevails among the laity in so important a portion of my diocese ; and so long as this feehng continues to prevail among the ijeople of this country, we may view witli more indig- nation than alar-r the insults of a lourth-rate power, whose own throne is maintained only by the support of 12,000 Prcnch bayonets. " I entirely agree with you that the Pope has been encouraged to commit this act of insolent folly by the tendency to Romish observances which has unfortunately been evinced by too many of our clergy; but I am satisfied that he will find himself much mistaken, and that, however some few may have been induced by Jesuitical casuistry to apostatise from our pure and apostolic Church, the great majority of both High and Low Churchmen will concur in vindicating tlie independence of our Church and the supremacy of our Queen. — I am, gentlemen, your obliged and faithful servaht, " II. W(3RCESTER. '' llartlebury Castle, Nov. 15, 1850." The Bishop of Chester has made the following reply to an address from eighty-four of the clergy of his diocese : — " Chesler, November 2. " My deae Archdeacon, — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of an address, signed by yourself and a very numerous body of the clergy of Liverpool and its neighbourhood, in relation to the recent Papal edict. " The mild spirit of toleration in this country has given to the members of the Roman Catholic Church the free exercise of their religious faith, and, so far as respects the internal form of government within their own communion, there would probably be no desire on tlie part of others to interfere with it. As long as the Pope was contented to jiiovide i'or the episco])al superintendence of the congregations of Roman Catho- lics in this country by means of Vicars Apostolic in the mode hitherto practised, the proceeding might be regarded as intrinsically confined within the pale of the Romish Church. " But the recent edict from the Papal See advances a loftier pretension. It makes a partition of the realm of England into new created dioceses, over which bishops are appointed to exercise spiritual govern- ment. This is a])parently intended as a demonstration, reaching beyond the scanty members of the Ronuin Catholic conmiunity, and affecting to cover with its influence the whole realm. It treats our Established Church as a nullity, and pretends to take possession of the country as a spiritual waste. Such pretensions will be met with fairness, and reduced to their proper level. 'We may confidenlly rely that, so far as the occasion may require, our Government and Legislature will take eflectual care that the royal supremacy and the national independence shall not sutler cither detriment or indignity. AVe need not entertain any fear for the consequences. The Church of England, appealing to the inspired volume of Scripture as the standard of its faitli, will not now relapse into the errors which at the Reformation it rencninced, or again bow to the yoke of spiritual assumption from which it was then freed. The Bible is in the bands of our peo])le. It is in the Bible, God's word, not in the Papal letters sent from Rome, that they will look for the rule of their obedience and the foundation of their trust. " The part especiMlly pertaining to ourselves is to labour that, through the blessing of God's grace, we may be faithful niinis^ers of II at word in its simplicity, its purity, its truth; exerting individually ;ill our efforts, in our respective S|]here of duty, in the public services of divine worship, in the ]mstoral visitation ul the people, in the religious edneatiou of the children of the ]'.oor ; acting witli union and ccmcert among ourselves; marking plainly and nllconl])r(>nli^in:;ly the broad line that separates the Churclus of England and Rome from each other; u]iholding streiuously the suprensacy of the Queen aiul the principles of the Protestant faith ; yet still preserving the spirit of Christian charity towards those whose pretensiou.s it is our duty to resist. " If yon and the rest of the clergy shall join in a declaration expressing your devoted loyalty to our gracious Queen, and your zeal for the maintenance of the royal supremacy and of the rights of the Esta- blished Cimreh, you will have n.y cordial sympathy. And I beg you will assure the clergy of my afl'ec- tionate regard; and I reniain always truly yours. " J. CHESTER. " The Venerable Archdeacon Brooks." The Bishop of Lincoln has returned the following answer to the clergy of Nottingham, Stamford, and Lincoln, who have addressed his Lordship upon separate occasions upon the subject of the late Papal aggression : — "IMy Ki:v. Bretiiuen, — I lose no time in replying to the address which has been transmitted to me by your Arelideacfm, and in which you protest against the recent act of the Bishop of Rome. In that protest 1 cordially etmcur. I can regard the act in no other light than as a gratuitous iusnlr oHered to the Crown and to the braucli of the Catholic Church established in this part of Ibc United Kingdom ; to the Crown I''" ' .. ; , , I (if piirlieubir towns, mi.iI. as>igniii!i the lerrilirial li. , ion, lie u-liT.!aiiiiiis';y f. Is u|i lll^ ;. t^' il.a. ■viin.ii, b^, oui Lu..»u;uUi.u 111 Liiuich and Stitle, is \ebt.diu the Cro\\n;tolhe CliurcU because, by cleclaiino; l.liat he does this act in virtue of the power vested in him by Jesus Christ of poveni- in^ tlic Universal Church, ho declares that the Church of England, wliich qocs not recognise the existence of any such power in him, is not a member of the Universal Church. I call the act a gratuitous insult, because it cannot be pretended that it is necessary, in order to insure to the members of the Koraisli communion residing in this kingdom the free exercise of their religion ; that freedom they have now for many years fully enjoyed; this act is, therefore, done by the Bisliop of Rome not in the assertion of their claim to liberty of conscience, but of his own to spiritual dominion. I repeat, then, that 1 cordially concur in your jjrotest, " But you crave my counsel and advice at this critical juncture. I advise you, therefore, in the tirst place, respectfully to represent to the Legislature the violence done by this act of the Bishop of Home to I he consciences of all the clergv', and of such of the laily of the Church of England as are required to take tlie oath of supremacy. In taking it we declare that " no foreign prelate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within her Majesty's dominions.' Yet we now see a foreign prelate parcelling out the country into dioceses, appointing a bishop to each, and defining the limits of his jurisdiction. If this be not to exercise authority, I know not what is. I think, therefore, that you are bound to represent to the Legislature the contradiction between the terms of the oath and the fact, and so call upon it to declare the letter recently issued by the Bishop of Home illegal, as being opposed, if not to the express letter of the statute, yet to tlie spirit of the acts under which the members of the Established Church are called to take supremacy. " III the second place, I would hold up to you, for your guidance at this juncture, the conduct of the able, and learned, and pious men who in the reign of the Second James, when the Bishop of Rome enter- tained the hope which he ajipears now to entertain, of .speedily subjecting this realm to liis spiritual dominion, fearlessly maintained the canse of the Church of England. They in their discourses from the pulpit, and in their writings, drew the attention of tlu^ people committed to their charge to the points in dis- pute between the two Cliurches, and satislied them by sound argument that the Church of England is iu possession of the truth. They appealed, and appealed successfully, to the understanding of the people. Let us not doubt that the same success will, by tlie blessing of God, attend our labours, if we give them the same directions — if from time to time we make the disputed points the subject of our discourses — if we temperately, and without exaggeration, expose the erroneousness of the Eomish tenets, and call upon our congregations to join us in protesting against them. " Let it not be objected to me that I am counselling you, instead of preaching that which directly con- duces to the spiritual edification of your flocks, and their growth in personal holiness, to lead them into the barren and intricate paths of controversy. The blame must rest with him who imjioses this necessity upon us ; the Bishop of Rome leaves us no alternative, he compels us to be controversial. But, my Rev. brethren, whilst we protest against this act of the Bishop of Home, let us seriously ask ourselves whether we have not ourselves given occasion to it; whether he lias not been encouraged by the unhappy divisions prevailing amongst us to deem the present a favourable moment for thus presumptuously re-asserting his claim to spiritual dominion over this reahn. Let us join in beseeching Almighty God to awaken us to a just sense of the danger to wliich we are exjiosing the cause of pure religion by our internal dissensions, and to remove whatever may hinder us from godly union and concord. Let us beseech him to give us by the teaching of His Holy Spirit a right judgment in all things, and so while we stand fast in the liberty where- with at the Reformation we were made free, we may be preserved from converting that liberty into licen- tiousness; and while on all occasions wo are careful to show that we hold holy things iu reverence, we may be preserved from allowing that reverence to degenerate into sujierstition. " I remain, my Rev. brethren, " Your faithful friend and brother in Christ, "J. LINCOLN." Baiif/or, Nov. 18. Rev. and Dic.vk Sir, — i have to acknowledge the receipt of the address which you have forwarded to me from yourself and the clergy of the Deanery of Arustley. I fully concur in the sentiments which you express on the arrogant pretensions of the Eishop of Rome, and the attack which he and his Council have recently made on the independence and honour of our National Church, and the constitutional prerogative of our Sovereign. Hitherto that prelate has been contented to superintend his adherents in this country through the agency of his vicars or vicegerents. He has now taken on himself to parcel out this kingdom into territorial divisions or dioceses, erecting into sees certain cities and towns within her Majesty's dominions, and giving charge over them to men of his own nomination, bound to him by an oath of fealty, assigning to them titles of distinction, and the exercise in his behalf of a jurisdiction which no foreign prince, prelate, or potentate hath, or ought to have, withiu this realm. You, my Rev. brethren, need neither advice nor en- couragement to resist any attempts that may be made by the agents and instruments of this prelate, and of the corrupt branch of the Christian Church which professes subjection to him, to seduce the sheep of your tlock from tbeir communion with our reformed Church and the principles of our Reformation. You will resist these attempts in a spirit of Christian charity, and zeal tempered with discretion. Y'ou will agree with me in considering that Reformation as a signal work of God's providence and grace, and will bless Him lor having delivered us from a yoke which our fathers submitted to with relnctauce and bore with impatience. That God may prosper your endeavours to maintain tlie faith of the Gospel in purity aud truth, and to minister to the salvation of the people committed to your charge, is the prayer of your affectionate and faithful friend and brother, C. BANGOR. The Rural Dean and Clergy of the Deanery of Arustley. A meeting of the clergy of the archdeaconry of the East Riding of York was lield at St. Slary's national school-room, Beverley, on Nov. 20, 1850, in pursuance of a recpiisition numerously signed, to take into con- sideration the recent I'apal encroachments. Beverley gives a title to one of the Roman sees just created. It possesses all the features of a cathedral 8 ciiv, and tins probabiy ll!l^> betii tlio cause of tlic lioiiour {•oufnicd upou it iu its reliction as the scat of lloniibh govonmicnt for tlic comity and district of Yorksliirt'. Tiiu splendid old minster, founded by the, celebrated St. John of Bevolcy, is not inferior iu arcliitcctuial bcauly to the tinest of the cathedral churches. Tlie cliaritie.s of the town are ancient and eonsiderable ; there aie inarksof ajre i.nd of considera- tion iu every fjnarter : the venerable stiutture of St. Clary's diureli, vliicli is supposed to have owed its first existence to Archbishop Thurston, vies with the minster iu massiveuess and in age (Mr. Putrin, moreover, is assisting iu its restoration) ; and the whole spirit of the place, in fact, is in accordance witli the traditions of the llonian r,-ithnl!c clerL'A-. Archdeacon "Wilbciforec. to whoin, as the Arelideai on of the East P.idins", the requisition had been prc- ented, did not attend, and the foUowini;; letter was read iu explanation of his absence : — " Billion JffiieA-.Kof. 19. ' " My Eey. Biir.THRE:;, — Having discharged my public duty by calling you togetlier, you will allow me I am sure, to act myself according to my private opinions. 1 conclude that I be measures at present contem- plated must result, if they have any result, iu an abridgment of that liber.-il indulgence hitherto extended tj our Koman Catholic fellow-subjects. Now 1 retain the conviction, which I have frequeutiy exprMsed, that it is unwise in the civil nu'.g'strate to impose restrictions upon the religious liberty of any class of his subjects. I still believe, as I stated to vou in 1845, that 'the principle of toleration, however paradoxical in theory, js in practice adapted by God's providence to the circumstances of the world,' and consequently tliat 'those who, like myself, bc4iev"e it most favourable to the devch.))iiicnt of truth must desire to see it carried out in its extremes't latitude.' However, then, we may dislike the iirineiples or jiraetlccs of lliosewho dissent from us, I cannot ask for the renewal of restrictionsVhich I thought it wise to withdraw, nor do I regret " ' That even our enemic s, Tho' forging chains for us, tl-.eraselves arc free.' " These considerations, however, wotdd not pievent rne from meeting you to-morrow, were it not for the vents of the present year. The civil power has this year assumed that ofiice of settling matters of doctrine which our forniulniics a.ssign to the Church, and which the Clmrcli, in my opinion, cannot surrender without relinquishing rights wliicli were bestowed upon her by Christ our Lord. The first decided exercise of this novel power" by the temporal authority has been to (Jetermiuc that an article of the creed is an open ques- tu)n, which the clergy are equally at liberty to affirm or deny. I am aware that many excellent men do not take the same view of the injury « bich ha.s been inflicted upon us, being influenced, as I believe, by on amiable unwillingne,=s to admit "the real evils of the case. I will not reiterate the arguments which 1 laid before you in my la.st cliarge, but I refer to tlum, as explaining v>liy I cannot take part in any address which may be designed to vindicate the Church's rights from other dangers, so lorig as this capital grievance re- mairs unredressed. To do so would tend, iu my judgment, to encourage the opinion that we acquiesce iu the position in which we fiiul ourselves, and are ready to pass to the consideration of oth(r suLjcets. Under these feelings, I think that I shall most further ti;e imanijuity of your proceedings hy ubstainiug from any interference iu measures iu which 1 should bo unable to partici))ale. " I remain, Rev. brethren, vour obedient servant, "H013EKT I. WILBERrOllCE. "To the Ecv. George AVray, and the uil'.er clergymen who requested the calling a meeting." The readins of the letter was marked by general silence an-.uiig tlic seventy clergymen present. The following; rejily has been made by the Bishop of Salisbury to an address from the cleri,y of tiie archdeaconry of Wilts: — '^TJ/Tf/Z'to/, A'or. n, IS30. ".My dk.vk Mr. A f.ciuvk.^cox,— Having received various addresses from dilTcrcnt parts of my diocese, on the subject of the late Papal .iggressien, and being r.waie that others are in course of prci)aralion, ;t appears to mc advisable to express iny seniiments on tiie subject generally to you and the other archdeacons of my diocese, and through you to the clergy and laity of your respective archdeaconries, requesting them to receive this expression of my opinion as a general I'cply to addresses on this subject, unless any particular circumstances should call for a more speeitlc ar.swci". " I wish, in the lirst place, to assure you that I fully respond to the feeling which, has led both clergy :iud lay members of the t burch in my diocese to ibiiik it'snitablc on tliis occasion to aildress themselves to me, as to one set, in the Providence of God (unwcnthy as I am of such a post), over this portion of the Lord's heritage; and, therefore, both callid upon, iu any diiiiculty, to give counsel, according to my ability, to lliosc placed under my charge, and also bonnd, under the most sacred engagements, to be foremost in niain- lainint; theiiure doctnne of our bcdy faith, and the integrity and rights of that branch of Christ's t'liiirch of ■which we are ministers. 'N(.y is"it to lie denied that l.oth tiie.se arc alike assailed by an act wiiich is at once a sehismatical assault on the very existence of our Ciiurch, and a direct invasion of the rights of our Sovereign, as supreme governor of this if aim. " But while I thus recognise the just occasion which is given for feelings of indignation liy this aggirs- Mon, I am glad to believe lliat 1 may ralber seek to mideiate an! restrain sueli emclioi's than to excite them ; find nuiy endeavour to allay apprehensions ;,» to the consequences of tliis act which, if not unnatural, are yet, 1 believe, unfonniled and unnecessary. " I would, indicd, rceoinincnd you, in tin- lir-t piaco, to join in a linn protest ngninst this unwarrant:ibh? nssum]jtion of authority by the Bishop of Borne. ]!y such a cour^c the hands of our Sovcreii;u will be strengthened in repressing" by the power of existing laws, if these be foiini.,liop of J.ichiii-ld has replied to an address from the clergy of the archdeaconrj' of Stafford in the following' letter: — " Eccleahall, Novemler li, 18.30. " Iii.v. AMI uK-vn JsKKTiiiiF.iN, — I beg of voii to accept my sincere and respectful thanks for your earnest and ait'eeiii!n:i(e addre.is. ■' I rejoice f'laf \on have eume forward fu jirofcst against the receut daring and unprovoked aggression of the Tope of Koine (who ' hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England') upon the independence of our Chnreh and the supieinaey of our Sovereign ; plainly recognised as this is both by the common aud statute law of the land, and by the canons and articles of our C'huieh. " I agree with you in regarding this intrusion as a virtual deniul of our orders, and an insult to our oflicct ; for it can no ways be reconciled with acknowledgment of the one or reverence for the other. " J low far it may be necessary to meet this act of Papal usurpation by any legal measures, it will be for li.T Majesty, with the advice of her Council, and, if lieed be, with the coacurreuce of her rarliameut, to duferniiiie. "Hut 1 feel, with you, that this inatier is lo be looked at from higher ground than that of merely civil or ecclesiastical eoi^siderations. I feel, with you, that the spiritual welfare of the people is deeply coii- (^erued in it. T tim free, however, to confess that I have no fear lest, by such an aggressive movement as ibis on the p:iit of the Chnreh of Home, her own corrupt standard of faith and worship should bi! le-cstablisliecl among us. On Ihe contrary, I have a good hope that we shall hereby be led to 1 K)k more closely at the principles of the llcformaiion, and so to maintain thern more intelligently and more firmly ; lo be more deeply thankful fur the evangelical purity aud the apostolical order of oiirChnrcIi; more careful not to depart from the simplicity of her service; and more anxious for that unity aiiiong ourselves uiiou which, under God's bles?ing, our strength so mainly depends. If this be so, we may humbly trust that the gracious L'rovidenoo which reformed, and has so long protected, our Church, will (•■juliime lo be with it under every trial lo wliieh it m;iy Ue subjected. '■ li'it should seem good to our Metropulilan to convoke tiie Bishops to take council together upon this very important (icea.sion, I need not say tiiat I shall feel myself bound to obey the summons. That the clergy .at large w ill be ready to support, aud cirry into effect, any determination which may thus be formed, I have full coiifulcnce. "I lliankyiMi heartily f(jr the expressiun of your kind feeiiugs towards myself, and I desire fo join with you in prayer lo the Giver of till graue for blessing upon our ministry. "J. LICHFIELD. " The Venerable the Archdeacon aud the Reverend the Clergy of the AfcluIeaconi'V of Stafford." The Bishop of St; D.ivid's li.is inatle the following reply to nn adilrcs* from the clerg}- of the Deanery of Castleiniirtin : — "RiiVKUE.VD AM) DEAR Biii-TiiRKN, — I Imve received, and have read with great satist'aclion, the address in which you have exiire.vsed your sentinienls on the recent iiet of I'apal aggression. I warmly synijialhise with the feelings which it lias excited iri you, and which I :im glad to see ju-evailing throughout t lie couiiSiy ; th )ugh my sur|>nse has been in some degree tenipercu Ijy retirction on the invariable eh.iracter ;;ud policy of tiie See of Rome, as well as by the reeolleeliou of recent cireumstauccs which have probably contributed to nourish its ambitious hopes tind to animate it lo this new enterprise. Still it is botii s;ai tling and saddening to lin,l that, even to minds blindeil by the erednlity of hope, it should have appeared that Hugland has now becjine ripe for the le-establishiueut of that foreign dominion which it cast off at the R-fi.rmatiou. " It has i.ll'orded me great jueasiire to observe tliat the expression of your feeiiugs is accompanied with a declaration ihat you ' do not desire .inythiuv.' "t variance with those principles of religious toleration w liicli form u part of the Briiish Coiislilutiou.' I hope that none of us, but especiaiiy lliat none of the clergy, will be provoked by t! e lecent insult to breathe a wish for the infringement of those principles. I citnuot even now regret the removal of those disabilities under which our llomaa Catholic fellow-subjects formerly laboured. But if I approved of the measures which have been at various times adopted for their relief, it was not because I ever placed the slightest coufideuce ui the moderation or good faith of the Sen of Romp, 10 or of the Komisli priesthood in this country, nor even because I could ascertain the limits of its influence over the laity of its comnmnion ; but simply because I believed that we were strong enough to dispense with those safeguards which our ancestors, while fresh from a perilous struggle in defence of their civil and religious lilicrties, very naturally dfcnied necessary fur their security. Still I think that no part of the recent hull will or ought to sink deeper into the minds of those Protestants wlio have befriended the lloman Catholic claims than that in which allusion is made to the ' lallaig off of the obstacles which stood in the way of the (Roman) Catholic religion.' "But those principles which, witli myself, you desire to see preserved inviolate do not appear to me to require that we should quietly submit to "the aggression which has been now attem])ted by the Pope. The IndigTiity offered to the Church of Eugland when it is treated as a nonentity, or rather when its name is transferred to the Pope's adherents in this country, need not, I tliink, move any stronger feeling tium one of contemptuous pity. It is only a fresh example of that wilfully blind intolerance without which the Papal usurpation, having no basis in truth or justice, coiild not maintain itself. How far the power assumed by the Pope of establishing a new hierarchy of bishops deriving their titles from our great cities and tovins, and of parcelling our land into new dioceses, affects the prerogative of the Crown, and whether such titles may be lawfully assumed under the authority of a foreigner by English subjects, these are questions which deserve, and I donhr not will receive, the gravest consideration from those wlio are better qualified to pronounce upon them. I wiU only observe that the language employed in the bull seems as if it were studiously Iramed to convey the idea of an absolute sovereignty claimed by the Pope over the kingdom of Eugland, and would have suited the time of King John as well as the reign of Queen Victoria. If, however, it should appear that the law in its present state does not meet the exigency of the case, tlien there will arise a furtlier question for the wisdom of the Legislature to decide — whether it be not expedient to provide some new enactments to repel this aggression, and to guard against similar encroachments for the future. I am glad to see that the First Minister of tlie Crown has already declared his sentiments in terms which seem to alford a pledge that her Majesty's Government will be ready to adopt such measures as may appear requisite for vindicating the dignity of the Crown and the inde]>cndence of the nation. " In the mcanw-hile it will be our duty, dear and Rev. brethren, to await the issue of this crisis in a spirit of calm watchfulness, but of earnest resolution. I think it is clearly incumbent on the clergy, wherever their flocks are threatened with the infection of Romish error, diligently to resist its progress by exi)osing those corruptions of doctrine and practice against which our Church bears witness in lier Articles and Liturgy, and more particularly by laying bare the hollowness of those pretensions which have been recently put forward in such an extravagant and offensive form. Where, as is happily yet llie ease among us in this diocese, there is no apparent reason to aiiprehend any immediate danger of sueli a kind, it may hardly be advisable to depart from the course of our ordinary teaching by a frequent reference to controversial topics. Por you it will probably be sufficient that you should continue to feed your tlocks with tlie sincere milk of the word, and to mould their hearts and minds, especially those of the young, in that form of sound doctrine which is the glory and strength of our Church. I would not, however, be understood as if I meant to dissuade from exercising the common privileges of Englishmen by joining with the laity in addresses either to the Crown or the Legislature for the attainment of any object \\hich the occasion may seem to you to require. But this is a matter which I woiJd rather leave entirely to your own discretion, "Commending you and your work to the IMvine blessing, '' I remain, Rev. and dear brethren, "Your faithful and affectionate brother, " C. ST. DAVID'S." An address has been presented to the Bishop of Winchester by forty of the clergy of the Rural Deanery of North Ewell on the subject of the recent appointment by the Pope, in which they say, that tlicy are anxious to be guided by his lordship's experience and godly advice as to the best mode for them to proceed ; and that they would fain liave his sanction for appealing to their parishioners to join with ti.em in strongly protesting against this invasion of their spiritual rights and this bold attempt to rob them of their own holy religion, and also in humbly petitioning the Queen and her JMinisters to exerl every means in their power in order at once to repel this usurpation. The following is the reply. " VanihnM Cn.itle, Noi-. 12. "Rev. and dt;aii Brethren, — I have much satisfaction in acknowledging the address which has reached me through the hands of your rural dean, snbseribrd by f^rty of the clergy of the Rural Deanery of North Ewell, and protesting against tiie recent measure of the Rtiman Ponlilf. "You express a confidence in my willingness to advise witli you on the steps proper to be taken for counteracting the evils you justly apiirehend fnwu this movement on the part of Rome, and I readily respond to your desire for conference and counsel, in full sympathy with the feelings by which you yourselves are actuated. "Had the present attempt of a foreign jn-chite to establish territorial jurisdiction in England been received with cordiality, or even with inditrerence, by the great body of our countrymen, I shimld have felt that serious and well-gronuded alarm might have b(!en reasonably entertained. The purity of our faith might have been endangered, and the jirinciples for «hieli our ancestors successfully contended at the Reformation might have been again placed in jeopardy. " But I have an assured confidence — which events from day to day serve only to strengthen — that we have no reason to appreliend the prevalence of indifference or of a lukewarm sjiiril on this subject. By the blessing of God, the pretensions of the Papal See find no response within this realm. England seems ready to declare, with an almost unanimous consent, that she still protests against the errors renounced by the voice of the nation when this eountry threw off the yoke of Rome ; and testifies, in a manner whi(di cannot be mistaken, her stedfast adherence to the doctrines of our apostolical Churcli, and her acknowledgment of licr jiaramonnt claim on the liclief and all'celions of flic people. " I cannot hesitate, however, to express my opinion that op])ortunity should be given for manifesting these feelings, wliich unquestionably are deeply seated in the hearts of the great mass of the community, 11 in sucli an open manner as will be intelligible, not only to the country at large, but to the Church of Rome herself. " I advise, therefore, addresses to tlie Queen, and petitions to tlie two hninchcs of the Lejrislnture, from all your parishes. You may logitiniatcly call upon your )>ro|)lf! to ren^onstrate against what yuu truly cha- racterise as a 'violation of the laws and constitution of this country,' and an ' invasion of the Queen's Kuprcmacy ;' and you may pray for such a remedy as may appear most effectual for preserving inviolate the honour of the Crown, tlic lilierlics of the country, and the best interests ol our holy religion. " You remind me that, on former occasions as well as in my recent charge, I have called your attention to what seemed to me the pressing dangers from tlic s])read of llomi^h doctrine. I am encouraged l;y thi« alluiion to repeat my earnest advice, that you should carefully av(jid even the appearance of underrating tlie fatal influence of the errors of Home, eitlier hy omitting to denounce them faithfully or openly, or by seeming to make light of her corruptions, or all'eeting an approach to the peculiarities of lier worship. The duty of separation from her communion, as well in external forms as in vital doctriuc, which made tlu'. Reformation necessary, still presses upon us as forcibly as ever. And if, in times like the present, tliis duty be neglected, or imperfectly discharged, we must not be surprised if the true character of our minis- tries is called iu (j^uestion, and tlic soundness of our faith exposed to natural, if not to just, suspicion. " I commend you heartily to the grace of God, and remain, " Rev. and dear bietliren, " Your very faitliful friend and brother, "C. "WINTOX. " The Rev. R. Tritton, Rural Dean of North Ewell Deanery, and the other subscribers to the address." To our Very Reverend and Reverend Brethren of the Clergy, Secular and Regular, of the Dioceses of Newport, i)C., and the Diocese of Shreivsburi/ ; and to our Beloved Children in Jesus Christ, the Faithful Luitij of the said Dioceses — Health and Benediction. We had proposed, as well as others of our Episcopal brethren, to delay our formal announcement of tiie restoration to England of her Catholic hierarchy until we should receive the apostolical briefs appertain- ing thereto. But the popular delirium throughout the length and breadth of the land compels us to anti- cipate our purpose, in hope that the voice of calm reason may be powerful iu arresting such wide-spread hallucination. Sure we arc that, as civilised Europe actually gazes, with astonishment and disgust, upon the delusions successfully pro])agated amongst our countrymen Ijy artful and wicked men, so, of those who are now taking part in the rabid outcry against the recent acts of the Sovereign Pontiff, many will, erelong, blush at the remembrance of their folly. We may even confide, from examples of the past, that, to the wild passions which arc agitating tlu; land a reaction will succeed, favourable to the progress of Catholic truth, as from the stirring up of the pool of Bethsaida the healing of diseases followed. What, indeed, is it that has worked up such violent hostility and alarm? Again and again has the public been assured that tlic act of the Supreme Pontiff is oue of spiritual authority merely — an act uliich might have been expected to he wehomcd by the opponents of our religion — an act such as is known to have been repeatedly exercised, without remonstrance or offence. It is an act of spiritual authority exclusively, whether the means whereby it is enforced be regarded, which are not carnal weapons nor human ])ower; or the object whereto it is directed, a mere substitution, for tlie former absolute depeiubuice of our clerical institutions upon Rome, of our present less dependant condition under Bishops in Ordinary. Wiiilst, indeed, we were but a small budy, kept down by cruel perse- cuting laws, aud therefore anxious to escape public notice, an extraordinary mode of Cliureh Government best suited our condition, namdy, government by a small number of Bishops bearing the title of Vicars Apostolic, and delegated by the Chief Bishop, and successor of the Prince of the Apostles in the only sur- viving Apostolic See, to represent bis solicitude for all the Churches. This, however, was naturally a trau- sitiou state, and knowu to be such by those who reflected thereon. So soon, therefore, as Catholic emanci- pation had freed us from those tyrannical laws ■.vliich will be pointed to by future ages as the greatest dis- grace of England, and when, through whatever causes, onr numbers had laigely increased, and with them the places of divine worship wherein we might celel;ratc our solemn rites according to the ceienionial of the Catholic world, a natural consequence, which every reflecting mind must have foreseen, was that the number of our Bishops would have to be jiroportionably augmented, aud their anomalous condition and title abandoned for those by which Catholic Bishops are preferably recognised iu despotic Russia aud Prussia, in republican America, in our own Colonies, in almost every civilised State. In reality, we know tliat, heretolore, the fact of English Calliolics being governed in spirituals b) Vicars Apostolic was a matter of reproach and apprehension. " What are your Bishops," people said, " but mere creatures of the Pope— dependant exclusively on bis will, and therefore bound to execute ils every direc- tion under penalty of instant deinivatiou ? Give us for your Bishops Englishmen, having freedom of action, such as in other countries Bishops possess, and these will afford us greater security against I'ajial aggres- sion." Such language \\as not unlrcijuciUly heard, and it bad a show of reason. This, then, is precisely what has been recently done. And, lo I «liat a clamour is now raised against it ; what absurd fears aro s(night to be enlisted by iuterested and unprincipled men, anxious by tousiiig angry passions in the uiire flecling masses to avert attention trom their own dissensions iu matters of belief; nay, seeking a pretext to gratify their iutolcrancc aud bigotry by re-enacting, if possible, the penal laws against that jiortion of their countrymen who, since receiving emancipation, have proved themselves neither worse subjects nor worse neighbours, but whose religious creed, freed from the mass of calumnies heaped upon it with impunity during centuries of oppression, is now appeahug too successfully to candid aud upright miuds, and winning over many to its security aud consolations. The Bishop of Loudon, however, discovers that the Pope has exceeded his jurisdiction ; tliat he has no right to ajjpoiut Meiropolitan and i3i(iceban Bishops ; and that by his late act he has coufirmed Iiimself in schism. i\o wonder such language proceeds frnn a Bishop of the Eslablishment, whose spiritual existence is derived from the Stale alone, whatever some may iucousistently pretend ; and who therefore, if he would 12 tint stand self-condrmnfd, must cniidnnn sill tlint claim indeppuclrnoe of State niipoiutniPiit. But "the knijrdom of Clivist is nut of tliis voHd" (John x\iii. 3(i), Pjistms nnd le:iclic is wpie inslituted, and dii;"cifd to c nvcy tlie tidinys of licvdalion to all nalimi^, wiilmut ap]il\ing to Tiberius. ^Ceiiher was ihe concuiTcucc of a C'ali;:ula, a Cla\idius, or a Nero solicitrd or necdt-d, «Iumi Pcti-r founded ilic Ctuux-lu'S of Anliuch and Rome, wlicn Paul ordained Bidiojis for Eplu'sus and Crete, wlien Janifs (sialdished iiis i-ee at Jerusalem, nnr when tlic oilier Apostles (liy authority to wliicli lie alone succe:!udes bis Eniinenee from o;iieiating at present. I can assure you that liis Eminence is not biding from the public. But with regard to this ter- rible oath, I asked the Cardinal all about it. The very first words I addressed to him were, '• Now, jour Eminence; what about tiiis dreadful oath?"' Ilis ansv.er w?.s, "No such oath was taken." Tiiat is the explanation I have to give. So much, then, for the ealiiinny of the enemies of our Church. I would tiicy had olfendcd in ignorance, for if is lamentable to find those who know the irutli throwing it aside, and, t'l advance their nncliaritable purposes, stating the contrary. There is no truth whatever in the statement made regarding this oath. There is an oath taken by a bishop, but there is no such oath taken by a car- dinal. Let me inform you what the oath taken by a bishop is. He promises in that oath to pursue and combat error, and to upliold tlic sacred doctrines of the Chuivh. Surely it is not a dreadful thing to swear to combat error : for it to combat error be a dreadful deed, how many sins have not the members of the Church of England, and those who dissent from that Cliureli, been guilty of ? Are tlu-y not daily coni- b:iting against what t'lcy call the errors of our Church, and do they not combat and pursue those supposed errors most zealously, and. as they believe, most conscientiously? Well, if it be a terrible thing on our part to pursue and combat error, are we worse than they? What are those who differ from our Church doing now ? Are they not — and I will give many ot them cred t for their honest intentions— are they not daily, at public meetings and in their pulpits, con, bating what they term the errors of Popery ? and not only combating thein, hut pursuing those supposed errors with a zeal amo'.mtiiig to something even more reprelipusilile than unfairness? Are they not by every means in their power, under the name of combating error, denouncing us and holding us up to execration? Oh. do they pause to ponder for a second upon our relative positions ; do they ask themselves a question as to the justice of iheir luoeeedings. Alas, they do not pause. Tliey believe that they are right, and in the assurance that they are so they not only combat but jmrsiie us with the most unchristian vindicliveness. Widl, we must, while wc dephire such proceedings, give those opposed to us — I mean the great majority of them — t'le credit for sincerity of i)ur| ose ; and as for those who know how unjust their denunciations of our motives a'v, let us jjray that lliey will live to repent tho willuluess of their error.^, which repentance, dear bretiir.-ii, will be to us the greatest atonement for all the injuries done n<. I am certain of this much, that many of those Aho now abhor iis in consec|ueiice of the misrepresentations made by those in whom they place implicit reliance, will sooner or later regret that they should have been so misled; and can w^e wonder at tlie spirit of intolerance displayed towards ns when we find tliat history itself— girbled history — has been still more perverted and tortured in order to paint us in colours distasteful and offensive to the minils and preju- dices of conscientious Protestants ? The acts of men and parties have been brought against us as acts of the Catholic Churv-h. The reign of Queen Mary has been pointed to as one fully proving toe Catholic Church to he a persecuting Cliureh. Why, I ask, are such perio.is of history pointed at unless we are to have the truth ? Why is it that the acts of men in the reign of Queen Mary should Ije held up as the acts of our Cliurch, when the very men who take upon tlieiuselves to denounce us purposely avoid giving the Protes- tant multitude in th 3 country the truth of the matter? Is it history they quote? and, if Svi, is it history lionestly quoted? I know they quote history, tliat is, a portion of history; but they omit the portion 14 whieli vrould set the Catholic Church right with regard to the acts of men. They talk of the edict of Oueen Marj', aud lay it at the door of the Catholic clergy. I deny that that is true, and I refer our detrac- tors to that history which tliey so wilfully pervert. What is the fact with regard to this vei-y edict of Queen Mary ? And, now that I may presume many Protestants are present, let me impress upon thorn the justice of paying attention to what I am ahout to state. Now, the true version of Queen Mary's edict, in connexion with the Catholic clergy, is this: on the very day that that edict was sent forth, that great and good and fearless friar, Alphonze de Castro, when he preached heforc the Court, in the presence of her Majesty, denounced it as most intolerant, unjust, and in every degree opposed to the glorious principles and spirit of the holy religion. That fearless man, in the name of the Churcli, denounced the acts of many as opposed to the Church ; and it is the same Church now as in llie day that De Castro defended it against the acts of those who were sinning against it. How, then, is the Church answerahle for the persccuti(ms, as tlicY are called, of those days? Now, for argument sake, let us sujjpose tliat the oath said to be taken hy tlu- Cardinal •irchbishop of Weslmiustcr really was taken, where is the hisliop that could carry it out? No such oatli exists, save in the minds of those who, in their blind zeal against the Church, would, if necessary, concoct more terrible oaths to prejudice her amr.ugst Protestants. A great outcry is raised against us on the ground that we assume to a temporal power in this country, in so far as tempo- ralities are connected with the Church. I entirely deny it. 1 mo.st solemnly deny it. Tlie strength of tlie Church is in her poverty and unworldliuess. God forbid tlmt the Church should have worldly motives, for they who would take worldliness to the altar would be doing that which was not only opposed to its sacrodness, but utterly destructive of its true interests. No doubt, brethren, the strength of the Church is in her poverty, her privations, her sufi'erings, and, like the grain of mustard-seed that escaped the dangers of the winter blast, so shall she survive the angry passions that gather round and, like a troubled sea, threaten to engulf her. She will escape all those dangers that encompass her, and as that Binall grain of mustard-seed sprang up into a goodly growtli, so shall he the power aud glory of the Church. Let it not be said, then, that WT as a Church expect to flourish through wcilth and persecution, for our history proves otherwise. Oh ! if we had not true Clirislian charity, might we not be led to revile those who detract us ? "We leave tiicm to God. No, ours is not a persecuting Church. They who say so are themselves our persecutors, for v.hat is the Protestant Church doing this very morning, hut denouncing us to their congregations as idolators, to be sliunned, despised, and detested P I should not have been led to ad- vert to these denouncings, hut from the fact of those clergymen of the Protestant Church combating us not hy argument but by detraction, and in such a spirit of intolerance as to point us out for jiersecu- tiou and to excite the people to acts of violence. Unable to recur to the laws of olden times to keep us in painful bondage, they have recourse to indirccL me;ins, knowing that England could never sanction the revival of those laws. Such a revival they know would be opposed to the very nature of a generous people. This is not the age for persecution. Tliauk God, England, above all ullier countries, enjoys free- dom of conscience ; and whilst the Catholics otFend not against the laws of the land, aud do nothing worse than preach charily and goodwill among men, I have no fear whatever. If we offend against the laws, seize us ; but if we obey the laws, persecute us not, for you have no right to interfere with our couseicnce. If our opinions ;ire opposed to the laws of England, punish us ; Ijut if otherwise, why arc we to he marked out for destruction? Much stress has been laid upon my words regarding the possibility of the Archbishop of Canterbury ceasing to he a prelate in this country. f repeat every word of that. I say that the day may come when there will be no Archbishop of Canterbury, but I do not say that he will cease to hcj in consequence ot any measures of our Church. Why, in England dissent from tlie Established Church is increasing rapidly every day. Members of the Protestant Church were in doubt as to the construction to be put upon the Sacred Volume, and they left the Church because they knew not where to have those doubts cleared up. They cannot look to the Arehbisliop of Canterbury to satisfy them, aud they couse- queuily leave the Establishment and take their own views of the question. 'L'his, if anything can, must do away with that title ; and wlieu the time comes when there shall be no State Church — aud come it must, seeing tliat there arc as many sects in this couutiy as there are towns and hamlets — then must the Arch- bishop of Canterbury cease to be, for the Protestant religion, as recognised by the State, would no longer exist, and (if course no Archbishop of Canterbury would be required. With regard to the Cardinal Arch- bishop of Westminster, and his arrogant assumption of jiowin- over the teiniioralities of this country, let me tell you that his Eminence, so far from assuming power and grandeur, is a poor aud liumble man, wliose income is scarcely snlticient to maintain his position as a bishop of a Church, whose self-denial in worldly matters is undeniable. My brethren, don't mind the insults heaped upon your rclii'ion by those who dare to denounce the glorious ceremonies of a Church as old as civilisation itself. Let them be called " mummeries." Don't be offended at the audacity of the man who dares to call them so : for those in whom you place cu, as true sons of Britain, to be just. God bless tiie Quocn 1 Catholics and anythingarians alike join in that cry; but we may not serve our Queen, and yet serve God as we will? 1 pity the Catholics of London at this moment, and I am disgusted with the bigotry of my countrymen. The Lord Chancellor should liave Sjjoken " ere the wine was in and the wit out." We have had a dancing Lord Clianctlior — adninkcn one i> an anomaly ! But you are told it is against the law; then why the unchristian outcry ? Let the majesty of the law vindicate itself; clap all the Bisiiops in the Tower, but do it gentlemanly; behead the Cardinal, but do not make brutes of yourselves ; rake up tiie penal laws, dress every Catholic in a parti-coloured garb, but do not utter untruths against tl-.em. Dr. Brown lias stopped one falsehood, by asking for the name of the man who " embezzKd the 70/." Has that been given him? Lord Feilding stopped another by saying tliat Lady Pennant left no sum for a church. As for a mother's desires, the Duke of York desired his deb'.s might be paid when dying ; desires may be for good or evil, and cannot be binding. I see in the Times a letter from a man who thanks his God he is a Protestant, pronouncing in harsh ternis on a Catholic book he has got hold of. But what is that book ? iL is a book adapted for the examination of one's conscience, and points out certain sins which are hateful in the sight, of God. If the Established Church looked as much after the sins of their peojilc, the vice, the wretchedness of the poor victims of poverty would not be so great. What, afraid to put such a book in the liands of a pure woman ! " Evil be to them that evil think." Such questions are not for those who are pure and virtuous, and this those pure and virtuous people know. The Protestant may thank his God he is a Protestant, and give his childica license to commit those sins. Why, fellow countrymen, need I say more? Your own hearts will do justice to all parties ; you will not prejudge and execute sentence upon those who have fought as you have fought, and borne as you have borne. Lord John has nicely complimented a Catholic soldiery and the Queen's Master of the Horse by calling their faith "superstitious mummeries."' The Premier, and the reverend buffoon his teacher, require to learn good breeding. 'I'cach it them, my fellow-men. If the Catholics have outrai^ed the law, let the law, the sober law, punisli them ; but give not to the falsehoods of platforms ear for one moment. They have visited your pockefs; let them not take from you the love of truth, of charity, and of justice. AN ENGLISHAL\N. CONTENTS, THE "ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION." "' rmsT Sekies— The Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius IX. ; Cardinal Wiseman's Pastoral; the Two Letters to the "Times" by Bishop Ulhithorne; Lurd John ilussell's Letter; the "New Batch of Bishops," from the " Weekly Dispatch;' l"wo Letters by the llev. G. A. Deiiisoii ; a Letter froni Bcnjauiin D'lsraeli, Esq., M.r. ; Review and Extracts from Ambrose I'hillips's "Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury;" coacliulcd by a Biography of Cardinal Wiseman. Second Serfks — The Bishop of London's Charge, at St. Paul's Cathedral, November "m\, 1850; and the Rev. Dr. Cuiuming's Lecture, at Hanovcr-squarc Roonis, November 7th, 1850. TuiRO Series — The Rev. T. Nolan's Lecture ; Letter from B. Ilawe.s, Esq., M.P, , the Pastoral of the Calliolic Bisliup of Northampton ; Letter I'aim Dr. Caininiiig; iiCtters iVoni the Bishop of St. Asaph and Viscount Ecilding ; and the " Vatican IMasqiicradc." Fourth Series — A Plain Appeal to thaliiatioii oi tlie appear- ance of liian.v pase of the English people. This feeling you have most unfortunately countenanced ; you have given dignity and importance 10 an antipathy which you ought carefully to have allayed ; and, by your ill-timed support, have done your utmost to ktej) alive for years a detestable intolerance, of which in your heart I believe ycu to be thorouglily ashamed. Where, again I ask, and what, is the danger? I am not frightened by vvords, but I w sh to know what is meant by " Papal aggression ?" Can the Pope acquire power over auy nuvn in England merely by niek- niuning a man Archbishop of Westminster, or by giving him a large hat and a pair of red stockings, and dubbing him a Cardinal ? Has the Pope acquired any actual territorial right or influence by what is called parcelling out the kingdom of England? We are all equal before the laws. He cannot invoke tlie power of the law, then, to persecute us into acquiescence in his doctrine. Upon what, then, is he to rely in order to gain influence over us? Persuasion. He and his emissaries must influence us through our reason; and we who pretend to rely upon the force of truth and the great safeguard of free discussion— we cov.cr and tremble, and, like all cowards, bluster, because a focdish old man, at the instigation of a crowd of intriguing priests, and a set of weak-minded, silly converts from our own to the Cfitholic Church, has Ihought tit to give a certain number of liishops English names— and, spite of our pretended confidence in the truth of our own opinions, and our braggart boasting of the tllicacy of reason and of argument, we arc all at once horribly alarmed, and lancy that we shall awake some morning and tind ourselves irre- trievably Catholic. This very statement shows how thorou.uhly ridiculous is the whole afi'air when viewed in this light; but far dillerent is it when we reflect uiiou the feeling which really has created all this confusion. \Mien we remember that hate — religious bigotry — is at the bottom of it all; when we remember that every Protestaut priest has, by religious autipatliy, been roused into action ; when v.e also bear in mind tliat every Catholic priest in England and Ireland has now been challenged to the combat, is it not clear, my lord, that your most unwise and unstatesmanlike letter has seiTcd as a trumpet to call into action the worst, aud fiercest, and most dangerous passions that darken human reason, and harden the human heart ? Tlie work of years has in a moment been destroyed, and all the weary labour of eradicating those now vigorous weeds in our fair garden, religious hate and ecclesias- tical intolerance, has again to he encountered. When you were a labourer at this work you had lo aid you many Protestant sects then suffering under legal disabilities. These you helped to remove, and now that assistance will no longer bo afl'orded to the friends of religious freedom," for every Proteslanl sect will band together mi the one hand, and range themselves in lierce hostility to all the Catholics on the other. And now, my Ion), I put fo you the question which you, as a statesman, ought long since to have asked yourself. Howls Citlhoiic Ireland to he governed!' The immense majority of the people of Ireland are Catholic; will tlipy not now be excited to the same frantic pitch in support of their relit tumultuous and disorderly persons collected together a second time all round the church, and tliis with a ranch greater demonstration of violence than on the preeeding Sunday ; that a force of one hundred constables was required to kee).: the nub from overt acts of violence; that, notwithstanding the exertions of the police, much violence was coiumitted, and a leader of the rioters taken into custody ; that the mob again assembled at the evening service at three o'clock, and were guilty again of violent cries, yells, and other noises, battering at the doors of the church, and disturlnng the whole congregation ; that similar scenes occurred again on Sunday, the ~4th of November, when 1 was iulerrupted in my sermon by outcries and other signs of disalfect ion as before ; all this tumult, your lordship will please to remember, arising from persons collected from all parts of London — uou-purisbioners. I wish to inform you that the eftVct of this has been, that the poor, the timid, and particularly women and children, h ne assured me that they dare not any longer attend divine service ; that they are so intimidated, as well in bodily fear, as also shucked by the blaspbcnums expressions of the multitude to which thev are compelled to listen, that they think it advisatiie to remain at home until these disturbances are put down. "I wish to inform you that, in consequence of this, we on our part — I mean the clergy — are very seriously crippled and hindered in the vuious pa-toral works of our calling; that the minds of our parishioners are disturbed, and kept iu an unhealthy stretch of excitement; that the peace and love with which it is our duty to look upon each other, however great our ditfcrences of opinion, are gone ; that; hatred, animosity, and bitterness of spirit, are engendered among us all; and that we are, iu short, both clergy and people, in a very great st«tc of trouble and distress; that we look forward to the next Sunday, wlifu tlic grr-;itpr ?ei'vices of tlie Cliun-h will agnin le povfornu-d, uiulfr eoiisideiable fear tliat >ome violent outbrpak mny take plarp. In short, the ^hole idea of uorsiiijjping our God in the peace and love of Christians is almost destroyed. It is time, indeed, my lord, wlien a congregation of Cliristian ■worshippers is ohjiged to have detective police within the walls of their cliurch to keep order, and a l;o(ly of one liundivd constables without, to keep off an nnruly mob from bursting in and violating the Lord's sanctuary ; when, in tlieir attendance at divine service, the parishioners couie in and go out in actual bodily fear; when the residence of a simple inoffensive clergyman is obliged to be guarded, all day and night, by special police constables, as though he were in a state of siege, defending himself against an enemy ; it is time, ray lord, then, that ViC ask ourselves the question — AVhat is tiie meaning of all tliis? How has it come to pass ? Where is the cause of it ? Who has done it ? " I am about to tell you, my lord, who has done it. I am about, if you will have the patience to listen, to tell you where lies the moving cause of all tliis outrage aud blasphemy. To those who have eyes to see, alas, it is too plain ! " In walking through my parish but a few days since I was met by a man offering to me for sale a slip of paper, purporting to be a letter from your lordship to the Bishop of Durham. And, shortly afterwards, I saw in a shop window the same letter advertised, with a great show of attraction, at price two shillings and sixpence per 100. Of course I could not but be attracted by seeing your lordship's name appended to a letter to tiie Bishop of Durham. Knowing the troubles whicli now beset our uniiappy Churcii, its many schisms, wants, and infirmities, I might have been pardoned if I had imagined a letter to the Bishop of Durham suggesting some healing iredicine for our wounds, pointing out some stay and comfort in our troubles, promising some synod or convocation for deliberation on our distracted state ; I might liave imagined a scheme for additional bishops — some enlargement of the national education of the poor — some- thing, in fact, to help us on and guide us to deeper unity and more fervent love among ourselves. "But, my lord, what was my surprise when I found that your letter was no more nor less than an attack upon the Bisho]) of Home ; that it was a manifesto full of anger and indignation against a power said to be feared now, though it had been I'or twenty-five years, or thereabouts, sedulously courted, cultivated, and nursed np into its present condition by no other than yourself. And «hat was my surprise, not unmixed with something deeper, to find that, although the Bishop of Rome was held up as a great source of danger to the mighty empire of Great Britain, at whicli I wondered, there was a still greater danger beliind, at which I wondered more." [Mr. Bennett here rjuotcs that portion of Lord John Russell's letter in which his lordship sees from " clergymen of our own Church" a danger which " alarms him much more than any aggression of a foreign sovereign."] " Having read this letter, which I did very carefully, ray attention was fixed to the peculiar day of its date, November 4th, and I could not help remarking that it was a curious coincidence that tliis condemna- tion of the Bishop of Jlomo should tally so closely with the popular delights concerning Guy Fawke.«!. Then I looked on from November 5th to November 9th, the one almost as great a day as the other in the annals of the City of London ; and when the day came, I anxiously read the speeches of the Lord Chan- cellor and Cliief Justice, and of yourself ; and it was curious to remark how only one topic seemed to engross all parties. It is reported that the Lord Chancellor said — " ' There are some who have thought it right to depart from that simplicity of Christian worship which our divine Saviour adopted and left us an example of, and who have sought to approximate as near as possible to Romish forms, one would almost think, to invite tliat very invasion with which we have been recently visited.' " I was somewhat struck by this novel remark of the Lord Chancellor as to the 'simplicity of Ciirisliaii worship which our Lord adopted.' I had always tiioughl that our blessed Saviour worshipped in the Synagogue which was of the Jews — and in the Temple, under a most gorgeous, minute, and ceremonial ritual, concerning which his lordsliip might learn, if he had time to study in the books of the law of God; and I also thought that the disciples of our Lord were called ' Christians first at Antioch,' long after. "Then followed your lordship's speech, also delivered at Guildhall. "Now, all this, I confess, did somewhat startle me. I could not conceive how it was that the members of her Jlajestv's Government could find themselves of a sudden such deep masters of Divinity as thus to pronounee e.r cuihedrd upon the deep mysteries of our most holy faith. It was a wonder to me how your lordship should have found time to add to the incessant toils of your political ollice the study of theology to such an extent as to pronounce on some of the most diilicult dogmas of tlie Cluirch. But, nevertheless, 1 said to myself. This letter is a \ery important thing, be it as it may : I compared the unhappy disturbances at our church of St. Barnabas with those sijceclu^s at Guildhall — 1 comiiared the mob, with its outcries of 'No I'opery,' 'No mummeries,' and the like, with your lordship's letter, which breatiies the same sjiint, of ' no mummiuies of supeislition,' ' no superstitious cciemouics,' and tiic like. 1 said to myself — It cannot be vei7 much a wonder that ignorant jiersons, consisting mostly of the lowest orders of society, should be so stirred up to molest us poor people of St. Barnabas, when the I'rime Minister himself writes them a letter, and tells them that we are more dangerous than even the I'ope of Rome. " I3ut your lordship will perbajis say, ' 1 never mentioned St. Barnabas. I only spoke generally of a cer- tain party in the Church.' No, my lord, you did not mention St. J5arnabas, but your resilience is known to be in Chesham-place, you are know n to have been a w orshipper in St. I'aul's Church, from which St. Barnabas is an oil'-shoot. You are known to be intimately acquainted, from your parochial connexion, with all that is done there, and the inference is so plain that any child could have made it, namely, that St. Paul's and St. Barnabas were the jilaces which you really had in your mind, and tlie clergy of whom you spoke, among others, the clergy of those churches. " Your letter to the people, cou]jled with t!ic speeches at the Guildhall, sjieaks just to this effect—' Listen to me, people of England, and sjiccially inhabitants of London. There is a great danger, as you all know, from the Bishop of Home, who has just issued a bull, making a Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, aud other bishops, of his communion. This is a great act of power and aggression against the Queen's snpre- tiacy ; and it is my opinion that no one lias a right to say anything concerning bishops and tiie episcopal TiWiTintendcnce of any of the people of tliis country, save only the Queen. It is plain that if you do not louk fo it, you will have nil the jicople converted to liio JJoiv.an faith — yon will lifivc the Queen's crown in (lan^'er. Tiike care of your liberties. ]3nt, my pood friends, I should like to tell you something Airtlier, and I heji' yon to listen to this most attentively: — However prcat a diui^jer there is arisinpr from the I'ope, I "ill tell you of ;inother which is even greater. There arc a set of cicrirymeu in the Church of England who are jiecuhar in their niclhod of performing Divine service. They do and say such and such things (then yon mention them) ; they teach this, ajid they teacli that; they do this, and they do that ; — and, let me tell you, that it is IVoiu these men that the danger of PoiJcry conies. If it had not been for these clergy of the Church of Enj^laud, you would never have had anything to trouble you in regard of the Church of Uome. Now take care of your i'rotestaut liberties, raise a ' No I'opei-j' cry, and protect the royal supremacy.' " What followed ? Why, of course, the newspapers echoed your cry. Your lordship had given the major premiss — the newspapers supplied the minor— the mob drew the conclusion. '' Did you want them to draw the conclusion? However, so it was. A conclusion inevitable. Though 1 had been sorely puzzled to know why we were so attacked at St. Barnabas, now it was plain enougji. For days and days, lurt a single newspaper but teemed with letters ami articles about our poor inoffensive church ; thoujih I had been before sorely puzzled about it in my simplicity, now it all came upon me in a moment of enlightenment. How was it possible they should avoid it? How was it possible, when the un- cultivated, ignorant minds of the common jieojile were so skilfully plied with incendiary matter by the I'rimo Minister of England, backed by tin; Lord Chancellor and an unscru])ulous public press, that they should not take fire ? When the law in Court of Clianccry, and the law in Court of Queen's Bench, represented by grave and solemn men, spoke out from a Guildhall dinner, and egged on the multitude with speeches about ' civil and religious liberty,' and with many jestings about the I'ope; and when Sir I'eter Laurie wound up tile story by saying, ' Whether Ministers led or followed, one thing was certain — Britons never would be slaves' — to what? 'either to J^iseyism or to Pojiery !' how, my lord, could we wonder at what had taken place ? Why, it would havi; been a ])erfeet miracle had we escaped. You might as well have laid a train of guni)owdcr from Chesham-]j!ace, stretching along the streets to poor St. Barnabas' Church, and then put into the hands of your friends, ' the people,' a torch, and have said, ' Now you know where the mischief is ;' and then have expected that the lorfh would not have been ap]died to the train. " Will your lordship allow me to say a few words, first on the subj.-ct of your consistency in regard of this matter, and tlum in regard of your theological o])inions. "I renieuiber a certain ])erii,d in your lordship's ]iolitical life — it was the year l^o') — when, being appointed Jlinistcr of Slate for the Home Department, you became a candidate for the representation of South Devon; and notwithstanding your popularity as a jMinister just accepting place, and other advantageous circumstances in that county, you were defeated by a majority of upwards of six hundred. You then addressed the electors in these words : ' To tiu- etl'ects of intimidation and undue influence ; on the temporary alarm, on weak minds, caused by the revival of the cry of 'No Popery' my defeat is to be attributed.' So that I'opery and your lordship were once identified. I remember well, even earlier than that, the many contests which used to take jilaee in the House of Commons on tiie great subject of tlie ' Catholic claims,' and how you used to be an invariable champion on their ])ehalf. So that ' I'opery' has not always been a bane to yon. I call to Tuind also the fact of your advocating, for many years, grants of the luxtional money for the education of, the llomau Catholic Clergy at Maynooth ; so that neither the propagation of the faith of the Church of Home could possibly then have been sinful in your eyes, nor, of course, could its existence in this ccmntry, at that time, have been thought l)y you dangerous to tlie Queen's supremacy. "I have always considered that you have hitherto been a staunch, firm, and faithful advocate, and, in my opinion, a just advocate, of the rights of conscience. l?oth towards Dissenters, as well as lloman Catholics, you have invariably manifested a tolerant disposition ; not considering that religion, or religions I'oims of belief, should b(! any cause of the loss of the rights of citizenship. I bear in mind also the fact, that you advocate the rights of conscience to such an extent, tliat you have brought a Bill into the House of Commons for the purpose of allowing Jews to take part in the legislation of our country, and that you are notoriously of oi>iiiion, that not even the denial of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ouglit to foiin any bar to the free use of all the privileges and honours of our country. I call to mind also the fact, that you esteem the education of the poor of such great importance, that even creeds and dogmas of faith should be given u]) in order to coiiibine every ftn-m of religious profession in a grand scheme of universal knowledge. Thus, in all points, 1 find yuu so far from being narrow-nnnded or bigoted to any- one .'■■ct of opinions, that yi.u gladly ignore all tlie laws and obligations of every Church v.hatsoever. I find that you fly, whensoever it may suit you, to the tcacliing of those who are entirely opposed to tlie English Chuich, such as the riesbyterians, while nominally you remain within her pale; that you uphold the educational system of Dissenters who adopt no creed whatever, while you simultaneously worship in a Church w hich anathenuitiscs heresy, and insists upon creeds as embodying truths vital to salvation. I find that your idea of the faith of the Gosjiel is large, broad, liberal, free ; that you would not have yourself crijiplcd or conlhicd by any narrow circle of man's (as yon c;dl them) decrees or opinions; that you make an eclectic system of your own, and claim the right of worship'iing in the morning in a conimunion which says, that without bishops there is no Church, while you worship in the evening in a communion whicJi denies the episcopal grace altogeth.er: in short, I find, by the whole course of your political life, that you are most liberal, generous, and unfettered, by any bonds of jn-ejudice, to either creed, party, or Church. And finding this to be the case, I understand then very clearly what you mean by the clergy ' enslaving the soul,' and 'confirming the intellect,' wliicli otherwise 1 could not have understood. 'Enslaving the soul,' points to the dogmatic teaching of any Church w hatsoever. Confining the intellect,' advocates the free and rationalistic use of God's great gift to men^thc mind. ' Enslaving the siml,' would be tantamou nt to believing creeds such as the Athanasian. ' Confining the intellect,' would be the necessity of belief in the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, or in the real presence in the blessed sacrament. lu fact, my lord it is clear, in regard to your faith, judging it by your conduct, that you are in religion as in politics a Liberal. You are not a prejudiced man." \ou are uot a bigot. You are not narrow-minded. Consequently I should suppose, o priori, that in regard to the State, or the Crown, or tlie Government administeiing tli e Crown, you would be of opinion, that the imposition of any doctrine by such an evidently human institu- tion as that, would be the very severest of tyranny; that the idea of a man's faith being bound down by a mere <-arlhly king — tlie idea of a uurnljer of men's faith, that is, a Church— the idea of a great community of CJiristiaiis being bound in tilings spiritual to ohey the supremacy, or liual adjudication, or decision of a Riiyal Court of mere racu, that this idea would he dreadfully ahhorrent to your feelings. A royal supremacy Church one would think the very last which a man of your liberal sentiments would tolerate — one which your faith would reject as impossible to be lounded on God's word, aud your principles deny as being unwor- thy the freedom of the human intellect. In short, I should say, apriori, that a State Church, State creeds, State Courts, Slate cathedrals. State deans and canons, and, ahove all, Stute bisliops, would he a piece of king's craft odi( us in your eyes, as 'confining the intellect and enslaving the jouI' most foully, most fatally. " My lord, 1 agree with you entirely in the latter portion of what might have been expected of you apriori; I disagree with you in what I find e.xistiuK in you as a fact; but again I agree with you in the moving principle by which you are guided and directed in your course. The moving principle is love of freedom, toleration, liberty ; in that I agree. Your actiwns flowing out of that principle, namely, your letter to the Bishop of Durhaui and speech at Guildhall — in thf-se I disagree, because they are inconsistent; and there- fore that which I might have expected ei priori does not exist. For wliile you cry out most heartily, ' Liberty of conscience,' you stop the mouths of men, cuntine the intellects of men, aud enslave the souls of men, by a great, cumbrous, unwieldy, tyrannical macliine called a State Clinrch, wluch you enforce against us without mercy ; and while you find fault with Christ's Holy Catliolic Church for dogmatising in creeds, you nevertheless rule tiiem with a rod of iron in the dogmas of an Act of Parliament. While you yourself get free of articles and Queen's supremacy in the h'lerty of a Presi)yterian, you charge the unfor- tunate clergy of the English Church with their bounden duty of submission to the Thirty nine Articles, and the Queen's supreme headship and government over them in things spiritual. My lord, you are like a ganler who has manacled and fettered his prisoner, and, being free himself, stands off aud laughs at him." [Mr. Bennett then states his opinion that there is much of rottenness and corruption in the English Church, and that the source of th.it corruption is the royal supremacy, as now administered ; and claims an Euglishman's right to combine \vith others in measures for its reform, without their being considered as " insidious" in regard of their faith, or as Buemies in regard of the Church.] " But, my lord, either not understanding this, or else wilfully passing it by — I hope the former — you throw dust into people's eyes, and say that we, a certain portion of the English clergy, are bringing in the Pope, because we speak against the Uueen's supremacy. " It is not the Queen's supremacy that we complain of— it is the Prime Minister's supremacy that we complain of; not the thing, but ilie abuse. Ytmr lordship is very earnest in your cry for ' liberty of eon- science.' Why will you not concede it to us the clergy, as well as all other of her Majesty's subjects? You cry out against us, that we are enslaving; the souls of the people ; we cry out against you that you are en- slaving the souls of the clergy — that you are cii|ipling, deforming, posioning the fountain of jurisdictions and the springs of the pure doc'rines of the Catholic faitli. If ' civil and religious hb(;rty' means anything, we have a right to say this, aud to act upon it ; and that right we claim. It is your inconsistency that wc would point out to the ivorld, in fighting so bravi ly and enduring so much for a principle in yourself, and for yourself, which you will not concede to another. " My lord, I quite agree with you that no man has a power to enslave the soul of another — that a man's conscience is free ; but I charge you with inconsistency in not following this up, and allowing a fortiori that neither has a State such power. " If one man has not the power, neither have many men. If I have no power to enslave your soul, neither have you to enslave mine ; and I claim the liberty you enjoy for yourself. What the Dissenters have, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Roman Catholics, and I think justly, have, I claim for the English Church, and for myself A man's conscience is a man's life; a man's soul is himself We are under shackles , we have a right to gel free if we can, as John Hampden did, whom you revere. " I agree with your cry of civil and religious liberty. I believe that penal laws against religion are the greatest acts of tyranny of \^ Inch a country can be guilty. I have read many of your lordship's speeches with the highest delight in the enthusiasm of my youth, wlien you fought hard and desperately again.st the (as i thought) bigoted and narrow-minded cries about Cliurch aud State, and about the danger of the Pope and his bulls. I liave rejoiced exceedingly, as session after session went on, and Roman C'al holies were at lengih admitted to their undoubted right to sit in Parliament as (Christian men serving loyally a Christian Sovereign. I rejoiced to see penal statutes after penal statutes abrogated, as marks of antiquated i)rejudice, and a relic of a mere cowardly fear unworthy of a mind that believed truth greater than falsehood ; tor I said, if ilieliuih is with us, what matters the Pope? if the truth is with the Pope, what matters our Acts of Parliament? " Aud I agree with your lordship even more lately still, even up to last November 9tli, when you said : — " ' Persons of all religious persuasions, while obeying the dictates of their consciences as to the mode of worship they think itrijiiil to adopt, may rally round the institutions of the country, pay a graceful homage to the Crow'n for the protection they reci-ive,' and rejoice that they live in a land where freedom is gene- rally, and I trust I may say permanently, established.' ""lint then 1 ask, how is it, my lord, that the poor ' clergy of the English Church may not be perraiUed, in the dictates of their conscience, to use the mode of worship whicii they think it right to adopt?' Where is the religious Ireedom of sending down upon St. Barnabas a violent mob, to teach us how to worship our God, and not permit us to do as we like ourselves in a land where 'freedom is established?' Are the clergy ol the Church of England li e veiy persons who have not ctmsciences? Your lordship says : ' Yes, but you are gniltx of ei ror ; jour practices are not in accordance with the Chuieh of which you are n. embers.' I reply, 'Who made you. lordship judge ol that?' You say : ' Why, I see the bishop has judged it so.' Tin n yi.u quote llie bishop, and shelter yourself under him. But, my lord, the bishop is not infallible. YoM (.bjcel to the iufa iihiiitv even of the Lhurch. (See yiuir own letier.) Much more you must object to the nitailibility of a single bishop. How you would throw the bishop aside, wiili perfect contempt, it lio weie to say something in an epi.icopal charge about the schism of members of the Church of England taking their children to be bapiistu by a Uisseuliiig miuisler, or about Chuicii of England members Jrequenliug conventicles, v\ liicli, according to the canons, is a censurable, if not a jjunishable act : how you would rise up iu indignafion against such an infringeinonl of the rights of conscience then ! But where is your con- sistency ? You quote the bishop and the Church on your side when you want to inake use of an argument against an adversary ; you tlirow them altogether out when they make against yourself. Is that fair, my lord? No; you kuow it is not. But it suits your purpose just now to crush a certain party in the Cliurch, and to warn otf the indignation of the people, which is burning against Topery, by appearing to take their side just for the moment. You are not on their side really. You do not really mean that you think the I'ope dangerous. You do not really think that the Queen's supremacy in temporal thin'^ — (itherwise her crown — is in danger in consequence of a i'apal bull. Y'ou do not really mean that a number of J{onuin bishops, exercising spiritual jurisdiction over their people, is an aggression against the Queen's right to her throne ; for if you did, yon would not surely act as you have done all your life, in endeavouring to promote this very point. You would not have repealed statute after statute to jirepare the way for it. Y'ou would not have given large grants of money to the College of Mnynooth. You would not have aeknow- lelged Uoinan archbishoiis and bisho])s in the Colonies, and have paid them salaries, and have given them precedence over English bishops, and have recognised their titles. You would not hav(! counselled and aided iu various Acts of Parlianicnt in which these titles and salaries are made the law of the land. Y'ou would not have couccded iu the Court of Dublin a priority of rank, or, at least, a recognition of rank, in t!ie Irish bishops; and have, on many occasions, addressed them by their titles. No, ray lord, I cannot impute to you the idea of having doiie all this, or joined in aU this, freely and notoriously, with a con- junction of your opinion being in reality what it seems, that Popery is like to be the destruction of the Queen's authority in this realm of England. Why, I would ask you, are you now denying both the words and the works of your whole life ? Why put before the people these exciting things, to which your life gives the great answer, they are not true? AV'hy, my lord, fondle, and pet, and nurse a viper which you knew would only sting you when it got sufficient warmth and vitality ? If the Roman Catholics arc dangerous, why did you foster them? If they arc not dangerous, why do you say they are ? " My lord, you not only excite ' the weak minds' of the people of England against Cardinal Wisemau and the I'ope, and cry ' No Popery,' but you do soraolhing more. While you say ' Popery is dangerous, doMTi with it,' you say, ' It is not my fault, gentlemen. It is true I have alway's advocated their claims, and for- warded their vievi's , but now that they have come out into power, that is not my fault, it is the fault of certain clergy within our Church.' You couple yourself with us, although now a follower of Ur. Gumming, a Presbyterian. It suits you for your purpose to do so, and j'ou do it. Knowing where the blame ought to lie, you turn it oil', aud say, 'There, look at that — look at these clergy— look at their ' mummeries,* and their ' superstitions' — observe their Roman doctrines, and their insidious tetuliing. These are the men that have caused this danger.' Thus, under a masked battery, having diverted tl;e attention from yourself, you aim your guns with too true an aim against us. 'Down with those clergy of ' mutteriugs,' aud of ' confessions,' and of ' infallibility,' and of ' freedom from the Queen's supremacy.' These are the niiscliief- makers.' Then the mob is stirred and infuriated, and, instead of the Roman Catholics themselves, we become the butts and objects of hatred, and ridicule, and violence. If there is a ])recipice at the end of a certain walk, aud you know it, and dread it, aud would not for the world move towards it , for fear of falling over it, you would not hate the precipice ; you would know of its existence, and simply avoid it. But if, after a while, some one began to lead you towards it step by step, and you went under his guidance, as it were fascinated and bew ildered, when y(Ui should at length arrive at the precipice, and fall over, aud thereby injure yourself — with what kind of feeling would you look at »uchaguide? — hatred, wrath, reimgnance, imnishraent. But this, my lord, you have just done towards us, the clergy of ."St. Bar- nabas. You have told the whole Protestant world, concerning the Roman Church, that it is the great enemy of the Crown of Queen Victoria. Y'ou have saturated the people with the unchristian feeling of looking upon Rome with a sort of hatred, as though it were a natural enemy to England. Having signified this, you go to the Bishop, and you say — 'See what the very Bishop says. He speaks of these eleriry as men ' leading you step by steii to this precipice.' What is to lie d ine with them?' [The reply to this interrogatory is, that the very liishop whom Lord John Russell now quotes consecrated, only five mouths since, the cliurch of .St. Barnabas itself, approving ail he .saw and all he joined in. Mr. Bennett then proceeds to inquire whether the Bishop could now mean to censure those very same things.] " I may fairly say the whole spirit and tone, the intention, the mind of the whole church and college ; tlie foundation for tin; choristers, tlic masters, the mistresses, thccurates, the general schenie and arrnngcmcnt of the whole; and yet still, moreover, as far as I myself am humbly concerned, my doctrine and my way of teaching ; my views and principles in the regulation of the service ; my character as a priest; intending to do, teacli, and pursue my w ay, in the very way I am now pursuing it — I repeat, all this was known to the Bishop. I kuow full well his kindness on that occasion. T believe fully that he sacrificed much on that occasi(ni of his own private feelings and opinions as an individual; and I am filled (^aiul all who know me will bear me witness how I have always expressed myself to this effect) with the greatest gratitude for the kindness of manner and the paternal alfection with w Inch the Bishop then treated me. And therefore it is that I cannot imagine that he should speak so ha'shly now. I believe, then, there is a delusion. The Bishop knows that I never can go back in the things I have said aud done ; that I can never, from any feat of man, change, or recede from that which has been begun as a principle. I have told him that I cannot. That wliieh he saw and knew then — that which he saw and blessed then — that which he knew to be my intention and mind then, in ceremonies aud ritual — that it shall be now, please God, and for ever the same, unchanged, uuchangcahle. "Therelore, my lord, I fear you have dune unjustly by St. Barnabas. I fear you have traduced our clergy here by iiuputing false things to them. It cannot possibly be that we are leading the people step by step over the precipice. How can we, when the bishop led the way himself, in consecrating and blessing the church which you now see? .... "There is something further which 1 have need to say about your lordship's consistency. Not your consistency in the political r.'.casures of your Government, for oi course with that subject, as a clero'yraau I have nothing to do; nor your consistency in your own personal conduct and rule of faith, for ot°course the right of private judgment being iu your own mind established as a necessary part of Protestantism, you 8 only follow its dictiitcs in following jour o\iu ^^iil in icsaid io icliuioiis vioibliip. 13iit conceding, ns I do, tlie right of private judgment to you, I would ask, why will you not concede it to others? — wliy will you not concede it to me? It would seem but fair that a latitudinarian should give latitude to others ; a free thinker, free lliought; a free agent, free action ; a liljcral, lilieralily. Bur, as I have shown, it is not so with you. "What you impose on others, you do not impose on yourself; what you demand of others to he given to yon, yuu are very rcluetaut indeed to give to tlieni. lint this jjriueiple, vieious and faulty as it is, is allowable, you niiglit say— a general, a political, an abstract fault, and lujtl.ing to do with yourself. You perhaps try. as many poliiieians have doi'.e, to separate your ])o!itical character from your personal, and you might .say. It is very true 1 am an advocate for the riglit of private judgnient, and civil and religious liberty, itud so I woidd in my personal conduct abstain carefully from any measure or dealing with my neighbour which would violate that principle ; but as a statesman and a iiublie servant of the Constitution of my country, I am bound to adhere to that Constitution ; and finding, as I do, that the Church compels certain things of those who are her members, it is my duty to enforce Jier laws. "The tnith of the matter i'% that statesmen such as your lordship, when they separate therasc^"cs into a public and a private eharaclcr, immediately set up for themselves tw o opposite rules of conduct : and those oppo.site rules of conduct are the destruction of their consistency. The rule of conduet in private perhaps may be 'theWoi^d of God,' or 'faith,' or ' religion ;' the rule of conduct in public is ' public ojiinion.' "While therefore, in private, statesmen may possibly retain a tolerably consistent and harmonising course, it is impossible that they can do so in ])nblic ; because their rule is a shifting rule. As it is all-powerful, and subdues everything that comes in its way, so it is never the same two years together — always varying, un- certain, contradicting itself, and therefore they who are under it are always vaniug, and not certain, and contradicting themselves. And yet it is impossble to hold the reins of Government and not how down to it. So, at least, it appears. ' What is the prevailing dominant temper of the national mind? Call it public opinion, or tlie spirit of the day, or the pojiular judgment, or the temper of the times, or the idea of the age, or the voice of the people, or fashion, or the ruling principle around us; in each alike we acknow- ledge the presence of a mysterious inlluence, shaping our thoughts and acts, controlling, overawing, resist- ing — now laughing to scorn, now crushing with violence, now whispering and tempting us to silence, and DOW clamouring witli all llie noise of the people; but before which, as private individuals, we quail, and as citizens we own and even boast, that the governments of the earth must bow and obey.' Yes, my lord, as a governor of this kingdom it is impossible for you to resist public o])inion. Y"ou must either obey it, or you must cease to be the Minister of our country. Y'ou prefer the former. Hence, though an advocate for Popery in your earlier life, you are its enemy now. ' Catliolic Emancip-itiou' was your cry formerly; now, ' No Popish Bishops,' not seeing that the one is the natural and just development of the other. At the South Devon election, you were rejected as "Secretary of the Home Department, because of youri'.dhc- rence to the side of 'Popery.' You have taken a lesson from that mischance, and are determined to maintain your place as I'rime IMinister on the opposite side of ' No Popery.' Public opinion compels you. It binds you down to its chariot wheels, and hurries you hitlier and thitlier just as it will. Y'ou jday into each other's hands, and, as it were, feed and sustain each other. I'nblic opinion induces you to write to the Bishop of Durham, and then your letter is seized upon by public opinion as the vehicle for propagating itself. You are used as a kind of standard or sign of the people's will. "But whatever this may be in otliermen — however in some cases it maybe imngined that a politician can I'.ave two consciences, one for his country and one for himself, I now desire to show, in your lordship's case, that there is no such dilficulty. You have been consistent in being inconsistent in all ways; you have not as a statesman been now deriding and destroving w hat before you ])raised and fondled, and tlint alone, but, as far as regards the matter now in hand (for you must remember that 1 write this letter as a parish priest to his iiarisiiioner) you have done the very same in your jiarochial connexion with our poor church of St. Barnaljas. I wish, my lord, to remind you of this, and to expostulate as gently as I may with the fact of a sudden and unaccountable aversion where before there was at least some degree of toleration and countenance. " In the year 1813, the Church of St. Paul, Knightsbridge, was consecrated by the Bishop of London. You being a parishioner, became from the very first a member of the congregation therein worship])ing ; you were constantly at divine service, constantly at sermons; you have received the Holy Sacrament, you and yours, at my liands. You must, tlierefore, have been aware of my teaching in the puljjit, must have been aware of the system or party in the Cluirch to which we were attached (for, my lord, it is of no use to dis- guise the fact that there are parties in the Church). Y'uu must have been aware of all this, and yet there you remained for the jjeriod of nearly seven years. " Moreover, being one of our chief jiarishioners, you generously contributed subscriptions to our parish .schools, and all other charitable institutions devised for the use of the poor. In private, also, according as the need nrose, you have more than once, unsolicited and of a kind symjiathy with the needs of our poor, sent me ])rivatc sums of money for tiicir henelil: you h.ive frequenlly accompanied the.^e gilts with remarks of your own eoneeriiiiig the way in wliieh you would desire tbeni to be \ised, all showing sucli a sp'irit of charity and fellowsl.ip with us, as induced us to think that neither our public teaching nor cur jirivate pastoral wiirks could be :dtogetlicr unacceptable to you. " In course of time, among other jiastoral duties, we de\i^d as to propose a specific plan of your own, w hich had, indeed, some a(lvanla:?e.s in il, Inif, v.g tlionulif, not on 1!ip \vI;o1c advisalile. Tliougli I ronld not a^^rce willi you in tlie idea wliicli you sujiiircstcd, still I was very thankful for your pxprcsion of synijiatliy, and specially as it iiianiri'sleil the fact tliat tlie good \Miik int.-ndcd to be donn had bpe;i a nialtfir of consideration with you. In tJMt letter yoliopric. In parallel with this, I would lisk you to read what Dr. Arnold says. lie speaks of the Church of England as never recovering the 'aristocratic and regal selfishness of its birth.' ['Life and Correspondence,' vol. ii., p. 38~.] I quote Dr. Arnold, let me remind yon, because he is one of your own. "But now, to bring this letter to a conclusion. 1 would say to you, my lord, in the language of Hosins to the Emperor Constantme, — " ' Stay, I beseech you. Remember that you arc a mortal man. Fear the day of judgment. Keep your hands clean against it. Meddle not with Church matters. Ear from advising us about them, rather seek instruction from us. We may not bear rule ujion earth ; you, Emperor, may not b(«r rule in the things of worship. I write this from a care for your soul.' — Atli. Hist. Arian. ad Mon. "ti. " I pray God, my lord — even yet daily mure and more will I pray — that you may be spared from being the iustriunent, under God's baud, for the destruction of the Church of England. It is a fearful thought for a man to dwell upon, that possibly he may be the appointed channel in the councils of God for some sweeping calamity about to descend u])on this great nation. I [iresume you would really think that the loss of her Church would be a sweeping calamity. Yet the loss of her Chc:reh is by no means, at the present moment, in her peculiar position, an impossible thing. Jlay 1, a very humble individual, entreat you to pause, to stay your hand, to arrest the downward ccmrse of her fall, before it be too late. Eor myself, and those around me here, \\bile we will give ourselves only the more sedulously to prayer and saeranients, and the good w\irks of the poor, we will not give way one single inch in the duties \vc owe to the Cburcli. The spirit of I'ilate may be in the rulers, the spirit of Judas in the brethren, the spirit of Gallio in the nobles, but yet let us liojie that there may be the spirit of reteraml I'aul in the priests and bishops of the fold. Eor ourselves, the greater the fierceness of the people's madness, so much the greater our patience ; the more violent their outcries of wrath, the more earnest and the longer our prayers. " 1 have the honour to be, my lord, vour lordship's humble servant and parish priest, "WM. J. E. BENIN'ETT." LETTER FROM SIR E. HALL, BART., M.P, TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. Tlic following letter has been addressed to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury by Sir Bcnjamiu Hall, Rart., M.l'. ;— " My LoKt), — At this time of public excitement, when the Protestants of this country are expressing the indignation they naturally feel at the division of tlie kingdom into episcopal districts liy the Pope, to be presided over by a Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster — when the Prime .Minister of this country con- siders it expedieut to make his sentiments on the subject of Papal domination known to the public through the mediuiu of a letter addressed to the Bishop of Durham— when the newly-appointed cardinal gives publicity to his views m an appeal to the people of this realm— when bishops address their clergy, and deans and chapters are in a state of unparalleled consternation, all complaining, but none suggesting any practical remedy, contenting themselves with venting their spleen against the disciples of Pusey and the congregations of St. Barnabas— I venture to take the liberty of addressing myself to your Grace, as a humble member of the Cluireh of which your Grace, under the Cro«n, is the head, and as one of the laity to whom your Grace has apjjealed, to oiler a few remarks upon the present subject. It is not my intention at this time to give any opinion as to whether the Pope, guided by the advice of Dr. Wiseman, ])r. jMaellale, and Cardinal i'lansoni, has acted discreetly in the step he has taken ; neither shall I enier upon the question ot the legality of such a step— that subject must, be brought under the cousiderntion of Parliament, when tin; Prime jMiuister introduces those measures which (from his letter) he appears to have in contemplation. My object is to show that there arc more causes than one for the present interference on the jiart of the Pope. I am quite aware (as has been frequently observed by others) that one of the causes which may have led to the appointment of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country is the fact that, amongst the clergy of our Church there are some who, although Roman Catholics at heart, cleave too much to the good things of this world, which their present preferments atford them, to have the honesty fully to avowthe opinions which they entertiiin in reference to another Church, autagouistic to thai from which they derive all their worldly advantages, but who still cling to their offices and emoluments, at the same time that, by their preaching and practices, they make converts to their own realopiuions, for which 14 unworthy conduct they may perliaps believe that the Church with wliich they are men'ally united may be able hereafter to give them absohition, but into whose communion they will not at present enter, lest they should lose their station and be deprived of their stipends. But this is not all ; althou^li if we merely read the letter of the Prime Minister, and peruse the letters and speeches of the bisho"s and clergy wliicli daily appear in the newspapers, )t might be supposed that Tuseyism, and Puseyism alone, Imd Lni to the Papal bull wliicli has recently been issued from the Vatican. If tiie Prime Minister and the bishops are conect in their belief that Puseyism is one of the principal causes (if not the only cause) of the measures rccent'y ad jpted by the Court of Rome, why have those great authorities been so careless and so inditfcnut, as regards the welfare of our Church aud the maintenance of Protestantism, as to allow Puseyism to gain so great aa ascendancy, by permitting those clergymen who are now designated as ' traitors to the Established Chnrch,' to continue ministers of the reformed religion of that Church ? Your Grace, in a letter addressed to the clergy upon this subject, dated November 21, 185u, says: — "'Ten years have elapsed since I thought it necessary to warn the clergy of another diocese against the dangers of adopting principles which, when carried out, tend naturally lo those Romish errors against which our forefathers protested, and which were renounced by the Anglican Church, 'i'he result has proved this judgment was not harsh, or the warnins; preuiature ; on the contrary, certain of our c.ergy, professing to i'oUow up thoie principles, have proceeded onward, from oue Rumish tenet and one Uumish practice to another, till in some congregations all that is distinctive in Protestant doctrine or Protestant worship has disappeared.' "Many of the other bishops have hkewise denounced the observances of the Puseyites as daugerous to the Establishment ; but no measure has been suggested in Parhament, aud (as far as 1 can learn) no steps have been taken out of Parliament, tu devise means to deprive these so called ' traitors of the Church' of their benefices and preferments wiiicli they continue to hold, aud who are thus maintaiurd and encouraged by the very Establishment which it is declared on all sides that they are undermining. Possibly the reason of this apparent apathy, this marvellous negligence, is, that unfortunately amongst the hierarciiy of our Church there are men who have themselves a strong tendency to Puseyism ; aud if this is the case, no real good can be effected till such men are removed from their iiigh and influential positions. If the existing laws will not reach the case, new measures ought long ago to have been submitted tu Parliament, and the ' ten years' during which, according to your Grace's letter, Puseyism has been so dangerous, and during which it has been fostered either by the connivance or by the indifference of our ecclesiastical rulers, should not have been permitted to pass away witiiout an etfectud check being put to its advancement. " Your grace must not suppose, from the declaration of these opinions, that I would ever advocate the persecution of any liody of men because they proft-ss opinions at variance with the principles of the Chnrch of which I am a member ; but merely that I should have great satisfaction in being a party to any legisla- tive enactment which would deprive persons holding those opinions (whether bishops or minor clergy) of their jiresent preferment in the Established Church, and facilitate their entrance within the pale of that other Church whose forms they observe, and whose principles they uphold. But at present all lliese gentlemen continue in the eujoymeiit of the preferment derived from our Church ; and even the Rev. Doctor from whom the new sect is named, notwithstanding the opinions expressed by the Prime Minister and by your Grace and the Bishops, is still Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and a professor of that Uni- versity, and continui's to preach in every diocese in the kingdom ! The Puseyites allege that they act in conformity with the Rubric ; and there is no doubt that (here are ordinances in the Rubric which liuve been unaltered since the time of Edward VI., and had become obsolete, but, having been revived by tlie Puseyites, and being consequently the occasion of schism and couinsion in Ibe Estaljlished Church, the Rubric ou'iht to have been revised long ago. But Mr. Bennett, in an explanation which be gave in a sermon delivered in St. Barnabas Church on Sunday, November 2-i, says (and says most truly), that every- tbiiig he did bad been sanctioued by the Bishop of the diocese; and it appears by the report of proceed- ings in the public papers in reference to (he consecration of St. Barnabas by the Bishop of London, that his lordship was assisted in the perCormance of his duties on that day by the Bishops of Cxlbrd, Sahsbuiy, and Brechin, by the Archdeacons Manning aud Thori)e, aud by Dr. Pusey; and that his lurdsliip eulogised Mr. Bennett for all he had done, noi only in liis sermon, but in proposing his health at ' the Eeast' which took place after the consecration. ^Mr. Bennett has certainly just reason to complain, if he'is to be condemned and not his diocesan. " I am, however, of opinion that the Pope has been induced to issue his last bull not solely in conse- quence of the advances of the Pu.seyites, but of the general discontent with regard to the Established Church which exists in this country, arising from the very unequal, very unjust, aud most improvident distribution and management of ecclesiastical preferment aud ecclesiastical property. Dr. Wiseman, in his nceut address to the pcoide of England, made strong allusions to the distribution of our Chureh properly. JIuch was said upon the subject during the last session of Parliament, and it is certainly desirable that any peti- tions which may be presented to the Legislature, in reference tu the late Papal bull and the progress of Puseyism, should contain a prayer that a thorongii inquiry may be made into the jjroperty of the Esta- blished Church. Some of tlie bishops assert that tlie property of the Cliurch is vested in themselves, and that Pailiament has no right to make any inquiry as to the extent or management of that jiroperty, Tliis assertion may be found must plainly stated in letters, addressed by the Bishops of Exeter, Bangor, Carlisle, Gloucester and Bristol, Rochester, Salisbury, Oxford (now Bath and Wells), and the late Bishop of St. David's, to the chairman of the Church Leases Committee; and the Bishop of Exeter, in AppLMidix to to Report on Select Committee ou Church Leases, ))age 5(iS, says, 'If inquiry was authorised, even by act of the Legislature, he should deem it a most uneonslitutional and tyrannical inquisition into his jiroperty;' and he positively refused to give any information to a committee of tlie House of Commons. The letters from the other bishops were to a similar purpose ; but it is not probable that these opinions will be gem- rally acquiesced in by the people of Great Britain. And the committee, iii their final report, dated Gili of May, 1839 {elereti. ycuirs and a half rt//o), recommend the abolition of the injurious system of fines upon leases for lives, and also upon leases for terms. The people of this kingdom have a right to consider that the property of the Church is only bestowed upon the bishops and clergy as stewards and guardians for the benefit of the conunimity at large, of which Church the laity form a part, and that Parhameut ought to be 15 irifoiDQPd of every acre of laud, ami the value of each acre, belougiiig to the Church; that tlie system of fines taken on tlie granting of leases ought to be abolished ; that I'arliaiuent ought to know tlie amount received from fines, tlie rents at which the property has been let, and the names of the parlies to whom the several ])i()i)erties have been leased ; that I'arlianient sliouid insist upon an immediate aljolitioh uf all those disgraceful pluralities to some of which public attention has lately been drawn, and which ea^t a stigma on the discipline of our Cliurch. In times lik(! the jjresent, when it is so vitally impoi taut to shdw that the conduct of uui- hierarchy is worthy of the faith tju'y profess, I would most respectfully suggest that nothing would have so powerful an ell'ect on the public mind, nothing would tend so speedily to strengthen the Esta- blished Clinich, to create conlideuee in her rulers, and to recall wanderers to her fcdd, as the archbishops and bisho|is of the United Kingdom, and other high dignitaries of the Church, aiiliripalinf; prospective enactments of the Legislature, and at once proceeding to the revision of their incomes, and to such a re- distribution of ecclesiastical properly as would enaljle the working clergy to receive not less than 200/. a-year each, so that there iniglit no longer be thai enormous disproportion which now exists between those who have the superintendence of pastors and those who have the care of souls. It is undeniable that great abuses exist in the management of the ecclesiastical property, that the incomes of the high dignitaries of onr Cliureh far exceed in amount those of any other Christian nation. " The highest dignitary of the Church in Jb'rance, the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, has, I believe, only 2,000/. a year, and a resilience ; the suliVagan bishops have incomes varying from oUO/. to 1,0(J(J/. a year. The highest ecclesiastical dignitary in Prussia, the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne, has also only 2,000/. a year, and a residence ; but by a Parliamentary paper (No. 544, session ISIo, and reprinted last session as No. 310) it appears that for the seven years ending the 31st of December, 1843, the t< tal gross incomes of twenty-five archbibhops and bishops of England and Wales amounted to no less a sum than one million four hundred and eleiien Ihousuiul six hundred and sixlj-ninc pounds one shilliinj (1,411,(U)9/. Is.), whilst their net income was one million one hundred and twenty-one thousand four iuinuied and eighty-five pounds nine shillings and twopence (1,131,1-So/. 'Js. 2d.) The income of the bishopric of Lichfield is not included, as it appears the agent of the bishop had absconded, so that no return could be made. But no accjnnt has ever been rendered of the items comprised in the large sum of two hundred and ninety ihous'uid one hundred and eighly-lhrcc pounds eleven shillhKjs and tenpvnce (i!'J0,l>i3/. lis. lOd.), which constitutes the differeuce between gross and net income. Another seven years will have elapsed on the last day of this year, and when Parliament meets a return of the gross and net incomes of the arclibishops and bishops for that period must again be made ; but vast as it must necessarily appear, it will be rccoliecled that, in addi/ion, and within a very few years, 00,000/. has been expended on the palace at Laiiibeth, and l't3,014;/ on the epis- copal residences and demesnes of eight dioceses only, whilst in those eight dioceses only 5,259/. could be found for the benefit of the working clergy by the augimtntation of small livings, in which eight sees there are eiijhlijjice livings under JiJ'ly jiounds a year, and H? livinys heiwee)i JiJ'ly and one hundred pounds a year ! Kurely, my lord, these things ought not to have been; and who can wonder that disalfection exists towards the L'hurch when its dignitaries have been the main cause of such proceedings ? I must again refer to the passage in your grace's letter to the clergy of the diocese of Canterbury, in which your grace observes that 'the laity must lend their aid, and supply the means of adding to the number of clergy.' I am sure your grace wUl admit that upon all occasions when assistance has been required the laity have come forward nobly, and been ready and willing to take a full share in every good work; but the laity have a right to expect on the other hand that the bishops of our Church will no longer delay making tlie eccle- siastical property available for the true interests of the Church. If the incomes of the two archbishops were reduced to 6,000/. a year each, and 50,000/. a year was assigned as an income between the other twenty-three bishops, there would by this reduction alone be at once an annual surplus fund of 139,667/., which would provide (I'JS clergymen with salaries of 200/. a year each. We have also a case before us of an archdeacon in this diocese of London enjoying four pieces of prel'erniciit, amounting to al least 5,300/. a year, besides three or four houses, to all of which he has been appointed within the last ten years. There is another archdeacon who has 6,200/. a year ; and if the incomes of these two archdeacons were reduced to 1,000/. a year each, there windd be a surplus from these two pluralists alone of no less than 9,500/. a year, which would be sufficient to supply incomes of 200/. a year each i^jv forly-scren more addiiional pastors from these two sources of reduction alone ; and after leaving a much larger amount of income for the archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons referred to than would be received by the dignitaries of any other Christian Church in the known world, there would remain an annual fund for the maintenance of no less than 745 additional pastors ! As long as such inconsistencies exist, it is nut fair that the laity shoiJd be continually called upon for pecuniary assistance to provide pastors and to build churches, when it can be shown that the funds of the Church, if properly appropriated and adnrinistered, are amply sufficient for both these purposes. " It is a matter of unfortunate notoriety that during the unchecked prosperity of the Ecclesiastical Commission (the proceedings of which body have caused greater disaflVctiou towards the C'hurch than either Puseyite preaching or I'opish bulls), the episcopal body assembled and admiited that many of the incomes attached to their sees were excessive ; but, instead of making those reductions which, considering the state the Church was then in, they ought to have done, they determined in every single instance to retain the fullest amount of their enuduments, but to pass an act by which their succcs.sors should in some cases have a reduction ; though in others a material increase. Surely, my lord, i( the episcopal body deemed their clerical incomes too large, they ought to have made some present jiersonjil saciifice for the interest of the Church — and this is what is required at the present moment, and we (the laity) have a right to call upon the episcopal body to make these sacrifices, when they are coulinually calling on the laity for assistance to support the Church. By the act to which 1 have referred, it was intended that the bishops appointed subsequent to the passing of that act, as well as the Bishop of Durham, should have certain fixed incomes. Such was the spirit of the act and the intention of the Legislature ; but I need only instance the case of the Bishop of Durham to show how that spirit has been violateU, as, instead of receiving only the 8,000/. a year contemplated by this act, I believe the right reverend prelate (of course a meiuLer of the Ecclesiastical Commission) has occasiomdly received double that income. It is, however, of very little use to provide pastors, or to build chiuches, unless the churches existing, and those to be built, are to be used Ifi ]jy t]'.e laify. Aficordiug to a rai-liamenfai-y pr.per, Xo. ■'.■ cf lust session, it fipperirs iii-,t out of lli<^ :2.")S cinirches w'itliin the dioeeso of LUuidafl" there arc 153 in wliich divine service is perfornu-d only oiicft ;i week. Wliat has been the Ciinsequenee ? On Sunday, the lolh of last month, the con^TOi^alions in every cliurch and chapel used for divine worship, according to the forms of the Eslablislied Cluuch, in thirty-four districts in the diocese of Llandalf, were counted; the population of t]K-,e districts amount to no less than 173,lo9, there is church accommodation for 17,H-0, and yet there «as spare room iu those cliurclies oa that day for 9,5'.)!. So that out of tliis vast population there were only 7,~"-^9 persons who attended the ser\ice of the Established Church on the day I have named. In the adjoining diocese of St. David's, out of 484 churches there is the vast number of 3S3 in which also only one service is ])erformed; and I iiave reason to believe that in the last-named diocese there are churches where the word of God is only preached once iu a fortnight ! Is it, then, surprising that there is disalfection towards the Church, or that the churches are deserted, and the Dissenting chapels filled? Allow nie to ask you, my lord, would tlie lloman Catholics act thus towards their flocks P And yet it is made a subject of wonder that the I'ope endeavours to gain a footing in tiiis neglected country, and considers the present moment peculiarly favourable for so doing. '■ But this is not all. I wish I could end here. But wo have collegiate establishments as well as cliurehes — for instance, the collegiate church of Brecon, in the diocese of St. David's, to which large revenues are attached, and of which tlie Bishop is dean, having also an unusually large staff of prebends. This colle- giate establislnncnt was placed .there ' /o improre tlie morals of the K'niys I'lcge siilijeds,' by 'supplying scriptural education to the poor, and thus advancing the honour and glory of God.' A i)amphlet was published in 181-G, describing its condition at that time, and it does not appear that any retorm has taken place, or any official in(piiry has been instituted into the state of tlic case during the four years which have since elapsed. The writer says that the roof of this collegiate church had tben been long falling upon the pavement, and allowed to remain there. No service had been performed since IS39, the cause of its sus- pension having been that the roof was at that time too insecure to allow llie duly to be performed with safety. No prebend had kept residence for twenty years— the scliool has been discontinued since 184o, and there was then neither school, service, nor lecture. Tbe old ricketty doors belonging to the entrance of this collegiate church were fastened by a chain and jjadlock, which the person who had cliargeof tbe ruins, and who retained the nominal ofiicc of clerk or sexton, was obliged to find at liis own cost; and he had (in 18-iG) not received any salary since September, 18M, when tlie registrar gave him 5/. for his services as clerk, and 10s. for washing the surplice. The piece of ground adjoining the old fabric, whicli is believed to be the burial-ground of the college, was then let as pasture by the Bishop, at IG/. a-year, and a circus for horsemanship was almost every year allowed to be erected in the centre of this hallowed spot. " Such is tiie state of one of our collegiate Church establishments iu Wales, with a ]5isliop for its dean and non-resident clergymen for its prebends. I merely mention it because it is an instance of the neglect and nial-appiopriatiou of Church ])roperty existing within twenty-live miles of my own residence; hut I fear too many others may be found of a similar nature in other parts of the kingdom. The diocese of St. David's is within your grace's province of Canterbury. Tiiis is not the first time that 'Christ College of 35reeon' lias been brought under the notice of an Archbishop of Canterbury. It has before been the subject of complaint to one of your grace's predecessors, who reformed the then existing abuses, and itislsled on the performance of the conditions enjoined by the royal charter ; and your grace will at once perceive from the description here given that a fresh mandate is necessary. Your grace is, I believe, aware (as I am informed the sul)ject has been under the notice of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners) that the Bishop of St. David's, not content with the income of ■l',500/. assigned him by the act of Parliament, and his palace, appointed himself dean of the ' Collegiate Church of Christ,' lirecon, and of course receives the emoluments of that oHice, though contrary to the intentions of the Legishiture, and yet permits this collegiate establishment, which was originally endowed to ' improve the morals of the King's liege subjects,' to fall into ruin and decay, and thus be a disgrace instead of a blessing to the neighbourhood. I do not believe there are any Puseyitcs in the neighbourhood of Brecon, but the I'ope has placed this neglected district under the cliargeof his ucwly-created Bishop of MerthyrTydfil. I think your grace will admit that the instances I have adduced suflieicutly demonstrate that I'useyism has not been the only cause of tiic late interference of the lloman Poiiiill; aim, I venture to ask, may not the conduct of our own ecclesiastical rulers have led not only to Pnseyism, but to ' Papal Aggression r' "Finally, I beseech you, my lord, on behalf of that Churcli of which your grace is the chief dignitary, not merely to direct your attention to the abuses which have crept into the Establishment, and which can no longer be concealed from the public eye, but to exercise the ])ower attached to your high ollice for the purpose of rendering tlie discipline of our Church as unimpeachable as the faith we profess is pure. "I am aware that enactments of the Legislature are absolutely necessary to carry through any eflcctual plan of Church reform, and, as wc must look to your grace to introduce or support such enactments, I venture to make one suggestion. " In the Protestant countries of Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, and the whole of Germany (either Lutheran or Calvinistic), the laity have either the right of election of their pastors or a veto ; and even under the old .lystcm in Prussia, no patron, not evini the King, could force a nominee upon a parisii if half of the independent members in communion with the Church objected to him ; but in Great Britain alone no such trust is reposed in the laity, although the mass of the people are undeniably Protestant, and worthy of confidence. i\\ my opinion, an Act of Parliamcut to give the laity this very reasonable privilege would (together with your grace's good example and jiowerful assistance to carry out the reforms before suggested, in your double capacity of chief dignitary of the Church as well as uf a legislator iu Parliament) speedily replace the Established Church on a basis too linn for any further cause of apprehension fiom the disciples of Pusey or the aggressions of Home. " 1 have the honour to be, my hud, with great respect, " Your grace's most obedient and faithful servant, "London, Dec. 3." " B. HALL. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAJIES GILBERT 49, PATERNOSTErvROW. Tit 15 ROMAN CA THOLIC QUESTION. SERMON BY CAUDINAL WISEiMAN AT ST. GEOPvGE'S CATHOLIC CllURCir, SOUTIIWARK; LECTURE ON THE ENGLISH HIERARCHY, BY CARDINAL ^YISEMAN; LETTERS FROM DR. GUMMING AND MR. BO^YYER; AND THE BISHOPS' ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN. A S E R ]\I N PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, SOUTHWARK, BY CARDINAL WISEMAN, ON SUNDAY MORNING, DEC. 8, 1850. In tlie name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. " The hand of the Lord is upon me because the Spirit of the Lord hatii anointed me. He hatii sent mc to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, to i)reach release to the captive, and deliverance to him that is shut up, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and to comfort them that mourn :" words taken from the Cist chapter of the prophet Isaias, the first and second verses. These words, my dear brethren, are spoken of the sublime ministry of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, the true Priest according to the order of Melchisedek, upon whom was the hand indeed of the Lord, as he was anointed with the fulness of every grace and blessing by the Spirit of God, to go forth and preach redemption to the captive, not from bonds of this earth, release of the prisoner, not from the chains which bind the flesh, but freedoni from the captivity of sin, redemption from the slavery of the Devil. He it was who came " to preach the acceptable year," the great jubilee of eternal salvation, who made the whole of that [leriod which from Him should elapse until tlie end of time a season of mercy, and of grace, and of acceptance ijcfore God, in which men would be sure to find forgiveness, remis- sion, and all that is needful to conduct them even to eternal life. But our blessed Redeemer has been pleased to communicate to his ministers in the Church that same priesthood which essentially belongs to Himself — has been pleased to make us, however humble, partakers of some of that unction of the Holy Spirit, that anointing of sanctification and grace, which enables us, through our unworthy ministry, to be the means of grace to others; and He has sent us forth upon that same errand of mercy and forgiveness. He has bade us likewise make this our great, our principal occupation — to heal those that are contrite or bruised of heart, to preach consolation to those that are in mourning, to announce to the captive that through the redemption of the Son of God his bonds may be broken, and he may be made free in Christ Jesus liis only Saviour and Lord. But while there is no season, no time, no day, in which the Catholic Church does not peiform these acts of ministration of peace, although there is no time or season in which she does not, from her pulpits and her altars, proclaim that at whatever hour, at whatever moment, the sinner may turn from his evil ways to seek from his God forgiveness, it shall be given to him, still hath she most wisely, following the examples and the precedents given to us in the institutions of the old law, appointed certain times and seasons when more particularly the doctrine of repentance should be preached, and men should be invited to look well into the wants and necessities of their souls, and to come and seek their remedy. Ami now, my bretliren, I feel almost as if I were casting a cloud upon the true festivity of this day when I announce to you that I am going to speak upon this subject; for I am sure that the thoughts of all you, my dear Christian Catholic brethren and children, are filled this day with exultation and joy, that you have crowded here because you know that on this great, this patron festival of our diocese, we wish most particularly to show our gratitude to Almighty God for the benefits which He has bestowed upon us so lately, and especially to renew, what has been authoritatively done for us, to renew in our hearts, and with the expression of our own lips, that earnest, deep, affectionate devotion towards the blessed mother of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus which now more than at any time deserves to be openly proclaimed and professed by Catholic mouth, when outrage and blasphemy are most loud in her dishonour, and in that, consequently, of Him to whom she gave birth. But, my brethren, you know that " the fear of God is the begiiming of wisdom ;" you know that forgiveness should precede thanks- Tcnth Series — Price Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribntion.] [James Gilbert, 49, Patemoster-row. 0/ xi'hom mai/ be had "The Roman Catholic QuaUion," i\'oa; I, to IX. giving ; you know that never shall we rejoice properly until we have purged our hearts from sin, not merely from deadly sin, but from the lurking leaven of sin within us ; and therefore I feel it to have been wisely ordained tiiat this day, whicii is to us a day of rejoicing, should be at the same time the commencement of that brief but important^season, our jubilee, which the holy Catholic Church lias ai)pointed to be kept before the end of the year. And, there- fore, standing here this day, it is my duty to proclaim to you, as the prophet speaks, that year of acceptance and of salvation. Not, indeed, that under the present circumstances we are to enjoy that full period of our nearer approach to God, but as in his prophet Ezekiel God was pleased to say that He would give days for years, so has it pleased the Sovereign Pontiff, con- sidering the position and circumstances of this time, to permit us to condense and concentrate, as it were, in few days, that piety which at other times would have been diffused over the period of an entire year. 1 will be brief, then, dearly beloved, in first explaining why such a season should be appointed, and then encouraging you to enter upon it with those dispositions which it recjuires. There is a two-fold object in the jubilee which is periodically proclaimed by the Church. The first is, the consideration of the good of individuals ; the second is, general benefit to the Church and to the world. We know, dearly beloved, by our own experience, how short a time we persevere in good even after we have made the strongest resolution to attempt the work. We know how, by degrees, the rust of human affections creeps, as it wei'e, over the machinery of the faculties ; how we become more remiss in good works; how, perhaps, by degrees, even the working of our own spiritual life becomes deranged. We attempt from time to time, most profitably, no doubt, and with most beneficial results, to amend our faults. We are summoned each month, each week, to look into our failings and transgressions, and to obtain forgiveness for them ; and thus we preserve ourselves, indeed, from falling into that which is more grievous or more habitual. But still, even the best-regulated heart, even the purest soul, will be con- scious of that dropping of the impure dew of this world which accumulates within us, and so, increasing more and more, too often ends in those who are most confident being carried away by the torrent-violence of passion and hatred headlong towards the precipice of destruction. For our first failures, for our frequent transgressions, there are the remedies of the Church at hand. Her balm is ever at hand to be poured into the first wound or rend of the soul-; her ministers are ever nigh to bandage, and -carefully to close up, any more grievous infliction ; but at length it may be that these ordinary means cease to act upon us, that we can turn our backs upon them, and forget that there is remedy for sin, that sin becomes our master, that we are the captive and the prisoner to whom release and deliverance must be more solemnly preached. Then comes the Church, from time to time, in stronger accents, with more severe menaces, with more stringent urgency, with more enlargement of her powers of grace, with more tender invitations and calls of mercy, and endeavours to stir up those who have in the past neglected their most important duty, that of preserving themselves from sin, to make a gracious, and great, and noble effort, which will free them at once, break their bonds, and restore them to health and grace. Such, my brethren, is one of the great objects of the jubilee. It is to call forth sinners from their slumber ; it is to blow in their very ears the trumpet of judgment; for you know that in the old law the priest announced the jubilee by that solemn music which was sufticiently strong to overthrow the very walls of Jericho, and so now it is an announcement of the divine judgment, of His vengeance that is slumbering, which is made use of to awake him that sleeps in sin, and bid him come once more to reconciliation with his God, and to begin to walk in the way of His commandments. This is for the sinner. And for those who do not feel themselves so immersed in vice or crime as to require this more sudden or more energetic arousing of their dormant conscience, even for them likewise is such a period of reconsideration of themselves, and of remodelling, if I may so speak, of tlieir very heart, and shaping and forming it more truly in the mould of the Gospel; even for them is this turning themselves to God in weeping and mourning for the sins likewise of others, as well as for their own past offences, most important and most salutary. So that the Church makes no distinction when she proclaims her jubilee ; she commands all to go through that process of purification which is more or less needful for all ; for who is there who hath not sinned, and doth not need the glory of God ? She commands all, therefore, to frequent the tribunal of confession. She commands them to approach the holy table, whence vigour for a new life may be derived ; she orders them to join in prayers and supplications for them- selves and for others, and thus unites her children for a few days round the altar of God, as the priests and people were summoned of old, there to feed and gather strength ; she com- mands all to beseech God, in mercy, to blot out and drive away sin and iniquity from the midst of His congregation. But, dearly beloved, besides this duty, which regards our own consciences, our indi- vidual salvation, it is but too true that the evils and calamities which oppress the world go on ever from small beginnings increasing until at length they become such as may provoke the judgment of God, or as already have taken the form of a scourge with which He afflicts us. For who does not know iiow ignorance, and i)ovcrty, and crime, and hidden vice may go on more and more accumuhitiug in the depths of society, which the hand of 3 legislation, and the most energetic efforts of philanthropy, are not able to reach ? And, on the other hand, side by side with this dark and dismal abyss of suffering and of wretchedness, there may be luxury, and oppression, and open crime, and defiance of God, and infidelity, not of heart only but of lip. And this will go on more and more increasing until it shall become a deluge that overspreads the world, and brings down one of those great and tremendous crises which, like the deluge, or an invasion of bar- barians, or pestilence, or war, desolates nations, and makes them at length feel that the measure of their iniquities hatii been filled up. Then is not the Church a kind, and mer- ciful, and most loving mother, who bids us arrest our career, whether we be rich or poor, and for some time devote ourselves, not merely to the reforming, as far as is in our power, of these threatening evils, but to lift up our hands and our hearts together, the whole Church, in one solemn concert of pleading for mercy, to beg of God to avert the evils which threaten us, to remove them clean from us, or at least so to delay them as to give us time for repentance and amendment? This is one of the great objects of a jubilee in the Catholic Church ; to summon the whole of the faithful throughout the world to earnest supplications that God would avert from the public weal, from society, from the State, and from the world the chastisements which His judgments may have prepared, or which they may be about to prepare, for them. Such, d(>ar brethren, are the two great objects for which the Church this day invites you to unite during the coming fortnight in her multitudes and to individuals ; and the appeal thus made has been certainly suliiciontly strong to impress the minds of many with a sen.sc of some general danger, as though there were either the vague anticipation of some unknown and public calamity, or the dark presentiment of some personal visitation. Plain truths and sinjj'le facts have been but little asked for ; and when they have been oflVrcd tlicy have been but little listeni'd to. Nothing but a general excitement has liehl ])osscssion of the public mind, during which it has seemed almost useless to oiler any explanation. Having already endeavoured, as far as my feeble abilities go, to place before the public a simple ;uk1 unadorned statement of the grounds on which this great measure has been taken, I might perhaps retire from any farther public ilisciission of it, and at once give myself up to the more congenial occupations of my ollicial rising of national antipathies and of national prejudices. They forget, indeed, or they keep from your eyes at least, haw perseveringly, how recklessly, they have applied the match to these elements of mischief, and how they have fanned the flame when once it has been raised. But surely it is not right, after this has been boasted of as a mere unreasoning movement, and as carried on without reference to any examination of the law or justice of the case, that it should be now endeavoured to be pronounced to be the rational and reflecting will of the nation? Throughout the whole of this excitement, one most important object of comparison, one most legitimate source of deduction, has been entirely overlooked. People have reasoned and written as though all possibilities connected with this measure could find a place nowhere but in England alone; they seem to have forgotten altogether that there are vast empires and countries in which the Catholic religion prevails, that there are kingdoms in which the Church is watched with the most vigilant eye, and which are as jealous as our own can be of any ecclesiastical or foreign aggression. They forget that there are other countries of a mixed character in which there are large Catholic populations, having their own bishops and clergy. Now, surely it would have been but reasonable to have examined the state of these countries, and inquired if all the fearful results that have been denounced to you have taken place there — whether all has happened that, by any stretch of imagination, could happen here. For instance, you are told — and it is told you in forms the most hateful and the most degrading — that, as a matter of course, these bishops being now established, by some magical process or other unknown, the Inquisition is sure to come into England ; how, or where, or by what means, it is im- possible to understand. Englishmen with their eyes open are to become necessarily its victims. "Why, Spain, and Portugal, and Brazil, and other countries are exclusively Catholic. Is there any Inquisition in them? Certainly not. Austria, Belgium, Bavaria, are mixed countries, in which, however, the Court, the great body of the people, and the Government may be con- sidered greatly Catholic. Is there any Inquisition in them? Certainly not. And, then, will any one pretend to say that England — even supposing that which we seem to dread so much — that England could not guard itself against what is called " Papal Aggression" — against this Inquisition and foreign power — as well as the inhabitants of Spain and Portugal? I say these things, my brethren, not really in earnest, fori should insult your common sense if I put them so, but I put it as a sort of imaginary case, as it is put by them; for I need not tell you that it is only for the purpose of urging you on and deceiving you, or, to use a plain but expressive word, to gull the nation, that these things are represented, and interested persons pretend to. fear what they know to be, not remote, but, to use now a more scientific phrase, "too distant even to have a parallax." But, again, it is said that in the canon law there are declarations completely at variance with allegiance to the Crown and with the civil rights of the people. Well, then, go to Belgium, go to Spain, where that canon law prevails, and ask there if the bishops and clergy quote long passages from the Derretfi/s, or Ihn Eatravagantes, to show that their flocks need not obey their Sovereign ; or see whether thev are constantly, in speeches and in jiamphlets, warning the people, by extracts from the Cnrpu.s Juris, as it is called, against allegiance to the Pope, because from that it appears that it is incompatible with their civil rights. The least inquiry would show the absolute absurdity of this. And not only so, but it is just as sensible for those who have taken that line as it would be for you, or me, or any one who knows nothing of law, to turn back to the black-letter books and the old statutes of King Stephen, or of Richard the First, and pretend to construe from them the actual state cf thejaw in this realm, without the 8 slightest knowledge of, or without the least atom of, any subsequent enactments, prescriptions, tacit repeals by desuetude, or usages, or customs. Again, we are told that there is an oath, that there are certain declarations made by bishops, for instance, which are directly opposed to the oath of allegiance. Well, this oath lias been taken for 700 years by every bishop in the whole of Christendom, and perhaps it is even more ancient than that period. It has been taken by bishops under every possible govern- ment, from that of the Emperor of Austria to that of tiie President of the French Republic. Has anybody ever heard, ever dreamt, of sedition in those countries in consequence of that oath ? — or is there a single instance on record of a bishop having violated his allegiance and justified himself by that oath ? But, my brethren, I will give you two instances to show you how well, when there is calm reflection upon the subject, the two jurisdictions can be understood to be perfectly separate, and how enlightened Governments and unprejudiced people can allow the two to run on, each in its proper sphere, without the slightest danger of collision. Let the first be that of North America. In the United States, the Pope has this year erected three new archbishoprics, as he has, every year, for many years back, named four or five, or perhaps more, new bishops, assigning to each of them what has been called "territorial jurisdiction." "Ah," I shall be told, "there is a difference between this country and America ; in America there is no domi- nant or State Church, whose rights are injured." Exactly so ; but there is immense jealousy of foreign potentates, of kings and princes interfering w-ith civil liberty, or the rights of subjects, or the temporal concerns of tiie commonwealth. The question is to be considered more as one of antagonism to a dominant and an Established Church. Then, that is not the question'now before us. I only say that when you mention the Established Church you probe the very sore of the whole case. But, apart from this, and looking at the question, as 1 am engaged in doing now, with reference to aggression on civil or public i-ight.s, I ask you again, has it ever been said, has it ever been even whispered, in North America, that there is danger from the Pope thus apportioning new sees, new territories, dividing and subdividing as lie thinks best for the good of his Catholic children, or naming new bishops and archbishops, with full jurisdiction in spirituals, in order to carry out fully the organi- sation of the Catholic Church ? And if in that country, which is so watchful over liberty, there is no danger apprehended, what can there be more on this side of the Atlantic, •when we have to deal with a firm Government, and with a deeply-rooted monarchy ? The other example I will take from nearer home. In Belgium there is, properly speaking, no established or State Church . The majority of the nation is Catholic, the king is Lutheran. "When Belgium asserted and secured its independence, everything was in the hands of the Catholics. They were at the head of the Government and of the army ; they had full power. But they preferred religio'.is freedom to the golden fetters of the State. They did not declare the Catholic religion to be the religion of the State, but only the I'cligion of the majority. And what is the consequence? The Cardinal Archbishop of Malines, and the other bishops, have no seat whatever in either of the Chambers of the National Legislature; they have no ecclesiastical tribunals, no court of any sort of their own. The Catholic clergy, including the bishops, receive salaries from the State; and so do all others, with this difference, that the Protestant ministers, I believe, have more than the Catholic, because they are married clergy. But the Government has nothing to do with the ecclesiastical arrangements of the country ; it does not interfere with the election of bishops, it has no concordat whatever with Rome. The bishctps there are exactly in the same position as we are, except that the State recognises them as ministers of religion ; but they have no bond to the State, and the State docs not pretend to have any supremacy over the Church. Now, while I'lngland was at the very height ot this late commotion, that is, on the l(!th of November last, the ilinister of Public Instruction in Belgium, who is charged with the ecclesiastical matters of the Government, Mons. Tcsch, thus spoke on occasion of an ecclesiastical question in the Lower House in the Ciiambcr of Reprcseutativos of Belgium. '' What, for example," he says, " is our present position ? On the one hand, the Poi)e lias the right to name in Belgium as many bishops as ho Clunks proper to create, with as many dioceses as he jdcases. What is the right of the Government? That of not paying any more than it considers sullicicnt for the wants of religion. And so, again, with regard to canons of cathedrals ; the ecclesiastical autho- j-ity can create ten, fifteen, twenty in a diocese, if it jdeasc, but, on the other side, the Government preserves its right of not giving salaries to more than it considers necessary for the administration of the diocese." Now, how ]>lain and intelligible that is ! The Government has its duties to perform : it performs them, and without rcl'orence to those of the Church. If, therefore, the Poi)e thought it would be better to subdivide Belgium into more dioceses, to erect there an adend upon charity and the love of their Hocks for support. And here, where really we do not aslc, where we do not expect, one single farthing from the Government or the nation, it is considei'cd a great offence merely to take titles that confer nothing else, because titles are necessary to the organisation of a Catholic hier- archy, and a Catholic hierarchy is an essential part of the constitution of the Catholic Church in any country. How cnliglitcned, how wise, how calm what I have mentioned appears in that neighbouring little State, compared with the ferment and excitement Avhich has been caused amongst us ! But it will be said that in llclgium there exists not the feeling of prejudice which exists in this country against any imaginable action of the Pope ; the people of Belgium have not been nurtured for three hunrognosti- cated — but which, for my part, I believe to have been utterly impossible — that things should have remained politically in the Eternal City as they wei-e a short time ago, or if out of that chaos of confusion some dictator or superior haa//iin)i, I remarked: — " I'lrst of all, let me presume that when the Cardinal was made au arclibishoj) lie received the palliitm, before lecciving which lie repeated a solemn oath which will be found in the Poniijicale Ronwiium. I have the book, and have carL-fiiUy exainiued all that he must say. It is the edition of Clement VJII., Antwerp edition, 1627. One clause of t!ic oath is as follows : ' Hareticos scliisiiiaticos et rebelles, Domino Nostro, vel successoribus pnedictis, pro posse persequar et impugnabo.' That is, he solemnly swore on his most solemn oath (1 wish thus to prepaie you for his reception) : ' All heretics (that is Protcstauts), schismatics (that is members of the Greek Church that separated, as they say, from Home), and rebels against our Lord, or his foresaid successors, I will persecute and attack to the utmost of my power.' The correct translation, I beheve, oi pro posse." On entering the rooms on Wednesday last to give my second lecture, I received a letter from the Cardinal's secretary, inclosing the following communication from Cardinal Wiseman : — " SI. George's, Southwarl,; Nov. 19. " Sir, — Dr. Gumming gives au extract from the oath taken by bishops and archbishops, copied from the Pontijical, printed at Antwerp in 1(537, and states : ' I presume that Cardinal Wiseman, on receiving the pallium, took that oath.' To prevent further misunderstanding, 1 have the Cardinal's permission to state tw you, that by a rescript of Pojie Pius VIl., dated April IC, 181S, the clause quoted by the rev. doctor, and so subject to misunderstanding, is omitted by all bishops and archbishops who are subject to the British Crown. " The authorised copy now lying before me used by our bishops is headed — " ' Forma Jiuamenti. " ' Pro Episcopis et Vieariis Apostolicis Episcopal! diguitate preeditis qui in locis Magnte Britaunise sub- jectis versautur, prescripta a SS. Pio P. VU. die 12 Aprilis, 1S18.' " In the copy of the Pontijical kept at the episcopal residence in Golden-square, the copy /;«r/*a/>* gene- rally used in consecration of bishops in England, the sentence is cancelled. Dr. Camming is at hberty to inspect this if he will arrange with me lor that purpose." 12 My allcn-ation wns, that even- Romish bishop, on receiving {he. pallium, witliout ^vhich he cannot assume the title /(V(7pr and ex animo with your requisition of the I6th inst.,' it follows that I must submit to the ' call' made upon me in the latter. !• " But this ' call ' refers to an ' offer' made by me in my letter of October 30. " I conclude, therefore, that in making this call upon me you wish to express all that was involved or contained in that offer, namely, that you are 'of continued opinion that I am guilty of unfaithfulness to the Church of England,' and that you therein ' signify your judg- ment as bishop that it is for the peace and better ordering of that portion of the Church which is under your episcopal charge that I should no longer serve in the living of St. Paul's.' " To this judgment of my bishop deliberately given, and the call thereupon deliberately made, I consider it to be my duty to submit. " Accordingly, I now redeem the pledge given in my letter of October 30 ; and in answer to your ' call' now made upon me, 1 hereby send you my resignation of the perpetual curacy of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. " The precise time when I shall cease to have further charge of the parish, and the future arrangements necessary for the performance of the various services of the church, perhaps your loicl:hip v. ill have the kindarss fo r.nr.nvc wiUi lie churchwardens, wftotn I will desire to \va t ii))on yon as ?oon as possible for that purpose. " In concUiding this correspondence, as I feel that in nil probability I may havf made use of expressions or brouglit forward arguments which may have given offence to your lordship jiersonally, I desire for all such occasions of offence to express my sincere regret, and to assure your lordship that they have been purely inadvertent. " For any offence so inadvertent 1 hope I may safely ask your lordship's charity and for- giveness; and remain " Your lordship's faithful servant, " W. S. E. BENNETT. "The Lord Bishop of London." " Fulham, Dec. 9. " Rev. and Dear Sin, — 1 have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, in which you tender your resignation of the perpetual curacy of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge. That resignation, under the circumstances of the case, I think I am bound to accept ; and in doing so I deem it right briefly to recapitulate those circumstances. " During the last four years I have several times cautioned you on the subject of the exces- sive ritualism which you were inclined to ;)ractise, as approaching too nearly to that of the Church of Rome. Writing to you on the "th of .January, 1847, on the subject of intoning the prayers, I said, ' I really fear you are carrying things too far.' This caution referred, as I afterwards explained it, not so much to any deviations from the rub:ic, as to 'certain pecu- liarities of manner, which are not necessary to a correct observance of the rubric, and which afford a handle to objectors.' "In February^ 184;), I received a letter from one of your parishioner.':, complaining of cer- tain peculiarities in your mode of celebrating divine service. On the 10th of that month you waited upon me, accompanied by your two churchwardens, and, in their presence, denied most of the statements contained in that letter. Both you and they assured me that you had niade no change since the day of the consecration, and that the congregation at large were not dis- satisfied. I told you that I did not approve of so much form, especially of the procession villi the elements, nor of the choristers receiving the communion before the other communicants. In a letter which I wrote on the IGth of the same month to the gentleman who had made the complaiiit above mentioned, I gave him an account of what had passed at my interview with you and the churchwardens, and after stating that your mode of performing divine service, which was not disapproved of by the congregation in general, was, as far as I couKl collect, 'in con- formity with the practice followed in cathedral churches,' I added, ' I am bound to acknow- ledge that I greatly question the expediency of introducing that mode of celebrating divine service into our parochial churches; but if an incumbent thinks it right to do so, seeing that he has the rubric in his favour, I doubt whether I have authority to prohibit it; although if 1 were made aware of a general feeling of dissatisfaction in the congregation I might interfere in the way of advice and remonstrance.' "No expression of any such general feeling with respect to St. Paul's ever reached me. In a letter which I wrote to you on the Gtli of March, 1 8-4 'j, were these words: — 'I ceitainly understood at that time (of the consecration of St. Paul's) th.at the prayers were to be read, rot intoned.' Since the consecr.ition of St. Barnabas' you have carried your ritual innovations to such an extreme that I have fcuuid myself obliged to remonstrate with you more strongly and more particularly than 1 had done with reference to the services in St. Paul's. Ann?jci/;te set forth in y( ur letter. My remonstrance to you was directed against certain pmc/irrx — practices in behalf of which you offer no valid defence, and which you surely cannot consider of vilal im- l>urtance. If I restrain you from those practices — which I feel myself bound to do as far as I can — I cannot think that your conscience will be seriously aggrieved, or that a sufficient casus will have arisen for your leaving the ministry, to which you have hitherto been so zealously devoted.' " In your answer to this letter, dated October 'SO, you say : — '"I much less feared the imputation of "Romish practices" than 1 longed for an opportu- nity of winning back the souls of men to the ancient standards of faith, of devotion, and of sanctity, which I found the Catholic Church, both in the East and in the West, invariably teaching and professing. I could not permit myself to acknosvlcdge that the Church of Eng- land could be cut off from such universal standards. I cannot see how it is that she can be .'cparated and alone in any matter. What is universal must be true. What all ages have loved and venerated she ought not to be permitted to lose. Therefore, as I could best have oppor- tunity (consistent with obedience to those points strictly forbidden or commanded by the local Church, to which obedience is due in its place) 1 have always made my teaching and litual practices accord with such Catholic ideas. 1 feel very great confidence that whatever is Catholic (in the ecclesiastical sense) must be true: what is merely local, not necessarily so ; f.nd certainly not so unless made to be consistent with and in harmony with what is Catholic. "' It remains for me to consider whether I can, upon your lordship's repeated request, set fside these principles, and with them, as they appear to me combined, the practices to which your lordship objects. " 'It grieves me more than I can say, because I foresee that it will probably end, sooner or later, in the loss of all that I have ever lived for and done in this parish — it grieves me to say that I am unable to withdraw or to alter anything that I have said or done. Ihc principles themselves, as above dcscril)ed, I feel that you would not ask me to abandon ; and I also feel that by not abandoning the principles, and yet abandoning the practices founded upon them, I should be a mere hypocrite in God's sight. There would be such a loss of consistency and stedfastness of purpose in the eyes of my parishioners as would cause me deservedly to lose their confidence and support, and utterly destroy my usefulness in the pastoral otlice. On the other hand, I have very great reluctance to disturb the peace of the Church (if so must be). 1 dread becoming the occasion of any legal prosecutions, or running the risk of ecclesiastical jiroceedings; and I think it my bounden duty to sacrifice all that belongs to myself rather than place your lordship under the necessity of appealing to any such means for correcting what in 10 your opinion is wrong. Therefore, my conclusion is in this difficulty, as it was in my previous letter of July 15, that I ought, if called upon, to resign my living. '" I would, then, put it to your loidship in this way — I would say, if your lordship should be of continued opinion, seeing and knowing me as now you do, that I am guilty of unfaithfulness to the Church of England ; and if your lordship will upon that signify your judgment as bishop that it would be for the peace and better ordering of the Church wliich is under your episcopal charge, that I should no longer serve in this living of St. Paul's, I would then, the very next day, send you my formal resignation.' " To this letter, dated October 30, T replied on the l6th of November, having been prevented by the business of my Visitation from returning an earlier answer. " Being still desirous of bringing you, if possible, to a right view of your duty to the Church, and of inducing you to ohey rather than to retire, I expressed myself as follows : — "' I cannot for a moment admit the soundness of these jirinciples, upon the strength of which you consider yourself to be justified in doing that which is contrary to the order of the Church of which you are a minister, to the spirit of all its rules and formulaiies, and to the judgment of your bishop. " ' I am under the necessity of stating my decided opinion that a continuance of the practices against which I have in vain remonstrated, and of many others which are not sanctioned by the laws or customs of our Church, as well as of any peculiarities of dress or manner which are unusual in our Church, but are copied from that of Rome, is inconsistent with your duty as a minister of the English Church ; and I now again call upon you to relinquish them.' "In answer to this, you wrote me, on the 23rd of November, a letter, in which you abandon the principle against which I contended, and take entirely new ground. You say : — "'I would take the following rules as my guide in the present difficulties : — "'1. I have ascertained from Mr. Dodsworth, Mr. Richards, and Mr. Murray, all the points of ritual and ceremony which have been in use in their churches for many years, known to and permitted by your lordship. " ' It is my intention to adhere to any or all of these ritual and ceremonial observances. "'2. Your lordship will remember all that was done in ritual and ceremony in your own presence at the consecration of St. Barnabas. It is my intention to adhere to any or all of that ritual and ceremony. '3. I have collected together from various cathedrals of the Church of England the forms of ritual observance practised in them. "'It is my intention to adhere to or to adopt any or all such points as I may find authorised therein. "' Whatsoever is not found or authorised by either one of the above rules, and what- soever is not found, or cannot be legitimately deduced from the ' Book of Common Prayer' or the canons of our Church, it is my intentiou, in obedience to your lordship's episcopal requisition, to abandon.' " In reply to this letter, wherein you clearly gave up the principle insisted upon in your former letters, I wrote on the 27th of November as follows : — " ' I cannot for a moment admit that any one of the criteria which you propose is binding upon me. "'1. Supposing even that I had not objected (which, however, I have done in the strongest manner) to some practices in the churches to which you allude, there tnust be many things done there which I cannot be cognisant of, and there may be many little things not prohibited by me, the aggregate of which would be very oflensive and objec- tionable. Your plan, it seems, will be to pick out from various churches everything unusual, and to combine them into a complete system in your own. "'2. There was more form and display at the consecration of St. Barnabas than I liked; but I saw nothing decidedly contrary to the rubric — certainly none of those forms which I have since heard of as being observed by you, and to which I have objected. It was not likely that I should take that opj^ortunity of stating my objections to mmor points ; but I spoke very plainly in my sermon of the danger of excess, and in less than one month from that time I wTote to you a strong letter of remonstrance. There may have been things done at the consecration which did not fall under my eye; and, from what has since happened I think it likely that sucli was the case. But, even if it were not, I cannot consent to be bound to tolerate now what I did not take that opportunity of censuring. " ' 3. Even were I to admit that the diocesan cathedral was to be a rule and standard for all the parochial churches in the diocese, it is clear that I could not consent to extend this privilege to all other cathedrals; for if that were done, then, if anyone dean and chapter were to adopt extravagant and Romanising practices, I should be bound to tolerate them. " 'I have no reason to supi)ose that there is any custom observed in any of our cathedrals of which I should disapprove, but I cannot be bound by their usages. '" Upon the whole, if you are not prepared to comply, simpUciter and ex animo, with the 11 requisition contained in my letter of the 16th inst., I must call upon you to fulfil your offer of retiring from a charge which I deliberately think you could not in that case continue to hold without great injury to the Church.* " In your recently published letter to Lord John Russell, you declare that what your intention and mine was at the time of the consecration of St. Barnabas, ' in ceremonies and rituals, that it shall be now, please God, for ever the same, unchanged, unchangeable.' It is an unavoidable inference from this solemn declaration, that the novelties of which 1 complained, and which 1 called upon you to lay aside, will not be given up, although I have forbidden them as being contrary to the Church's order and intention. This leaves me no choice as to the course to be pursued. It is impossible for me not to think that ' the peace and good order of the Church which is under my episcopal charge' would be seriously interrupted, and occasion of triumph given to the Church's enemies, if you were to continue in your present post, deliberately and avowedly disobeying the admonitions of your bishop, and setting up your own judgment of the Church's intention in opposition to his. The evils necessarily resulting from such a state of things would greatly outweigh the good which might be derived from your zeal, ability, and devotedness, supposing the innovations complained of to have no connexion with the erroneous opinions in certain points of doctrine which they are commonly supposed to express or indicate. " It is with great pain, but with no hesitation as to the necessity which binds me to this conclusion, that I now signify my acceptance of your renewed offer to resign the incumbency of St. Paul's, and, with it, the chapel of St. Barnabas'. " Praying that the divine Head of the Church may guide you to a right judgment in the things which concern its peace. " I remain, Rev. and dear Sir, " Your faithful servant in Christ, '•C. J. LONDON." THE PROTESTANT AGITATION. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, — I am one of those who think we have had enough, and more than enough, of anti-Papal agitation. All the good it can produce has been achieved, while the evil is still increasing. The good, which I do not underrate, is a manifestation of the strong and universal attachnieutof the people of this country to the Protestant religion; the evil, the revival of sectarian animosities, and of that intolerant zeal so alien to the true spirit of Christianity, and which has ever been the bane and the torment of every country in which it has prevailed. I refrain from conimentiiig uj)on the harangues and addresses which for weeks past have been resounding through the country, and filling your columns, and I only hope that in all Europe nobody reads these effusions but ourselves, for they will not exalt our national reputation. It may be a vain attempt to sprinkle some drops of reason and remonstrance upon the raging furnace of popular excitement ; but, like everything in this world, abuse and ridicule of the Pope, and railing against the Roman Catholic religion, must at last come to an end. When all this fury has exhausted itself, and people get tired of reading or of hearing the same stale repetitions, they will begin to take a more sober and practical view of the case, and to consider what this mountain in labour is eventually to produce. "We shall assuredly look exceedingly foolish if all the hubbub should turn out to have been made without some definite, reasonable, and, moreover, attainable object ; and yet we appear to be in imminent danger of finding ourselves in this perplexing and mortifying predicament. We cry out, that an insult, has been offered by the Pope to the English Crown and nation; that the ecclesiastical constitution which he has promulgated is illegal or unconstitutional, and that it shall not be endured. When the Queen of England is insulted, or her subjects are injured by any foreign Power, she demands redress, and, failing to obtain it, she exacts it by her armies and her fleets. Are we to hold the Pope in his temporal capacity responsible for his merely spiritual acts, and deal with him by demands aud threats, and by armaments to enforce them ? I apprehend that no such exti-eme measures will be adopted. How, then, are we to deal with a Power over which we can have no control, whose authority is purely spiritual, while the visible signs of its exercise are only to be found in a voluntary obedience which no laws can reach and no Government can prevent? Your statutes will have no more effect at the Vaticau than Papal bulls in Westminster-hall. You cannot restrain the Pope from elaborating his ecclesiastical polity here ; and all the lawyers in England would fail in devising prohibitory laws as to spiritual matters which the objects of them could not find means to evade. Cardinal Wiseman has said with truth, that England could not complain of being taken by surprise. More than two years ago it was no secret that such measures were in contemplatiou. They were dis- 12 cussed not onl_y in the press, but in the House of Commons ; and on one occasion Lord John RuPsellmac'C a speech which was so replete with wisdom and truth, and so exactly applicable to the present occasion and to all that is passing around us, that it deserves the most attentive and general consideration. On the 17th of August, 1848, in a debate on the ])iplomatic Helations with Eome Bill, Sir Robert Inglis— after declaring that he had no objection to call ]>r. "Wiseman a bishop, but objected to calling him Archbishop of Westminster — put certain questions with regai-d to the appointment of archbishops and bishops in this countrj' without the consent of its Sovereign, to which the Prime Ministei' replied in the following terms : — "I do not know that the Pope has authorised, in any way, by any authority that he may have, the creation of archbishoprics and bishoprics with dioceses in England; but certainly I have not given my consent, nor should 1 give my consent if I were asked to do so, to any such formation of dioceses. With regard to spiritual authority, the hon. gentleman must see, when he alludes to other States in Europe, that whatever control is to be obtained over the spiritual authority of the Pope can only be obtained by agreement for that end. You must cither give certain advantages to the Roman Catholic religion, and obtain from the Pope certain other advantages in return, among which you must stipulate tliat the Pope shall not create any dioceses in England without the consent of the Queen : or, on the other hand, you must say you will have nothing to do with arrangements of that kind — that you will not con- sent in any way to give any authority to the Roman Catholic religion in England. But then you must leave the spiritual authority of the Pope entirely unfettered. You cannot bind the Pope's spiritual influence unless you have some agreement But though you may pre- vent any spiritual authority being exercised by the Pope by law, yet there is no provision, no law my hon. friend could frame that would deprive the Pope of that influence that is merely exercised over the mind, or that would preclude him from giving advice to those who choose to attend to such advice. It is quite obvious that you cannot, by any means or authority, prevent the Pope from communicating with the Catholics of this country. You may try to prevent such communication from being open, but I think it would be very foolish if you took any means of great vigour and energy for that purpose. If it is not open, it will be secret. So long as there are Roman Catholics in this country, and so long as they acknow- ledge the Pope as the head of their Church, you cannot prevent his having spiritual influence over those who belong to that communion." This speech, which is equally sensible and true, and the really practical view of the subject, gives a complete answer to the present agitation, and to those who are clamouring for acts of vigour and for restrictive or prohibitory laws. It is fruitless now to search into the aniiiiui or the objects of the Po[)e. He was ill-advised, ignorant of the state of feeling and o[)inion here, liis pretensions were extravagant, and his hierarchy was proclaimed in an ostentatious and offensive manner; but, granting all this, and admitting our indignation to be called for, the question still recurs, "What is it we can do?" It is easy to determine what we cannot do. We cannot compel the Pope to rescind his brief. We cannot prevent the bishops from exer- cising their functions within the jnecise limits of the jurisdictions severally assigned to them. We cannot undo territorial circumscriptions which have no tangible character, and which arc nothing but local designations indicative of a defined sphere of spiritual action. Wc cannot abrogate the spiritual allegiance which the whole Roman Catholic hierarchy bear to the Pope, nor obstruct the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion ; in which freedom, if it is to be perfect, its episcopal constitution Uiust be included. The people of England, to do them justice, in the utmost heat of their resentment, have evinced no disposition to violate the princijile of religious liberty, and all suggestions of returning to penal laws against the Roman Catholics have been invariably repudiated. AVell, then, if we camiot do any of these things, what is left for us to do? \Ve are told that the Pope may, indeed, make bishops, but that he need not have sent any here, and that he has sent too many; and again, that though he might appoint bishops, he could not appoint dioceses over whicli tliey were to preside. But the Pope himself can alone judge of the necessary extent of his episcopal establishment; and if bishops aie api)ointed at all, it is indispensable, for the mere avoidance of confusion and disi)Utes, that each prelate should have some local attribution ; and this can be nothing else but Ids diocese, the projjcr and only name for the circuit of his jurisdiction — in fact, wherever there is a bishopric there must be a diocese. But the Pope has not only created bishops, but has given them titles; and this seems to be considered the head and front of his offence, inasmuch as it is opposed to the spirit if not to the letter of our laws, and is an audacious assumption of a ])ower belonging only to the Sovereign of this realm, I am very wise (as people often arc) after the event, and can clearly see that the acts of the Pope, together with the language of some in authority under him, have been very imprudent and mischievous; but I doubt whether I should have been so wise hart I been aware of his Holiness' intentions ; for though 1 should have deprecated his purpose, I certainly should not liave anticipated an outburst of popular, or rather of national rage and resentment, which has had no parallel in I'",ngland bince the time of the Po])isli plot. Nevertheless, if we consider the matter calndy, it must be confessed that the Pope had some grounds for thinking that he might make these appoint- pnents without any dans^er of deeply oll'ending this country. He had already created titular 13 bishops in various colonics with the concurrence and consent of the Government ; and tl>e whole hierarchy of Ireland, with their open assumption of the titles of their sees, had been rather more than winked at — the law which forbids that assumption had been advisedly suffered to be a dead letter. But besides this, in the speech of Lord John Russell to which I have already alluded, there was an intimation that it would not be expedient to enter into agreements with the Pope for the regulation of the religious arrangements of the Ro- man Catholics ; and as this opinion immediately followed his dictum " that the spiritual authority of the Pope could only be controlled by agreement, and without any such agreement that it must be left entirely unfettered," I think the Pope might not unreasonably conclude that the British Government were not inclined to coniniunicato with him at all on these matters, and that they preferred leaving him to administer his ecclesiastical aflairs in England according to his own discretion. I have ever been very strongly of opinion, that the true policy of England, with her 8,000,000 or of sonls in your lordshi|)'.s diocese. I am ready and willing to depart. It would he a great sacrifice, I am tree to acknow- ledge, a sacrifice of all that is dearest to my heart, both from association and from personal feeling ; hut still it is a sacrifice which (God helping me) I will prepare myself to make, in patience and faith. On the one hand, I hojie it will he dearly understood that, conscientiously, I caimot forego any of the |principles whicli in this letter I set forth and advocate ; and if I lemain in the cure of souls hy those principles I must he ]icrmitli'(l to abide. On the other hand, as I consitler myself morally and spiritually bound not to oppose your lordship in lliosc matters which as diocesan_.you have a right and a duty to regulate, I am willing and ready to withdraw from a position in which tiie possibilit)- of such an event niiifht arise. As my own spiritual adviser, as well as tlie Church's guardian, I leave myself in your lordship's hands. And am your faithful servant in Christ, W. J. E. BENNETf. P.S. — I beg to add, for your lordship's satisfaction, that, in regard to the administration of the "Sacrament of the Lord's Body" into the mouths of the communicants, I have spoken to tiie six persons to whom this practice was conceded, and I have induced them to forego their wishes in this respect, and henceforth receive into their hands. No. :i. Fulkam, Oct. 16, 1850. Mv DEAii -Sill, — The state of my health at tlie time when I received your letter, and a great variety of important business demanding my immediate attention, prevented me from returning an answer to it before I went abroad. I now revert to the subject of it with great pain, under a strong sense of the duty laid upon me to bring the question at issue between us to a crisis, and to do all in my power to stop the tide of innovation which is flowing more and more strongly into tlie Church. I might com plain of the tone of your letter, which is not such as I think was due to the for- bearance with wliich I have on all occasions acted towards you ; i)ut I will deal only with the sub- stance of it. With respect to the subjectof my last letter, you say — "I might with justice refuse to notice these charges until the names of the informers i)e given," . I'lilham, Xcw lit, 1S50. Mv DKAit SiB, — I liavc been prevented by the business of my Visitation from returning an earlier answer to your letter of October .'^0. I cannot for a moment admit the soundness of those principles ii] on the strength of which you consider yiause If to be at liberty to do that which is contraiy to the ( rdcr of tlic Clinrch of which yon .-no a minister, to the s]iirit of all iis rules .".iid foriiiui.iries, and to ihc judgment of your iiishop. I am under the necessity of stating my decided opinion that a continuance of the practices against wliich 1 have in vain remon- sfrated, ;ind of ;iny others wliich are not sanctioned l)y tlie laws or customs of our Cliurcli, as well as of any peculiarities of dress or manner which are iimisual in our Church, but are cojiied from that of Rome, is inconsistent with your duty as a minister of the English Cliurch, and I now again call upon you to relinquish them. As it i;- not without the most mature deliberation that I nuike this requisition, so it is not without the most lively concern that I tind myself driven to have recourse to it. — I pray God to direct you in this matter, And remain, my clear sir, your faithful ser^'ant, C. J. LONDON. No. C. Fiilham, Xov. 22, 18.50. Mv DEAR Sir, — I must bee; of you to answer my last letter withotit further delay. It is most desirable that an end should be put to the present state of things at St. Barnabas. Its continuance is doing an incalculable injury to the Church. I am, mv dear sir, your faithful servant, C. .). LONDON. No. 7. S. liarnahns, Pimliro, Nov. 2.3, ISnQ. My Lonn, — Sir J. Harington, my churchwarden, will present to your lordship this letter, in reply to yours of the Ifith instant. I would take the following rules as my guide in the ]-resent difficulties. 1. 1 have ascertained from Mr. Dodsworth, IMr. Richards, and Mr. Murray, all the points of ritual and ceremony which have been in use in their churches for many years, known to and permitted by your lordsh.ip. It is my intention to adhere to any or all of these ritual and ceremonial observances. 2. Your lordship will remember all that was done in ritual and ceremony, in your own presence, at the consecration of S. Barnabas. It is my intention to adhere to any or all of that ritual and ceremony. 3. I have collected together from various cathedrals of England the forms of ritual observances practised in then. It is my intention to adhere to or to adopt any or all such points as I may find authorised tlierein. Whatsoever is not found or authorised by either one of the above ruh'is, and what- soever is not found or cannot be legitimately deduced from the Rook of Common Prayer or the Canons of our Church, it is my intention, in obedience to your lordship's episcopal requisition, to abandon. But seeing that, at the present time, I am under an external pressure from a mob, and under threats from persons not my own parishioners, which amount in some cases to bodily violence, it is my intention at jjresent not to make the slightest alteration in anything that has been done at our church for the last five months. But I promise you that immediately this external pressure is withdrawn I will make the alterations involved in the intentions above- mentioned. Sir John Harington will convey to your lordship any further information which you may be desirous of receiving — And I am, my lordship's faithful servant, W. J. E. BENNETT. No. 8. Fulham, Xov. 27, 1850. Di;ar SiK, — I cannot for a moment admit that any one of the criteria which you propose are binding upon me. 1. Supposing even that I had not objected (which I have done in the strongest manner) to some practices in the churches to which you allude, there must be many things done there of whicli 1 am not cugtiisant, and there inai/ lie many little things not I)rohibited by me the aggregate of which would be very offensive and objectionable. Your plan, it seems, will be to pick out everything unusual from various churches, and to combme them into a complete system in jour own. 2. There was more of form and display at the consecra- tion of St. Barnabas than 1 liked, but I sniv nothing decidedly contrary to the rubric; certaiidy none of those forms which I have since heard of as being observed by you, and to which 1 have objected. It was not likely that I should take that opportunity of stating my objections to minor points; but I hinted jiretty plainly in my sermon at the danger of excess; and in less tlian one month from that time I wrote to you a strong letter of remonstrance. There may have been things done at the consecration which did not fall under my eye, and, from what has since happened, I think it likely that such was the case. But even if it were not so, 1 cannot consent to be bound to tolerate now what I did not take that opportunity of censuring. 3. Even were I to admit, which I do not, that the rfiotewje cathedral is to be a rule and standaid for all the parish churches in the diocese, 1 could not e.xtend this concession to all the other cathedrals ; for if that were done, then if any one dean and chapter were to : dopt extravagant and Romanising practices, I should be bound to tolerate them. I have no jtason to sujipose that any custom is observed in any one of our cathedrals of which I siiould disapprove ; but I cannot he governed by their usages. Upon the whole, if you are not prepared to comply, simplicitcr and c.r animo, with the requisition contained in my letter of 10 the 16th ins-t., I must call upon you to fulfil your offer of retiring from a charge which I deliberately think you could not in that case continue to hold without great injury to the Church. I remain, dear sir, your faithful servant, C. J. LONDON. P.S. — I am willing to allow a reasonable time for your compliance. No. 9. [This letter appeared in pages 7 and 8 of the Eleventh Series.] No. 10. [This letter appeared in pages 8, 9 and 10 of the Eleventh Series.] THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. {Frotn the "Guardian" of Dec. 11, 1850.) The Bishops have addressed the Crown. The address bears evident traces of having under- gone anxious and repeated revision. The grammatical slip which slightly disfigures the second paragraph is just such a casualty as will sometimes occur in the process of transposing sen- tences and interpolating words. But of the amount of correction — and, we must add, of the necessity for it — our readers may judge for themselves, by comparing the original draft, which the Bishop of E.xeter, to explain the absence of his own signature, has been compelled to publish, with the copy as finally adopted. Of that draft we shall merely say that it aflbrds only too ample a justification for the presentiment that prompted the few anxious words in which we alluded to the subject a short time ago. In its revised form it is free from obvious objections; and if not exactly the protest which we might have desired to see emanate from the Bishops ot England, will probably be considered by our readers as satisfactorj- a document as they could reasonably hope to receive from an Episcopate so appointed, so circumstanced, and containing such large diversities of opinion as our own. The address is subscribed by all the prelates of both provinces, except the Bishops of Exeter and St. David's. Bishop Thirwall's reasons for withholding his siffnatnre may be conjectured, hut have not yet been divulged. Considering the circimistances wliicli have attended its publi- cation, it can scarcely be necessary for us to express our earnest hope that the mode in which it seems to have been prepared and submitted to the Episcopate will serve as a warning, not as a precedent, for the fut'.ire. Had it, instead of being thrown off by a single pen in Lambeth libr.'iry, and circulated by post, with a curt note from an unknown secretary, been drawn up, after due consultation and deliberation, by the luiited wisdom of the eminent persons who were to become i-esponsible for its every line, we should have been spared the pain of comparing the Archbisliop's ill-considored p;iper with the acute and just critique of his suffragan, and of cen- suring the arbitrary refusal of a (iovernment ofiicial to transmit the explanations which one of the two dissentient prelates naturally desired to lay before the Queen. Sincerely desirous as we believe the primate to be of proiuoting the harnu)ny and general efficiency of the Right Reverend Bench, we cannot d<)ul>t that he regrets, as lu'ich as ourselves, a course which has deprived the corporate action of that venerable body of its proper force and dignity, and has needlessly brouglit into the full light of publicity difference of opinions which, if incapable of being reconciled, might at least have been concealed. On the other side, the question of conscience started by Lord Beaumont, for the considera- tion of his co-religionists, has found an echo in a very high, if not a very influential quarter. The Duke of Norfolk quite agrees with him; and thinks " many must feel as we do, that ultra- montane opinions are totally inconijiatiljle with allegiance to our Sovereign and to our Consti- tution." That tiltramontanism would sit uncomfortably on a great English magnate — a higii functionary of the royal hous;liold, and the dispenser of the palatial hospitalities of Arundel and Norfolk House, we can well imagine; and it is i)robable that the Duke speaks on one side, as Lord Stourton does on the other, the sentiments of a section at least of the old Roman Catholic families of Great Britain. His letter, like Lord Beaumont's, is a direct encourage- ment to a Legislative assault. But the strength of Romanism in this country, even as a poli- tical power, is no longer confined to noblemen's castles or the hos|)itable seats of ancient houses. It is something rougher, more energetic, more aggressive, less K.nglish in its sympa- thies and attachments, and less amenable to influences, which may not uncharitably be supposed to have some weight with the rrcmier-Duke, Karl Marshal, and hereditary Marshal of England. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES." Sir, — Fearing lest any misapprehension might arise in the minds of some in consequence of my not being present at the York county meeting held on the 22nd of last month, to present an address to her Majesty on the supposed Papal aggression, I beg to say that my absence on II that occasion was quite unavoidnblc, owinp; to a severe accident which contincd ine to niv apartment, and which put my attending that nieetinsr quite out of the question. I take this opportunity of saying thai I most fully concur in the religious principles and opinions expressed by the Roman Catholics on that occasion, and I trust those same principles for the support of which n>y ancestors have suffered for so many generations will not only always be dear to me, but will he held sacred and inviolate by me to my dying breath. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Mlerton, Dec. 1. " STOURTdN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, — The inclosed is a correct copy of a letter I received some days ago from his Grace the Duke of Norfolk. Having since obtained his leave to make what use I like of his letter, I request the favour of your giving it a place in The Times. 1 have the honour to be, your obedient servant, BE^VUMONT. Galston-park, Rochfortbridge, Ireland, Dec. 6. " -Arundel Castle, Xov. 2S. " My dear Lord, — I so entirely coincide with the opinions in your letter to Lord Zetland, that I must write to you to express my agreement with you. I should think that many must feel as we do, that ultramontane opinions are totally incompatible with allegiance to our Sovereign and with our Constitution. " I remain, my dear Lord, faithfully vours, " To the Lord Beaumont." ' " NORFOLK. ROMAN CATHOLIC "PASTORALS." The following pastoral*letter has been addressed to the faithful of the dioceses of Birming- ham and Nottingham, by William Bernard, O.S.B., Bishop of Birmingham, and Administrator of the diocese of Nottingham : — " William Bernard, by the grace of God and the favour of the Apostolic See, Bishop of Birmingham, and Administrator of the Diocese of Nottingham, to our dearly beloved the clergy, secular and and regular, the faithful of the said dioceses, health and benediction in the Lord. " DE.\Rt.y BET.ovF.n, — ' Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you, untruly, for My sake ; be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.' God our Saviour, who cannot deceive or fail, has given us this sacred promise, this heavenly consolation. He has said it to His children of all times, He says it to us, and He cannot come short of His words ; rather will He far exceed His promises. Hence do we raise our eyes to Him who is at the right hand of the Father, and abound in consolation. He says, ' Have confidence ; I have overcome the world ;' and He is with us, as He was with Peter, to uphold us on the troubled waters. The rage of unbelief is tinchained against us; but the angel of the Lord, who closed the mouths of lions that they should do no hurt, is by our side. What have we seen ? We have seen the Vicar of God and Chief Pastor of Christendom and the prelates of our Church held up in burlesque, and their names and sacred ottices exposed to mockery and ignominy in every imaginable shape, and that even in the public streets of our metropolis, the guardians of peace and of public decency looking on ; we have seen our holiest, our dearest, our most saving truths and mysteries blasphemed by deeds as well as words before the ignorant crowd, and not a hand ot any of those to whom God has given Ilis power on earth put forth to protect the religion of the greatest Christian community within her Majesty's empire from those profatiations. The Catholic nations of Europe have also seen how they, in their dearest and most intimate feelings, have been insulted ; and not themselves only, but their chief pastor also; not their chief pastor only, but even their God. " For our parts, dearly beloved, we have to take this reflection to our hearts, that so did they treat our Divine Master in the streets of Jerusalem. And he says to us — ' If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you. If you had been of the world the world would love its own ; hut because you are not of the world therefore the world hateth you. Remember My word that I said to you : The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, you also will they persecute.' We are instructed, we are divinely jircpared, we see our Lord's truth in these very things — our confidence is strengthened ; and our Comforter and Strength has also said, ' Fear not, 1 am always with you.' "What have we heard? Wc have heard the First Minister of the Crown pouring out such contempt as a frail mortal can against what we know to be the most holy and sanctifying gifts of our dearest Saviour. We have heard men of the highest station striving to inflame the minds of men, and to raise a moral, or even a legalised, persecution against us. We have heard numbers of her Majesty's clergy — of those who range themselves beneath the spiritual headship of our Sovereign — men who profess themselves to be the ministers of truth, and justice, and peace, and charity, urged on by this high example, contending in a heated rivalry of calumnies, of 12 insults, and of every manner of wild mis-statements, against tlie truths we profess and the mys- teries which console us, against the spiritual acts of our Chief Pastor, and against ourselves. They kno.v well, th.ose especially who, from their position, arc bound to protect the liberty and peace of all who inhabit the land, know well that, as a body, we are patient, and enduring, and forgiving ; that we can neither be stirred to disafiection by their acts nor diverted from our allegiance to our Sovereign ; that our loyalty and submission to the Crown and State is an obligation to our conscience, and that our fidelity to our spiritual is the sure guarantee of our loyalty to our temporal head ; that in proportion to our carefulness in giving to God the things that are God's is oar prompt disposition to render unto Cffisar the things that are Caesar's. These things do they know and calculate upon. What other body of her Majesty's subjects, as numerous as ours, if another Christian communion could be found so largely extended over this vast empire, would they have dared to treat as we are treated? For well do they know what energies and passions would be set in motion, which our holy religion forbids us to indulge in. " And what, dearly l)eloved,is the cause of this outburst upon our Christian and national liberties ? Simply that those bishops who have so long ruled over you are now called by English instead of by foreign titles. Because our Church in England is no longer placed in an exceptional, but in the usi^al and regular order of its divine constitution. Because we are no longer left to be ruled in our spiritual aflairs in that extraordinary way in wliich the Church is provided for in pagan lands, or where much ]>ersccution is laised against her. Literally, because we ourselves had concluded that we were no longer under persecution ; because, acting on this conclusion, the Pope has withdrawn the exercise of his powers as immediate bishop from this country, and left us to be governed by our ov.-n bishops ; because he has left these episcopal powers to be exercised by Englishmen which he used to exercise himself. It is idle to talk of the division of the country as a new thing ; it has always been divided by us. These are but lines drawn by the mind, and not a taking of temporal possession. "Where there is more than cne bishop in a country, how can each know his flock and his work except by niarkin;^ lines of division ? The Pope has, in fact, done no niorc than appoint bishops in England in the same way as he does in Ireland; as he has changed Vicars-Apostolic into a hier- arcliy in Australia; as he has done in the Mauritius: as the late Pope marked out the j.cw bishopric of Galv.ny ; as bishops are a]ipointeresent head of the Ministry had, on two separate occasions, advocated in Parliament the expediency of our being allowed, by a re])eal of the disallowing clause, to take even those titles, if so minded. A^'e had seen the existing Ministry directing that their titles of honour should be given both to the new Catholic hierarchies of the colonies and to the pielatcs of Ireland, and how could we imagine that we possessed not those liberties in England vhich were recognised both in Ireland and in the colonics ? The Pope had seen an English Protestant bishop exercising his minis- try not only in Catholic Malta, but in the city of Rome itself; and how could his Holiness sui>pose that less liberty should exist in h'.ngland for us, whose ministry is required by more than a million of her ^lajesty's subjects ? "And here, dearly beloved, Mc cannot but be struck with the resemblance between these dealings towards ourselves and those of a certain ancient administration, amongst whom there were found temporal and spiritual rulci-s combining together against our blessed Ivcdccmer. They insisted that He was a King, and that He interfered with concerns of Stiitc ; and in vain did our Ijord reidy that His kingdom ' was not of this world.' They insisted that He had confused His spiritual with their tem])oral power, and on this plea they crucified Him. He sent forth His disciples two and two into jUl the cniintry. He taught the multitudes; and these men said, 'if we let him alone so, the Romans will tome, and will take away our ]>lace an of Rome without leave obtained of the Government. So our Henry H. could not make St. Tliomas of Canterbury other than what lie was. He could not unmake an archbishop; all he could do was, to add to his mitre the crown of mar- tyrdom. And out of all these persecutions, what came there forth but the victory of God and the spread of the faith ? A victory of anotlier kind may be pointed to in the history of religion ; but the cases are no longer the same. Tlie true key to the vict-ji-ies over the Church at the Reformation is her temporal possessions. These are gone from ns ; and in this fact lies our strength, if the grace of God be added to our poverty. For, like St. Paul's successful combatant, we are 'despoiled of all;' our affections are not of this world, and our force is wholly spiritual. And, except through some great canonical cause, we, even we, unworthy as we are of so holy and elevated a place, can never cease to be what God and His Vicar hath made us — the first bishop of our see. Persecution, were it even attempted in more direct ways — by violent acts following upon violent words — would only consolidate and more firmly establish, as all history proves, the foundations of our chair and that of our successors. The rain may fall, t'.ie floods come, and the winds blow, and beat against it ; but it cannot fall, 'because it is built upon a rock.' "Our exhortation to you, then, dearly beloved, is, that you confide in God, in whose liands are both ourselves and our works ; that you stand firm and united, and without ear in the faith ; that you return not evil for evil, nor reviling for reviling, but, on tha contrary, blessings ; that you endure with patience, as you have always done, whatever temporal inconveniences you are subject to because of your faith, knowing that you will reap the I'cwanl hereafter; that you give calm and reasonable e.xplanations to all who ask them of you in a becoming spirit ; that you pray for them that persecute you, and do good to them that speak evil of you, as the children of your Father who is in heaven ; that you set forth the example of your faith in your lives, and look forward to the blessed reward which God has promised to those who love Him and endure for His sake. And may the grace of God be always with you. " WILLIAM BERNARD, " Bishop of Birmingham, and Administrator of " Given at Binningham, xVov. 15." the Diocese of Nottingham. The following '-pastoral" address has just been issued by Dr. Hogarth, the newly- appointed Roman Catholic Bishop of Ile.xham, and read in tlie various Roman Catholic chapels in his u might expect. Thirteenth .Serje*.— Price Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] iJames Gilbert, 49, Patemoster-rcw ; Of wln.m mat/ he had "y'Ae Unman CathuUc Question,'' Xos. I. to XIJ. I am still nioie sorry to say tliat, on reading attentively the address to which you offer to append my name, I find matter stated in it which I cannot honestly subscribe. I am, Sir, your very obedient servant, Felix Knyvett, Esq. ' H.EXETER. No. IV. To the Queen s Most Excellent Majesty. The humble petition of Henry, Bishop of Exeter. Sheweth, — That your petitioner largely participates in the general indignation of your Majesty's subjects, especially of the bishops and clergy, at the recent aggression of the Bishop of Rome on the imperial dignity of your Majesty's Crown, and on the spiritual rights of the Church of England, as a branch of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church. Your petitioner forbears from obtruding on your Majesty a declaration of the many reasons on which this, his feeling, is founded. But he intreats your Majesty to believe that he should most gladly have joined with those of his brethren who have presented an address to your Majesty on this occasion, if he could conscientiously have subscribed that address. The reasons which forbade his doing so he should have stated to those of his brethren who drew up that document if any opportunity had been given to him ; and he now presumes, in all humility, to lay them before your Majesty. Firstly — The grounds taken in that address for resisting the aggression of the Pope appear to him wholly beside the occasion. "Insult to your Majesty's prerogative," "inconsistency with the constitutional laws of the country," and " defiance of the principle of our constitu- tion," are matters of the gravest moment indeed; but they appertain solely to the relations between your Majesty and your subjects. And, as regards a foreign potentate, who can neither be supposed to know, nor required to respect them, they are altogether out of place. For your petitioner cannot forget, that, to deal with any proceeding of the Pope, as if t were not the proceeding of a foreigner, would be to recognise his having a rightful status, in other words, "pre-eminence and authority," in this country, which both the solemn conviction of his own mind, and the oath repeatedly taken by him, alike compel him to deny. Looking at the recent act of the Pope in this its true light, your petitioner feels that it would ill-become him to express to your M.ijesty any judgment upon it. As the act of a foreign Sovereign, it presents, indeed, most weighty subjects of consideration to jurists and statesmen, no less than whether the parcelling out of your Majesty's realm of England into dioceses, and the placing over them, by a foreign potentate, bishops selected by himself, be, or be not, an infraction of the law of nations. If it be, he cannot doubt that your Majesty has been advised, or will soon be advised, by your Ministers, to demand the revocation of an act so grossly insulting to your royal dignity. He is confirmed in this conviction by a recently-published letter of the chief of those Ministers, in which, with laudable zeal for your Majesty's honour, he proclaims his own indignation, and stimulates the indignation of your people; describing the Papal act as "the aggression of a foreign Sovereign, in all whose documents there is an assumption of power; a pretension to supremacy over the realm of England; and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy ;" and adding, in words not more eloquent than they are befitting his high place in your Majesty's Councils, ll ;it "no foreign piince will be per- mitted to fasten his fetters upon a nation which has so k lig and so nobly vnidicated its right to freedom of opinion, civil, political, and religious." Looking at what seems to be the necessary import of such a declaration, issuing from such a quarter, your petitioner, as a Christian bishop deprecating the horrors of war, may be per- mitted to express his joy that, by a recent statute, passed on the application of your Majesty's present Ministers, with wii-e foresight of the in.portance of being enabled to hold diploniatic intercourse with the Pope, "the temporal sovereign of the Roman States," all dcubt of the lawfulnc^is of such intercourse has been removed. For, in no way could that intercourse be more auspiciously or more beneficially commenced, than by sending an accredited envoy, peacfably to negotiate that reparation for an enormous wrong which it might else have been nece^saty at once to extort b^, military force. Nor is this the only particular in which is manifested the importance of the consideration, that the act in question is the act of a foreign Sovereign. This makes it a matter of grave inquiry, whul.er the acceptance of tees to formed, by persons so appointed, being subjicts of your Majesty, who thus carry into effect the daring aggression of a foriif:n power on the independ- ence of the British Crown, he an ofi"ence against the laws of England? and, if it be, what course must be taken to satisfy the demands of justice, and the honour of our ouliaged Sovereign ? \ Such is the first consideration which made it impossible for your petitioner to subscribe the address to your Majesty, vihich was presented by his brethicn. Secondly — Your petitioner could not truly say with tliem, that the Pope, by appointing bishops to sees in this country, has "assigned to them spiiitual power and jurisdiction over the people in this country " in the only sense in which the " principle of our constitution, that no foreign prelate or jiotentate hath, or ought to have, in this realm, any authority or jurisdic- tion, temporal or spiritual," is consistent witli truth, or justice, or the rights of conscience. For, the authority and jurisdiction thus denied to he had by the Pope in tliis country, is, and can only be understood to be, uutbority and jurisdiction in the external turuni — coactive power — that authority and jurisdiction wliich tlic laws recosnise and enforce. For, it is a known maxim of law — "Id habemus, fpiod jure hai)emus ;" a^id in no other sense than this could any conscientious person swear in the words of the oath of abjuration; it being known, or believed, by all that the Pope hath, in fact, authority and jurisdiction, inforo conscienti(e, over all who are in communion witti him. Thirdly — Your petitioner could not join his brethren in saying that " the Pope, by nomina- ting persons selected by himself to particulpr places, has claimed to exercise the same authority as is exercised by your Majesty in appointing the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England. For this manifestly implies that the authority which is exercised by your Majesty, in ap- pointing Archbishops and Bishops, is the same as that which is claimed by the Pope; in other words, not merely to name persons, who shall receive spiritual mission at the hands of those who are empowered by God to confer it, but himself to confer it, as being the only source of purely spiritual authority to those who are competent to receive it. Sucli authority, as it cannot be exercised by any lay power, however exafted, so it would be undutiful and disloyal to suppose that your Majesty hath ever claimed, or ever will claim. It would make you solely responsible to Almighty God for the worthiness of the person appointed by you, as if there were not implied in the nomination itself the necessary limitation that the person so nominated be found, by those to whom the inalienable right and duty of examining doth by the law of Ood belong, worthy of the sacred office and charge to which he is nominated. Fourthly — But, fourthly, he could not honestly concur with the address in characterising the recent aggression of the Pope as "unprecedented." The notorious practice in Ireland during the last two centuries, and one especial case, respecting the Papally-appointed diocese of Galway within our own times, would alone forbid his so applying that term. But these are very far indeed from being the only, or the principal, instances of the same daring pre- sumption of Rome. For we have ourselves witnessed almost all the British colonies divided into dioceses by the Pope, and bishops from among the subjects of 5 our Majesty placed over them by the same foreign potentate, with the declared countenance and official support of your Majesty's present Ministers. Fifthly, and lastly — There remains another, and an incomparably stronger reason than any of the preceding, for your petitioner's withholding his signature from the address of his brethreti ; for that address designated your Majesty as "the earthly head of the Church in this kingdom." Reared and nurtured, as it is your petitioner's happiness to iiave been, in the true faith of Christ, and humbly recognising, as an essential article of that faith, that there is not, and cannot be, more than one head, even Christ, of the one body, the Church, which is itself one, now niiiitant in earth, hereafter to be triumphant in heaven, your petitioner, while he presumes not to express any ludgment on the sentiments or language of others, could not withoui deeply wounding his own conscience give the title of "earthly Head of the Church" to any human being, not even to your Majesty, whom, above all other human beings, he, from his heart, acknowledges himself bound to honour. In truth, he cannot doubt that such a title, without restrictions and qualifications, which would render it unmeaning, it would be as offensive to your Majesty to receive from, him, as it would be sinful in himselt to ofier. For, although it was borne by King Henry VIII. and King Edward VI., under a statute of the 2fould see sufficient reason for declining to ascribe that title to your Majesty in the reproaches which, on account of it, have been hitherto falsely showered upon our Church by Romanists, and Presbyterians, and enemies of every kind ; but which would be false no Iriiiffr it i!.e uiilvfrsa! voice of llie Knglis'i Ejiiscopate t.houlJ sanction the uiihtillo-.ved phrase. For these reasons your petitioner has found it hii painful duty to withhold his signature fiom the address vvhieh other biaiiops' (he l;nows noi. how many) have laid before your Miijesty. Yet he ventures humbly, but confidently, to beseech your Majesty to believe that his dutiful attachment to your august person and sacred office is no less sincere or less ardent tlr.ui ihat of any oi his brethren. That it may please Ahnighty God long to preserve to our Churcli the gracious protection of your Majesty — the supreiiie governor of this realm — and your co-ciperatiou and support in ah ihe labours of the bishops and clergy for the spiritual welfare of your people, is, and, while life is continued to him, ever will be, the fervent prayer of your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal suiijccr, H. EXETER. Lishojistoive, Novetiihc 22, 1850. No. V. Addington-furk, Cfut/don, November 22. My Loud — The accompanying address to her Majesty having undergone some revision since it was communicated to your lordship, I am directed to inquire whether the objections are re- moved which induced you to withhold your signature, and whether your lordship's name may now be added to those of the other Bishops. I have the honour to remain, my lord, your lordshiji's obedient and humble Servant, J. THOMAS. No. VI. We, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, approach your Majesty with sentiments ot veneration and loyalty, at a time when an unwarrantable insult has been offered to the Church in this kingdom over which your Majesty's authority is supreme. This our country, whose profession of faith is founded on tlie pure word of God, is treated by the Bishop of Rome as having bt en a heathen land; and is congratulated upon being restored, after an interval of tliree hundred years, to a place amongst the Churches of Christendom. The return of our peojije is anticipated to a communion the errors and corruptions of which' they deliberately renounced ; and which continues to maintain "practices repugnant to God's word" inculcates " bhisplicmous fables and dangerous deceits," and prescribes as nccessar) to salvation the belief of "doctrine grounded on no wananty of Scripture." It is part of the same assumption that, in deiiancc of the law which declares that no "foreign prelate or potentate shall use or exercise any manner of power, authority, or jurisdiction, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm," the Bishop of Ronie'has as- ibumed the right of exercising spiritual dominion over the people of this countiy ; and in nominating certain Koinisli ecclesiastics to particular places or sees in England, has revived iiis claim of supremacy over this realm, and has usurped a prerogative constitu- tionally belonging to your Majesty alone. We consider it our duty to record our united protest against this attempt to subject our people to a spii-itual tyranny from which they were freed at the Iveformation. And we make our humble petition to your Majesty to discountenance, by all constitu- tional means, the claims and uburpations of the Church of liome, by which religious divisions are fostered, and the laJjours of our clei-gy impeded in their endeiivours to diffuse tlie light of pui-e religion amongst the people committed to their charge. Xo. VII. Bishopstowe, Torquay, Nmemhcr 23, 1850. Eev. Sni — I have this day received your letter of the 22nd inst., accompanying a copy of " an Address to her Majesty from the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England," which your letter informs me has undergone some revision," and stating that "you are directed to inquire whetlier the objections arc removed which induced me to withhold my signature, and whether my mime may now be added to those of the other bishops." In answer to this inquiry, I am bountl to .^ay that I cannot even now subscribe the address, though some of the dbjections-which before presented^ themselves to me have been removed. But this is not all. The former communication, made to mc in a printed letter, dated " Lambeth Palace, Nov. 15, 1350," and signed " Felix Knyvert, sec.,'' contained a printed copy of an '• address, which has been drawn up, and to which, if permitted, the arch- bithop would add my signature." As there was not the slightest intimation that the address so '• drav»-u up," and already signed by others, was offered to me as open to further consideration, much less as open to the expression of any judgment (d' mine — as, on tlie contrary, it was supersciibed "Immediate, J. B. Cautnar," I answered by saying, that, on reading attentively the address, I found matters in it which I could not honestly subscribe." 1 have deemed it my duty to send '• a luimblo petition " to the Homo Secretary foi" jM-esen Majesty," stating the reasons for which I conld not join my brethren in esentation " to her ..^..,„..-., ~ J, — - - - - - ., — - -., 1 in their address. Those reasons, though i'ounded in part on matters which are now, I perceive, omitted, were iiho in part founded on matters which, still reniain in the address which has been communicated to me by yon. I iiave the honour to bo, Reverend Sir, your obeilient and faithful servant, Ilcv. J. Thomas. ' H. EXETER. usual h the honour n'Mle/iall, Dec. 1, 1850. My Loud — I have to acknowledge tlie receipt of your lor-lship's letter of the "i-ind ult., inclosing to me a document purporting to be a petition to the Queen, with a request that I would present it to her Majesty. As this document contains no prayer addressed to the Queen, and is not in the i form of petitions or addi-esses to the Crown, it docs not appear to v.-^ to bo one whicl Secretary of State could ]>roperly lay before her Majesty. 1 have, lii^refore, the ho to return it to your lordship. I have the lionour to be, mv lord, your lordship's obedieat servant, G. GREY. The Plight Rev, the Lord Bishop of Exeter. Bishopstowo, Torquay. Bhkopstoire, Torquay, December o, 1 850. Sir — I have this day had the honour of receiving your letter to me of the 4th inst., in wliich you acknowledge the receipt of my letter to you of t'.ie 22ud, " incdusiug a docu- ment, purporti\ig to be a peJ'fcion to the Queen, with a request tliat you would present it to her .Majesty." You inform me that, " as this document contains no prayer addressed to the Queen, and is not in the usual form of petitions or addresses to the Crown, it does not appear to be one which the Secretary of State could properly iay before her Majesty,"' and that yon ■' have therefore returned it to me." To the two reasons which made you deem it improper to lay the document before her Majesty, I liave tlie !u)nour to answer as follow s : — 1. To the tirst, by referring yon to the passage which immediately precedes the con- cluding declaration of what is, and ever vvill be, my prayer to God lor her Majesty — which passy.ge I intended, when I wrote it (and so I still understand it), to be i/ie prayer of my petition to her I\Iaiesty, viz., " For these reasons, your petitioner has found it his paiunil duty to withliold his signature from the address, whicli other bishops (he knows not how many) liave laid before your Majesty. Yet he ventures, humbly but confidently, to beseech yiur Majesty to believe, that his dutiful attachment to your august person and sacred offii'i^ is not less sincere, or less ardent, than ihat of any of his brethren " In saying " humbly beseech," instead o'f'hum'oh pray your Majesty," no thought could be further tVom my mind, than that the phrase could he misconstrued into anythins bearing the shadow of disresjiccr. It was, in truth, dictated solely by a feeling which I am sure that her .Majesty would not disap- ))rovc — I mean, reluctance to use the word " pray" applied to my earthly Sovereign, in imme- diate juxtaposition with the words of prayer to the King of kings. I should have the less apprehension that such an objection as this — even if it had pre-entpd itself to my mind, which it did not — could exist against the presentation of my petitr:):', because, in "the document purporting to be a |)etition '' from the Archl)ishop of Canterbury and six other bishops to King James II., there is absolutely no exjjressed pravcr wiiatever, hut merely a staremetit of the reasons for whicli they, by implication, pray their Sovereign not to deem them less loyal tiian some of their brethren, because they declined to do what had Deen done by others, but what they could not conscientiously do themselves. Exactly similar, 1 submit, would be the document which is now returned to me, even if it did not contain that special prayer to which I have had the honour of inviting yo-.ir attent'or. True it is that the petition of the seven bisl;o])s was not sent to the Secretary of S;:ite, but was presented to their Sovereign by themselves ; true also it is that, instead of t)eing returned to them, it was made the ground of an indictment for a seditious libel. In these respects, I fully admit that the two cases are not parallel. 2. To the second objection. That " thistlocument is not in the usual form of petitions or addresses to the Crown," I have the honour to answer, by referring you to the hea ling of the document, " To the Queen's most excellent Majesty, the hnniijk- petition uld not, on account of such a departure from tiie usual, but, in my poor judgment, not very decorou.-, form, con- 6 sider my petition the less respectful, I most confidently express my entire and undoubting conviction. In conclusion, as others of her Majesty's loyal subjects maybe deprived of an oppor- tunity of laying the expression of their feelings, on any momentous subject, before their beloved Sovereign, by falling into the same or similar error. I shall be doing an act ot kindness towards them, if I warn them of what they must, in that case, expect, and I shall, at the same time, save the Secretary of State not only some trouble, but also the pain which that high officer cannot but feel whenever, as in the present instance, con- sideration of official duty may compel him to stand between her Majesty and the humblest of her subjects, who may have occasion to assure her Majesty of his dutiful and loyal devotion to her person and government. I shall, therefore, make public the com- munication which I have this day received from you. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient Servant, H. EXETER. The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, Bart. P.S. Since this letter was written it has occurred to me that my petition has not, at its com- mencement, the words, " May it please your Majesty." But I can hardly supi)Ose that the absence of this formula, however usual it may be, has been deemed sufficient to condenin my petition as unworthy ot meeting the royal eye. 1 cannot doubt that, if strict etiquette had made it indispensable, you would have apprised me of the rule, in order that I might supply the heedless omission. But I have the satisfaction of seeing that, in this particular also, the petition of the seven bishops to King James II. resembled my own. The words, " May it please \our Majesty," were not inserted in it. The tbllowing is its introduction : — '■■ TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. " The huviblc Petition of William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and divers others of the Sufragan Bishops, 8fc., "Humbly sheweth," &c. Of this, it will be seen that the commencement of my own petition is a direct copy, mutatis mutandis, except that I do not repeat the word humbly — following herein the rule of the House of Lords, that the word humble, or humbly, be not requisite to be used more than once. I further find, on reference to an exact verbatim copy of that document, with the signatures, which was not, at first, before me, that the seven bishops concluded their petition by— not praying but " most humbly and earnestly beseeching his Majesty that he will be graciously pleased not to insist upon reading his Majesty's declaration." If this shows that I have been inaccurate in saying above that in that petition there was no expressed prayer whatever (as there is none in the form in which it is usually exhibited by our historians), that inaccuracy is, I submit, more than compensated by the complete precedent which is thus afforded to me, in all formal particulars, by those illustrious men, one of whom, Sir Jonathan Trelawney, was my predecessor in the See which, by God's permission, I now fill. THE EISHOP OF ST. DAVIJD'S AND THE AKCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, — I request that you will have the goodness to insert in your journal the accom- panying copy of a letter addressed by me to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is published with his Grace's approbation. And I have his permission to add that my letter having only reached him after all the bishops, except the Bishop of Exeter, had given their assent to the address, he thought it too late to make so great an alteration as would have been necessary to meet my objection. I am, sii-, your obedient servant, Llanelly, Bee. 12. ^ C. ST. DAVID'S. " Abvrgicili, Carmarthen, Xov. 'l(u "My dear Loud AucuBisiior, — I am sure that yon will do me the justice to believe that nothing short of a very deep conviction of a paraniouut obligation would induce me to take a step so rei)ugiiant to my feeling;., ospccinUy at this juncture, as the withholding my siguatuie from the address proposed by your Grace. In its altered form, it is cer- tainly free fjoni some of the olijec.ions uIulIi I urged against it before ; but it seems to me to have become liable to others, perhaps still graver. The reference to the act of Elizabeth appears to me in every respect most nn advisable. My own opinion would have been that the provision cited tVoni it has been virtually repealed by the Roman Catholic Ileiief Act. But at all events the (jnotation seems to me to prove, it" anythin;^, far too much ; for the law of Elizabeth has not been violated for the first time by the recent bull. It was equally set at ' defiance ' by the appointment of vicars apostolic, who have so lone exercised their functions without complaint or molestation; and it seems unreasonable to charge the Pope with 'defying' a law which has been so long permitted to sleep. But a still weightier objection in my mind is, that those who refer in such a manner to the statute of Elizabeth must be considered as' expressing a wish to see it again put in force, which it seems to me would involve the repeal of the Relief Act. I cannot con- tent to make myself responsible for language which, directly or indirectly, indicates such an object; and I would respectfully intreat your Grace to consider whctlier this part of the address does not admit, if not require, such a construction. There are some others with which, I must own, I am not satisfied, I think it is needlessly harsh, to say the least, to treat the Pope's ' anticipation' of our return to his communion, which he must consider as the greatest of all blessings to us, as ' an unwarrantable insult.' And I am still afraid that the concluding petition, for protection to the labours of the clergy, will be interpreted, not with- out an appearance of justice, as a wish to see the Roman Catholic proselytiscrs silenced by Act of Parliament. These last objections, however, I might consent to waive in deieience to your Grace's judgment, and for the sake of unanimity; but that which relates U the act of Elizabeth appears to me to involve principles whicli I may not sacrifice to any other consideration. " I remain, my dear Lord Archbishop, " Yours very faithfully, " The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury." " C. ST. DAVID'S. CARDINAL WISEMAN'S SECOND LECTURE, DECEMBER 15, ISoO.-^ This, my brethren, brings me to the consideration of an important document which has lately appeared, one bearing very much upon what we have been considering; 1 allude to the address of twenty-eight bishops of the Established Cnurch to the Queen. We may naturally suppose that in a document of such importance every idea was most minutely considered, and every word most deliberately selected; and it seems most strange that between the three ditt'ercnt drafts of that address, the first which was sent by the metropolitan to his suS'ragans, not for consideration but for subscription, and the second and third amended copies, there should be a most extraordinary dilference upon a matter on which one would naturally suppose that all the bishops of any Church must think alike. If there is any one point more than another upon which these prelates might be supposed to agree, it is the fundamental and distinctive doctrine of the royal supremacy. Now, at a moment in which, in addresses from bishops to their clergy, from clergy to their flocks, from public men to their constituencies, from Ministers to the nation, we have been charged with violating the Queen's supremacy, we surely have aright to expect a clear, an lotelligible definition of that doctrine against which we have so grievously sinned. And now I will read to you the three dift'erent forms in which this doctrine is laid down in the three addresses sent to the Bishop of Exeter from Lambeth, to be signed hy him. 1 . " An unparralleied insult has been offered to your Majesty's prerogative, and to the Church of which your IVIajesty is the earthly head in this kingdom." No. 2, cor- rected copy sent from the same to the same. " An uuwatranlable insult has been offered to the Church in this kingdom, over whicli your Majesty's authority is supreme." No. 3, finally published as adopted. " An unwarrantable insult has been offered to the Church and to your Majesty, to whom appertains the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil." First, the Queen is declared to be the head of the Church ; next, she is only declared to be its supreme governor; and, thirdly, the whole disappears, and she is only declared to be the ruler, to have chief government of all estates in the realm, be they ecclesiastical or civil : a proposition which, if we understand "government" in its ordinary sense of civil rule, any Catholic may to-day subscribe. You are aware that the Bishop of Exeter not only refused to sign that first declaration, but told the Queen, in a petition addressed to her Majesty, that she was not the head of the Church of England, and even said that such an assumption was contrary to true faith; and yet the title had been bestoweu by his own metro- politan. But my motive in calling your attention to this document is in connexion with the statement, that the measure concerning which we are speaking was one that treated * We content ourselves, on the present occasion, with givuig vcrbatini that portion of the lecture w has reference to the preceding pages. 8 England with disdain, tliat it was a nalioual insult, that it was not a Catholic measure, but one intended to act over the whole country. Now, her Majesty is told that England is treated by the Bishop of Rome as hriving been a hiathen land, and is coni^ratulatid on its restoration, after an interval of tlnec hundred year?, to a place among the Churches of Christendom. 1 cannot (ind any exjncssion in the Pope'.<; letter to which these latter words can allude, and therefore I suppose that they refer to the passages which 1 have already read to you from my own pastoral; and you will recollect that the words were, " Now you will recollect that Catholic England has been restored to its orbit." We have had nothing to siiy, in treating of the restoration of a Catholic hierarchy, concerning a Church which to us is no Church, and forms no i)art of the Catholic communion; nor is there any more ground for saying that the Pope has treated England as though it were a heathen land. How could he when he sees it covered with the sidendid monuments of Catholic piety and greatness, when he sees everywhere the vestiges of the piety of our ancestors in so many institutions, when he sees and knows, as all the world does, the charity and the zeal which is manifested by people of every rank and of every religion, and even when from so many who, from the ranks of Anglicanism and dissent, daily join his communion, he must have learnt how deep a religious sentiment there is, and how niuch earnestness tlicre is in the search for truth? And this it is, my brethren, which makes him and me, and every true Catholic pray, that ail those who are not in the communion of the Church may be brought speedily with us, and like ns, to know her and to love her, and to enjoy peace and consolation as we do within her. As brethren in oiTor indeed, hut still as most dear brethren to us, and not as lieathens, do we look upon those who are separated from ns in faith ; and Pins would be unworthy of his high place and of his tendeV hcait wei'e he, on the one hand, to admit anv one to communion with the ('atholic (.'hnrch v.ho abjures him and, on the other hand, to ceaso to pray that all, even these, may soon be brought to t'le unity of Catholic truth. But, my brethren, although in this extraordinary document there .ire many things which would call for notice, and which would require a long commentary, there is one particular point to which alone I will confine myself at present, and with wliioli I will conclude — there is one passage in it which I consider it the duty of every Catholic to confute and to repel to the very utmost of his pow(-r. It is, indeed, wonderful that when these twenty-eight prelates of the Esta- blished Churcli had to define their own doctrine respecting the royal supremacy, they should so much have varied in the three drafts of the address. But when they have to attack and to vilify the Catholic Church thcie is a marvellous unanimity in thought and in word, so that scarcely a change is to be found in the three difl'erent documents; and the only change that there is, i.s made for the purpose of marking oidy more strongly that it refers to our actual present Church. The passage is as follows : — " The return of our people is anticipated to a communion the errors of which they deliberately renounced, and which continues to mpintaii? practices repugnant to God's word, inculcates blasphemous fablt's and dangerous deceits, and prescribes as necessary to salvation the belief of doctrines grounded on no warranty of Scripture." In the original dralt the expression, "continues to maintain," did not occur; it was simply stated, that return was anticipated by the people to a communion which they deliberately renounced — renounceil because it contained practices repugnant to God's word, it is-, therefore, clearly the wisli of these twenty-eight hishojjs of the Church Iv-tahlished, deliberately and solemnly to tell her Majesty that the religion, at this moment, preferred by ten or twelve iTuilions of her faithful subjects consists of practices repugnant to God's word, of " blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." This document has not the authority of a synodical act ; it was not drawn up in full synod, with every word carefully studied, with invocation of the Holy Spirit, with public supplication, with deep and earnest study ; and even though the whole of the bishops of the Establishtnent had put their liand to it, it w-ould still have been but their individual acts combined. 'I'herefore I must consider it, and deal with it, as simply the declaration of so many theologians of that Church, and as it has not even the pre-stige of unity I must consider it as still more their individual act — that for which they are each one to be held separately responsible. Now, if so, I should he justified in taking the authority of each singly ; but, in reality, in acts that are not .synodical the amount of weight is onlv the sum of the res]iecti\ e weights of those who are joined ; whereas in a synodical act there is, moreover, iin]iacl and force. Here, then, we have twenty-eight divines of the l'"sfablished Church, twenty-eight men consisting, it is to ho presumed, of the best theologians of that h'stahlishment, of the men who, officially at least, fcjrm the ecclesiastical council of the nation, those to whom the i)eopIe naturally look for their faith, we have these twenty-eigl'.c men solemnlv, an.d, as far as they can, ecclesiastically, telling the Uueen and the whole nation that the religion of their ancestors, of AVykeham and Chicherley, and good Uueen Margaret — tlie founders of those establishments in which they received their education, of establishments founded solely from belief in those v Christians, presided over by upwards of ir'dO bishops, civilised, edu- eated, having their colleges and universities a.s nuteh as themselves ; that the religion of many n)illions of persons scattered over cruntries not professedly Catholic ; that the religion, in fine, of from ten to twelve ndllioirs of the subjects ot these rcahns is nothing Uss than blasphemy ftp.d (icccil — a tl'iiifr rc)n!;;n;mt (o God's word ! And if this be so, t1irn all t'.icse millions are, by thi.s decimation, at once consin:nrd to irrevocable perdition ; for to pretejir! to believe that vast mnltil'ules are sa»edtliroiic;h practices coiiti ary roGod's word, t!:ronpli bla^piiemvand deceit, would be as sensible and as credible as it would be to tell me tiiai tlif re J^re po]iiii;itioiis in some parts of tlie world \vlucli entirely live and thrive upon corrosive subliinale and prussic acid. But this 18 not ail. If this denunciation have any weight, then it follows that we, the Catholic clergy of this country, are professed teaciiers of blR<=|)hcniy and deceit ; and we — and I per- sonally, not because I have been unworthily placed at the head of that body, but because I am a willing, and a devoted, and, as far as lays in my power, an active promoter of Catholic- belief, and because I do so, not in ignorance, but with my eyes and heart full or every doctrine and of every conseciuence from it — we, I say, have a right to call upon you who differ from us to pause before you give weight to this judgment. Allow me to express what is the value which I attach to it; and remember that these words have not been spoken with any softening or qualification, with any gentle expressions of regret, or with any thought that perhaps we act in ignorance, or that our conduct is better than our theology ; no, there is no reserve in tliis awful denunciation, and, therefoie, let me boldly and straightfor- wardly tell you wliut I consider to be the value of this theological opinion — what I con- sider to be the weight ?.nd authority of these divines. Then, I say, put together the whole of the published writings of the Anglican bench of bishops, and you will have a most varied collection of learned works. Now, take from them, lirst, whatever relate*; to heathen mytho- logy, or to pagan plays, or to Greek and Latin literature; take away from them whatever refers to profane history, to politics, to German romance ; take away from them whatever belongs to the province, however i r^cellcnt, of science, moral or positive ; take away whatever is opposed to the doctiine of baptismal regeneration — that is, whatever destrovs the very nature of f nptism ; take away from ti em whatever impugns sacramentalisin in general in the Church of England; take out whatever opposes apostolic succession, the necessity of an episcopate at all ; take away from them whatever propagates German Rationalism, or leads covertly ti> refined infidelity ; take away from the collection what is Arian and SahcUian ; take away whatever is written expressly against the adorable mystery of the Trinity, against the incarnation of the Son of tiod, as expressly declared in the Atbanasian creed, against all the deeper mysteries of faith ; take out of them v. hatever is asserted by any of these theologians and contradicted as clearly by himself in some other part of his works — in fine, cancel from them whatever any one declares to be the true faith and doctrine of the I'^igiish Chuiih, and what is as clearly denied to be so and impugned by another, and what will remain will be a nullity. Learning, great and varied, there is, no doubt — in the wisdom which holds u!) together in charitv, no less than in faith, is novr uiitnifestinsf itself njost ::floriunsly and moi-t consolinarly for u.-i, in tlie abundance of praycri tUut 10 are being poured out on every side in our behalf. Wlien addressing you from this very pulpit not manj' months ago upon what was called " the Gorhain question," I remember remarking how unsynipathised with the Church of England was, that portion at least which considered itself in conflict with the State, by the rest of Christian Churches. I little thought then that we ourselves should have to put to the proof this mark of active communion. We have done so, my brethren ; but oh, with how ditferent a result ! On every side, from every part, the same glad tidings come. Every Catholic country is taking tlie deepest interest in our position, hopes with us, sympathises with us, and, what is far mprc important, prays for and with us. From the vast multitudes assembled in the magnificent churches of great cities to the scattered populations of country districts ; from the bishop of an ancient see to the mountain curate in the neighbouring island, and o\'er the whole Continent, there is a fervour of prayer being put into activity by the knowledge of our position, and the way in which our religion is treated. On every side it is the same voice, " We are praying earnestly for you." And they are strangers, if Catholics can be strangers, that write thus ; tliey are persons whose faces we have never seen. Even in the cloistered retreats of the consecrated virgins, at the doors of which the great events of this world knock in vain for admission, the vibration of our little Clmrch along the golden chords of unity has penetrated even to the silent cell ; and the chaste spouses of God are offering up prayers for us, my brethren, in England. Oh, dow does this console and encourage us who look upon the work which W3 are performing as the work of God ! How like God's work is this work of prayer! Supplications and addresses to the throne of God instead of to the throne of earthly domination ; watching before the altar, instead of Town-hall demonstrations ; frerpient communion, instead of placards and handbills ; adoration before the most Holy, instead of violent outcries and party clamour. Oh ! if the bishops in the English Church had come with us into this contest of prayer and spiritual wea|)ons, if they had commanded the whole nation to join in supplication to God, that He would protect His Church in its unity and its purity, oh ! then we might indeed have believed that their motives and zeal were more holy and pure than what we have seen can now encourage us to hope. But we, my brethren, we will persevere in our good old way; we will look to God to protect what we know to be His; and as at the commencement of the Church, when Peter was in prison, God inspired the Church to pray incessantly for his deliverance, so likewise may we hope that this commu- nion together in feeling of all Catholic Christendom, which to us is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is a proof to us that, in like manner, our consolation is at hand. THE EEV. DR. M'NEILE. The dangers of extempore preaching have, perhaps, never been more strikingly apparent than they are from the following fearful sentiments, uttered by one no novice in its use, viz., the Rev. Dr. Ilugli M'Neile, of Liverpool, a canon of Manchester, and a member of the council, who, under the presidency ot Lord Ashley, have assumed the responsibility of reforming the Church, and promoting the (in their minds) purest worship of God. The circumstances are related by the Livirpool Mercuri/, which, after adverting in general terms to the occurrence in question, proceeds: — '• When the circumstance was fust told to us we could not and would not believe it; but as it afterwards came to us in substantially the same form from several quarters, we thought it best to make inquiries on the subject, so that, if the story should prove to be unfounded, its circulation might be stopped ; and, if not, that the facts might be put forth in an unexagge- rated shape. " This result of our iii(]uirics has been that we have obtained from a highly respectable source as accurate a version of the words used by Dr. M'Neile as the memory of our informant enabled hun to furnish, and of tiieir substantial accuracy he has no doubt whatever. The extraordinary declaration of sentiment was uttered by the reverend gentleman on Sunday morning last, in the course of his sermon, and is stated to have been to the following eftect : — ' I would make it a capital ofience to administer the confession in this country. Transportation would not satisfy me, for that would merely transfer the evil from one part of the world to the other. Capital punishment alone would satisfy me. Death alone would prevent the evil. That is my solemn conviction.' The congregation, we have been told, heard the words with mingled sorrow and dread; and, at the close of the service, a representation on the subject was mad^ to Dr. M'Neile in the vestry. The reverend gentleman declared, we believe, that he had no c )nsciousness of having made use of such language; but, being assured that he had undoubtedly done &o, he expressed his regret in most forcible terms. " In ihe course of the evening service the Doctor went into the reading-desk, and, as we are informed, thus addressed his cont;regation : — ' In the excitement of an extemporaneous address, delivered by me this morning, I used, I believe, a most atrocious expression. That expression i have already withdrawn in the sight of God ; I have, I trust, made my peace with Him ; and 1 now beg to withdraw that expression in the sight of this congregation, and to 1 make my peace with you. I will not repeat the expression which I have referred to, for those who heard it will sufficiently well remember it, whilst I will not grieve (or inflict p.iin upon) those who did not hear it by repeating it.' "Dr. M'Ncile, therefore, bittprly repents of the grave and lamentable error into which he unwittingly fell ; but if men of firm mind, of great ability and learning, of long practice in preaching and public speaking, permit so unholy a spirit to enter even for a moment into their souls, and to fashion itself in words, how great must be the charity with whicl> we ought to regard tne feelings of tho.'C who are destitute of such advantages ! . . . Even this most painful incident may be productive of good to England; if, in tiiis sad time of religious ferment, it teach men the necessity of caution and prudence in public-speaking, seeing how easy it is for even a niini-.ter of the gospel of peace to be carried away by religious fervour into the enunciation of sentiments so atrocious as the worst that were ever attributed to and condemned in others." THE REV. DR. M'NEILE AND THE ROMISH CONFESSIONAL. [We willingly fulfil the promise with which a sense ot justice led us to accompany onr ins rtion of the commnnication referred to below by Dr. M'Neilc ; and we accordingly publish the whole of his letter, so far as it relates, directly or indirectly, to the extra- ordinary ti-ansactiou detailed by onr correspondent "G.," and by our local contemporary the Liverpool Meriury. But we do not interpret our pledge to Dr. M'Neile as including an undertaking to reprint the declamatory and apocryphal effusions of a deceased pam- phleteer against " Popery ;"' and we must beg to decline that portion of his letter which consists of sundry fabulous-looking " experiences" of a late Mr. Nolan, an ex-" Popish priest." Probably, however, they will not be lost to the public ; for Dr. M'Neile, with his present notions of Christian duty," will doubtless feel little hesitation in regaling his flock with these or any other incredible horrors wliich he may ileem adapted to pro- mote their growth in holy hatred. As regards the more legitimate object of his com- munication, there is one rather material point on whjch ho has failed to express himself with the precision and explicitncss which the public may naturally have expected. Did he, or did he not, in his addi-ess to his congregation during the evening service of Sun- day, the 8th instant, characterise the sentiment to which, he had given utterance in the morning as an " atrocious"' one ? It is stated by our correspondent "G," and also by our local contemporary, ihat he did; and he does not now contradict this portion of the story, although, from the apologetic and self-justifying tone of his letter, we should infer that his present view of his escapade is far more lenient, and that he merely deplores its " liability to be misunderstood." Will Dr. M'Neile be good enough to inform us whe- ther he did thus designate the worse than unfortunate outburst in question, and, if he did, will he explain the sudden and rapid fluctuation in his moral estimates of his own conduct as a Cliristian clergyman ^ In the meaii time, he must excuse us for saying that we consider that the language in which he is reported to have conveyed his retraction of the sentiment in question was decidedly creditable to him, and that it marked, with singular force and truth, the real character of that fanatical outburst. — Morning Clironivie, Dec. 19, 1850.] TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE, Siu — I do not often see your paper, and since I saw the impression of last Friday I have been incessantly occupied. With your readiness to publish a statement to my prejudice, with- out any inquiry into its accuracy, I appreciate the courtesy which induced you to offer to publish my reply. It will be an act of justice, in which a free jiress should delight, for all the journals which have leprinted your statement to give insertion to this letter. Without further preface, I will state facts. On Sunday morning, the 8th inst., I incached a sermon on the words of St. Paul, 1 Cor., iv., 5 — " Therefore judge nothing before the tiiriC, until the Lord come," &c. &c. I showed, trom the context, that the things referred to were the hidden things of man's heart, in reference to which no man should attempt to judge his fellow man; and distinguished them from out- ward aciions, which are to be, and must be, judged by man ; pointing out the appropriate tribunal which fiod has appointed for each of these judgments — the civil magistrates from day to day for the one ; our Lord Jesus Christ, in the day of his coming, for the other. Enlarging on the Christian duty of not judging the secret things of the heart " before the time," I contrasted viith it the anti-Christian practice of the confessional, in which the Romish priest institutes inquiry into the secrets of men for the express purpose of pronouncing judg- ment. I showed that, according to their system, the priest stands there as God, and that it is mortal sin to conceal anything from him. All is told, and he appoints what he judges a suit- able and adecjuatc penance. J'he penance being performed, the affairs of tlie penitent's soul are considered as settled up to that date. He is distinctly told that the absolution given him is judicial, and that what the priest thus declares on earth God ratifies in iieaven. The penitent 12 is relieved from the working of an accusing conscience, r,nd society defrauded of tlie benefit which would have resulted from an open coinVfsion. This led to a statemeiit of th'^ secrecy of the Romi^'h confessional, on wliich I quoted thus from the evidence of Doctors Doyle and Ivlagaurin (Roman Catholic bishops), before a com- mittee of the House of Lords, in 1K25. KIGHT PEV. J. DOYLE, D D. "Would a priest think himself justitied, in case he received in confession a knowledge of an intended crime, to tnkcany measure by which he could prevent the execution of that crime? — No; iie cannot; more thnn tiie means he uses with thf individuals themselves. "Could he not warn the person against v.iiom the crinie. is intended to be committed? — He cannot." RIGHT REV. JAMES MAGAURIX, D.n. "Are not the parties who commit a murder generally known to tlie priest? — I do not think they are. "Snppot;in!j it were st.ated to him in confession, would the priest thiiilc it consistent ■^\-ith his duty to divulj;0 any part of a conimuirication wliich wa,^ made to him in coni'cs- tion ? — I do not think he woiUd. "Might he not disclose so much of it as would prevent the perpetration of the crime, without committing the person who has made the confession ? — He could not divulge any part of it." Commenting upon all this, I said, that M'hatever fiction might be in the priest's mind concerning his Church and her authority, he was, in the eye of the law of both God and man, as guilty of the murder in such a case as the deluded wretch who actually committed it, and no punishment could be too severe for him — no, not even capital ])nnishnierit. I had no sooner uttered this expression, than I felt it would be taken out of its context and misunderstood, and I iuimediately made au attempt to modify it. In this I did not succeed. I felt r.t the moment that I had not expressed myself clearly, and I do not wonder that I was misunderstood. Under ordinary circumstances I would have taken no further notice of the affair in public. Eut the circumstances of Liverpool at the time were ]icculiar. We had just had a town's meeting convened by the Mayor, to address her Majesty on th.e subject of the Papal bull recently published. At that meeting several llonian Catholic priests appeared, and an attempt was made to create disturbance, and defeat the object of -the meeting. It had been my privilege to resist that attempt, and, v.hen it failed, to address the meeting at some length. Th.e excitement occasioned by this in the town had not subsided. I was engaged and advertised to deliver a lecture on the Pai^al canon law on the loth, and some anxiety was felt less further disturbance should arise. My appre- hension was that the expression I had made nse of, as above described, would be seized npon and turned to account to aggravate the feeling already excited against me in the Papal party in the town. I determined, therefore, to disarm h.ostility, as far as I coulii, by candidly expressing in tiie evening the i-egret v.-liieh I sincerely felt at having used :i ))hrase in the pulpit so lialde to misconception. I was not to preach in the evening, and, thereio)-e, after the second Lesson, I said a few -words from the reading-desk, avowing my regret for having used an expression in my sermon in the morning, which a moment'.^ reflection would have caused me to avoid, as palpably liable to be misunderstood: that 1 had realised this regret secretly before (jod, and expressed it honestly before them. These are the facts of the case. -Vnd now, sir, permit me to add, that it is not a fact that any i)eeuliar sensation was manifested in my congregation in the morning ; that it is not U/fact that any remonstrance of any kind was addi'essed to me by any member or members of the congregation after the service ; that it i.^; not a fact that I ever said I had no consciousness of having used the language in question. I knew, and know, per- fectly, what ] had said. One gentleman of the congregation wrote me a note, not of remonstrance, but of kind inquii-y, to ascertain whether he had understood mc aright. His note was brought into the vestry before the evening service, just as we were leaving the vestry to go into the church, and not read till after the service. I f.iw ilays ■,).h"r t-'iis dcuiiiic.iatuni was uttei-t- ;, the rc-'prend doctor „'.vve vent to tho following proposition on the platrorni of ExctCi' Hall, it is cnoujjh to enforce t, dioceses, parishes, religious orders, convents, sisterhoods. Ireland, recol- lect, is not an independent country in alliance with England, nor is it a dependency of England ; it is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Not only is the British Le;iislature composed of Its noblemen and commoners indifferently with those of Enghmd and Scotland, and without reference to religious creed, but it has been long our progressive policy to remove and obliterate everv distinction wniwh may give even the appear.Tiice of its ])eople being other than one people with us. The condition of tiie Romish Church in Ireland becomes thus the foundation of a claim that that Church should be put on the same footing in England. Its strength in one part of the Ufdted Kin^'dom communicates strength to it in every other part. If we speak of the small proportion which the English Romanists bear to the rest of the people of England, they remind us that they are a fourth of the aggregate population of the Lniied Kingdom. It was to be expected that, sooner or later, an attempt would be made to give to their Church in England the regular and complete form, and, if possible, ti.e status and influ- ence which it has so long had in Ireland. The measure has been in contemplation for some years. They tell us so." To the immense immigration of Irish labourers a considerable influence on the minds of the English priesthood must also be attributed. Of one other cause he can only speak in sorrov^ : — " Conversions from our communion, during some years past, liave, we cannot doubt, had their influence in encouraging the present aggression on us. When the Pope's bull, apparently in allusion to this circumstance, speaks of the ' very large and everywhere increasing numberof Catholics' in this country, the statement is an exaggeration. Tlse total number of converts from us to Rome is not, I apprehend, very large ; but that they should have excited great e.vj)-. ctations in Rome was not unnatural. When fragments, liowcver small, ot our holy euinte were sejn continually failing away, it was not uiireaso;ial)ie to conclude that that poi tion ot the budding to whicu thiy liad previously adhered was likewiseunsound and ready to breaic avray too — and that these were .symptoms of a wide-ypreading decay which would make its overthrow certain and easy, 'rhe events of (he last few weeks have dissi- 14 pateJ this delusion — at all events, so far as regards the notion tliat Romanism had taken any deep or extensive hold of the Church of England. At the same tinje, what has happened iiiay well awake iis all to the ruinous tendency of that movement which has been too long going on and gathering strength within the bosom of our Church — which has created disunion amongst us amounting almost to schism — has in too many instances converted the filial attachment which is due to the Church of England from its members into vague aspirations after Catholicity, or some ideal stan(hvrd of purity and perfection ; and, in pursuit of these objects, has introduced changes in our Church services, whether revivals or novelties, and a tone of teaching, which have created an impression that there is a growing disposition to retrace the course on which we entered at the Reformation. I hope and believe that the warning which we have now had will prove an effectual check to all this ; but, if it be otherwise — if the display of the Romish Church amongst us in fuller organisation than heretofore should even be the means of alluring greater numbers to that communion, I cannot bring myself to think that the numbers will ever be so great as to give a preponderating influence to Romanism in this country. Our general character as a people, our English habits of thinking and acting, are opposed to the genius of Romanism. There is an antagonistic principle in our civil institutions and in our routine of social and domestic life which forbids it. Danger there may be to this or that individual or family — increased danger, perhaps. Let us all be on our guard. But it would be absurd and weak to believe that the nation's Pro- testantism, or the Protestantism of the national Church, is in jeopardy. Englishmen must undergo other changes before this, or simultaneously with this, which would leave us the same people in little more than name." Apart from its insulting mannei-, the measure itself is nothing of which we have any right to complain consistently with our toleration of Romanism : — " We may justly look with mistrust and suspicion on an ecclesiastical ai'angement for the Romish Church which can only be adapted to a vast inci-ease of its members, and on the as- sumption of episcopal titles which suggest a rivalling or superseding of those borne by the Bishops of the Church of England. We may reasonably protest against this new ecclesiastical establishment being presided over by a Cardmal Archbishop, because, as Cardinal, he is, at the same time, a state cuunsellor to a foreign potentate. But an Episcopal Church is not tolerated if we interfere with its liberty to appoint bishops, to determine its number and rank, and to bestow on them any title, provided those titles infringe on no existing rights. " It is above all important not to be led away by the startling efiect of what is new in this movement, from contemplating that which is no novelty, but which is only more pro- minently brought under notice by it — the one great feature that the arrangement is made in England by a foreign power. Such a social organisation is, within an indehniie range of action, irresponsible to any power in the kingdom. If the head of the Church of Rome were the temporal subject of another State, any question or his interference in the temporal affairs of this country might be made a subject of reference or remonstrance from the Government of this country to that of which the Pope was a .-iibject : but the circumstance of liis being at once a spiritual and a temporal sovereign makes him in every such instance judge in his own case. It is idle with respect to an authority so constituted, to speak of its being limited in its exercise to I'eligious affairs; and a refer- ence to the earlier periods of our own history, to the history of other nations, and to wh:it is taking pjlace in Ireland at this moment in Veference to education, shows this. The inconvenience and mischief attendant on this inipermm in impcrio have been frit alike iu Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, and in recent times the security of the system of concordats has been adopted : but England has lejected this mode, and adopted that of renouncing all oflicial intercourse." The Bishop completes his remarkson the political aspect of the question with counsel to his clergy to lay betoj-e the Sovereign their assurances of their cordial support " in the vindication of her rights, and of the Protestant character of the country, whether from actual aggression or insult.' On the religious branch of the subject he advises them : — , "The occasion is one which should rouse the clergy generally to ntake themselves thoroughly familiar \\ith the questions between the Church of Rome and ourselves; and, wherever and whenever it may be needed, to make their flock faniihar with ihem loo. Do not misunder- stand me. Controversy 1 dread. It is one of tiie evils which we have to guard against, if this rival Cliuieh should ever erect itself, side by side with ours, ihrougiiont England. Avoid the bitterness of controversy. Avoid its uiieoifying exciti ment. Still, it will be your duty, in those parislies where there is any Roman Catholic ministraiion and teaching, to give such instruction as may enable your flocks lo resist ihe fallacies b\ which the Romish Church seeks to gain atsent even to its most coirupt and uiiscriptural docirine; espiiially the asser- tion that theirs is the old Church, ours the inno\atiun ; iliat tlit) possess an inlidlibie guide to God's truth, because they pretend to it ; and tliat the erection of a central supremacy at Rome or elsewhere was enjoined and sanctioned by the Loid Jesus or his Apostles. 1 should neplect, however, the most important a(Wico wLiclf it is iiiV duty to offer if I said this much and no more. The fundamental distinction between tlie Cliurch of Rome and the Ciiurch of England is not difference in doctrine and practice, however momentous, but dif- ference as to the source to which they ultimately appeal for the truth of their respective doctrines, and the correctness of their respective practices. The master question which rules all else is, whether we are bound as Christians, and believers in Christian revelation, to bring our creed ultimately, in every article of it, to the test of Scripture, which they as well as we acknowledge to be inspired of God ; or to bring even the meaning of Scripture itself to the test of human authority, which they do not presume to cr.ll inspired, but for which they claim an unerring wisdom that implies inspiratiort. It is this difference between thtm and us in respect of the standard of Divine truth, and in the tone ol teaching which results from looking at the one or to the other standard, that the occasion calls on us to maintain. Avoid even the appearance of concession in respect of this. Avoid ail that may give your focks the impression that there is any co-ordinate with that of the scriptural word of Gad. 5^eek not only the instruction which you give them, but the tone and spirit of that instruction from Scripture; remembering that that only is God's word — that that alone is ' the swoid of the spirit.' May He give you grace and power to wield it, and may He make it effectual, still and for ever, for preserving amongst us ' the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.' " EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. To the Most Reverend the Archbishops, and the Right Rcvemid the Bishops, of the United Church of England and Ireland. May it please your Lordships, — Whereas the Universal Church, in the Eighth Canoti of the Third General Council held at Ephesus, a.d 431, lias declartd, that "none of the most religious bishops shall invade any other province, which has not heretofore from the beginning been under the hand of himself or his predecessors. Hut if any one has so invaded a jirovince, and brought it by force under himself, he shall restore it, that the canons of the fathers be not transgressed, nor the pride of secular dominion be privily introducid under the appearance of a sacred office, nor we lose by little the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the dtliverer of all men, has given us by his own blood." And whereas the said synod has also decreed in the said canon, that " the rights, which have heretofore, and from the beginning, belonged to each province, shall be pre.'-erved to it pure and without restraint, accordmg to the custom which has prevailed of old." And whereas it is notorious, that, at the time when the said Council was held, the Bishop of Rome had no jurisdiction in the realm of England ; And whereas the said Bishop of Rome, in a Bull dated the 24th day of September, 1850, lias pretended to erect the said realm of England into an archbishopric of Westminstir; and to divide the said pretended archbishopric into twelve bishoprics ; and to commit to the said pre- tended archbishop and bishops the cure of souls within the realm of Englanil : We, therefore, the undersigned clergy, churchwardens, and members of St. John's Church, Anderson, in the City of Glasgow, do hereby declare the decrees of the said Papal Bull to be an unquestionable breach of the 8th Canon of the Council of Ephesus, which all Christians are bound to obey; and a decided invasion of the rights of the Church of England, as guaranteed by the said council, and therefore to be utterly void and of none effect, and consirier it our duty to make public a declaration of our sympathy with our brethren of rhe Church oi England, in those feelings of indignation and grief which must be occasioned by the recent attempt to sujjetsede the existing Episcopate of England: And we do further declare, that the actual bishops of the Church of England are the only canonical successors of the apostles in that kingdom, and that, consequently, they, and they only, are entitled to the spiritual allegiance of all Englishmen. Our own position, indeed, is different from that of the Church of England. The Pope has not hitherto extended his measure to this country ; and we are members of a Church which, though in lull communion with the Church of England and Ireland, is unendowed ai:d unes- tablished. We know not, however, how soon a similar attempt may be made in Scotland, which, while repugnant to the principles and feelings of her Majesty's presbyterian subjects, would be no less regarded by ourselves as dangerous to Christian faith, and as an invasion of the ecclesiastical rights of our own episcopate; and we feel it a duty to declare our leadiness to ct'-operate with our brethren of the Church pl England in resisting an aggression which we believe to be insulting to the due supremacy of the British Crown, subversive ot the principles of ecclesiastical order, and calculated to injure the purity of Christian faith, by encouraging the hopes of the Church of Rome, and by placing its pretensions in such_a point of view as 16 is Jikely to dnz/Ai- tlie imagination of weftk and unstable mind':. We are satisficti tliat this act is contrary to tlie spirit, if not to tlie letter even, of existin-; statutes of tlie realm. The oath of supremMcy was fnimed expressly to prevent aggressions of this kind; and this invasion of tlie rights of tlie English Sovereign, and English episcoj)ate, is utterly inconsistent with the pledges and promises held forth by the Roman Catholics at the time when the disabilities of v.liich they complained were removed. It seems that the supporters of this arrogant assumption have attempted to justify it, by the example of this Church, in ascribing to its prelates an eccL'siastical superintendence over the ancient dioceses of the Episcopal Church, when established by law in Scotland. The analogy will not bear a moment's examination ; but it may be well, on this occasion, tu state that this Church is — 1. In full communion with the Churcli of England, from which it derives its Orders and Liturgy, and which we have ever regard-.d with affectionate reverence, as the lawful repre- sentative, in England, of the Catholic Church of Chiist, and the source of numberless blessings to all pans of the British Empire. 2. It is a Church which, while itclaims, indeed, an origin v.-hicb no earthly government could give, rejoices also to remember that it is in express terms protected, and allowed by the law of the land. (3 and 4 Vic. c. 33.) Its line of bishops is recognised by law. Its clergy, before admitted to Holy Orders, are required to take a for:ii of tlie Oath of Supremacy, suited to our ecclesiastical position, by which they declare that " no foreign prince, prelate, or potentate, hath, or ounftt to have, any power, pre-eminence, sirperiority, or authority, ecclesiastical or spi- ritual, within this realm." They subscribe the thirty-nine Articles of Religion, equally with the clergy of the Church of Englana, and, under due ecclesiastical licence, are admissible lo officiate in the churches and chapels within the mission and jurisdiction of the English Church. We are confident that the members of this Church yield to no class of her Majesty's subjects in a determination to uphold, at all times, tlie rights of the British Crovvn, against this insolent invasion on the part of a foreign potentate, as well as to contend for that pure and scriptural faith which is embodied in the Liturgy and Articles of our Church, and which, we believe, the encroachments of the Church of Rome are likely, in too many instances, to undermine. We are very sensible that the Church of which we are members is a humble branch of the Catholic Church of Christ, and our own congregation of no great note or number; but, con- sidering that, at this time, it is important that all earnest- minded Cliristians should unite in an expression of feeling and principle, w-eare anxious to make public the present declaration of our honest and hearty opinion in this emergency. We have the honour to be, my Lords, your most faithful servants, ALEX. J. D. D'ORSEY, Incumbent. JOHN TAYLOR, M.\., Curate. (Signed) D. M. DEWAR, 1 churchwardens WILL. BOYD. J i-nurcnwaraens. Glasgow, December 6, 1850. (i'.EPLY.) ^JuJiugton, Dec. 12. RuvEUENu Sir, — I beg to acknowledge the address which you have iorwarded to me from the ofricers and congregation of your church, and I fully cuiicur with the subscribers in the ojiinion they express, that the atiemp'' to justify the recent aggression of the Pope by the analogy of the Episcopal Church in Scotland only proves the absence of any true precedent or warrant for such an usurpation of power. I remain, Reverend Sir, your faithful servant, J. B. CANTU.\n. The Rev. Alex. J. D. D'Orsey. The ForiiTEEN'TU Series will contain some very importr.iit uocumentt;. LONDON; rUBLISUED BY JAJIES GILBERT, •!'.), ?ATERN0STEU-I10>V. rm: ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. THE CHURCH, THE STATE, AND THE PEOPLE; SPEECH OF SIR EDWARD SUGDEN AT THE SURREY COUNTY MEETING AT EPSOM; CARDINAL WISEMAN, DR. CUMMING, AND MR. BOWYER; THE BISHOP OF HEREFORD & THE BISHOP OF CARLISLE MR. MOLYNEUX TAYLOR; AND A FEW MORE WORDS TO ENGLISHMEN OF ALL PERSUASIONS. THE CIIUKCH, THE STATE, AND THE PEOPLE. "The Churcli is in danger — to the rescue ! " is and has been now for some time the popular cry ; bishops and (lean?, rectors and curates, statesmen and commoners have with one con- sent raised tlie universal shout. Sermons and speeches, pamplilcts and addresses have emanated from all (juarters and without number. All have rushed together as a great mob, to drive Popery from the kingdom ; and as with all other mobs, the amount of evil there is being done will by far exceed the good. The more reflecting part of the community watch with anxiety the course of events. They arc not alarmed for their religion, nor is there cause for alarm ; as the following simple anecdote may serve to illustrate. There are certam emissaries of Rome in almostjevery town in England ; and one of these, quartered at Bath, with more zeal, perhaps, than prudence in his endeavours " to make proselytes," met an artisan ; and scarcely finding a willing ear to his arguments, taunted him with the present instability of our Church; saying that ere long there would be " a great battle in England, when your faith will go to the winds, and the religion of the Pope supplant it." " 1 tell ye what it is," replied the worthy ar- tisan ; " it may be so, sir, but Heaven has given me, and thousands like me, good brawny limbs, and you Popish vagabonds slwuld have a taxte of them, take my word for it." It is notorious that among the intelligent artisans and mechanics in England, the ministers of Popery have less influence than over any other class. It is not, then, our religion that is in danger, but that the great dignitaries of our Church tremble lest the fabric now beset with storm and tempest, tottering from its base, should fall and crush them, or rather dissolve itself into a multitude of streams, spreading that which is concentrated in the hands of a few unworthy members among a host of zealous and in- defatigable men whoce hearts are centered in their religion, and who struggle manfully for the eternal welfare of their fellow-man. That the bishops and all holders of fat livings should tremble for their security is no marvel. The present age perceives abuses and will have them remedied. They read of the simplicity and purity of our early Church, of the religion and example set to ministers of the sanie by ihe apostles, and compare it with our own Chun h, the comparison showing a thing ugly and deformed. History informs us of the primitive Christians, " that before the end of the first century they established among themselves certain laws for the government of their Church, and elected bishops; but whose limited jurisdiction was the administration of the sacraments, and discipline of the Church, the supcrintendancy of religious ceremonies, the consecration of ecclesiastical ministers, to whom the bishops assigned their respective functions, and the management of the public fund. These powers, during a short period, were exercised according to the advice of the presbyterial college, and with the consent and approbation of the assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops were considered only as the first of their equals, and the honorable servants of a free people. ^Vhenever the episcopal chair became vacant by death, a new president was chosen among the presbyters by the suffrage of the whole congregation." From this extract, it is evident that we can see now but the shadow of that great principle of Fourteenth Series.— TricQ Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] i Jaraes Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row Of ich'Jin mat/ be had " The Jioman Catholic Quc.'ition," ^os. I.' to XIII. 2 charity and brotherly love among the clergy — that the Church is void of that simplicity and beauty which was left by the apostles. It is true that, shortly after the period named, a variety of new forms and ceremonies, succeeded by superstition and idolatry, crept into the Church, and formed by degrees that monster of iniquity which proclaims itself infallible. That a mother Church so pure should produce such unworthy progeny is lamentable ; but if we examine her history, we shall see that the curse of opulence and grandeur, of ambition and avarice, has been the primary cause of her abasement in the Romish Church ; we shall also see how far our own has been corrupted by it. As the influences of Christianity spread, and as the revenues of the Church increased, a rivalry for precedence sprung up among bishops, who began to assume a lordly power and authority which they had not hitherto possessed. The community whom it was their interest to convert were principally pagans, and, in order to make their religion less repugnant to these idolaters, they introduced pictures into their churches, to which were shortly after added images ; and it is a known fact that there are some still at Home, tliat have been worshipped as Jupiter and Venus, that are now venerated as St. Paul and the Virgin. These innovations were made to gain strength, to increase their numbers. With this sacrifice of principle the Church grew in its enormity, until even the depths of super- stition and the arts of a cunning priesthood could not avail to close the eyes of men to the abomination that was set up before them : and hence the Reformation. By this act, it was intended to lead men's minds back to the early era of which we have spoken. It was a revolution wonderful and astounding ; but that a perfect Church should be raised from the ashes that had been for so many ages all but extinguished, should have been pi-essed into life and vigour, free and uncontaminated by its pollution, was, in the hands of man, impossible. Great as the Reformation was, inestimable as have been its benefits, there still exist remnants of Romish evils which, though not generally used, are openly tolerated ; even in our ritual there are certain forms which, though now become effete, are sought to be revived by those Avho would go hand-in-hand with Rome, or merge into her bosom, rather than raise their Church to that bright example of purity which alone entitles her to the name of Christian. Rut let us calmly look at the state of the Church at the present time. We have bishops and archbishops, deans andsub-djans, chancellors and precentors, elevated by rank and title, the grand struggle among 'hem being, not for Avhich shall do most good for the religion of which they are the nominal heads, but for who shall be greatest, and for who shall enjoy the best gifts, for who shall live in the most princely and most magnificent style, forgetting the words of their Divine Master, who said, " He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth ? Is not he that sitteth at meat ? But I am among you as he that serveth." An wholesome lesson, on which two constructions cannot be put. But if our bishops and pastors believe the Bible from which they teach and preach, what answer can they make to this falling off from the word ?* They profess to be the successors of the Apostles, but we can find no record of St. Paul or St. Peter having required to be housed in splendid palaces, to be clothed in fine linen, and to have fared sumptuously every day. Their mission was to seek and to save ; but the bishops of our day are above such low occupa- tions, -and leave to Sunday-school teachers and zealous members of the laity to work that spiritual good which our Saviour and his Apostles by their c.rample set forth. It is clftar that, if we take the Bible for our guide, these over-fed dignitaries usurp the rights of their poorer brethren, and consequently rob the laity of that means of spiritual i nstruction which has been, from time to time, provided, not to exalt the few by crowning * It is undeniable that great abuses exist in the management of the ecclesiastical property ; that the incomes of the high dignitaries of our Church far exceed in amoimt those of any other Christian nation. The highest dignitary of the Cliurch in France, the Cardinal Arciiljisluip of Paris, has, I believe, only !3,t)00/. a-year and a residence ; the suH'rugau bisliops have incomes varying from oOU/. to 1,000/. a-ycar. The highest ecclesiastical dignitary in Prussia, the Cardinid Arclibisho]) of Cologne, has only 2,000/. a-ycar and a residence ; but, by a Parliamentary paper (No. f)lj, Session 181o, and reprinted last Session as Xo. 310), it appears that for seven years, ending the lilst of December, lSl-3, the total gross income of twenty-five archbishops and bishops of England ;aid Wales amounted to no less a sum than one million four hundred and eleven thousand six hundred find si.r/j/-nine pounds one s/iilliny {[,■l■l],(^C^^l. Is.), whilst their net income was one million one hundred niul twenty-one tiiousand four hundred am! eighty-five pounds nine shiUinsjs and twopence ( 1,12 1, IS.')/. !)s. 2d. 1. Tiie income of the bisliopric of Liehlield is not included, as it appears the agent of tiie bishop had aliscoiuled, so that no return could be made. ]5ut no account has ever been rendered of tlie items eomjuised in the large sum of two luindred and ninety thousand one iuuulred and eiglily-three (jounds eleven sliillings ;uurteupenee (2',)0,lS;i/. Us. lUd.), which constitutes the dilfereuee between gross and mit ineonu;. ... In (/(/(/;//o/^ and within a very few years, (iO.OOU/. has been expended on the palace at Lainbctli, and 1W,011/. on tlie ejiiseopal residences and demesnes of eight \ioceses only, vihilsl in those eight dioceses only 5,25'J/. coiJd be found for the benclit of the working clergy bythc augmentation of small livings, in which eight sees there arc ciyhtyfre livings under fftij pounds a-i/car, and ill livings between Jif I j and one hundred pounds a year! — Vide Sir B. Hairs Lelter lo the Archbiihop of Canterbv.r'j, them with kingly incomes, but that the poor may be fcl and their spiritual wants watched over and supplied. There is no precedent in llie Bible, there is no justice in their cause, there is not even the shadow of State policy to justify these spiritual great men in grasping such enormous wealth, which should be devoted to tlic benefit of the people by a diflfusion of spiritual knowledge. But while descanting on the subject of fat bishoprics and over-grown livings, let us not lose sight of those humbler advocates of the Church, those real workers in the hive, the curates. It is notorious that there are thousands who are paid worse than almost any skilful mechanic, and many, very many, who do not receive as much as the wages of a policeman. These men, too, are those who brave the fever and pestilence, who enter the loathed alleys and crowded dwellings of the poor, ministering the gospel of peace, alleviating distress even out of their scanty pittances, softening the pillow of the wretched, and comforting the last moments of the dying.* What bishop or high dignitary is there that stoops so low ? Is such an amazing dis- proportion to remain ? Are not these evils, abuses, to be remedied ? We of the laity, knowing of these overpaid ecclesiastics, cannot ceaso to wonder why it is that at every chance we should be taxed from the cradle to the grave for services that are already paid for. When a child is taken to the church to be baptised, a/ce is demanded — small, they will say, it is true; but, though small, it is the cause of thousands not having that sacrament administered to them ; as a proof of which, several ministers of different parishes announced, at Whitsuntide last, that on Whitsunday children brought to the church then would be baptised free ; there were nearly one hundred availed themselves of it at each church, showing the willingness of the poor to bring their children to the faith of the Church of England, if they can do so without being mulcted of a fei'. At marriages, too, wc must needs go with money in our pockets ; the solemn contract which is to be blessed by tiie minister of God must be paid for. The last sad office of burial, too, cannot be administered without the wretched widow and helpless orphan, rendered perhaps destitute by a lingering sickness, even this cannot be done without a fee. Yes, the well-fed parson lives by such misery as this; either they must pawn their scanty furniture, or sell the bed on which is stretched the corpse of him who was their support, or go to the parish and have a pauper funeral, a degradation from which their honest industry had before kejit them aloof. In marriages and deaths the fees are not so small, being less optional ; they are ceremonies that must be performed, and hence there is less scruple in demanding to have them paid for. Why is this, that, in addition to well-paid benefices, in these necessary offices a fee should be extorted? Is it to increase the emoluments of the poor curate who usually does the work? If so, we can hardly wish to wring it from him, but we fear not; all these chances of mortality are reckoned with the value of the living, and swell the delicacies of the rich man's table. Let us now glance at the government of the Church within itself. We understand the office of the bishop is to prevent any holding heretical doctrine entering the Church, or, being within its fold, to teach aught that is inconsistent with her Articles and the true faith of a Christian. Yet we know and are witnesses of some of her ministers openly practising certain mummeries that savour more of a pantomime than of religious worship. They have their bowings and crossings, their confessions and penance, their hearts and their service being devoted to the Church of Rome whilst getting silly Protestants to fill their purses. These renegades are tolerated, yea encouraged, by the pusillanimity of a bishop whose authority and power they set at defiance. What security is there for a Church that possesses a pillar so weak and incapable ? Nor is this the only weak point in Church government. One half of the clergy believe the other half heretical, because of a difference of construction of a word in the Articles. It seems the spirit of our faith and profession is but of secondary importance ; bishops squabble about the letter, and, while doing so, expose their weakness and frailty to their fellow-men, creating uncomfortable doubts that are uncalled for, and leaving them in ignorance and dissatisfied. Are not such courses as these opening the very doors, that Popery or any other wolf may enter and destroy the flock ? Can Rome's Cardinal look on and see such clerical dissension witlout a latent hope that he can make converts to his Church ? Does he not artfully point to our spiritual teachers, and say, Can such be of the true Christian Church? Again, how many of the clergy of the Church of England fulfil their duties as they ought? We cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that there are numbers of our churches so thinly attended that the * If the incomes of the two arclibishops «ere reduced to G,000/. a year each, and 50,000/. a year was assigned as an incomp between the other tsventy-thrce bishops, there would by this reduction aloue be at once an anmuil surplus fund of 139,007/., which would provide G9S clergjmen with salaries of 200/. a-year each. We have also a case before us of an archdcucon in this diocese of Loudon enjoying four pieee< of preferment, amounting to at least 5,300/. a year, besides three or four houses, to all of whieli he has been appointed Kithhi the last ieii years. There is another urchdeacou who has 0,200/. a year ; and if the incomes of these two archdeacons were reduced to 1,000/. a year each, there would be a surplus from these two plurahsts alone of no less than 9,500/. a year, which would be sufficient to supply incomes of 200/. a-year each iox forty -sec en more addiiiomd pastors from these two sources of reduction aloue. — Vide Sir B. Hall's Letter to the Arckbis/ioji of Camterburi/. officials employed form as many as one-fourth of the congrecation ;* and there are others, although better attended, and doubtless by individuals anxiously seeking for instruction and guidance, for counsel and advice, but whose pastor, either from want of zeal or ability, from carelessness or a lack of knowledge to expound the doctrines of our faith, suffer them to pass into that state of apathy and indifl'erence which is inconsistent with true religion. And as they perceive the more zealous efforts of other sects, or become assailed by Roman Catholic par- tisans, they feel that to be religious they must be zealous ; and seeing the more stirring interest taken by the members of the Romish faith, they are, step by step, led on until they become converts to that Church. Hence it is that vi-e hear of many, particularly young females, having left the Church of England. Preaching, to be of any benefit, must be something more than the getting through a certain number of words in a given time. The schoolboy monotony of tone is not calculated to impress the hearer; the invariable moral lecture of the distinctive opposites of virtue and vice becomes irksome and uninstructive. We look upon preaching as a means for the exposition of our faith, that men may know what they believe, that they may have practical information and sound logical reasoning on certain passages of the Bible, which perhaps may occur in the day's lessons, that affect their consciences, and may allay their doubts, that they may be prepared with weapons to resist the attacks of the sophist, the infidel, or the Jesuit. What is it that makes the service so wearisome, that while some are nodding in their pcwr^ others' thoughts are wandering to their business, their anticipated pleasures, or their domestic troubles? The beauty of the composition is inspiriting and sublime, applicable to all sorts and conditions of men, comforting to the afflicted, and breathing a spirit of kindly welcome to the sinner. Why, then, is it used with so little effect ? It is the bare fact, that those whose duty it is to conduct the service, do so with so little feeling, so devoid of energy or solemn appeal, without emphasis, and consequently without meaning. Feeling nothing themselves, they ratlicr are an interruption to the devotion of Christians than otherwise. What a marked difference is there when the service is read as it ought to be ! There are some congregations who are so fortunate as to have ministers impressed with the sacredness and importance of their office, that are not pufl'ed up withal. Popular amongst tliem, and deservedly receiving the highest respect and praise, they are courteous and benignant to their pew-sitters, kind and affectionate to the free-sitters, showing by their private example and lives that they glory only in the cross and not on their own merits. But justice demands another word for those of the clergy whose immoral lives are a scandal to all society. There are those who are drunkards, profligates, and debauchees, whose only respect for the Church is, that it supplies them with the means of ekeing out their miserable lives. We have heard of one, who, boasting over his cups amongst companions of the same kidney, asserted that he had been drunk the last three days of the week. "Oh !" said one in derision, " what would your congregation say to that?" " Say ?" said he, " for the matter of that, 1 will tell them of it to-morrow in the pulpit." " I'll bet you so much you won't dare to do it." " Agreed," said the parson ; and so the matter rested. The next day, after giving out his text, he said, "Thursday I was drunk, Friday I was drunk, Saturday I was drunk," and paused ; he then added, " So says the drunkard" — and went on to preach against a vice that he was getting notorious for encouraging in himself. Have the laity, then, to dread the approach of Rome, or is it the clergy ? We have much reason to complain of their want of zeal, piety, and sociability. Their visits to the poor and wretched are only fotind in isolated cases; the middle classes are utterly dis- regarded. It should not be so. A minister of the Gospel should, by his e.rample, show how t o act up to the spirit of the Bible by a friendly communion with his congregation ; by so doin g he would be beloved as well as respected. But there is too much lukewarmness amongst ilieni; there is neither energy in thoir discourses, piety in their lives, nor religious sociability in their customs. They would do well to remember the teaching of Bishop Latimer, who told his clergy that " the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England is the Devil : he is never out of his diocese, he is never from his cure ; he is ever in his parish : there was never such a preacher in England as he. In the mean time, the prelates take their pleasure; they are lords and no labourers : therefore, ye unprcaching prelates, learn of the devil to be diligent in your office ; learn of the Devil, if ye will not learn of God and good men ; learn of the Devil I say. • (Plough sermon, 1548.) Such plain terms are perhaps unsuitable nt the present day ; nevei- theless the advice is equally applicable and as necessary as in the sixteenth century. That the power of creating bishops and bishoprics is solely with the State is (luestionablc "■ According to a Parliamentary paper, No. '1' of last Session, it appears flint out of fhe 25S oluirchrs within tlip diocese of ]jl;uiil;ilf there arc 15.") in which divine sorvire is jicrfornied only once a week. AVIi.it hiis been the consequence? (Jn Sunday, flu- \'M\\ of hist month, tlic congregation in everv clinrch nnd cliiipcl used for divine worship, according fo flic fomis of (lie Estalilisliod Church, in thirty-four districts in flic diocese of LlandatI', were counted ; the pojinlation of these districts amount t<> no less than 17'^,l!i!', there is nliurch accominodatinn for 17,H0, and yet there was spare room in these clmrclies on that day for 9,301 ; .so that out ot'tliis vast population there were only 7,2'3!) persons who attended the senice of the Established Cluucli on the, day 1 have named. — lide Sir B. JlnTis Iz-ite,- to Ihc Anhbhhop of Cniitciliiiiy, as to its beneficial effects ; the people have no choice nor power in tlie selection or approval of men that have to take the highest position in the government of their Cliurch, n jr can they rid themselves of them, however obnoxious they may become in the dioceses over which they have the entire spiritual rule. There have been those who have sacrificed their principles, and have done violence to their consciences to obtain a see; there are those who encourage Popery in disguise. Why should not the laity have a voice in the selection of men to fill such im- portant ofliccs? (Tox pojjuli, vox Dei.) In the early ages of the Church it was so; and until the growing evil of bishops usurping a lordly power and authority, not only over the laity but over their own bretliren, the Church was pure and unspotted. When these abuses crept in, and the Church became eminent for her worldly possessions, then followed schism, then superstition, then idolatry. The intelligent reader will judge by the signs of the times what steps the Church of England has made towards such like evils by recent events. That an union of the Church and State is politic the present aspect of aflairs sufficiently shows ; that the Queen should he regarded as the supreme head of the Church can no longer be doubted to be wise and well considered: it is a guarantee to all Protestants that their religion shall be guarded by the highest personages in the realm, anJ that if their spiritual interests are assailed, the one possessing the greatest temporal power, and being herself one in the same cause, will watch for their security and guard them from molestation. Those who dissent from the Church of England, but whose faith assimilates so near as to declare Popery tiielr common enemy, must feel and know, that the same temporal power which protects the one shields and defends the other. Is not Popery a State Church? The necessity for Eng- land, then, having a State Church is obvious, for the very fact keeps the dominion of Popery from its threshold ; divide it from the State, and you lessen the power of the State over the common foe. What would be the condition of the Wesleyans, the Baptists, and the numerous other sects of England, if Popery should predominate here? Would they have the same liberty as now ? Would the Pope be as tolerant as his Cardinal sneers at us for having been? No. The spirit of toleration that our Government has shown has created an absolute necessity for the union of the Churcli and State. There are many Roman Catholics among our states- men ; should not, then, those who are appointed the heads of our religion have a voice (the voice of all Protestants) to watch over the temporal government, to ward off attacks that may be made, either directly or indirectly, against our faith? That there is a great and radical reform wanted in the Church the preceding remarks will testify; the bishops, instead of being spiritually minded are carnally minded; and it is clear they are more in dread of losing their fat livings from the Pope's aggression, than that the pure religion of the Church of England will sutler by it. We do not deny that the ministers of the Church should be entirely supported by the people; but we must protest against the amazing disparity in the emoluments of the clergy. There is no remedy for existing evils but for the people to choose their own pastors, in which case they will have men of ability and zeal, in the place of ignorance, idleness, and self- sufficiency. SrEECH OE SIR EDWARD SUGDEN AT THE SURREY COUNTY MEETING AT EPSOM. DECEMBER 17, 1850. Although I have passed a great portion of a long life in connexion with political affairs, it so happens that I never once before attended a county meeting. This, I say, is my first ap- pearance at a county meeting, although I have, of course, often had the honour and pleasure of addressing my fellow-countrymen in public assemblies when seeking their suffrages as a candidate for a seat in the House of Commons. It is no light matter which could induce me, at my advanced period of life, to attend a county meeting for the first time, and particularly in such inclement weather as the present. I have been no party to the preparation of this meeting — I have not acted in concert with any one — I have not been in communication with any man on the subject. I come here as a simple freeholder and county man ; and at the re- quest of the committee, which I did not anticipate, I now come forward to move the first resolution. It is desirable that a distinct understanding should prevail as to the grounds on which we complain, and justly complain, of the Papal aggression. It is not that any man here intends to war against his fellow-subjects of the Roman Catholic religion. We have no such intention. In 1829, being then a member of the House of Commons, I voted — with doubt and hesitation, I admit — for the Roman Catholic Relief Bill. I have never repented of that vote, and I am prepared to repeat it to-morrow, if occasion should call for it. I have amongst my friends Roman Cathohcs whom I highly esteem, and whose friendship I should be extremely sorry to lose. 1 would not willingly utter a word calculated to wound the consciences of ray Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. But 1 appear here on different and higher grounds. I come not to attack them, but to defend myself — to defend the supremacy of the Crown— the rights and liberties of our own bisliops and clergy — the rights and liberties of myself and of the people at large. Let it not be foreiotten that we are assembled not for the purpose of attack and aggres- sion on others, but simply to defend ourselves — simply to defend the rights we gained at the Reformation, and which we do not intend lightly to part with. Cardinal Wiseman said that the hostility which the people of England have displayed to the Papal bull originated at first in a feeling of impulse, although now it is attempted to be defended on grounds of reason. Doubtless the people, in the first instance, acted under an impulsive feeling. God has given to all animals an instinct which tells them when danger is near, and man, although of higher grade in the animal system, and endowed with reason, nevertheless possesses an instinctive ap- prehension of danger. It was this instinct which roused the English people to resist the Papal aggression. But what has happened since time has been afforded for calmly considering the question ? I have consulted no one — I have joined no society — I have entered into no compact with any human being on this subject. I have calmly considered the matter as an Englishman in the quietude of my own study, and the result is that my reason and judgment sanction the impulsive feeling of resistance by which the aggression was originally met. I declare that, when first I read the Pope's bull, and Cardinal Wiseman's letter, I felt as if a blow had been aimed at me personlaly. I could not reconcile myself to the the idea that a Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster had been suddenly brought in amongst us — not as necessary to the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, which I desire my fellow-subjects of that persuasion should freely enjoy, but for the purpose of elevating the Bishop of Rome to superiority over the Queen of this country. We can hardly understand the ground on which we are proceeding, unless we first reflect on what it is the Pope has done. Is the Pope's proceeding, or is it not, against the law ? and if it be, what are the modes by which we should seek to annul it? These are prac- tical questions. Cardinal Wiseman asks what are we alarmed at? — "What is all this fuss about?" says he ; "we always have had bishops in England, and we still have only bishops." I tell the Cardinal that though it may be true that there have always been Roman Catholic bishops in England, this is the first attempt which the Pope has made since the Reformation to appoint Bishops of England. Cardinal Wiseman next stated what the Pope had not done on two points, and which, happily, no one would dare to do, now that the voice of the people of this country has been declared as that of one man throughout the length and the breadth of the land. The voice of Englishmen is not confined to this country, but resounds throughout the world, and can make itself heard and feared even by the Bishop of Rome. Cardinal Wiseman in his second lecture, delivered last Sunday, com- plained of the criticism which had been bestowed on the phrase that " England was restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament," stating that it was intended to apply only to "Catholic England." "The phrase," says Dr. Wiseman, "is very pretty and poetical ; but does any one suppose we mean that all the Protestant dissenters are Catholics — does any suppose we are so mad as to believe that the Anglican bishops and clergj' are Catholics? The phrase is but a phrase, and what does it signify?" But when Cardinal Wiseman talks of Catholic England, I tell him he ought to speak of Protestant England with Roman Catholics in it, who are protected in the exercise of their religion, and in all civil rights. It is not Catholic England ; it °is, and shall be, Protestant England. By " Catholic" England Cardinal Wiseman means us to understand Roman Catholic England, and in that sense it is false to speak of this country as Catholic; for it is heart and soul Protestant England. I can conceive nothing more presumptuous than the pretensions advanced by the Pope. The Pontiff, who appears to be an amiable kind of person, having unfortunately thought proper to set about indoctrinating his subjects in a sort of sickly liberalism, ultimately became their slave, and escaped from his dangerous thraldom only by becoming a fugitive. Restored to his throne by foreign bayonets, he immediately interfered in the affairs of this country in a way ■which has created bitter dissensions between Protestants and Catholics. The Bishop of Rome, and all who have abetted him in this business, have incurred as dreadful a responsibility as ever attached to any set of men. Is it nothing to have, without occasion, roused the feelings of the whole people of England ? Thank Cod, however, there has been no outrage — no blood- shed, and that the people have not allowed themselves to be goaded into violence, not even of language, speaking generally against their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects by the conduct of the Bishop of Rome. From the bottom of my heart I can declare that this circumstance has given me the greatest pleasure. I object to the Bishop of Rome establishing in this country a dominion such as he exercised in it immediately before the Reformation. We re- pudiated the Pope in the plenitude of his power; we will not succumb to him now. By the Reformation we established the Protestant liberty we now enjoy ; and, let me remind you, that with religious liberty has grown the civil liberty of England. They have advanced hand in hand, and the consequence is, that while all the rest of l-'urope has been convulsed with revolutions England has stood erect, in quiet majesty, the glory and admiration of the world. It is this happy country which the Bishop of Rome has disturbed by the introduction of his edicts. The I'ojjo affects to treat England as if she had no hierarchy of her own — to dispose of the country as lie pleases. Jn spite of what Cardinal Wiseman says to the contrary in tiis last lecture, we know that we have a Church, and we mean to maintain it. Dr. Doy speaking in the same chapel in which Cardinal Wiseman lectured, said, " Time may end. the Churcli will never end. The time may come when there may be no Archbishop of Canter- bury, but tlie time will never come when there will not be an Archbishop of Westminster." It appears to me that is closely bordering on impiety, for the speaker affects to command not only the events of this world, but the will of the Deity. Setting that aside, however, JJr. Doyle's meaning was plainly this, that if we permitted the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, it would be ready to supply the place of our own hierarchy in the event of the enemies of the Protestant Church succeeding in subverting it. Cardinal Wiseman says, " After all, we have done nothing contrary to law." I am not at all satisfied on that head. The law on this point is certainly in a very anomalous state, and, I grieve to say, reflects no credit on the Legislature ; but, nevertheless, I am of opinion that the law has been infringed by the Hishop of Rome and Cardinal Wiseman. A legal argument would be quite misplaced here, but Englishmen ought to know what it is they are entitled to complain of. Queen Elizabeth found all the English sees filled with Roman Catholic bishops, and being determined to give effect 1o the Reformation, her Parliament passed many acts for that purpose. Those acts were most grinding on the lioman Catholics, and, indeed, unendurable ; and no man who comprehends the spirit of our constitution but must be delighted that they have been swept from the statute-book. The first Parliament of Elizabeth passed a law to declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate. State, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm. 'I'hat was the law then, and that is the law now. But the other day, in the 9th and 10th of our present Queen — not following the example of the Relief Act — an Act of Parliament was passed which repealed certain provisions of this statute. By one part of the act of Elizabeth it was provided that whoever affirmed or acted upon the notion that any foreign prince, prelate, or potentate had any power, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm, was subject to the most heavy punishments. The third of these was actually high treason, with the penalty of death and the loss and forfeiture of lands and goods. Now, no man could wish that to remain ; it was a punishment that no man would inllict at this time of day, and it was therefore repealed by the Dth and 10th of Victoria ; but the act which repealed this declares that, though the penalties and punishment are repealed, it shall still not be lawful for any person to affirm or maintain that any foreign person, prince, prelate, or potentate hath, or ought to have jiu'isdiction, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within the realm. Then, I assert here, and I am prepared to do so everywhere, that by the law as it stands the Bishop of Rome and his archbishhops and cardinals have no right to assert or maintain that they have any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction in this realm. There was another act passed in the 13th year of Elizabeth to prevent bulls, letters, or instruments to be received from Rome for any cause whatever; no man was to put in use any bull, letters, or instrument from the Bishop of Rome in any case whatever, and if he did, not only he, but those who abetted him, were to be held guilty of high treason, and suffer death. Now, everybody knows that such a punishment could not be inflicted in these days, and therefore the penalty was swept away ; but the act that swept away the penalty declared that the repeal should not go beyond the penalties and punishments, and that it was still unlawful for any man in this land to put in use any bull, writing, or instrument of the Bishop of Rome. I am aware a quibble might be raised on the construction of these acts, as to whether such persons could be pun- ished or not; but I do not care much about that. The law is clear that no one is permitted to do such things. It is equally clear that, by the repeal of the act so far, it was intended to enable the Roman Catholic to put himself in communication, as he was already in communion, with the See of Rome, for it was said there was no use in granting to the Roman Catholics the free exercise of their religion if they could not communicate with the head of their Church. Nothing could be more reasonable, and, therefore, nothing that was necessary to enable them to communicate with the head of their religion could be objected to ; that being the object of the repeal. But that repeal does at the same time enact that nothing in the act shall autho- rise any one to introduce or publish any instrument from the Bishop of Rome. That, there- fore, is the law now. Now I say that law has been infringed ; and though those piins and those punishments are no longer operative that were inflicted by the statutes of E'izabeth, yet there are punishments that the law will inflict on those who disregard the injunc- tions of the Legislature. The great measure for the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, called, as you all know, the Relief Act, was passed in 1829, and it took this shape : — That act did not repeal the various Acts of Parliament which had been from the time of the Reformation passed against the Roman Catholics, but it susjiended them, and it is said that if the Roman Catholic will take the oaths introduced by this Act of Parliament he shall enjoy all our civil rights, and all our religious liberties. Now there are very few of the Roman Catholics who take that oath, because, unless they are entering upon some otficc which they otherwise cannot occupy, or going into the House of Lords or Commons, they are not called upon to take it. But there is no Roman Catholic who is enjoying all his civil and religious liberties in this country who is not morally bound by that oath, as his rights are guaranteed to him on the ground of his taking the oath, and the only reason why he enjoys so many benefits without taking the oath is, that we have what is called "an Annual Indemnity Act," and that those who have not taken the oaths enjoined by the law are every year relieved from the penalties 8 they have themselves sanctioned for not obeying the law. I consider, therefore, that every Roman Catholic gentleman is bound by the provisions of the Relief Act, though not taking the oath, enjoying, as he does, all the benefits which that act confers. That oatli requires him to swear that the Bishop of Rome has nO temporal or civil power in this realm. It leaves out the words "that the Bishop of Rome and no other prelate, has any spiritual orj ecclesiastical authority in the realm ;" that was to relieve his conscience ; and here I observe what Roman Catholics have lost sight of, that, remaining as we do a Protestant country, we lake the oath that no person, princes, prelate, or potentate, has any jurisdiction, civil or ecclesiastical, within the kingdom. Then as to the other obligations the Roman Catholics enter into. He swears that he will, to the utmost of his power, defend the present establishment of property within this realm. He swears not to subvert the present Church establishment in this country; and, lastly, he swears that he will not exercise any rigiits he lias, or may obtain, towards weakening or endangering the Protestant religion or Government in this country. Then I ask you whether the Bishop of Rome, or rather those who abet him in this country — for the Bishop of Rome himself is, of course, not bound by such an oath — I ask whether tliey have acted up merely to the oath they have taken ? Is the recent act of the Bishop of Rome no attempt to subvert the Church of this country, and to undermine the Protestant Government? The Bishop of Rome tells us plainly that his object is to establish a Roman Catholic hierarchy, and that Roman Catholic hierarchy, as Dr. Doyle says, is to flourish for ever. The Archbishopric of Westminster, he says, will cease never : that of Canterbury may cease in a day. If that is not endeavouring to subvert a Church establishment, I should like to know what is. If you had a water company in this town that was supplying through tlieir pipes water to the inhabi- tants, and if some rival company proceeded to lay down pipes alongside and to erect steam- engines, would you not naturally think that the object of this now company was to take the trade from the other, if by any means they could, and supply tlie inhabitants with water ? and, if they had no power, you would certainly think they had no rit^ht to subvert the old company, or to interfere with their concerns. The object of the Bishop of Rome is to esta- blish, by slow degrees it may be, the dominion we shook olf at the Reformation.'and which we will never again submit to. Gentlemen, I will not longer detain you. Your own feelings will supply what I have omitted. I had no intention whatever of taking any part in the proceedings, and it was not till I was pressed that I consented to put myself forward on this occasion. I have to apologise for having expressed myself so imperfectly ; l)ut 1 hope no man here or elsewhere will misunderstand the grounds on which I have come forward. My object is not to attack my fellow-subjects, the Roman Catholics. My acts, in this respect, have always kept pace with my words. I have held an office in which I was surrounded by Roman Catholics, and there I was put to the test on tl.is point. I can say confidently, however, I never neglected the interests of a single Roman Catholic whom I found entitled to consideration because he was such. I considered only talent, character, and good conduct, and his religion never entered into my mind or in- fluenced me in any way whatever. I therefore repel with scorn the argument of Cardinal Wiseman, that those who have got up these meetings have done it to gull the people with fanaticism. I say it is untrue. The people have not been gulled at all, nor driven into fanati- cism. I disown every approach to fanaticism; but I feel deeply the indignation that every English Protestant ought to feel, and that every English Roman Catholic, too, ought to feel, for he has a common interest with us all in enjoying the blessings of the constitution, and therefore it is his interest to oppose the agr'-essions of the Pope. May we ever remain, as we now are, a Protestant country, governed by a Queen whom we love, and love not merely be- cause she is our Queen, not merely because loyalty is inherent within us, but because, under a constitutional monarchy, we enjoy blessings unknown in any other part of the world. I say, let us enjoy these blessings, and, without interfering with the religion of any man, let us as Protestants support and maintain our Protestant Church and faith even to the death. — The right hon. gentleman then moved the following resolution : — "That this meeting, earnestly devoted to that pure and apostolic faith which our forefathers successfully vindicated at the Reformation, have observed with the deepest concern and indig- nation the increasing pretensions and encroachments of the Romish See within this kingdom — pretensions which have recently resulted in an unwarrantable aggression on the Queen's undoubted prerogative by the Bishop of Rome, who has by his bull or letter of the 2'.)th of September last arrogantly assumed the right of parcelling out the realm into dioceses, confer- rnig territorial jurisdiction, with titles of dignity founded thereon, and claiming thercb a dominion over the consciences of all tlic baptized subjects of her Majesty" DR. WISEMAN AND DR. CUMMING. TO MR. BOWYER. Sir, — I can verj' readily comprehend your zeal for Dr. Wiseman. Recent converts are in- variably overflowing with it. I can also easily forgive your transparent anxiety to shelter the new hierarchy and its head by trying to turn the whole matter into a dispute about courtesy, and an inquiry whether, in my addresses at the Hanover Rooms, I had spoken undir a dsi\) sense of what is due to a " Prince of the Church." Beyond these point* I can discover nothing in your letter wliich I have not amply disposed of. What Mr. Bowyer thinks of Dr. Cunmiii.', or what Dr. Gumming thinks of Mr. Bowyer, is a suliject the public care very little abo Jt, ai i therefore I leave your verbal criticisms on sucli a topic without note or comment. Toward Dr. Wiseman, as a scholar and a man of high scientific attainments, I cherish tr;j2 respect, and in my lecture at the Hanover Rooms I rendered him every justice in tMs character. But my speech was not the dissection of a scholar or of a gentleman, as sucii, but of a "Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster," wlio has come to " govern the counties of Ess:.^x and Middlesex ;" and wiio, to prepare his subjects — all the baptised — for his reception, has edited the life and commended as the rctlection of that of his Church, and a Joriiuri of his own, the moral theology of Liguori. In the morals of this saint — morals a[)plauded and commended by our new archiepiscopal ruler — such sentiments as these occur : — " Notwithstanding, indeed, although it is not lawful to lie, or to feign v^hat is not, however it is lawful to dissemble what is, or to cover the truth with words or other ambiguous and doubtful signs for a just cause, and when there is not a necessity of confessing." Again — " These things being established, it is a certain and a common opinion among all divines that for a just cause it is lawful to use c(iuivocation in the propounded modes, and to con!i:ni it (equivocation) with an oath." And again — " When you are not asked concerning the faith, not only is it lawful, but often more con- ducive to the glory of God and the utility of your neighbour, to cover the faitii than to profess it; for example, if concealed among heretics, you may accomplish a greater amount of good — or, if from the confession of the faith more of evil will follow — for example, great trouble, death, the hostility of a tyrant, the peril of defection, if you should be tortured — whence it is often rash to offer oneself willingly." After reading Dr. Vs'iseman's approbation of these and worse sentiments, you will not be surprised if I hesitate in a great public matter to accept anything as evidence except authorised and accredited documents. I call your attention, and tiiac of Dr. Wiseman, whose zealojs solicitor you are, to the following plain facts :-— 1. I alleged tiiat every archbishop of your Church must take an oath, in which the per- secuting clause occurs, before he receives the pallium. This is declared in the Pontijica'.e Romaaain, a document Dr. Wiseman has, and must have ; prefixed to v.hich are the solemn bulls or rescripts of Urban VIII., Clement Vlll., and Benedict XIV., forbidding any one to add to, or substract from, or in any other way alter this document. 2. 1 drew the very natural inference in these words, " I presume that Dr. Wiseman look the oath in that document, as required by his Church of all recipients of the jxilliain." 3. I am first told, in answer to this, that in virtue of a rescript of Pius VII., bishops in places under the British CroNvn are excused taking one particular clause in the oath at their consv^'- cration, and that I shall find the copy of the oath "perhaps generally used in the consecration of bishops in England " in the episcopal residence. Golden-square. 4. My reply to this is what 1 have insisted on — that the oath I presumed Dr. Wiseman lo have taken, as the Pontifical requires, was the oath on receiving the pallium, which robe he declares he has received, and not the oath on his being consecrated bishop. I examined his own Poniijicnl. I find the persecuting clause in the bishop's oath with an ink line drawn alonj; it; but I find the oath for an archbishop on receiving the pn/liuin with the jjersecuting clause untouched — clear, bold, distinct. Naturally enough, I inferred there is a confirmation of the truth of my presumption in the Cardinal's own Pontifical. j. Another and additional answer is sent in order to meet every possible contingency, viz., that Dr. Wiseman did not take any oath on receiving the pallium; an announcement far more extraordinary than if the Bishop of London were to state that he ordained without using the service in the Prayer-book appointed for that purpose, because, in Dr. Wiseman's case, it is the present infallible Pope Pius IX. flying in the face of three previous infallibilities — Urban VIII., Clement VIII., and Benedict XIV. ; and so overriding rubrics, Pontifivales, bulls, and cfei-emotiialci', and maintaining the unity of his Church by standing alone. C. But naturally alarmed at the possibility of such an inference, Mr, Searle adds, " Cardinals being exempt." Before I communicate some informatio.i on this subject, I request Dr. Wiseman or yourself to inform me :— 10 1. What was or is the ground of exemption in a Cardinal's case? ' ' 2. Where, or in what authentic document, a Cardinal (who may be a layman) is declared exempt from taking the oaths prescribed on being made a bishop, archbishop, or patriarch ? 3. Lastly, 1 require a distinct answer to this, the last question I feel it necessary to put at present — viz., did Dr. Wiseman before, at, or after, receiving the cardinalitial hat take an oath ? I wait till I receive direct answers to these three questions, and, for special reasons, em- phatically to the last, before 1 trouble the Times or yourself again. I am, Sir, your faithful Servant, JOHN CUMMING. THE PAPAL RESCRIPT. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. Sir,— A copy of a very important document has just been placed in my hands, which should be made known to the public. It is the rescript of the Propaganda, written to the Irish bishops by authority and command of the Pope,* on the 23rd June, 1791 : — The instrument commences as follows : — " We perceive from your late letter the great uneasiness you labour under since the pub- lication of a pamphlet, entitled 'The Present State of the Church of Ireland,' from which our detractors have taken occasion to renew the old calumny against the Catholic religion with increased acrimony, namely, that this religion is by no means compatible with the safety of kings and republics ; because, as they say, the Roman Pontiff being the father and master of all Catholics, and invested with such great authority that he can free the subjects of other kingdoms from their fidelity and oaths of allegiance to kings and princes, he has it in his power, they contend, to cause disturbances and injure the public tranquillity of kingdoms with ease. We wonder that you should be uneasy at these complaints, especially after your most excellent brother and apostolical fellow-labourer, the Archbishop of Cashel [James Butler, D.D.], and other strenuous defenders of the Holy See, had evidently refuted and dissipated {refutarint ■plane ac d'duerini) these slanderous reproaches in their celebrated writings." After some further observations the rescript lays down the following important pro- positions : — " Nunquam sedes Romana docuit lieterodoxis lidem non esse servandam ; violari posse juramentum regibus a Catholic^, communione disjunctis prestitum ; Pontifici Romano licere temporalia eorum jura ac dominia invaderc. Horrendum vero, ac detestabile facinus etiam apud nos est si quis unquam, atque etiam religionis pretextu, in regum ac principum vitam audeat quidpiam aut molitnr. — The Holy See never taught that faith was not to be kept with the heterodox; that an oath to kings separated from the Catholic communion can be violated ; that it is lawful for the Bisliop of Rome to invade their temporal rights and dominions. We also consider any attempt or design against the life of kings and princes, even under the pretext of religion, to be a horrible and detestable crime." Here we have a perfect disclaimer and condemnation by the Holy See of the supposed Papal authority to encroach on the powers of the civil magistrate, and of all other things now publicly imputed to our Church. The rescript then jjroceeds to explain as follows the words, Ilereticos pro posse persequar ft impngnaho, in the oath taken by bishops, and to authorise the omission of those words. " His Holiness Pius VI., has not, however, disregarded your requests ; and therefore, in order effectually to remove every occasion of cavil and calumny, which, as you write, some borrow from the words in the form of the oath of obedience to the Apostolic See that bishops are required to take at their consecration — I will prosecute and oppose heretics, &c., to the utmost of my power — whicli words are maliciously interpreted as tlie signal of war against heretics, authorising persecution and assault against them as enemies; whereas the pursuit and opposition to heretics wliich bishops undertake are to be understood as referring to their solicitude ami ellbrts in convincing heretics of their error, and procuring their reconciliation with the Cathi)lic C'hurch — his Holiness has graciously condescended to substitute in jdaco of the ancient form of oath that one^which was publicly repeated by the Archbishop of Mohilou." The rescript then enlarges on the duty of obedience to the civil power inculcated by the Catholic religion, and appeals to the fact that, when several provinces in North * A Pastoral Inslniction, &c., by J. T. Troy, D.D., &c., p. 43. DubUn, 1793. 11 America, inhabited clilefly by Protestants, renounced their allegiance to the British Crown, that of Canada, filled with inninnerable Catholics, thonjrh not forgetful of the old French Government, remained faithful. Added to the rescript is the form of oath whieh has been already published, and which is taken by all Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops in the British empire. Tiie above extract contains the declaration of the imponent himself, explaining the meaning of the words perscquar ct impugnaho. Of course the oath is taken according to the meaning of the imponent, who has solemnly declared that the words perseqiiar and impuffnabo do not signify, and are not to be taken as signifying — I will persecute and wage war with. Even if it were not absurd to suppose that any man would profess to "persecute" (a word always used in an unfavourable sense), this declaratory canonical enactment must set the question at rest. I do not, indeed, deny that in former times prelates of the Roman Cimrch have persecuted ; but I say that no Roman Catholic bishop engages to persecute heretics, and that persecution is no doctrine or principle of our Church. Persecution is inoulcated in some of the works of the Canonists. But are they alone liable to this reproach? Look at the statutes against nonconformity and recusancy. Priests have suffered deatii under the penal code, with no offence charged in the indictment, except the performance of divine worship. And Lord Mansfield, within memory of man, defeated a pro- secution of that description by cross-examining the chief witness, who could not prove that he saw the prisoner celebrate mass. It is true that the penal statutes were temporal laws ; but they were passed witii the full concurrence of the Established Church represented in Parliament. The Scottish Kirk is not more blameless. The national covenant and confession of faith declares that their faith is the only true Christian faith pleasing to God, and that tliey abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine, but chiefly all kind of [)apistry in general and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the word of God and the Kirk of Scotland. And the Confession approves and recites divers statutes agreeable to that decla- ration, as : — " That Papistry and superstition may be utterly suppressed, according to the intention of the Acts of Parliament repeated in the 5th Act of Parliament, 20th King James VI., and to that end they ordain that all Papists and priests be punished with manifold civil and ecclesiastical pains, as adversaries of God's true religion, preached and by law established within this realm — Act 24, Pari. 11, King James VI. — as common enemies to all Christian government . . . as idolaters— Act 104, Pari 7, King James IV. . . ." &c. &c. And Article 2 of the " Solemn League and Covenant" is as follows : — "No. 2. . . . That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is. Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancel- lors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues, and that the Lord may be one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms." The words "endeavour the extirpation," "without respect of persons," are not to be mis- taken ; and the concluding sentence, " that the Lord may be one and his word one in the three kingdoms," seems sufficiently "aggressive." Yet I find this instrument in a book printed " by authority," by the Queen's printer, in 1845, entitled " The Confession of Faith . . . together with the sum of saving knowledge . . . Covenants, national and solemn league . , ." &c. I do not cite these authorities by way of what is vulgarly called a tu quoquF, but to show how unjust it is to affix the stigma of present intolerance and persecution to a Church or sect, because their predecessors persecuted, or because a persecuting spirit is found in some of their books which belong to bygone history. There were times when zealots, whatever their creed might be, persecuted those to whom they were opposed, whenever they had the power of doing so. Elizabeth burnt Papists, as Mary burnt Protestants. As the Council of Constance burnt Huss, so Calvin burnt Servetus. This was a mode of refutation commonly used in those days, when men " Proved their doctrnie ortbodox By apostolic blows aud kuocks." But in our present state of civilisation, not only religious toleration but religious liberty are universally admitted as established principles of public law ; and whatever the decrees of Gratian and some of the old (/anonists may say, they are not the voice of the Church, and I protest against their opinions or the obsolete laws which they cite being made the test of the spirit which now regulates the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. I remain, sir, your obedient servant. The Temple, Dec. 17* GEORGE BOWYER, 12 THE BISHOP OF HEREFORD AND THE DEAN AND CHAPTER. The Dean and Chapter of Hereford had a meeting, at whicli they voted an address to the Bishop of the diocese, on " the recent aggression of the bishop of Rome upon the civil and religious constitution of these, realms." The following is the chief paragraph in the address voted to his lordship : — "As by the Papal bull lately promulgated — a bull unrivalled in audacity and arrogance since the days of Queen Elizabeth — the just prerogative of the Crown is invaded, the authority of the Queen superseded, and the spirit, if not the letter, of the law violated, so with most un- christian intolerance is the very existence of our Church virtually denied ; her ministry, ordi- nances, and sacraments held as things that are not ; and her whole congregation of faithful men excluded from the pale of Christianity " The address having been forwarded to the Bishop, his lordship returned the following reply, dated from the Palace at Hereford : — " To the Very Rev. the Dean and the Rev. the Canons oj the Cathedral Church of Hereford. " Rev. and dear Brethren, — The expression of your earnest and deep indignation at the recent scandalous outrage of the Papal power on the civil and religious constitution of these realms gives me very great assurance and comfort. " You, my brethren, as the chief members of the Cathedral Church, are, by your position, associated vv'ith me as fellow-councillors in the Lord ; and to you also the rest of the clergy throughout the diocese naturally look for counsel and guidance in any emergency of the Church. " I cannot, therefore, but welcome and heartily thank you for the zeal with which you have come forward on the present momentous occasion, and encouraged your brethren, and myself in particular, to meet the struggle which is now forced on us with the like Christian deter- mination. We might, indeed, in tlie strength of that Divine grace which has been manifestly vouchsafed to our Church, and by which it has been set up as a city on a hill to Christendom, laugh to scorn this presumptuous aggression of an anti-Christian power as utterly impotent for the accomplishment of its evil designs. But v;e know the arts of that subtle power. History has told us how insidiously it advances — with what stealtiiy steps it works its way to its own selfish aggrandisement ; and therefore that assumption of titles and partitioning of our country into new dioceses, as of a land conquered from heresy and infidelity, set forth in the Papal document, frivolous and contemptible as it may seem, has, we cannot doubt, a real design of usurpation lurking under it, and of ultimate persecution of the faith wherein we stand. And the occasion demands, accordingly, the most determined resistance from us as Christians, as loyal subjects of our gracious Queen, and as devoted sons of our Church. " Continue then, my brethren, to hold that firm and imtiinching attitude of resistance in which you have stood up, and in which, indeed, the whole country is now standing up as one man against the assault. Approach the throne and the Houses of Parliament with petitions against this insidious attempt of the Papacy, praying that measures may be adopted without delay by which the insolence of the adversary may be repressed, and his devices against our Constitution in Church and State, and, above all, against our holy faith, made to recoil on himself to his own utter confusion. On your own individual exertions in your respective spheres of duty for the inculcation of gospel truth in itself, as well as in its opposition to the manil'old forms of error, and to those especially (as the times demand) of the great apostacy of Papal Rome — on tliese exertions, and on your prayers (the greatest security, after all) continually ofl'ercd up to the Divine Head of the Church, I am sure I may confidently reckon. " 1 remain, rev. and dear brethren, "Your afi'ectionate brother in Christ, " R. D. HEREFORD." THE BISHOP OF CARLISLE. The Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Carlisle returned the following answer to the address of the clergy of the diocese, at the nieeting held at Penrith un the 21st Dec. : — " Rose Castle, Xov. '2'u " IMy dear Mr. Chancellor and Brethren, — 1 have received, with great satisfaction, the address that you have forwarded to me, and I feci that, after so long a residence among and personal intercourse with you it is hardly needful that I should declare my entire concurrence in your declarations against the assumption of authority by tl.c Bishop of Rome in the appointment of ecclesiastics, nominated by himself, to several dioceses in this kingdom, claimintj s[iiritual juris- diction over all the members of the Church of Christ therein ; tl'.o bull of the Bishop of Rome denying the existence of the Church of Kn(;lan(l as a branch of the universal Church of Christ, invading the prerogative of the Crown, and violating tlie jirinciplcs of the constitution. " Soon after the repeal of the laws affecting Roman Catholics in this country, I stated to you my conviction, that that concession would neither diminish their activity nor weaken their en- deavours to enlarge the boundaries of their Church, nor incline them to neglect any opportunity to depreciate the character and attack the i)rinciplcs of the Established Church of this country. How fully have the late proceedings of the Church of Rome justified that statement ! I did not call your attention to the matter, however, to excite hostility, but to urge your diligence and industry, that, under the blessing of the Almij^hty, our pure and reformed religion might con- tinue established in the affections of those committed to our charge. The reformers of our Church were no uninformed enthusiasts, acted upon by fervid imaginations or unchastened zeal ; they were sober-minded, grave, inquiring, cautious, discreet. They did not condemn for condemnation's sake, but because scriptural truth required it. Satisfied that the doctrine of the Reformation was the doctrine of the Gospel, they contended and died for it. In the height of their mortal agony they preserved their faith imshaken, they maintained their charity un- spotted, they looked to the honour of God and the welfare of His Church. " I will not contrast the spirit of Dr. Wiseman's observations with this conduct. The corruptions, the superstitions, the usurpations of the Churcli of Rome remain tlie same. The epithet, ' Semper eadem,' which she has ever claimed, is still her peculiar cliaractcr- istic as ever. We have Dr. Ullathorne's declaration that ' What has been done no power on earth can undo.' 'We sincerely and warmly congratulate yon,' is the address of another Iloman Catholic ecclesiastic at Beverley, ' on the restoration to England of her long lost and anxiously desired hierarchy.' Can I but with pleasure, under such circumstances, receive the assurance of the clergy of this diocese of their nusliakcu attachment to the Church of England as settled at the Kcformation, of their indignation at the claims of the Church of Rome to the entire spiritual jurisdiction within these realms, and their determination to discountenance, as they have hitherto done (and most thankfully do I take this opportunity of bearing my testimony to, and full approbation ot that conduct), all practices which may tend to undermine the Protestant faith, and familiarise the minds of their flocks with the superstitious observances of the Cluirch of Rome ? "You ask, brethren, my counsel and advice in the present crisis. You liave pro- tested, in your address to her Majesty, against the aggression of the Church of Rome. It may be necessary to petition the Houses of Parliament for that protection to our national Cluirch which was intended, but may not have been efTectually carrieil out, by the act of (ieorge lY., c. 7, commonly called the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act — protection, strongly marked by that portion of the oath to be administered to Roman Catholics upon their admission to certain offices and privileges, ' I do solemnly swear that I Avill never exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant Government of the United Kingdom.' I would not encourage the spirit of controversy in your sermons, as more apt to inflame men's passions than to inform their minds : still, it is your bounden duty to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contraiy to God's word ; to be careful that no evil suggestions may unsettle the minds of your parishioners. Anxiously watcli over the religious education of the poorer children of your parishes. Teach them to be frequent and diligent in studying the Holy Scriptures, for in them only, in the words of one of our old divines, ' have we the measure of all God's wisdom and knowledge in the redemjition of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, discovered to mankind. Here only have we the authentic declarations of God's mercy to us, and the conditions upon which we are to expect salvation from them. Here it is whence we are to fetch both the matter of our faith and our evidence for the truth of it ; and, judge now whether, these things considered, the Bible be not a book to be studied by all sorts of persons.' "By your examples, prove yourselves worthy ministers of the gospel of Christ ; and, with prayer to the Almighty Disposer of Events, that He will keep His Church and household continually in His true religion, that we, who do lean only upon the hope of His heavenly grace, may evermore be defended by His mighty power, through Jesus Christ our Lord, we may humbly trust that the light of His countenance will not be withdrawn from us, nor the wiles of the adversary be perm.itted to prevail against us. " I am, my dear Chancellor and brethren, " Your affectionate friend and brother, " H. CARLISLE." 14 MR. MOLYNEIJX TAYLOR. Mr. Molyneux Taylor has addressed the following to the editor of the Morning HcraM . — "Sir, — My attention has recently been directed to a leading article published in your paper of the 23rd ult., respecting the will of my late father, Mr. Taylor, of Weybridge, which had previously, it appears, been made the subject of a very unfounded personal charge against Cardinal Wiseman. Had I seen that article earlier I should have felt myself bound to notice it, and in order to prevent any permanent misconception it seems still incumbent on me to address you a few words of explanation. " It is strictly correct, as stated by Cardinal Wiseman, that he was wholly unacquainted with my father in his lifetime, and also that my father's death took place before the Cardinal came to London, or was connected with the Catholic Church of this district. It is also cor- rect that he was not personally named in the will, and it is further due to him to state, that from all I know, or have heard of him, I believe him to be far too honest and high-minded to be concerned directly or indirectly in such a transaction. " With respect to what Cardinal Wiseman, in his letter, terms my " supposed disinheritance," I must add that the substance of the will is correctly stated in your article. The bulk of my father's property is left to his children for their lives only, and upon their decease the inheri- tance is given to the use of the late Dr. Griffiths, if living, and if not, to the then vicar apos- tolic of the London district for the time being. The will contains no power enabling me to make any provision whether in favour of a wife or children as to the property so devised ; but, on the contrary, my life estate is coupled with very stringent provisions against any attempt at incumbrance or alienation. Such a will appears to me to create, not a supposed, but a real and eflfectual disinheritance, and such I have always felt it to be. I should add, that the will was executed by a most kind and affectionate parent, after he had attained the age of 80 and upwards, and when his mind was afiected by severe illness, and in immediate contemplation of that great change, the ap- proach of which renders the strongest and best-prepared wholly unable to resist any influences which may be brought to assume the sanction of religion. I should further add, that about four years before, my father had executed a will in which his whole property had been left for the benefit of his children. As the heir-at-law, and the person most affected by this well-intentioned, but most unjust and mistaken act, I was advised to contest the will, and obtain, through the Court of Chancery, a full disclosure of the circumstances under which it was made; but I forbore from doing so, because I was unwilling to expose my family to the vexations and difficulties of a Chancery suit ; and I felt that no earthly consideration could induce me to expose those I had loved and cherished from my earliest infancy, and who had been induced to acquiesce in the will, to the ordeal of Chancery and legal interrogatories in order to compel painful and unwilling disclosures relative to matters which they would consider to be sacred as the wishes of a dying parent. I believe that, by the laws of most Catholic countries, such a will would be ipso facto void. Whether it is so by the law of England, independent of any special disclosures or secret trusts, is a question whicli I reserve to myself the full liberty of considering, if necessary, at any future time. 1 am bound in candour to state this, or otherwise the effect of the correspondence published in your paper would be to produce the impression of complete acquiescence upon my part in an act, though originating in the best of motives on the part of the testator, 1 must always feel to be a great injustice, and calculated to throw a shade of sorrow over my path through life. I am, sir, your obedient, humble servant, J. MOLYNLUX TAYLOR. Fumival' s-inv y Holbarn, Dec. 2, 1850. A FEW MORE WORDS TO ENGLISHMEN OF ALL PERSUASIONS. Fellow-countrymen, — What a man the Karl of Winchilsca and Nottingham is ! Terhaps in the whole peerage a more absurd specimen of mankind could not be found. When he at- tempts to say anything, he is always noisy, always boasting, always predicting evil, and never acknowledging good. Now it is the Corn-laws ; now it is Popery. All England, his lordship says, go with him ; and yet the aged peer almost remains in a ridiculous minority of one. Poor old gentleman I . Let us consider, my fellow-countrymen, the effect of Lord Winchilsca's mode of operation 13 if Prrmier (which calamity for Old England may He avert) ; uuiversal war, another eight or nine millions of taxes showered upon a starving people, and for what? A few rectors tremble for their tithes, and a few bishops are afraid ihey may have to drjivr the Church they belong to! Englishmen ! Fellow-countrymen, what nonsense is all this? As I before told you ; if you do not want to become Catholics, no power on earth can make you. If you are journeying towards Rome, not even Dr. Cumming's vulgarity can stop you. ;_It would be as well, however, if Cardinal Wiseman will call upon the Lord of Winchilsea to become " a Papist," for that nobleman pledges himself to become one " if Popery is founded on the Bible," and that it is, my friends (however corrupt it may have grown 1 say not), this fact proves : that nothing founded on a less solid structure could have survived the attack of the svcalthy, the revilings of the unlettered, and the penal laws of England. I want to say a few words to you all upon the law of the case. The " insult" offered by the Bishop or Pope of Rome to our beloved Queen. In the first place, where is the insult? Had Pio Nono addressed the bull (even pro forma) to our gracious Queen, commanding her to admit his bishops, an insult would, of course, be fixed; but when the bull is addressed to the Catholics of England, what supremacy does it assert over that portion of England which is Protestant? All Englishmen have a right to free spiritual ruling; that is, they have a perfect right to yield their spiritual allegiance wherever and to whomsoever they please. Catholics are not exempt from taxes because they are Catholics, or from church-rates, or tithes. They are drawn as ■•urors, and were special constables on the 1 0th of April ; and if the head of their Church resides at Rome, that head has a right (and by Enirlish law where is the illegality ?) of addressing such directions from time to time to his spiritual subjects in England as he may choose. But the assumption of the titles — the cities of Westminster, Nottingham, and Northampton — that is the vexing question. Well, upon that. How can any man less than a bishop, less M)usive than Dr. Croly, and less inclined to infidelity than the Rev. Mr. Gregg, discern the lifi'erence between an insult offered by the Bishop of Westminster which is not offered by the i^ishop of Melopotamus? No one attempts to prove that ; no one shows the difference be- tween them. The Westminster bishop gets no more from England than did him of Melopota- mus. Yet one is an insult and not the other. What stuff ! Oh, but, ciy the Press, suppose the Austrian Emperor created a Duke of Chester, or Earl of London, what then ? Well, what then ? If the gentleman remained at Vienna, no one would know it, and it would be na more insult than a monkey-faced black woman baptising her ugly infant " Victoria." And over here the Austrian Duke of Chester would not want to come. There is no analogy between the two cases. The man who attempts to argue upon them is as absurd as the Earl of Win- chilsea and Nottingham. In spite of the exultations of the morning press, I am glad, my generous countrymen, you have not in this clerical riot taken such a decided part ; I am glad for two reasons :— -the first is, Is the Church of England the Church of Christ? the second, What have its clergy done for you that you should fight their battles, that you should commit anyhow an act of injustice, not justified to your God, to please men who look upon you, to a great extent, only as so many ratepayers, ministers to their wants and fancies. To the first question, I say, as I said before, seek the truth. Our Saviour converted the Jews. Be ye converted, if ye are convinced ; remain Protestants, if ye are satisfied ; but by Protestants I do not mean the Established Church, although that is the treasury of the Protest- ing body. 1 fear me there is too much purple and fine linen there to please the Creator — too little caring after the salvation of the soul, only heeding the comfort of the body. Before, then, fellow-countrymen, you seek to cry down Catholicism, search for yourselves, and ascertain if Popery is false, or whether that which is said to be the spawn of the Evil One may not reall y be the almost only antagonist the Evil One hath. And, now, what has the Church done for you ? Does it perform the slightest act without a fee? In addition to its power of taxation, to which you must either surrender your purse or your bed, I grant you the clergy are in many cases a "jolly set of fellows ;" but can you imagine St. Paul riding after a poor fox through a corn-field? or do you think St. James went shooting over any man's land, refusing "to that man the right of a shot ? Keep quiet, then, Englishmen ! What has been done for you ? Besides, bear this in mind, this question has not been agitated as one of privilege, but one of religion. The cry is against Catholics, when there are many Catholics opposed to the measure, not because of the want of right, but from the simple fact that they are anxious to keep the peace, and live in harmony with all men. I know some of you think the Catholics have no right to their diocesan, because the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Beaumont say they are opposed to it. W'hy, my friends, the one is Master of the Horse, and the other hopes to be Governor of Malta, and that is the head and front of their letters, missives not of their minds but of their places. Those two noblemen represent (or misrepre- sent) themselves, and no one else. I do not wish to ask you to become Catholics ; I ask you only to keep quiet. Be just, if you will not be (what I fondly believe my countrymen to be) generous. Catholics are not allowed to speak from platforms, or to move amendments to resolutions. Do not, men of England '. gag their mouths, and then " bully" them (I must crave pardon for indulging in this clerical word) for their faith. Hear them, or be silent yourselves ; lair play is an English- 16 man's birthright. Give it to the Romanist, lest you have to retract vour words, IHcc the Kcv. Mr. M'Neile. I am not writing up or writing down a Church, I am onl)' crying " Justice !" Corruption there may be in the Church of Rome as well as in the English Establishment, or the Wcs- Icyan government. Shut your eyes to this cry of " corruption !" — close your ears to the shouts of " unholy priests !" It is no denial of God's Church Ijccause Borgia was a Pope, for there was once an Apostle who was called Judas; but, in (airplay, remember that, while Rome may be twitted with her Borgias and her Gothards, the English Church may also be noted for her connexion with the Bishop of Clogher. Purity in a Church does not mean purity in her followers. If it did, what Church is pure? Men of England ! be you, then, quiet. AN ENGLISHMAN. CONTENTS. THE "ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION,'- EiRST Series.— The Apostolic Letter of Pope Pins IX. ; ^Cardinal Wiseman's rastorahthe two "\'ew Batch of from Benjaiiiiu Shrewsbury ;" toiicluded by a Biograpliy of Cardinnl Wiseman. Sixo^fD Series.— The Bishop of London's Charge, at St. Paul's Catliednd, Nov. 3, 1850 ; and the llev. Dr. Cumming's Lecture, at Hanover-square Rooms, Nov. 7, 1850. Third Series.— Tlie llev. T. Nolan's Lecture ; Letter from B. Havvcs, Esq., M.P. ; the Pastoral oi tlie Catholic Bishop of Northaniptcni ; Letter from Dr. Camming ; Letters from the Bisliop of St. Asaph and Viscount If eilding ; and the " Vatican Masquerade." I'ouRTu Series. — A Plain Appeal to the Common Sense of all the Men and Women of Great Britain imd Ireland (an original article), by John Bull ; Two Speeches of the Very Rev. the Dean of Bristol; ;ind the "Queen and the Pope." . TirTU Series. — An Appeal to the English People, by Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster, copiously analysed by John Bull, Editor and Commentator; and Leading Articles from the Morning Papers of November 31. StxTii Series.— The Second Lecture of the Rev. Dr. Cuuuning, and a Note by the Editor; the Letter of the Hon. Mr. Langdale ; the Birmingham Memorial; the Letter of " Catlwdicus;" Cardinal AViseman ; a Roman Catholic explanation of the Papal Aggression ; and the Conversion of 11. W. AVilberforce. Seventh Series — Leading Articles on Cardinal Wiseman's Manifesto, from the Daily and Weekly Press ; also Letters and llepHcs from the Bishops of the Established Chureli. Eighth Series. — Letter from Joseph Hume, Esq., ]\l.P. ; Pourteen Letters from Bisliops of the Established Church ; Dr. Doyle's Sermon, Nov. 17th ; Catholic Bishop of Newport's Pastoral ; and a Letter from a Correspondent. Ninth Series. — Mr. Roebuck's Letter to Ijord John Russell ; the Rev. Jlr. Bennett's Letter to Lord John Russell ; and Letter from Sir Benjamin Hall, Bart., M.P., to the Archbisliop of CaHterbuiy. Tenth Series. — Sermons by Cardinal Wiseman at St. George's Catholic Cliurcli, Suuth^ark; Letters from Dr. Cummuig and ]\Ir. Bowyer ; and the Address from the Bishops to the Queen. Eleventh Series. — Addresses to the Crown; Resignation of Mr. Benneit, of St. Paul's. Knight.s- bridge ; the Protestant Agitation, by " Carolus ;" and Ijord Bcamont's Letter to the Earl of Zetland. Twelfth Series. — Correspondence between the Bishop of London and the llev. W. J. E. Bennett; the Duke of Norfolk ; Roman Cathfdie "Pastorals;" and Lord John Russell and the Puseyites. Thirteenth Series. — The Cautcrbiuy and Exeter Correspondence; the Bisliop of St. David's and llie Archbishop of Canterbury; CardinaMVisenian's Second Lecture; the Rev. Dr. M'Neile ; the Bishop of Norwich ; and Episcopal Church in Scotland. The EiiT2ENTH Series will contain various specially interesting Documents. J II nl ihc extraordinary low2'ricc of One Fenny each Series; or, Vostagc Free, TJireejxnce. 1X)ND0N PUBLISHED BY JAIiIES GILBERT 49, i'ATERNOSTER-KOW.' T'HE ROMAN CA THOLIC QUESTION. MR. HENRY VINCENT, THE POPE, THE BISHOPS, AND THE PEOPLE ; ADDRESS TO CARDINAL WISEMAN; THE ALLEGED AGGRESSION OF THE POPE; AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE QUEEN'S SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY, AND OTHER TOPICS. R. HENRY VINCENT, THE POPE, THE BISHOPS, AND THE PEOPLE. A large audience paid, on Mondny evening, December 2, 1850, for admission into the Public Hall, Baillie-street, Rochdale, to hear Mr. Henry Vincent lecture upon " The Pope's Bull, the Church of England's alarm, and the duty of Dissenters with regard to the ' Xo Popery' outcry." Mr. Vincent said — I^adics and gentlemen, I come before you to-night deeply impressed with the importance of the great theme that 1 desire to discuss in your presence; for while at all times the question of civil and religious liberty must be regarded as one of the most important questions that can engage the thoughts of a people, I feel that, at the present time, in the midst of the general agitation that prevails in this country, it is a matter of the greatest importance that the people do not allow themselves to be misled by any merely excited view of the great questions at issue, but endeavour to ground themselves more firmly than ever in those great principles of civil and religious liberty which will survive many storms, many blasts, and many persecutions— and which neither politicians. Pope, cardinals, nor bishops, will ever be strong enough entirely to destroy. To-night, then, before I approach the more immediate object of my first lecture, let me direct your attention for a few moments to the abstract principle of religious freedom ; for I have always felt that throughout Christendom Christianity has suffered more from the false views held by many of her own professed devotees than from those who have avowedly lifted either the pen or the tongue to stay her triumphant progress. Religious freedom consists, I take it, in the individual right of every human being to worship his Maker according to the dictates of his own conscience — no merely human, no merely corporate, no merely governmental, or political, or social authority, receiving the smallest permission from the Deity to decree that a single human soul should bow to its mandates, and not bow before the throne of the Eternal. And in confronting the Christian religion, which, without venturing to enter upon any of the conflicting views of the doctrine that may agitate large portions of the Christian world — without just now entering upon the controversy as between either Catholic, or Protestant, or Churchman, or Dissenter, or with the various religious dissenting denominations, one with the other — I think that all who accept the New Testament as a divine revelation of God's spiritual will to men, will agree with me in this simple declaration, that Christianity is, and ever will be, a personal matter between a man and his own God, and that the only instrumentality by which that religion can be distributed throughout the world, if we take the New 1 estament for our warrant and our guide, is by that spirit of Christian willinghood, by the force of that voluntary authority, which leaves all that profess to be inspired by its divine mandates and principles to make a sacrifice either in person or in pocket for its universal propagation ; and attesting, in the face of all hostile infiuences, that they disbelieve in the arm of human law, or in the pomp and glory of the world, and place their exclusive trust in the might and power of those principles by which they profess to be guided. Now, sirs, to me it seems, tracing the history of the Christian Church from the day-dawn of its power until now, that every nation in which Christian organisations exist gives to us a melancholy proof of how prone mankind have been to depart from the simplicity of this faith, and in its propagation to put their confidence in forces that are alien to its character, and thoroughly opposed to its benignant spirit. AVithout wasting your time in attempting to illustrate in detail this most important fact — for the history of all nations, Pro- testant and Catholic alike, attests it — we may pass on to our own country as affording painful illustrations of a belief in force and coercion, in opposition to that spiritual instrumentality by whichalonc I believe the Gospel ought to bedistributed throughout the world. This time last year, when I had the pleasure of addressing you in this place, I endeavoured to pourtray some of the fifteenth Series.— Trice Id., or 7s. per 100 for distribution.] [James Gilbert, 49, Patemoster-row ; 0/ whom viaij be had "77;f Roman Catholic Question," Xos. J. to XIV. struggles that had taken place in England, arising out of the fatal mistake made in this country, in the reign of Henry VIII., in the union commonly known under the phrase of the union of Church and State. I little dreamt at that time that the old controversy would present itself before us in so remarkable a shape as it does at the present time ; for you will remember that I endeavoured to show you that while the Reformation, in the reign of Harry the Eighth, asserted the right of private judgment, and created a great political ecclesiastical revolution in this country — from the day of that establishment's birth down to the period when my Lord John Russell, within the walls of the House of Commons, was proposing, in speech at least, to endow the Irish Roman Catholic Church, I endeavoured to show you the conflicts sustained by our fathers — those conflicts which led them to maintain constantly those abstract principles of freedom to which 1 have just made reference, and which conflicts were absolutely necessary, not merely to obtain the right of meeting together in chapels for the worship of God, without the fear of persecution, but also for the repeal of many odious and bloody laws that endangered the lives and properties of the people ; and for the repeal, also, of many iniquitous statutes that excluded a large mass of deserving men from the enjoyment of their political privileges, under a constitution that called itself a free constitution, and that professed to establish equal rights and equal justice for all. Now, sirs, we come to the time when, owing to the repeal of many of those absurd laws, the politicians of England witnessed the growth of two forces, both of which threatened their ancient ecclesiastical monopoly, unless a change took place in their tactics in relation to those who felt themselves aggrieved by the existence of the Established Church ; and I well remember that six or seven years ago, when it was proposed in Parliament to endow the Irish Roman Catholic Church, I stood by the side of such men as John Burnett, of Camberwell, Edward Miall, of the Nonconforniist, nd some of the most earnest dissenting bodies who did not hold views on politics so extreme those held by Mr. Miall and myself, and raised my voice against the proposition of the " nistry to endow the Irish Roman Catholic Church, as indicated by the proposed increased gi'ant to Maynooth, not because the proposition was a proposition to endow a portion of the I^oman Catholic people, but because the proposition was an addition to the endowment prin- '-■'ple — a principle which has been at the root of the penal laws under which so m.any of the Puritans of England suffered imprisonment, banishment, and persecution — a principle which is the cause of forced levies for church-rates and tithes — a system which has commingled itself with almost all the political confusions of this country, and which many of us then foresaw would continue largely mingled in the future with all our political conflicts, unless the population could be persuaded to put its faith entirely in the power of the Gospel, and to put its faith entirely in the principles of human freedom, and demand an entire separation of Church and State. Now remember, gentlemen, for it is most important to remember this, that when the Maynooth Bill was debated, my Lord John Russell, who possesses a little bit of Catholic property, said, not in an actual legislative measure, but in the speech by which he sup- ported the additional grant to Maynooth, that he supported ,that measure because one of the consequences of it necessarily was, that it would lead to the endowment of the Irish Roman Catholic Church ; and I remember well that the renowned Colonel Sibthorpe, and other illus- trious men of similar capacity, felt indignation that what they termed our glorious Protestant insti- tutions were endangered from the suggestions of this Protestant minister. And when a num- ber of us raised our voices in the country against this proposition, the Whig press called us fanatics — we were opposed, they said, to doing equal justice to our respectable Catholic fellow- countrymen ; it was a miserable thing, they said, to oppose the grant to Maynooth, and a still more miserable thing to find fault with any statesmanlike proposition for endowing the Irish Roman Catholic Church, because, as they beautifully said, Ireland was not England ; and that there might be enlightened measures of state policy that should be adopted, despite the fanaticism of Dissent, or the distaste of the more bigoted portion of the Protestant public. And you may re- member further, that when the general election took place, several of our men who went to the poll, Joseph Sturge at Leeds, and other m. en, on thevery question of resisting this tendency of the ^^'hig Government to rivet upon us the ancient system of ecclesiastical despotism by entering into part- nership with another, so alarmed were the Whigs lest many of our men should triumph, that they coalesced with the Tories, voting one and one, in order to put out the men who were supposed to be earnestly opposed to this portion of their policy. Now, sirs, an incident has occurred that has changed entirely the under-working of the plot. The Pope has issued a bull ; the Pope being — and if there are Roman Catholics present they must not be angry with me, because I want to strike all parties in turn, not with a view to found an argument opposed to the liberties of England, but to defend the religious freedom of every section of the people of England — the Pope being himself a person who cannot take care of himself, of whom we may say that he requires the aid of an army of which I am obliged to say that it has no more religion than an oyster, to keep him sustained upon the throne of Rome. And it certainly is a most astonishing fact tliat the bull of that shaky prince should have created such a dreadful revolution in the policy of our facetious friends — the \Vhigs. Now, gentlemen, witli reference to Popery, there is no Catholic priest will suspect me of being a Jesuit — if Dr. Cumming were here, perhaps he might think I was one, but I don't think the mass of the people who know anything of my principles will suspect me of leaning towards what 1 regard as being the essential element of the Catholic religion. I venerate too much the individualism of man, and glory too much in the dominancy of individual thought, to believe in any system that conglomerates mankind, and casts the human intellect prostrate before its power. I won't admit that his Serene High- ness the Pope monopolises that material. I think at present we are called upon to define Popery; and I define Popery to mean this: a departure from the spiritual purity of religion, and the use of force to propagate religious opinions. If Popery does not mean this, it does not mean anything ; for if you met a nervous gentleman to-day, who says to you " Don't you think the Pope will take away our Protestantism .' " it is clear that he is alarmed lest some force should be exercised that would deprive him of his individual freedom, and lest, under the cover of this despotical authority, principles might be forcibly distributed which he deems to be fatal to the purity of religion. Now, gentlemen, the one great defence made by those who believe in Church establishments is, that unless you have a Church establishment you would have no bulwark strong enough to resist the advances of what they call Popery; that unless you had a strong legal power in England, you would be inundated with false views of religion ; that what is termed the voluntary principle would only open the way to discord, divisions, and confusions, in the midst of which the Pupish jiower would come in and destroy the ^ivil liberties of the people, and the energy of our Protestant propaganda. But I ask you, my countrymen, in the spirit of candour, to notice just one fact; that no one has charged the voluntary principle with entering into a conspiracy to advance Popish doctrines or practices — no one has charged the Independents with a design to restore the Catholic faith in England, no one has charged the Baptists with conspiring towards a similar end; no one has affirmed that the Wesleyan Methodists, or the Primitive Methodists, or the Plymouth Brethren, or the Presbyterians, or the Unitarians, or any body of religionists in this country sustaining themselves by the voluntary principle, with having entered into a league either to enslave the intellect or degrade the soul ; but precisely in the Church as by law established, and nowhere else — within the walls of the very institution that was put up, we are told, to guard the purity of our Protestant faith, and to save the civil and religious liberties of England — precisely there, and nowhere else, upon the testimony of evan- gelical clergymen, upon the testimony of huge public meetings, upon the testimony of fat aldermen who carry four chins, upon the the testimony of Lord Jolin Russell's letter— we have the Church of England charged with being no one knows what, but a kind of minister to Jesuitry and Popery — a kind of conspiracy against intellect and freedom ; and, if this be so, if we find another danger near us, as these statesmen allege, another power trying to grapple at something supposed to be possessed by the other — I say, let us remove the bone of contention by severing the Church and State. Sirs, you must not be angry with me if I read you a little poem : it is entitled — MOriiER CHURCH AND THE CHERRY-TREE. See those cherries ! how they cover Yonder sunny garden wall ! Had they not this network over, Thieving birds would eat them all. So, to guard our Church and pensions, Ancient sages wove a net, Through whose holes of small dimensions Only certain birds can get. Shall we, then, this network widen ? Shall we stretch those sacred holes, Tlirough wliich e'en already shde in Certain small dissenting souls ? " Heaven forbid !" Old Testy crielh ; "Heaven forbid 1' so echo I — Every ravenous bird that llietli Then woidd at oiu" cherries lly. Ope but half an inch or so. And behold how birds do break in ! How some curst old Popish crow Pops his long and Uquorish beak iu. There Sociniuns flock unnumbered, ludepcudents slim and spare ; Both, with small belief encumbered, SUp in easy anywhere. Methodists, of birds the aptest Where there's picking going on. And that water-fowl, the Baptist — All would have oiu- fruits anon. Every Ijiid of every city, Tliut for j'cars with ceaseless din ]I;itli reversed tlie Hastings ditty, Singing out, " I cnu't get in." If less cosily fruit wont suit them — Hips and haws, and stick like berries — Curse the cormorants I stove thcni ! shoot them! Anything- to save the cherries ! [The above verses were read amid excessive laughter and applause.] I feel to-night that we have cherries to save as well as other people, and that this question presented to us is one of immense importance to the religious liberties of every class of the people of England. The Church of England, as I have said, presents this night a divided aspect. There is his Grace the Bishop of London, and his Grace the Bishop of Oxford, and his Grace the Bishop of Exeter. It would be impossible for anyone to affirm in what these worthies differ from ll)e Pope of Rome, except in the power to give effect to their mandates. But, gentlemen, the Pope's bull, having wori^cd a most extraordinary revolution, has induced Lord John Russell to write a letter which, I think, will involve him in very great difficulties in the future, because the Pope's bull cjuestion is a very simple question after all. If the bull invades in the slightest degree the temporal rights of the Crown, or the civil rights of the people of England, there are deputies, let them implead ; there are laws, let those laws be put iu force. But I do not think it simply the part of the Prime Minister of the country, however intense his Protestantism may be, to use the station and intluence he possesses to brand one section of the people of England with opprobrious and scornful names. No, sirs, though I would defend Protestantism, and Protestant principles, with all the energy of my nature, I w-ould defend those principles by fair and lawful weapons ; I would not, in the presence of my fellow-countrymen, do evil that good migiit come. And it does seem to me that there is some thnig suspicious in this sudden change in the policy of Lord John Russell that should induce the people of England to ask themselves, seriously and soberly, in what precise direction these statesmen desire the gale of public opinion to blow ; because it may turn out that these statesmen desire that gale to blow in a direction adverse to the religious freedom, not of one section of the people, but of many sections of the people of England. Undoubtedly lor the past twenty years, the general tendency of the active mind of England has been against the long continuance of Church establishments. What has been the meaning of the many contests that have taken place in England to resist the payment of church-rates? \Vhet has been the meaning of our anti-state-church associa- tions, and other organisations to obtain perfect religious freedom ? They have all indicated the growth, in the minds of the active part of the people, of that sentiment that sometimes takes practical shape in demanding the separation of Church and State ; and it has long been the opinion of thoughtful men, that unless some reaction, some change, takes place in the opinions of the active-minded portion of the people of England, one of two things must be done : either there must be a revival of the old penal laws in one shape or another, or the entire separation of Church and State. Now, sirs, the advance towards the endowment of the Catholics in Ireland was an attempt, I believe, to bribe over the Catholic population to sustain the dominant Church establishment. How that proposition failed, it is not for me to say. Whether the Caliiolics in Ireland refused to permit the Church establishment to monopolise the lion's share of the tithes and the churcii-rates, whatever may have been the cause of the failure, I can but congratulate you that the failure is manifest. For although at the present moment a loud outcry may be raised in England, a cry merely of " No Popery," 1 believe that beneath that cry, deeply down beneath that cry, there is existing an earnest and intelligent opinion that will soon take practical shape in such a w^ay as to lead to a right solution of this most important problem. The question, however, for the Dissenting and voluntary portion of the people of England is, how shall we act in the presence of the agitation that now prevails throughout England? And in order to thoroughly understand the difficulty of the present position, let us look at the position Dissent has always occupied in the presence of the Established Church. It is all very well, gentlemen, to praise these Dissenters. They were praised before, as I remember showing you before in my last lecture on the Commonwealth. At the time when James II. was trying to ]iut his foot upon the episcopacy, we know that the bishops and clergy raised a cry of " The good Dissenters ! the loyal Dissenters ! the respectable, the reputable, the intelligent, the pious Dissenters, our dear brethren !" Everyone remembers the tactics that were then played out. The Revolution swept away the Stuart dynasty, but when the new dynasty was firmly established, and the Dissenters in their terror acquiesced in the enaction of penal laws to suppress the Roman Catholic population, those laws were like bats with two handles, they struck the Catholic church on the right, and the Dissenting chapel on the left. In fact, the legislators thoroughly understood the art of what they called killing two birds with one stone. Gentlemen, it was all to save them from the horrors of Popery; and many a Dissenter at that time, lik^ a worthy Dissenter at Colchester the other day (I should like to have his portrait !), said, that if the Church wished it, as a Dissenter, he should be very glad to part with u portion of liis lilKuLies for a time. .Meel^-ipirited man ! Interesting specimen of an Englishman ! Many were the men of this stamp, I say, that permitted to be rivetted upon the neck of Kngland those absurd and atrocious laws that require the energy and toil of many a long year effectually to obliterate, effectually to brush away. (Jentlemen, the Dissenting population at the present moment holds, if I may so speak, the key to all our ecclesi- astical difficulties; but if the Dissenting population rushes on to the top of the platform with "our deeply-respected friend the vicar," or any other "worthy and respected friend," however good and amiable he may be in private life, but who holds thoroughly lo the notion that his Church is the real Church, and the Church that ought to be exclusively supreme, those difficulties will be increased instead of being removed. And remember, not one iota of the old pretensions of the Kstablished Church have been laid aside. The Dissenting minister to-day is not regarded by the clergy of the Church of England as a properly ordained minister. The Dissenting minister to-day is not regarded as a minister that lawfully dispenses the ordinances of baptism or the Lord's Supper. The Church of England to-day does not acknowledge the validity of Dissenting baptisms, either of adults or in infants ; and to-day there are many ministers who would refuse to bury a child baptised out of the Established Church ; proving to us, that the doctrine of Popery, or infallibility, is not confined to Rome, but extends to other parts of the world. I say, also, that the clergy of the Church of England to-day, whatever they may profess in their zeal and liberality, are the ministers of a Church which, if the terror of Popery subsided, would induce them again to feel that one part of their duty is to remove from the country, as rapidly as possible, those dangerous meeting-houses in which schism, and heresy, and sedition, and all kinds of dangerous teachings, are made popular. Now, it does seem to me, that the place for a Dissenter is not [)y the side of men who liold those doctrines, and defend them. Of course, I pronounce no verdict upon the gentlemen who choose to take a contrary course. I believe in the right of private judgment, and every man must, of course, take that stand which his conscience tells him to be right. But, gentlemen, we are bound to be at the present crisis unusually upon our guard, for it seems that the Dissenting population is ex!)ected to declare, as though it were a suspected ijojiulation, that it is sound in its Protestant prin- ciples. Why, gentlemen, only think of a Dissenting minister standing up and declaring that he is a Protestant ! Whoever says that he was not? There is no necessity for making the declaration. Every Dissenting chapel you see is a monument in favour of Protestantism; and the people who are in it have protested against two popes — Pojjc and prelate. It maybe useful and proper for a Dissenting population to take its own dissenting stand, and point out what it believes to be the root of error iti religious matters, and to point out what it believes to be the root of evil in political and ecclesiastical (juestions also. But simply to declare, because the vicar declares it, that it goes against Popery — to declare, after all its suflerings, and sorrows, and triumphs, that it must go to the Queen for assistance against the Pope — to declare to-day, that it has lost faith in its voluntary principle, that it no longer relies in that power to beat back the penal laws, and that shook from its shoulders that load of injustice which past tyraimies had heaped upon it — tu declare to-day, with the printing-press in full operation, with the chapels studding over the country, with the vast array of teachers of Sunday-schools, with the pulpit increasingly active, with newspapers at its disposal, and with the spread of liberal opinions in the world — to declare to-day, that it fears Popery, and must go to the law for assistance, is to come down from its high pedestal, and to trample its principles beneath its feet. No, my countrymen ; the energy of Protestantism lies in its voluntary power. The energy of Protestantism lies in its doing unto others as it wished others to do unto it. The energy of Protestantism lies in its repudiating the faggot, the thumb-screw, the law, the mandates of human princes ; and though the syren may whisper in its ear, and may try to seduce it from the path of duty ; though that corrupter may say, — Listen, listen to the voice of the charmer; acknowledge the Queen's supremacy in order to strike the Papist — if it does this, as sure as there is a just God in heaven, retribution will come upon Dissent ; for the very supremacy that strikes the Papist will one day strike the Dissenter. Wh)', sirs, what are we afraid of? The Pope? Can the Pope's bull increase the number of Catholics? Has any man in Rochdale been converted by the bull of the Pope? Is there a single lady present alarmed lest she be roasted in Smithtield? I know very well that a large number of people who have no faith in the voluntary principle, who deride it, mock it, do all in their power to declare that they regard it as a scornful thing, I know these people will chuckle if they find Dissent, in terror, abandoning that voluntary principle, and nestling themselves, like a chicken in a storm, under the wing of the first fowl that they can get stretched over them. They will say, " Where are the Dissenters now? We have frightened them with the Pope, we have shaken the old rod over them ; church-rates for ever, my boys ! After this, all we shall have to do will be to frighten them with this Pope of Rome, who has established a hierarchy and spread his network over the country, and we shall induce them to acquiesce in the policy of maintaining our system, because we can turn round to the Dissenters and say, ' In your time of peril we preserved you ; in your time of danger we protected you. This very system against which you have protested in your meeting became your friend, not- withstanding your long ingratitude, proving the kindness of its nature and its willinghood to return good for evil.'." Now, gentlemen, can understand why many of the Church clergy should be anxiuus, on the present ocLasiun, to piottst. It is quite natural for the Bishop of London to call his clergy toj;ether, and say, "Avoid all unseemly practices ;" perfectly natural that the worthy bishop who had consecrated — I think the phrase is coiisecrated (which is, of course, not a Popish thing, but a Protestant principle) — he who had consecrated St. Barnabas — I can well understand how the Bishop of London should call the clergy together and recom- mend caution, great prudence, circumspection, proper regard for Protestant principles and prejudices. Yes, I can quite, I say, understand why.the Bishop should do this; because everybody was saying, " What do you think of the Bishop of London?" He was a suspected man. Then, too, there is the Bishop of Oxford — look at his protest the other day : " Samuel, by the grace of God Lord Bishop of Oxford, in the name of the most holy Trinity, amen;" with a perfect Popish style, imitating, almost to the letter, the bull of the Pope, and merely charging the Pope with schism. Why, it is an acknowledgment downright that the two Churches are sister and brother, or mother and daughter, or that they held some relation, in- stead of a hearty affirmation of the principles of the Reformation. An attempt is made to show that the Pope is guilty of schism. . The Pope can answer, " You are as schismatic as I am. If you had agreed with me, there would have been no schism." It is no use bandying about charges of this kind. Protestantism is either right or wrong; and if it is right, I am sure it must be as much opposed to the Bishop of Oxford as it is to the Pope of Rome. Well, then, look again, there is^ the Bishop of Exeter ; he was a little more consistent; he gives them very cautious advice, and compliments the evangelical people as being the cause of all the mischief. In fact, gentlemen, in spite of the Prayer-book, in which every word is put properly down, so that no man may slip in saying one word not authorised, there is plenty of difference of opinion. You cannot even agree about the meaning of certain phrases, but you want a convocation to decide the matter, not content with the common-sense view of the question long held by numbers of the laity. Well, then, I say, I don't wonder that the Puseyite clergymen and some of the evangelical clergymen should be very anxious to meet their friends and neighbours. They say to their wives and families, "My dears, we must do something. You see there's that Pope's bull. It has thrown everything into confusion. It ■was all very well to permit Puseyism to go on playing its games in the presence of the people, but this Pope's bull has stirred up such a feeling of suspicion in the minds of the laity that it is quite necessary we should come forward and make declarations in favour of the great prin- ciples of the Reformation, nail our colours to the mast, and declare to the people we will stand by them through thick and thin in defence of our Protestant principles." This is perfectly right ; and every man can understand it; but why should the Baptist minister get on the platform and say, " I am suspected ? " or why should the Independent minister — why should our Church- men do it — mount up by the side of the clergyman and say, " I wish all the world to believe I am a Protestant; my fathers were Protestants, and my children are all brought up Protestants, and Protestants I hope we shall die ?" Why, gentlemen, there is nothing in it. It really signifies no- thing; and yet the protest in itself may be useful, as showing the people of England that there is a power in public opinion before which even these clergy find themselves compelled to bow. But, sirs, when thiscry takes the shape of Protestants against religious liberty, then it is that the people of England are bound to put themselves upon their guard ; for, if tlie cry that now passes throughout England is not, in many mouths, an attack upon civil and religious freedom, I do not comprehend its meaning. Protests ! Why, gentlemen, the protests delivered are perfectly harmless, unless they are to take legislative action ; and I take it that no law exists to touch the present Archbishop of Westminster — I think he calls himself. I never bother myself much about these titles — I regard them altogether as the curse of Christianity, and the bane of the world ; but, gentlemen, there seems to be no law in existence strong enough to touch this archbishop, or the law, of course, would have been i)ut in force. Have a care, then, lest in the cry against the Pope the Parliament may be induced to pass some law which, while it professes to guard the civil supremacy of the throne, shall really increase and render more formidable its ecclesiastical and religious power. Gentlemen, this is the danger that wc are in at the present moment. No Englishman, of course, would submit to any foreign prince having power in these islands to touch the liberties or the properties of the people of England. But to protest on a question like this is rank absurdity ; the thing has no meaning. I believe the Catholic population, equally with the Protestant, would resist any attempt at temporal domination in this country ; but if it be true that the Catholic po[)ulation cannot worship in its chapels without the use of bishops, if it be true that, in order to perfect the Emancipation Act, it is necessary to give them permission to have their own bishops and their ov»'n priests and their own clergy, wliy, gentlemen, in the name of religious liberty, so long as they do not ta.v the people of England to maintain that form of faith, so long as they do nothing to resist the civil power, so long as they do not put themselves in opposition to the laws which guard our jjcrsons, our properties, and our lives and liberties, I say the Catholic population have just as much right to manage their own chapels and cathedrals as any other body of religionists. Sirs, wc must not be misled by the saying, " But they are Catholics !" W'ell, it is perfectly true, they are Catholics ; but, remem- ber, they are citizens of England, and wc have no right to treat loyal men, until they give us proof ol their disloyalty, as though they were bad, profligate, an.' corrupt citizens. It is unfair, my countrymen, it is dishonourable, it is making use of a prejudice to wound the sacred cause of freedom. I say, and say with deep seriousness, that if Protestantism cannot stand without the aid of arbitrary laws, let Protestantism perish. For certainly it would be a proof to me that Protestantism was not a thing in accordance with the Divine will, and that it did not realise the great end at which religion and intelligence aim. Countrymen, the Catholic population just now are made the scapegoats of a party that has always been opposed to civil and religious freedom. Who are the principal men engaged in some of the public meetings, declaiming against the Pope ? Men who resisted the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts — men who resisted Catholic emancipation — men who were opposed to the Reform Bill — men who resisted Free-trade. All classes of re-actionists troop to that standard, because they think it is the standard under which the largest amount of the nation's prejudices and the nation's fears will be rallied ; and I confess that, although I perceive many excellent men standing under that standard, I have no confidence in the policy 'propounded, and I have no confidence in the leading men who take part in that agitation. Gentlemen, if any- thing could disgrace the Dissenting population of England at the present moment, it would be their taking part, in large numbers, in favour of a re-enacting of the penal laws. It would be, gentlemen, to bring upon them lasting, enduring disgrace. It would be, gentlemen, to induce the enlightened part of the people of England to regard the Dissenters with scorn, and to cause their name to be a by-word and a reproach throughout the continent of Europe. Have we a right to declaim against the Pope, because he will not per- mit the circulation of the Scriptures, if we imitate him in his own tyranny? Have we a right to declaim against the arbitrary conduct of other Governments, if we imitate their own arbi- trary examples? No ! Let us, however trying it may be, affirm in the presence of the Govern- ment, and the world, that though the cry of "No Popery" now rings in our ears, we do not believe that Popery is more dangerous when seen than when unseen. We believe that when we see that which is dangerous, we have all the more power to cope with it. Let us tell the Govern- ment that the history of the past 300 years proves to us that coercion and oppression could not suppress the Catholic faith. We tried it in Ireland, but there are more Catholics to-night in Ireland than there were at the time, compared with Protectants, wficn the Protestant Church, as by law established, was called into being. Let us tell the Government that instead of fearing that Popery will grow, we put our confidence in the intelligence of the population ; we put our confidence in the spread of scriptural knowledge ; we put our confidence in the power of comprehending principles, and in the growth of freedom, which is common, not to England alone, but to the entire world. Let us turn our Government's attention to France, and Germany, and Italy, and ask that Government how it is that in those three districts of Europe, in spite of the long existence of Roman Catholicism, in spite of the immense force pos- sessed by that faith, that Catholicism upon the Continent declines; that Catholicism is power- less against the advance of science, powerless against the advance of intelligence, and against the advance of democratic ideas; so powerless that it could not prevent the French Revolu- tion ; that it cannot prevent the diffusion of biblical principles in Germany; that it could not prevent the Roman population from expelling the Pope from Rome ? Let us ask, then, if these things have taken place upon the continent of Europe, and if the Pope this night is dependant upon foreign bayonets — if it be true, as every man of sense knows it is true, that the smallest up-turning,* eithir in France or Germany — an up-turning that is very likely to take place before many weeks go over our heads — that the Pope himself may be a fugitive and a wanderer, flying perhaps to England for that succour which the Roman Catholic population of Europe in arms have denied him. Sirs, it is a farce to suppose that Popery — meaning a departure from religious truth, and the use of force to sustain it — that this Popery can be put down by law. Suppose you were to re-enact the penal laws to-morrow, what would it do ? Why, that would crowd every Catholic Chapel ; for every man of pluck would say, " I will not submit to this ;" and you create an enthusiasm in favour of the very thing that you desire to destroy. If you want to double the power of the Catholic Archbishop of West- minster, make a martyr of him. Summon him before the civil courts, and prosecute him. The true way to treat titles is to treat them with contempt. What man of sense in this country ever feels his heart bumping against his ribs when his neighbour says to him, " There's the Lord Bishop of London ?" He would merely turn round his head and say, " Bless me ! Is that him? He's not so fat as I thought to see him." We know the existence of these people does not give the Church of England power. They merely give it money-power, not a great spiritual and moral power, or else the nonconformist congregations would not have existed in their present bulk. The way really to damage a system in the eyes of thinking men is to tinsel it over. Give it an additional number of titles. Saint Prudentia, or Saint Anything- else, the populace will only shrug their shoulders. No, sirs; altogether, the notion that Popery or any other system can be defeated by these means is an insult to the intelligence of the people of England. But when a number of people upon the platform cry, "Beware! beware ! There's some unseen power; you don't see it, I know you don't; but it's there — it will be upon you by night or by d.^y ;" tliey only alarm timid men and v^-omen, whocan scarcaly sleep at night, to such a miserable state are they reduced; and the sound of a cat upon the staircase makes them think a priest is in the house. But such terror only strikes the mind o a the timid and the weak. The stout man, the man who walks upon Protestant principles, whd does not depend upon an Act of Parliament, who docs not wait to know what the bishop thinks, but demands to take the Scriptures into his own hand, and express his own thoughts fervently before the footstool of his Maker — such a man is not afraid of pope, or bishop, or cardinal, or law ; he walks independent of their authority, and will not bow himself to iheir mandates. Gentlemen, you cannot captivate these men by titles, because you must always bear in mind the old, trite, though somewhat vulgar adage, that old birds are not to be caught with chaff. The young ones are ; but old people are the more awake and all the more wary. If they have obtruded upon them any power that professes a desire to take away their inde- pendence — if it be true that there is a conspiracy to take the Bible out of the hands of the people, and to deprive them of education and of liberty, all strong-minded men and women would resist, would "scorn," as Lord John Russell phrases it, any power of this kind ; and the unwary you can never deliver from the approaches of those who are subtle and designing, until you have distributed amongst them that education, that knowledge, that will put them upon their guard. But, sirs, supposing you obtain penal laws to-morrow — suppose Lord John Russell finds that the pilot-balloons creating political capital in the shape of the breath of public opinion takes — supposing he introduces a law which interferes with the religious liberties of the Catholic people, will you then be delivered from his Holiness the Pope? Wil your Protestantism then be any safer than it is to-night ? If it be true that Jesuits swarm everywhere — if they are in the church, and behind the counter, and on board ship, and in the coalpits, and that you cannot walk anywhere without having the ghost of a Jesuit looming somewhere through the atmosphere — if he has such an impalpable power to-day, he'll have it then ; he will change his shape, I fancy, and put on another disguise, and become all the more competent for the fulfilment of his designs in an unseen manner than he would be if he openly paraded his army before you. I would rather see the Jesuits ranged in order upon Blackheath, than distributed privately throughout the land. You cannot put down a power like this by law. You can only reason it down, argue it down, force it down by the domina- tion of superior principles. I seems to me that as a matter of policy the Dissenting popula- tion can never take part with those who are endeavouring to revive the penal laws — first of all, because they would wound their own principles, disgrace their own character, put into the hands of the civil magistrate a power that could strike the chapel as effectively as it could strike the Catholic cathedral ; and they would then have the painful knowledge, when this policy succeeded, that they had done nothing to retard the advancement of Catholicism; that the power that resisted the ])enal laws before can resist them now ; and that in this age, when sympathy always runs with the persecuted, the chances would be a thousand to one that Catho- licism would be strengthened instead of weakened by the policy themselves had consummated. But, sirs, you would do more; you would strengthen the power that has always arrogated to itself the right to become dominant in England. I know not whether here are Churchmen, Dissenters, or Catholics before me, but I will venture to speak plainly and honestly to you. 1 believe that the connexion between Church and State is the root of all the confusions that exist at the present moment. Yes, gentlemen, how is it that in America, where there is no Established Church, and where the Pope has issued a bull, the Yankees have not thrown them- selves into fits of terror? All America does not run mad and say, "The Pope will take our Protestantism away. Don't you think it is a serious thing that the Pope interferes with our civil rights? I guess it will be dangerous to the future condition' of American liberty." No; and why? Because there are no loaves and fishes to struggle for. No doubt the appetite of the Catholic archbishop must be whetted a little in the presence of so many good things as are enjoyed by the Church of England ; and we can now say to the Church of England, and the Church of England itself will not be angry with it, that inasmuch as in that Church we see people tending directly to Rome, and it is the only Church suspected of Popish practices and Popish opinions at the present moment, we say in a firm but temperate manner, that you constitute the centre of that great reaction towards Rome wiiich you are constantly denouncing; and your enormous wealth, maintained and created at the expense of the people, constitutes a temptation to any other Papacy that strives to imitate your dominant ideas. Gentle- men, this is the point at issue ; but it is the point from which they will endeavour to drive us. They will say to us, "Don't mind church-rates, don't mind ecclesiastic abuses; think of the Pope, my countrymen ! think of the Pope ! You would not have the Pope, would you ?" and these appeals will certainly tell in many quarters; hut 1 trust they will not tell with sober-minded and intelligent men and women. Tell them you want to put down the essence and spirit of Popery. Tell them that the right of private judgment is the great basis of all Protestant opinion. Tell them that these principles induce you to protest against the assump- tions of the Established Church with as much earnestness as you can protest against the assumptions of the Pope. Tell them that when you see a man entering the house of one to take his chairs and tables away in the name of that religion which is mercy, and peace, and love, and justice, and charity towards all men — tell them you see they are a type of the Papacy, hideous to contemplate, dangerous to the institutions of religion, and subversive of the liberties of the people of England. Tell them that at the present moment, when the farmers are engaged in discussing the question of their burdens, in consequence of the pressure that is upon them. 9 that you regard the tithe system as at present existing in England, as savourinj;, too, of these Popish practices which the Church of lingland itself denounces. Tell thtni this, gentlemen, and the cry of " No Popery" will have been made in vain. It will have swept over the country, arousing first the attention of the population to questions of a religious and ecclesi- astical character ; but when once aroused, the strong patriots and the true-hearted men will come to turn the current of this great controversy into the right channels. It is my most earnest desire that my countrymen at the present crisis do nothing to wound their characters, or to destroy that illustrious reputation won for them by the zeal and martyrdom of their forefathers. Religious freedom signifies, not the right of one sect at the expense of another sect, but it signifies the right of all sects and parties to propagate their views, whatever they may be. It means the right, not of Christians alone, but of the infidel, of the Jew, and of the Mahomedan — the right of all sects and parties, without any fear of the law, to put forward their opinions, so long as they are peaceable and loyal citizens — so long as they feel the civil obligations which the State has a right to demand at their hands. Gentlemen, we have just approached the time when it becomes us to take this stand. If we do not do it, the result of the exertions of the past thirty years may be entirely thrown away — the result of all the toil and labour of our forefathers will go for nought. If we once throw down that splendid superstructure of religious freedom, reared by the hands of our forefathers, we shall deserve nothing but the execration of posterity. Gentlemen, let us brace our nerves up, then, and contemplate calmly the prcsetit posture of public affairs. Let us tell our fellow-countrymen that we believe that Dissenters ought to preserve, as far as they can, a dignified silence in the presence of the controversy between the Papal archbishop and the Protestant bishop. Let us tell them that we will not lift a finger or a hand to rivet a single chain upon the liberties of our Catholic countrymen. Let us tell them, that, putting our trust in the principles of Protestantism, we will redouble our exertions to scatter abroad those principles *of truth which we believe to be fully competent for tlie fulfilment of all the purposes that Protestantism has in view. Gentlemen, shall we doubt the Christian religion ? Shall we become infidel to its principles and its power ? Has that religion no recorded triumphs to call us back to our allegiance, and to bid us remember our fealty to it, and to regard its majestic triumphs even in the day-dawn of its power? Look at the splendid passage in its life, the passage that immediately follows the apostolical times. Why, countrymen, in those days, when the civil powers of the world were leagued against the faith, and the arm of per- secution was constantly put forth to smite it, Christianity was a persecuted and despised, but still a powerful thing. It wrestled manfully with the scornful Jew ; it gained a throne for itself in the midst of the Grecian philosophy, and confronted the wisdom of its sages, not by seizing the arm of human law, but by the sword of the spirit, which is more powerful than the authority of princes. It confronted the armies of power; it breasted the energy of their hostile influences, until it assumed for itself a spiritual authority and influence which began to leaven the entire of human society. And I say for this holy faith, that never did it achieve triumphs so glorious, that never did it assert the divinity of its nature in so triumphant a manner, as when it marched through the dungeon, and over the scalFold, and through the flame, and over the rack, defying the arms of civil power, and proclaiming eternally to the world, that all that Christianity needs is to display her own lovely attributes to subdue the world to her authority, and to mould it to her will. Go back from Christianity now because the bench of bishops bid us? No, countrymen! we should indeed be traitors to the prin- ciples that our forefathers have conferred upon us. The history of prelatical domi- nation in England has been written in letters of blood upon the historical life of our country. What mean those conflicts that occurred in England in the reigns of Mary, Elizabeth, and James i What was the power that then sought to strangle the Puritan energy of England ? It was the power of the prelates. Those lordly men, gentle- men, had usurped all authority in Church and State ; and, not content with their spiritual domination, conspired, and re-conspired, until the storm of the Commonwealth, to raise the Church above the laws, and make it supreme alike over the civil and ecclesiastical liberties of the people. Tell them, then, sternly and majestically tell them, of that holy band of men whose memories on a former occasion I endeavoured to revive in your pi'e- sence — of the logical and eloquent protests of our Sydncys and Seldens — of the legal research of our Pyms, Cokes, Hampdens — of the fervent piety and high-souled courage of our CromwcUs — of the majestic and beautiful, the more than sublime genius of a Milton : all these men have consecrated themselves, more or less, in protests as much against the dominancy of the prelate as against the corruption of the Pope. To suppose that now, because some trumpery piece of paper has invested a dozen or more men with mere trumpery titles, we are to turn our backs upon the memories of those sainted leaders — that we are to re-adore the memory of Archbishop Laud — that we are to revive the memory of the cursed Star Chamber — makes my blood boil with indignation. Who- soever are the men to bear this insult, I for one will be a free man. Whoever will stoop down in the presence of this mania, I for one will raise my voice against it. In no sycophancy, even to the people — with no fond desire to conciliate Catholicism where I 10 believe Catholicism to be wrong, and in the name of that liberty which is superior to sect, which knows nothing of party, which is not one-sided, and which never can depart from man so long as man professes to be guided by its authority — in the name of that liberty I will go forth, trying to rally my fellow-countrymen to the rescue of the one grand thought which must be uppermost in the minds of Englishmen, until we finally achieve the entire separation of Church and State. Sirs, this is the one, sole, supreme idea that must be maintained in these theological discussions. No more Popes ; no more prelates ; no more taxes levied upon one man to sustain the creed of another ; no right on the part of the State to persecute and brand any citizen who discharges in a peaceable way the duties the State devolves upon him. For, gentlemen, there are questions in England, important questions too, that certain men in this country would desire to shelve, if they could, under the wing of this No-Popery discussion. There is the question of Parliamentary Reform, which, by the way, would put down a good many. Poperies if we could once get it settled. There are many men will be called now very intelligent, if they merely pass No-Popery resolu- tions; but I trust the working men will remember that, between the two rival hierarchies their interest is rather to look on and say, " Gentlemen, it is a very pretty quarrel as it stands." The working classes, the sensible working men, I am quite sure, will go to bed at night without feeling that the Pope can steal away their intellects ; and if they are right- hearted working men, they will give their children such a sound education as to deliver them from the dominancy of all kinds of Popes. Then there is the question of financial reform — a very important question for our commercial and manufacturing classes; but who can press for financial reform when the country is " in danger from the Pope?" Oh, you will "be patriotic," you will " unite as the heart of one man against the foreigner ; " and " when the foreign foe is destroyed, then we can attend to our own domestic matters." , Surely you will stand stoutly out and "defend the supremacy of the throne in rehgious matters;" for it would indeed be cruel at the present moment, when such terrible danger overhangs our faith, from a man who, as 1 said before, is not able to take care of himself. And surely, you would not press upon the attention of the Government any merely material or political questions — for, of course, the Church will maintain in Parliament that this is not a question of materialism, when every man of sense in the country knows it to be a very material question, as far as the Church is concerned. And though this assertion may be made, it cannot for a single moment be kept from the minds of the people of England, that the question of money does largely mix itself with this discussion. What will our poor farmers do, if we don't come to their rescue in these large towns? I do not know what is to become of them for the next six or eight months. Their agricultural diimers will be full of nothing but Popes ; Protection itself will be laid aside in the presence of a greater enemy than Free-trade. The landlords — those who are very much afraid of the grov.ing radical tendeijcy of the farmers, a tendency more and more deve- loping itself in the southern and south-western counties — they will say, "You have always been patriotic men, loved your sovereign, and been defenders of our glorious constitution. You surely won't talk about cheap bread now ? Farmers (though many of the farmers never heard of the Pope) ! farmers ! the Pope's at the door ! the Pope'l the Pope! the Pope !"—" Who's the Pope?" "Oh, suchaman, you have no idea, but what is a general or a lumjnj idea, of what the Pope is ; but he has most enormous powei', possesses more mysterious authority than any other man possesses for clawing people unseen away from their own opinions." [After proceeding a little further in this strain, Mr. Vincent exhorted the voluntaryists to rely upon their principles, as all-suflicicnt in every emergency, and deprecated any act of the Legislature which might tend to ci-ipple re- gions liberty. He laid down and advocated the broad principles of political justice; exhorted his audience to be courageous, and concluded with the following words.] To- day, in the presence of intelligent people; to-day, in the presence of commercial and trading activity so mighty that it stands without a parallel, as contrasted with the past — to-day, with mighty armies of intelligence impregnated with thought and science, with the results of Christian teachings, to-day shall we trample upon the mennuy of those former glories ? No ! by the memory of those former struggles ! No ! by the memory of those sacred truths that God has implanted in the soul! T'liis worM will continue to rise. Tlie din and clamour of the moment may obscure from the vision of the people that form of glory, that grand form of freedom, that looms before the eyes of the people in moments of calm and of reflection ; the clouds of some State policy, of some eccle- siastical craft, may, for a few fleeting weeks or months, obscure the brilliancy of that eternal sun of glory and intelliirence that constitutes humanity's luminary, constantly lifiiiig it up to the contemplation of liigher and higher agencies; but still the world will advance, until, ultimately, Pope and prelate, tyrant and priest, affrighted by the very Frankensteins their owrv arts have called into being, will quail before them, and the majesty of truth and justice, of power and liberty, will hereafter be dominant; for God has decreed one great teaching, in which all the world may place its confidence, that Pope and prelate, and priest and tyrant, must fall, and that, upon the ruins of them all, effulgent with enduring glory, will rise higher and 11 higher, until the very heavens shall reflect again the majesty of God, and reflect upon the people that which the people must reflect towards the skies — the spiritual freedom, the intel- lectual liberty, and the political rights of all mankind. ADDRESS TO CARDINAL WISEMAN. On Saturday morning, December 21st, 1850, about thirty English Catholic noblemen and gentlemen assembled at tlic episcopal resireme and venerable pontiff. When, however, I see the names attached to this address, and know how many of them represent families as noble by ar.cestral religion as they are by their unblemished escutcheons — families which have remained faithful to God and to their Sovereign through ages of proscription, in spite of fine and confiscation — families whicli have proved their religious sincerity and stedtV.stuess in the prison, as well as their unshaken loyalty iu the field — I cannot be sui-prised at findir.g those who now bear those illustrious names at the heail of the Catholic laity, when circumstances call them forward to avow their religious principles and their attachnu nt to the Church. I have great pleasure in announcing that yesterday I received a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury at Palermo, which proves how readily and cordially he would have joined his name to yours had he been amongst us. His lordship is enthusiastic in his expressions of satisfaction at what the Sovereign Pontiff has done. It will be to me a gratifying duty to lay at the feet of our Holy Father the expressions of your filial attachment, and of your gratitude for the restoration of our hierarchy, and to join to it my testimony that the Catholic laity of 12 England have been found C(iual to the crisis created thvough that event, by their z6al, devotedness, and noble bearing. And on my own behalf, again tendering to you my sincere thanks, I earnestly pray God to bestow on you and your families every temporal and an eternal blessing." Amongst the signatures attached to the above address the following names appear : — Earl — The Right lion, the Earl of Newburgh. Viscount — Southwell. Lords — Stourton, Petre, Arundell of Wardour, Dormer, Stafford, Clifford, Lovat. HoNGURABLES — Thomas E. Stonor, George Mostyn, Simon Eraser, Francis Stonor, William Stourton, Philip Stourton, Charles Langdale, Albert H. Petre, William Stafford Jerningham, Charles Thomas Clifford, Henry Hugh Clifford, George Eraser. Baronets — Sir Edward Doughty, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Edward Blount, Sir Robert Throgmorton, Sir James Fitzgerald, Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Sir Edward Smythe, Sir Thomas Rokewood Gage, Sir Clifford Constable, Sir William Lawson, Sir Charles Tempest, Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford. Messieurs — Renfrick Arundell, Henry Arundell, Theodore Arundell. Charles Bodenham, of Rotherwas ; C. De la Barre Bodenham, of Rotherwas ; Robert Berkeley, of Spelchley ; Robert Berkeley, jun., of Spelchley ; Swinburne Berkeley; Charles Berington, of Little Malvern ; Anthony Wright Biddulph, jun., of Burton Park ; T. H.Bowdon, of Southgate ; Henry Bowdon. of Southgate ; John Butler Bowdon, of Plessington-hall ; Thomas Weld Blundell, of Ince Blundell ; Michael II. Blount, of Maple Durham ; John Blount, of Maple Durham ; Walter Blount, Michael Joseph Blount, Walter Aston Blount, George Blount, Gilbert R. Blount; Charles Blount, of Usk; William Blundell, of Crosby-hall ; J. Standidge Byron, of Westayton. Edward Canning; W. H. Charleton, of Hesleyside ; Francis Cholmeley, of Brandsby; George Clilford, of York ; W. Clifford, L. Clifford, Thomas Clifton, Henry Clifton, Talbot Clifford Constable. Ferdinand Eyston, of Overbury ; John Eyston, of AVelford. Marmion E. Ferrers, of Baddesley Clinton ; John Fitzherbert, of Clifton ; George Fitzherbert, Francis Fitzherbert, of Clifton. J. Vincent Gandolfi, of FoxcoUi ; R. T. Gillow, of Leighton-hall ; Robert Gerard. H. M. Hawkins, of Usk ; Compton J. Hanford, of Wollas-hall ; John A. Herbert, of Llansatfraed ; Arthur Herbert, Edmund Herbert, Washington Hibbert, of Bilton- grange; T. C. Hornyhold, of Blackmore-park ; Philip H. Howard, M.P., of Corby- castle ; James Hunloke, of Wingerworth ; Edward Huddlestone, of Sawston. William Jones, of Clytha ; Philip Jones, of Langattock ; Edward Jones, of Clifton; Wyborne Jones, of Clifton ; Edmund Jerningham ; Arthur \V. Jerningham. James Kirsopp, of the Spittal. Charles Langdale, jun., of Houghton ; John Lawson, of Brougb. AVilliam Constable Maxwell, of Everingham ; Peter Maxwell, of the Grove ; Marma- dukc Constable Maxwell, of Tcrrcgles ; Henry Constable Maxwell, of Scarthingwell ; Lieutenant-Colonel M'Lonell, late 79th Highlanders ; Peter Middleton, of Middleton- Lodge ; John Middleton ; Charles IMiddleton, Thomas Meynell, of Kilvington ; Henry Mostyn; C. R. Scott Murray, of Danesiield. A. Lisle Philipps, of Grace Eieu ]Manor ; Charles Plowden, of Plowden, Thomas Riddell, of Felton-park ; John Rosson, of More Hall. ■\A'alter Selby, of Biddlcstone ; Simon J. Scroope, of Danby ; Henry Silvertop, of Minster Acres; Charles Stapleton ; Thomas Molyneux Seel. Henry Tempest; Charles Towncly, of Townely; Henry Turvile, of Longbridge. William A'aughan, of Courtlield ; John Vaughan ; William A'avasour, of Ilazclwood Castle. Edward Waterton, of Walton Hall; Joseph Weld, of LuUvorth Castle; George Weld, of Leagram ; James Weld, of Archer's Lodge; Humphrey Weld, of Chidlock ; James Wheble, of Bulmcrshe Court ; E. J.Weld, of Tawstock; George Whitgreave, of Mosely ; Henry Whit- greave, Francis Whitgreave, Joseph Whitgreave ; John T. Wright, of Kelvedon ; Willian* Wright; Edward Wright, of Richmond; Charles Wright, of Richmond; Thomas Wright. Serge ant- at-Law. — William Shec. Barristers. — H. R. Bagshawe, T. A. Cooke, George Bowyer, D.C.L., James Fleming, William Fineily, Richard Dearsley, Henry Stonor, R. R. Pcarce, William J. Amherst, Henry G, Bagshawe, Alfred F. Blount, John D. King, Henry Leeming, John E. Wallis, Alexander J, Mansfield, William Einlason (pleader). ADDITIONAL NAMES. Henry Barnewell, INlichacl Blount, jun., of Maple Durham ; Arthur Blount, Stanley Gary, of FoUaton ; Richard Djneley Chamberlain, Pedro de Zulueta, Edward Darell, of Cale-hill ; Robert Darell, James E. Doyle, Henry Doyle, O'French Dull", John Ffrench Duff, Thomas Dunn, Robert Eyston, Lewis Joseph Eyre, William Gillow, of Clifton; Joseph Gillow, of Clifton ; Edmund Gorman, William J. Lescher, Daniel Lee, of Manchester; Edward Leeming, f3 of Manchester ; CMiarlcs deeming, R. H. Manners, J. McDonalil, Francis New, Thomas Norris, C J. Pagliano, Kdward I'ctrc, of Dunkcnhalgh ; Charles Riddcll, E. Rylcy, l?iyaii Staplcton. Charles Strickland Stnndish, of Standisli ; Simon SciooiJC, jnn., of Danby ; I'ldvvard Slaughter, S. Nasmyth, Edward regait, jiin., Joseph Weld, jun., of Liilworth ; Arthur Weld, of Leagrim ; A. Walmesley, I'.dmiind Whebic, of Clifton ; William Wheble, T. Walmcsley, T. E.Walmcsley, H. W. Wilberforce. THE ALLEGED AGGKESSIOX OF THE POPE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. Sir, — Will you allow a looker-on to say a few words on the subject that engages the public mind in England? I address you, as your paper is the most temperate of any that I see. A fortnight ago I could not have believed it possible that Englishmen could have uttered so much absurdity as I see they have. Still less could I have anticipated sucli deplorable ignorance as has been exhibited by men in high station in the Church. And least of all could I have dreamed of such a letter as has been penned by the Premier. hiving as I do in a country where the Pope's titular archbishops and bishops are everywhere to be met with, and knowing how completely their authority is limited to those within their respective territories who are willing to recognise it, 1 regard with extreme astonishment the commotion which has been excited by the recent act of the Pope. He is simply doing in England what his predecessors did in Ireland some two hundred and fifty years ago, and what others of his jiredccessors have from time to time done in the East. Unfortunately, the number of persons in England who are obedient to the papal authority has greatly increased of late years; partly, no doubt, by accessions from Protestantism, but chiefly by immigration from Ireland. It could not be sui)posed that the Pope would leave these persons destitute of a j)arochial clergy to take charge of them — that he would continue to the end of time the missionary establishments which sufliced when Romanists were but few in number. The in- troduction of the parochial system among Englisli Romanists was a necessary consequence of the spread of Romanism in England ; and the parochial system necessarily implies the diocesan system. English Protestants may not, indeed, see this last necessity, and some may perhaps think that Romish parish priests would be a good thing (of course, for Romanists only), but that Romish bishops are by no means to be tolerated. According to the Romish system, however (I speak advisedly), the existence of parish priests necessarily implies the existence of bishops — bo7iu fide bishops of dioceses in England. The Pope might have assumed the same titles for the bishops of his new Church as were borne by the bishops of the old Church — that was the course adopted by his predecessors in Ireland. He has, however, rather chosen new sees ; so that there can be no awkward confusion between the bishop of the original Church and the bishop of the new foundation, such as we are occasionally annoyed by in Ireland. Some cry out against this as an additional aggression. When people are displeased at a thing being done at all, it generally happens that they will complain of the manner in which it is done, as an aggravation of the evil. In such cases, however, I have often noticed that if a dilferent manner had been chosen, there would have been a still greater cause of complaint. If the principal cities of London, Bristol, and Manchester had been taken for titles, in place of their subordinate adjuncts, Westminster, Clifton, and Salford, would the ground of complaint have been less? Would the Archbishop of London be a more tolerable title than the Arch- bishop of Westminster? In Ireland we are used to these titulars, and we do not find their existence an insupportable evil. In the highest station of all, the newsjiapers lately announced that Archbishop Cullen, the Pope's newly-appointed primate, paid a visit to the primate at the Palace. Of course it •was a friendly visit. I happen to know that the Primate used frequently to call for the late Archbishop CroUy, and take him with him in his carriage to those charitable or other meetings which they could attend in common. The Archbishop of Dublin and Archbishop Murray are also in habits of friendly intercourse. And to go down in the scale, there is a " Catholic rector," as he calls himself, of the parish where I officiate. I claim that title as rightfully be- longing to me, though I do not use it; but for all that, and though we may give one another some hard blows, or what we think to be such, in our respective pulpits, we are very good friends when we meet, and have no difficulty in acting in concert in matters of a temporal character. We of the Irish branch of the Church submit with a good grace to what we would wish otherwise, but what we have no power to prevent, and our brethren in England should do the same. It is said, however, by many in England that, according to Catholic usage, there can be but one bishop in one territory; and that, accordingly, hy the Pope's recent act he has ignored the existence of the bishops of our Church, and treated us as no longer Christians. It seems a strange assertion that the recent allocution ignores the existence of our bishops, when the new titles selected for the new bishops were evidently chosen w-ith a view not to interfere 14 with the old ones. It seems also rather strange to affirm that the sending of missionaries from Rome to England, with bishops of places in Asia or Africa to preside over them as vicars of the Pope, was a treating of England as Christian and a recognition of her hierarchy. But is it not contrary to Catholic order for there to bs two bishops in one place? No doubt it is ; but this Catholic cider was violated at a very early period; and the violations of it have been so numerous that a new instance of its violation can scarcely deserve a remark. If the English Church had been herself free from blame in this matter, she might have had some pretence for crying out against others ; but how stands the case ? When Canada was surrendered to Great Britain, it possessed a regular hierarchy in communion with the Pope; and this hierarchy was acknowledged by the British Governiiient. Neverlheless, in course of time, the English Church sent over a Bishoj) of Quebec ; and we have since had a Bishop of Montreal ; and within the last year the diocese has been divided, and we have bishops of both Quebec and Montreal. In this instance our bishops have taken the titles of the existing sees in commu- nion with the Pope. The English Church has acted with respect to Canada exactly as the Pope acted vi^ith respect to Ireland. In the case of Malta she acted differently. She sent a bishop there ; but as there was a Bishop of Valetta already, she called him the Bishop of Gib- raltar, and assigned him a cathedral there, as well as at Valetta, where he was to reside. She acted here as the Pope has just acted with respect to England. I say nothing of the Jerusalem bishopric, as an attempt was ;.,ade to avoid the charge of schism in its creation. The English Bishop there does not claim to be Bishop of Jerusalem, but only to be " Anglican Bishop at Jerusalem ;" and in the late primate's letter to the Bishop of Jerusalem, there is a dis- claimer of interference with his jurisdiction, that of the new bishop being confined to European congregations, and to Jews converted thiough Europeans. This, then, is not so obvious an act of intrusion and aggression as the Canadian and Maltese appointments. I do not say that either of these was wrong — far from it ; but I say that, having made them, the English Church has no right wliatever to coniplaui of the Pope's recent act being an aggression or in- trusion. She has done the like herself whenever she had an opportunity. The Pope, hovvever, it is said (by few, indeed, and not in popular meetings), has by this act cut off all possibility of a renewal of communion between tiie English Church and his own. The possibility that certain doctrines defined at Trent might be reconsidered at a future council, at which Anglican bishops might assist, and that different conclusions in respect to them might be arrived at, and that in consequence of this " the sister churches" might be at one again — this possibility, v. hich some good men have cherished in their minds, though with scarcely a hope of its being lealised, is now, it is said, at an end. The English Church is nowr altogether disowned. If this were true, it would, I believe, be of no importance whatever ; as the supposed possibility cannot be said to exist. Nulla vestigia retrorsum is the known maxim of Rome. The decrees of Trent may be added to, but Kome will cease to exist before she disowns any of them. It, however, is not true; and the recent act of the Pope has iu reality made no chan;,'e in his position towards the Church of England, nor in the possibility, such as it is, of a renewal of communion with her. This will be obvious if we look to the case of Syria, When the schism between the Eastern and "Western Churches com- menced, the Pope appointed a patriarch of Antioch, and bishops of some of the other cities; and the hierarchy thus constitued exists to this diiy. Yet, notwithstanding its existence, when a portion of the Greek Church, and a portion of the Monophysite Church, which rejected the decision of the council of Chalcedon, became willing to admit the supremacy of Rome, they were received into comnmnion with her, retaining theh* ancient hierarchy and their peculiar customs. There are accordingly, at this time, five distinct i:ieraichies in Syria — five patriarchs of Antioch, for instance, three of them iu connexion with Rome I The majority of the jiopulation of Syria who are in the Romish obedience arc IMaronites; their clergy are at liberty to marry; they communicate iu both kinds, and retain their ancient customs and liturgy, the latter being merely purged of what Rome considered to be heretical. Surely what has been done in one place may be done in another. If any persons flatter themselves that a return to the Roman obedience can ever become desirable, there is still the precedent of the Maronitcs for them to refer to. And this case of the Syrian Churches niay teach others also that, whatever they may think, the Church of Rome docs not regard the existence of two or more bishops in the same place as an impossibility. She has lierself three existing bishops within the same territory ; and she has never denied the Greek bishops to be such, although she pre- tends that they arc schismatic ; so that she recognises a fourth, though she ;o«-Liberal sections — strenuously opposed to the movement. Not a dozen meetings in support of the agitation have been held north of the Tweed, and of these not one was really "public." Hurrah for caniit/ Scotland ! AVe might say canny Lancashire too, for there also the Liberal press is, in the main, sound ; and in the list of attendants at the Liverpool and Manchester meetings, you will look in vain for the names of any of the well-known Libcials of these districts^tbc JMiillipses, Gregs, Annilages, and lleywoods, of Manchester, and the Earles, Rathbones, and Aikins, of Liverpool. In short, as Scotland is cool com>pared with England, the English provinces are cool compared with the metroiiolis. The centre of the lieat is London, and especially the London press. Why, the bulk even of the clergy — nay, the very l)ishops — are not su furious as some Ijoudon journals that have all their lives beibre been treating " No-Popery" as a humbug and a disgrace. These things are worth soniething to us considered (lositively ; but, vu'wed com- paratively with the opposing manifestations, they go a very great length to establish the ])oiut we are, for the moment, mainly anxious to fix the reader's attention upon. When we find opinions rhtshliuj in this unprecedented manner, many on each side doing the reverse of wliat might be expected from their position and antecedents ; when we find Scotland charitable where England is intolerant; when in the beating of the drum ecclesia-stic we find clergy comparatively cool, and London newspapers absolutely furious ; when in the same week we find Punch seriously clamouring for the gallows for Roman Catholic bishops, and the Archbishop of Canterhury saying, " It is more necessary to keep the existing" excitement within due bonnds than to add to it" — is tliere not something like presumptive evidence in favour of our view, that there is to some extent, and on the one side or tlie other, mistakes in fact, and confusion of ideas? With some furtlier chance, we would fain hope, of getting a hearing, we now resuscitate tlie simple fads of tlie case, long since drowned amid Hoods of declamation and irrelevancy. The Church of Rome has two modes of conducting her ecclesiastic.d affairs : one that wliich existed in England till last October, the other tliat which exists in England now. The former system is adopted, apparently, in countries where Roman Catiiolics are few or (as in countries such as China) have not full toleration ; the other in countries where Roman Catiiolics are in considerable numbers, and have the same liberties as all the other religious bodies, or (wln^re there is an establishment) all the other dissenters. In acting under either of these systems, the I'ope (who in such matters acts not of his owti knowledge and desires, but imder the guidance of the ruling portion of his Church in the country concerned) has also two ways of proceeding. In coun- tries where the Romish religion is more or less acknowledged by the State — whether the general character of the country is Romish, as in France, or Protestant, as in Prussia — he makes his nomination and arrange- ments, to some extent, in co-operation \iitli the Governments. In countries where the Romish religion is )U)t acknowledged Ijy the State — whether, as in our own country, from another and only one, or, as in the United States, from there being no religion adopted by the State — he proceeds, and necctsaribj proceeds, without consulting the Governments ; in fact, our own Government is legally prohibited from holding any communication with the Court of Home. Accordingly, the Pope, who had in England nominated and re-arranged as he chose, under the fonner of the two .systems described, has now, on the advice, judicious or not, of his leading adherents here, changed to the second of the two systems, and made his nominations and and re-arrangements accordingly. In other words, he has disused a sy.stem which, so far as we can find, is in use in no country where the circumstances at all resemble those of Great Britain, and has adopted that which, so far as we can lind, is in use in cvenj country similarly sit^iated — the system which, to take familiar and unexceptionable instances, has been long in use in Ireland and the United States. Now, in examining this j'roeedure, and the objections that have been brought to it, let the reader and us be careful to keep our minds to the real matter in hand. The rpiestion is not whether the Roman Catholic religion is not an unsound one theologically, and a bad one in its social and political influences, nor whether it is not quite possible that ww^of her ecclesiastical acts may have a political motive and effect. We have no intention to shirk any one of these points, and shall take them up in due course ; but, in the first place, the question is not one ranging over the Roman Catholic doctrines and ecclesiastical system, but merely, What is the substance and what are the effects of Ihe thing that lias been done novi ? The thing that has been done is simply this : the English Roman Catholics used to be ecclesiastically governed first liy four, then by eight persons called bishops, Ijut taking their episcopal titles from places in Barbary, and styling themselves* " vicars-apostolic" of southern or nortliern districts iu England, for the purposes of which arr.angement England was divided into four, and then into eight districts ; the English Roman Catholics arc, now governed by twelve persons calling themselves bishops, and taking their titles from the districts wliere they actually reside, for the purposes of which arrangement England has been divided into twelve districts. The difference between a vicar-apostolic and a bishop is simply this : that the former acts merely as the vicar of the Pope, and according to directions proceeding immediately from Rome, while the latter, and his clergj- with him, form a Church, still acknowledging, indeed, the Pope as their spiritual head, luit managing their own ecclesiastical affairs 'among themselves, and not, as formerly, through the Pope. The first objection to the new arrangement is, that it is an evasion of the law. "The Roman Catholics," says the Times, "have not violated the law, bnt they have evaded it. And what is that law? It is the Emancipation Act of 1829, won for them against unparalleled (iilliculties by the generous exertions of the members of that very Church which they are cajoling, betraying, and invading — in a breath, it is the charter of their political liberties and spiritual freedom which they now seek to elude and under- mine by all the arts of sophisiry and cliicanery." This is a fair specimen of the blunders made, and of the tone in which they arc put forth ; as if tlie Roman Catholics were taking ungenerous advantage of some omission or defect iu the Kmancipation Act. This is the sheerest nonsense. Tlie Emaneipatiou Act was not " the charter of their spiritual freedom;" thr'y had long before, without any limitaticni expressed or understood, .acquired t he same rights with other dissenters as to forms of worship and modes of Church government. Tlie only clause in the Emancipation Act having any bearing on the present matter is one (24t]i) quite irrelevant to the objects of that Act, which was introduced in the Lords avowedly (such was the Duke of Wellington's explanation) to please the bishops with a meaningless trifle, and which tlie Roman Catholics have, in tliis case, demonstrably, neither broken nor " evaded." That clause merely prohibited the prelates of fhe Roman Catholic Church from distinguishing themselves by the names of places already in use by the prelates of the Established Church ; and that it was not thereby meant to prohibit them usin^ the names of other places is plain, not only from the clause not simply prohibiting them doing so, which would have been incomparably more natural and simple, but from the fact that tlie operationof the clauses is restricted to England and Ireland, Scotland being excluded, for the obvious and only possible reason that there the name of no place is leg;dly in possession of any prelate — consequently, in Scotland, any place was left open, while, in England, the places in use by established prelates, and such places w;/y, were proliibited But this clause not only does this — it shows plainly that the framers of the Act contemplated i\\c probability or certainly of the Roman Catholic Church in Eugland leaving, as it now has, the undeveloped for the developed form ; as they already saw it not only iu the foreign countries around, and in the United States, but in Ireland, a portion of the Uuitcd Kingdom. We confidently ask any mau of common sense (by-the- bye, it was strange that even Cardinal Wiseman should miss tliis pohit), would any men have prohibited the Roman Catholics from taking the names of certain places as titles if they had intended tiiat there should not be any such bishops at all? The second ol)jcction on the point we arc here dealing with is, that the " terhtoriid divisions" are somehow or another "unconstitutional," or something of that sort, variously and vaguely expressed. This objection has the fortune of being popular — the great card of the shallow, the unthinking, and dishonest portion of the agitators — and of being expressedly repudiated by the ablest and honestest. Thus, the chief speaker at "the great Edinburgh meeting," the principal of the Free Church College, confessed he "could find no civil element in itj" and the Bishop of Noiwicli (Dr. liiiitls) in liis excellent, Lut too tardy reply to his clergy, declares that tlie Roman Catholic or any episcopally-govemed Church " is not tolerated " if it has not power to make these " territorial divisions.' Indeed, Ihe thing is as plain as day ; you cannot have twelve bishops all with equal power everywhere ; and, moreover, what difference in principle is there between the twelve territorial divisions existing now and the eight divisions exi.sting till last October, or the four divisions existing till a few years ago? And Eome kind of territorial divisions being necessary, what kind were they to take ? "Were they to take the territorial divisions of the Establishment? Even if that would not have looked more hke " aggression " ihau the other course, how could they have managed it, v hen they only needed twelve bishops and the Establishment has twenty-four dioceses ? But some (including the Examiner .') cry, in the opposite key, "They have made too many — they have made as many as if the whole population belonged to their Church." As to making too many, that, we suggest, may, with most projirieiy and perfect safety, be left to those who are to pay them, and whom they are to govern ; we who are neither to pay nor be governed need not be very critical on that point. As to having made the number as if the population were wholly or generally Eoman Catholic, that, besides coming under the reply just given, is palpably untrue and non- sensical. If it had been true, they w ould have taken the same number as the Establishment — twenty-eight, not twelve ; hut, on the contrary, they have only twelve bishops for England, with a population of 16,000,000, while they have twenty-sLx for Ireland, with a population of 8,000,000 — more than double the number of bisliops for half the population : proof positive (though we cannot see that the thing is really worth proving) that they have proceeded on this point not as affecting to " possess the land," but respective solely of their own dimensions and distribution as a Church. A more important point, though fortunately capable of being more briefly disposed of, is, What is the practical efi'ect of the thing done ? On the English Roman Catholics themselves, the effect is to render them wore independent of ihe Conrt of Rome. Yes, we repeat — and amid all that has been said, we have never seen tliis disproved nor even denied — that the effect of the change which has created so much " alarm and indignation" is greatly to deprive Xhe. Pope of influence and the functions he has hitherto exercised in this country, without any one feeling called on to become alarmed or indignant. To illustrate the change by a Protestant parallel, the former position of the Roman Catholic Church in England was similar to that of an English Protestant mission (say in the colonies), where the missionaries act imder the orders of the society or Church that sent them out ; its present position is similar to that of such a mission when it has assumed the organisation of a Church, and when its missionaries have become miuisiers, by being formed into a presbytery or passing under the rule of a local bishop. The effect in the one case is to make the mission more colonial and less mother-country ; in the other to make tlic English Roman Catholics, in their ecclesiastical connexion, less Romish and more English. That is all the effect of tlie change on tlie English Roman Catholics. And what is its effect on ;?o;i-Catliolics, or the community at large ? Nothing; literally, absolutely, demonstrably nothing. Not one man within the four seas is affected by it to the extent "of one farthing of his purse or one feather of his dignity. These bishops acquire no new power, nor have ang power " to tithe or toll in our dominions ;" no man, unless he is so minded, need call them archbishop or bishop, any more than he need apply the same title to the bishops of the episcopal dissenters of Scotland, or call the Presbyterian Dr. Cumming, "Moderator," or the Wesleyan Dr. Hannah, "Presi- dent ;" and the bishops of other Churches — the bishops of the Church chosen by the State — are left un- molested in the possession of everything, civil, spiritual, and ecclesiastical, that is theirs : their powers, their palaces, their peerages, and their magnificent revenues. Tlie change, we say, is one which, besides affecting Eoman Catholics only, as rendering them more independent of Rome, does not affect nor concern other people at all. In truth, other people would never have heard about it, if it had not been that, just at the time of the apjiointments, the London newspapers were (on good grounds) ill-disposed towards the Pope and Popery, and had nothing else to occupy them ; whereupon Satan (who, having an interest in the promotion of strife and evil-speaking, has not made a better hit for many a day) found some mischief for their idle hands to do. So much for the thing that has been done ; the next objection is to the l)y whom it has been done. The cry is, that it has been done by tlie Pope, " a foreign prince." Virtually, it has not been done by the Pope, who probably never knew, till he signed the rescript, of any such names as Hagglestown, CUftou, Newport, and others, by wliich that document distinguished the English Roman Cathohes bishops ; the arrangement was, must have been, the work really of the leaders and rulers of the English Roman Catholics themselves. Nominally, indeed, it is the Pope's doing; but r/o look at the fact that, according to the constitution of the Romish Church as everywhere existing, and as known to exist before we granted the Roman Catholics religious freedom, Romish prelates must either be nominated through tliat channel or not at all; that, to say that the IVipe shall not nominate Roman Catholic prelates is to say'that the Roman Catholic Church shall not exist, cannot be tolerated ; and look aUo at the fact that the I'ope iilways nominated those vicars-apostolic whom nobody objected to, and who differ from the present bishops only in being less under the Pojie's control. Eurlhcr, tliouuh the I'ojie is " a foreign prince," it is mere trickery and trash to speak of him as such in connexion \\\{\\ this matter. He acts as spiritual liead of the Romish Cliuich, not as So\ereiKn of the Rmjian States ; and his powers in the former capacity would be as great although in the latter Mazzini were reigning in his .ste^id. Nor does his being a petty Italian Sovereign confer one tittle of civil authority on his ecclesiastical nominees, any nu)re than the possibility of the British Mormonites acknowledging as their spiritual head some jierson who happened to be Governor of one of the United States would render the ecclesiastical doin,!;s of that potentate "dangerous" and "aggressive." The only point in which the civil sovereignty of the I'ope appears is in making Dr. AViseinan a Cardinal, which is a civil dignity in tiie Roman Stale; but that is a point not in the least all'ecling tlie general ques- tion, and which there would be nothing intolerant in prohibiting, although we do not well see how that is either practicable or worth while, seeing that many Englishmen (the Duke of Wellington, for instance) who have held high civil ollices under the English Crov.n were at the same time peers and privy councillors of foreign and often inimical countries. But there is the ti'aniicr, the langvage of the thing. It is so arrogant and "assumptive." It is so, and »is such «'R abominate it. But the language of tlie Romish Church ever was, and we fear ever will be, in that strain ; and tlu' question whi'thcr thai fault should l)C regarded as a political offence, or met otherwise tlmu by whatever language other Cliuichcs choose to reply with, was one of the very things considered, and, as we had hoped, scltlcd, iii ihe repeal of the test and peual laws. Moreover, if ecelesiastical insolence is to be matter of jjolitical or civil condeiiinatioM, ;Jas ! who atnonj; us shall stand? If every time that a Chnrch resorts to "insolent" language Prime Ministers are to write letters, and the nation, not only through its ecelesiastical, but through its political and municipal organisations, is to throw itself into agonies of rage and fear, it would be infinitely better to go back at once to the old system, under which ttie use of insolenci! was restricted by law on one side. And here, having glanced at the oijjeetions applying specifically to the thfec points — the \nhai, the hj whom, and the how, we slide into some less important, having a more general reference. The first of these is one in close connexion with the special point we have last touched upon. It is said that the Pope, speaking through his " apostolic letter," lias asserted a claim of spirUital dominion over England. This phrase, in the various and absurd meanings that have been put upon it, lies at the root of much of tiie fear and the fury tiiat have arisen. We intreat special attention to the two grand misconceptions, or con- fusions of ideas, prevailing on this point. The. first is the confounding of a claim with & power. The Pope's siii/inij (and, by-the-bye, lie only said it in as far as he does not specially acknowledge the other Churches in the country) that he is the spiritual superior of England and of all the world, is a very small thing practically, though it may be a great thing ludicrously; while his being able to do anything whatever in enforcement of his claim would be an enormous and intolerable thing. But he has no possible mode of having his claim acknowledged by any Englishman whose voluntary belief does not lead him to do so ; and his lloliness's apostolic letter, with all its formalities and pomposities and assumptions, is mere waste-paper as regards every man in Britain who does not choo.e in bis own person to believe in and agree with it. This is what people are j)erpetually forgetting ; that anything that is not law as expressed in British statutes, or expounded by British Courts, is in J5ritain but a powerless, useless bit of paper. With this fact in view, all those references to the evil-doings of the Romish priest- liood in other countries, all those evil-doings, we mean, arising froiu anything but mere spiriliml injluencc, are seen to be nothing whatever to the purpose. Thus, Punch (Dec. li) is very contemptuous of those who say tliat the authority of the Popish Bishops of England is merely spiritual, after wliat we have seen their brethren doing in Sardinia ! Good Mr. Punch, before you set your liump in wrath and contempt, do ba more careful that you know what you are speaking about — do look at the fact, that between the two cases you thus parallel there is not the slightest similarity. It was by no bull, or apostolic letter, or any oilier bit of papier, that the Pope and priests acquired that power in S:irdinia which you and we now rejoice that the Piedmontese have wrested from them. They got it by treafy and by atalute — by a treaty signed by the King of Sardinia, and a statute enacted by his Legislature. Wdhout that the J'ope's bulls would have been as powerless in Sardinia as they are in Britain ; with that, they would have been as powerful in Britain as tlier were, till the other day, in Sardinia. The Piedmontese have thrown olf the chain, and we applaud and rejoice ; show us even a proposal to lay one link of it on Britain, and we shall not be slow nor nice in our resistance. Then would be the time for I'l-nch and his friends to let tly with that ammunition which they are at present firing away furiously into empty air. The other grand misconception prevailing on the point is, that, oftea confounding claims with power, people confound civil or political with spiritual or ecclesiastical — a mistake all-imiiortant as regards the present question ; for claims of a character which, in politics, it would be sedition to avow and anarchy to permit, can be uttered in ecelesiastical matters not only without legal or moral otfcnce, but as a necessary eonseiiuence and accompaniment of the existence of religious liberty. A country has political liberty when all her citizens are equally ruled under one free constitution, against whieii no man can be allowed to speak, beyond certain limits, without incurring the penalty of sedition ; but a country has religious liberty, not when her citizens live under one Chureii, however sound and liberal, but when every man chooses a Church for himself, and is at liberty, by all argument of mere speech, to maintain its claims, however absurd and arrogant. The distinction between the two things is broad and deep ; but amid the dust and noise of the present outbreak they are daily confounded. Eor instances, too easily found, take these obtained from various articles in the Times, and fair specimens of the strain of argument and illustration generally adopted : — " Pope Pius did not really depose Queen Elizabeth, nor did Pope Clement make a King Henry IX., or Louis XIV., a King James III. ; but these acts gave rightful occasion of scandal to the people of England, and brought rightful chastisement on the chief oll'ender. . . . Mr. Koebuck, and others with him, are fain to insist on the absence of any ' real danger.' It might have been urged with equal propriety that there was no ' real danger' on the lUth of April, seeing that to 15,(J00 malcontents or visionaries Loudon could oppose 250,001) good citizens. But we know full well, from neighbouring examples, that if these 250,00(J men had jiooh-puohed the danger, the 15,000 would pretty soon have brought it to pass. . . . To use an illustration which current events make familiar, the pretensions of the Pope in England are exactly analo- gous to those of the Count de Chambord in Prance. Both rely on what they declare to be a divine, eternal, and indefeasible right to dominion — a right which may be suspended by might, and contested by reason, but which can never be aeiually abrogated by any resolutions of Parliaments in- people to the world's end. We will imagine that the Count de Chambord, after being for some time proscribed, was permitted to return to France — a measure actually now under discussion — and contirmed in the enjoyment of full, free, and equal rights of citizenship along with all other Erencbmen. Suppose the said personage, being received as a citizen, but not recognised as a Sovereign, should seize an oppt)rtuiiity to call and proclaim himself King; to ignore and set at nought contemptuously the institutions wliu-li, for pure toleration's sake, protected bim ; to create ministers and generals although ministers and generals already existed, and to impugn directly the legitiniacy of the powers estabhshed, whether Monarchical or llepublicau, by establishing rival power* of the same denominations and functions at their very sides." All this is quite sound and conclusive, if we grant the one postulate, that things political and thinjji spiritual or ecclesiastical come, as to freedom of discu-sion, claim, and action, under the same category, and ought to be, or can be, treated alike. If we do not grant this, the whole comes to the ground as the merest twaddle and trash. If the reader does not perceive the distinction from what has been said above, will scarcely fail to see it by looking coolly at the illustrations resorted to by the Times. Does it con- sist with anyman's reason to believe that to deny the soundness, or tlie catholicity, or the anything else of a Church, is the same species of thing as to deny the right of a reigning monarch to his or her throne? Is a document declaring (with actual potency or impotency does not matter) that a king is deposed the same species of thing as a document declaring that a Church teaches error ? — or is a document declaring that a certain Church is the only true Church the same species oi! thing as a document putting foward a new pretender to the Crown P Every man's every-day experience teaches him that the two things have nothing whatever in common ; for he sees the ouc thing everywhere prohibited, and the other everywhere practised. If any man puts forth proclamations that Queen Victoria has no right to the throne, we punish him for treason , if any mau discusses lesser matters of politics with a freedom fairly beyond certain hmits, then we punish him for sedition ; but if any man proclaims that his is the only true Church, and that all the rest of us are schismatics or heretics, we never heard till now that he needed or deserved any other answer than argument or merriment, as might seem best suited to liis case. We cannot allow any man to deny that Victoria is our true Sovereign ; we can and do allow any man to assert that tliis or that is not the true Church. We all in England live under the same civil constitution, but not imder the same ecclesiastical. We are one State, but we are a hundred Churches. To admit in matters ecclesiastical such things as the Times chooses for its illustrations would be anarchy ; to forbid them in matters ecclesiastical would be tyranny. We must add, that to confound the two so diifcreut things together, as millions are now doing, is tyranny in the malcbuj. Another cry of the agitators, as fallacious, though not so extensively dangerous, as those wliich we have just considered, is, that what has been done is " an invasion of the Queen's prerogative." The Queen's prerogative, we had always simply imagined, was to appoint archbishops and bisliops of the Established Church. Is it now meant that she has the prerogative of appointing the prelates of olhir Churches too? No. If the Times and its multitudinous followers are to be taken as exponents, it means that there shall be no other bishops in England. Now, look where tliis leads. Quoth the Ti7nes, "England has bishops and dioceses of her own, and no others can be ajDpointed without insult tn tin' Crown and kingdom, pud just liabilities on the part of the offenders." We have here a hint of the circumstance wliich renders it a pos- sibiUty to foist such fallacies on the pubhc, as well as the consetjueuces to which they point. To change the names, Scotland had synods and presbyteries of its own — those of the Established Church as appointed by legislative authority ; yet the Scottish chssenters happening to be Presbyterians, have over aud over again made new synods and presbyteries without ever thinking that they had " insulted the Crown aud kingdom," and come under "just liabilities." It has so happened, however, that none of the dissenters from the Church of England are Episcopahans — otherwise there would have been " other bishops and dioceses" long ago, and the fallacy in present use would never have been born, or, at least, could never have hved. liut will there never be any dissenters in England, save the Roman CathoUcs, requiring bishops for their Church government ? Is there not an exceeding likelihood that, ere long, we shall see some coming out of the English Church carrying their episcopal principles with them ? Lately, it seemed as if this exodus were to be composed of the Evangelical party — aud, if we are not mistaken, a sort of beginning or nucleus already existed in the person of Mr. Shore, of Exeter ; and now it is more likely to be the Puseyites, beginning with Mr, Bennett. But nobody knows whose may be the first turn, or whose the next ; but any man may know who chooses to consider, that if this doctrine of no bishops nor dioceses save those of the Estabhshed Churcli being permissible is to be held good, episcopal dissenters are things prohibited. Some further indication of the source and tendency of this monstrous doctrine, as well as some most in- structive hints on other points of the question, may be found by casting a glance at the United States. It is probable that not one in a hundred of our readers ever knew, aud that not one in a thousand of them now remembers, that, at the same time, and in the same phrases, the Pope did the same thing for the United States that he did for us. We make this broad numerical distinction between those who may once have known the fact and those who may now remember it, because the Loudon press aud other agitators were careful to announce it as " another evidence of papal insult and aggression ;" and have been doubly careful not to say a word as to how that "insult and aggression" have acted on Jonathan, as com- pared with ourselves. We shall do what we can to spoil that game. Jonathan paid no attention whatever to the matter, till he saw what a condition we had put ourselves into; he then examined the source of dread, and is now utterly indifferent about himself aud ininienseiy amused about us. We cite brief but sufficient specimens from the two papers of greatest circulation and influence in the States : — " The jour- nahsts of England," says the iA'ew York Herald, "are deeply engaged in discussions ;ind prophecies on the influences of the presence of a cardinal in that country We coiJd have a cardiiuil here in every State, and no one would be distressed on account of it. We have already taken live archbishops with alacrity — Bishop Hughes, our esteemed friend, monitor, sage, brother, equal, and fellow-citizen, at their head ; and we can digest a cardinal, or the Pope himself, with all the pleasure in life." The Kew York Courier and Inquirer goes equally straight to the point : — " John Hughes is made Roman CathoHc Archbishop in America, and the fact nowlujre produces the slightest sensation. Nicholas Wise- man is made Roman Catholic Archbishop in England, aud the whole island heaves with indignation and alarm. The one act scarcely elicits a passing paragraph in the American newspapers; the other surcharges the English press with a direful cholei-, wliich Jiuds vent in every style of wrathful rhetoric. As American Protestants, we must say that we cannot see the least reason in all this English clamour against papal encroachments aud papal usurpations. The Pope has only placed the Ronmn_ Catholic Church in England on the sr.mc basis it has long possessed without op])ositiou in Prussia, in the United States, and in other Protestant lands. The dignities he has created, and the functions he has conferred, arc of a purely spiritual character. lie has not interfered to the sliglitcst extent with >lie leinporalities of the Anglican Church, lie has levied no tithes, has laid claim to none of his confiscated rc\ciiiics, has not made the slightest attempt to appoint bishops to his ancient sees, now usurped, as he believes, by heretics. He has not sought to make his bishops and priests ]ieiisioncis upon tlic ]}uljlic l)(niiity, nor has he charged tlicni with any duties in any way iniiinging upon tiic common law of the realm, The agitation occasioned by the late papal rescript in I'lngland, we iii'lieve, is mainly due to two causes— jjricslly je;dousy and popular bigotry. The Anglican dignitaries are very naturally disturbed at this sudden cleviition of a body of men to the same noir.iiwl rank tlicy have so long exclusively onjoycd, and it is not strange at all io hear their clamouring for ponal enadmonts against the now hicrarcliy. Tlie popular clamour of ' No I'opcry ' springs from the same intolerant spirit tliat suslained the penal laws against dissenters for a lumilrod years, and agaijist Roman Catliolies foi- a hundred and lifty, and which even to this day hars a Jew out of the halls of legis- lation heeause of his religion. The moral grandeur of Trotestuntism consists in its respect for the human conscience, its reliance uj)on the word of God alone, and its calm disdain of all outward constraints, and all legal apydiances, either against it or in its favour. Where, as in this country, these ipialities are most mani- fested, there I'rotestantism is the strongest and most invulnerable. English Protestantism must be a craven thing to turn jjale at the view of a primate's hat and a dozen prehitical mitres. It must be a \venk thing to shake at the sight of his Holiness tracing a few beggarly lines on its map, and assigning one name to this division and another to that. It must bo a foolish tiling to suppose that it can, at tliis late day, check the power and the influence of its adversary by persecution or intolerance." Surely the contrast here exemplified is striking enough to have deserved a comer in the expansive columns of the London newspapers. Perhaps tlu^ did not choose to reveal a fact which they felt it difficult or in- convenient to account for. The reader will not seek far before he finds the roots of the difference. In Kngland, we have an Established Church ; in the United States they have not. In England, happening liithorto to have had no bisliops but such as liad State rank, powers, and endowments, our idea of a bishop in- cludes all these tilings ; in the United States, having hitherto bad no bishops hut such as are bishops only, their idea of a bishop is that of a person exercising only spiritual rule, and that over those only who choose him and pay him. Of course, the confusion of ideas wliieli leads people in this country to imagine that lloman Catholic bishops arc somehow to resemble tlie bishop of the State Church is one which the sup- porters of that institution are not slow to encourage, and render worse confounded. In reality, the appointment of the Roman Catholic bishops neitiier injures nor insults the Established Church ; hut, if we had no Establisiied Church, the present uproar would have been impossii)le and unthought of. There is one point of view in which Dr. Wiseman's recent sayings and doings iniglit possibly liave been regarded as just cause for a commotion, though not the sort of commotion we have had. They might have been taken as a symptom of the growth or the unchanged spirit of Popery, and so have been a call to Protestants to speak out, much as 5Ir. Thackeray speaks out in liis " Appeal to an Eminent Apjiealer :" — " I deny your pretences utterly, and with my whole heart ; I scorn your claim to infallibility. I no more care for your Pontifex Maximus than for the High Priest of Jupiter who preceded him ; and, in my quality of Protestant, protest against you and every bishop, priest, and deacon under your orders ; declaring my belief that honest people can get to heaven without you, and in spite of you, and entirely repudiating your clerical scheme. . . . Nicholas, wlio comes into Eleet-street, {and says, ' I am the ambassador aud pleni])oteutiary of the infallible expositor of truth — I have the keys of heaven and the other place : conic home with me, my boy, and I will show you a beautiful winking virgin, that will convert you in the twinkling of an eye — or a holy coat — or the bones of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne — or what you will' — to such a Nicholas I say ' Bosh !' aud snap my fingers." Good — very good! But have we not been "protesting too much," as if protesting under some great need or strong suspicion, and, above all, have we not been protesting in a wrong miy and a wrong spirit? All we say is, that our protesting has l)een utterly iiiapproiiriate and monstrously disproportionate. If the thing was worth heeding at all, it was a tiling for men as Protestants, and not as politicians ; for ministers of religion, not Ministers of State. If the filing was bad, it bore with it no civil or secular sanction. Why, then, seek to meet it with civil or secular weapons ? Why run to the Qi/ee/i, to tell her that somebody is " making faces " at us at Rome ? — for, at the most, it is but a matter of face-making. Next, even though the character of the agitation had lieen fitting and appropriate, how monstronsl}', liou* ridiculously does it exceed the importance of the circumstances ! This is the view of the matter which is most humiliating to our pride. Even the Thiies, in its lucid intervals, sees and feels this. "We confess," it says, " to an indignant ska?iie at the idea that an Itahan priest should have succeeded in putting England on the defensive, and that gatherings and protests of Englishmen should actually have been provoked by the feeble nominee of certain foreign States on Ids insecure ami tottering throne. Wa are ashamed that the energies of a great nation should have been expended on so unworthy an object." And \^ell i/ou may be ashamed who, when the fit was on, led and stimulated the huniiiiating folly. Look at what the " aggressive " party is, and what it has done, aud what the "alarmed and indignant" party are, and have been doing ! " See ocean into tempest lashed, To waft a feather, and to drown a fly !" Look at Dr. Wiseman, with the Pope's powerless bit of paper, spreading terror and fury — among whom ? Among a people where Popery is represented (generally speaking) by a poor, and ignorant, aud insignificant luinority ; and where Protestantism is represented by Ibrty-iune-tiftictlis of the rank, aud power, and wealth, aud knowledgi? — is embodied in our institutions, inwoven with our very idioms of language, and endowed as no uflier religion in any country on earth is endowed! Yet, with all this, we could not, we are told, aus\M'r the Papists iu Liiid, if we thought them worth answer at all : pulpit against pulpit, though we have a hundred to tlieir one ; bit of paper against bit of paper, though tliese, too, we have, or could have, a hundred to one — no, we must all, in all our capacities, poHtical, municipal, even professional, (what a dis- play was that of the College of Surgeons !) throw ourselves into convulsions, which have excited the amaze- ment of the world as they will the laughter of jiosterity. And, since \\e are in a plain-speaking mood, we shall say that the spirit and language in which this mis- directed and exaggerated agitation has been carried on have been discreditable and injurious to our character as Englishmen, whose motto is fair play, and as Protestants, whose doctrine is toleration. Protestants have got so thoroughly possessed witli the idea that they are very liberal aud tolerant, that they are never restrained by any fear of transgressing in the other direction ; and so thoroughly imbued with the conviction that Papis's are always intolerant, that facts to the contrary receive neither behef nor attention. Brethren, let us not he self-deeeiveis. All the liberality is not on one side, nor all the iUiberality on the other. For one moment look and listen. Protestants often cry, "No-Popery!" Do we ever liear our Popish fellow- ouutrymeu crying, "No Proteslautism?" The whole political or ordinary press of England has ever 8 morning for inmitlis been comintj out with tlie slrou;;-est and most sneering abuse of the Roman Cutholic religion; what would be thought if the press of Ireland came out every morning in the same style on the Protestant religion ? The mobs of English towns have been amusing themselves with burninn- effigies of the Pope and Archbishop Wiseman ; what would be thought of the mohs of Irish towns amusing themselves by burning the Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other personage whom Protestants regard with even one hundredth part of the reverence witli which the Papists regard fhe'tr spiritual head ? U'hat do you think of the fact that these things are done by Protestants, and are not done by Papists ? To glance at another class of facts — Irish constituencies, nineteen in twenty lloraan Catholics, returu Protestants to Parliament without a word about their religion if their politics accord ; we scarcely know a single popular constituency in Britain where a Roman Catholic, though in all other respects qualified and acceptable, would have the ghost of a chance ! Pour or five years ago, on a vacancy occurring in the representation of perhaps the most Liberal county constituency in Scotland, Kirkcudbright, a Roman Catholic gentleman (Mr. Constable Maxwell) of large possessions, high character, and great personal popularity, started as the Whig candidate, but found he might as well have started for the " Priraateship of All England." Now, good Protestant reader, if the counterpart of this had happened even in tlie most thoroughly Popisli county of Ireland ; if a candidate otherwise welcome had been repudiated because he was a Protestant, would we not all have shouted, " What vile bigots tliose Papists are !" And if Mr. Maxwell had slipped in for Kirkcudbright, would we not all have shouted, " How liberal we Protestants are !" But then, look how things have hap- pened. Tlie Protestant Mr. Herbert (we take the first instance that occurs to our mind) is made member for Popish Kerry, without a word about liis religion ; and Mr. Maxwell, solely on account of his religion, will never be member for Kirkcudbright ! What should we cry at this/' Ah: "Tlie case being altered, that alters the case." One instance more. At the very time (a few weeks ago) when we were aU crying out about Popish bigotry, and heaping on the Roman Catholic religion every epithet of opprobrium and abhorrence, the Town Council of Dublin, five-sixths Roman Catholic, were unanimously electing a Protes- tant Lord Mayor. Are we likely soon to see a Roman Catholic Lord Provost of Edinburgh or Glasgow ? And, finally (though we finish only for want of sufficient space), if a Popish Prime Minister wi-ote an official letter denouncing Protestantism as " slavery," " degradation," " superstition," and " mummery," he would scarcely succeed in keeping his head on his shoulders. Yet, when a Protestant Prime Minister so denounces Popery, he gets " three cheers" at a thousand meetings ; and never did the Guildhall of London hear such thumping of tables and jingling of glasses ! These are facts ; look at them, think of them, and think espe- cially if, in the face of them, we ought to regard ourselves as superabundantly stocked with that Christian virtue which speaketh no evil, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. It will be a gross mistake and injustice if any reader should think, from anything that is said or that is omitted in the above observations, that we are either favourable to, or forgetful of, the nature of Popery as a religion, especially as regards its injliieiices on matters social and political. We have not spoken directly and fully on that portion of the subject, only because we fear the reader's impatience ; because, too, it is in part, beyond our province, and, not least, because that question is not really raised by the matter in hand Dr. Wiseman's documents are no new manifestation of the nature of Popery, and (so, we hope, we have shown) his appointments confer upon it no netv power. Still more — and here again we approach the root of all the mischief done out-of-doors, and rumoured as likely to be done in the Calainet and Legislature — you ought not, and you cannot, legislate ar/ainst injhiences. We ought not — it is persecution : if we as Liberals think Romanism has a despotic tendency, Tories think Protestant dissent has a democratic tendency ; and if legislation, or atteraps at it, had a beginning, where would be the end ? We cannot — ;ill history shows, in letters of blood, that these things are too subtle for laws and penalties: in the present case, to "forbid the names would be paltry — to forbid the thing would be persecution ; but both are practically impossible. The check and cure for bad influences is the application of good ones. We say, with Milton, " Let Truth and Falsehood grapple," and perish all force and "protection" as puerilities and poltrooneries. THE " MINISTERS AND THE POPE." {From the " Quarterly Review," No. 175.) We readily admit, and Dr. Wiseman is welcome to the benefit of the admission, that the astouisliment with which the Pope's bull for the erection of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England has been received at the close of 1850 is altogether unreasonable. The Bull of Pius IX. was drawn up, and Dr. Wiseman says printed, in 1847. The various causes that delerred its publication are of no consoquonce to us. Its exislence was perfectly well known at tliat date in this country ; we ourselves in vain endeavoured to fix on it the languid attention of the public ; nor certainly have intervening occurrences Icncled to disturb our conviction then expressed, that tliis supreme insolence wcnild lie considered by the future historian :is the natural fruit of tiic original rashness wlierewith the Relief Bill of 1S~'J was framed, and of the persevering malice of Whig Govcrnmenis against the Cliurch of England. " Where do ye come from ? " is but an unsatisfactory answer to the inquiries of the belated traveller ; but it suggests the most important subject for reflection to the politician who is desirous of ascertaining his actual position and tiic means of extrication. Iler Majesty's Ministers are mainly and direclly responsible for the aggression of which they now affect to be tlie fir4 to complain. AVcre they so ignorant of the spirit of Popery, and so little acquainted with the cliaractcr of the existing Pope, as to expect improvement from the one, or forbearance from the other? In every case the Roman court had disjilayed before the eyes of the whole world tlie same sinril of intole- rance, arrogance, and pre-pofeney— in Prussia, in Switzerland, and in Ireland; and I'ius l.\., in one respect at least the worthy successor of Gregory VII., had shown far more energy in advancing his spiritual (loniiaioii (Imii ia rpguliitiiij,' his toinponil sdvcrcigiuy. While a prisoner in llic Quirinal, or an exile at Gaeta, he did not abate one jot of his ecclesiastical pretensions ; and when now, thouijh barely maintained oa h s tottering throne by tlic bayonets of seini-inlidel France, he presumes to violate more audaciously than ever the majesty of the British Sovereign, and throw a firebrand among the English people themselves, who has a right to be surprised ? When the scheme of Romish " Emancipation" first engaged the minds of statesmen, many circumstances concurred to mislead public opinion as to the nature of the problem to be solved, in order to bring about so great a change with safety. During the latter part of the last age the very spirit of Popery had seeme.i altered : tJie enlightened Gangauelli, the'eneiny of the Jesuits — the magnilicent Braschi, the collector of statues and drainer of marshes — seemed rather called to vindicate their ortiiodoxy than to purge themselves from tlie charge of bigotry. At the close of the century the aspect of Europe was sucli, that there seem-^'d everything to dread from infideUty — from superstition nothing. Neither Mr. Titt, nor afterwards Lord Grenville, could much fear aggression from a Pontilf struggling in the iron grasp of France, and looking-, as the only chance of deliverance, to the success of England and her allies ; he was at that time in so low a condition that it might be doubted whether even in Ireland a new bull on anew subject would command ranch attention ; yet neither of these thougiitful statesmen ever dreamt of emandpafioii ahsoluiehj vMhont safeguards. On the restoration of tlie papal throne at the end of the war, it was generally assumed th t a very moderate spirit prevailed, and would continue to prevail, in tlic grateful Vatican. The I'ope pi r- mitted the English tourists, whose numbers and wealth made them of importance to the impoverislad Romans, to asseiubh; for worship in a barn without the walls. Tliis concession, strenuously opposed by he priests of British birth (or blood) resident at Rome, was for that very reason regarded with additir ual confidence by others as the earnest of all future liberality; and it was only close observers who soon per- ceived how much the ancient anuiius of tin; Papacy was reviving, and how well-directed and systei' atic were its efforts to recover its inlluence everywhere — but especially its influence Jmre, so long impaire 1 by the misfortunes of the see and the interruption of intercourse during the war. By-and-bye the Protes ants of the Continent began to understand pretty generally that the confideuce which Home had been enj ying was but that which credulous man is apt to repose in a slumbering volcano. Ko change, however took place in the conduct or arguments of our modern emancipators. These mainly consisted in an exagge- rated dread of tlie power of the Irish Papists, and atl'ected contempt for the moral power of Popery. It was assumed to be a worn-out superstition, which, when not kept alive by persecution, must languish and die. In England, it was said, there were a few people of condition whom an honourable jmnctilio alone attached to a proscribed Church. In Ireland the strength of the priests lay in their sway over a barbarous population ; soothe the masters, and the slaves jnust cease to be formidable. IIow little did tiiese en- lightened reasonors know of human nature when they supposed that vanity and ambition can be pampered without being stimulated; or tliat Popery, containing, as it does, the substance of eternal truth, and over- laid with fictions so marvellously adapted to man's weakness and corruption, could be thus disposed of by a pointed sentence of a " liberal" harangue ! By such argumeuts and with sucli expectations the Relief BiU was violently urged on ; the opposition to it was suddenly abandoned, by those who alone could oppose it — and it w-as carried. No one attem| Jed to grapple with tlic true ditlicidlics of the question. By one party they were denied ; by another thiy were thought insuperable. The one demanded the simple removal of all disabilities; the other did not think themselves bound to provide the correctives for a measure they disapproved in tolo. ... It may be true that if, as was urged at the time, it was necessary to hurry on the Relief Bill without delay, it woiil 1 hardly have been possible for its framers to engraft on it a suitable and well-weighed scheme of restricti jn, it is perhaps more^true that the temper of the country, already sorely tried, could not have been ex ected to endure at that crisis the additional novelty of a formal negotiation with Rome. We only profess I o declare what should, from the first, have been the object of our emancipating guides. We maintain that the alter- native was never lairly stated to the country. The choice, as it should have been proposed, lay be. ween the restrictive laws as then in force, and the removal of those laws idih the imposition of such otl' er restric- tions as had been admitted in various European States, and as the circumstances of this eouutr / rendered peculiarly necessary in her case. . . . Up to the passing of the Relief Bill all was at least consi stent. No interference of the Pope was, in theory, permitted ; his very existence was ignored by the law. Now that the emancipation was complete, and his access to his own adherents unrestrained, to persist for the sake of nominal and fallacious consistency to ignore the Pope, was to confer upon him the plenitude of ecclesias- tical power, unbounded in theory as the wildest claims of the dark ages could extend, and limited in practice only by his own discretion. Such an arrangement, or rather abrogation of all arrangement, could not long admit of peace even in an united country where the Roman Catholic religion was dominant ; could it bring peace to one torn with dissensions, where another was the religion of the State? Sooner or later a collision between the Crown and the head of the Romish Clinrch was inevitable; whether the ^linisters who reluctantly passed this measure would or could have subsequently devised any efficient safeguards for it was never put to proof : they soon yielded their places to its most strenuous advocates, and beneath the fostering influence of those successors the fruits of " Emancipation" rapidly expanded and matured. Under ordinary circumstances, the unfettered action of ecclesiastical authority is as galling to the Romish laity as it is incompatible with the free action of government; but, in ti'.e presence of a Protestant power and nation, clergy and laity agreed admirably in keeping up the agitation they had repeatedly promised to abandon for ever. The influential laity indeed — the demagogues, by whom, as well as by the priests, tho unhappy peasants were cajoled, inflamed, and plundered — had the dexterity to secure the more substantial fruits of victory to themselves. Mr. O'Conuell received, as his share, besides the rent, the command of a following strong enough to balance the parties of the imperial legislature ; and by the compact of January, 1835, the whole patronage of Ireland was laid at his feet. The priests, for the most part, were paid with fawning genuflexions and such honours as — proh pudor ! — could be extorted from the time-serving Ministers of a Prince still styling himself the Defender of the Faith. Every year the embarrassments of Government increased ; every year fresh concessions were sought for, aud made, with the effect that might have been anticipated, of raising fresh hopes and exciting new demauds. Ajnong their endeavours to gratify the pride which they had thus weakly inflamed, the most extraordinary 10 was the plan to confer surreptitiously, and witliont any direct act of the competent authorities, title and precedence upon the cliicls oi' tlie Popish priesthood iu the co'onies and iu Ireland. In 18-1- j, when this invasion was first noticed in f arliament, Lord John Kussell had the holdness to say in his place : — " I believe that we may [that is, ice should'] repeal those disallowing clauses which prevent a Roman Catholic hishop from assuming a title lield hy a bishop of the Establishment. Nothing can be more absurd and puerile than to keep up such distinctions." This was indeed a candid proclamation ! The scheme, accord- ingly, was persisted in, and by-and-bye we exposed it so fully that we should not revert to it, if the subject had not recently acquired such additional importance in public estimation. We tried then to impress our readers with our own apprehensions — we have now to lament their fulfilment. We shall make some extracts, and we must begin with Lord Grey's celebrated circular addressed to the Governors of the British Colonies: — " Lownhig-street, Nov. 20, 1847. " Sir, — My attention has lately been called by the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to the fact, tliat the pre- lates of the Homan Catholic Church in the British colonies have not hitherto, in their official correspond- ence with the Governor and authorities, been usually addressed hy the title to w liich their rank in their iwn Church would appear to j^ive theiu a just claim. Formerly there were obvious reasons for this prac- t ice ; but as Parliament has, by a recent Act (that relating to Charitable Bequests in Ireland), formally r. cognised the rank of the Irish Roman Catholic prelates, by giving them precedence immediately alter the pi elates of the Established Church of the same degree — the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops tal iug rank immediately after the Protestant archbishops and bishops respectively — it has appeared to Iter Majesty's Government that it is their duty to conform To the rule thus laid down by the Legislature; and I liav ) accordingly to instruct you hereafter oiiieialiy to address the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church in y :iur Government by the title of Tour Grace, or Your Lordship, as the case may be. " Parliament not having thought proper to sanction the assumption by the prelates of the Roman Catholic Chu\ eh in Ireland of titles derived from the sees lohich they hold, a similar rule will be followed in the colonies ; thus, for example, the Roman Catholic prelate in New Soutii Wales will be addressed as the Most Reverend Archbishop Polding, and in VanDieraan's Land as the Right Rev. Bishop Willson. "I have, &c. GREY." The Protestants in the House of Commons had a natural anxiety to see a document in which Lord Clarendon, finding himself at leisure to divert his mind to the care of the antipodes, and not feeling satisfied with Lord Grey's attention to Popish interests in that remote quarter, had thought proper to jog his noble friend's memory. Accordingly, Sir Robert Inglis moved for the Lord Lieutenant's letter — but, behold ! it had no official existence ! The return from the Colonial-ottice was nil. It seems surprising that Lord Grey should have quoted a private letter as the ground tor an official despatch, or, having so quoted it, did not perceive that it thereby became official, and public property. Several expressions in the " Circular" were also most remarkable, especially the tranquil observation that " Parliament had not thought proper to sanction" the Popish prelates iu Ireland in " the assumption of titles from the dioceses which they hold." But all surprise is swallowed up in what follows. In the House of Lords, 8th August, 18-18, Lord Redesdale said, the Charitable Bequests Act had been relied on under a total mistake, and " The mistake, he conceived, had arisen from the fact that, whereas the Act merely authorised a Commission, consisting of the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Baron,^the Judge of the Prerogative Court, and ten other persons, five of whom were to be Roman CathoHcs — in the 'Queen's Letter' placing those persons on the Commission, it so happened that after the name of the Pr.. testant archbishop the Roman Catholic archbishop's came next, and so on, after every Protestant bishop the. e was a Roman Catholic bishop named. But every one knew that names were placed upon Commissions witl out any reference to the precedence of rank ; as, for instance, iu the Treasury, where it often liappened that ;he Eirst Lord Commissioner was a commoner, while the junior lords might be persons of much higher rank The explanation of the arrangement so made in tliis Commission appears in the very Act quoted by the 11 uble lord in his circular. The Master of the Rolls, the Chief Baron, and the Judge, in the order of their rank, if present, were to act as official chairmen of the Commission, and in tlieir absence one of the tenol hers, in order of their dpriointment. With regard to these, if all the Protestants had been placed first in ill Commission, and all the Roman Catholics hist, it is quite clear that it would be impossible for any of the la ter ever to have a chance of occupying the chair at their meetings in the absence of the official chair- man. It was, therefore, in order to make a fair distribution of the chance of lilliug the cliair that the arrang ment of the names had been settled." Lord Stanley added — "The noble earl had stated in a despatch that Parliament had, in the Bequests Act, expressly recognised tlie rank of the Roman Catholic prelates, and that it was the duty of her Majesty's Government to conform to the ride laid down by the Legislature. The fact was, that no such recognition had been made, no such rule laid down. The lact was, there was not one word from beginning to end of the Act with regard to the precedence of prelates of the Roman Catholic Church ; and that, although her iriajesty, in the exercise of her undoubted authority, had thought fit, in appointing the Comraissiouers under that Act, to give, for the purposes of that Act, a certain position in that Commission to certain individual prelates, and to none other,yet those prelates had no precedence whatever as to rank beyond the doors of the Commission, nor had any other Roman Catholic prelate the slightest precedence or position of the kind in consequence either of the provisions of the Act or of the arrangements under the Cummission." Thus both allegations were for ever abolished. But as we cannot suppose tlial Loid Grey was aware of tlie falseness of tlie grounds he alleged, so we do not believe that he had considered liow indefeusibh^ in form, iu principle, and in law, was the course he pursued. He does not seem to have known that there cannot be canonically two bishops of the same diocese, and ihat to acknowledge the holdiny of the one is to disallow that of the other, lie is as willing to grant the style of Your Grace to two archi)islio])s of Dublin as that of Reverend to two Dissenting ministers in his own county, whose votes he wishes to secure. He does not care that the I'ope, by giving the title of archliishoi) to iiis hierai-clis, may at pleasure secure for them siqx'rior con- sideration to bishops, even to aichbisliops, of the Estabhshcd Church. Lastly, he seems to tliink that the Cokuiial Secretary is the fountain of honour, and that it is not even necessary for tliat potentate to use the form of " having taken her Majesty's pleasui'c." 11 If the result were not so serious, it might provoke a smile to consider tho effects of this sweeping appro- jiriatioii of lofty titles, and on what sort of persons these two modest earls had hestowcd the style of " Your Grace," peculiarly English, unknowu (if that siguilics) and luiving no equivalent in tlie Romish Church ahroad — not even in Italy. We know not wliethcr Lord Grey's prejudices have hlindcd his perceptions, or whether the haduess of his cause obliges him to mystify his defence, lie seems to see everything indistinctly, as through a mist of his own raising. Characteristically enough, he makes a parade throughout of the contempt which certain statesmen are accustomed to profess for what they call trifles. Lord Jolm Hussell, in like manner, in the House of Commons, expressly recommended passing froni the subject because it was, "after all, of no importance:" he was still of opinion, that is, after tiie lapse of three years, that any objection to such steps was " puerile and absurd." " When the Substance is given up, why quarrel about the shadow?" is a phrase much in vogue with politicians of this stamp. They might learn better from the only Church which they seem to admire. What they call Ww.shadoiv often involves iXw principle. It is by catching at such .sliadows, and never rclin(|uishing tliem, that the Church of Home became what she is — a power still able to agitate this country from one end to the other; and truly in our own immediate ease the shadow plays no unimportant part, it has consolidated itself into thepoitly substance of a Cardinal-Primate of all England and twelve sulfragan bishops " holding" English sees. We must refer our readers to jMr. Perceval's pamphlet, if they wish to see collected together aU that wit and argument in and out of Parliament were alilc to urge against the Cabinet on this occasion. We say the Cabinet, for it was not by silent support alone, but by entire agreement in sentiment and in language with the two Earls, that all the Ministers, and especially tlu; Premier, declared their concurrence. I3ut if we were to select the passage which we eonsidcr least creditable to the noble Secretary, and yet most important for tlie public to reflect ujion, wc should take it from his own defence. Lord Grey, in reply to Lord Kc^desdale, said — " It was perfectly true that the Bequests Act did not expressly recognise the rank of lloman Catholic prelates ; and that, in writing the dispatch, he had undoubtedly taken somewhat hastUy the expression used in the letter of his noble friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to him on the subject. Yet, though tlu; language of the circular was, to a certain degree, inaccurate, it was, at the same tune, substantially correct." And how does he make this out ? Lo ! he has a new document iu his bag : — " An Act of Parliament, though it was a jjrivate act, still was no less an act of the Legislature. In tlie Dublin Cemeteries Act he found a lloman Catholic Archbishop styled the Most Reverend Archbishop Murray ; aud in the same act, which was passed in 1816, Dr. Murray was styled his Grace. It should be recollected that the despatch [the famous circular] did not give a rank, but merely recognised a rank already recognised by law. . . . lie believed that it was an unfortiiuate circumstance that the title of my Lord should be given to bishops either of our own or of the lloman Catholic Church. ... In some colonies the English Church was no more established than the Roman Cathohc ; in many of the colonies the lloman Catholics formed the great majority of the population ; and it appeared to him that it was contrary to all justice and reason, that in such cases the title accorded to the prelates of the one religion should not be given also to those of the other." We need not call admiration to the coolness with which this nobleman of very recent nobility decrees the titles conceded immeraorially by the Constitution to our own episcopal bench to be "unfortunate." But we must pause for a moment on the " private act, not the less an act of the Legi.slaturc," which he digs up to supply the gap left by his demolished Bequests Act. " A private act, forsooth !" — exclaims a writer frequently quoted by Mr. Perceval — " of which, most probably, not a single Member of Parliament, except those iu the secret, ever read more than the title ; though it is now clear enough, from the use which Lord Grey has been put up to make of it, that this clandestine march was stolen upon the country and upon Parliament with malice prepense of the llomish hierarchy." — Morning Herald, Aug. 22, 1818. The all-important clause of this private act is iu these words : — " XXVIII. — Be it enacted, that his Grace Daniel Murray, Archbishop, aud his successors exercising the same spiritual jurisdiction as he now exercises in the diocese of Dublin as an archbishop, may from time to time appoirit, at the desire of the said governing body, a clergyman of the Roman Catholic Cliurch to officiate as a chaplain in any such burial-grounds, and such ehaplain shall be licensed by and be subject to the jurisdiction of the said archbishop, and the said archbishoj) sludl have power to revoke any such licence, and to remove such chaplain, for any cause wliich shall appear to the said archbishop to be canonical !" Mr. Perceval's eonnuentary is this : — " If Lord Grey's argument from the private act being the act of the Legislature be worth a straw, this most improper recital and enactment iu an ohscure private hill has virtually repealed the Act of Supremacy, and falsified the oaths of every Protestant Peer and Member of Parliament. Eor, beyond all question, Daniel iMurray's spiritual jurisdiction is the Pope's! lloman Cathohc prelates have no jurisdiction but of the Pope's giving. They are but vicars of the universal bishop. This private act, therefore, proves something too much." Mr. Perceval does not point out all theimporlance of this precedent of 1816 — if it is to pass for one — as respects the " Aggression " of ISoO; but, as he justly says, the mere existence of such a private act is a circumstance well worthy public attention. Who drew the act ? Can any one doubt that it was a Popish sub-otficial — or a Popish prelate, his real master ? It is high time the country should learn the circum- spection that is required when honesty aud plain dealing are not to be depended upon in puhUc servants. In tliese days, when no lawyer can keep jiace witn tLc torrent of legislation on public matters which rolls through Parliament, we discover that every obscure private hill must be watched in its progress, lest it should contain some clause that viituaUy repeals the constitution We must here notice another occurrence prior to the discussions of August, lSi'8, but wliich lias only very lately been miuhpiiblici Juris. On the 19th of March, ISIS, the Earl of Clarendon addressed a letter " to his Grace Arehbishop jMurray of Dublin," in which he said, — " (Private.) My dear Lord — Y'our Grace had the goodness to promise tliat you would convey to Rome, for the consideration of the Pope, the amended statutes of the Queen's Colleges. As 1 entertain a profound veneration for ihe character of the Pope, and completely rely upon his upright judgment, it is with pleasure that I now ask your Grace," &c. &c. Now, we beg to remind our readers that Lord Palmerstou, when questionetl on the lOtli of December, 1847, as to tlie alleged accreditmeut of Lord Miuto as an Envoy to the Court of Rome, replied that 12 Lord Miiito liad not been so accredit<>d '• in any way" — lirr Majesty's Govorniuent having "|too much respect for the law to do anything wliicli could by possibility be considered an iafringement of it." Sucli was Lord Palmerston's view of the law. He strenuously defended the Government against the suspicion that they bad ventured, as the law then stood, to open any intercourse with the Court of Home. The act of Queen Victoria authorising diplomatic intercourse with the Sovereign of the Roman States — qna temporal Sovereign merely — was, after many debates, passed at the very close of the session in ISiS (Sept. 3.). Yet in March previous here is the Lord-Lieuter.ant of Ireland asking "his Grace Arch- bishop Murray of Dublin" to convey to Home for the consideration of the Pope, upon whose upright judgment bis Excellency has implicit reliance, the statutes drawn up by her Majesty's responsible servants for the new colleges then meditated In spite of all these things, one might have expected that the debates of August, 18i8, respecting Lord Grey's circular, would have instilled a little caution ; but not so. The same course was resumed, it is by no one avowed act of the Legislature, nor of the royal prerogative, that this innovation has been accom- plished. It was promoted by a succession of ministerial manoeuvres, advancing like the gradual and scarcely perceptible rising of an inundation, till at last (one error supporting and confirming another), on occasion of the Queen's visit to Ireland, there appeared in the Dublin Gazette the following notice : — " Lord Chamberlain^ s Office, Biiblm Castle. August 7, 1849. — Her Majesty has been pleased to desire that the following persons should have the entree to the Castle : — The Primate, the Chancellor, the Arch- bishop of Dublin, the Roman Catholic Primate, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, the Cabinet JMiuisters, her Majesty's Household, the Lord-Lieutenant's Household, the Lord Chief Justice of Queen's Bench, the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, &c., &c., and all who have the entree at St. James's." A small circumstance marks the deliberate and general prospective purpose of this notice. In August, 1849, there was no " Roman Catholic I'riraate." The " throne " of Armagh was vacant until filled in 1850 by the Pope's nomination of bis "philosopher and friend" Dr. CuUen. The Primate therefore was mentioned with a view to the Court arrangements of futurity. This was meant to be a settlement in per- peluiim of the precedence of Dublin Castle ; nor could it be questioned that it was also meant that Popish prelates admitted to such precedence there would have a fuU right to claim similar rank on any visit to her Majesty's Court at St. James's. It may well seem idle, after these occurrences, to express any surprise at the English bull of 1850. Undoubtedly the way for it had been well smoothed ; as far as Ministers were concerned, the Pope might be excused for believing that his " aggression " would be anything but unacceptable. But his Holiness, though infallible, bad forgotten an important item to be calculated, and discarded for once the wisdom of the serpent. Having, as he bad, friends here, who plotted for bim with a zeal and a disingenuousness which his own Court could hardly surpass, it does seem an act of wondrous folly on bis part, and should be received as a deliverance on ours, that he himself chose suddenly to expose to the whole English nation the lines of attack so ingeniously concealed. The Pope's indiscretion, however, leaves Dr. Wiseman's argumentnm ad hominem against Ministers quite untouched ; nor, on the other hand, will it avail them, when the imme- diate excitement shall have subsided, to say, in bumble imitation of their eminent ally, that the bull of Pius IX. was mainly prompted by recent manifestations within our own Church. At present, certainly, the signal on this head has been obeyed with great apparent alacrity. On every side we hear the same strain : — May not our own divisions be justly regarded as the great cause of the arrogance of our enemies ? When the the zeal which should be exerted on the substance of religion is allowed to waste itself on idle forms ; when disputes about doctrines too mysterious for human comprehension, and too subtle to be defined by articles or settled by controversy, make us forget the main and plain points on which we all agree ; when Anglican clergymen, even dignitaries, seem to tamper with the keystone of the Establishment — the supremacy of the Sovereign ; when there is a party in the Church who cry up the religion over which Pius IX. presides, and calumniate the Reformation which our forefathers blessed as the escape from the house of bondage — is it wonderful that the " successor of St. Peter" should assault a power which even its own servants do not respect and defend ? In Rome, the conversions to Popery have, no doubt, been much exaggerated both as to their number and importance. No doubt also the "Romanising tendencies" of a section ot our clergy have been misrepresented by half-foreign priests and fantastical converts, who never, perhaps, imbibed the spirit of the creed and ritual they have abjured, and who, we will be bold to say, have everything to learn (as they will liereafter find to their cost, on a nearer view) of the Church they have embraced. Of what has been said on these unhapiiy topics, however, enough is true to cause a severe pain and excite a just alarm. What we wonder at is the audacity of the Whig Ministers in venturing to start such a strain, lii what, we must ask, did the Tractarian movement originate? Whose acts provoked it ? Is Lord John Russell in this case entitled to throw the first stone ? The Whig Government of 1830 included not a few individually hostile to the Church, and all as a party were unfriendly to it. They came in " with a cry," in pursuit of popularity ; they believed the Church wius unpopular because the dissenters were noisy ; and they immeasurably underrated her strength. The Esta- blishment appeared to be really in danger, and the alarm was powerfully sounded by one of their own warmest partisans, who had never been accused of bigoted attachment to the Churcli, and whose nerves did not seem particularly sensitive to the danger of innovation. Bishops were apiioiuted who, whatever might be their merits, did not commaiul the confidence of the clergy. Their doctrines had given ofience to many, and their advancement spread and strengthened the conviction that it was the intention of the Government to favoiir latitudinarian principles to the utmost of their power. Ministers seemed anxious to mark that their indulgence extended beyond even the pale of Christianity ; the proposal to admit the Jews into Par- liament was honoured with their zealous approbation. Is it surprising that earnest andzealous men united to oppose the torrent which threatened the Church of England, and to propagate her doctrines in all their original force and purity, as the best means of resisting her latitudinarian foes H The Tracts began in 1833. The first of them was an address to the clergy, demanding if they meant, as a body, to let llieir bishops alone stand the battle proclaimed by the then Lord Grey's memorable speecli about " setting houses m order?" It was not until far on in ths series that any tenets were announced which could oti'end the most 13 ortliodox cliurchman. We do not lay upon the successive miuistries, in whicli Lord Jolin Russell has held a prominent plaeo, the blame of tlie melancholy follies which this party have subsequently committed ; by no means ; the reaction in favour of antiquity is generally felt, and has produced extravagances in matters of much less importance. Fopperies of ill-understood archieology might, no douljt, have crept at any rate into our churches, and very possibly some dreamy enthusiasts might have gratified their vanity or a "morbid * taste for externals" by going over to Rome. But the solidity and consistency of the party, with a definite and laudable object, which gave them at first the support of good and able men, are to be attributed to that war upon the Church which the Reform Premier proclaimed, and which the Whig chiefs have siuce carried on with no other intermission than that produced by occasional want of power. TCor was this power always wanting when they were out of place. Can we forget what use they made of their leisure in December, 1831, and January, 1835 ? Can we forget that in those months were held the consultations between Irish pai)istry and English innovation which resulted in the Lichfield House Coiiijiact? Or can wc consider it as a circumstance of no signifieancy that Dr. Wiseman now states that the first petitions for the establish- ment of a rcgiJar hierarcliy in England were sent from London to Home " .sixteen years ago ?" To what period does that date bring us? Is it possii)le not to suspect '.hat those petitioners obeyed the same direc- tors who were exactly then preparing an assault of unprecedented violence upon the Anglican Establish- ment iu Ireland, and with whom English intriguers were content to take counsel at Lichfield House? Or, considering how close the alliance between our ruling Whigs and the chief instruments of papal policy in this empire continued to be from "si.xteeu years ago," and more, to August, IS-tO, and later — is it possible to doubt the accuracy of Dr. Wiseman's reiterated assertion, that nothing was farther from his expectation than the appearance, on the late occasion, of such a document as the letter to the Bishop of Durham, signed by Lord John Russell? That remarkable letter, however, was not, even on the face of patent documents, the noble Premier's first move. Originally he took the matter very philosophically. AVhen, three years back, his attcntio?i was called, in the House of Commons, to the universal report as to tiie erection of the Westminster primacy, he contented himself with curtly replying that he had received no information uf such an arrangement, nor, if lie had been informed, would he "have approved of il .^^ lie did not say tluit he would have boiled over with '■ indignation," and forthwith .set about examining into tin; stati; of tlie penal laws. Xo. But this was long ago ; aud the bull had not been actually issued ! Well, even on the first promulgation of the Wiseman bull, he (October 28, 1850) in the same calm laconic style of eloquence announced to a favoured " gentleman of Exeter," by the pen of his secretary, that the Government; hud "not given sanction or approbation" to the scheme thus propounded from the chair of St. Peter ; but still not a note of antidote or resistance ! By and bye he found that both above and below him the matter was regarded more seriously ! Mighty indeed in working was the brief interval between October 2Sth and November Ith, when he addressed the Bishop of Durham. By that time he had taken alarm — for wha/ we need not ask ; and, ingeniously attributing the "insolent and insidious aggression" to the unchecked spread of Tractarian delu- sions, declares his high scorn of all " mummeries," and his resolve that if the law will reach the intrusive Papists it shall be put in force ; if it will not, it must be amended ! Et tu. Brute ! No Minister ever stood in a more pitiable position. But the movement has advanced far beyond the control of such " weak masters" — and something must be done. That the law would still reach the "Cardinal-Archbishop" aud his suft'ragans, is hardly, after the speech of Sir E. Sugdcn, doubtful. It is not, perhaps, so generally known how this happens to be so. The fact is, that the bill of Otii and 10th Victoria, as prepared by Mr. Anstey (a Roman Catholic lawyer aud M.P.), approved and supported by Lord John Russell, and agreed to by the House of Commons, repealed the Acts of the 1st and 13th of (Elizabeth in toio ; but the sagacity of the Bishop of Exeter detected the possible consequences of such extreme liberality, and his amendment was carried in the Lords : whereby, although the statutory penalties of the old Acts were abolished, their substance was retained ; so that their infringers are still liable to all the consequences of misdemeanour. Jlany, no doubt, would be desirous to see the powers with which the so preserved statutes invest Government again enforced. But, whatever ditticultics there may be in such a course, the greatest, we imagine, would be in inducing Lords Grey and Clarendon to co-operate. A hard case indeed is theirs, if they must either consent to do so, or abandon their posts because conscience forbids them to defend the cause of religion and patriotism. Still, we repeat, something must be done ; to whatever a few dignified Whigs may be committed, the country is unanimously resolved not to submit fo what she regards as both an insult and an injury; and Lord John Russell must have more courage than even Sydney Smith ascribed to him if he, after his letter to Bishop !Maltby, dares to meet Parliament without some measure in his hand. In fact, to do so would certainly be to pronounce sentence of immediate deposition against him'^clf, and, we need not add, against the Ministry. The only other men of active talent and bold temper in his Cabinet are about as unpopular as it is possible for statesmen to be. Tie Colonial-oflice and the Foreign-office have reduced themselves to sucli esteem that it is hard to say whether the Premier would suffer most by being thought to yield, ou a great point of domestic policy, to the one of their chiefs, or to lean principally, in an adherence to it, ujion the support of the other. Something must be done ; something must at least be attempted : what that something will be, it is not our business to conjecture ; but we greatly fear it will turn out to be a something as inadequate to the exigency of the case aud expectation of the community, as fatal (which, in fact, any measure, however timorous, must be) to the consistency of our rulers. Nor, however feeble and inetfectual, could it fail to eucounter a formidable combination of Parliamentary factions. One Enghsh section, we can already see will be for allowing matters to remain as they arc ou the plea of " peace ;" another will swell the inevitable Irish cry that the slightest movement in the shape of resistance involves the heinousness of persecution. The meaning is much the same. Peace is not to be got by passive submission to acts of warfare ; there is no per- secution in endeavouring, in a country where there are many diversities of faith, to place Church matters on such a fooling that the difierent dissenting bodies may hold each its own way, without perpetual risks of colhsion, either with each other or with the religion which is still that of the Crown aud State. But the truth is, the whole of this opposition will be found to resolve itself into a continuation of that hoitilityto the Established Church — the ' United Church of England and Ireland' — which has been felt, for these twenty years, to be 14 a cardinal motive of \Yh\g policy. To tlic v.Urammtane representatives of Irish constitueucies we have little to say — they will be tightiug for a cause wliich they will avow, and wliich the principles instilled into them hy their confessors liave satisfied them that they may conscientiously (though to other men's views they violate oaths) avow and uphold with the utmost of tliat {io«er which the Relief Bill left to he exercised by them under no control save tliat of their own discretion and honour. Their Englisli allies, Mr. Roebuck, for instance, will not probably speak out so plainly. Tlie nltramonianist strains every nerve to ruin our Church, because his liope is strong that, were she degraded, the Protestants, reduced to a chaos of unprivileged sects, would be unable to resist the disciplined force of the Vatican : tliat multi- tudes of AngUcans would in such a state of matters seek for shelter under the ;cgis of the Infallible See, firm in a polity independent of local arrangements ; that the feelings wliicli have hitherto made the main strength of our Cliurch would be largely enlisted on tlie side of Rome ; and that, after an interval of anarchy, the result would l)e her formal supremacy even in England. Never, we believe, were visions more baseless. The people of England, long accustomed to religious freedom, will not again place their necks beneath the sandals of monks. " The morbid taste for externals" is confined to a few idle and susceptible individuals of the upper classes, who seek for occupation in reUgious excitement and a new amusement in the pauses of liackncyed dissipation — the mass of the people is here untainted. The destruction of the Church of England here would neither be the triumph of Home nor of Belgravia ; but from the ruins of all would spring up those stern and relentless sectarians who once before overthrew the monarchy, and who would preach universal ^toleration till one of them was strong enough to practice persecution. The English latitudiuarian — to say nothing of the sheer infidel — does not perhaps look so far. It might be curious to speculate on what his feelings would be if suddenly transferred to a land where the Papal system enjoyed a complete doraiuancy. With what zeal would Mr. Roebuck then denounce the absurdities of the dogmas, the insolence of the priests, the slavery of the teaching ; what barricades, what violence, would he not recommend to get rid of the abomination : what pains and penalties would he think too much for its instruments ? But meanwhile his eye is kept fixed on the one eyesore — the existing Church esta- blishment : and in his hatred of one bishop for a diocese the Member for Bath would gladly see two. No matter that the one priesthood is, in all its ranks, bound by every interest to peace and order, tlie other to turbulence and sedition. Treat both alike, let them neutralise each other : in the struggle we shall get rid of both ! Lastly, of course, there will not be wanting those who discover a conclusive argument for inaction in the series of concessions already sketched ; but we must again warn such reasoners that, with whatever ease they expose the folly of successive Cabinets, and the incapacity of Lord John Russell's to remonstrate with any show of justice, the matter is now taken into the hands of the nation, and the nation will assuredly not permit it to be skimmed over merely from tenderness fur a few traders in politics. Nor, after all, con- sidering the Pope as a substantive power, can even the imbecility that endured all his prior encroachments afford any justification i'or hivi. When the statute of supremacy was re-enacted in the first year of Elizabeth — tliat is, upon our final rupture with Rome — a war of destruction as against infidels was declared by the Papal See. On such occasions, its pretensions, whicli during a period of amity have submitted to the restrictions imposed by usage or policy, rise instantly to their tuU extravagance, and employ such weapons of offence as circum- stances suggest, and the spirit of the age allows. In those days no weapons were held to be unlawful; and when the Legislature passed the restrictive statutes, especially those forbidding every sort of intercourse with Rome, and exacting the abjuration of that " damnable and licretical doctrine" that subjects might be absolved from their allegiance, and the deposition of Sovereigns — even their assassination — sanctified by a decree of the Pope — it did no more than was necessary to protect EHzabeth and her successors from inces- sant machinations against their crowns and persons. When we changed the dynasty in 16S9 the Pope was, and he continued to be, the chief ally and prop of the exiled house ; every Papist was a suspected conspi- rator against tlie Protestant succession. It was not till after the failure of the last attempt to restore tlie Stuarts that a subsidence of the long-continued liostilitics between this country and Rome took place, and gradually consolidated into a (nice, uncovcnanted in terms, but by every year's prescription acqairing more and more the i'orce, ;uid at all events inspiring the conlldciice, of a written agreement. The hash of this truce was the UTI pos^sidetis. The Pope withdrew no claim, but he desisted from all interference, except such as was necessary for the direction of his flock.' At the (late of the truce his Irish bishops were found in the exact position of their predecessors prior to the madnesses of James 11. There existed no such bishops in England, and he made no attempt to create them, lie accepted, when under the pressure of Erench despotism, the assistance of Great Britain ; at the restoration of European peace many courtesies and civilities were interchanged between him and the Crown. The first encroachment respected our colonies, but this was at least paUiated in the outset hy our own neglect of the interests of our Church in them. Rome saw us allow them to multiply and grow without taking any care for planting in them our own ecclesiaslical system ; and the apparent mdiirerence with which her first steps were observed, added to the long-continued abandonment of our own duly, might be considered as some proof that in that direction the empire was willing to acquiesce in lier measures. Then came the erection of a new see (Galway) in Ireland— a step which would certainly have attnicted much notice under ordniary circumstances ; but it occurred in ISUl, when tlu^ whole nation were iuthe fever of the Reform Bill; it therefore passed literally without observation. Einally, even as to the subseiiuent concessions of title and precedence to the Pope's Irish and colonial prelates — however weighty the argument drawn from them by Dr. Wiseman against the Whigs, however we arc bound to admit that they might naturally encourage the Court of Rome to believe that it would carry the sentiment of (nir jircsent rulers with it in further innovations — we must repeat that these concessions were, in spile of all the sophistries of Lord Grey, miuisterial, not legislatorial; and insist that, grievously inculpating a knot of partisans, they can avail but little for the defence of the Pontifi" of JSJO. It is something, alter all, that those surreptitious steps were taken in respect of our outlying depen- dencies. It docs not follow, because faitliless stewards have encouraged, and a careless landlord has winked at, squatting on the skirts of his chase, tliat he will feel liimself bound to tolerate the cutting up of liis garden into lots, or the demand of a lodgment in his manor-house. The invasion of England was an 15 egrogious novnlty — a monstrous inroad ; ])y tliat, at least, the iriieeo{ a hundred years was openly trampled under foot — tliorc could no longer be any jirctence tliat the U/i Possidetis had not been violently disturbed. All tlic advocates of quiescence, from Dr. Wiseman to Lord St. Germans, assume tliat the Pope docs and can exercise liis authority in no other way than that whicli he lias now adopted with respect to us. This, however, is not the fact. If it were, no doul)t the, i'ael would much embarrass the opjiosite side ; but tliat he has other means, and can use tlicm when he pleases, our own experience proves ; and no one is better aware how the ease stands than Dr. Wiseman, though we can readily believe that Ijord St. Germans has not cousidi^red matters so closely. Since, then, tlic truce is at an end, what remains for our election? We think one of two things only — War, or a Treaty of I'eace. Now war, cither in the shape of hostilities against the fcelilest of all temporal princes, or in the sha])c of the summary re-enactment of the- severe penal laws, whereby to compel our llomish fellow-subjects back into the condition of their grandfathers, this is, we need not say, utterly a drcara. No such measures would be endured by Parliament, nor, even at this moment, excited as it is, by the British people. The alternative is peace — a treaty — a solemn and distinct engagement as between two sovereign powers. The " dilemimi" stated by Lord St. Germans has, wc believe, disturbed many temperate minds. Wc admire the adroitness of the noble logician, hut he does not touch our convictions. He says : — " The supremacy of the Queen, that is, her authority as head of the Church, is as much jiart and parcel of the constitution of the Church in Ireland as in England. Anything which, if done in England, would constitute an aggression on tlie supremacy of the Queen, must equally constitute an aggression on it if done in Ireland. t'arhament, in proceeding to legislate on the subject, will therefore lind itself in this dilemma ; either it must prohibit in England tiiat which it permits in Ireland, or it must prohibit in Ireland that which has been immemorially done in that country without let or hindrance." We admit the great dillicalty and delicacy of such legislation as Lord St. Germans contemplates; but we think he has perplexed liimsclf and others unnecessarily by eonfounding very different things. Toleration and Permission, which he takes for convertible terms, are by no means such. That which is prohibited may be tolerated — it cannot be permitted. Sin is not permitted. Every truce on the principle of w/i possi- deiis must include the tolerance of many anomalies : tliesc must remain till they arc set to rights by some definite arrangement : both parties are bound in honour to leave them as they are meanwhile. Interference witli them by the solitary act of either is arjgression, and breaks the truce. The noble earl's dilemma rests, therefore, on nothing but oblivion or suppression of the existence of the truce hetweeu us and Rome ; and he is wholly unwarranted in arguing cither that a tolerance in Ireland, which made part of the vii possidetis, ties us up from repelling an aggressive innovation as to England; or that, the principle of vii possidetis having been set aside by the Pope's own deed, our Legislature is not at full liberty to take up the whole question de novo, and proceed to rectify tiie sfrand omission, which neither Pitt nor Grenville ever contem- plated, but wliicii was made liy the hasty Ministers of 1839. U'e, at least, do not believe that any mere Bill passed by the British Parliament would have been effective for that purpose even at the commencement of the century ; still less that it would be eft'ective now. One thing, however, is quite clear — that, supposing the attempt towards a settlement to be made by a statute, we shall gain but little if it deal only with the outward and visible signs of recent aggression. If the enemy is not to be disarinc^d, it siguifies little to hinder his marching with beaten drums and flying colours. This new aggression is the rediiclio ad nhsiirdnm of the Relief Bill ; we sliall certainly take nothing by any new bill which shall not do what that unfortunate l)ill wholly eschewed— establish the necessary restrictions upon the administration of the Rouiish^liurch vnthin this empire — such restrictions as are to be found in operation in every other European State but this. To such regulations no Romanist really faithful in lieart to bis Sovereign and tlu; Constitution can reasonably object. It is happily seen that some of the most respectable adherents of tliat religion are prepared to stand by tlie body of their countrymen against the overweening presumption of tlie Iloiuan Court. Let us repeat once more that we ought to be exceed- ingly thankful for the late excess to which that presumption has been tempted. But for this, one encroach- ment might have followed another until wc had grown completely callous and casehardened, or accepted submission as an inevitable destiny. It is not yet, we liope, too late to profit by the warning that has been rashly aflbrded to us. Wo must seize this opportunity for giving ourselves a chance at least of internal tranquillity for England ; of repose and civilisation for Ireland. Ireland is the main and permanent con- sideration. Thi^ insult which has raised the country from one end to the other is the rattle of the snake, but it is idle to think of silencing the rattle by cutting off the tail ; it is the bite that is fatal. We must find an antidote to the poison. We well know how offensive the mention of a Concordat will be at present. Few, perhaps, call to mind from how early a date such treaties have been found necessary. The series can be traced distinctly from a.u. 1123 to the settlement of the modern kingdom of the Netherlands; and to them Europe has owed the i'ar greater share of such (ecclesiastical peace as she has ever enjoyed. Among the innumerable pamphlets and speeches called forth on tliis occasion, wc have not observed a treaty alluded to as the possible solution, except in the one very statesmanlike reply of the Bishop of Norwich to his clergy ; and that allusion was fiercely rebuked in newspapers justly respected for their consistent Pro- testantism. Nevertheless, wc coufidently anticipate that, when the present fever is allayed, it will be gra- dually apprehended by the good sense of the nation that there is no other measure which can promise even a chance of ultimate repose. It is very probable that the enforcement or imposition of some restrictions, by direct authority of Parliament, may I)e in the first place wise and exjiedient : a negotiation could not be brought to a rapid conclusion ; something may be necessary at once to allay the irritation of Protestants, and to check flic arrogance of Romanists, and so by degrees ])redispose hoUi parties to an accommodation, Restrictions, however, we firmly believe, can be of no real value any further than as they may tend to tlie consummation so devoutly to be wished — a Concord-at. SjiRiES Seventeen will contain a Letter to Lord John Russell, by Dr. Heber Playfiiir ; an article from the " Dublin Review" on the " Hierarchy ;" and other popular articles. 16 till this morning to see if it ■would appear ; but the editor, with unheard-of injustice, not only has not inserted it, but had it in his hands long before he published his false leading article, carrying on the attack against me ; inaking the malice more apparent. G. R. C. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. Sir, — I have seen, with indignation, an extract from a speech of a Mr. Rochfort Clarke, quoted in a letter signed " Gentilis Homo," which appeared in your journal of tlie 4th instant. In ordinary cases, perhaps, any notice of so vile a fiction would be unnecessary ; but con- sidering that the author seems to hold some station, and was approvingly listened to by many who should know better, I deem that a few facts may not be out of place for the future guidance of such orators and such an auditory. I have some right in this matter, as a relative of the venerable and distinguished lady assailed, with the history and descent of whose family I am conversant ; to say nothing of my feeling as to the exemplary virtues which have marked her life, and the place I hold in the friendship of her illustrious son. The family name of Mrs. Wiseman, mother of the Cardinal, is Strange ; her name, Xaviera Strange, daughter of the late Peter Strange, Esq., of Aylwardstovvn Castle, in the barony of Ida, County Kilkenny. This has been an ancestal residence in the family for centuries, and has been the birth-place and home of Xaviera Strange and of her immediate ancestors, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, &c., during the past two hundred years. Although in this more fortunate than many of their relatives and friends among the plundered gentlemen and nobles who, like them, sustained the cause of King Charles, their lot was pretty nearl) the same as regards their estates and possessions, which, for the most part, went as a prey to the Ponsonbys and other Cromwellian adventurers (Whigs in their infancy). By an " hiquisitio post mortem," taken at the "Black Fryars," Kilkenny, about the 1st or 2nd of Charles I., it was found that Edward Strange died in January, 1621, seised of the manor at Dunkitt and other possessions enumerated, leaving sons and daughters, Richard Peter, John Thomas, Anastasia, and Margaret. This Edward Strange was the lineal ancestor of Mr.=. Wiseman and of the present Lord Bellew, of Barmeath. The lands recited in this inqui- sition were ten years later declared a forfeiture, and granted by Cromwell to his fanatics and regicides ; which grants were afterwards, with barbarous ingratitude, contirmed by the "Acts of Settlement and Explanation," passed in the reign of Charles 11. By this act some scanty justice was rendered to a few of the Catholic gentlemen and nobles, whether holding by what were called "decrees of innocence,"or as hc)lders of Con- naught certificates. Richard Strange, named in the above inquisition, had, under this act, a grant of certain lands in the county Galway, which was intended as a miserable equivalent for the large confiscations in Leinster. The name of this same Richard Strange (with the names of several noblemen and gentle- men) is affixed to " the remonstrance of loyalty" presented on their part to Charles 11. by the Duke of Ormond. This remonstrance may be seen in the appendix to "Curry's Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland," Dublin edition, 1810, and attached to it "Richard Strange, of Rockswell Castle." He was great-grandfather of the late Lady Bellew, whose father was also Richard Strange, and to whom those Galway lands descended. The branch of Mrs. Wiseman's family settled in Spain was long and well-known to the great banking and mercantile houses of London ; and her uncle, Mr. L. Strange, of Cadiz, was not more prized by them than the eminent house of Wiseman Brothers, of Seville, &c. Without going back to remoter periods, 1 may confine myself to those authentic legal evi- dences to which I the more particularly refer, because in this country many mushroom peers and quasi gentlemen can have pedigrees manufactured to order. Believe me to be, sir, your faithful servant, FELIX FITZ-PATRICK. 8, Margaret-place, Mountjoy-square, Dublin, Jan. i). Series Eighteen will contain the Bishop of Durham's Letter, and jiumerous- other documents having rc/creywc to the measures about to be proposed to Parliament by her Majesty's Government, LONDON; PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILBERT 19, rATEllNOSTER-llOW. THE ROMAN CATH OLIC QUESTION. [Since the publication of the Note attached to the Twelfth Seriesof these Pamphlets, the Editor has received many very kind and siiRRcstive communications. The general purport of them tend to press upon his attention the necessity of not concluding the Series until tlio important Speeches in both Houses of Parliament on this all-absorbing subject have appeared in its pages, and that the sum of Thrcehalfpence pitv Panijihlet should be fixed as a somewhat remunerative i>rice for so many valuable' documents on the question. The results of liis deliberations are— that he will print these Speeches in the future portions of the Series— that the ]irice will be Tln-eehalfpence per sheet— ami he hopes to be able to complete the Series in six more sheets. He will continue to keep for sale a supply of the seventeen previous sheets at Id. each. The Editor regrets to inform Subscribers that Messrs. Richardson, the Catholic Publishers, have, in their alleged capacity of Proprietors of the Dubhn Review, obtained from the Viee-Chancellor an exparte injunction against the issue of the Seventeenth Series, which contains an article from this Review on the Hienirchical Question. As far as the K20 has led successive Governments to shut their eyes to matters which they flattered themselves were insigni Meant. I may regret now that the evil has not been checked at the outset ; for I find that every act of concession and toleration, and every manifestation of reluctance to enforce tlie law when any violation of it has taken place, has been looked upou as indications of weakness ; and growing by iinpunily, growing by continual success, these encroachments have become greater and more formidable, more determined and more resolute, until at last they have reached a pitch at which the Prime Minister of the Crown declares in tlie most solemn manner that to tolerate them is inconsistent with the supremacy of the Crown and the religious and political interests of the country. Don't let us underrate the magnitude of the struggle on which, if you mean anything, you are about to enter. If you mean notliing — if you mean to introduce some measure, to put some new enactment on the statute-book, wliicli is to be evaded or not enforced— if you disallow the title of Bishop of Nottingham, but enable the Bishop of Nottingham and other bishops to complete their synodical organisation, and, through that means, to exercise boundless control over the eonsciences of their Roman Catholic fellow, subjects — I tell you you have done nothing towards meeting the emergency ; I tcU you that you will make your Roman Catholic subjects the victims of a tyranny whicli their Roman Cathohc ancestors in Roman Catholic times, and under a Roman Catholic sovereign, would never have submitted to. I do not altogether agree in the conclusions of my noble friend on the cross benches (Earl of St. Germans). I say that which you do with regard to England you must do with regard to Ireland — that which is a violation of the supremacy of the Crown in England is an equal violation, and to the same extent, of the supremacy of the Crown in Ireland. You cannot separate the Church whicli, once for all, was indissolubly united at the period of the Union. Don't shut your eyes to the gravity of the occasion. If you mean to palter with this question, after having roused the feelings, the expectations, the religious — I will not call them prejudices — but the strong religious feeling of the Protestants of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, you finish by a most " lame and impotent conclusion." Affecting to touch the shadow, but not dealing with the substance of the injuries of which you complain, you will rekindle that religious animosity, the kindling of which, under any circumstances, I should deeply deplore, instead of coming to a satisfactory determination of the question by the intervention of Parliament. 1 have already said that, for one, I will not consent to deprive my Roman Catholic feUow-couutrymen of one jot or tittle of those civil rights whicli were conferred upon them by the act of 1829. I know not what may be the measure which we shall be iuvitcd to consider on the part of her Majesty's Government. Whatever it may be, we cannot but expect to find the realisation of those expectations which the Prime Minister has excited. We will hope to find in it a law by which the free exercise of Roman Catholic worship, by which the full performance, the full possession, of civil rights on the part of the Roman Catholics may be reconciled with the clear and substantial vindication of the supremacy of the Crown, and not iu words but in actions, a practical repudiation of foreign interference by prelate or by cardinal, which shall render it impossible for the Roman Catholic hierarchy to impede — as I fear, in the ease of the Irish colleges, there is some danger they may impede — a measure desired and claimed at highly beneficial by a large portion of the Roman Catholics themselves, and by one-half the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland. I say, I trust, with the maintenance of entire religious liberty, with the main- tenance of the full civil rights of the Roman Catholics, the measure wliich you introduce will prevent tlic dangerous and mischievous and successful intermeddling of a foreign prelate who, as we arc told, has been deceived by false representations relative to the allairs of Ireland by interested parties ; and that we shall maintain tor the Crown and Parliament of England the entire administration of our own internal affairs, whether ecclesiastical or civil. We shall look with great anxiety for the measure to be submitted to Par- liament by her Majesty's Government. I warn them that if it falls short of our just expectations — I warn them that if, in appearance only and not in substance, it provides a security against those wrongs and insults of which the Prime JMinister complains in such forcible terms — then will rest upon the heads of the Government a heavy responsibility, for having trifled with the feelings — with the the strongest and holiest feelings of the people of this country — for having unfairly roused the hopes and expectations of Protestants, and I believe, if they would speak out, of a large portion of the more enlightened and liberal Roman Catholics. Tliey will have reduced this country, or at least its Roman Catholic inhabitants, and, to a great extent, the deliberation of Parliament itself, to a state of submission to which Roman Catholic parharaents never submitted. I do not hesitate to say that you ought now to consider fully and deliberately, dispassion- ately, temperately, but at the same time firmly, the whole of the difficult question of the relation in which the Roman Catholic subjects of this country stand to the Crown. In the year 182(1 certain securities were introduced, which it was supposed would be effectual securities to the Protestant Church. I think it the (luty of the Government deliberately to examine those securities. If they are offensive, as they may be, to Roman Catholics, and give no real security and no real protection to the interests of Protestantism— if they are incapable of being enforced — if they encumber the statute-book as a dead letter — sweep them off, and do not leave yourselves the odium of enacting them without gaining the advantage to he derived from enforc- ing them. But if there be cases in which the securities intended to he effectual have proved, from whatever cause, incapable of being applied — if the law does not touch the cases which it was intended to touch — if encroachments not then contemplated have been committed on our liberties by the see of Rome and the prelates either in England or Ireland — I say it is no violation ol liberty, civil or religious, that you should make those securities what they were intended to be. You must look at the whole matter in the case calmly and dispassionately. You must not coutent yourselves with frilling legislation, hut to the extent to which the danger exists, to that extent you must boldly and unilinchiugly apply a remedy. If that be the course pursued by the Government, no feeling of political difference, no feeling of party, shall preclude them from obtaining the assistance of that great body with which I have the honour to act. We do not desire to deprive them of the great j)opularity which they will obtain by enforcing the rights of the Crown, and the independence of the Church of these realms, without injury to the civil rights of those who dissent from that Church. But on the other hand, I warn them, if they do not deal boldly with the whole case, far better would it he that they should not attempt to legislate at all — far better still would it have been had they submitted even to this last and greatest encroachment which we have sustained from Rome. Deal manfuOy and boldly with the question, or deal with it not at all. Don't assume to control a po\icr by merely ignoring its existence or imposing an irrecoverable penalty upon its evasion or violation. Deal with it boldly. You will have the assent and support of your political opponents and the country at large, riinch from it, seek to mitigate and palliate, but not to remedy, and you will incur the contempt of the country at large, and will prove your own incompetence to deal with evils the magnitude of which you do not hesitate to denounce. I wait with deep anxiety the measure which her Majesty's Government intend to submit to the consideration of Parliament, and I earnestly hope that the question may be dealt with in a manner suitable to the emergency of the case. The Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Wi:' continuation of Debate see next Number, Series XX., now ready. DR. ULLATHORNE AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. " TO THE RIGUT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL. " My Loril, — Li reailiug the debates of Wednesday and Friday last, some obser\-ations that occurred to my mind appear to me of sufficient importance to justify my troubling your lordship with them. " Tlic reason hinted at by Jlr. Anstey why Lord Minto could not have been shown the letter apostolic will not hold good. True the identical letter that was finally published could not have been shown, for the liierarcliy was twice remodelled in a portion of its details. I5ut at Rome they print documents of this nature at each stage of proceedings. As I have heard the history from a very good source, before any dis- cussion arose on the point, his HoUness took up the printed document — of course the one first prepared — and put it into his lordship's hands, saying, ' This concerns England,' and Lord Minto laid it down on the table without saying a word. I can perfectly understand that his lordship, not aware of the importance of the 16 communication and occupied with otlicr tlionglits, did not advert sufKciently to tlie circumstance to re- member, but the conclusion drawn by his Holiness nvas of a difl'crent character. He read in it the contia- uauce of the policy of non-interference in our spiritual affairs. " I have now on my table the minutes of 16 separate conversations, lield in 1818, with authorities of the Propaganda, on the subject of the hierarchy. They contain in substance whatever passed between myself and those authorities in either private or official interviews. In none of these is there a single hint or allusion to anything- beyond tiie internal and spiritual affairs of tlie English Catholic body. I have also lying before me copies of seven memorials, wjiich, with the aid of an English priest, were drawn up and presented to the Holy See by the present v.'riter. Upon the basis of these documents the Englibh Catholic liicrarchy in its present form was constituted, with tlie exception of an additional bishopric added in the arrangement of 1850. In no one of these documents is there any allusion to other objects as in contem- plation beyond those of the English Catholic body and their hierarchy, and nothing beyond this occupied the mind ot any one engai^ed in making the arrangement. I assert this the more confidently as the apostolic letter embodies the principles of tlie memorials with one remarkable exception. 1 had drawn up a memorial •m tlie subject of the titles. In this I had strongly urged the expediency of appointing an Archbishop of London and a ]5islinp of York, and showed that this was perfectly conformable to our laws. But on this ])oint, and on this alone, I met with a steady and constant resistance, and that resistance was on the ground that it might give otfence to the British Government. I was called in by the Commission of Cardinals whilst in consultation — a very unusual course — that I might be able, to explain myself more fuUy and clearly. I heard and shared in the discussion, and urged my point to the utmost. I even quoted your lordshiji's opinions, and those of other members of the Cabinet, as e.xpressed in Parliament, besides showing the state of the law, and the utility to ourselves of an arrangement which would leave the bishops undisturbed in the positions where they had resided as Vicars Apostolic, and realise better the dioceses they liave to govern ; but to no purpose. I was opposed on the ground of delicacy towards the Government. On this ground the whole of that memorial was set aside, and this was the only instance in which suspicion of ott'ence arose. The Cardinals resolved to consult the English bishops individually on this point, and in tlie interval the insurrection broke out in Rome. But for this the apostolic letter would have come to England in ISl'S, as the public supposed it had come, and we should most probably liave had neither excitement nor persecution, for it would have been quietly pronailgated amongst ourselves, and without eclat. Will your lordship allow me to point out that the phrase ' Court of Rome ' is an ambiguous aud offensive designation, as used instead of ' the Holy See.' It was invented by State canonists and statesmen w hose designs were directed against the liberty of the Church. It is of much the same calibre as the phrase ' foreign Sovereign.* It incorporates an error, and is unfair, though your Lordship has not intended it to be so in this instance. Dupin descril)cs a conflict, and takes one side of it ; had your lordship read the other side, you would have found tlie whole of your examples overthrown. Allow me to refer to an agreeable work, wliich explains the trus sense of tliis term, ' Court of Rome,' — Cardinal Pacca's I\Iemoirs of his Nunciature on the Rhine. " Your lordship has made much of the opiuions of a few laymen and clergymen as indications of the sense of the English Catholics. But are all laymen, or even clergymen, capable of appreciating the funda- mental principles of Church goverument, or of comprehending the bearings of a measure new to them as a reality? To talk of the establishing a local episcopacy independent of State intervention as ultra- montauism may serve for amusement to our tyros in canon law, but for what other purpose can such an absurdity be used? Wliy, the gentlemen who formed the 'Cisalpine Club' clamoured for a hierarchy as the surest safeguard against ultramontanism. Before collecting evideuce against us from among ourselves the inquiry should be made' of the witnesses, if laymen, whether they are even communicants in our Church; if clergymen, wliether they are engaged in its ministry. Tlien, if they be right on these points, whether they are discontented or disajipoiuted persons — whether they represent any number of their brethren, or only themselves — and whether they have any particular interest to serve or sympathies to conciliate. Not a sin jle {)erson has yet shown himself opposed to us of whom we or any one might not liave predicted the course he has taken. AVhat are a dozen out of so large a number more or less disloyal to the body of which they are members ? " I have to thanlc your hn-dship for your satisfactory vindication of the Catholic Bishops from the charge of having violated the law. The labours undergone to find out a way of convicting us, so naively related in your sp(;ech, liave proved our full acquittal. We arc not, then, aggressors ; for aggression is a crime, and a crime is tlic violation of a law. Tlie aggression is against us and our Christian liberties. Yes, my lord, 1 grieve to say it, it is not v,-e who are all'ectcd by tliesc acts, unless it be by arousing our , pastoral vigilance, liUiug our churclies, dilfusing our books, and, according to tlie reports of our clergy, iu- creafiiug the iiumber of our converts. The hand of persecution points to one cltiss amongst us, whilst it is another that is made to suffer. Tlie persecution falls upim the tnulesmeu, workpeople, and poor servants— upon unoffending industry, and the poor seeking their bread. And see how quietly they have borne it all. "But there is one point for your lordship seriously to consider. The hierarchy is established; there- fore it cannot be abolished, except through the physical extermination of the Catholic Church in these realms: or, which God forbid, through universal apostasy. How can yon deal with this fact? You liave- quoted a legal principle from Jeremy Taylor, which he took, with many others, from the Jesuit Suarcz. Allow me to suggest another. Is it wise and in the spirit of a profound legislation to put the religious te;ichers of a large body of her Majesty's subjects in conscientious opposition to the law — to force them to jmt the principle of Divine law in opposition to h human enactment — to make their very bishops the incorporation of such a fact? Will it aid the sanctions of the State, and that opinion, which, as your lordship views it, is the best support of law and government, to force us into a position where, stauding, as we are bound to do, upon the law of God and our conscience, we are compelled to count for nothing enactments which we can only consider as assauUs ujion the cause of Heaven and of our souls — enactments which, in fact, come from no divine fountain of justice, but are the oll'spriug of party contests and sectarian dislikes? We can make distinctions between the just and the unjust, and keep our reverence for the former, but to the mind of the multitude the sense of one unjust law wiiicli they are obliged in conscience to eoudemn is a taint upon the whole course of justice. " I have tlie honour to be, " Your Lordship's very obedient servant, " Biskop's-house, Binniugham, Eeb. 10." " W. B. ULLATliORNE. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY JAMKS GILBERT 'W, PATEllNOSTER-ROW THE AN CATHOLIC QUESTION. PAPAL AGGRESSION.— HOUSE OF COMMONS, EEB. 7, 1851. (Continuation of Debate fioin tlie Nineteentli Series.) Mr. E. B. Roche could have supposed dnring the last half hour that he was in Excler- hall, listening to some of the minor canons who held forth in that editicc. It was evident that whatever might be the religious opinions of the hon. member for West Surrey, he was one of that class who did not hesitate to rush in " where angels fear to tread." His speech afforded a slight indication of the evil tliat this measure of the noble lord's was likely to pro- duce in this country and in Ireland. The noble lord's speech was entirely unsuited to the measures he was about to introduce. He did not complain that the measure was unsuited to the speech, but the speech was a homage to the fell spirit of religious discord and sectarian bigotry to the raising of which he had been a party. But the measure, although he had grave faults to find in it, fell very short of anything that might have been anticipated from the noble lord's speech. The noble lord had spoken of what he termed the late act of Papal agurcssion as if it were very little short of high-treason : but Sir E. Sugden had shown that the 13th of Elizabeth v/as suflicient to meet any oil'ence against the law, such as this had been described to be. He denied that there was any necessity to make the bill applicable to Ireland. In the reply of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the remonstrance of the archbishops and bishops of the ICstablished Church in Ireland, his Grace said that the reason why the Irish jirelates had not been invited to join in the address of the English hierarchy to the Queen was, that they had to complain of an aggression which only affected the Church of England. He was warranted, therefore, in saying, upon the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the proposed measure was utterly needless in Ireland. The measure was, indeed, an attempt to ignore the Roman Church in the whole empire, although that Church has been virtually recognised by that House, and by successive Governments, in the colonies as well as in Ireland. When Lord Stanley was Colonial Secretary, the Bishop of Australia, in March 1S4.'5, A'rote to his lordship to complain of the introduction of a Papal bull exactly similar to tiiat rcccntlj- issued. Tliis bull constituted a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, and gave that prelate metropolitan jurisdiction in New Holland. What was Lord Stanley's answer to the remon- strance ? His lordship directed the Governor to acquaint the Bishop of Australia that his letter had been received, but that his lordship must decline the discussion of the question which it raised. That despatch he (Mr. Roche) thought was sufficiently significant. Did lie find fault with Lord Stanley for it ? Far otherwise. He thought his lordship, in declining to take any coercive step, acted the part of a sound-judging and discreet statesman. But the measure that was now proposed was a direct attack en Lord Stanley for that conduct, and he hoped his hon. friend the member for Buckinghamshire would be prepared to join with him in opposing it, and in defending the act of his chief on that occasion. But, if the measure was a direct attack on Lord Stanley, and in contravention of our policy in the colonies, what was it with regard to Lord Clarendon and the policy pursued in Ireland ; and also of the late (iovern- ment of Sir R. Peel, of which Lord Stanley was a member? Now, how had we treated the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland? ]5y more than one Act of Parliament and by innumerable acts of the Executive in that country we had recognised the Roman Catholic Church and the dignitaries of that Church in Ireland. 'J"he first was the Bequests Act of the 7th and 8th Victoria, c. 96. Subsequently, during the government of the late Lord Bessborough, a committee was appointed by a Queen's letter, to decide who were to take under that act and who were not ; and in that letter the Roman Catholic bishops were designated as the bishops of certain sees. They had heard, too, a great deal from the noble lord, and from his supporters in and out of that House, about interference with the Queen's supremacy. What was the case as to the law upon that point? There was an Act of Parliament relating to Ireland which virtually repealed the Act of Supremacy pro tanto ; it certainly was only a local act, but it was an important one — it was the Dublin Cemeteries Act. It was passed in 1846, and gave certain powers to "his Grace Archbishop INIurray and his successors exercising the same jurisdiction which he exercised in the diocese of Dublin as an archbishop." That was a direct recognition of Archbishop Murray's spiritual jurisdiction in the diocese of Dublin; and, seeing that Arch- bishop Murray derived his spiritual jurisdiction from the Pope, it was pro tanto a recognition of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope in Ireland; and he defied any legal member of the Government to contradict him, when he said that the Cemeteries Act of Dublin was pro tanto a repeal of the Act of Supremacy in Ireland. Agayi, on her Majesty's late visit to Ireland, the Executive CJovernment issued, in the liidiUn Gazette, a notice that her Majesty was pleased to desire that the following persons should have the eiitrce of the Castle : — the Primate, the Chancellor, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Roman Catholic Primate, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, the Cabinet Ministers ; so that the Roman Catholic Tiuenticth Series.— Yxict Threeliaifpence.] [James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row. Of tvhont viat/ be had "The Roman Catholic Question," iS'oj. /. to XJX. Primate and Archbishop of Dublin took precedence over the Duke of Lcinster and her Majesty's Ministers, the Protestant bishops, and, as an lion, friend reminded him, of the 'University of Dublin. Then he said that, in extending this measure to Ireland, they were ignoring the existence almost of the Roman Catholic Church altogether, and were taking a retrograde movement as regarded civil and religious liberty. It was no ansv»er to say that, as to what had been done in Ireland, the Emancipation Act had been broken, and that the Roman Catholic bishops rendered themselves amenable to fines. No doubt they did so, but who were the wrong-doers, if wrong were done? Not the bishops, or their flocks, and co-religionists, but her Majesty's Executive in that country, and this bill was a direct censure upon Lord Clarendon and the Executive when the noble lord, in bringing it forward, said that the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland had committed a breach of the Emancipation Act. If, indeed, any person ouglit to be prosecuted for such breach it ought to be, not the bishops themselves, but the Executive for giving them precedence. But in his opinion Lord Clarendon could not have acted with greater discretion than in giving to the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland the designation of the sees to which they had been elevated, and the House would be wrong in now abandoning their own Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and their own pledges and principles, by now turning on that Lord-Lieutenant, saying what he had done was illegal, and bringing in a bill to comjjel those right rev. prelates to abandon the titles they had borne. Why, an Act of Indemnity would be required for Lord Clarendon and the other members of the Government in Ireland who sanctioned those proceedings. The noble lord had shown no case for extending this measure to Ireland. He did not think he had shown a very strong case for England, but that he did not regard so much as the former. He knew very little about Cardinal Wiseman, and cared very little about him as an individual — he did not care if Dr. Wiseman accepted the invitation which the noble lord had so hospitably given him that evening to go and live at Rome ; but he said they were committing a bad act by extending this measure to the oppression of Ireland. Not only as regarded England, but Ireland too, it would have been more prudent if the noble lord paused before he entered upon this religious controversy ; for, from what he saw out of doors, as well as from what he had heard within, and especially from the speech of the hon. member for West Surrey, it was likely to descend into a religious dispute and scramble. He wished he could change that feeling into one of anxious desire on the part of the people of Ireland to apply themselves to the regeneration of their country and the pursuit of industry. He feared not only that he would fail in that, but that every one else would also fail, while the noble lord and those who sup- ported him made aggressions on the Church of Rome. It was not too late, if not to with- draw the measure, to remove from it all that related to Ireland, and he trusted that that course would be taken, for no cause had been shown why Ireland should be included in it. Mr. Moore said. The noble lord at the head of the Government had displayed that evening a research in history that would entitle him to fill the chair of history in the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. The noble lord had undertaken to prove that there was a principle in Popery which required repression — that its full development was dangerous to the Government and to the community, and that therefore it was our duty, as it was the duty of our despotic ancestors, to repress the religion by statute. The noble lord cited authorities of despotic countries which would not permit the development of such institutions ; but he (Mr. Moore) would ask what were those instances? Asserting the conduct of William the Conqueror, the Governments of the middle ages and the Governments in this country as examples, was neither more nor less than calling upon us to adopt the policy of despotic Governments, and to abandon the fundamental principles of free institutions. The two principles of Zoroaster wc^e not more distinct and antagonistic than the two principles here involved. Despotic Governments of the present time maintained that it was the duty of the State to repress and to prevent the development of all jjrinciples they deemed dangerous to the Government and the community; but free countries maintained, or used to maintain, it was not the province of the State to interfere with opinion, and that, on the contrary, the free growth and development of public opinion was the very sap and vitality of free institutions. The noble lord had omitted, as the hon. member for Sheffield had observed, the case of America from the catalogue. America was the only case analogous to our own. That was a free country, and the Pope might send thither as many cardinals as he pleased. If they disobeyed the law of the land they would be punished; if they attempted to subvert any institution of the country they were amenable to the law ; but they migiit call themselves by what names they pleased as long as they kept their hands out of other people's pockets ; and they might inculcate the canon law to their heart's content so long as they obeyed the law of the land. But it was said that even in the time of our Catholic ancestors, all attempts of the Pope to name bishops to English sees had been resisted by the Crown and the people of England. Why, in those times, the bishops were not only spiritual prelates but were great temporal potentates. Over the laws of marriage and of inheritance they exercised great influence ; and, to hand over to a foreign prince such powers as these would be to surrender to his discretion no inconsiderable portion of the revenue and the judicial and executive power of the country. But there was no comparison between the case of those prelatic princes and that of a parcel of poor priests receiving nothing but a very slight revenue from the country. In the j)resent case, it was not whether the nomination of the bi.iiioj)s should be vesti cl in the Crown or in liie I'o|)e, but whether they should be nomi- nated at all. They jirotestcd against the nomination of a foreign piince in this matter, but in what position did they come forward — as plaintifls ? Did they come into court with clean hands ? Had they fulfilled in every way the duties of Government as to those with regard to whom they now deprecated foreign interference ? Had that wretched man who was convicted the other day for ill-treating one whom lie was bound to care for indicted a stranger for giving food to Jane Wiibrcd, his protest against foreign interference would not have been more pre- posterous than theirs in this instance. The Sovereign, on her coronation, protested against the religion of one-third of her subjects. The I,cgislature, upon compulsion, tolerated what it had failed to exterminate. If one-third of the people of this country were not trodden down into helots or degraded into savages it had not been for want of will in the British Legislature. Their temporal rights were acknowledged, but over the whole Catholic population v^-as slill maintained a system of ecclesiastical tyranny, of robbery and oppression, which had been condemned by the universal verdict of civilised man. This dog-in-the-manger principle of the Government towards the Roman Catholics of this country would never do; there must be either connexion or non -interference. It was said that, after all that had been said and done in the last three months, to recede now would be to insult the people of England ; he would say, that after all that had been done for liberal principles in the last fift_y years, to retrograde from those principles now would be a far greater insult to the people of England. It seemed to be suggested that the recent a!;itation had elicited an unanimous verdict of the people of England against Roman Catholicism, but the verdict was at the utmost merely the opinion of two-thirds of the population against the religion of the remaining third. As to any argument, there had been nothing worthy of the designation. At no one of the hundred and more anti-Popery meetings had there been a single speech characterised by a lucid, states- manlike, intelligible exposition of Protestant views ; not one single scintillation of genius had flashed forth. A grand storm had been promised, but all that was realised was a Scotch mist, drenching the souls of men with a long, dreary drizzle of scurrility and cant. Surely the masculine sense of the English people had not retrograded into the second childhood imputed to it by the no Popery orators, so that it was losing sight of the stern realities of life in turbid dreams of morbid and unmeaning apprehensions regarding the giant strides of crime as less dangerous than the infinitesimal progress of Popery, Puseyism as more alarming than pauperism, and ultramontane bishops as worse than bankruptcy and ruin. If such, indeed, were the case, then the Legislature must exercise its noblest function, its highest responsibility, and assert against the wild cry of three months' agitation the steady, continuous, and consistent develop- ment of public opinion in the last half-century. If the people of England really wished Parliament to resist Popery, the object would not be attained by the noble lord's saying that particular Roman Catholic bishops should not assume particular names. As to the notorious letter of the noble lord, on which all this agitation was based. Papal aggression had been con- fessedly only a second consideration with the noble lord in jjcnning it. The real object ol apprehension with the noble lord was that Protestant Church, which he saw around him, rent asunder by internecine convulsions, like a disintegrated planet — torn to pieces by its High Church party, strongly suspected of a tendency to Roman Catholicism — its Low Church party leaning to Protestant Dissent — audits Church of England party, who cried, "A plague upon both your Houses;" morbidly fearful that between the two the coach would be upset. In thi$ state of things the noble lord had taken the part of turning Church Dissenter himself, setting up the banner of royalty against the banner of the Church, appointing other Church Dissenters to all the vacant bishoprics, snubbing the bishops who did not agree with him, swamping the ecclesiastical courts, blockading the Church, and storming the universities. The fact was, that the Papal aggression had been a regular godsend to the noble lord ; Cardmal Wiseman a whipping-boy on whom to flog the Anglican truants, and the cry of invasion from without » cover behind which to quell treason within. The noble lord affected surprise that the Romar Catholics should be offended at liis letter — at his merely " walloping his own nigger," to uses Transatlantic expression ; but this affectation was simply preposterous. If this bill were passed, the only reply to it that Ireland would make would be open defiance — the unequivoca and unhesitating refusal to obey — a refusal attended by entire impunity, since, prosecute an) man in Ireland for disobedience to the enactment, and not a jury throughout the country would give a verdict against him. Mr. Bright should not have risen to speak immediately after a gentleman with whom, to a great extent, he agreed, but that he supposed no one on the Treasury bench would think il necessary to say anything after the noble lord's speech ; and gentlemen opposite were pro- bably so much taken aback by that speech as to require time for considering out cf doors, what course they had best adopt in the matter. The question now before the House some gentlemen seemed to consider of light importance, while others deemed it a very grave matt^. Among the latter class was the noble lord, who had shown more than usual feeling and excite- ment in the delivery of his address that evening. He did not propose to make many observa- tions on the course which had been taken in the first instance by the noble lord, though he thought it open to great animadversion. The worst he could say of the noble lord's lettei perhaps was, that it had been penned under feelings of excitement which were hardly becoming in a Prime Minister. Of the excitement wliich animated the noble lord at the time there coulc be no question, and, indeed, there was no dispute about it. That excitement, however, had reference, according to the noble lord's own statement in the letter itself, still more to the apprehensions he entertained of the enemy within his gates than to any fear of foreign inva- sion. Now, he should have supposed that a Prime Minister, conscious of the magnitude oi this question, would have placed in the Queen's Speech some distinct reference to this mor( impending and more important danger that he apprehended, and that instead of this liglil measure, having relation to the confessedly minor peril, he would have brought forward some proposition for averting the danger which he considered to menace the Church from the enemies within her own hosom. The noble lord had thought lit to appeal to the bigotry of the country, and the bigotry of the country came to his aid, supported by many auxiliaries, •who, though not themselves bigoted, still followed the noble lord's banner, and the end was the little miserable measure now before the House. The noble lord must take care that he ■was not, like the person of whom they had heard in old, perhaps in fabulous limes, devoured by his own hounds ; and that the measure which he calculated upon to give him popularity did not involve the destruction of his Cabinet. He might be allowed, for the sake of argument at all events, to assume, from the number of meetings that had been held on the subject, that the people of England regarded the present as an extraordinary occasion. This feeling had been founded upon their impression that the Roman Catholic religion was making rapid strides in the United Kingdom, of which progress they regarded the Pope's letter as an indication, and upon their conviction, in which he entirely concurred, that the return of this country to Catholicism would be a great calamity. Ireland was overrun with this Roman Catholic religion, and in England, he understood, there was a yielding and falling back to it. But that was not the question for us to discuss at all. We were discussing it in consequence of the errors of our forefathers. The American Minister had been in the House at the beginning of the speech of the noble lord, and he (Mr. Bright) had watched his countenance during that speech, and he had asked himself, what could that man think of the people and the Parliament of England that in the year 1851 they should be discussing a question such as this — an iuiaginavy sentiment and nothing more ? The real question that they should consider ■while this subject was before them wp.s, how far our past policy had tended to suppress that religion, and to make this a Protestant country and a Protestant empire. In Ireland, there could be no doubt that the Roman Catholic religion -n-as more prevalent at this time than at any former period since the connexion of England with that country, and he had no hesitation in saying that the tendency of all our proceedings in past times had been to give strength and permanence to that religion. He did not much believe that in England it was gaining any great ground, but there was a large emigration from Ireland into England, and he believed that in Lancashire even, the great bulk of Catholicism to be found had been imported from Ireland ; but whatever there was of conversion to -what was called Popery in this country, was to be found among the clergy of the [Established Church ; and there were very few of the laity, he believed, who were much infected with those principles. The object of Parliaments for a long period had been to exterminate Catholicism by exterminating Catholics. From 1690 to 177^, the most stringent penal laws had been enacted against Roman Catholics, and it was not from any increased liberalism, but only because England became engaged in a dangerous war with the United States that thai code was relaxed. From that period down to 1})29, the pro- cess had been one of grr.dual but slow relaxation, every little right and privilege gained by the Catholics of Ireland being gained only by incessant struggles. Now, in Ireland there existed an establishment whose safety consisted in its being overlooked — the Irish Church, which had been placed in that country to convert the Roman Catholics, and to be a bond of union between Great Britain and Ireland. That Church had had at its dis- posal the whole power and favour of the Crown and of Parliament, the army, and the police; while its property amounted to a principal sum of 20.000,000/. sterling, the in- terest of which had annually gone to its bishops and priests. That Church, moreover, had leagued with the civil power, and there was not an act of oppression which the civil power had committed in Ireland that liad not been citlicr in obedience to that Church or Avith its most cordial consent ; and more, that Church had denounced every statesman ■who had ever attempted to give anything like freedom to the Catholic population of Ireland, the noble lord himself among the number. The Irish Roman Catholics, how- ever, had not been exterminated; and Governments had yet to learn that there was one thing almost as indestructible as truth, and that was a persecuted error. He recollected a saying of an ancient father of the Church in the eighth century, who, speaking of the difficulty of converting the Saxons, said, that ^ if the clergy had attempted to convert them with kindness and generosity, he thought they would not so long have resisted the rite of baptism. lie said, " Sint pr^cdicatorcs, non pra;datores." But that Church had even said to the State, '•' If you will defend mc with the sword, I will defend you with the pen ;" and he (Mr. Bright) confessed that he looked upon that system as at the root of the extended Catholicism now to be found in Ireland, and the pertinacious adherence to that Church which was found to exist more rankly in Ireland than in any other Catholic country in the world. The Catholic religion triumphed, and our legislation had borne fruit to Rome both in Ireland and England. Then, again, let them look at the English Church — that great institution which was intended to be tlio bulwark of Protes- tantism, but which liad turned out to be a kind of manufactory for a description of homo Popery. That Cliurch had the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge at its counnand, the army and police, and some two dozen bishops in the House of Lords. The noble lord liad stated that lie was opposed to ecclesiastical inllucnce in temporal affairs, yet there were some twenty-four or twenty-six bishops in the other House who always sat behind the (Government. One of those — the archbishoji — had an income of lo.OOOL a-year. He had heanl the noble lord say that an arrangement had been niade by which the salary .should be reduced from some unknown and almost fabulous amount to 15,000/. por atiuuiu ; and lie said, with a cooUiess which he (Mr. lii'ight) tlioujjlit almost ininii^ table, that he hoped that would be "quite satisFactovy." Then they were invested with a pomp and a state th-it bclonjted to no other persons. A bishop had been sent to Jeru- salem the otlier day. Jle could not travel like any other mortal, but he must go out in t]\e fiti-,im-i'v\'^i\iQ- L)i'v/isf(/tion ; and, no doubt, within a Stone';; throw of the place wliere the Apdstle dwelt in tlie house of " one Pinion, a. tanner,'' he would laml unolis i' And what arc these remedies? Some Koman Catholic priests are to be prevented from taking titles which hitherto they have been prevented by the law that existed from taking to a considerable extent ; the only difference being that they arc now prevented from taking territorial titles which have not been assumed by ])relates of the national Church, and that by a ponnlty of what amount— 4()s. perhaps — is not stated. IJnt a penalty of that amount would, in my opinion, be worthy of the occasion. Is this all? Is a piece of petty persecution the only weapon we can devise on a solemn political exigency of this vast importance ? At the best, it is a great political exigency met by a remedy ])nrely technical. Not a single principle has been asserted or vindicated ; and no substantial evil will be remedied. Ent mark the address by which this insignificant, project is introduced. I grant you tliat Ijctween tliat project and thf procmium tlio diflcreiu-o was nuist significant. If the nf)l)lo lord iiad lieen about to inti'oduce a jirojutsition for tlic revival of tlie j)cnal laws, the j)roj)ortions of his Speech Could not have been more 'colossal. I remember, when the letter of the noble lord first appeared, an appeal having been made to me by my constituents; I recommended them to pause before they acted, and thoroughly to imderstand the question at issue. I told them that it was not sufficient to record their loyalty to the Crown, and hurry into some hasty approbation of a crude project of Legislation, but that this was a wide and comprehensive question, and it was impossible to legislate for England •without legislating for Ireland. What was the answer of the authorities that then supported Government and then influenced opinion ? They derided the idea of legislating for Ireland. We were told that was an exceptional case ; that the circumstances were perfectly distinct, and that it was not the intention of the Minister to make this measure apply to Ireland. But mark the speech of the Minister to-night. It was no longer the Papal aggression of October or November that the noble lord lays down as the foundation of these new laws. I find the noble lord going at once to Ireland, and seeking, as the basis of his legislation, the Synod of Thurles, and not the visit of Dr. Wiseman to l':ngland. But, after having treated the question of the Synod of Thurles in a spirit, I am bound to admit, worthy of the subject — which is a great, serious, and awful subject — what docs the noble lord do but immediately introduce a bill which bears no reference whatever to the Synod of Thurles, or any synodical action in any of the kingdoms of her Majesty. These are inconsistencies which, after three months of inconsistency, I am surprised should again occur. I did expect that the Goveinment, after frequent councils and opportunities, would at least have brought forward a measure consistent with the exposition of the First Minister. What is the excuse or reason given by the noble lord to-night for this strong contrast between his introductory statement and his meagre proposition? It is, for- sooth, that tlie business, he begins to believe, is insignificant. How does the noble lord describe the Papal aggression, which for three months, through the instrumentality of the noble lord, had excited the passions of the whole people? The Pope's letter is described to- night as a blunder of the sudden — a somewhat strong phrase, and one which some persons might think applicable to other letters. I cannot believe the conduct of the Pope has been precipitate conduct, or not duly conceived and matured. I form my opinion from circumstances ot public notoriety, and from the gradual occurrence of incidents and events which might well have justified his Holiness in the course he has adopted. When I recollect what has occurred in Ireland and in the colonies with respect to Roman Catholic bishops — that the Viceroy of Ireland, the representative of our Sovereign, has been in direct communication with the Pope himself ; that he expressed his high veneration for the character of his Holi- ness ; that he consulted him, and deferred to his judgment — 1 cannot agree that the conduct of the Pope, right or wrong, was a sudden act, or a course of behaviour and policy adopted with- out due reason and encouragement. But, besides all that occurred in Ireland and the colonies with respect to the introduction of Roman Catholic prelates, besides the letter of Lord Claren- don — that letter whicli has never yet been vindicated — not very long ago the First Minister ex- pressed himself on the subject of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill in a passage to which I referred tlie other night from memory, but which, strange to say, numerous as have been the quotations from speeches of the noble lord, has never yet been cited during these debates. Thus spoke Lord John Russell, according to our authoritative record in ^ July, 1845 : " He believed they might repeal those disallowing clauses which prevented the Roman Catholic bishops from assuming titles held by bishops of the Established Church." The noble lord saw no objection whatever but a few years ago to Roman Catholic bishops assuming titles held by bishops of the Esta- blished Church. He had no objection whatever to Dr. Wiseman then coming to this country, and styling himself Archbishop of Canterbury. "He could not conceive any good grounds for the continuance of these restrictions." Does the noble lord suppose the opinion of so eminent an individual on subjects of such paramount interest was not duly noted and duly known ( that such an opinion expressed in the House of Commons by such a man was not immediately furnished to the Vatican ? — and when the Pope was aware that it was the opinion of so eminent a personage, when the representative of our Sovereign was indirectly communicating with him in a tone of deferential homage, when he might read in the records of the Irish Court that his a.rchbishops and bishops took the highest precedence — an unfortunate circumstance now satisfactorily accounted for, though a more convenient subordinate never yet appeared in a public discussion — is it just or fair — is the noble lord authorised to state to-night that the conduct of the Pope was a blunder of the sudden ? I don't enter into the question whether a communication was made or not to my Lord Minto. This I will say, that we have had details to-night which prove that some communication was made ; and, certainly, I am very much sur- prised that an envoy on a mission so confidential should be apprised, by the candour of his Holiness, that there is something here whicli touched England nearly, and never have the curiosity to ask, " Pray, what is it ?"' On his next mission, I have no doubt Lord Minto will profit by his previous experience ; and I must say, of all public men employed on public missions, Lord Minto has run the most remarkable course of any individual in the public service. There are Financial Reformers present who have animadverted, among other things, on diplomacy. So far as I can form an opinion from 8 the operation.'? of the distingnislinl amateur whose name has been so i'rcquently hronglit before Parliament of late, 1 sliould hs led, whethei- a inissiou were open or secret, for war or for peace, or even for relij,'ion, to prefer a professional diplomatist. Tiie course taken by tlie Government was not only very unsatisfactory for the ]>rcsent, but extremely perilous for the future. It is a great evil, after all, that has occurred to baulk the feelings of the nation. But that is a minor evil couipared with the prosj)ect held out by the noble lord this evening of ulterior measures and future legislation. The noble lortl seems to have chalked out an almost illimitable career, which commences with petty persecution, perhaps to terminate with national disaster. But he will never accome plish a soluton, worthy a statesman, of a great political difhculty. What is tho prospect before us ? Suppose there is another Papal aggression — and with the encouragement it has received I think we may reasonably count upon one — there is to be another measure adapted to the new assault upon the supremacy ot the Sovereign; party passions still more embittered; public prejudices still more excited ; rancour, hatred, malice, and the odiutu theologUuvi prevailing everywhere. A new measure will produce another aggression ; another " blunder of a sudden," and this " blunder of a sudden" will be made year after year, to be met with some law of a sudden, though I am afraid not so sudden in the result. Thus we siiall liave the Whigs governing England by a continual Popish plot, which is never to be brought to an end. In my opinion, the existence of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in a Protestant country not recognised by the law is a great political evil. To reconcile the recognition of such a hierarchy by the law with a regard to complete respect for the civil and religious liberties of Roman Catholics is a political problem difficult to solve, liut though it may be difficult to solve, it is in my mind not impossible, not by any concordat with a foreign Prince, but by the internal and essential power of an English Parliament. I do not say that it is a political difficulty which any cautious statesman, under any circumstances, would have created. I do not mean to say it is a measure that a man would have gone out of his way to introduce to Parliament, but I say this, that when a states- man has taken the course which the noble lord has taken, he is bound to attempt to solve that political problem, and to introduce a measure equal to the occasion, and not meet the great political exigencies which he may have fostered, if not created, by a technical remedy unworthy the dignity of Parliament. That is the view I take of the conduct of the Government. 1 shall not oppose the introduction of this bill. I think tlic introduction of the bill is the severest condemnation of the conduct which has been pursued during the last three months. If tl-.e House pass this bill they do nothing. We do not cope with the question we are bound to meet ; and all we will do will be to engender just the same difficulty greatly aggravated by our inefficiency, the spirit with which we have recognised our danger, and the craven manner in which we have shrunk from meeting the difficulty that we have ourselves created. Mr, M. J. O'CoNNEi.i, was not sorry to find that Ireland was included in the bill, and he hoped his hon. friend who had given notice of a motion to exclude it would not perse- vere in his proposal. If wrong had been done by the Roman Catholics of Enghuul their brethren in Ireland were sharers in the guilt, and ought to be sharers in the punishment. As to the charge of want of loyalty brought against Roman Catholics, all he would say was that, as an individual, he did not hold his loyalty to be at all affected by what had fallen ft'om the noble lord. He denied that there existed any disloyalty to her Majesty among her Roman Catholic subjects. 'J'he proposed bill would be a source of great annoyance, but it would have no other effect, for he believed it would be a failure. He could say with con- fidence that the letter which the noble lord, unfortunately for his reputation, had written, had been the means of leading many moderate-minded persons in Ireland to adopt much stronger views than they previously held. Sir R. H. Inglis said. In the course of the evening the hon. member for Manchester had made a most elaborate attack upon the Church of I'.ngland ; but he ventured to say that if any one took the liberty to dissect that speech the statements it contained would be com- pletely overturned. With regard to the refusal of a sermon which a Dissenting minister wished to present to her Majesty, he (Sir. R. Innlis) had never heard of the case before, and he was, of course, ignorant of the circumstances under which the refusal was given. It was well known, however, that the custom was, that all persons who wished to present offerings to her Majesty should transmit them through the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and he apprehended that, in the case which the hon. gentleman had mentioned, the functionary to whom he had referred had only acted as the Home Secretary would have done had lie been applied to. The hon. member for Manchester had said that the movement against the aggression of the Pa])al Court was attributable to the bigotry of the Church of England, and that some few Dissenters had been deluded into joining them. He (Sir R. Inglis) thought it was greatly to the honour of the Dissenters that the two fir'st petitions presented to that House on the subject now under discussion had been presented by the hon. member for Wol- verhampton from two Dissenting bodies. The hon. member for Manchester had complained of what he called the salaries of the bishops and elegy of the Church of F.ngland. He (Sir R. Inglis) had repeatedly said, when simihir statements had been made, that no salary was given by Parliament to the bishops or dignitaries of the Church of England, and that all that Par- liament had done with reference to them had been to lessen the amount of hereditary pro[)erty whicli they enjoyed. The hon. gentleman had complained of the income of lii.OOO/. a-year received by the Archbishop of Canterl)ury, but he begged to remind the hon. member that the present arcliliishoj) roceivcd a much loss nmnunt tlian had been enjoyed by many of his pre- decessors. Ih; (Sir 11. irif^lis) would not now en'.er u[)Oii the gonirai question, but he would be ashamed of himself if, after thcr itiention made on both sides of ihe House of the letter ot the noble lord at the head of the (Government, he did not thank his noble friend for that letter, for which he considered the Protestantism of this country and of Europe was largely indebted to the noble lord. He also begged to thank his noble friend for the speech he had dolivered to-night. He wished he could gi"e iiim equal thanl;s for the bill lie had brought forward. He (Sir R. Inglis) could not but feel that there vvas too much truth in the statement that the bill would fall far short of the requirements of the case. He should not, however, do justice to the noble lord if he pronounced any decided opinion upon a measure which was not at present technically and formally before the Hotise, and he would therefore reserve any observations he might wish to make until the bill had been introduced. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 10. Mr. Rkynoi.ds commenced by stating, that he might call the dilTicultics which he had to encounter in discussing this cpiestion by the name of legion. In the first place, he had to contend with a gigantic and powerful opponent in the temporalities of the ICstablished Church ; and when he spoke of the lOstablished Church he wished it to be understood as not referring to it in its spiritual capacity. With its spiritualities he had nothing to do, and he conceded freely to members of the l'',stablishcd Church the same privilege that he claimed for himself, of •worshi|)ping God according to the dictates of his conscience. He believed, however, that it was to its temporalities all the insults that had been offered to his creed, and all the disturb- ances that had disgraced the character of certain persons during the last three months, were to be traced. Wliat did he find ? He found this gigantic Church Establishment, with its head in Canterbury, with its lithe leviathan body spread over England and Wales, one end resting on the Land's End and another grasping John O'Groat's house — for even in Scotland there were si,\ bishops of the English Establishment assuming titles. He found the gigantic limbs of this Establishment crossmg St. George's Channel, one spurred heel resting on Cape Clear, and the other on the Giant's Causeway. According to the calculation of the hon. member for Cockermouth (a very good judge), the revenues of the English Church were 5,000,000/. jjer annum, and there were 12,000 benefices. In Ireland, the revenues of the Established Church were about .500,000/., with 1,.')00 benefices. In all, there were 1.0,000 ecclesiastics in England, and 2,.'i00 in Ireland, with an income amounting to about 0, 000, 000/. a-year. Now, he would ask if that were not a fonriidable adversary to encounter. Then there was the ])ress to contend with — not all the press, as the hon. member for Manchester had just reminded him, but the majority ; there was the action of the press on the million, as exhibited at the Papal meetings. 'Phe [)ress had acted upon the people — no, not upon the people — he was wrong there again, for the people Ivad not been acted upon, though the Churchmen and the vestrynien had been acted upon, and had shouted to the top of their voices, lu that shout, however, the Englishmen who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow had never joined. The truth was, the honest and sensible ])eoplc of England had folded their arm.'5, and said to themselves, "This is the Church's affair; it is a matter we have nothing to do with." The word "aggression" had been used by wholesale on this subject. Now, he found that, according to Johnson and other authorities, the word "aggression" meant "the begitmmg of a (juarrel." He was told that his Holiness the Pope commenced the quarrel, but he totally denied it. It was the Church that began the quarrel, and the Pope did no more than he was entitled to do when he metamorphosed vicars-apostolic into bishops. It was absurd to say that the Pope, who was represented as the pettiest prince in Europe, could give territorial power to Cardinal Wiseman, or any other person. Aggression had been committed, but it was committed on the Catholics of England and Ireland by means of this bill. He maintained that this bill was an infraction of tl-.e agreement entered into with the Catholics when the Enianeipation Act was passed in 1829. On Friday night the noble lord yccoin- mendcd the Catholic bishops now to follow the example of the bishops in 1821) ; but there was no analogy between the cases. In 1829, the Catholic bishops were receiving privileges, but now they had to thank the noble lord, not for privileges, but for penalties. They had been told of the line of conduct pursued by the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Camoys, and Lord Beaumont on this question. No man respected the duke more than he did, but in matters of religion he had much more respect for those from whom he received spiritual advice ; and it was not to be expected that he should follow the example of any of those peers on the subject. But then there was also the hon. member for Youghal (Mr. Anstey). He said triumphantly, and was cheered to the echo, that there were two descriptions of Roman Catholics — they were the Catholics of the Church of Rome and the Catholics of the Court of Rome. Now he (Mr. Reynolds) had been educated from his infancy in the Catholic religion; he was not a conveit; and he had never heard that there were tv,o sections of Catholics. He should have thought that the word pre- vented the possibility of such a thing; but it occurred to him that if there were two sections of Catholics the hon. member for Youghal must belong to both. He found that he was a Catholic of the Court of Rome, for the late Pope Gregory XVI. conferred upon him the order of St. Gregory. He was, in fact, "the Hon. Sir Chisholm Anstey." The hon. member for Youghal was a lawjer, and he might find, perhaps, when he gave bad law, and that that law suited the public taste, that he would be considerably puffed in the newspapers. He- said if the new hierarchy were allowed, it would establish the old Popish canon law in this country. Now, he challenged him to prove that to the satisfaction of any lawyer. He (Mr. Reynolds) 10 denied that it would have any such effect with regard to trusts and charities as the hon. member had jjointcd out. Would the hon. member for Youghal state to the House wliat services he rendered to the Pope in order to attain the lionour conferred upon hinfi ? If he did not do so, perhaps he (Mr. Reynolds) would take the earliest opportunity of doing so. It was impossible to discuss this question without referring to the letter of the noble lord to the Bishop of Durham. He had a double right to refer to that letter, because it contained phrases not complimentary to his creed, and because by its publication he sustained a pecuniary loss. When he read that letter he said, " What ! is it possible that the liberal, enlightened, consistent, and talented Prim.e Minister of England, the champion of civil and religious liberty in every country and in every clime; the man whom I have been taught to look up to as my political Whig leader, in the absence of a more thorough Liberal ; he to whom I had given my undivided support since I entered the House of Commons, whenever I could with safety to my political conscience — is it possible that he has indited this epistle?" He happened to be speaking to one of his constituents, who said to him, " Well, Mr. Reynolds, have you seen the letter of your champion. Lord John Russell?" He (Mr. Reynolds) said " he had seen the noble lord's name at the bottom of a printed letter, but it doubtless was a hoax ; it could not be genuine; the noble lord never could have written such a letter as that." His friend, who was a better, said, "1 bet you a sovereign it is genuine." He (Mr. Reynolds) said, "Done!" He need not tell the House that he was " done," and that he had to pay the sovereign. The noble lord, in the course of his speech on Friday, said that ail Churches were prone to make encroachments, but that the Roman Catholic Church was more disposed to do so than any other. Very likely that was the lact. There was not a Protestant in or out of the House that was more opposed to temporal encroachments by his own Church than he was; for he con- scientiously believed that nothing would damage his creed more than that it should be con- nected with the State ; and he was one of those who sincerely believed that the Pope of Rome ought not to be a temuoral prince. But the question was quite a different one v»'hen they came to this side of the Channel. Here they had a mighty leviathan with its 6,000,000/. a-year and its 16,000 ecclesiastics, raising its head against every other establishment. The noble lord proposed to prevent vicars apostolic from calling themselves by the names of their sees in England, and then, he said, he intended to carry out the principle in Ireland. He supposed the noble lord did this from the love of uniformity. But the circumstances of England and Ireland were very different. In England the Catholics scarcely exceeded five per cent, of the population ; while in Ireland they exceeded eighty per cent, of the [lopulation. In England there had been no Catholic hierarchy from the reign of Henry Vlll. up to the present time; whereas in Ireland they had a chain of apostolical succession unbroken from the time of St. Patrick unto this hour; and it was for a Liberal CTOvernment, though that chain in the times ot Toryism was never broken, to say that it should be broken now, not because the Catholic Church in Ireland had committed any offence, but in order to pander to the pride of an over- grown establishment in England. He had the honour last Saturday week of partaking of the hospitality of Lord Clarendon ; and among the company were the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin and the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin — that, he supposed, would be called " Papal aggression ;" but if any man had entered the room he would not have been able to discover that between those two dignitaries there was the least jealousy. It was " your Grace" here, and " your Grace" there, and all the compliments that the Viceroy could pay were paid to the two dignitaries of the two Churches. But, to return to the bill, it was said that this measure was to give satisfaction to the Catholics. Now, let the noble lord take the whole body of the Catholics of England, and, after deducting from them the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Camoys, Lord Beaumont, and some j)riest on the sea-coast, to whom the noble lord had referred the other night, he would venture to say that the whole of the Catholic barons were hostile to this measure. The honourable member for the city of Limerick considered the measure both inefficient and contemptible ; but he (Mr. Reynolds) regarded it as neither inefficient nor contemptible, but that it was a measure of pains and penalties, and one calculated to inflict a wound upon the great principle of civil and religious liberty. It was a step backward, and he was ashamed that it should have been forced upon the House by a cabal that ought not to have been noticed. The peoi)le had been so blind- folded, and so misled, and so deceived by the agitators of the press and by agitators outside of the press, that many a member of that House who was then listening to him, and who was as much opposed to the bill as he was, would be compelled to vote for it, because he would risk losing his scat if he voted against it. The noble lord, therefore, must not estimate the opinion of the House by the number of votes he received, because he believed many might be coerced to support it whose consciences rebelled against the measure. He entered upon this discussion with great pain. He had hoped tliat persons of all religious persuasions would have been allowed to live together in peace. This agitation would do damage in Ireland, and would be a source of much discord and disunion, and many years must elapse before the country could be restored to a state of reconciliation and concord. It was his determination to offer the bill all the opposition in his power, arid if it should pass (and he thought the chances were that it would pass in some shape), he would venture to prophecy that the bill would be a dead letter. He defied any Government to enforce its provisions, and if hon. gentlemen on the opj)osition side of the House were to assume their seats on the Treasury bench to-morrow, he defied them, with all their power, to carry out any penalties against his creed in his native country. The right hon. baronet the member for Ripon had said, on a former occasion, that Ireland was essentially a Catholic country. It was so, and he hoped he 11 should not he tleomcd fiillty of uttering a higotcd phrase when he expressed a wish that it niiglit ever remain so. What did the CatlioUes care for an Act of ParUamcnt when it came in contact witli their religion ? Tlie safety of tiieir religion was in the purity of its doctrines and its poverty. The Catholic religion in Ireland was not clothed in purple and fine linen ; it did not fare sumptuously every day; but it was clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and lie hoped it would continue to be so. 'J'his agitation on the absurd cry of Papal aggression had post- poned the consideration of all social questions. He was surprised that the thinking and educated people of England should have allowed themselves to be so deluded. He had been told that some Catholics would support this measure. He could understand Catholics in office voting for it; but he begged to remind them that a day of reckoning would come when they would be asked whether they were sent to the House of Commons to vote penal laws against Catholic bishops, and to tell a dying man who wished to leave 1,000/. to Dr. Murray for charitable purposes that if he called him the Most Rev. Daniel Murray Archbishop of Dublin, all his wishes would be frustrated, and that his money would pass to the Crown, to be given according to the will of the donor, or as the Crown should think fit. The noble lord said that Roman Catholics were promoted to places in the gift of the Government; but what was the fact? In the Court of Chancery, in Dublin, the number of Protestants employed was 75, whose salaries amounted to .OTjOOO/. a-year ; while the number of Catholics employed was only 17, and their salaries amounted to 4,000/. a year. In the law courts there were nine Pro- testant judges and 6.') Protestant officers, whose salaries amounted to .")4,7iy/. l^s. lOd., while there were only three Catholic judges and 17 Catholic officers, with salaries amounting to 10,757/. 3s. 8d. The same principle existed in the Lord-Lieutenant's household, as well as in the Customs, Excise, Post-office, and all other public offices ; and the only cure for all this, the only cup of comfort to be administered to the Catholics, was that their bishops should not be bishops with Irish titles. Dr. Cullen had been spoken of as one not acquainted with Ire- land ; whereas he was born, reared, and educated in that country, and was more extensively connected with the upper and middle classes than any other Catholic bishop. The noble lord laboured under similar mis-information with regard to Dr. Wiseman, whom the noble lord had called a foreigner; but he was to all intents and purposes a British subject. lie was born of Irish parents at Seville, in Spain ; lived there seven years, and then came and resided in his own native county of Waterford. (Loud laughter.) They all knew that a man born on board a British vessel at sea might call Sussex, Kent, or any other place his native county. (Renewed laughter.) The hon. gentleman concluded by disclaiming all sectarian or bigoted views, and declaring that, with reference to the Protestant Church, he entertained no feeling towards her but that of kindness and respect. 'J'he Attorney-(jeneral said, that if the House had taken the usual and ordinary course of allowing this bill to be introduced at an early period, so that the House might become acquainted with its provisions, he should not have thought it his duty to trouble them with any observations at this stage ; but, as they had not only been occupied one long night, but would probably be engaged for a similar period in a discussion with respect to a bill about to be introduced, in the absence of all knowledge as to its provisions — a species of ignorance which they must necessarily labour under — and, as it appeared to him that the observations made by his noble friend on introducing the bill, with respect to its purport and effect, had been misunderstood by the House, he was desirous of explaining what appeared to him to be the general scope and eli'ect of the bill as described by his noble friend. But before he did so he hoped the House would permit him to call attention to what was the offence which it was intended by this bill to meet. It was to be observed that in the course of last year the offence consisted in the introduction of a bull, by which certain persons were entitled by the Pope of Rome to assume certain territorial sees and dioceses, defined by certain limits. That was the whole extent of the offence ; the consequence of it would have to be regarded and dealt with by the House ; but they were derived solely from the circumstance that those titles were authorised to be assumed as of certain ]>retended sees and dioceses of this country. The view he took, Avhich Avas one he thought the liouse would agree in, was, that in meeting these consequences you should act on a very sound and safe maxim of politics, and that you ought not to introduce a remedy more extensive than was necessary to meet the evil complained of. He thought, therefore, if they introduced and passed a measure which should efiectually prevent pievsons from holding those sees, as being bishops or archbishops of tliose pretended dioceses in Engk'.nd, that the real object which was sought would be found, and that they needed not to legislate beyond the occa- sion, or seek to provide against possible evils which had not yet arisen. Now, he believed the proposed bill would in fact eflfectually prevent the evils which bad been complained of. That such was the object of the bill there was no question, and that it had been framed v.ith considerable care to meet that object he was well assured — it would be for the House to consider with what success. He must be allowed to observe, that it was important to draw a distinction between the two diflercnt branches of the offence which would be constituted by the bill. One portion ot it, a very large portion of it had relation to what was conceived by many, and, as he apprehended, justly conceived, to be an insult to this country ; the other portion of it was the injury inflicted on certain classes of the inhabitants. Eut those two things were in themselves perfectly distinct. Q'here had been this eflect, that the -insult offered to this country by a foreign power introducing a bull, by which he professed to govern the whole of the kingdom by his own immediate dependants, had produced an undue belief with respect 12 to the extont of t'le injui'y likely to arise from that bull ; that the two things couhl not he fjepai'ateil in the public mind without some difhcalty, and that a very gi'eat desire for Legislation had arisen, not merely from the injury it was suspected the introduction of the bull would cause, but in a great measure, by the insult which the public consitlered to have been offeied lo the Queen and to the country. As to the insvdt that had been offiared, it would be useless to say anything. The expression of opinion on the part of the country and of the House was am])ly sufficient to show that the introduction of any measure containing an expression of their opinion would be fully adequate to repel, in the most i)roper and dignified manner, the insult which had been offered by the Court of Rome. With regard to the injury inflicted by the bull, it undoubtedly affected the Roman Catholic branches of the community, but it was, however, of a two-fold nature. The first injury was of a spiritual, the second was of a temporal character. With the first he apprehended they had nothing to do ; and if it v^ere possible for them to separate completely any questions with respect to the spiritual and temporal effect of the introduction of the bull, and the assumptions of titles tiiereupon, it would be well and fit for them to do so, apart from the question of what was due to the honour and dignity of the country. It was said the effect of the bull in temporal matters would be to give to certain persons assuming the titles of archbishops or bishops of dioceses and sees the power of dealing with appointments relating to religious endowments made by Roman Catholics ; that it would enable them to deal with the property given to support cha- rities, or for other religious purposes, in a difi'erent and more extensive manner than at present, and that the result would be to give to those prelates powers not intended to be conceded to them by the persons who founded those institutions. As to the spiritual power introduced, he had not heard it suggested, nor had he seen it in any of the ])ublications he had read, that there were any specific powers which might be enforced by the bishops of these pretended sees, distinct or different from the powers which might have been enforced by the bishops in partibus and vicars-apostolic, or anything to show they were not as great in one case as in the other; but with respect to the temporal power, it was of importance, he appre- hended, to stop theassumjjtion by any person being, or pretending to be, as undoubtedly these bishops must profess themselves to be, under the canon law and dependant on the Pope of Rome, of dealing with the rights and interests of British subjects in a manner different from and inconsistent with the manner which had hitiicrto obtained. The difficulty to be feared would arise when the questions arising from these appointments came to be adjudicated upon by the courts of law, because the courts, taking cognisance of every species of endowment for the benefit of Roman Catholics, and enforcing trusts connected with them, would inquire into the rights of appointments as mere facts to be ascertained, and would refer to the authority of the Roman Catholic bishops to know l)y what authority the persons interested had been appointed. Now, the bill, as was stated by his noble friend (Lord J. Russell) on a former occa- sion, was intended in the first instance to extend the provisions of the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 10th George IV., which imposed a penalty of lOOZ. for every offence, in case of any Roman Catholic prelate assuming the title of any existing see throughout the United Kingdom, that penalty of 100/. to be enforced for every offence, but only sued for by the Attorncv- General. Now, this bill, by the first section, extended the jienalties of that clause to the case of the assumption of any title whatever — whatever it might be — from any city, or any town, or place, or territory, or district whatever within the United Kingdom. It" the clause had been found to be effectual — a matter on which he could not profess to express any opinion — in preventing the assumption of tlie titles of existing sees, it migiit he equally expected to have a similar effect in preventing the assumption of titles from places within the United Kingdom. But it did not stop there. Several iifstances had been alluded to in wliich it was alleged that Roman Catholic bishops assumed the titles of existing sees, and it was thought desirable to endeavour to carry into effect the object ot prohibiting the assumption of titles by making every act done by persons holding sees of that description, in their character of bishops or archbishops, null and void. It appeareproved, he would have obtained the sacraments of the Church ; and it was the fact that lac had not done so, and had died without them, that made the circumstances notorious. In all such cases, then, they must appeal to the good sense and judgment of the Roman Catholic body, who would resist the oppression of the Roman Catholic clergy whenever the latter were disposed to enforce it. He ap))ealed with very great confidence to the Roman Catholic laity in this country, and he telt that in legislating on this question they were bound to consider that body as being in all respects, with the one exception of spiritual matters, in the same situation as themselves, animated by a sincere desire for the welfare of the country, and for the preservation of order and good government. When, then, they thought it necessary to introduce a measure of this description, it was not merely for the protection of the Protestants, but it was, he conscientiously believed, not less for the protection of the Roman Catholic laity. He believed that a large body of them felt in the same way, but he believed they were so bound down by their religion, by party feeling, and by a regard for the honour of their Church, that they were not able fully to express their feelings as to the advantages which would arise from the measure. For his own part, he would have been better pleased if the necessity for it bad never arrived, and if the question itself had never arisen. He must say, he thought there could be little question as to whom the bill would satisfy. It could not 14 satisfy those who said — no doubt perfectly conscientiously — they did not believe any injury had been inflicted by the introductioa of the bull. These hon. gentlemen conscientiously ob- jected to any legislation, though it was possible many of them thought the Pope would have acted more properly if he had expressed his intention to introduce a bull of that kind to the State and to the country. As to those who looked upon the question in apolitical light, and who made a handle of it for the purpose of embarrassing the present Government, they could argue the bill was either too strong, or that it was not strong enough, and so it would be impossible to satisfy them ; but with respect to tliat larger portion of the House who really and sincerely felt an injury had been done which ought to be redressed, he said that the measure before them was a fit and proper measure for the purpose for which it had been intended. The Roman Catholics had always professed tlieir desire to obey the law, and had asserted, he doubted not with truth, that they were actuated by the same feelings of loyalty as their Protestant fellow-subjects. Was it not a fit and proper thing, then, that they should obey a measure of this description — a measure which made it an offence by statute law to take titles from any place in the kingdom, or to administer any property with reference to those titles ? He believed the House would find the Roman Catholics would not resist it; and, admitting 'that there was great danger in making prophesies on political questions, he thought he was safe in saying so. He thought it was but fair to give them an opportunity of seeing whether they would not obey the law which would be established, and he felt satisfied that if they did not obey the law, and that if it should be necessary to take more stringent measures, the power of Parliament would be found to be of the strongest kind, and could easily make a measure which would amply meet the question. He did not think there would be any necessity for such a measure. He felt great regret that so rash and ill-advised a step had been taken as that which rendered the bill necessary — a step which could have no beneficial tendency to the Roman Catholic religion, and which might aff"ect many of the Romnn Catholic laity ; but at the same time he had perfect confidence that the Roman Catholic laity would be found disposed to aid every measure which was found essential for the due administration of the law, and which was designed not only for the protection of Protestantism, but, as he believed, for the protection of themselves ^against an undue assumption of temporal power. Lord Ashley said, that however desirable it might be to approach this question with great, calmness and deliberation, they who entertained a very serious conviction respecting its importance must approach it with decision and resolution equal to the emergency. The ques- tion was, whether they would allow the ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome to seize upon and to occupy in these realms a position they never occupied in the most palmy days of Romanism in this country, and which they did not occupy, and never would be permitted to occupy, iii any of the continental nations which owned the authority of the Vatican. He must say it was not a cjuestion merely affecting the Church of England ; it was no bill to secure her Establish- ment, to afi'ect her honour, or to extend her influence. The question really was, would they or would they not give that protection to the civil and religious liberty of the country which it required? The question affected the Wesleyans, the Baptists, the Independents — in short. Dissenters of all denominations, as much as it affected the Church of England, and he believed they could prove it affected as much the liberty of the Roman Catholics themselves, and most undoubtedly the liberty of the inferior orders of the Roman Catholic clergy. He had been very much astonished to hear the hon. member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) say that no Dis- senting congregation north of London had taken any part in this movement. Perhaps he might there be allowed to express the admiration he entertained for the conduct of the Dis- senters, who had agreed to cast aside their various differences, and to withhold their assaults on the State Church for the purpose of making common cause against the common enemy. When he heard the hon. member for Manchester say no movement had been made by Dis- senters north of the metropolis, he (Lord Ashley) could not but recollect that most remarkable document called "The declaration of the ministers of the congregational denominations in the county of Lancaster," written, he should think, by tiiat great master of the English language. Dr. Vaughan, of Moorside. The whole would repay perusal, for it was one of the clearest and most able statements of the position of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches he had ever read. He would read one extract : — "In all this we see Romanism in a form the most despotic, arrogant, and offensive, strikingly in contrast to the more liberal interpretations of it so common among English Catholics before the passing of the Emancipation Act — in a form, indeed, which is so much after the pattern of the worst times in the history of the Papacy, as to furnish precedent enough, if allowed silently to take its course, for aggressions dangerous alike to the British Crown and to those liberties, civil and religious, which our Protestant fathers have bequeathed to us." Was not that an emphatic declaration from Dissenters living north of the metropolis? Did it not prove very remarkably that the Nonconformists of the present day inherited tiic spirit of their Nonconformist ancestors of old, and that tiicy were no more to be wheedled by the soft blandishments of Cardinal Wiseman than by the smooth words of .lames 11. when he meditated against the spiritual liberty of the country ? As far as he had been able to follow the argu- ments against the proposition, they were divisable into several classes. The first, the weakness of the power they were called on to resist ; but v^'us not " weakness" to be considered a relative term ? Was not the power which wielded such inlluence in spiritual matters stronger in moral force than all otiier powers, and was it not jjossiblc that when the Pope was so insecure as to be trembling for his existence he might be able to stir remote kingdoms and to dethrone monarchs, and that, though he might not have a soldier 15 or a gunboat, he could put in operation half the force of the kingdoms of Christendom ? "When he was in his lowest condition, was he not able to rouse the armies of France, of Austria, of Naples, and of Spain for his defence? But in speaking of the movement now made, and on which the bill was founded, as a movement dictated by fear — it was not that England entertained tlie slightest fear for all tiie [lolitical, physical, or spiritual force that could be leagued against her, that she iiad moved in the matter ; but because it was a great and intolerable insult, and must be redressed. If it had been contained in a mere writing, an empty manifesto, it might have passed without notice ; but it was an insult reduced to prac- tice, and embodied in the i)resence and existence of twelve bishops, who, by their personal appearance in this country, day after day, kept the Queen constantly informed that she was not the fountain of honour in this realm, and who, by the distribution of her kingdom into districts and provinces, gave her to understand she was not supreme governor in her own dominions. The next argument used against the bill was that a man might assume any name he pleased. He should like to hear the opinion of the Attorney-General on that point. He did not believe a man might assume what name he pleased, and make regulations in that name to bind others. The main argument, however, was, that the l)ill was a restriction on religious liberty, and that it was a limitation on that liberty which had been carried by the act of 1821). Now, he was prepared to say for himself, and he was sure he might say the same for a vast body outside the House — of course he could not answer for any within — that he had no desire whatever to intrench in the least on the privileges which had been granted by the act of 1821). The question was not whether we should take from the Roman Catholics, but whether we should allow them to take anything from us. The question was whether the late Papal move- ment was inconsistent with the rights of the Crown, and the civil and religious liberties of all subjects of this reahn ? We were not the aggressors. We did not begin the movement. A foreign potentate and priest, by a certain document — whether legal or illegal he would not then f)ause to inquire — had, without permission of our Sovereign, without any communication whatever with the Government of this country, divided the realm into provinces and dioceses, appointed to them his own nominees, and invested them witli territorial titles. The advocates of this proceeding said that it was altogether in keeping with the spirit of the act passed in 1829, and that it was necessary for the free development of the Roman Catholic religion. Surely upon this statement there arose two questions : first, was this proceeding necessary to the development of the Roman Catholic religion; and, secondly, w-as it consistent with the rights of the Crown, and the civil and religious liberties of all the people of this country ? He would not pause to discuss the tone and temjier of the apostolic brief — for brief it was, if the Attorney-General, who called it a bull, would allow himself to be corrected on that point. With respect to the first proposition, that the feccnt act of the Pope was necessary for the development of the Roman Catholic re- ligion, he must observe that, looking to the act of 182!), it was perfectly clear that the Roman Catholics had full right and privilege to develope their religion, to diffuse, extend, and promote it by all legitimate means in their power. He would even go further, and say, that although their Church had been governed in these realms for nearly 300 years by vicars-apostolic, yet, episcopal functions being necessary to the government of the Roman Catholic Church, he believed — as at present advised — that tlicy had full power to convert their vicars-apostolic into bishops. He knew perfectly well the detriment we should receive from the constitution of such a hierarchy; but, nevertheless, it appeared to be in conformity with the concessions made in 182'J. But no one had proved, or attempted to prove, and it was his firm belief that no one was able to prove, that territorial titles were in any degree necessary to the exercise of episcopal functions. A territorial title was a worldly and material affair. The office of bishop was a spiritual concern altogether. Would any one venture to assert that Archbishop Wiseman could not exercise, within the jurisdiction assigned to him, archiepiscopal functions, unless he were called Arch- bishop of Westminster? It was, he knew, said that bishops of the Roman Catholic Church must have a local habitation and a name. Granted. Then, why did not Dr. Wiseman call himself Archbishop of the Roman Catholics in Westminster? (Some laughter.) Let not hon. members who laughed he in such a hurry. If they would be patient and give him their atten- tion, he would show them — he would not promise to their satisfaction, but to that of a good many — that the difterence adverted to, however minute in appearance, w-as mighty in opera- tion. Why did not Ur. Wiseman call himself Archbishop of the Roman Catholics in West- minster — a title which would leave him at liberty to discharge his archiepiscopal functions, and yet assign his true distinction and impose on him a just limitation ? iNIany persons said, "Why be so particular about names — why fight with a mere shadow? What can it signify whether a man be called archbishop in or of a particular place? Is a monosyllable to throw the whole empire into confusion? Yes, it was, and it ought. In the first place, the title of Archbisliop of Westminster claimed universal jurisdiction, whilst thetitle of Archbishop of the Roman Catholics in Westminster showed clearly that it was a restricted office. Let him, in the first place, bring forward, by way of testimony and illustration, what we did in our own case when we thought it desirable to send a Protestant bishop of the English Church to the holy city of Jerusalem. We did not, as Dr. Wiseman stated in his pamphlet, erect a bishopric there ; we merely sent a bishop from this country to be resident in Jerusalem for Protestant purposes; but, so careful were we to observe the rule laid down, that persons should not assume territorial titles and jurisdiction where they had no right to do so, that, in the first place, her Majesty's Government obtained from the Sovereign of the country a firman allowing the bishop to reside there; and, in the second place, we took care, in the deed of consecration, to IG give him the title of" Alexander Bishop of the United Church of England and Ireland, resident in Jerusalem." Such was the c:uition ohserved by us when we sent a bisliop to Jcrnsaleni. But as to the value of names and titles we had the testimony of whole nations, and that was a matter not to he lightly thrown aside. It woidd he in the recollection of the House that when, in 18,'50, a revolution look place in the affairs of France, Louis Philippe was raised to the throne ; but he was raised to it on this condition — imposed by the whole French people — that he should not be called King- of France, but simply King of the French. 'We liad then the testimony of the wliole French nation that a great distinction may be involved in what might at first sight appear to be a simple ditference in the form of expression. A similar course was pursued when Prince Leopold was raised to the throne of Belgium. The same condition was imposed in that case, and he was called the King of the Belgians, not the King of the Belgian territory. But the strongest argument of all was to be found in the estimate which the Roman Catholics themselves put on the title. Do you suppose that if, in their apprehension, there was nothing real and solid in the did'erence between the title of Archbishop of Westminster and Archbishop of the Roman Catholics in Westminster, they would have exposed themselves to the indignation and resentment of a whole country, and to the introduction of legislative measures to prevent the assumption of the chosen title .■* It was because they knew tlie name was of value that they insisted on the title with unprecedented pertinacity. Here was the reason Cardinal Wiseman — for a cardinal he certainly was, it being a foreign title — in his famous "Appeal," when defending himself against the charge of ambition for having assumed a terri- torial title, assigned the true reason, and so important was the reason he assigned, that one was almost inclined to believe he had heard our prayer, "Oh that my enemy would write a book!" Cardinal ^Viseman stated, then, that the Roman Catholic bishops did not take restrictive titles because the Church of Rome did not, and never would, allow any limitation to her jurisdiction. And why not.' For this reason: — It was a well-known tenet of the Church of Rome, as nobody would deny, that every baptised soul, whether baptised by a layman or an ecclesiastic ; whether in the Roman Catholic Church or out of it, in whatever way baptised, was subject to the authority of the Pope of Rome. To state, therefore, that Dr. Wiseman was Archbishop only of the Roman Catholics in Westminster would be to restrict his name and jurisdiction, while to call him the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster preserved to him the full demand of his Church to inalienable sovereignty. But tliat very demand was one to which Protestants should oiler an uncompromising and undying resistance. It was in accordance with the well-known policy of the Church of Rouie that everything which was not resisted she converted into a right, and made it the starting point for fresh aggrandize- ment, and a fresh exercise of her unwarrantable ambition. Then, with respect to the second question — namely, was the Pope's proceeding consistent with the rights of the Crown and the civil and religious liberties of the people of England, Dr. Wiseman again should answer, and by his own showing it would appear that it was not compatible with the liberties of this realm. Dr. Wiseman said that the introduction of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was not simply for diocesan purposes, but with the view of obtaining synodical action. He (Lord Ashley) would not pause to show what might be the effect of synodical action. That had been sketched in a graphic manner by tlie noble lord at the head of the Government, when he described the serious conse([uences which had resiilted from the Synod of Thurles. What had been done at Thurles would be repeated in Westminster, and we should have an ecclesiastical empire sitting licre and issuing decrees in the very h.eartof the metropolis of the British dominions. That was not all. The institution of the hierarchy was recjuired for synodical action, but synodical action was required for the introduction of the canon law. Those were the words of Dr. Wiseman himself. Had the House considered the nature and character of the canon law .' Had they reflected on what they had heard on this subject from the lips of members of the Roman Catholic body, namelv, that it laid burdens on them which were not easy to bear .' The House had heard what had fallen from one of its Roman Catholic mendjers. The\- knew the Duke of Norfolk had declared that the ultramontane system sought to be established in England was inconsistent with the constitution, and that Lord Beaumont had stated that, — "The Pope, by his ill-advised measures, has placed the Roman Catholics in this country in a position where they must citiier break with Rome, or violate their allegiance to the constitu- tion of these realms." That was the condition in which many Roman Catholics, and in which all the country would be placed, by the introduction of the territorial iiierarchy. With rcsj)ect to synodical action, it should be borne in mind that we did not allow it in our own Cliurch, and, that being the case, were we to be called upon to allow it to a rival and hostile Church ? But to revert to the canon law. He would not have called the attention of the House to the provisions of the canon law had it not been avowed that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was established for the purpose of introducing that code which would be binding on the consciences of a large portion of the community. Again, he asked, had tlie House considered whether the canon law was compatible willi the civil law of this country — whether it would not be necessary for those who obeyed it to place themselves frequently in opposition to tlie civil law of the realm? *^* For continuation of Debate sec next Number, Series XXL, now read;/. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILl'.EllT, lO, I'ATERNOSTER-ROW. THE ROMAN CA THOLIC QUESTION. PAPAL AGGRESSION.— HOUSE OF COMMONS, EEB. 10, 1851. (Coutinuatiou of Debate from the Twentieth Series.) Lord Ashley continued — To show the character of the canon law, he could not do better than quote a great and impartial authority — one of tlie first historians of modern times — Mr. Ilallani. In the " Middle Ages" of that writer the following passage was to be found : — " The superiority of the ecclesiastical u\\;r the temporal power may be considered as a sort of key- note which regulates every pissage in the canon law. It is expressly declared that subjects owe no allegiance to an excommunicated Sovereign." He would not stop to point out the terrible expressions which were to be found in the canon law with reference to spiritual matters, because witli tiiem the House had nothing to do; but perhaps he might be permitted to read two or three citations from tliat law, which IMr. Hallam had appended to the chapter of his book. " The laws of kings have not pre-eminence over ecclesiastical laws, but are sub- ordinate to them. 'J'o the succeeding passage he requested the attention of the Attorney- General : — " The statute-law of laymen does not extend to churches, or to ecclesiastical per- sons, or to their goods, to their prejudice." That this was no idle declaration was proved by the present conflict between Sardinia and the Pope. What had caused the dissension but the determination of the Sardinian Government to set aside the canon law, and make all ecclesias- tical persons subject to the civil law of the realm? Because the Sardinian Minister Santa Rosa wished merely to put tiie law of his country on the same footing as that of France and Austria he was deprived by the priests of the last sacrament, and, had it not been for the indignation of the people, he would have been altogether deprived of Christian burial. To proceed with Mr. llallani's citations from the canon law: — " Whatever decrees of princes are found injurious to the interests of the Church are declared to be of no authority whatever." " While a Sovereign remains excommunicated his subjects owe him no allegiance ; and. if he do not submit himself to the Church, his subjects are absolved from all fealty to him." Then came a part of the canon law which applied to all matters between man and man of which a court of justice could take cognisance. The decretal of Gregory states, " Oaths that are disad- vantageous to the interests of the Church are not to be considered as oaths, bat rather as perjuries." Let him not be misunderstood ; he quoted these things, not as against tlie flouKin Catholic body, and he wouhl not have quoted them at all had he not been told that the canon law was about to be introduceil for the first time into England. Under these circumstances it behoved us to know what that code was, and to ascertain, and speedily determine, whether it was compatible with our civil and religious liberties. Let him not be answered by phrases about " the nineteenth century," and the " march of intellect." Was it not remarkable that in this nineteenth century, during the march of intellect, and in the course of the last few years, when the greatest stimulus had been given to the human mind, a larger number of persons had gone over to the Church of Kome than during the preceding 300 years ^ So little had the march of intellect availed to stem tlu; advance of Popery. Let us reverse the picture, and make the case our own. Suppose her INIajesty, in compliance with the wishes of her Protestant subjects residing in the Italian States, hail appointed bishops of Civita Vecchia and Ancoua, or, to make the case more in point, had divided Rome into districts, and appointed a bishop of Tras- tevera. In such a case it was easy to imagine how the noble lord at the head of Foreign Affairs would have been besieged by protocols and conferences by the Ministers of France, Austria, and Spain. And yet, if her iMajcsty had done that, she would have done no more than had been done in this country by the intolerable ambition of the Pope (d'Rome. The lion, member for Sheffield had referred to America, and said, that there the Pope's proceedings would have been viewed with indillerencc. The cases of the two countries wei'e not analogous. America was a confederation of States. In America Romanism had never been established — it had no Established Church — no antecedents of hifitory on which to rely — nor was it possible to establish the Romish system tliere. The Romanists in America set to work very differently. They did not put themselves for- ward prominently in New York and Philadelphia, but were engaged very actively in founding colonies in the far west, and converting new settlers as they arrived. This was not said iu disparagement of the Roman Church ; on the contrary, he thought its zeal worthy of commendation; and if the Protestant Churches of Christendom would exhibit the same amount of zeal the Protestant faith would soon spread over the whole earth. The hon. gentleman had quoted tlie instance of the Wcslcyans. But did the ^^"csleyans owe a divided allegiance i Had they joined any foreign connexion ? Did they issue Tiventy-first Series.— '2xic^ ThreehalfiJeiice.] [Jaiues Gilbert, 49, Patcnioster-row- Of whom inni/ l/f had " 'J'/tr lioman Catholic Qt:e.stioi!," Xus. I. to XX. spiritiinl opiisinos '< It was poifectly true that thoy (Uvitled and f^uhilivided tlio country intn (lirtiicts i'or tliflr ov.n purptisos and convpnipticc ; luit if the Pivsidcnt of the Con- i'crence, Iwiviii!^ sub-dividtd the coiuUiy iVn- the convenience of the Wesleyan ministers, ■«ere to make ]atliy in the Ciuirch of England with the doctriiies, discipline, a,nd tenets of the Chnrch of Uoinc. When he added to this the very practices wliich had been inti-o- ihiccd l)y many of the ch;i-;;y,the processions, the auricular confessions, and ten tlioUsan, ])resbyter, and deacon, in all their cdiciency and all their dignity ; but they would maintain it in purity, and not in corniptiou. To obtain this end, they would, under God"s blessing, incur every hazard, try every alternative, ami shrink from no consequences whatever, in their endeavours to bring back the Church that they loved still nearer and nearer to the standard of the glorious Reform.'ition. Mr. Grattan wished to know wlicthcr the Government intended to establish an army of spies in the country, who, for the sake of the IQOl. penalties, wcndd turn informers against the Catholic idcraichy? He begged to tell them that this was a land of liberty; and that it was impossible that an act like this should pass. Why, too, he would like to know, did they seek to punish Ireland for an olfence committed in England? The Pope had committed no acgression in Ireland. He begged also to tell them that the 28th of Henry VIII., the 13th of Elizabeth, c. 1 and 2, and the other penal acts against Catholics, which had been referred to in the course of this discussion, never had been law in Ireland. The recent act of the Pope was called an aggression ; but it was no ir.ore an aggression than the appointments of vicars- apostolic in 1841 was. It was said to be an insult to her Majesty. Did her Majesty not pre- viously know that a great jiortion of her subjects were Roman Catiiolics, and did she not also know that they were governed by tlie Pope, and not by her, as far as their spiritual aflairs were concerned? But it was said that the Pope had changed the names of the bishops and given then; territoriid titles. It was absurd to f[uarrel about titles, and the noble lord opposite (Lord Ashley) had talked about nothing else till he came to the Puscyites. Besides, it w-as too late in the day to complain of the titles of the Catholic bishops ; for they liad already been recoginsed both by Parliament and the Government, in the Cliaritable Bequests Act, in the Dublin Ceineteries Act, in Lord Grey's letter, in Lord Clarendon's letter, and in the orders of the Lord Ch;ur.berl;iin. He should direct the attention of the House (and he proposed to do so very briefly) to the speech of the hon. member for Surrey. As a freeholder of that county he was er.titlcd to call that hon. gentleman his representative ; and he therefore' thought liimself more particularly entitled to aliude to the observations which he made in that House, Now, he was quite astonished at the speech which his hon. representative had made in tlie course of the present debate. The House would recollect that he eam.e down with a pon- dercus budget of documents attacking the past and the present. It nnght be, perhaps, too much for one who was not a lawyer to say that the words of that si)eech might subjfjct him to an action at law, but he really believed they went far enough for that purpose. He called Archbishop Cuilen a spy, and another bishop he called a scoundrel. Tliat was very extraor- dinary language for any one to hold in Parliament. It might do very well in the county of Surrey, but not in the House of Commons. He (Mr. Grattan) was enabled to speak in the highest terms of the character of the Most Rev. Dr. Cuilen, who was a native of the county with which he was immediately connected. He had met Dr. Cullcu both at home and abroad, and he had ever found him in every jioint worthy of the highest respect, so ti.at he trusted the House would pay very little attention to that part of the speech of the hon. member for Surrey wddch was founded on the accusations that he brought against the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh. In an equal degree did he think they ought to disregard the riistinciiou which the hon. member sought to establish between the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome. He repeated tiiat he well knew Dr. Cuilen, that he had met him not only in his own county of Meath but at Rome, when he (Mr. Grattan) had an opportunity of knowing the senlinients of the late Pope Gregory XVl., and the oidy fault he had to find with that pontiff was that, for one placed in his position, he showed too great a leaning towards the English Government. ]( he had been one of the advisers of Pope Gregory he should have recommended him not to believe one-half of what was told him by the English Government. There was no part of the conduct of that Pope, or of Dr. Cuilen, which would not bear the strictest scrutiny. The hon. member for Surrey was deceived in the vviiole of this matter; liut he knew how he v>as deceived — not wilfully, but he was deceived by one who came to the county of Surrey meeting from the retirement of his study, and he there said mucli that was not consistent with what he had said and written on previous occasions. That em.inenc and learned person, in the year 1344, being then Lord Chancellor of Ireland, directed an in- quiry to be instituted in the case of a cliaritahle trust, and ia the report made on that siihject, and received and aanctiuned hy the Lord Cliancellor of Ireland, tiie Most Rev. Dr. Crolly was styled Archbishop of Armagh, and Roman Catholic Primate of all Ireland. But they had not only a recognition of Roman Catholic episcopal titles hy that Lord Chancellor, but by a noble and learned person, now Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in England. Lord Campbell (in his " Lives of the Chief Justices") spol^e of the Most Rev. Oliver Plunket as the Roman Ca- tholic Primate of all Ireland; and were they now, in the bill then under consideration, to introduce a clause preventing the booksellers issuing such a work as the writings of Lord Campbell ? Surely no one supposed that the peace of the country would be disturbed by the circulation of such compositions. He would now ask, was the Pope the only oti'ender in such cases as the present, was he the only person who appointed bishops in a foreign country? Would they not be reduced to the most ridiculous of all positions if they denied the right of appointing Protestant bishops, for example, and clergymen, in Roman Catholic countries? What had the Pope done but that which was done under the r)th of Victoria, which was nn act to amend the 20tli of George IIL, enabling the Archbishop of Canterbury to send out Protestant clergymen to foreign countries — countries in which the Sovereign of England had no power or any claim of authority? .Surely they would not be told that a thing was ri^ht when done by the (iueen and wrong when done by the Pope. The case of America had fre- quently been referred to in tlie course of the present discussion, and the opinions of the Americans on the subject of toleration were well known ; but he could not help reminding them of what took place at the celebration of the late anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers on that continent, a celebration at which the British Ambassador was present, and at which Mr. Webster observed, quoting from "Junius," that the early settlers left their native land in search of liberty, and found it in a desert ; and, however divided they might be on many questions of deep interest, they were agreed in equally detesting the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. It was further .«aid by Mr. Webster that at the head of the judicature of the great Republic they had now a Roman Catholic judge, in whom the citizens of America reposed the higiiest confidence — they were not the people to question a man's ability or integrity on the ground of his being a Roman Catholic. The truth was, there was a power behind the Treasury bench greater than the bench itself; and if it were to continue to make itself felt, he said, " Remove the Ministry, and place them on the other side of the House." If the noble lord continued to act in opposition to Irish feelings, not only upon this question, but with respect to the abolition of the Viceroyalty and other such matters, then he said, " Down with Lord J. Russell and up with the name and character of the country !" What was the state of Ireland when this ati'air happened? Peace was returning ; parties were becoming united in the common bonds of their country. And were these new ties to be severed by the Government measure ? The noble lord told them the other night of one of the Queen's titles. She was, he reminded them, " by the grace of God," Queen of these realms. But the noble lord forgot another title, viz., that she was Queen " by the love of her people." That was as good a title as the other. Charles I. was King " by the grace of God;" and much good it did him when he was beheaded. James II. was King '^ by the grace of God;" and much good it did him when he was turned out of the country and lost his crown. But we had now a Sovereign who was Queen as well by the grace of God as by the love of her people; and long might she enjoy both these titles, notwithstanding the ill-advised measures of the noble lord. He (Mr. Grattan) was a member of the Irish Pro- testant Church, and he had also belonged to that body of Irish representatives who had sup- ported the noble lord and followed him, until one day he satiiown after dinner and wrote aletter to insult their constituents. In the noble lord's political adversity they had cheered him, but now he discarded them, tore their epaulettes from their shoulders, and drummed them out of his regiment. In the year 181.'i, Mr. Grattan brought in a bill, in the preparation and advocacj of which he was assisted by Mr. Canning, Mr. Wilherforce, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Bushe, and other eminent men. He liad the right to reproach the British Government and their prede- cessors for throwing out that bill, for it guarded against the danger which the noble lord apprehended. Mr. Canning introduced clauses which provided that a Roman Catholic bishop should make known his nomination to tlic commissioners proposed to be appointed under the bill, who were to report the same to his Majesty ; and the bill also provided that any Papal bulls should be reported to the commissioners, so as to enable them to certify that the eccle- siastics appointed under them were loyal men. Wliy had the House of Commons rejected that bill ? If it had been passed, the present altercations and heartburnings would have been avoided. In conclusion, he would say to the people of this country that they might be a great and power- ful people, but a nation might be raised to a great height in order that her fall might supply a more impressive lesson to mankind. He would not occupy any more of their time ni dis- cussing the merits of a bill that was contemptible. Mr. lIiiNRY DuuMMOND rose to explain the sense in which ho had used the two words adverted to by the lion, member. First, with regard to Dr. Cullen. He (Mr. Drummond) stated that after the Court of Rome received intelligence of Lord Clarendon's intentions with respect to the Qucen'.s Colleges, and before the Pope took any step on the sulijict. Dr. Cullen was sent from Rome to "spy out" what was going on. Now, there was no harm in what the Hope did, or in what Dr. Cullen did, and the word therefore was not abused from its proper sense. The hon. member had mentioned another word that he (Mr. Drummond) had made use of, and he had only to say that he had not applied that epithet to any Roman Catholic bishop. Mr. CoNoi.i.Y wished to trcnt this q-ication with the respect due to the religious feelings of the Roinnn Catholics. This {jucstion has been discussed by most of tlic nations of luiropo, and one and all had given the same response — namely, that the power of Kome must be restrained within certain limits, and that th;it power, unrestrained, was incompatible with free government and the independence of free Stutcs. Hut in England, which boasted, and rightly so, of more freedom than any other country in Euroiie, there were decidedly established all safe guarantees and stringent restrictions over the power of Rome. And had the freedom of the Roman Catholic Church suffered from that? He did not speak of the time of the penal laws, but of the time in which wc live, and would any one stand up in that House and say there was not a free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion in Great Britain? If he thought there was not that freedom he should be perfectly prepared to grant to his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen all indulgence for their spiritual wants ; but, so far as regarded the assump- tion of temporal power by Rome, he contended we had a positive right, as Protestants and free Knglishmcn, to dcfetid our guarantees against it, and were bound to uphold the liberties our ancestors had won for us. Mr. P. "N^'oon wouhl much rather hnve had the bill on the table of the House before he entered into this discussion ; at the same time, principles had been advanced, more particularly on his own side of the House, so entirely at variance with those views that ought to lend to a right conclusion on this subject, that he felt it impossible to remain silent. He had with gioat surprise heard it assertdl, first byhis hon. and learned friend the nieinlier for SlietKeld, and afterwards by the hon. member for Manchester, with whom lie thought there was at least an accordance on one point of their political creeds, that the opinions expressed throughout the country in so plain and uneiiuivocal a manner — in a manner more decided than anything lie could recollect since the time ot the Ketbrm Bill, were to weigh for nothing; nay, more, that those who so expressed their opinions were chai-geable with bigotry. He wished, as he had always m i.slied, that the opinions of the large masses of tlie people of ]''ngland should have yet inoi-e weight ami ellcct than even they now had in that House. He had always wished, and still wished, that the suffrage shoidd bo extended, and the effect of that extension must be in a great measure, no doubt, to bring public opinion more strongly to bear upon questions that were discussed in that House ; but he trusted he sliould he able to show there bad been no feeling of bigotry in this matter wliatsoever. It was true there had been great earnestness. He did not speak of individual displays of bigotry, l)nt of the views and resolutions adopted and agreed to by lai-ge meetings of our fellow-countrymen. He did not speak of individual speeches, but of the resolutions passed, and he said those j-esolutions had in the main redounded to the bonoiii-, good sense, and judgment of our countrymen. They had almost one and all rejected all notion of a return to any penal law, and, whatever bigotry theie was in individual speeches, no man was Ixild enough to propound any penal resolutions; and tho.'^c public meetings had taken place in what he preferred — a perfectly constitutional mode ; not meetings got up or assisted by agitation on the subject ; but jjlain spontaneous n-.eetings of the j>cople in those places where by the constitution they were entitled to meet — he meant county meetings, or meetings of municipal corporations, vestries, and other bodies, in which they might constitutionally and legally express their opinions. Besides that, they had other bodies who were not generally actuated by rash and hasty motives — as the College of Physicians and other bodies ; and he might also allude to a meeting of the members of his own profession, who were not accustomed to take a very active part in political matters, and who were not in the habit cument. There was an address signed by seven hundrcr the noble lord, that he liy no means produced the feeling called turfli by this act of aggression, which the people regarded as an insult towards their Sovereign and an act of jmwer long dormant in this country, but wdiich they knew would resuscitate the old and antiquated feelings that onr ancestors resisted before the Reformation, and which their successors were determined also to resist. Jbit earnestness was not bigotry any more than indifference was not liberality. Bigotry consisted iu a nai'i'owness of mind wliich coubl not always perceive that the same truth was still the truth, under whatever aspect it presented it.'5elf. Again, it consisted of a narrowness of heart, a want of being able to sympathise with the errors of others, if even they were errors, and of imputing to others wi-ong mo- tives ; but there was an earnestness and devotedness of opinion which might well consist with the utmost liberality and cnlai-ged conduct towards those who differed from us. He hoped he should not fall into the error of bigotry, and all he should say was, that he would .abstain from saying one word or expressing one sentiment that could wc)uud the religions ^cclings of those who heard him. As to the document which had proceeded from the bar, it had been signed on the ground that there had been an aggressive assump- tion of power which, on the part of a foreign potentate, was an insult to our Sovereign ; that there had been a parcelling of this country into local districts and dioceses which it vnH inipos&ible to permit any fuieiga pover to attempt. It was very easy for Cardinal Wiseman, and tlio^u vho advised liim adu published pamphlets and other documents in his defence, to tell one thintj to us, whilst there was another perlcctly well understood by the whole of the Roman Catholic cornmunity to which they belonged. They were told there was nothing hut a chan^ie of name, and that was echoed by his hon. snd learned friend the member for Sheffield ; and they said, "What is there in a name?" He was Vicar-Apostolic and Bishop of Melipotamus. Kow he is only Arclibishop of Westminster. lie exercised the duties of cardinal, but that had nothing to do with this particular act; but the dill'erence of his bjing Bishop of Melipotamus and Vicar-General, and of his being Bishop of Westminster, was just this— that as vicar-general he had no jurisdiction whatsoever- — he iiad spiritual influ- ence, lie had spiritual power — the power of ordination and every other exercised in/oro cunscieu- tiee, but no power iufuro e.tlerno. That disiinction was jierfcctly v;ell understood by all who knew anything on this subject. There might be a jurisdiction as regarded spiritual matters, totally distinct from a jurisdiction as regarded ecclesia.siical matters. The spiritual jiower, as op[)osed to temporal power, was one thing; as ecclesiastical power opposed to spiritual power was another. Every bishop of a diocese exercised jurisdiction, not over 100, or 200, or 300 individuals in his diocese, but claimed, though he could not enforce it as the law stood, to exercise a jurisdiction distinct and direct — an ecclesiastical jurisdiction — over every inliahitant residing in his diocese. Dr. Wiseman perfectly understood tliat, and those who advised him understood it also. Now, by treaties with TurlkL'n the law of nations, as the Pope had been jiersuaded to do in the case of Cardinal Wiseman. The Pope, no doubt, had been misled throughout the wdiole business, and, probably, among others, by the same councillors who, in February, 1}]-1!5, urged him to despatch a similar incendiary letter to that ho ha'l sent to England to the bishops throughout the East, redistributing their patriar- chates, as he proposed to redistribute the episcopal sees of this country, lie had read with great pleasure cxti-acts from the encyclical letter, in which the four chief i)atriarchs of the East had i-epudiated with astonished indignation the insulting aggression of the Pope of Rome. It was contended that the present was no new claim on the part of the Popes ; that the brief of Pius IX. had a recent precedent in the brief of Gregory XVI., with reference to the enlargement of viearials, and that both the one and the other were mere matter of form, nothing more; the annihilation of the whole existing slate of things in Protestant Englar.d was a mere matter of form, nothing more. But, on carefully going over the brief of Gregory XVI., he found that it was essentially different from the brief of Pius IX. The brief of Gregory XV[. spoke throughout, not of a Roman Catholic Church in England, but merely of the members of the Roman Catholic faith in England, and of the expediency of providing their increased num- bers with increased vicarial superintendence ; whereas the brief of Pius IX. set forth nothing less than this, that the Church of Rome, which bad been extinguished for 300 years in Eng- 8 land, must be revived, and that he (the Pope) in the plenitude of his apostolic power, ordered and decreed that, throughout the kingdom of England, tliut Church sliould once more flourish by the medium of a hierarchy of bishojjs of her own. Since the Rcforn-ation no such attempt bad been made in the realm of England by any Pope of Rome, even the most daring. It was said there was nothing aimed at in all this beyond the pure ly spiritual, that there was no notion of anything in the way of jurisdiction ; and tlie hon. and learned member for Sheffield, with poetcal tigurativeness, had described the Popish missionaries as poor simple priests, who merely desired to operate upon the reason. Cardinal Wisemr.n, however, told a very riitfercnt story ; for in his manifesto he emphatically described the restored Church of Rome in h'ngland as revolving round the Pope as around the source of jurisdiction. The House of Commons was told not to revive obsolete statutes; the most pertinent instruction to Cardinal Wiseman and those who acted with him was not to revive obsolete claims. The Cardinal's reply upon the probability that the good taste of the Government would induce them not needlessly to recur to old statutes, had ostentatiously denied that the law was against him at all, and challenged the Government to prosecute him ; but when some private person, tr.king the Cardinal at his word, said, " Oh, we'll prosecute you to your heart's content if you will only admit tiie neces- sary facts," the Cardinal thought twice of the matter. The Cardinal, had he brought the matter to the test of law, would have found there was needed no rr post facto legislation to bring the matter home to him. The present m.easure, in reality, so far from being an e.r post facto measure, was nothing more than a declaratory act called for by the occasion. The distinction between Archbishop in Westminster and Archbishop of Westminster w-as no such trifling matter as the Cardinal desired to have it supposed. The Archbishop in Westminster was nobody; but the Archbishop of Westminster, once enforcing his authority, could collect his suffragans in synod, and effectively introduce those canon laws of which the very first involved the whole principle — constitvtiones principuDt, cnvstitiitinnibtts cccJcsia.stii (rtmi, non prcrmiyutit, srd ohscqinmtur. Before he sat down he vrished to make some remarks upon an attack winch it had pained him to liear the hon. member for Manchester make unon the Established Church, which the honourable gentleman seemed to think the present a favourable moment for assailing. The honourable gentleman had paraded, with much ostentation, the names of several of his co-religionists, George Fox among them, who had undergone imprisonment for faith's sake. He would recall to the honourable member that there was a member of his society still more celebrated than George Fox — William Penn, who was bask- ing in the favour of one of the most despotic monarchs that ever sat upon the throne of England, at the very time that seven bishops of the Protestant Church were confined in the Tower, vindicating their religion from the attempts of the monarch to overturn it. The Church of England was a portion of our history. The hon. member for Sheffield had reproached the noble lord at the head of the Government with manifest ignorance of history in bringing forwai'd this measure. It appeared to him (Mr. Wood), on the contrary, that it was ])recisely because the noble lord had read history, and deeply, and learned thence what part had been taken by the Court of Rome in the transaclions of England in past times, that he had now introduced this measure. The Church of England was no new thing. She existed as a Church two centuries and a half before a Roman priest ever sat his foot in England ; and her bishops had taken their high parts in councils with no delegation from the Vatican. In his opinion, the great happiness and blessing and security of this country arose from the circumstance that its constitution was of historical growth ; that it had advanced step by step, and that no man could put his finger upon any point of our annals and say, " Here it was the constitution of England sprang up." Our institutions had gradually grown and spread, from their living root, century after century. Among these institutions was the Church of England, of a growth, hour by hour, day by day, year by year. So that there was no point of its history at which you could say, " Here the Church became a new Church." Its n formation was the work ol its own intrinsic vigour, of that vigour by which it had risen and flourished. He admitted that there was one short gap in our constitution, when despotism was established in our country under the name of a Protectorate, and at that same moment the Church establishment was swept away. He agreed with the noble lord entirely in ('cjireeating — none could feel it more earnestly or serio\isly than himscH — the sjicctacle of those who, holding preferments in the Church of England, had found it consistent vith their duty, when their hearts were already weaned to Rome, when they had looked upon her, and had lusted after her, still to continue to officiate in our churches — he talked not of receiving the emohiment, as a poor and wretched consideration — but who had continued to use the influence which they obtained by being placed in that position in order to pervert the hearts of the people. lie was not speaking in the pre sence of Roman Catholic priests, but he was speaking in the presence of Roman Catholic gentlemen, and he felt most perfectly convinced that there was Odt one gentlein:Mi whu heard him who must not be disgusted with the conduct of those individiuds who, whilst performing the offices of one Church, were preparing to pass over to aiu)ther. He knew the ease of one unhappy man, who remained officiating in that Church, and who carried away with him the two children of the organist when he went to the Church of Rome ; and he knew another instance in which a young man of 17 or IS years of age, who, when at college, when his father was absolutely in a foreign clime, had been led away by one of tiiose ne*' bisbop*:, who now affected to hold sees in this country, and he knew parties who had letters from that young man requesting them to keep it perfectly concealed from his mother and the whole of his family. Proceedings of this sort were most degrading, and had excited just indignation, and he went f o far w ith the noble lord ; but when the noble lord told them that there were parties in the Church who were prepared to go "all lengths" in order, as the noble lord had termed it, to " jjuril'y the Church," he would fay that while he would goall lengths to prevent such abominations as he had referred to, yet, on the other hand, they must be very careful how they judgtd the conduct of others. They krrw that in all Churches there were parties who took different views, and that those who took a strong view with one party were apt to look upon those who at all differed from them as having just gone to the contrary extreme; while those who remained in the middle were supposed to belong to both. He rejoiced to say that that there were many now who held that high middle position, and who knew exactly the claims of a Catholic Church holding Catholic truth, and her claims as a Protestant Church, protesting against what she conccivid to he the gross corruptions of the Church of Rome. He trusted that that same zeal which had hitherto been shown would continue to be manifested throughout England, directing itself to repel every aggression of this description, saying, " We will not allow our Sovereign's rights to be trampled on ; we will not allow any foreign potentate to exercise control over us; we will not allow his bishops to act in synodical convention under his authority ; and we will exert ourselves, not by violent agitation, but by the plain discharge of all our own duties in our several positions, by an earnest zeal in the erection of new churches and the appointment of additional clergymen, to preserve our Church in all the purity of the Reformation." He did not believe that the defection from our Church had been so great as it had been represented. He had carefully examined a Roman Catholic calendar, and he found that in a space of nine years they were able to state about 70 clergymen who had gone over. Now, 70 was no doubt a great number, but still 70 out of 1,'),000 was not so fearfully alarming that wc should therefore despair of the Church, or should think of going to all lengths, or any length, in order to do that which might lead to that fatal thing — the disruption of that Church. He denied that anything he had said was of a retrogressive character. Why, their course was simply defensive; and when the hon. and learned member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) said that everything was so calm and so smooth until the noble ord's letter, he thought it strange that the hon. and learned gentleman should have forgotten the intervening letters of his Holiness the Vopc. He (Mr. Wood) trusted that they should have no more of those letters, and for that reason he supported this measure. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) had declared the measure to be paltry, mean, and useless, but he thought that the people of England would not be satisfied with the mere hare denial of the utility of the measure, without being provided with sonie standard to com- pare it with. For himself he believed, if the bill should contain a simple solen n recital of the position of the Sovereign with regard to thc.=e rriatters, and of the illegality of creating these hccs without her consent, that it would do what was expected by the country, and what would t)c suflicient for the present emergency. It became them to embody in the great corporate voice ol the nation the voices of those several meetings and assemblies which had resounded fV( m one end of the kingdom to the other, recjuiring that a sto]) should be put to this insolent aggression — insolent he believed it to be, aggression untjuestionably it was; and if they answered the people of England by putting that solemn protest upon record, and by preventing the Pope saying that there was the least assent to his procedure U|)on the part of the people of England, they should have vindicated their consistency as protesting again.st the corruptions cf that Church on the one hand, and against his interference with our Government on the other ; whilst, at the same time, they should free themselves from any charge of bigotry or intolerance, and should set an example in the face of the world which was worthy of a great nation. One word with reference to America. It should be remembered that we had histori- cal recollections, America had not; that we had a constitutional history, she had not; and lliat the whole thread and tenor of our constitution was, that no power on earth had jurisdic- tion, temporal or ecclesiastical, in these realms: other than the Queen of England. Mr. M'CuLLAGH confessed, while he had listened with great attention to the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down, that he had been unable to detect in the greater portion of it any logical attempt to reason in favour of the first reading of this bill. 'I he hen. and learned the Attorney-General had talked of this affair of Cardinal Wiseman's ;iK an "offence;" but if it were an offence, it must have been explicitly either against the Ciown or against some portion ot the subjects of the Crown, and if against the Crown it was clearly the duty of the law officers, without seeking a miserable admission, to have instituted proceedings, no matter what the issue, and to have vindicated the insulted rights of the Crown. He did not think, however, that they had erred in judgment in abstaining from a prosecution, for such a prosecution would have been a disgrace to the age ; but then it was too bad to go down to that House when the passions of the dominant creed in that empire had been lashed rn fury, and to prejudge the question whether an otTence had been committed or not by using the phrase " offence" deliberately over and over again. It was an unusual course to divide the House upon the introduction of a measure by the First Minister; but this was an unusual occasion, and it was one which suggested their duty to them, and reminded them of their privileges. Their objection to the motion was mainly this, and upon it the question must eventually turn : Were they justified, as a Parliament not exclusively Protestant, not exclu- sively Anglican, not exclusively of any denomination, in setting open again the gates of sec- tarian legislation and the policy of ascendancy? He had listened with great attention to the speech of the Prime Minister, and the conclusion he had come to was, that the noble lord had made out no case for the intervention by Parliament in the internal discipline of the Catholic 10 Church ; and he maintained that to ignore the hierarchy of that Church was virtually to ignore, and to attempt to supjucss and overthrow, the discipline and order of that Church. He had heard with astonishment the intellectual intrepidity with which the hun. and learned member for Oxford had appealed to an argument which might be stated thus : — " You are only asked to do that which your Catholic ancestors did before you." Why, there never was a case since history was written less in point for the purpose. Our Catholic ancestors had to deal with by far the greatest political power in the middle ages, and yet the very men who quoted the instance of our Catholic ancestors told them in the same breath tliat the Catholic laity were such slaves, that it was necessary to shield them by an Act of Parliament against the overweening tyranny of their clergymen. It was said that the statute of Elizabeth, which had been unrepealed by Lord Lyndhurst's Act, furnished another precedent which they should follow. But Elizabeth came to the throne at a time when her right was held to be invalid by the Kings of France and Spain, when her crown was in jeojjardy, when her rival was upon the throne of Scotland, and when a great portion of her subjects were half inclined to return to the Queen of Scots, and to throw off their allegiance to Elizabeth. Though her measures, therefore, were severe and unjustifiable, the necessity was one of the greatest emergency. The precedent of the Stuarts also was equally beside the case. So with respect to the code of penal laws which Parliament was asked to imitate. When they were enacted there was a Pretender, a formidable rival of the existing dynasty. Was there a Pretender now? There was no pretext for saying that the State, as a State, that the crown of the Queen, that the authority or permanence of the law, were jeopardised. The hon. and learned member for Oxford hardly adverted to the extension of the measure now proposed to the sister kingdom. The noble lord who introduced it had, however, brought a bill of accusation against the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland. A more unjust statement could not well be made than that of the First Minister of the Crown. His accusation against the Catholic Primate was, that Dr. Cullen was not appointed in the usual way, but, being a man unacquainted with the circum- stances of the country, a stranger to the state of Ireland, a resident at Rome, was chosen for another purpose than to promote its religious good, and without justification from his personal qualifications. By birth, education, and frequent intercourse. Dr. Cullen was a person who must necessarily be acquainted with the state of Ireland, ecclesiastical and civil. He was constantly informed of every fact relative to the Church of Ireland. With respect to the election of Dr. Cullen, which the noble lord described as contrary to the usual mode, the explanation was, that on the death of the Cathohc Arch- bishop of Armagh, the priests of the archdiocese proceeded to elect in the ordinary way, but the bishops differed in their judgment from the priests. Two recom- mendations were forwarded to Rome, when the wise course was taken of selecting another person. The noble lord said the first act of Dr. Cullen was one which led hinr to consider whether a prosecution should not be instituted agauist that prelate. It seemed incomprehen- sible that any question whether Dr. Cullen could be prosecuted for calling himself Primate of Ireland should have occurred to the law-officers of the Crown, with the table of precedence announced in the Gazette on the occasion of her Majesty's viait lying before them. The noble lord, in a very significant tone, assured the House that Dr. Cullen had assumed secular juris- diction by addressing the Irish people on the questions of landlord and tenant, and of the Queen's Colleges. As a Protestant, he (Mr. M'CuUagh) did not identify himself with the senti- ments of that document. But if archbishops and bishops were not warranted in giving an opinion on the education of the people, he could not see to what subjects they were justified in referring. In the whole twenty-six closely-printed pages of the synodical ^jddress, there were just sixteen lines which had reference to questions of the occupation of land. Even that passage had not very distinct reference to the occupation of land ; it alluded to a lamentable state of facts which they described as existing, not throughout the kingdom, but in a partit:ular portion of the island, owing to ruthless, unscrupulous, wholesale evictions. Sir Robert Peel described the state of matters in Ireland as more terrible in 1.S48 than if the country had been invaded by a foreign army. There was a time when England was depopulated ruthlessly and cruelly, and Latimer spoke of the landlords as "rent-raisers," "step-lords;" of " the por- tentous dearth made by man," of places where once there were many householders living inha- bited but " by a shepherd and a dog." It was said every act done by Dr. Cullen, as diocesan, was null. What did that mean in a Catholic country ? Was that the realisation of the dream in which Pitt had indulged? No man had gone further than the noble lord in contending for ccjuality in respect of religion. Was this his equality? The noble lord foresaw a struggle on which he was prcjiared to enter. 'J'his act of anti-Catholic policy, then, was but the first rattle in the scabbard of persecution. Much was said of toleration — an insolent, temporising word, which signified intolerance in another form ; but he felt assured that every step now taken in a retrograde direction would have ere long to be retraced ; and the attempt to counteract the effects of the present policy might be penitently made, but it miglil bo made when too late. Sir G. (iisEY, alter the ample discussion which this question had undergone, should hardly have felt it necessary, on a motion for leave to lay on the table of the House the bill that had been proposed by the Government, to offer himself to the attention of the House, were it not for some observations that had been made in the course of the debate which he felt it his duty not altogether to pass over. It was impossible, without reference to the specific motion before the House, not to feel the inconvenience of a protracted discussion upon the minute details of a bill which was, no doubt, prepared and ready to l)e laid before them, but which was not yet 11 on Uica- table, and tLcrcfore not before the House. He did not, however, lament the discussion which had taken place, because he thought the ground had been very much cleared for future debate by tlie demonstration of certain propositions which he ventured to think had been established by the most conclusive argument and convincing evidence. Son-.e of these proposi- tions he would very brittly advert to. It had been demonstrated, for txi mple, that in this matter tliey were acting clearly on the defensive, that the step they were taking in accordance with demands made from one end of Great Britain to the other was a step purely delensive, and one that had been provoked entirely by those whom they had thus been compelled reluctantly to oppose. The hoti. member for Dublin, followed by the hon. gentleman who last addressed the House, complained of the bigotry of the English people; and the hon. member for Dublin drew a pleasing picture of the cordiality existing between persons of did'erent creeds down to a late period. He stated truly that the Roman Catholics and the Protestants had been living in the interchange of acts of brotherly kindness one with another; and then he said we had dis- turijcd this friendly feeling, and tliab a war of religious rancour and discord had been raised, which we had gratuitously provoked. That position, however, he entirely denied. Another point which had been established was, that the act of which complaint was made, not by the (Government, but the nation, was an illegal act. The illegality had been demonstrated, but he need only refer to the speech of the hon. and learned member for Oxford, as showing that it was contrary both to the international law of iuirope and the statute-law of this realm. That was attempted to be controverted by the hon. gentleman who had last spoken, not, however, by argument, but by pure assertion. He omitted all reference to the arguments of the hon. and learned member for Oxford with regard to the law of nations; and on the subject of the statute-law he alluded to the well-known connexion of Lord Lyndhurst with the bill for repealing the statute of Elizabeth. lUit he omitted to notice that Lord Lyndhurst inserted in that bill an amendment declaring that nothing contained in that repeal should render lawful the act of which complaint was now made. The honourable gentleman said it was the duty of the Government to prosecute in this case if they thought an offence had been committed ; but he would tell the hon gentleman that there were many acts committed against the statute law in this realm that (iovernment did not see its duty, in the exercise of the discretion reposed in it, to prosecute. If they were condemned for not instituting a prose- cution against Ur. Wiseman, he was prepared to defend their conduct on that ground whenever it was seriously impugned. I5\it in the meantime he would go on to say that another point which had been established and demonstrated without ccmtradiction, at least by argument, was, that the act of which they complained was not the spiritual act of a merely s[)irit\ial authority, for the henelit of the members of a comnnmion of which that authority was the head, but tiiat it was the act of an ecclesiastical authority connnitted by a power of mixed temporal and eccle- siastical! authority, and an act that claimed undivided sway and dominion over the whole realm of iMigland. Time would not allow him to read the terms of the brief in which the act wa.s embodied, or the best argument that he could use to show its true nature would be merely to read the language of that document, language that discarded altogether the authority of the Queen in the realm of England, language that ignored altogether not the rights only but tiie very existence of any other Cburch or religious denomination, whether established or not in this realm, but that presided over by the Pope of Home, and those acting under his authority. Tiic very language, he rejicated, of the brief, combined with that used in the jiastoral which had been issued, was sufhcient demoustrationthal it was not a spiritual actcontined to that conuiuniion, but one which embraced n\atters ecclesiastical as v.ell as si)iritual, and put forward claims in- consistent with the supremacy of the Queen and the rights and privileges of all the inhabitants of this country, whether Roman Catholics, memliers of the Church of Englaiul, or Dissenter.s. These points had been satisfactorily established in the course of the debate, and it now only remained for the House to determine whether the bill was or was not adequate to the occasion. There had been various observations made tending to cast censure upon hi.s noble friend the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland with regard tt) the coiu'se he had adopted. He was said to have encouraged this act of aggressimi on the part of the Pope, A similar charge had been made against other members of the (lOvernment ; but all these charges he was prepared to meet, and deny. The charges made against the Government might be resolved into three heads. The iirst was the recognition of a Roman Catholic hierarchy, by giving titles of honour and resjject to heads of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. 'I'he second was a charge distinctly made by the hon. member for Sheffield, that the Government had habitually addressed Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland by titles not permitted by law. Then members of the Government were accused — and one in particular had been charged again, notwithstanding his positive denial in another place — with having had a knowledge of the intentions of the Pope of Rome, and that to the propositions contained in the letter apostolical consent was given either expressed or tacit. Now, with respect to such titles as " his grace " to an archbishop, or " my lord " to a bishop, he wished to say that he was not going to otfer any excuse or apology for treating with marked honour and respect in a country v.here the great bulk of the people were Roman Catholics, the heads of that community in that country, so long as those individuals conformed with the law under the protection of which they lived. But what were the tacts of the case.^ These charges had been made by various individuals ; but he would take first that which had been brought forward by the hon. member for Buckinghamshire, because he had made his allegation in a more distinct form than others, in a letter which he had addressed to the Lord- Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. The hon. member for Buckinghamshire had been very severe upon his noble friend for the letter he had written, but forgot that he himself 12 had been ;,'tj!lt\" mIsd of tlip indiscretion \'. liich lie .spcmrd to think chnrjjeable upon anj' person who wrote aiui jHihlished a letter. He would not call that letter a "blunder of a sudden,'* but he must say that he never saw, from befi^inninjr to end, a letter rontaininj; a <,'reater col- lection of blunders than that which had been published by the lion, member for Buckingham- shire. He could not sufhciently express his surprise that the hon. gentleman, knowing:, as he might have done, that all the charges he had made were incorrect, should have ventured on an epistolary corresj)oiulcnce f)f this kind. In his letter he stated, that "when tb.e present Lord- Lieutenant arrived in his viccroyalty he gathered together the Romish bishops of Ireland, addressed them as nobles, sought their counsel, and courted their favour." That statement was cheered by an hon. gentleman opposite, but he was sure the explanation he had now to give would be satisfactory to the House. Shortly after the arrival of Lord Clarendon in Ireland, when the state of that country was one that seriousl)- occupied the attention of the Government in consequence of the famine with which Providence had visited the land, he did gather around him, not a court, as was represented, but a deputation of five of the prelates of the Catholic Ciiurcli, to hear from them a representation of the state of the countiy, ami to hear them suggest the remedial measures which they had to propose. They were, of course, received by tlie Lord-Lieutenant with that respect that their position entitled them to, and he listened attentively to the suggestions which they had to otter. He asked for their counsel, and said he sliould be happy to hear and consider any practical measures of relief which they liad to propose, his object being to save life in Ireland, and to avert the calamity under whicli the people sutfered. The hon. gentleman went on to say, "that on the visit of her Majesty to tliat kingdom llie prelates were presented to the Queen as if they were nobles, and precedence was given thcui over the nobility and dignitaries of the national Church." Now, he begged leave to tell the hon. gentleman, that on that occasion the Roman Catholic prelates that were presented to her Majesty, and presented an address and received an answer from her Majesty, did not take precedence of any dignitary of the Protestant Church in Ireland. They took place in exactly the same po'iition in which they had been received and presented on the occasion of the visit of George IV. to Ireland. He defied the hon. gentleman to justify the assertion that the Lord-Lieutenant or the Government had in regard of the titles of Roman Catholic bishops acted contrary to the law. In every respect they had acted in conformity ■with the provisions of the act of George IV., which prevented the holding titles enjoyed by prelates of the Established Church. As to the entree to the Castle on the occasion of her Majesty's visit, that was a matter which hardly devolved on the Government. Technically, the person who was responsible for the ordinances issued on that occasion was the Lord Chamberlain, a member of the Free Kirk of Scotland, and not likely to encourage any conspi- racy having for its end the exaltation of the Roman Catholic bishops. With respect to the private entree list published in the Gazette, neither Lord Clarendon nor himself was responsible for that publication. On this point he would read the following letter from Mr. Willis, a gentleman of the Lord Chamberlain's office, which would place the matter in its true light: — "My Lord, — In reply to your Excellency's inquiry relative to the private cw/jre list published in the Z>?«i/m GV/-r/^' of the 7th of August, 1819, wherein 'The Most Rev. Dr. Murray' i.s described as ' Roman Catholic Archbishop o/'/Jjii//??,' I have tostate, that I submitted for approval a list of the private entree, and from recollection, and to the best of my belief, in order to designate more fully the Most Rev. Dr. Crolly and the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, their names were written by mc in that list as ' Roman Catholic Primate,' and ' Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.' "In transcribing this list for the (iazette, owing to the extreme pressure of business, there having been in three days nearly .5,000 persons signifying their intention of coming to Court, and requiring immediate attention, I must have inadvertently, and contrary to custom, copied the names of the Roman Catholic prelates as designated in the submitted list and published in the Gazette:' Lord Clarendon knew nothing of that entry in the Gazette. He (Sir G. Grey) had the honour of attending her Majesty ; he knew nothing of it. Let the Hou'^c understand the matter. The rw/r('c was not given upon that occasion, the entree had been given for years before. The Roman Catholic archbishop exercising jurisdiction in the diocese of .\rmagh, the Roman Catholic archbishop exercising jurisdiction in the diocese of Dublin, were habitually admitted at the entree. 'I'he designation, no doubt, was an incorrect and imjiroper one; ami, if any responsibility for that error, only then committed, rested upon him (Sir (i. (Jrey), having been in attendance upon her Majesty, he was willing to hear any censure the Hou>-e might cast upon him. Pjiit was this miserable fact the only slired of evidence by which the assertion could be made out, that it had been the habitual practice of the Irish Government to violate the law, and to designate the Roman Catholic prelates by titles to which they had no right? The hon. gentleman who last addressetl the House went further; he improved upon the statement, aiul said that those jjrelates were received by her M:ijes*y by those titles, i'lie hon. gentleman did not say whether, being an Irish member, he was there, or whether he spoke from information. He said that he (Sir G. Grey) had the honour — which was tiue — of being near her Majesty — the honour and the privilege he had of witnessinj the impartial grace and condescension with which she received all classes of her subjects, wit bout any regard to dift'erenci s of opinion or creeds. He saw also the universal loyalty which pervaded all classes of hir subjects, and he saw with satisfaction the venerable prelates of the Roman Catholic Church in that country addressing her Majesty, not (as the hon. member .said) by titles prohibited by law, not received by her Mnjcsty by such titles, but assuming titles in strict totilormrty with the law designating tliemst-lves : "We, tlie undersigned liisliops of the Roman Catholic ('hurch in Ireland." But the hon. gentleman the inemher fur Buckin'^hainsliire (Mr. Disraeli) was not satisfied with two errors; in his eagerness to condemn the Government, he said — " It was only the other day, as I believe, that the Governnient ollered the office of visitor to the Queen's Colleges to Dr. Cullen, the Pope's delegate, and psvudo Archbishop of Armagh, and to Dr. M'llalc, the paewln Archbishop of Tuam." That charge had not been repeated now, but it had been made in most distinct terms, as if in justification of the act of the Pope, in Mr. Bowyer's pamphlet, "by authority," ch.irging it upon the Government that they encouraged the act. If he meant that the office of visitor was ottered to those two prelates, he was quite right; and here again he (Sir. G. Grey) would condescend to no apology. In offering the odice of visitor to those two prelates. Lord Clarendon only acted in the spirit of the Government and of Parliament in bringing forward and passing the measure for establishing those colleges. But if it was meant that, as Mr. Bowyer stated, the offer was made to them, or the appointments were bestowed, in the style of "Archbishop of Armagh," and "Archbishop of Tuam," that was what was decidedly contrary to the fact, and what the slightest reference to official documents would have shown to be so. The statement had been made recklessly, presuming upon its accuracy, l)ut with whomsoever it originated, it was entirely destitute of any shadow of truth. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) went on — there was not a paragraph in his letter which did not contain some blunder — "The fact is, that the whole question has been surrendered, and decided in favour of the Pope by the jiresent Government ; and the Ministers, who recognised the pseudo Archbishop of Tuam as a peer and a prelate, cannot object to the appointment of a pstudo Archbishop of Westminster, even though he be a Cardinal. On the contrary, the loftier dignity should, according to their table of precedence, rather invest his Eminence with a still higher patent of nobility, and permit him to take the wall of his Grace of Canterbury and the highest nobles of the land." Now really tliis charge of recognition of the archbishop as a " peer," one could hardly have conceived possible to originate with a gentleman so well informed as the hon. member for Buckinghamshire. He had adopted the vulgar notion that if you called a man a lord you made liim a peer. Lord Clarendon was charged with invading the Queen's prerogative by calling the archbishops by their titles. But here again he was wrong, not only in matter of fact, but in matter of history, because those titles were con- ferred long before Lord Clarendon had anything to do with the government of Ireland. It was not true that the Bequests Act, or the Order in Council, conferred any such titles ; but in the reports of the meetings of the Commissioners under the act, before Lord Clarendon had anything to do with Ireland or the present Government was in office, it appeared that on the yth of January, 184.'"), among the commissioners who attended there were described " His Grace the Lord Archbishop William Crt)lly," and " His Grace the Lord Archbishop Daniel Murray ;" and it was right to confer such titles of honour upon them wliile they conformed to the law, and trenched upon no privilege of the Established Church. But if there was blame, let it not rest entirely upon the present Lord-Lieutenant or Government, who acted in the same spirit of conciliation as the preceding, though both of them, perhaps, in some degree with too little suspicion and in too confiding a spirit ; let it not be said towards the great body of their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, for they must be actjuitted of any such feeling; but there were some, it seemed, who now had built upon this a fabrication of acquiescence on the part of the Government in a measure which no member of the Govern- ment had any reason to suppose would emanate from the Court of Rome. With regard to the title of cardinal, the hon. gentleman thought it one which ought to justify precedence of the Archbishop of Canterbury ; but it, was not necessarily an ecclesiastical title — it might be conferred on a layman. But no such title conferred by the Pope or any foreign Sovereign could be assumed by a British subject without the license of the Crown ; Dr. Wisen.an had not applied to the Crown for that license, and without that license he could enjoy no shadow of right to precedence here. With regard to the Archbishop of Tuam, a mistake had l)een made as to the alleged reception of a petition to Parliament by him, and an inference had been drawn by Lord St. Germans not warranted by the facts. He said that the House con- sented to receive the petition on the ground that it was not contrary to law. The fact was, that upon a debate, a large majority, including the noble lord (Lord John Russell), refused to receive that petition ; it was held tiiat it was an infraction of the law, and that Dr. M'Hale had no right to that title. Notice had been taken during the debate of a confidential com- munication of Lord Clarendon with the Pope. Now, upon that subject he (Sir G. tney) had a letter from Lord Clarendon which, if the House desired, he could read to ihcm, though he really thought it unnecessary. With regard to one part of the charge, namely, that the letter was addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin, it was only necessary to say that the words " His Grace the Archl)ishop of Dublm" affixed to that letter, were a complete fabrication. Lord Clarendon stated : — "... In the autumn of 1847, the Board of Presidents sitting in Dublin were occupied in iVaniing the statutes for the colleges. I was in constant conminnicatioa with them, and I al.so souglit the advice of tlifiercnt persons whose knowledge and experience might aid in rendering the statutes complete, and thereby fulfilling the intentions of the Government which had founded the colleges and the Legislature which hud sanctioned them. I was also most anxious to remove the charge of 'godlcssness" which had been brought against the colleges in England, and eagerly adopted by the enemies of those 14 institutions in Ii'cLand ; and I mnrpnver tiionglit it a Knlomii oliHgation (liat tlio moral training and religious instrnctiou of the students {Voqiicnting the rollcges f-lionld l>e guarded with the most scrupulous care. I accordingly consulted several clergymen of different denominations, and, among others, Dr. Nicholson, the Coadjutor- Archbishop of Corfu, who had just arrived in Ireland, and, having passed some time at Home on his way, was cognisant of all the unfounded rumour.- curi-ent there respecting the colleges which had led to the condemnation of tlicm by the Pope ; and as he was sliortly about to return to Rome, I was glad of the opportunity to show him how the interests of religion and morality were guaranteed for all denouiinations alilce (by the appointment of deans of residence and the establishment of licensed boarding-houses, &c.), and consequently the utter falsehood of the report that the colleges had been established for the purpose of undermining the Roman Catholic religion. . . . When the statutes Avere completed and agreed to, Dr. Nicholson was about to return to Corfu by the way of Rome, and I willingly gave him an extract from them which related to moral discipline and religious instruction, in the belief that it was tlie best mode of communicating the truth to the Pope, and of confuting tlie unjustifiable misrepresentations made to him ; and I have no hesitation in saying that I was desirous to effect this, because the condemnation of the colleges by the Pope was likely to deprive many of the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland of the advantages offered to tliem by the Legislature. I wislied, therefore, that he should know and consider the precautions taken, in order tliat he might become aware of the errors upon which his condemnation had been founded. If I had been capable of seeking any foreign sanction to a matter of domestic arrangement, I should have cm- ])loyed different means for the purpose, and have referred the statutes to the Pope while they were being framed; but in March, 1848, they were completed, and copies of the same 'extract' that was given to Dr. Nicholson were likewise placed in the hands of several spiritual authorities of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian deno- minations. . . . Previously to the departure of Dr. Nicholson, I consented, at his request, to write him a private letter, which should serve, if necessary, as a guarantee that the ' extract' he took with him was genuine ; and that when the list of visitors was framed Roman Catholic ecclesiastics of the same rank as Protestants should be selected. I have been blamed for the terms in vvhicli I expressed myself with respect to the character and judgment of the Pope ; but I sincerely thought what I then said, and similar opinions were then entertained of him not only in England but throughout Eui'ope ; for, at the beginning of 1848, he was universally regarded as an enlightened reformer, who, v.-ith great boldness and in the face of many foreign and domestic difficulties, was determined to act upon his own conviction of what was just and right. And v\-ith respect to the care taken to preserve the faith and morals of liomau Catholic students, I said nothing in my letter to Dr. Nicholson which, vuitatis vmtundis, I did not also say to the spiritual authorities of different denominations in Ireland, to whom it was quite satisfactory. . . ." This letter got into other hands without the knowledge and sanction of Lord Clarendon, and the alteration made in the superscription of the letter was not made by Dr. Nicholson. The other charge distinctly repeated by the hon. memher for Sheffield, notwitlistanding the denial given elsevifhere — the charge against Lord Minto in regard to a direct conmiunication from the Pope to him of intention to promulgate this document, was founded now upon a letter received from Abbe Hamilton, an English gentleman, who hadliecotnea memher of tlie Roman Catholic Church, and who stated, as he (Sir G. Grey) understood, that he met Lord Minto in the ante- chamber, or coming out from the reception from the Pope, and that Lord Minto volunteered tliis statement : " The Pope has given me a full account of his intended establishment of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England, and I have told hinr it is a matter that concerns exclu- sively the Roman Catholic Church, and that it is nothing to the English Government." He (Sir G. Grey) was not aware of any such statement, but he was rather surprised that a letter of that kind should have been seen by the hon. member for Sheffield, because a correspondence had taken place betwsen the Abbd Hamilton and Lord Minto. The Abbe Hamilton wrote to Lord Minto, after information had reached Rome of the feeling excited in this country by the publication of the Pope's brief, endeavouring to call his recollection to a conversation between himself and Lord Minto at his hotel in Rome — not of the description given by the hon. member for Sheffield, but in which be (the Abbe) said he entreated Lord Minto to use his influence at Rome to forward the execution of this scheme, of which the Abbe presumed Lord Minto had been informed. In answer to that letter, Lord Minto wrote to the Abbe to say that he hnd no recollection of the alleged conversation, and that, although he was not unaware of some intention of conferring archiepiscopal rank on Dr. Wiseman, alieady a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, he had, neither during his residence at Rome, nor at any s\ibseqiicnt period, down to the publication of the bull, tiie slightest suspicion of any (k'sign for the organic sation of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England, and that the publication of the Pope's hull took no one more completely by surprise tban himself. To this letter again the Abbe Hamilton replied that he now saw the mistake which he had made, and of which Lord Minto's letter afforded the explanation. After the distinct denial given by Lord Minto in the other House of Parliament, and after the statement which the hon. member for Sheffield had subsequently made in the House of Commons, he (Sir G. Grey) wished, at all events, to state what were the real facts which had occurred. A great deal had been said by several hon. members as to 15 what had fallen from tlie Fir>t Lord of the Treasury, not in the least anticipating that the Comt of Rome, considering tlic friendly terms on which it professed to exist towards this countrj', wonld have taken advantage of any language held or any act done by him several years ago. But those hon. members overlooked the fact that with reference to this subject a question was asked his noble friend by the hon. baronet the member for the University of Oxford as to some proi)osition having been made by the Pojie of Rome with respect to the creation of Roman Catholic archbishops in I'-ngland, and that his noble friend replied that no l)ro])osition of the kind liad been mwie to him; and that if any such measure had been taken, or should be taken by the Pope, it would not receive the sanction of the Government. That was certainly a sufficient notice to the Court of Rome that any such measure would not be acceptable to the Government of this country. Therefore, if in the face of this express, clear, and honest declaration, the Court of Rome created any such titles, it was undeniable that, in so acting, it was done against the avov.'ed and well-known wishes of the Government of this country. Having thus described the real nature of the question as put to his noble friend in 1848, he must say that there was no pretence ailbrded by the answer of his noble friend for the allegations which had been made by the hon. member for Sheflicld and others as to the purport of what fell from his noble friend on that occasion. lie would now say a few words in reply to the charge which had been made as to the inadequacy of the present bill. The bill was founded upon the principle of not interfering in the slightest degree with the freest exercise of the Roman Catholic religion ; it was founded in perfect good faith with regard to those statutes which guaranteed the exercise of that religion without molestation in this country. But while the bill did this it was at the same time quite adequate to the occasion. It met every act of the Pope, and placed an clTectual check upon what gave just offence to, and which was complained of, by tlie people of England. While the Pope presumed to constitute an Arch- bishop of Westminster, and a certain number of suffragan bishops, who were to derive their titles either from the ancient sees of this realm, or from the cities and towns of this portion of the United Kingdom, this bill said that there should be no such Archbishop of Westminster and no such bishops, whom the Pope would attempt to constitute, unless ihey were constituted by law — that they should be created by the law, and not by the Pope of Rome; that no bishops in this country should be inadc by the decree of the Pope, but by the Lords and Commons of the United Kingdom. While the Pope proceeded to confer on the bishops the widest sovereignty over the peojile of this country, and gave to them the most extended jurisdiction, the bill of his noble friend said that every act of that kind should be null and void ; that every act attempted to be exercised under the decree of the Pope should be null and void ; and while the Pope in- vited wealthy Catholics to contribute to the endowment of those sees, the bill said, that if those sees were endowed by property being vested in i)ersons bearing titles of the description thereby prohibited, those endowments should enure to the Crown. It was true that the bill did not go the length which the hon. member for Buckinghamshire thought it desirable that it should go — namely, that it should settle at once and for all the relation between ihe Roman Catholic subjects of England and the Pope. It might be very desirable that such a settlement should take place ; but he (Sir G. Grey") would caution his hon. friends who were desirous of seeing that object attained, not to reject a practical measure lor the purpose of introducing one which this was neither the fitting time nor the most suitable opportunity for attempting to accom- plish. He would caution his hon. friends against running away with the notion that it was easy to effect their object before having an opportunity of knowing how it was to be accom- plished. There were two ways by which they might proceed. One was the re-enactment of the penal laws ; but that was a course which not only Parliament but the country would repudiate : the other was one which would require that they should take into consideration the whole ecclesiastical arrangements of the country,' and, bearing in mind the condition of Ireland, he would ask whether they were dioposed to embark in such an undertaking? He threw these remarks out only as the means of gathering information in the absence of any suggestion from the hon. member for Buckinghamshire, and he would ask his hon. friends not to throw avvay the substance now offered to them for the shadow which was held out to them by that hon. member. But, after all, an Act of Parliament was not the only or the best security for the Protestant religion, or faith of this country. He should deeply regret if he felt any serious alarm with regard to those principles which were justly dear to the people of this country. He knew of no reason to believe that, if this bill passed, the loyalty of her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects would not lead thfem implicity to obey it. Still, the history of past times told them that by ingenuity and subtlety the object of the Legislature might be defeated. But his rral feeling of security for the Protestant religion of this country, and his reliance for its safety against any successful encroachment or aggression on the part of the Church of Rome was the noble display of Protestant feeling which, during the last three months, had been exhibited from one end of Great Britain to the other. This was the best security they could possess against the encroaching power and ambitious attempts of the Pope, who front this great national demonstration might learn what was the true characteristic of the British people. It v,as a display which showed how deeply were the minds of men of all denommations — whether connected or not with the Church — imbued with the true Pro- testant feeling, spontaneously bursting forth, as that feeling had done at the very first attempt made since the Reformation to injpose the yoke of Catholic power, from which the wisdom and enlightenment of their ancestors had succeeded in rescuing this country. The people had, a'-, with one voice, declared that they were not prepared to establish this new hierarchy in. England, and to return to the Roman Catliolic Church. Tiiis feeling he believed to be founded on their appreciation of tliose blessings which from the time of the Reformation they had enjoyed. He thought tiiat the language in which this national demonstration had been expressed, and tlie arguments which had been uttered, would not fail to reach the recesses of the Vatican, and would succeed in dispelling the fond imagination that the people of this country were ready to submit again to the Pope of Rome, and turn to that Church which claimed universal domination over the whole of Christendom. Whatever might be the effect of the present measure passing into a law, of this he was convinced, that the people of this country were determined more than ever to hold fast by those principles which they had derived from the Reformation, and which had been fraught with so many blessings to them — blessings of which they of the present generation were the responsible depositories, and which, by God's help, they would transmit unimpaired to their posterity. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 12. Mr. P. H. Howard expressed his desire to address the House, because he would not appear to shrink in the hour of peril from the defence of his faith, which was now bound up with the great cause of religious liberty. A retrograde step on the part of a nation or Legislature always led to harsher measures ; and the spirit of persecution, lil^e other passions, was only strengthened by gratification. He hoped to defend his creed with what Whitbread had called " intrepid moderation ;" violence and insult had been described by a French philosopher as a sign of error. No one knew better than the right bon. member for Northumberland (Sir G. Grey), who had spoken of the unanimity of the movement against the so-called Papal aggression, that the effort to get up an anti-Catholic demonstration in that county had utterly failed ; and his knowledge of the north of England must have informed him tiiat in the county of Durham there had been no county meeting, in the proper sense. None had been held in the wealthy county of Lancaster. What had been the case in some of the largest towns in the empire? Had not Leeds petitioned the House to guard religious freedom ? Birmingham had refused to address her Majesty; and in Carlisle, the town he (Mr. P. H. Howard) represented, the town- council had not felt it their duty to tliank the Prime Minister for addressing a letter in November to the Bishop of Durham. The Prime Minister, who had made strong charges against the Catholic religion, eulogised the Church of England as a very tolerant Church. Praise ill-bestowed might degenerate into satire. What did twenty-six bishops of the Esta- blishment designate the creed from which they affected to derive their own orders — as the inculcator of " blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits ?" There were relatives of the Sove- reign who belonged to the Church so denounced — Ferdinand of Coburg, Prince of Portugal, and the Princess Victoria of Coburg, Duchess de Nemours. The late Queen of the Belgians was connected by marriage with the Queen. The Bishop of Oxford said, "Who needs to be told that Romanism is a system that so saps honesty in men's minds that there is nothing dishonest that may not be deemed holy, and nothing that becomes subject to its control that is not defiled by its pollution." Were these words which the Prime Minister thought tole- rant? If they were so, what was intolerance ? These were words, uttered not in the heat of debate, but calmly in Merton College, when their author was teaching in the University with which the names of Wykeham and Chichele were associated. Then the Bishop of Durham proposed the suppression of all monastic orders in England or Scotland — a measure of most positive persecution. In the long oration with which the First Minister of the Crown had prefaced the introduction of this measure his words upon the direct question were very few. He did not prove that the law had in any respect been violated, and, if the law was not violated, where was the aggression? The law was not a matter of sentiment or poetry, it was a course of action and of conduct, resting on precise definitions and enactments. If the noble lord considered the law to have been violated, why did he not ])rcsecute those who had committed that violation ? But seeing that the law officers of the Crown had been unable to institute any such prosecution he (Mr. Howard) came to the conclusion that no aggression had taken place, liut thougli the noble lord was silent upon the question of aggression, he went very far to seek for precedents. He arraigned the policy of a distant potentate, the Emperor of Austria, who had lately ascended the steps of that time-honoured throne, which, in the graphic language of Napoleon, never died. The predecessor of that mo- narch, the Emperor Joseph, lo;;t the brightest gem of tiie Imperial Crown, the Austrian Nether- lands, by his interference with the religious principles of his subjects, and he believed the pre- sent sovereign had acted wisely in tlie steps he had reccutly adopted with reference to the Church. The noble lord referred to the synod of Thurlcs, as an instance of ecclesiastical inter- ference with the principles of religious liberty ; but was it a singular circumstance to see religious instructors taking part in educational disputes ? When the rigiit hon. gentleman (Sir J. Graham) introduced a measure connected with education, was it not defeated by the com- bined opposition of the Wcsleyans and other religious bodies? Then, as regarded the national system of education in Ireland, hud it not been opposed by tiie great majority of the clergymen of the Establislied Church in that cnuntry ? He did not mention these cases in the way of blame, but to show that on all (piestions of education tlie spiritual guides of the people felt it their duty to take a part; and he might say that it was a duty intimately associated with the discharge of their sjiiritual functions. *^* I'lir ctiiitiiiiKiHon nf Dihuti- sic next Xiim/irr, Siriix AAV/., noiv rctii/i/. LONDON : rUBLlSIlKh I'.V .lAWES GILBERT, ID, I'ATFUNOSTER-llOW. TflE ROMAN CA THOLIC QUESTION. PAPAL AGGRESSION.— HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEB. 12, 1851. (Coutinualion of Debate from tlie Tnenfy-f.rst Scries.) Mr. P. H. Howard, in continuation, said, the Home Secretary had roundly charged the Roman Catholics with being guilty of an act of aggression in the recent change; but against the opinion of the right hon. gentleman he would set that of a nobleman, once Secretary for Ireland — a nobleman who had earned for himself a decided reputation, even in the estimate of his oppo- nents, during his administration of the affairs of Ireland, and who had gained a European reputation by that noble treaty known as the KUiot Convention, which limited the sad horrors of an iinnatural contest, and led to a system more in accordance with the legitimate principles of regular warfare. [Fhe hon. gentleman here read some passages from the pam- phlet of the Earl of St. Germans, to the effect that, as we gave nothing to the Roman Catholic Church in England beyond the toleration extended to every religious body, so we should not interfere with its internal organisation, any more than we interfered with that of Protestant Dissenters, and that the law ought to ignoie the existence of a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminstei', or Bishop of Plymouth, just as it had hitherto ignored the oftice of vicars- apostolic] The opinion of so enlightened a nobleman might, he thought, be weighed against that of the Home Secretary, or of any other gentleman who had characterised the late Papal act as an aggression. But what had the celebrated Lord Castlereagh said upon the question of a Catholic hierarchy? He argued against the idea "that any evil or difficulty arose from the existence of the Roman Catholic Church in an episcopal form in Ireland. On the contrary, he was of opinion that the power of governing incident to bishops was in itself ]trn tmitn a salu- tary reduction of the external authority of the Sec of Rome, and that he much preferred the ministry of bishops to that of vicars-apostolic, who were merely missionaries removable at pleasure, and bound implicitly to obey all orders from the Pope." No language could be more apposite to the present occasion than this, though it was spoken many years ago. The argu- ment used by Cardinal Wiseman in his appeal to the people of England, that the title and office of bishop was not a dignity in the sense in which the Sovereign was said to be the fountain of honour and dignity, had never yet been refuted by any speaker or writer on this question; and he was certainly surprised to hear the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Wood) assert that it was impossible for a bishop to be created without the sanction of the Crown. He must have forgotten that for the first 300 years of the Church the Christian religion and Christian forms were maintained in direct opposition to the Imperial Government. During those 300 years every emperor held the title of Pontifex Maximus, and bitterly persecuted all Christians, who, while they gave obedience in matters temporal, held their religious o|iinions and followed the forms of their Church in defiance of the secular power. As a case in point, St, Augustine, in our own country, was bishop some time before the conversion of Ethelred had converted the people of England to the Christian religion. When it was asserted that the Pope claimed the rule over all England, he would, in refutation of that statement, refer to the letters apostolic of the Pope himself, from which it was evident that the Supreme Pontiff did not speak of England as England, but simply with reference to those professing the Roman Catholic belief. Instead of being aggressive, it s|)oke only of the increasing numbers of Ca- tholics in this country, and of the necessity that existed for their being under the sole govern- ment of bishops deriving their titles and their particular cures from places connected with kindred and home names. But it was said this was an attempt to supersede the government of the bishops of the Established Church. Now, no such accusation was made in the case of Canada, where by express treaty the Catholic religion was recognised. The Catholic religion was as much established in Lower Canada as was the Protestant religion by the laws of this countiy. There was a Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, and there was a Protestant bishop, with conterminous jurisdiction. This showed that we had not acted up everyw-here to those vigorous principles which it was fancied had been laid down upon this matter. In other countries the course pursued by Catholics in this country was followed out. There was a Latin Patriarch at Constantinople, who exercised his functions without giving any offence to the Ottoman Porte; and at Antioch there were three patriarchs belonging to the Syriac, the Greek, and the Latin Churches. Much had been said with reference to the pastoral which had been recently issued ; but thai pastoral was addressed, not to the people of England, but to the clergy, secular and regular, and the faithful of the archdiocese. It was an address that applied exclusively to Catholics, and it would be acknowledged as an axiom that a legal document could affect those only to whom it was addressed. The highest and greatest authority — it he might without impiety quote His words on that occasion — had said, "Whose superscription is this?" the Saviour of mankind having thus declared that to be the manner in which the IwentH'ttcond Series.— Tnce Threehalfpence.l [James Gilbert, 49, Paternoster-row. Of whom may he had " The Roman Catholic Question," Nos, I, to XXI, definition of a document could be rightly interpreted. The much-abused pastoral was addressed to the members of the Catholic faith, and to them alone, and if any further corroborative testimony was required, it must be found in those emphatic prayers that were directed to be recited after the sacrifice of the mass, and which certainly the Prime Minister could not say were intended for those of any other but the Catholic creed. From tiie observations of the legal officers of the Crown upon this measure, it appeared to be one that interfered with some of the most important charities and trusts in the country. It was a measure which in- volved an aggression upon the private rights of property more unjust than any that had ever been attempted since he had had the honour of a seat in that House. But he ventured to tell the Government that not only their legal ingenuity but their physical endurance would be highly tested before they were able to carry into effect this persecuting enactment. He would say that protection, as between their bishops and themselves, the Roman Catholics needed none; and if the Prime Minister should have been led to suppose that they did so, the address which had been presented to Cardinal Wiseman with the authority of the Catholic bishops and their most distinguished laymen would most decidedly contravene that fact. Protection they required none ; they only asked to enjoy their religious liberty in an unendowed Church, which claimed nothing from this country but that toleration which would permit them to maintain its own creed and defend it against that of others when attacked — and might God defend the right ! So convinced was he of the justice of his cause, and of its high and impregnable position, that, humble as he was, he had not flinched from encountering, and, he believed, answering, the arguments of the First Minister of the Crown. He only claimed for his poorer fellow- religionists that toleration which he was willing to concede to all, and if he had said aught to hurt the creed of anyone it had been most alien to his thoughts. He had only sought to vindicate his own creed, and he trusted he should never say anything that would violate the sanctity of the temple of religious freedom. Mr. Napier observed, that the only question now before them was, whether her Majesty's Ministers should have leave to introduce a bill on the subject of Papal aggression. In the absence of a knowledge of the particular provisions of the measure, it would be unwise, as well as unjust to the Government and the country, to enter by anticipation into a discussion of the enactments which might be found in it. But it certainly was somewhat strange, after Parlia- ment had assured her Majesty that they would devote their best consideration to any measure that might be laid before them by the Government on the subject of Papal aggression that they should now be engaged in discussing for the third day whether any measure should be laid before them ; and whether they should legislate at all upon the subject. Although he had heard this aggression of the Pope of Rome palliated, excused, and explained, he had not lieard it defended or justified. It was no question of theological controversy. Relieving it from all the surge of excitement thrown around it, and what had they ? They had on the one side the claim of a foreign prelate of a right to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the territories of the British Sovereign, to which on the other side were opposed the principles of the British constitution. It was contended that such a claim on the part of the Pope was in- compatible with that constitution, and upon that issue was joined; and thereupon the Govern- ment brought in a bill for the purpose, not of infringing on religious liberty, but of embodying and giving effect to the feelings of the whole people of this country; backed by the highest authorities, by the universities, by the Church, by the bar of England, and by another authority, to which he would not more particularly refer, but which was justly entitled to the greatest consideration ; backed, too, by a man of the first legal eminence — he meant Sir E. Sugden, who, in a speech of unparalleled ability, stated his calm and dfliberate opinion to be that the aggression of the Bishop of Rome was incompatible with the constitution of this c:untry and in direct collision with, and antagonistic to, the existing laws of the land. If tliat were so, if the people of this country, if the Church of this country, if the Church of Scotland, and if the Nonconformists all agreed, with one voice and heart, in an endeavour to j-revent this aggression — if the bar of England said it was an aggression ; and if that eminent man, Sir E. Sugden, coming from the calm retirement of his closet — a man imequalled as a lawyer, and, as a judge, none more competent to give an opinion upon a gieat constitutional question — if he said " that though the law on this point is certainly in a very anomalous state, and, I grieve to say, reflects no credit on the Legislature, but nevertheless I am of opinion that the law has been infringed by the Bishop of Rome and Cardinal \Viscman ;" while he gave expression to such an opinion as to the law being unsatisfactory and anomalous, owing to clumsy legislation, yet that eminent lawyer added that this act of the Pope was an invasion of the law, and that it certainly called upon Parliament to make the law clear and explicit — to examine its foundation, and see that its eiiactmciits were such as would raise an efl'ectual barrier against any future aggressions. If, then, this was an aggression against international law, was not the Government at liberty to introduce a measure to repress that aggression ? "Was the House to be belied in this way? Was the country to be belied, when it demanded a legislative enactment to suppress a proceeding which was against the reasonable, the religious, and the constitutional feelings of the country — against the peace of her Majesty herself, and against the greatest body of testimony that was ever afforded by a nation blessed with the light and the privileges of the Reformation upon a subject so dear to their hearts, and which was so bound up not only wiih the happiness of this country, but he would add with the hopes of the civilised world ? He could frankly and candidly say, whatever might have besn his opinion on the subject of Roman Catholic emancipation (and that opinion still remained unchanged), that he was prepared to take his stand upon the act of 18J9 ; and he would say to those who were opposed to the present measure, " Convince me that this proposed measure of legislation is adverse to tlie act of I82'j, and I will give my vote against it." The first argument adduced against the measure was that it was in violation of the principles *of what was called civil and religious liberty. But what did those gentlemen who urged that argument mean by civil and religious liberty ? He would say in answer to that argument, that it was merely begging the question, because, iftheseactson thepart of Rome were an invasion of the constitu- tion of the country, the best guarantee for civil and religious liberty was to preserve unbroken that constitution, and to throw its shelter over the laity of every denomination. If they asked the Roman Catholic laity to obey their laws, they were bound in return to throw over them the shelter of the constitution of the country, and to take care that no supremacy should rise above the fixed and settled constitution of the country. He apprehended that some legislation was necessary because this was an attempt to introduce, by foreign authority, into this country, laws which should rise above the constitutional law of the land, and bearing with them an authority not only over the property but over the consciences of her Majesty's subjects. He would say, that for the sake of one portion of her Majesty's subjects — the Roman Catholic laity — some legislative measure was absolutely required, as that class were in a position in which they could not speak freely and openly for themselves. If the law and constitution would not protect them, what was there to give them protection? He had lately read a letter written by a Roman Catholic, in which he commented upon the proceedings of the Synod of Thurles, and he declared those proceedings to be downright persecution of the Catholic laity of Ireland. Many Roman Catholics had told him (Mr. Napier) the same thing. It was a species of tyranny exercised over them, and yet they had not any power to resist the oppres- sion. The hon. member who last addressed the House said that the Synod of Thurles had done no more than the bishops of the Established Church had done, and that they had only exer- cised a proper authority on the subject of national education ; but he (Mr. Napier) would ask that hon. gentleman whether he ever knew the bishops of the Established Church say to any of their laity, "If you do not obey us and submit to our opinions we will cut you off from all communion with the Church?" "The controversy is decided; you have no right to express your opinion." "The judge hath spoken." The expression was not — "You may duly exercise your own judgment :" that would be perfectly fair. But the people were so much the vassals of that synod that they had no power to express an independent opinion on any of its proceedings. Nay, some of its decisions had been stated to have been carried under such powerful influence on the part of the Holy See that many of the bishops themselves surrendered their own opinions, and yielded to a power they felt themselves unable to resist. The plain common sense of all this was, that the Roman Catholic Church said to Protestant England, " Make what enactments you like, propound what policy you like, their whole force and sanction must be derived from the Papal authority." Under such a system what became ot a popularly free people ? Was it not a solemn mockery to call a people free who could be ground down by such tyranny ? He would maintain, therefore, that the proposed measure was not only a just and wise measure, but that it was a merciful measure. He had no controversy on this subject ; he had no theological opinions to uphold respecting it. Many Roman Catholics were in their hearts desirous that a measure of this kind should be passed. There were many Roman Catholics among his con- stituents, and several had spoken to him on the subject, and had expressed their hope that he would do whatever might be right in order to prevent this tyranny coming upon them, and interfering with those liberties which were dearest to their hearts. The hon. member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had said that a great influx of Popery had come from Ireland, and particularly into Lancashire; and he observed that our policy in Ireland had fostered Popery there, and that this influx was only an act of ret.ibutive justice. He (Mr. Napier) agreed with the hon. gentleman that the legislative policy of the Government had been favourable to Popery ; but was that an argument why they should not legislate against ecclesiastical usur- pation? No; he would say, "Change your policy, not only in your legislation, but in your mode of government also." For he believed that if, with their system of governing Ireland, their measures of legislation had been more favourable to Protestantism, it would have brought the two principles of Popery and Protestantism into open collision. The hon. member for Dublin (Mr. Reynolds) the other night alleged that all the Government patronage in Ireland was bestowed on Protestants ; and then the hon. gentleman gave a statistical account of the manner in which the law patronage was bestowed. But the hon. gentleman was not remark- able for his accuracy in figures. On one occasion the hon. gentleman put forth a statement as to the amount of the property of the prelates of the Established Church in Ireland, and when asked for his authority, he said he had obtained his information from the Stamp-office in Dublin. That, however, was an error, there being no such returns from that office ; but certain information was to be obtained from the Prerogative-office. Well, on comparison of the hon. gentleman's statement with that which was procured from the Prerogative-office, the diflference in the amount was no less than 768,808/. He (Mr. Napier) would not enter into an examination of the accuracy of the hon. gentleman's statement with regard to the courts of law, but he would say that in Ireland it was a disqualification to be a Protestant. Take, for example, the bar. Two of the most distinguished members of the Munster circuit had retired — Mr.Henn and Mr. Bennett — and those gentlemen wereProtestants, but neither of them had been promoted. Many gentlemen who enjoyed the largest confidence and had the greatest business at the bar vvcre Protestants, and had been entirely passed over; while he would defy the hon. gentleman to tell him of an instance, since 1829, in which a single Roman Catholic had been passed over. That was not the way in which the patronage of the Government ought to be administ€red. The right hon. baronet (Sir G. Grey) had endeavoured to make an elaborate defence of the policy of the Government of Ireland, and particularly with regard to certain communications held with the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Such a defence was absolutely required, because, whether rightly or wrongly, they were bound to admit that the public feeling throughout England and Ireland was, that the policy which the Government had pur- .sued in that country had been altogether to encourage the demands of the Papacy ; and, how- ever wrong the conduct adopted by the Pope might be, he (Mr. Napier) must say on his behalf, that he was well encouraged to take the step he did by the policy which the British Government had pursued since 1847, both in Ireland and in the colonies. Ihere were docu- ments to which he would but briefly refer, as hon. gentlemen could easily have access to them. In Lord Grey's letter of 1847, addressed to the colonial Governments, he stated that the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland had declared that the Bequests Act had given rank to Roman Catholic bishops. So, in 1847, also Dr. Wiseman said that the vicars-apostolic met in London to arrange the establishment of the hierarchy in England. Lord Clarendon's construction of the Bequests Act was that the Catholic archbishops and bishops were entitled to be called " Your grace," and " Your lordship." Now he (Mr. Napier) had always been in the habit of treating those persons with that courtesy and respect which properly belonged to their social position in the community ; but he did not think it a right or wise thing either to violate the law of the land or to depart from the usages of society by giving those persons a false position. For see the predicament in which those who did so were themselves placed. If they intended to go on saying to those persons, " We do not believe in your religion — we believe that it is calculated to enslave the intellect and confine the soul," and at the same time went on putting them on a level with the peers of the realm, and placing them in a position which neither her Majesty nor the law- had given them, the inference would be that either they were not honest in rejecting the doctrines of those men, or that they were politically afraid of them. By inducing the Roman Catholics to entertain that opinion of the Government, he would say that the Government was guilty of encouraging them to take every n;eans for setting up an ecclesiastical organisation in this country, by which they might seek to prevail over the religion of the people, and most injuriously affect their social interests and everything which Englishmen could or ought to prize. It was with great pain that he read the letter addressed by the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland to the Roman Catholic Archbishop Murray in 1848. Was this great country to put itself in the humiliating position of the Queen's representative sending over for the considera- tion of the Pope a statute relating to the colleges for the education of the middle classes in Ireland? That letter was taken to Rome by Dr. Murray, and it was very curious that in his letter, published at Rome in 1848, of which he (Mr. Napier) had a translation from the Italian original. Dr. Murray was very anxious to induce the Court of Rome to accede to the proposi- tion of the English Government. In that letter Dr. Murray took a general view of the policy of the Government of England towards the Roman Catholics for the last thirty years, to show liow favourable was that policy to the Church of Rome. In every succeeding session laws were introduced favourable to the interests and views of the Catholics. The writer enume- rated the various measures that had been passed, such as the striking oft' of ten bishops from the Protestant Church in Ireland ; the withholding from Protestants any share in the public grant for the purposes of education ; the giving to Maynooth 30,000/. a-year for the eccle- siastical education of the Roman Catholics. This would give an idea of what these people themselves thought with regard to the policy of this country. If, then, the Government was now about to assume the attitude of independence, let them in God's name take that attitude, and not ask the leave of the Pope to enact statutes, not crouch at his feet, and seek his per- mission to enforce their own laws. Alter briefly adverting to the letter of Dr. Wiseman, the hon. and learned gentleman concluded by saying that it appeared to him that there were some subjects of serious C(;nsideration which were not touched upon in the bill; but a proper time would arrive for noticing that matter. The hon. and learned member for Youghal had given notice that he should propose that Ireland should be excluded from the operation of this measure. Whenever that proposition should be made he (Mr. Napier) should be prepared to take the case of Ireland in hand, and join issue with the hon. gentleman upon that question. Mr. Keogh remarked, that the hon. and learned member who had just spoken was once secretary to the Brunswick Clubs of Ireland, which were founded on the principle of defiance to any Act of Parliament which had the cmanicaption of the Catholics for its object, and yet he now came down to that House and lectured Catholics on the impropriety of opposing the penal measure proposed by the Government, and on their general want of independence of spiritual influence. After lamenting the loss of that great statesman, Sir R. Peel, whose loss was never more severely felt than at the present moment, and to whose absence, he firmly believed, the country was indebted for the wretched attack oti religious liberty now made by theGovernment,the hon. gentleman proceeded tocontrovertthe statemcntof thehon.and learned member for the University of Dublin, 'that the profession of Protestantism was a bar to promo- tion in Ireland, by recapitulating the following facts : — Of the twelve judges in Ireland three only were Catholics; the oflice of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, although he had no Church patronage to dispense or ecclesiastical functions to perform, could not be held by a Catholic ; the Master of the Rolls was a Protestant ; of five Masters in Chancery, four wereProtcstants; there 5 were two judges of the Bankruptcy Courts, both Protestants ; of 33 assistant-barristers 2') were Protestants; for the stipendiary magistracy Protestants were selected in the proportion of three to one ; the Attorney-General was a Protestant ; and of the three law advisers of the Irish Govern- ment, two were Protestants. Leaving these particulars, he would now advert to an extraordinary circumstance which the noble lord at the head of the Government had referred to in the course of his speech. The noble lord asserted that the Roman Catholic clergymen had refused to administer the sacrament to the late Sardinian Minister. He (Mr. Keogb) was not prepared to deny that assertion, for he knew nothing of the fact ; but, presuming that the noble lord spoke from authority, and that the fact was undeniable, he would say, speaking as a Roman Catholic in the presence of Roman Catholic members, that he could conceive nothing more atrocious or more deserving the reprobation of all good men. He could not believe it possible that a similar occurrence would take place in these kingdoms, but if it should, he was sure it would be met by the Roman Catholics in the same spirit of resistance with which at an earlier period of our history they had opposed other acts of attempted tyranny. He repudiated the notion that Roman Catholics submitted to the opinions of their priests in temporal matters. If any Cardinal or Pope, home priest or foreign priest, should attempt to interfere in his private alfairs, or tamper with the allegiance due to the laws of this country, he would treat the attempt with scorn. Now, with respect to the measure of the Government, if he could bring himself to believe that the grounds on which it was based — namely, that the establish- ment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was an insult to the Sovereign and country, and an illegal assumption of power, iie would be disposed to support it. In private life the intention of an act was deemed to be its very essence, when one came to decide whether or not it was an insult. The noble lord at the head of the Government denied the other night that his letter, which had been circulating in Ireland for months previously, was intended as an insult to the Catholic religion. Of course he believed the noble lord, but why did not the noble lord allow the same privilege of explanation to Roman C'atholics, and believe them when they declared that no insult was intended by recent acts ? The language used by the noble lord ou previous occasions, to which the lion, and learned member for the University of Dublin had adverted, must necessarily have prepared tiie Pope to believe that the Government would approve the course which he had taken. If that were so — and no one had yet attempted to deny it— he called upon every rational man to ask himself this question : " How could the Pope mean to insult this country by an act which he had every reason to believe would be acceptable to the Ministers of the Crown?" The hon. and learned member for Oxford said, the other night, that the law had been violated by the assumption of territorial titles by the Catholic prelates. Upon this point the hon. and learned member was at issue with the Attorney and Solicitor-General, for the noble lord distinctly told the House that he had con- sulted the law officers of the Crown, who were both of opinion that the statute law had not been violatedby that proceeding. The hon. and learned member for Oxford said that the creation of prelates was a privilege exclusively vested in the Queen, and that therefore the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy was an invasion of her prerogative ; but he denied that the creation of bishoprics, even in the Church of iMigland, of which the Queen was supreme head — although that was dis|)uted by some of the episcopal bench — rested with the Sovereign. An Act of Henry VIII. gave the Crown flie power of appointing bishops, but that Act was repealed, and no such power now vested in the Sovereign. A late Act of Parliament, applying to the colonics, the 5th of Victoria, gave power to her Majesty to create bishops of the Church of England in foreign countries, a power, it was hardly necessary to observe, which it was unnecessary to confer upon the Queen by Act of Parliament if it were already vested in her Majesty in right of her prerogative. Here he might be allowed to refer to an incident connected with the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1829. It was well known that this act contained a clause prohibiting Roman Catholic bishops from adopting the title of any existing sees of the Church of England. When the Emancipation Bill was passing through the House the hon. baronet the member for the University of Oxford proposed to make the clause in question more stringent, by making it applicable to the very case that had recently occurred; but his proposition was rejected. In the other House, a peer proposed that cardinals and Roman Catholic bishops should be excluded, in the event of their becoming members of the peerage ; but this proposition was opposed by the Dukes of Wellington and Richmond, and unanimously rejected. In the teeth of these facts, how could it be contended that either the common or statute law had been invaded by the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy? The hon. and learned member for Oxford said that the new prelates had assumed territorial power. What territorial power, he begged to ask, did any Roman Catholic bishop now possess? Did his title give him powxr over person or property? Could he draw a sixpence of revenue from any individual, or compel any Roman Catholic to do anything against his will .' One of the chapters of Sir James Macintosh's "History of England" contained a passage referring to the spiritual ascendancy of Catholic clergymen to this effect: — "The spiritual supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church means nothing but ascendancy over the minds of those who voluntarily submit to it." He had referred to former briefs of the Pope appointing apostolic vicars, and he found that they contained every word used in the recent brief. Then what mighty danger was contained in the word "diocese" which was not to be found in the word " district?" Where was the territorial assumption in the one which was not in the other? But was there no precedent for such a proceeding? The noble lord in hat letter, which his best friends wished he had never written, said that there was no similarity between the appointment of Scotch bishops and the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The noble lord could not have had the Attorney-General by him when he made that assertion. That legal functionary would have remembered that the first anti-prelatic statute was passed in Scotland in 1689, that it was enforced in IGOO, and that by the crowning statute of 1707, not only was episcopacy for ever abolished in Scotland, but Presbyterism was made the established religion of the country. The Queen swore, at her coronation, to respect those statutes, and yet — even since the terrible Papal aggression — the Protestant bishops of Scotland had addressed the Crown in their episcopal character, and their petition had been most graciously received. Her Majesty, he perceived, had also most graciously received another address from twenty-eight bishops of the Church of England, in which those meek prelates, who stood up for religious toleration, described the religion of 10,000,000 of their fellow subjects, and 200,000,000 of the human race, as a tissue of blasphemous fables. He saw the noble lord consulting with the Secretary for the Home Department about this matter. Sir G. Grey — No such address has ever been received by her Majesty. Mr. Keogh — Yes, it has. I have a copy here, and will read it. Sir G. Grey — The hon. member must be referring to an address from the Scotch to the English bishops. Mr. Keogh — It is an address from the Christian Knowledge Society. Sir G. Grey was understood to say that an address had been received from that society. Mr. Keogh said it appeared, then, that he was right. At a former, but not very distant period, the noble lord and the right hon. baronet declined to receive an address signed " John Archbishop of Tuam," on the ground that the adoption of that title was contrary to the pro- visions of the Emancipation Act ; but they had no objection to receive an address signed by the Bishops of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Argyle, although the recognition of those titles was contrary to the statutes of Scotland, and in direct contravention of the oath taken by the Queen at her coronation to respect the statutes of the realm. Of course he did not complain of Lord Grey's circular to the colonics, or Lord Clarendon's letter to the Pope ; but after the Government had, by these and innumerable other acts of a similar character, led the head of the Catholic Church to believe that what he had done would be highly acceptable to them, to turn round and meet it with a penal statute was indeed a monstrous proceeding. It was im- possible to deny that the acts of the Government, for a series of years, had led not only the Catholics of England and Ireland, but the See of Rome, to believe that the step which had been taken would not be unacceptable to her Majesty's Ministers. Reference had, it was true, been made to an answer given by the noble lord to a question proposed to him, in which he said he would not give his consent to the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy. That could easily be accounted for. When the noble lord gave that answer he was First Minister of the Crown, but when he made the important declarations he was about to read to the House the noble lord was in opposition. On the 13th of February, 1844, the noble lord. said, in that House : — " I think we ought to take away everything derogatory to the position and character of the Roman Catholic bishops. You provide by statute that they shall not be allowed to style themselves by the name of the diocese over which they preside. I think that a most foolish prohibition." A most foolish prohibition ! Why, that was the very thing which the noble lord was now asking the House to do ! In 1845 party animosities ran higher, and the Irish members had to be gained and Ireland to be brought to the scratch ; and that great statesman whose loss uni- versal Europe deplored was to be turned out of office; and then the noble lord went a little further, and said, " I believe that we might repeal those disallowing clauses which prevent a Roman Catholic bishop assuming a title held by a bishop of the Established Church. I cannot conceive any good ground for the continuance of this restriction." Yet those restrictive clauses, which the noble lord found it absolutely impossible to conceive any justification for, he now proposed to reimpose and make more stringent ! Once more, on the 5th of February, 1846, the noble lord made a pithy observation, which included the whole question ; he said, "As to preventing persons assuming particular titles, nothing can be more absurd and puerile than to keep up such a distinction." It must be consolatory to the noble lord to have received the grateful thanks of the hon. baronet tlie member for Oxford University for .what he was now doing. The noble lord had during his public life distinguished himself as the advocate of religious liberty. The hon. baronet, on the other hand, had often been described — and by the noble lord himself — as the consistent, persevering sup])orter of — he used the term without meaning offence — bigotry. M'hen he saw the noble lord and the hon. baronet now pursuing the same course, hand in hand, he could not help looking on the conjunction as an extraordinary and ominous one. The noble lord insisted very strongly the other night on the evils resulting from the Synod of Thurles. To hear the noble lord speak, one would have supposed that the Synod of Thurles had not been held when he wrote his famous letter; whereas it had taken place months previously. The noble lord in his letter alluded to many other things, but not to the Synod of Thurles, althougli one would have supposed that it would have been the circumstance most prominent in the thoughts of the Prime Minister. So far were the educated Catholics from being disposed to approve of what was done in the Synod of Thurles, the most distinguished members of that body were about to publish a paper expressive of their opinions on the subject, and condemning any interference by the clergy in temporal affairs, when they were stoppe d by the appearance of the noble lord's extraordinary letter. Having now gone through most of the general topics to wiiicli he wished to allude, he would appeal to the noble lord with respect to some details of the measure before the House. Hiid the noble lord maturely considered what would be the effect of his proposition with respect to Ireland? He did not mean its effect on public opinion. The noble brd could possibly afford to disregard the public opinion of Ireland, though there was a time when he thouy;!)! it necessary to court it. But he was not alluding to that. What he asked was, had the noble lord considered the absolute working effect of the measure on the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland? He believed, and lie had mentioned his apprehensions to several hon. members, who said that they had not considered the matter before, and who seemed somewhat startled by it ; he believed that if the noble lord carried his bill it would have the effect of stopping the ecclesiastical functions of the Catholic Church in Ireland. There was a venerable prelate in the House the other night, a prelate who had never taken part in political agitations, and who had never assumed any of the titles against which this enactment was directed [Dr. M'Gettigan we believe], and the opinion of that prelate, after carefully listening to the details of the proposition, was, that without violating the law, which he would not do, he would be unable to exercise his episcopal functions if the bill were carried. Was the noble lord prepared for this consequence of his measure? Was he pre- pared to rouse the fell spirit of religious hate which had almost subsided in that country ? Had he taken counsel with the Attorney-General on the subject, and had he asked that dignified and learned person whether, if the prelates of the Catholic Church in Ireland should be so pertina- cious, obstinate, and daring as to disobey the law, he was prepared to frame an indictment against the ecclesiastical superiors of 0,000,000 people ? Was he prepared to send his Pro- testant Attorney-General and his Roman Catholic Solicitor-General to conduct the prosecu- tion and bring the .^rchbishop ofTuam before a jury in the county of Mayo? He had no desire to incite the noble lord to institute criminal prosecutions ; on the contrary, he thought he would be wise to refrain from them ; but he did ask the Government not to encumber the statute-book with laws which were not intended to be put into execution; and, if it was in- tended to put this act into execution, he asked the noble lord again, was he prepared to place the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland in the felon's dock for disobeying it? He would con- clude by reminding the noble lord of certain words which he (Lord J. Russell) had addressed to his predecessor in office, that "a just retribution would overtake the man who, not appeal- ing to sound and enlightened public opinion, laid hold of some popular prejudice or mistaken notion in order to ground his power upon deluding and misleading the people." Mr. Anstey considered the case which the hon. and learned gentleman had made out in be- half of excluding Ireland altogether from the bill was unanswerable. The hon. member for Meath (Mr. Grattan), when speaking on this question the oiher evening, expressed his regret that the Emancipation Bill of 1813 did not receive the royal assent. By whom was that bill recommended? By the Pope. He held in his hand an extract from the current history, of the period, from which it appeared, that although there was great reason to appre- hend that the Catholic bishops of Ireland were in favour of the view expressed by the Court of Rome, first the laity, and then the clergy, unanimously passed resolutions declar- ing that the document from Rome was non-mandatory, and not entitled to their obedience and respect. So strong was the pressure of public opinion on the subject that the bishops also met and unanimously voted that the Papal rescript was not mandatory nor obligatory on their obedience. What was the consequence .' No sooner did the Court of Rome receive the intel- ligence of the unanimous and patriotic disobedience of the clergy and laity of Ireland than the cardinals met too, and imanimously came to the resolution that in no way would they for a temporal advantage insist upon the measure. That was the way the Court of Rome was met when it attempted to dictate to the Roman Catholics of Ireland in 1813. Since that period no similar attempt had been made by that Court to dictate to the people of Ireland. The object of the present bill being to redress a grievance which had occurred in England, he could not understand upon what principle clauses had been introduced applying to Ireland. He would repeat what he had said on a former occasion, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were entitled by canon law to resist any attempt of the character of the late letters apostolic by which a new hierarchy was created in England. The Irish clergy were empowered by their present constitution to do everything at home for themselves, and they had no occasion to go to Rome, except as a last resort. The titles which it was proposed to prohibit by this bill as regarded Ireland were titles not imposed by a foreign prince, but assumed by British subjects. Why should not British subjects in Ireland be allowed to assume titles of the same character which were .allowed to be assumed with impunity by British subjects in Scotland .' The bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland would still be allowed to style themselves bishops of their respective sees without permission of the Crown ; and why ? Because the titles were not imposed by a foreign prince. Well, that was the case with the Irish prelates too, though it was not the case with the English hierarchy created by the letters apostolical of last year. Now, this obvious distinction was entirely lost sight of in the proposed bill. He maintained that they ought not to interfere with the liberty of every man in this country — subject, of course, to the courts of justice and the departments of State refusing their recognition — to assume what titles he pleased. Suppose some one were to assume a pseudo title of nobility, would he be prosecuted for it .' Not if he alleged he had any right whatever to it, becaus-e no court of justice would preclude the possibility of his establishing his title before the House of Lords by entertaining a prosecution. To attempt to interfere with titles assumed by Romish bishops in England would, be contended, be useless and trivial — to do so In Ireland uould be mis- chievous and oppressive. The Government were mistaken in sujiposing that territorial titles were essential to hierarchical and synodical .iction. To forbid the assumption of territorial titles, therefore, would not prevent the bishops from dealing with the temporalities of the Church. By a clause in the Pope's brief, which seemed to have escaped notice, the powers of vicars-apostolic were continued to the new bishops, and, as vicars-apostolic, they would be able to enjoy that power and liberty of action which it was the intention of the new constitution to confer upon them. The bill was, therefore, defective in this respect. It was defective in another point, because it dealt only with the case of future temporalities. How was it possible to deal with the difficulty which he suggested on a former occasion, viz., that it would be im- possible for any court of law or equity, unless authorised by Act of Parliament, to refuse the assistance of their own writs for the purpose of enforcing the letters apostolic of the Pope with regard to existing trusts .' For instance, the property of the Scotch Church was governed by the temporal law of the land, acting in aid of the private law of that Church, as altered or amended from time to time by its General Assembly. At one time the General Assembly passed a law recognising the independence of the branch of the Scotch Church existing in Eng- land. Now, it happened that when the disruption of the Church of Scotland took place a few years ago, a vast majority of the Scotch Presbyterians in England adopted a resolution expressive of sympathy with the Free Church party. The Church of Scotland subsequently rescinded the act by which the independence of the English Presbyterian body was guaranteed; and the conse- quence had been that the English Court of Chancery in three cases, apparently against the private opinion of the judges, had been obliged, such was the infirmity of our legislation on such subjects, to eject every minister and trustee who happened to entertain a speculative opinion in favour of the Free Church of Scotland. In a case like the present it was not un- important to bear in mind that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was only a contemplated hierarchy; no hierarchy was established in this country, because none could be established ■without the previous establishment of the canon law, and, as the canon law did not exist in England, therefore he was justified in saying that no hierarchy had been established. The thing by some apprehended was the establishment in this country by the Court of Rome of what might fairly enough be called an autocracy ; and in noticing this part of the subject, he might observe that there was a clause in the brief preventing the establishment of the canon law. As to the proposed bill of the noble lord, it was said that the general clause was a matter of form, but that he begged leave altogether to deny. Perhaps it might be in a certain sense a matter of form, but it was also a matter of substance, in its nature very material and im- portant. He must say that if it had devolved on him to prepare a measure of this class or description, or if he were then to say what sort of bill he should be prepared to support, he could have no hesitation in declaring it to be one which would not interfere with any class of her Majesty's subjects. But as to any danger to this country from the proceedings of the Court of Rome, there did not appear to him the least ground for apprehending that that danger was otherwise than imaginary ; and if he saw any ground for it he should certainly support such restrictions as would go far to render it impossible; and he should likewise be disposed to support measures for vesting in lay persons the management of charities, with a view to prevent its being supposed that the Church of Rome did or could exercise any influence in the admi- nistration of trust funds in this country. Further, the House should remember that the prohi- bition contained in the Emancipation Act was not the only thing which rendered the assump- tion of titles illegal. The existence of Roman Catholic bishops or archbishops, either in England or Ireland, was tormerly illegal, and it was not the mere assumption of titles that constituted the illegality; but under the Act of 1791, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, for example, had a perfect right to the title which he bore, for the Act of 179 1 gave that title to every duly qualified and registered prelate of the Church of Rome. With regard to the English Roman Catholics, he thought himself justified in saying that they desired to see Parliament legislating, not, perhaps, in the spirit of the bill of the noble lord, but in one sense in a stronger, though in a different, way. As respected himself, he could not conclude without noticing the circumstance that he had been blamed for the distinction which he had taken between the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome — a distinction which he conceived to be real, and which he thought was sufficiently intelligible. And now he should state in a few words the course which, practically, he meant to pursue. He should move the omission of every clause in the bill relating to Ireland, and he sliould also use his utmost endeavours to amend the bill for the benefit of the English Roman Catholics, their liberties, proi)erties, and rights. In justice to himself, he felt bound also to say, that he did not participate in the denunciations which had been levelled against the noble lord for deserting those principles of civil and religious liberty which he had always maintained, and with regard to which he must stdl be considered consistent. Mr. Spooner said he had no intention of following the last speaker through the course of observations which he had addressed to the House, and he should perhaps not that day have addressed the House if it had not been for the challenge which was put forth by the hon. member for Carlisle. Still he should trouble the House with only one or two remarks on a discussion that had now, he might say, occupied them fur several days. The question was, should they, or should they not, then proceed to consider as a question for decision whether they would adopt a measure which they had already pledged themselves to carry out? Surely it wa^ not the way for them to carry out that promise thus to enter into the mere details of thg bill, and that, too, of a bill not yet before them. (3n the whole, then, he was of opinion that it would be better as speedily as possible to close the debate for the present, and without further delay to let the noble lord lay his bill upon the table of the House. As he had risen he would avail himself of that opportunity to thank the noble lord for the frank and straightforward letter that he had written, as well as for the bold and manly tone of that speech with which he had intro- duced the measure to the notice of the House. If the noble lonl found himself in any difficulties out of the House, he (Mr. Spooner) should still call on him to stand by the speech he had made and the letter he had written. Finally, if the noble lord were unfairly pressed, he should recommend him to throw himself on the Protestant feeling of the people of this great country, who would not allow their Queen to be insulted and tiieir principles outraged. In the course of the present discussion some fault had been found with the language of one of the addresses presented to the Queen ; but he must be allowed to remind the House that that language was derived from the Articles of the Church. With regard to the meeting at Birmingham he wished to say a few words. It was a very large and influential meeting, at which, no doubt, there was a difference of opinion and some confusion. An amendment was moved, which was nega- tived by a very large majority, who then quitted the meeting, inasmuch as they considered that a rejection of the amendment amounted to an adoption of the original proposition. In fact, the question was one on which there existed all but perfect unanimity — a unanimity of opinion clearly in favour of our Protestant institutions. The noble lord had well begun the work which he had undertaken, and it was to be hoped that he would go on in the same path. If he did so he might rely on the support of the people at large as well as of the House of Com- mons. He trusted that the noble lord would excuse him if he said that the explanation which he gave of the bill and the second explanation given by the Attorney-General had fallen con- siderably short of tlie expectations entertained by the public. He trusted, however, that when the bill came before the House it would exceed such explanations as far as they fell short of the noble lord's letter and speech. Again he would advise the noble lord, if he encountered any difficulty, to throw himself on the country. Mr. A. B. Hope said he could not record the vote which he intended to give against the bill without some explanation. He confessed that in listening to the speech of the learned Attorney-General he experienced no small degree of surprise at the petty details into which he entered, and he also could not help feeling much surprise that the noble lord should have brought forward such a measure under the peculiar circumstances which now existed. As to the speech of the hon. and learned member for Oxford, it might have suited the member for the University of Oxford, but it ill became the known principles of the hon. and learned gentle- man by whom it was delivered. There was in it much against Papal aggression, but not a word in favour of the bill. What was so likely to foster the priestly tyranny of which the laity of the Roman Catholic Church were said to complain as legislation that would compel their synodical action to be clandestine, and their briefs to be circulated surreptitiously, instead of being published in the face of day and exposed to the searching examination of the public press? The synods might not be held in the new cathedral in Westminster, but they would beheld in a house next door to it. Such legislation would be simply and absolutely inoperative, and would only aggravate those dangers affecting the Roman Catholic laity which it was so very convenient to the noble lord to bring forward and sympathise with. There was only one thing the Roman Catholic hierarchy wanted, and that was position. That which they had to make for themselves the noble lord with an unwilling generosity had made for them. By this tedious, vexatious, inoperative persecution he had, with little danger to the Roman hierarchy, put them upon a pedestal of easy martyrdom. The noble lord had visited them with just enough of persecution to make them interesting to their flocks, and to give them that position of dignity which it might have taken them some time to achieve for themselves. A few years ago a bill was brought in to restore diplomatic relations with the Court of Rome. That bill recognised the Pope as a Sovereign Pontiff, and if it had been passed it would have been the duty of the Pope to communicate to the British Government everything, even purely spiritual, which might affect this country. But that appellation was struck out, and by the act as it stood the Government could only communicate with the temporal Sovereign of the Roman States, in which capacity the Pope had no more to do with the Romish hierarchy of this country than the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The present Ministry accepted that amended bill, and the Pope was thus left to infer the British Government neither desired ror required official communication with him upon the affairs of his hierarchy in this country. Under these circumstances the Pope showed to Lord Minto, not officially, but ufficieusement, as the French said, the Papal brief. An unofficial diplomatist was unofficially shown an unofficial paper, and what more could the British Government from the diplomatic relations that existed between the two States? He did not blame her Majesty's Government for the inoperative nature of the measure, for a really operative measure would have caused a rebellion in Ireland. He was therefore glad the noble lord had sunk his own consistency in preserving the good order of the empire. Colonel Thompson would refuse to interfere in any quarrel with English or Irish Catholics, but he must maintain there had been an aggression. The way not to see it was not to look for it in the right place, and to look somewhere else for it. But there was plenty of it here. When the French General had brought back the Pope to Rome over the bodies of his subjects, a message was brought to this country from Rome, in which might be traced the memory of Waterloo, and which, with an amiable consistency, and in strict accordance with the custom of 10 states between whom friendly relations existed, contained an allusion to the exiled family of James II. Now, he did not know whether hon. members were aware that a representative of this family was at present living in America. He very often corresponded with him. (Colonel Thompson) and he had some notion that this person also corresponded with other members of thp.t house. He (Colonel Thompson) had twice handed over his manifestoes to the Govern- ment, so that he could not be charged with misprision of treason. He, at all events, believed in the existence of a man who was the representative of what was generally believed to be the obsolete dynasty of the Stuarts. Then, again, if the Pope had chosen a member of some aristocratic English family for the dignity of cardinal the case would have been somewhat different, but he had selected a person of Spanish birth for this dignity. Such things were not politic or wise, and they were not anything if they were not aggressive and haughty. He believed the language of L'Univers had been, not, as was represented, that the time had come for restoring Catholicity in England, but that the time had come for putting down Protestantism by force of arms. Was that a friendly interlocution on the part of the French Catholics ? He had heard during this debate eight distinct allusions to a body of men with whom he had hereditary connexions of which he was proud. It was said that the Wesleyan Methodists had an organisation somewhat resembling that of the Catholics. No doubt they had, and a great deal more. They possessed societies, and districts, and superintendents in France ; and, if they went to France, and proclaimed there that France was, and always would be, a dependency of England — if, at every opportunity, they advanced the old claim of England to govern that country — would they have a right to complain if they found that the French Government did not regard them with a favourable eye? He (Colonel Thompson) had asked the French Consul how the Methodists behaved in that country ? He replied that they were the best subjects that France had ; that other sects were always quar- relling, but that the Methodists never quarrelled with anybody. If the Catholics had been guided by the same wisdom, they might have done everything they could reasonably have desired in this country, because it was owing to the decided offence given to England by the See of Rome that all this evil and mischief had arisen. He confessed he should have been glad if the noble lord at the head of the Government had proceeded further than he had gone in his bill. What should we do if the French General at Rome, or the Austrian General at Hamburgh, should move the Pontiff to issue a bull forbidding Roman Catholics to enlist in an army, and directing them to leave the English colours ? How must such a bull be met? Was there any provision made by the present bill for such a possible contingency? He should have recognised much more prudence in supplying the 5th and 13th of Elizabeth with reason- able penalties, such as he had no doubt the penalties of this bill would be. He should always be (as he had ever been) ready to insure to his Roman Catholic fellow-subjects the blessings of religious liberty, but he should give his support to the present bill. Mr. Hume was surprised beyond measure to find his hon. friend, whom he had always regarded as one of the strongest advocates of civil and religious liberty, arguing that an ag- gression had been made by the Catholic Church against this country, and declaring his wish to see the penalties of the bill followed up by additional enactments. His hon. friend had given no reason for his supporting this bill, which was a measure of persecution, word it as they might. Every rag and remnant of penal enactments against religion that was left in our statute-book was a disgrace to the age, and he should be glad to see them all swept away. He wished the bill had been laid upon the table without a word of debate, so that the House might at once have seen it. They had heard from the Attorney-General a statement very different from that made by the noble lord, so that he could not reconcile the two, and he had no doubt that the bill, when it was brought in, would prove to be a different bill from that which would have been laid upon the table if the House had agreed to the noble lord's motion without opposition. Probably it would undergo some further alteration and amendment if the debate were adjourned, so that the House were discussing a measure without knowing what would be proposed to them. He was disappointed in the measure, which was an act of re- trograde persecution. The people of England were calling out against the weight of taxation, but what prospect was there of attaining any reduction, or of pacifying Ireland, if the Government proposed to kindle the flames of religious bigotry ? What hope was there of peace, with one-third of our population Catholics, and opposed to this measure? He remem- bered the time when there were only 8,000 troops in Ireland. Now there were 15,000, and they must send 45,000 more if hon. gentlemen hounded on her Majesty's Ministers to persecute the religion of the sister country. Last night the hon. member (Mr. Disraeli) complained of the burden of taxation upon the agricultural interests. But how could he expect to obtain any relief from the pressure of our enormous establishments if he gave his sanction to such a measure as the present •■ Instead of removing the Kstabllshed Church in Ireland, a new clement of persecution was raised by her Majesty's Government; and insult was to be added to injustice. The noble lord in his letter had blamed the practices of a party in his own Church for much of what had happened. Why, then, did he not attempt first to put l.is own Church in order? Why did he not appoint a commission to ascertain which of the clergy of the Established Church had led their flocks to the " verge of the precipice?" The principles of Popery were taught in our universities, and, if the noble lord could not put the.->e offenders down, was it fair to allow him to bring in a persecutingmeasureagainst those who had been too long persecuted? Could any man fur a moment think that when we had such an establishment of bishops, deans, and functionaries of ail kinds, both in England and Ireland, for instructing the 11 people in tiieir religious duties, tiiere could be any danger I'roui the Catholic priests ? 'i'iiose priests were, indeed, zealous in their duties, wliile the Church of F.ngland did not perform that duty which was expected from her. He was astonished at tiic course the noble lord had taken, and he protested against this measure of aggression upon the civil liberties of his fellow- countrymen. He wanted free-trade in religion, and let him who had the best defend it. It gave him pain to see a system about to be commenced so contrary to what they had seen for the last twenty-five years, and more especially that the noble lord should have been the man to introduce this measure. But the noble lord was so determined upon carrying it, right or wrong, in violation of the religious feelings of the people of Ireland, that he had said he would not proceed with the financial statement or any business until the debate closed, lie (Mr. Hume) wished to see the measure of the Government on the table. He rose principally, however, to express his surprise at the opinions stated by his hon. and gallant friend, and to say that if they wished to drive the Catholic priest out of the Protestant fold they must first drive out the wolves that were in their own. Let the noble lord reform the rubric, and remove from it everything that could give a countenance to Mr. Bennett and his party. With these observations, and protesting against the measure, he would conclude. Mr. Oswald said, that it had been stated that from one end of Great Britain to the other there was an unanimous feeling on this subject. Now, he represented the county of Ayr — the stronghold of the Covenanters ; and yet in that county there had been no public meeting held —not a single syllable uttered to encourage the noble lord in this crusade against the religious liberties of one third of the people of the United Kingdom. The sword had been drawn — he grieved, as a member of the Church of England, to say il — by James I., Charles I., and Charles II., to support in Scotland that communion to which he belonged, but to which the people of Scotland never belonged ; but it had utterly failed ; and they might be sure that the noble lord, who had renounced — he doubted not from the purest motives — every principle of his life, would find that he would receive no support at all on this measure. He (Mr. Oswald) believed that the object of the Pope was purely a spiritual object. What other could it be, introduced, as it was, by no temporal sword — by nothing but the allegiance of the faith of those who chose to bow before the Papal throne, and those whom the Pope might appoint ? He would not enter into the nice logical distinctions which divided ecclesiastical from spiritual jurisdiction ; those he would leave to be discussed by lawyers ; but lie was a Scotchman, and what had he seen in 1843? — 153 members of the General Assembly marching out one by one —a nobler spectacle Christendom had never seen — 300 joined them ; they constituted them- selves on the instant the Free Church of Scotland, and he confessed that he felt the most profound respect for their proceeding. But they did not divide Scotland — they took the dis- tricts of Scotland as they existed ; they took the presbyteries, the synods, the parishes; and in COO of those parishes — there were but 900 in the whole of Scotland — they established ministers with manses, churches, and kirk-sessions, having spiritual dominion over every person in the parish ; they met in General Assembly ; they deliberately called theni- -eelves the Free Church of Scotland. Would any Scotch member rise in that House and tell him that the spiritual power of the Pope, who by accident was a foreigner, but who might be a British subject, living in a little house in Golden-square, was exerted one whit more than the spiritual power of that Church to which his right hon. friend the Secretary-at- War belonged? Now, this bill would, as the hon. and learned Attorney-General said, either prevent the synodical action of the Roman Catholic Church, or it would not. He presumed the hon. andlearned gentleman knew the meaning of the bill he had drawn, and he had said that it would prevent the synodical action of the Church. Were they going to prevent the synodical acti on, or rather the provincial action, of the Free Church of Scotland ? Was it fair to act so towards the one, and not so towards the other? He could not see how, but he sup- posed his right hon. friend the Secretary-at-War would clear up the difficulty. But, suppose it did not prevent the synodical action of the Roman Catholic Church, and did nothing but takeaway titles — how was even that to be done? By preventing persons assuming those titles from receiving charitable bequests. Was that all ? It was a dispute about a name. He had been told that Cardinal Wiseman liad never yet signed his name as Archbishop of Westminster since this noise began ; and he never would, and would snap his fingers in their faces at what they had done. But if the effect of the bill was only to prevent Cardinal Wiseman from signing his name as Archbishop of Westminster, then the noble lord, having received the cordial sup- port of the hon. member for the University of Oxford, and having received the thanks of the hon. member for Warwickshire for his tergiversation and complete abandonment of his former principles, had better do what he advised the Cardinal to do — walk away. There were plenty of men on that (the Opposition) side of the House quite able to go over and discharge is functions. And he (Mr. Oswald) was remarkably glad to hear the speech of his hon. friend below him on the previous evening, for it was an indication that hon. gentlemen on that side of the House were not so entirely divided as they were ; and he could not think that the noble lord would have taken this step if he had not thought they were irretrievably divided. They had all sworn to the supremacy of the Queen over the Church, and he supposed they all knew what they had individually meant ; but the supremacy of the Crown in Scotland was exercised in the manner in which the noble lord now intended to carry it out here, and the consequence had been 200 years of civil war under the succeeding monarchs of the House of Stuart. Those monarchs understood the supremacy of the Crown as the noble lord understood it. The Free Church had formally opposed it, and lost the whole of their lands and houses because they 12 V^'ould not submit to what they conceived to be an arblLrary act of that supiehiacy. He there- fore should be excessively surprised if his right hon. friend the Secretary-at-War should join in this futile and ridiculous attempt to put down what they could not prevent. Lord J. RussEi.i. then spoke as follows : — With respect to the question put by my hon. friend the member for Montrose, I can only repeat to him again, that, according to the public law of Europe, it is not lawful to erect an ecclesiastical diocese and see in any country without the consent of the Sovereign. That has been repeatedly stated, and I have not heard it contradicted by any person who has opposed this measure ; but, secondly, it is quite clear from all inquiries we have made, that there is no Sovereign in Europe who would submit to the creation of bishoprics in his territory unless his consent was obtained. Then, I say, what has been done by the Pope in this country is contrary to the well known public law of Europe, and would not have been done with regard to any other country. With respect to the arguments that have been used against any measure whatever upon this subject, after what has been said by others- after the able arguments that have been addressed to the House, I shall not think it necessary to enter further; but there has been an argument raised, particularly by the hon. member for Buckinghamshire, and enforced by the hon. and learned member for Athlone, with respect to the former conduct of the Government on this subject. Now, that argument is directed to two points — one is to the exclusive conduct of the Government of Rome, in previously supposing that this measure would be consented to — the other is the argument against the consistency of the Government, and particularly of myself. As to the first, I beg to recall to the recollection of the House that, after all I stated in 1844 and 184.5, after all that may have passed at Rome during Lord Minto's mission there — some three months after Lord Minto left Rome I declared in this House that I had not given my consent, nor would I give my consent, to the erection of sees and dioceses in this country. Therefore, whatever misapprehension may have been entertained at any previous time, this declaration, which must have been well known to the Roman Catho- lics in this country, and soon afterwards to the authorities of Rome, who were advised from this country, must have precluded all belief on their part that the English Government would be a consenting, or had been a consenting, party to such a proceeding. Therefore I think all that has been originally .stated is confirmed, that this act was done in opposition to the Govern- ment of this country, in opposition to the Crown of this country, and that its effect purporting to be to erect those sees, with powers of government — not in Edinburgh or Ayrshire, but in Westminster and Middlesex — the people of Westminster and Middlesex naturally thought that nobody ought to govern those English territories but the person who was the lawful Sovereign of the realm ; and besides, it has been stated, and the hon. member for Mayo, who is a great opponent of this measure, admitted, that the effect of it was not only to erect those bishoprics and archbishoprics, but to put an end to and abolish the Archbishopric of Canterbury and the Bishopric of London, as they have heretofore existed. If that were the case, and that were the pretension and assumption, I am at a loss to conceive how, in what has been done, there can be nothing in the case — nothing insulting, nothing interfering with the dignity of the Crown and the independence of the nation. But the next point is what the hon. membfv for Athlone and the hon. member for Buckinghamshire said, tliat it is totally inconsistent on my part to propose this measure after the declarations I made on former occasions. I am not about to say that those declarations amounted to this — that I thought it was puerile and cliildish to prevent the assumption of the titles held by the bishops of our Church by the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church ; I am not about to say that those opinions of mine are consistent with the opinions I now hold ; but 1 think I am justified in saying this — that whatever may have been my confidence with respact to the conduct of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, or with respect to the conduct of the Pope, I have found since that time that that confidence was misplaced, and 1 have thought it better clearly and plainly to avow that I was mistaken in the opinion I had formed, and that events had convinced me that I had trusted too much to their forbearance and respect for the sovereign power of this country ; and therefore, seeing that that confidence was misplaced, I must take measures in accordance with the events tliat had occurred. Then the hon. and learned member for Athlone said the reason was that those opinions were given by me out of office, but that in oflice, in 1843, seeing there was no wish further to con- sult and conciliate public opinion in Ireland, I came to a different conclusion. It does so happen that in 184(3, after I came into office, in moving the Religious Opinions Bill, I said — 1 am not prepared to say it now — that I thought the admission of all bulls might be permitted, because I did not think any bull would be introduced at variance with the rights of the Crown, or that Roman Catholics would obey them if introduced ; but, I think that from hon. gentlemen who sit in this House as Roman Catholics, and take the Roman Catholic oath, I am entitled to some indulgence and credit for the motives by which 1 have been actuated with respect to the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church ; for it did so happen that for 14 years that I sat in this House, whenever I did give a vote, I gave it for the admission of Roman Catliolics to seats in this House; and I did so, as I have felt since, at the expense of the confidence of two popular constituencies — 1 did so against the opinion of the Prince then on the throne — I did so against the opinion, as I believe, of the great majority of the people — I did so, following a man of immortal honour — following Henry Grattan, when the name of Henry Grattan betokened great eloquence and great public service. In that conduct I went on until, in 1829, Sir R. Peel introduced a bill for the admission of Roman Catholics to this House, and on the second reading of that bill he said, with a candour and manliness which did him the highest honour, that the measure was due to the exertions of Mr. Fox — to the exertions of Mr. Grattan — to the 13 t'xertions of I'lunkett, to tlic exertions of those who sat opposite to him, by whom the measure had been carried, and by whom his opposition had been defeated. 1 was one of those who then sat oi)posite to him, and who, as I have said, had constantly voted in favour of the Roman Catholics. But at a subsequent period, when Sir R. Peel introduced an act for the endowment of Maynooth, gentlemen will recollect there was great popular feeling m this country, and there were hardly any of us who th^-n sat on the Opposition benches who did not receive a letter from some constituents, saying that our seats were in peril and that we never should be elected again if we voted for that bill. With very few exceptions we supported that bill, and in a great measure were the means of carrying that bill in this House. I will not go on with other instances ; but I think the conduct of my public life has been such that it is not becoming for a Roman Catholic to rise in this House and say that what I did in 1844 and in 184.5 was merely done to conciliate popular opinion in Ireland. I wish as much as possible that Roman Catholics should have the full enjoyment of religious and of political and civil liberties. I do net think that 1 shall ever be induced to introduce a measure by which they would be prohibited from following their own modes of worship according to their own belief, or by which they would be prevented in consequence of that belief from having any of the honours of the State. Hut, when this is done, I will not be frightened by the word " |)crsecution" from asserting the due authority of the Crown and the independence of the country. I do not think we ought to submit to this, which I must again repeat is an insult to this country. I think, at all events, we should have a Parliamentary declaration which would free us from the stigma and shame of having submitted to have our country parcelled out as if it were a conquered and submissive country. I think we may do so without infringing in the least degree on the religious liberties of the Roman Catholics. I am sure that, if in the discussion of this bill it can be shown in any way that that religious liberty is infringed upon, I shall be ready to discuss the point and to remove any words with which the worship of Roman Catholics would be interfered with ; but, as has been said by a noble lord, if the Holy Sec, as I am desired to call it, had been pleased in proposing to create bishoprics to make bishoprics over Catholics in communion with the Church of Rome— if the spiritual authority had been confined to Roman Catholics, as the authority of the Free Church is confined to those who belong to the Free Church — if such had been the case, I do not think we should have any reason to complain ; but we do complain when, according to the letter of documents, and the known law of Rome, a pretension is asserted that all baptised persons should submit to the foreign dominion of Rome. I will not intrude lurther on the time of the House. I tiust we shall be allowed to introduce the bill. In a further stage of it I shall be ready to defend it, and if I cannot pretend that the course I am now pursuing is entirely consistent with the declaration I made in 1844 and 184.'), I have this strong ground — that new and unexpected circumstances have arisen, and that, in order to meet a new aggression, new means of defence are called for. Mr. Moore, in explanation, said he had merely asserted that the Pope had the right to alter Roman Catholic episcopates ; but that he never supposed for a moment, nor did any man in that House, that he had the power either to abolish or alter the dioceses that existed in this country. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 14. CONCLUSION OF DEBATE. Mr. W. F.\GAN resumed the debate on the motion for leave to bring in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and promised, considering the great length to which the debate had already gone, and how much the subject was exhausted, that he would not press long upon the indulgence of the House. He desired to state in the outset that, true to the political and commercial principles he had always held, he last night supported the Government in the division wliich then took place. He did so from a strong sense of duty, and because he believed that the course of policy proposed by hon. members on the other side of the House would prove detrimental to the best interests of the country. His constituents were most indic^nant at the course pursued by Government on the question of religious liberty; but he was confident that they would, notwithstanding, fully appreciate the vote he had last night given, and that his conduct would meet with their most cordial approval. In now addressing the House he wished to recall the Catholic view of the question before it, especially as up to Wednesday last only three Roman Catholics had addressed themsdve the subject. He held that the real question to be discussed was, "Had there or had there not been cause given by the Roman Catholics for the course now adopted by the Government.'" Had any cause been given for the insult cast upon th.at body by any infringement of the prerogatives of the Sovereign, or by any insult offered to her Majesty? He denied that there had. He knew •well that the noble loi-d at the head of the Government, and many others, believed that the doctrines of the Catholic religion fended to confine the intellect and enslave the soul • and well might such an opinion pi-evail, when it was notorious that for the last 300 years scarcely a literary work had issued from the press that did not teem with the most'false and calumnious insinuations against the Roman Catholics. No wonder, therefore, that those prejudices should exist even in the minds of the more liberal and educated classes. But his position on the present occasion was, that there had not been any assumption, territorial aggression, or interference on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He denied, also, that there had been any ostentation in the manner in which the change in he Catholic hierarchy had been brought about. The apostolic letters of the Pope and 14 the pastoral letter of Cardinal Wiseman, were never intended to be published, but only to be read to their own Hocks. It was the press, and the press alone, which brought forth those documents. Cardinal Wiseman, seeing the excitement that existed in this country, gave directions that no address of his to his own people should be published ; but the press was so ravenous on this subject that they actually sent reporters to the place of worship to record the addresses of his Eminence. The noble lord had said, that according to the letter of those documents, it was asserted that all baptised persons must submit to the Church of Rome. Now, the doctrine of the Roman Catholics on that point was, that there was but one baptism, and no matter by whom the ceremony Avas performed, whether by a layman or a clergyman, and no matter of what religious per- suasion, still that individual had received the sacrament of baptism. But the Established Church held that no baptism was good which was not performed within their own Church. The doctrine of the Roman Catholics was therefore the more tolerant of the two. All persons baptised, until they came to the age of reason, namely, seven years, when they were supposed to be able to select their own religion, were considered by the Roman Catholics to be within the fold of that religion, but after that time there was no pretence whatever on the part of the Roman Catholics to exercise any dominion, spiritual or otherwise, over any class of baptised Christians, unless they actually belonged to the Catholic religion. The whole matter, however, tui-ned upon two tenets maintained by Roman Catholics. The first tenet was, that the Pope, as the successor of St. Peter in tbe see of Rome, was by divine institution the head of the Catholic Church, and as such he had power of episcopal institution, of conferring jurisdiction, of creating sees, and of lilhng up sees in any part of tlie world where the necessity of religion demanded that he should interfere. When the noble lord said that in no other country in Enrope would tlie Pope have dared to do what he had attempted in this country, the noble lord laboured under a great misapprehension, and forgot that between those countries to which he alluded and the Holy See there existed concordats, by which the Holy See agreed to give up a certain portion of its rights. Russia, for example, had the power of recommending its bishops, which recommendation the Holy See attended to. But Russia was a despotic country, and if the Pope did not enter into a concordat with that Power the Roman Catholics wonld be altogether crushed in that country It was hardly fair to compare England, v;here religious liberty was enjoyed, with a despotic country like Russia. The same observations would apply in the case of Prussia, and also in the case of France. Besides, the noble lord should have remembered that in those countries the Roman Catholic Church was endowed. He was glad to hear the noble lord say that he had no intention to enter into a concordat with the See of Rome ; but the noble lord altogether ignored the Pope as a spiritual Sovereign, and recognised him only as a temporal Sovereign. If, then, the'Pope's spiritual authority were not recognised by this country, how was it possible that he should consult the English Government in regard to the changes which he wished to make ? The charge of insult, therefore, for not having consulted the English Government, must be thrown aside altogether. The Roman Catholics knew nothing of a Pope as a tem- poral Sovereign. They altogether eschewed his jurisdiction in a temporal point of view, and held that it would be much better for their religion if the Pope were never to exercise any temporal autliority. Most of the charges brought against the Roman Catholic religion originated in the faults and crimes committed by the Popes, who used their ecclesiastical and spiritual influence to increase their temporal power. He need only refer to the acts of Pope Alexander VI. There was no Roman Catholic who would not admit that such a man was a disgrace to the religion he professed. But, out of the 2G0 Popes that had reigned, he would defy the most violent enemy of his religion to name more than twenty or thirty that could be charged with not having acted according to the spiritual dictates of their holy office. It had been tauntingly thrown out that the Roman Catholics held a divided allegiance ; but they no more did so than the 2,000 clergy of the Established Church, who, with the Bishop of Exeter at their head, denied the spiritual supremacy of the Queen in matters of faith and doctrine. The other tenet upon vi'hich this question turned was this : — the Roman Catholics believed that the hierarchy was a divine institution, and that the person holding the see should of necessity have jurisdiction and territorial right. It was an inconsistent thing that the Pope of Rome should be Bishop of England, which, however, he nevertheless was, and the vicars- apostolic were only his agents. This measure, therefore, of the Pope would get rid of that inconsistency. He might be asked, if this were a tenet of the Roman Catholic religion, how came it to pass that it had never been acted upon since th? Reformation ? All he could say was that, from the very commencement of the Reformation, the Roman Catholics were anxious for the restoration of their hierarchy. Even in the reign of Elizabeth they applied for it. But during that reign 100 priests were hung, drawn, and quartered, because they were found enjoying their religion. Under such a system it would have been utterly useless for the Pope to attempt to introduce a hierarchy. It would only liavc led to additional persecution. The same system existed under James I. During the reign of Charles I. the Puritans had the ascendancy, so that any attempt to introduce a Roman Catholic hiemrcliy at that time would have been equally iniavailing. In the reign of Charles II. tlicy all knew that jtrejudices existed in England somewhat similar to what were seen to prevail at the present day. In the reign of James II., when the principle of toleration to Roman Catholics was for the first time admitted, they equally besought the restoration of their hierarchy, but in the subiscquent reigns, when their existence was not 15 recognised by law, and -when their numbers were few, it would have been useless to attempt to restore it. In the reign of George III., when the exercise of their religion was allowed by law, the vicars-apostolic did not viiah to see the hierarchy restored, because the Roman Catholic body was not rich, and was not very numerous ; but now that London contained more Roman Catholics than Rome itself, that they had reached 150,000 in Liverpool and ^Manchester, and numbered 1,000,000 in all within this kingdom, it was absolutely necessary to change the system and obtain an adequate supply of secular clergy, and they could not obtain that supply without a hierarchy. Under the vicars-apostolic the clergy had no protection, and were removable without cause whenever it might please their superior; and it was on spiritual grounds alone, and to remedy the want which was felt of adequate spiritual provision, that the system which had created all this excitement was set on foot. If, however, canonical rights and action were not given to the clergy, it would have been better not to have introduced the hierarchy ; but not- withstanding the threats of the noble lord of ulterior proceedmgs, he (Mr. Fagan) might state that there was tlie intention of giving canonical rights to the clergy, and to prevent their removal from those parishes into which the dioceses now formed would be ultimately divided. He asked the noble lord, who had declared he would have had nothing to complain of if the spiritual authority of the hierarchy had been confined to Roman Catholics, to abandon his bill, because that authority was over the Roman Catholics, and none other. The noble lord had no right to speak of the conduct of the spiritual head of 200,000,000 of the human race in such terms as " insolent " and " insidious." He knew that in one part of his letter the noble lord only referred to the distractions which existed in his own Church. For his own part, he thought very lightly of the conversions which were said to have taken place from the Church of lingland. He was one of those who thought men would remain in the religion in which they were educated, particularly in this country, where they were all taugiit to believe in the right of private judgment; and if they moved at all here he believed it would be in the very opposite direction to Rome; for, as they had been educated in the right of private judgment, they would soon begin to ask themselves. If we are to have private judgment, what is the use of a Church establishment, and of paying bishops large salaries to teach us? He was sur- prised, however, the noble lord should have accused the Catholic religion of a tendency to fetter the intellect and enslave the soul. Why, it was the Catholic religion that in the darkest ages had withstood barbarism and tyranny and had achieved liberty ; it had rescued the people from the oppression of feudalism, and in this country it had won for them Magna Charta. Mr. Macaulay had admitted those facts. Who first introduced the celebrated saying which was now the great Whig toast and maxim — "The sovereignty of the people?" The maligned society of Jesuits. And who had introduced the doctrine of the divine right of kings? Why the Protestant controversialists who opposed the Jesuits. As to the remarks which had been made respecting the canon law, he would observe that the canon law could not be introduced into any country where it was opposed to the civil municipal law, and the obsolete canons suited to wicked and terrible times had no force or existence at the present moment. The noble lord had dragged Ireland into his bill because, forsooth, an archbishop had not been appointed in the ordinary way, and a synod had been held in Ireland. A synod was part and parcel of the constitution of the Catholic Church, and he could not see why they should not hold national as well as general synods. No one knew what had occurred in that synod except from the address of the bishops, and that address had no force whatever without the sanction of the See of Rome. In fact, it was merely because the bishops found themselves assembled together that the address was agreed to. The noble lord had alluded to the fact that about 14 lines of it were occupied with some remarks on the tenure of land ; but was it not natural the bishops should say something on that subject after the sufferings of their flocks for the last four years .' The noble lord, again, had referred to their conduct on the education question. Now, he had advocated the Queen's colleges all along, but at the same time he insisted that the bishops had a right to interfere in the question, for education was a part of religion ; and last year the noble lord had acted on the principle that it was so. It appeared pretty plain, however, that because the bishops had acted as they were bound to do, the hierarchy of Ireland was to be destroyed, and the episcopacy, in the words of the Attorney-General, to be paralysed. Had the noble lord made up his mind for the con- sequences ? If the Attorney-General's explanation of the bill was right, marriages celebrated by the new bishops would be illegal, and if their ordination was not valid, they would, by law, be merely laymen, ^^'oukl the noble lord admit them into Parliament .' Did he think, how- ever, the Roman Catholics who professed the national religion of Ireland would submit to have their hierarchy destroyed .' The noble lord should pay attention to the observation, that when the law of man was opposed to the law of God, we should obey the latter, and not the former. He had declared he would expunge everything in his bill which infringed on religious liberty ; but full religious liberty could not exist among the Roman Catholics without their hierarchy, and the Attorney- General had shown that the hierarchy would be destroyed. He warned the noble lord not to light a flame he could not extinguish. He had once sought to place the Church establishment in Ireland on a basis more suited to the wants of the people. He was now in love with that establishment ; but he (Mr. Fagan) told the noble lord to beware, lest this act of his should bring about a repetition of the year 1836, when 400,000 men were up in arms against tithes in Ireland ; and though that impost was now made a charge on the landlord the people might renew their hostility to it. He had given the noble lord his support when- ever he could conscientiously do so, He had last evening voted for him, though he knew full 16 weJl that, in consequence of the strong indignation which existed against the noble lord he (Mr. Fagan) ran the risk of having that vote misrepresented, and his popularity diminished. But though he had so voted last night, there might from the other side, where the words " Up, guards, and at them," had already been uttered, be promulgated in a few days some proposition which hon. gentlemen on his (Mr. Pagan's) side of the House could conscientiously support, and then, if the noble lord persisted in his course of oppression, he would see them arrayed against him. He (Mr. Fagan) would never do evil that good might come : but if he could conscientiously refuse his support to Government, he certainly would vote against them. Several hon. members rose to address, but the Speaker called on Mr. F. Peel, who said he entirely concurred in the sentiments which had been more than once expressed in the course of this discussion, in which they had been now engaged for three days, that the debate was somewhat premature, somewhat vague and discursive in the range of its topics, and that it would have been carried on with greater advantage if they had first waited till they had been able to ascertain in all its bearings and in all its details the measure pro- pounded by the noble lord, and which he had moved for leave to introduce. And in the observations which he would venture, with the permission of the House, to make, it was not his intention to anticipate the line of conduct which he would take with respect to this bill in the further stages of its progress through the House, ignorant, as he was, of the particular nature of the provisions of the bill and of the extent to which they were likely to be carried into execution. But there were some points connected with that subject which were, he thought, unconnected with the particular manner in which the bill might be framed, and to which he was desirous of confining his observations as well as he could. Now, the bill had had, as the noble lord anticipated, the ill luck of satisfying neither side of the House ; at least, as far as the lower portion of the House was concerned. Hon. gentlemen on that (the Govern- ment) side of the House considered the provisions of the bill went beyond the necessity and emergency of the occasion. Hon. gentlemen on his side of the House considered that they did not come up to the emergency. Now, he had no intention to make any observations in reference[to the course taken by hon. gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, but hon. gentle- men on his side of the House had in the course of their speeches contrasted the measure of the noble lord with the speech in which he had vindicated the measure in the same indignant spirit as that which had obviously dictated the letter to the Bishop of Durham. They thanked him for his speech, they thanked him for his letter, but bis bill, if they accepted it at all, they accepted only as an instalment of what was due to them. Now, he was not surprised that hon. gentlemen who had at the numerous meetings throughout the country argued this ques- tion with so much warmth during the recess as an attack on our liberties, as an assault on the supremacy and prerogatives of the Crown, as an insult to the Church of England and to her bishops, should feel some little disappointment when they found that a question which they had argued on so extended a basis should be reduced into the narrow dimensions of a bill for the purpose of extending and enlarging the provisions of the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1821). But he protested against this question being argued as if it had been prejudged by the sense of the country, however united the voice of that country might have been. He thought their functions there were something more than simply to endorse the opinions pronounced by the country. They were bound to discuss that question for themselves ; and the question which they had, as he conceived, to consider was, whether the provocation which had been given by the Court of Rome — and he would not deny there had been provocation — nay, more, he condemned as much as any man could do the un-Christian, uncharitable spirit, the arrogant and haughty tone which pervaded every line of the pastoral letter and of the address — but the question was, as it appeared to him to be, whether that provocation did justify the interposi- tion of any legislative enactment ; and if it did, whether any measure could be framed of a more binding and stringent character than that which the noble lord had announced his inten- tion of introducing, without infringing on that which they all professed themselves, as he believed, sincerely, desirous to maintain inviolate — the sanctity of religious liberty. But while he should be extremely sorry to underrate the importance or significance of those meetings which had taken place in the country, to his mind the real value they possessed was not in the House, taking them as a measure for legislation, but in the circumstance that they had seen a great and overwhelming majority of the people meeting together and placing on record their firm and unshaken attachment to the Protestant religion as by law established. And it was not merely that circumstance, but that they had also seen Protestant Dissenters as well as Protestants of the Church of England, as he believed, under the influence of feelings to which the hon. member for Manchester had adverted when he said that they saw in the pro- ceedings taken by the Court of Rome an indication that opinions were entertained there that the Roman Catholic religion was about to make great and rapid strides in this country. He thought they had met for the purpose, in a time of doubt and of perplexity, of reassuring one another, by joint resolutions, and by declaring their determination to stand by the great prin- ciples of the Reformation, with which he thought they now could certify the people considered the cause of truth, of pure religion, and uncorrupt faith indissolubly bound up together. Now, as to the bill of the noble lord, whatever might be its merits, he thought it could not claim the merit of being a permanent and comprehensive settlement of the question. It certainly had not that merit, and the noble lord did not lay claim to it. *#* For Conclusion of Debate see next Number, Series XXI IL, Kow Ready. I.ONDQN : PUBLISHED BY JAMES GILBERT, 49, PATERNOSTER-ROW. THE ROMAN CA THOLIC Q UESTION. PAPAL AGGUESSIOX.— HOUSE OF COMMONS, PEB. 14, 1851. (Conclusion of Debate from tlie Twenty-second Series.) Mr. F, Peel continued to observe — The Attorney-General had told them its only object was to afford a remedy for a specific offence or evil of which he complained, and he said also that he thouglit in taking that course lie was acting on a wise and sound maxim of politics. That course might l)e a very wise and sound maxim, hut, at tiie same time, he thought it could not be disputed that it would be very desirable the position of the Roman Catholic Church in this countiy, in its relations to the Government and to the people, should be placed on such a footing as to render it impossible to liave any recurrence of the agitation and tumult through which the country had passed. IJut those who recommended that arrangement had generally some sucli scheme as that which had been discussed from the time of the Union to the passing of the Relief Act of 1829. He had heard the hon. member for Meatli (Mr. Grattan) allude to the hill of 1843, and say that if that measure had received the sanction of the Legislature, it would have avoided many of the heartburnings we have lately experienced. The question was considered at tlie time of the passing of the Relief Bill of 1829. At that time they were about to deprive the Church of England of those securities — if they were securities — which sl\e had till then enjoyed, in the closing of every avenue to office against the Roman Catholic Church, and they had then to consider if they would substitute any other securities in place of them. Well, he thought they then took a wise and sound course; they were aware that a communi- cation had always been carried on with the Court of Rome, which was, indeed, rendered ne- cessary by the community which existed between the see of Rome and the Catholic Church. They determined to leave it entirely free and uncontrolled, and trusted to the loyalty and good faith of the Catholics, and to the conviction that they would not be made instruments of poli- tical intrigue, or interfere with the internal domestic and temporal concerns of the country. And they had dealt in the same way witli the hierarchy of that Church. Government said, we have no desire to have any voice in the nomiriation or selection of the bishops of the Church of Rome. They trusted in the good sense of the Pope, and that he would not select persons who would render themselves, by turbulent and disloyal conduct, distasteful to the people of this country ; and he thought the noble lord had pointed out without exception the inconve- nience and embarrassment which would have resulted from any harsh course ; and he had heard with satisfaction that the noble lord had no intention of interfering with the interna! organisation of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, with respect to these considerations, there were two points on which he felt very strongly, and by which he would be in a very great mea- sure actuated in the course he would adopt. The points in question were the position of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, and the constitution of that Church. With respect to the former point, reference might be made to the abstract question of law ; but we had seen that not much value was to be attached to the consideration, for Government declined to pro- secute under an Act of Parliament, not because there was anything ambiguous, faltering, or hesitating in the language of the Act, but because it had become obsolete, no recent precedents of prosecution having occurred under its provisions. But, setting aside the abstract question of law, it must be admitted that, as the matter now stood, to all intents and purposes, Roman Catholics might, with perfect impunity, recognise the Pope of Rome, and the Pope might ex- ercise in this country spiritual and ecclesiastical authority as far as Roman Catholics were con- cerned. There were persons, he knew, who thought the adoption of an opinion of this kind hardly consistent with the oath of supremacy taken by Protestant members at the table of that House. For his part, he was able to take that oath with a very clear conscience, and yet maintain this opinion. He would not take refuge in the construction which some put on the form of words contained in that oath, namely, that it amounted only to a declaration that the Pope had no jurisdiction which could be legally enforced. What he conceived the words called upon them in their consciences to affirm was, that the spiritual headship over the Church claimed by the Court of Rome was a claim unsound in sense and Scripture. It happened, how- ever, that a great body of our fellow-subjects held a different opinion. For a long time we prosecuted them for holding that opinion. 15ut times were changed, and Roman Catholics had been admitted to all the privileges of British subjects ; but that circumstance would not pre- vent him from maintaining the doctrine that the Pope had no authority, and ought to have none, within this realm. With respect to the second point, namely, the constitution of the Church of Rome, it appeared that it was essentially an episcopal Chuixh. It was placed en- tirely under the government of men who claimed a divine mission for their authority. These men composed the hierarchy of the Church of Rome, and if you prevented that Church fro'Vi Twenty-third Seriei.— Price Threehalfpence.l [James Gilbert, 49, PateracEter-row- Of whom may be had "The Roman Catholic Question," Xos. I, to XXII. having l)isliops the hiciarchy would be incomplete, and unquestionably the liberty oi the Roman Catholic Church would be encroaclied on. It wns atlmitted that tlio vicars-apostolic who had governed the Roman Catholic Church in this country for the last 300 years were bishops, and capable of discharging any of the spiritual functions appertaining to the office of a bishop. It was impossible to deny that some ecclesiastical jurisdiction belonged to the Roman Catholic bishops. Every religious society must have some pcv.er to administer its ecclesias- tical concerns, and we know that for 300 years the ecclesiastical concerns of the Roman Catholic Church in this country had been administered by vicars apostolic under the constitu- tion contained in the brief of Pope Benedict XIV. So that all the cliange which had taken place recently v,'as the substitution of the code of the Church, the canon law, by the Roman Catholic Church for the temporary government, the vicars-apostolic, under which its affairs had hitherto been administered. If the government by bishops in ordinary was necessary for the administration of the canon law, he could see no just cause of complaint in the Pope constituting the diocesan form of government for the purpose of adminis- tering that law. " But," said the noble lord at the head of the Government, " when we examine the act by which the dioceses are formed and episcopal government constiluted, we find them utterly inconsistent with the liberties of the country and the rights of the Crown ; for what has the Pope done? He, a foreign power, has assumed the privilege of raising cer- tain towns in this country to the rank of cities, of forming sees, and making them the seats of episcopal authority, tilling those sees with bishops nominated by himself, and authorising them to assume titles derived from the designation of places where their churches are set up, and conferring upon them ecclesiastical jurisdiction." The noble lord further said that the assumption of the titles thus given — titles conferring rank, dignity, and precedence — was an invasion of the rights of the Sovereign, who was invested by the constitution of the country with the sole prerogative of conferring titles of honour and dignity. The noble lord, however, did not confine his objection to the mere assumption of ecclesiastical titles, l.e also complained of parcelling out the country iiito dioceses. Upon this point the noble lord said that the public law of Euroije was on his side, and that it prohibited the Pope from creating dioceses in a country without the sanction of the Sovereign of that country. But he (Mr. Peel) was not satisfied upon this point — namely, whether the public law referred to by the noble loid had not grown up to determine the relations between the Court of Rome and those Roman Catholic countries only where t lat religion was established absolutely, and where the rights of bishops and clergy, and of the clergy and laity respectively, were guaranteed by law. It was obvious that in that case a foreign i)ower could not dispense with the law of a country which had re- ceived the sanction of the Government of that country. But see the evil of legislating on this subject. Go a little way, and your act is impotent; go further, audit became a dead letter. The Attorney-General told the flouse he hsd good grounds for believing that, the bill would prevent synodical action. The hon. and learned gentleman said he made that statement on the authority of an allegation in Cardinal Wiseman's "Appeal;" but, if that were the only authority he had for making the statement, it might be doubted whether the resources of the Roman Catholic Church would be so easily exhausted, and whether they would not find some means of evading the provisions of the bill. It was stated that some evil had already been experienced in Ireland, and that similar evil might be expected to result in this country from the intioduction of the canon lf.w ; and the noble nicn>her for Bath dwelt with particular em- phasis on the fact that one of the avowed objects of the constitution of the diocesan form of government in this country was the introduction of the code of the Roman Catholic Church — the canon law ; and with great research he brought to light a great number of passages from that code — a code, be it recollected, which Lord Stowell, sitting as an ecclesiastical judge in the diocesan court of London, eulogised as a system deeply founded in the wisdom of men. Tlic noble mendicr for Bath cited several passages from the canon law of a very reprehensible and disgusting character, chiefly with the view of showing that the ler.or of that law was ojiposed lo the spirit and policy of the civil law. But the real question was, what was the sanction for the canon law in this country ? Was submission to the provisions of the canon law merely voluntary ? There was a great difference between the canon law and the ecclesi- astical law in this country. AVe had incorporated the ecclesiastical law into our law, and the civil jjowcr gave efl'ect and sanction to it. The hon. and learned member for Oxford contrasted the conduct of the Pope in introducing the canon law into this country with the course t..ken by our consuls in certain districts of Turkey, where they administered foreign law differing from the municipal law of those districts. But what were the conditions under which the consuls administered law in the Levant ? In our case the Pope had not received the consent of the Crown by diplomatic arrangement, or in any other way, to the introduction of the code of the Church; but the consular jurisdiction was exercised by the consent of the powers in whose territory the consuls were stationed, and the decision of the consular courts was enforced, if necessary, by the aid of the civil power. [The hon. member read an extract from a treaty between Russia and Denmark in support of this view of the question.] He greatly doubted the policy of protecting the Roman Catholic laity from the provisions of a code to which they paid only a voluntary submission. Reference bad been made to the inconvenience exijerien'cd from synodical action. We had seen bishops of the Irish Roman Catholic Church meeting together for the i>urpose of exerting their i)owcr to the utmost to frustrate an Act of Parliament which opened to the middle classes of that country an opportunity vvliicli, lie trusted, they would not be deterred from aviiilino; tliemselves of, of giving to their children the advantage of a sound education in every branch of litera- ture and science without exposing them to the slightest taint as regards their tenets, morality, or their religious doctrines, lie condemned that improper interference, seeing that we had recognised, at last, education as the great moral agent — as the great secu- rity for the stability and permanence of our institutions. But, if we wished to oppose the introduction and administration of the canon law — if we thought we could, by the bill about to be introduced, prevent synodical action, he greatly feared we had miscalculated our resources — he greatly doubted whether we should not be found destitute of the ability to carry out what we were desirous to effect, and that, finally, we should regret having furnished another illustration proving how utterly powerless the heavy arm of temporal power was in dealing with the voluntary submission of the mind — of dealing with those questions of imaginary sentiment, as they were called by some one, which resided within the precincts of the conscience. One word on the theological part of the question, for it assumed a twofold aspect, jiart political and part theological. Unquestionably there had been a virtual denial or non-recognition of the Church of England, and of its claim to be deemed a branch of the great Catholic Church. We had been told that our bishops were no bishops, that our clergy were no clergy, and that our services and sacraments had no more binding force and virtue than mere civil ordinances and regulations of the State. These allegations had doubtless exercised a strong influence on the minds of many persons ; but, for his part, he did not desire his view of the question to be influenced by any considerations of that kind. He did not wish to trust to any Act of Par- liament for the vindication of the Anglican Church. He relied with great confidence on tlie power of controversial writings — on the power of appeals to the good sense of the people — on the power cvhich we had of demonstrating that the pretension of the Church of Rome to spiritual headship was not only claimed without warrant in Scripture, but utterly opposed to it. The present time was marked by no feeling of indifference to the Church of England and the extension of her influence. The opinion, perhaps, might not be shared by many, but he was strongly impressed with the conviction that at no period — and this was, in a great measure, owing to the absence of legislative restrictions — was the Church of England, notwithstanding tlic dilTerences and dissensions prevailing in her bosom — notwithstanding the efforts of those who were labouring to overlay the simplicity of the Common Prayer-book with the ritual and ceremonial observances not in consonance with the spirituality that characterised Protestant worship — notwithstanding the efforts of those who were labouring to give the clergy the character of the intercessorial and mediatorial priesthood which did not belong to tiiem — notwithstanding all these unfavourable circumstances, his conviction was that the Church of Engh'.nd was never more deeply grounded in the affections of the great bulk of the people than at this moment. Looking around him, and observing in every direction the zealous co-opera- tion of the clergy and hiity in building endowed schools, erecting churches, and making pro- vision for the spiritual instruction of the people, he could not close his mind against the conviction that the Church of England was well founded in the affections of the English people. Whatever might have been the past condition of the Church, experience had shown that it could maintain its ground without the aid of artificial support — nay, that she couM not only maintain her ground, but make way against rival religious denominations by daily draw- ing within her pale an ever-widening circle of the people of this country. The Church of England had nothing more to fear from the Church of Rome. The basis on which our Church rested — the Scriptures, which every man could read and exercise his judgment in interpreting — rendered her impregnable to the assaults of Rome; and he confessed he saw more evil in abandoning that wise and prudent course of granting full toleration to every denomination of religious associations in this country, which the Church of England, v.ith a true a[ipreciation of her own interest, and with a clear insight into what was conducive to her real interests, had, tardily it might be, but still he hoped heartily, consented to recognise. Sir J. DuKR felt under great disadvantage in addressing the House at all times; and that disadvantage was certainly not lessened cm the present occasion by his vising as he did imme- diately after the hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down. Indeed, had he consulted merely his own feelings he would gladly have contented himself with giving a silent vote on the present question ; but, having the honour to represent an important constituency, which had been referred to by the hon. member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), he felt it necessary to say a few words with which he hoped the House would indulge him. But, before he referred to the observations of the hon. member for Manchester, he begged to say that somethins like an unfair censure had been cast upon the noble lord at the head of the Government for the letter which he had addressed to the l^ishop of Durham. It linr^ bee^i said that that letter had been the means of occasioning the meetings which had taken place in London and throughout the country, and that the noble lord, being in want of " political capita!," found it necessary to call upon the people to come forward and resist Papal aggression. It had also been alleged that that letter was published on the day before the 5th of November, in order to excite the City on the occasion of the annual processions. Now, he (Sir J. Duke) happened to be abroad at the time that letter was published, but, on his return, he took the opportunity of going over the public papers to see what course the City of London and the public had taken upon this important question in his absence ; and he found that, so early as the I4th of October, nearly the whole of the newspapers of the capita! had united in calling upon the public and the Government to resist the Papal aggression. He found articles to the same effect in those papers on the 21st and 22nd of October. On the 23rd appeared a letter from a gentleman at Exeter, desiring to know whether the noble lord and the Government supported the appoint- ment of Dr. Wiseman. On the 25th the clergy of Westminster met, and addressed the Bishop of London. On the 30th the inhabitants of the important parish of St. George, in the metropolis, met for the same object. On the 31st the London clergy also met, and addressed the bishop. On tlie 28th a reply appeared to the Exeter letter, from the secretary of the Premier, to the effect that, neither directly or indirectly, had the noble lord sanctioned the appointment of Dr. Wiseman. On the 2nd of November he found that the great parish of Marylebone, in vestry assembled, protested against the Papal aggression. He found also that the parish of Stepney met about the same time, and that similar meetings were held at Gloucester, Canterbury, Dover, Deal, Southampton, Worcester, Reading, and other places— all before the appearance of the noble lord's letter. That letter appeared only on the 7tli of November, so that it was an error to say that it was published on the 4th for the purpose of exciting the public on the following day. On the 7th of November took place the meeting of the corporation of London ; but he could assure the House that the noble lord's letter had nothing to do with that meeting, which was held on the usual day, and had been summoned a week before. Being a member of that corporation, he was unwilling to say anything about its proceedings, except to remind the House that they had the high honour of approaching the Sovereign on great and important occasions ; and, although he had been twenty years con- nected with the corporation, he never remembered it availing itself of that privilege except in the present instance ; and he presumed that nothing but the consideration that it was a case of unusual importance would have induced them to do so. But although he would say nothing more of the proceedings of the corporation, he might be allowed to refer to the great and important meeting of bankers, merchants, and traders of the City of London. Among other meetings which had taken place throughout the country, there was one, he believed, of the enlightened constituents of the hon. member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck), who had not only addressed the Queen, but had passed a vote of thanks to the noble lord. Now, those meetings had been described as the result of intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry. He (Sir James Duke) did not know whether that was the case or not; but he believed that if those addresses to the Queen had been petitions to the House of Commons in support of some favourite scheme of free-trade policy, certain hon. members would have talked loudly enough of the dignity of the ancient corporation of London, the great weight of the merchants, bankers, and traders of the first commercial city in the world, and the intelligent and irre- sistible voice of the country. He did not know what might be the result of this debate; but he was quite certain, that by whatever combination of parties the measure might ultimately be defeated, the feeling of the country would rally round the noble lord and his Government, and, in the language of the magnificent speech with which he had introduced the measure, would show them that they were ready to resist the Papal aggression "in all points and with all their power." With regard to the I'emarks which the hon. member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had made respecting the Rev. Dr. Russell, he begged to say that he had known that rev. gentleman for many years, and that a more upright, exemplary, and pious clergy- man could not be found in the Church or country; and, when he found his name mentioned as having had recourse to or sanctioned the exactions which had taken j)lace in a meeting- house in his parish, he felt it due to liim to him to say, that he had no more to do with that transaction than the hon. member himself ; and that the persons who were alone responsible for it were the parochial authorities acting under a warrant from one of the magis- trates of the City of London, than whom he would venture to say there was no set of men more kind or considerate in the discharge of such delicate and dillicult duties. Mr. B. Wall said that it ought always to be considered, in dealing with this question, that there were only two ways in which the Pope could act in the case of Protestant States which were foolish enough not to have a concordat with him, viz., either by excommunicating them or by ignoring their existence ; and he need not say that the Pope had adopted the most gracious of those two modes of proceeding towards the noble lord. When he listened to the speech of the noble lord on introducing the measure, he was in hopes he would be able to congratulate him, and those who supported him, at least upon this, that it would be the viinimuin interference. After listening to the speech of the Attorney-General, however, he found, to his regret, that it amounted to the miuimiun of persecution. He said advisedly the maahnicm of persecution, because he knew no persecution so grating to individuals as bit by bit persecution, the extent of which thoy never knew, and which was to be dealt out to them according to the amount of mental reservation which they displayed. If they had much mental reservation they were to have little persecution ; but, if they were bold, honest, true, and faithful Catholics, the persecution was to be proportionately increased. He called the bill of the noble lord an aggressive measure, because, without saying who threw the first stone, it was the first Parliamentary measure of aggression that had been introduced since 1829. It was hostile to all the noble lord's previous declarations ; and he must say, that if the noble lord had changed his opinions, as he had, of course, a perfect right to do, he was, at any rale, bound to acquaint those who were in the habit of sujiiiorting him with the change which was gradually taking place in his own mind; and he would go further, and say that he was above all, bound to tell his friend and ally the Pope, with whom he had formerly been in such habits of intimacy and confidence. It appeared to him that the conduct of the Pope in this case was exceedingly natural. He could imagine his Holiness sitting in an arm- chair in the Vatican, with every enjoyment about him except that of seeing the Times news- paper daily, a misfortune which, of bourse, he brought upon himself — he could imagine the l'o|)e sitting there, and saying to himself, " I look back into the history of the Irish Church, and I find that there has been an imintcrruptcd succession of Irish Catholic bishops. I find from the pages of Hansard (for the Pope would doubtless have Hansard, though he had not the Times newspaper) — I know that my bishops in Ireland have always been treated with great deference and respect by the English Government. I know that titles are given them, that the cntrde of the Court is allowed them, and that everything they aslv is bestowed upon them. I find that the Queen's prerogative extends alike to England and Ireland, and I cannot conceive tliat it would be a greater insult to the Queen that I should have bishops in England than that I should liave bisliops in Ireland. I don't expect, of course, my former friend and confidant to say that he entirely ajiproves my appr)intmcnt of bishops and archbishops in England, but I know what liis leanings arc, and what his Government have uniformly done, and I don't anti- cipate any difficulty. I shall therefore issue my brief on the subject." He (Mr. Wall) thought such would naturally be the feelings of the Pope ; and he did not see how the noble lord could well be surinised at what had occurred. It had, perhaps, not been so much noticed as it de- served, that notwithstanding the prevalence of practices in religious worship which were sup- posed to have a tendency to Romanism, not one Scotch Presbyterian had quitted the faith in which he was educated — a fact that appeared to him rather curious. In the next remark which he was about to make, he felt that he should not carry with him the assent of the Prime Mi- nister; but, with great deference to that noble lord, he could not help saying that in religious matters ultramontane opinions had been usually met, and must in general be encountered, by opinions of a more moderate character, and if the noble lord needed any instances to convince him of that truth he need only look through the debates of the last ten years. Now, what were the reasons which the noble lord gave for bringing forward such a bill as was then before the House? Among those reasons he found the wishes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the appointment of Dr. CuUen to the Roman Catholic Primacy of Ireland, the meetings and deci- sions of the Synod of Thurles; and because tliat body took into its consideration the occupa- tion of land in Ireland, such a fact was made one of the grounds for introducing the measure now under consideration. VfUt, surely, that did not form a sufficient reason for altering the jjolitical ])rinciplcs which the noble lord had hitherto professed. In liis opinion, the eflcct of such legislation would be to make every Roman Catholic a Jesuit and every priest a spy. It was said that in the bill of 1829 it was proposed to insert a clause very similar in effect to that wliich was now sought to be accomplished by the bill of the noble lord ; but that proposition was not then successful, and it was not immaterial to observe that the noble lord opposed it. 'J'he wish, he believed, of the noble lord once had been to govern without the aid of bills of ]>ains and penalties ; but he regretted to observe that the noble lord was now apparently giving up that principle. With regard to the present measure, he should say, before he sat down, that if the bill were to become the law of the land it should be sifted most carefully ; but, whatever care might be bestowed on it, he did not hesitate to express his belief that in Ireland great difficulty would be found in carrying it into execution. The Irish members of the House did not support the views taken by the noble lord, and, if he did not carry the measure with unanimity, it was to be feared that its operation in Ireland would prove unsuccessful. In his opinion, it was a bill that would redound neither to the safety of the State nor the peace of the country. ' Mr. G. A. Hamilton said, that as other hon. members had been allowed to introduce irre- levant matter, he perhaps nught be permitted to notice one or two topics which did not very strictly come within the scope of the debate. His hon. and learned friend and colleague was accused of having altered his sentiments, which was quite a mistake, for the opinions which he held antecedent to the year 182'.) were opinions that he still retained. His hon. and learned friend and colleague had always said that he regarded the question which Parliament dealt with in 182[) as a settled question, but the hon. member for Athlone seemed to deny that, and brought forward as an accusation against his hon. friend the alleged fact that he had been the secretary to one of the Brunswick Clubs, which were organised for the purpose of resisting the law in case the Roman Catholics were to be emancipated. With reference to this, he wished to say that his hon. friend had no recollection of having filled any such office. [Mr. Kcogh inquired if the hon. and learned gentleman denied having been secretary to a Brunswick dub?] The club in which he held the office of secretary was not established with the avowed purpose of resisting the law under any circumstances. The members of that club were men of the highest rank in society, and of the most undoubted loyalty. The association to which his hon. and learned friend was secretary was a society established in 18.32, the objects of which were to develope the resovn-ces of Ireland and to ameliorate the condition of the people. The other mis-statement made by the hon. member for Athlone had reference rather to the University of Dublin than to the members who represented it in that house. In reply to tliat, he should say it was quite a mistake to suppose that there were no honours or emoluments in Trinity Col- ege open to Roman Catholics. There were honours, the money value of whichdid not amount to less than 6,910/., open alike to Protestants and Catholics; and, excluding the Professorship of Divinity, excluding the fellowship and others on the foundation, the pecuniary advantages open exclusively to Protestants did not amount to more than 4,752A It was said that the junior fellows enjoyed enormous incomes. A stipend of 40/, Irish was all that the junior fel- lows received out of the funds of the University. It was true that the 28 junior fellows had among them tlic education of the 1,500 students, but the|iuimber of pupils that any of the junior fellows had greatly depended upon their own reputation and influence. Then with re- spect to the manner in which Government patronage was dispensed in Ireland, he could not help noticing the fact that Mr. Henn and Mr. Bennett were passed over, whereas, if they were Roman Catholics, they would probably now have been on the bench. There was another mis- statement which he wished to correct; it was this — that Sir E, Sugden, when Chancellor of Ireland, had distinctly recognised Dr. Crolly as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh. It was not so. Reports made up in the master.s' offices in Chancery were not made known to the Chancellor in all their details; the important, or disputed parts, were brought under his notice, but it was not usual for him to make himself acquainted with their entire contents ; therefore Sir E. Sugden could not be said to have given his sanction to any such assumption of title. But now, passing from these topics, he .would ask, had the Government laid sufficient ground for the measure that had been introduced. It did appear to him most conclusively that the act of the Pope was a violation of the law of Europe ; it violated the spiritif not the letter of the law of England. A great indignity was therefore offered to the regality of the Queen. That being his opinion he thought it right that the largest possible ground should have been laid for the introduction of the bill, and this was all that he should for the present say, for he had no wish to discuss the details of the measure till the bill was laid on the table of the House. He should only add that the noble lord and his party had effected great changes, and removed many re- strictions, and in doing so they conceived that they were advancing the cause of civil and reli- gious liberty ; but perhaps it would be found that, yielding as they had done to the demands of the Roman Catholics, they were by no means promoting the cause of civil and religious liberty. Mr. Sadleie observed that the statement respecting the secretaryship of the hon. member opposite had last year been made by himself, and this year reiterated by the hon. member for Athlone. The hon. and learned member said be had no recollection of the circumstance ; but he (Mr. Sadleir) challenged him to deny the fact, and the hon. and learned member, he observed, was silent. Would the hon. and learned member deny that he was a member, if not secretary, of a Brunswick club within the precincts of the University of Dublin, and that he spoke in that club? The hon. gentleman (Mr. Hamilton) denied that these were illegal associations. But he would assert that Brunswick clubs were regarded by every statesman of the time as illegal associations, and as subjecting their members to the pains and penalties of the law. Before he proceeded to examine whether the spirit of the Emancipation Act had been carried out by the Whigs during the seventeen years in which they had been in office, let him express his gratification that the author of that act had left us a living pledge and a posi- tive security in the hon. member for Leominster that the principle of that great act would not be reversed, and he could not but congratulate the people of this country that the late Sir R. Peel had left behind him a son so worthy of his renovi-n and of the statesmanlike career of one whose loss he feared the House would long have to deplore. The noble lord (J. Russell) the other night asserted that since the act of 1829 the larger portion of the public patronage of the State in Ireland had been conferred upon persons professing the Roman Catholic faith. An hon. gentleman on the Treasury bench shook his head, but he had with him the passage of the noble lord's speech in the Times newspaper, which he would read, if his accuracy were questioned. Now, the noble lord was incapable of manufacturing a fact, and he must, there- fore, have been made the instrument of some party who had designedly advanced one of the most palpable mis-statements that he (Mr. Sadleir) had heard expressed during the present session of Parliament, even from the Treasury bench. He asserted, on the contrary, that the heads of every public department in Ireland were Protestants. Inevcry department, of the pub- lic service an undue proportion of officials was taken from gentlemen professing I he Protestant religion. He challenged contradiction to this statement. Irislmien without distinction or creed had indeed been excluded from their fair participation in offices connected with the pub- lic service in this country. To begin with the Cabinet. Ever since the passing of the act of \%i'J every Roman Catholic had been systematically excluded from the Cabinet, a. id in this instance, to begin with, the Whigs had failed in carrying out the spirit of the {'".niancipation Act. In the colonies Irishmen A'cre denied their fair share of public patronage. No office in the cobnies was considered safe in the hands of an Iri-slnnan, unless it might be some post within one degree of the lowest. He had before adverted to the patronage of oui Indian em- pire, and contended that it was not so dispensed as to do justice to Ireland. The noble lord, in his speech the othernight, said that out of three Chief Justices in Ireland two were Roman Catholics and one Protestant; and he left the House to conclude that, therefore, tb'' Catholics had obtained promotion upon the judicial bench in the proportion of three to '.wo. Now, a few facts would siiow how unfounded w.as any such iiifcrence. The office of Lord Chancellor had been five limes vacant since the act of 1829, yet it could only be filled by a Protestant. Only one Roman Catholic Master in Chancery had been ai)pointed since 182?. Out of twelve common law judges five were Roman Catholics. There were seven judges in the Court of Chancery, in the receipt of 25,000/. a-year, and only one Roman Catholic could be found in that body, who got 2,761 f. In the Queen's Bench the judges were all Protestants, yet in that court there had been five vacancies since 182'J. The two Remembrancers w^ere Proteitants ; the two Bankrupt Commissioners were Protestants. Of the five Taxing Masters only one was a RomanCatholic. Tlic tliree Encumbered Estates Commissioners were all Protestants. If he looked to the Chancery official stalF he found seventy-three oflicers, whose emoluments were 00,000/. a-year; sixteen of these were Roman Catholics, who received not quite 3,000/. a-y ar. There were twenty-two otBcers of the stafF of the Law Exchequer, who received at least 10,000/. a-year, who were all Protestants. The assistant-barristers were tliirty- two in number, who received, exclusive of fees, 15,000/. a-year. Eight of this body were Roman Catholics, taking 3,732/. a-year. The twelve judges in the Conmion Law Courts received altogether 47,524/., of whom three were Roman Catholics. Of the eighty-two officers of those courts, receiving 23,951/., seventeen were Roman Catholics, receivingamong them loss than 3,800/. a year. And this was his answer to the noble lord. There were eighty-two oflScers connected with the common law courts receiving 23.^23/. a year, but seventeen of them only were Roman Catholics, and of that amount they received only 3,800/. Happily, they had in Ireland a Viceroy vvho had taken every opportunity of proclaiming that he v.ould dispense the public patronage j)ertaining to his office so as to carry out the principles enunciated by the hon. member for the University of Dublin, by promoting those who were entitled to dis- tinction and promotion on account of their professional merit. Now, if the Irisii bar, knowing that those were the principles of the Viceroy, found members of that bar, without any profes- sional standing or any character for legal erudition, advanced to judicial offices in Ireland, they felt that there was a twofold injury indicted on them, because they considered it was a prac- tical condemnation of their claims to the confidence and respect of their countrymen. It was that feeling that had iriitated members of the Irish bar as to the distribution of public patron- age, and he could not help saying that tiie promotion to the office of assistant-barrister in Ireland of some gentlemen was a disgrace to the Government, and an act which the Irish Ijar justly resented. The noble lord should recollect, too, that, while they had the important office of legal adviser to the Lord-Lieutenant filled by a gentleman professing the Protestant religion, the Catholics and Irishmen had a just cause to complain, lie been led to make these remarks by the observations of tlie noble lord on a former evening. But now with reference to tiie bill the noble lord sought to introduce, and the necessity for it. The noble lord had entertained the Mouse, in the course of the three speeches he had made on this subject, with a review of ecclesiastical history, and had endeavoured to raise an analogy between the condition and cir- cumstances of another country, and this calculated to enlighten them in the dilemma into which they had been brought. But the noble lord might have told them that in former limes, even in Ireland, the usual mode of appointing a bishop was by the dean and chapter of the diocese, with the consent of the King and the concurrence of the Pope ; and that was a very natural arrangement, looking at the circumstances of the time. It was a wise and natural arrangement, for instance, in the case of the archdiocese of Cashel, when, in former times, the same individual combined in his own person the office of king and archbishop of the diocese. As to the cry of "No Popery" that had been raised in this country, for it was nothing less, he would remind English gentlemen that there was no subject upon which it was so easy to excite the religious feelings and prejudices of the people as that cry, and those who had devoted their wealth and ability to hound on the people in that senseless cry ought to recollect how actively the agents of infidelity might mark, in our wretched dissensions, the weakness of Christianity, and the opportunities those dissensions gave them of disseminating the poison of their own principles. The greatest Protestants in this country had constantly declared in their writings and speeches that the principles of Protestantism stood upon a firmer basis than the fragile aid that could be derived from statutory enactments; and to his Catholic feilow-subjects he would say that, at this juncture, it behoved '.hem to be vigilant and firm. He felt a natural and honest pride in belonging to a body so loyal and faithful, notwithstanding the slanders that had been vented against the practices and doctrines of their religion — he felt an honest pride in belonging to a body who had always been distinguished by their alL^giance to their Sovereign. As to the charges of the press, his answer was the declaration of a Protestant divine, who had justly paid the tribute that was due to all that was admirable and valuable in the faith he (Mr. Sadleir) professed. One of the most distinguished divines of the Protestant Church had borne teslimony to the fact, that the missionaries of the Catholic Church were to be found in every clime scaling the ramparts of infidelity, and planting on its highest citadel the triumphant banners of their faith. The Cathohcs had won their present position by the dignified and honourable course of constitutional exertions. It was not to the noble lord, or the isolated elTorts of any individual, that they owed the legislative advantages they had won. They had subdued and overcome the spirit of religious interference by controlling their own passions : and by their dignified resignation, by their firm fortitude under years of persecution and oppression, guided by the energies, the unrelaxing eftbrts, the towering genius, the con- stitutional knowledge, the legal acumen, and undeviating allegiance and fidelity of their own O'Connell, had they gained their emancipation and the gradual resurrection of their country. And he would ask them to recollect the services they had rendered to the cause of religious freedom, and to bear in mind that the moment might be near at hand when they would be called upon to decide whether they would gradually sink down into a depression and insig- nificance greater and more obscure than any from which they had emerged, or be triumphantly conducted to national concord and permanent peace. Mr. M. Gibson wished to make a few obseivations in order to explain the course he should take on the motion of the noble lord. It was seldom that a motion made by the Government to bring in a bill was much discussed ; and, having been in Parliament since 1838, with a short interval, that was the first occasion on which he had been invited to embark on a policy involving the principles embodied in the proposition of the noble lord ; and he might therefore be permitted to hesitate in taking any course in a matter of that grave importance without full deliberation, and without being fully satisfied in his own mind that his reasons for whatever course he might take were founded upon pure considerations. He had frequently been asked to oppose the removal of the disabilities from some of his fellow-countrymen, which disabilities had been laid on them on account of their religious opinions ; but he said again that was the first time he had been invited to impose disabilities on men on account of such opinions. l'"or what was the proposal of the noble lord? The noble lord invited him to join him in passing a penal law against men who desired, by voluntary aid and association among themselves, to support that form of ecclesiastical discipline which they believed to be best calculated to promote the religion they professed. This was not a proposal on the part of the English Catholics, calling upon the Legislature to invest their religion with legislative freedom, or to give the British Legislature power to tax this country for the purpose of spreading the Roman Catholic religion. It was nothing of that kind ; but it was a proposal from those who, he could hardly think, had any jurisdiction in the case, that the Parliament — not asked to dip into the pockets of the Ex- chequer, or impose any law upon the people of England with reference to this subject — should go out of their way without, as it appeared to him, having any jurisdiction in the matter, to impose penalties upon men for carrying out that form of religious discipline which they thought in their consciences was the best mode to promote the object they had in view. He could hardly think, after all, that it was intended to carry this measure out. There were various reports abroad tending to tliat impression ; in fact, he had seen that morning a statement in a leading organ — the Times, a paper understood to shadow forth the views of the Government — to the efl'ect that Ireland was to be left out of the bill. Now, if Ireland were to be left out of the bill, or if there were any tacit understanding that the bill should pass, but not be enforced in Ireland, it appeared to him that it would have been far better not to have put Ireland into the bill at all. It appeared to him, further, very strange that the House should be invited to apply to the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland provisions which were not applied to the Roman Catholics in the other portions of her Majesty's dominions. If it was so essential to prevent, by this law of pains and penalties, the episcopal organisation of the Roman Catholics in this country, why was it not equally essential to prevent that organisation in the British colonies, in North America, in Australia, and elsewhere ? If to any part of her Majesty's dominions this m.easure was properly applicable, why not to all ? Surely the interference of a foreign potentate was equally to be resisted in our possessions abroad as in the three kingdoms at home? If it were the fact that the appointment by the Pope of Rome of bishops in the realm of England was, according to the law of nations, a violation of the supremacy of the Crown, and of the independence of the country, then, manifestly, it was the duty of the Government not to shrink from vindicating that suprem.acy and that independence in all her Majesty's dominions throughout the world. It was impossible, he thought, to gainsay this proposition, and therefore, when he found that the bill was only to apply to the United Kingdom, he felt that those who supported it must be insincere when they spoke of it as based upon temporal, secular considerations, having reference to the Queen's supremacy, and to the independence of the country. The House had been invited to come to the consideration of this ([uestion under feelings of insult and indignation. They were constantly told that, if they did not feel themselves insulted and indignant, they ought to feel insulted and to be indignant. Now, he himself quite agreed with the Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Thirlwall, that there had been no insult in the matter on the part of the Roman Catholics, and he therefore came to the consideration of the question perfectly free from excitement. They were also constantly told that those who supported this micasure were the advocates of religious liberty ; and it was said, "Don't be alarmed; the thing only looks like a penal statute on the face of it; if you scrutinise it you will find nothing of the sort in it, for, he assured, that gentlemen who have always advocated the broad principles of religious liberty would not support a law of pains and penalties on account of religion." This, however, was not the first time they had heard pro- fessions of religious liberty from m3n who were advocating penal laws. Nothing was more common on the part of those who advocated penal disabilities against the Roman Catholics in former times, on the very account of their religion, than to say, at the same moment, that tliey were the advocates of religious liberty, and that it was precisely for the sake of religious liberty thai they desired to keep down the Roman Catholics and the Roman Catholic religion. Lord Eldon, for example, a great authority in those times, used always to say that he should be the last man in the world to interfere with perfect freedom of conscience in any person, but that reasons of State policy made it necessary to exclude Roman Catholics from the enjoyment of equal civil privileges with other men, and that this had nothing to do with any infringement of religious liberty. It had been alleged, tliat as the English Roman Catholics owed a divided allegiance, they were very likely to aid the temporal purposes of the Po)ie, and that they were therefore unfit to make laws for this country. He, for one, therefore, should not be deterred from scrutinising this measure narrowly merely because its supporters talked about religious liberty. Tiiey were told that the country had taken the matter up in a spirit quite in accord- 9 ^^ »nce with the spirit of religious liberty, but, looking at the proceedings which had taken place in difi'erent parts of England, be did not find that absence of discussion as to the distinctive tenets of the Roman Catholic faith which was attributed to them ; on the contrary, he found tliose ditVer- ences distinctly put forward as reasons for enacting such a measure as the i)re5ent. ])r. Gumming wouldbc admitted to be a great authority for the statement as to what was the ground on which the country demanded this law. What said ]")r. Gumming ? In one of liis lectures against Papal aggression he distinctly said this : "That the teaching of Cardinal Wiseman was the best reason of protest against his intrusion as Archbishop of West- minster." His religious teaching was the reason against Cardinal Wiseman, according to Dr. Cumming ; not that he liad been ap)>ointcd by a foreign potentate — not that he had violated the supremacy of the Crown and the independence of the country, but that his teaching did not suit Dr. Cumming. Take the opinion of the noble I'remier himself, lie held in his hand a letter signed by the noble lord, dated " Downing-strect, November, l)i5(>," and ]>iinted lor distribution at 58. per hundred, by Westerton, Knightsbridge ; printed, by the way, " against the act in that case made and provided," seeing that it was printed upon unstamped i)a])er, so that everybody who sold, or exposed to sale, or bought copies of the same, was liable for each offence to a penalty of 20/. ; and in that letter the noble lord denounced the proceedings as an aggression of the Pope on our Protestantism ; so that, according to the nolile lord, not tlie power of the Queen was in peril, but only the "isms." Then there was ])r. Al'Neill, in his lecture at Exeter Hall — orthodox person and orthodox place, as the hon. member for Oxford Univensity must fully admit. What said Dr. M'Neill to the ]J)nke of jNIanchester, in the chair, and the assembled audience : — " My Lord Duke," said ])r. M'Neile, " it is the bounden duty of British Christians to guard against domestic intercourse with Itoman Catholics. If you allow domestic inter- course with Iloman Catholics — if you allow your sons and daughters to become intimate with those of Roman Catholics, you cannot with a good grace, or consistently with your duty as parents, turn round, after allowing the intimacy, and forbid the marriage. If you object to such marriages, it is your duty to draw np in time. It may sound very bigoted to separate man from man in the comnnmity, but I am persuaded that one-half of our misery has been traceable to this domestic intercourse with Iloman Catholics. If, instead of the unclean thing being touched and fondled, we had, as the Apostle said, 'come out from among, and be separate,' much that is to be deplored would not have taken place. Put you have fondled the unclean thing — you have dallied with it — you have taken it to your breast, until at length it has turned round and stung you." These were the sentiments of a member of that State Church whose I'ights the House was called upon to vindicate, and for whom they were to create popular attachment by vilifying and abusing persons of another religion. But the noble lord, in that same letter which laid the foundation of all this movement — a movement which, by the way, he did not believe had at all reached the working-classes, had himself made a violent aggression upon Protestantism, and, by an exercise of private judgment extremely rash, to say the least of it, had, as Jove from liis chair, issued a sort of divinity-proclamation from Downing- street, deciding wliat was sup.crstition and what was not. An authoritative, duly constituted tribunal, had only the other day, after much deliberation, declared itself unable and incompetent to reliance on it, that the Popish hierarchy so nominated should not assume the title of En!;lish or Irish sees occupied by Protestant prelates. 1 myself was a party to the recognition by statute of the dignity of Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops in Ireland; while I adhered, however, to the settlement of 1829, that the enactment prohibiting the assumption of local episcopal titles identical with Protestant sees should be withheld, 1 proposed in the House of Common?, on behalf of Sir Robert Peel's Government, the remission of the ])enalties which attached to receiving bulls or other similar instruments from Home ; and out of oHice I su|)portcd Lord John Russell's measure, which authorises the renewal of di|)lomatic intercourse with the Roman Pontiti". I took these steps deliberately, and I do not regret them. I believe them to have been necessary for the good government of Ireland, and 1 cannot believe that it will be possible to have one law for Eng- land and another for Ireland with respect to Roman Catholic discipline and worship." I might have added — which 1 omitted here — that on the part of Sir R. Peel's Government I moved for the endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth — a measure which I am bound to say, in my humble belief, siiook the foundations of the strength of Sir R. Peel's Government, hut which nevertheless 1 believe to have been a debt in justice due to the people of Ireland, and which, whatever may have been its ctfects, is a measure I never can regret. Further, I was the organ of Sir R. Peel's Government in moving the Bequests Act, an act which recognised the authority (as we understood) of the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy of Ireland. It speaks of the Roman Catholic archbishop or bishop " officiating in any district," and Roman Catholic clergymen "having pastoral superintendence of any congregation." "What is the meaning of "officiating in any district" but having a diocese? What is the meaning of " having pastoral superintendence of a congregation" but being a parish priest? And what does that act do ? It carefully gives to them in succession the benefit of charitable bequests made in trust for them. But I will proceed with my letter: — " I am oHendcd, indeed, by the aiTOgance and folly of the laniriiage which the Pope and his cardinal have thouirht fit to employ in announcing an ecclesiastical arrangement which I believe to be lawful, and which I do not consider dantrerous. But my displeasure will not induce nie to treat with disrespect the religion of /, 000, 000 of my countrymen, or to contemplate for one moment the revision or the reversal of a policv which, in defiance of the No-Popery ciy, I have supported throughout my public life, which f still believe to be soinid, and which is in- dispensable, unless by a inelaiicholy necessity the vast majority of the Irisli people are still to be treated and considered as our national enemies. I have thus written to you without reserve my genuine sentiments. 1 am aware they are not popular. I do not wish to obtrude them on public attention. The subject will, in some shaiie, jjrobably be brought under the notice of the House of Commons ; and then, in my place in Parliament, it may be my duty to declare the feelings and the opinions which I entertain. In the mean time I am desirous to avoid any premature or hasty pledge in a matter of such paramoimt importance. I am more anxious to extinguish them than to add fuel to the flame of religious strife and animosity." I put those opinions and feelings upon record on the '2'.'>rd of November. I avoided giving undue publicity to them, because I was honestly of opinion that it would add to the difficulty of a moment full of difficulty without any such addition. I, however, did not conceal them. They were not unknown in quarters where they might have produced some etfect. lint, having put those opinions upon record, I appeal to the House— I appeal to the country — whether it was possible for me, entertaining deeply the conviction of the truth of these sentiments, either to be a party to the further progress of legislation to which the conviction of my noble friend is pledged, or to think of forming part of a new Administration based upon a pledge to intro- duce such legislation. I know, if I were seeking poi)ular power through such means, I should have abstained from this course ; I know the ground I take is an unpopular ground ; but what I have expressed is a conviction I strongly and deeply entertain. I am afraid, if you com- mence this, step by step you will be dragged into the penal legislation which broke down under you in 182'J, which brought matters to such a dreadful alternative that the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, without acknowledging a change of opinion, yet from the necessity of the case, admitted that a change of policv was indispensable. Thanking the House for their kind indulgence, I have nothing more now to add ; when the question of the second reading of this bill comes before the House I shall venture to offer some observations upon it. CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN IRELAND. H/crrirm-xqiiaic, Ffhruari/ '22n(l, 1851. Sir, — I have read, with some attention, "A bill prepared and brought in by Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Attorney-General Romilly, to prevent the assumption of certain ecclesiastical titles in respect of places in the United Kingdom." At this stage of that bill, it may be useful to place before the public a plain statement of its practical effects. In considering the measure, the supposed occasion for it, and its future consequences, it will be quite necessary to bear in mind that the United Kingdom consists of three distinct parts — England, Ireland, and Scotland. The preamble of the bill refers to the 24th section of the Roman Catholic Relief Act (10th Geo. IV., c. 7), and then proceeds to make three statements with respect to that prohibitory enactment. Of those three statements, two are untrue in point of law, and the third is untrue in point of fact. Firstly — The preamble asserts that — " It may be doubted whether the enactment extends to the assumption of the title of archbishop or bishop of a pretended province or diocese, or of a city, place, or territory in England or Ireland, not being the see, province, or diocese of 8 Secondly — The preamble asserts that — "The attetript to establish, under colour of authoiity from the See of Rome or otherwise, such pretended sees, provinces, or dioceses, is illegal and void." Thirdly — The preamble asserts that — "The assumption of such ecclesiastical titles is incon- sistent with the rights intended to be protected by the said enactment." With regard to the first and the second of these three assertions, it may suffice to refer to the following passage, extracted verbatim from the Times report of the speech made by Lord John Russell when moving to introduce the bill : — "The opinion given by the law officers of the Crown to the Government was that, with regard to the assumption of the particular titles assumed, and with reference to the present state of the law and the existing statutes, they did not think that either i)y tiie common law or by the statute law the assumption of those titles was jY/cg^a/, or that those persons who assumed them could be prosecuted vvith effect." In truth, there is na duuht whatever that the prohibitory clause in the Relief Act does not extend to the cases mentioned in the preamble of the proposed bill ; and it is equally free from doubt that, according to the existing law, the attempt to establish, or even the actual establishment, of such pretended sees, provinces, or dioceses, is not illegal, although it may be legally void, as being ignored by the law. The assertion contained in the preamble of the proposed bill, to the effect that such an attempt is illegal, flatly contradicts the opinion given by the law officers of the Crown to Lord John Russell. The third assertion in the preamble of the bill relates to the extent of jirotection intended to have been afforded by the Relief Act to existing rights and titles. Ii is sufficiently plain from the words of the Relief Act, that the proposers of that measure, and the Legislature itself, could have intended only to protect " the right and title of archbishops to their provinces, of bishops to their sees, and of deans to their deaneries," against being assumed or used by any other persons than the archbishops, bishops, and deans of the Established Church autho- rised by law to assume such titles. But any doubt with regard to the extent of protection intended by the proposers of the Relief Bill is at once removed by referring to the reported speeches. Lord John Russell, when bringing in his present bill, quotes from the speech made by Sir Robert Peel, in 1829, several passages, which show very plainly that it was not then intended to prevent the assumption of episcopal titles derived from sees, provinces, or dioceses not used by bishops of the Esta- blished Church. The following is one of the passages cited by Lord John Russell from the speech made in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, when introducing the Relief Bill : — " I propose that the episcopal titles and names made use of in the Church of England shall not be assumed by bishops of the Roman Catholic Church." It is well known that when the Relief Bill was passing through the House of Commons a distinct proposition was made to render the 24th section more stringent, by making it apjilica- ble to the very case to which the present bill now asserts it was then intended that section should apply. But this proposition was then deliberately rejected. Upon the recent debate the House was reminded of the proposition so made in 1829. From these simple statements, it clearly appears that the foundation of the proposed bill rests upon three assertions, of law or of fact, which are undoubtedly contrary to the truth. It is not becoming in any Government to call upon members of the Legislature to affirm state- ments which are false. The proposers of the bill should, therefore, either expunge those untrue assertions, or should so alter the preamble as to be conformable with law and fp.c^. Such alterations could only be effected by substituting statements directly contradictory to those made in the present preamble to the proposed bill. The bill being thus founded upon a false basis — a house built upon sand — i* proceeds to erect upon that basis four enacting clauses. The legal and jiractical effects of these clauses, with respect to England, Ireland, and Scotland, may be thus fairly stated : — 1 — In England, all Catholic archbishops, bishops, and deans will be prevented from assuming or using any name, style, or title taken from any city, town, place, territory, or district, within the United Kingdom. 2 — The same prohibition apjilies to all Catholic archbishops, bishops, and deans in Ireland. W — The same prohibition likewise applies to all archbishops, bishops, and deans of the Episcopalian Protestants in Scotland. Considering the false construction which the preamble of this bill now projiosed to place upon the Relief Act, in connexion with the very extensive phraseology used in the third section of the bill, it may be most seriously doubted whether the Catholic vicars aposlolic of Scotland do not also fall within the terms of the prohibition ; for although a vicar apostolic possesses a .formal name taken fiom some obscure loreign town, he is known to tlie ]nd)lic and to his Hock (iuly by the more sl!ll^tantial designatior derived from the » piscojial di.vtriit ()\er vhich he presides. According to this very probable construction of the bill it would ellVct not meiely its more .obvious object of suppressing the old Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, as well as that of England, but it would also, in a less obvious mannei-, prohibit all vicars apostolic, and Inus, " in the njost , quiet manner jiossible," effectually abolish or render illegal e> cry form of episcopal Churc .government for Catholics in any part of the United Kingdom. , Tiie Times report of the speech made by Sir John Rumilly, in support of the bill, represents tli;it fjcntlcnum as liuviiiir stated to tlic. Hoiisp, "It had been said that thfi liill wdiild not in- terfere with the synodical action of the Roman Catholic prelates ; but he ditTered from that opinion, and thonp;iit it wo>dd be the necessary consequence of the bill that this action would be interfered with. It was desirable to rtfect that object in the most quiet manner possible; hut if it was eliectually done it was all the House should seek to do, and they should rest con- tent with provisions suited to the occasion." Accordin;;: to the Glalji- versicju of that speech, Sir .John Ilomiliy said: — "/ niitwk tin: Icrrituriul titlf bccav.sc the ]iresent ctni.tiitntion of the Rinnan Church tiinhc.i such a tit/c iiicr.sxrtrv to the r<-elcsi(istiri(l r.rrrci.se of the episrojml ojlirr. Therefore, bij ])rotcetinir the former, I eff'eetualli/ stop every evil that can follow em the IntterP From these passages it would seem to follow that the object and intention, as well as the lejral effect of the bill, is to render it illcfial for anv person to exercise the office of archbishop, bishop, or dean within the United Kingdom, unless as a Protestant arcbl)isIio|), bishoii, or dean, established by law. 4 — The phraseology of llie third section is ingeniously intervolved. Its simple etfects are, tiiat under ])ain of absolute forfeiture it will prospectively prevent all future gifts for the support of any Catholic archbishojiric, bishopric, or deanery in England, Ireland, or Scotland, or of any Protestant archbishopric, bisboi)ric or deanery in Scotland. 5 — It will also have a retrospective operation; and read in connexion with the second section, will in effect prevent or greatly embarrass the future disposition of property heretofore lawfully given for the sup])ort of any such archbishopric, bishopric, or deanery. It will follow from these two last [iropositions thai all Catliolic archbishoprics, l)isho])rics, iuid deaneries in the United Kingd{)ni, and all Protestant archbishoprics, bisho])rics, and deaneries in Scotland, must soon remain vjholly unendowed. The result will be precisely the same, whether tlie ecclesiastical go\ernment shall be administered througli a regular hierarchy or through vicars ajiostolic. The only mode to comply with or evade this section will be to ^est the jiroperty al).-?olulely in some person, \\itliout anv written or even any verbal direction that he shall bold it as a trustee for the supi)ort of the arch1)isho]), bishop, or dean, and ujion the chance that \\v. will not afterwards think proi)Cr to ajipropiiate it to his own private use; for, under the 4th section, he can he compelled " to aiis\ier upon oath as to any secret or other trust, or other matter whatsoever." Tlie consccjuence is apparent, that all projicrty intended for the support of any person exercising e[)iscopal jurisdiction over any Catholics in the United Kingdom, or over any Pro- testants in Scotland, must be given to bini absolutely either in his private cajiacity or under tome foreign title, such as I'ishop of Kpbcsus, in Asia IMinor; or of Loretto, in the Roman territory; or of the recently-created F.mmett district, or O'l'ricn district, in Iowa, in the United States. It is easy to foresee tlic many inconvtnicncts whicli must ; vise from such a state of the law, and that it must either end in its being repealed, or in great jirivate as well as public inischicfs. 6 — The third section will also, in cft'ect, absolutely prohibit each prudent Catholic in England, Ireland, or Scotland, and each sensible Protestant in Scotland, from naming ;js his trustee or executor (or any public or charitable, or even private purpose, any person who may happen to till the character of nrcbbishop, bishop, or dean of his own Church. This will be the only safe mode to comply with the i)rovisions of a complicated section, which may come to be construed hereafter by an astute, or perhaps an adverse tribunal. All future trusts vested in any person filling the rank of Catholic archbishop, bishop, or dean in England, Ireland, or Scotland, or of Protestant archbishop, bishop, or dean in Scotland ; or of any chaplain, or other subordinate of any such dignitary, will be subject to the risk of an immediate forfeiture. Even should co-trustees be nan:ed, the i)roperty will become absolutely vested in the Crown, without any oflice or :i;riuisition found, to be disposed of as the Prime Minister of that day, or of any future day, shall be pleased to direct. In the meantime, the titles of many estates will become comparatively insecure, and will be held in fear and trembling by their Catholic owners or Protestant transferees. 7 — A further retrospective effect of the second r,nd third sections will be to jucvent or greatly embarrass the future disposition of any property heretofore legally vested in any Catholic archbishop, bishop, or dean of l-'ngland, Ireland, or Scotland, and of any Protestant archbishop, bishop, or dean of Scotland. It is unnecessary here to point out the unjust interference which would take place with the Irish Charitable Bequests' Act, the Dublin Cemeteries' Act, and other statutes and public and ])rivate documents under which particular properties are at present lawfully vested in diflerent members of the Irish Catholic hierarchy by names taken from their dioceses in Ireland. Those who may not have carefully considered the diflerent clauses of the proposed measure will perhaps suppose that I have given an exaggerated representation of their practicsil ope- ration. But such is not the case. On the contraiy, it is easy to conceive that a prejudiced judge might often consider it his conscientious duty to construe the proposed act as including cases to which I have not contemplated that it can be intended to apply. Although a measure of the most penal character it would probably, be construed hereafter by some upright judges as a remedial act designed in the great wisdom of our Legislature to repress, as admitted evils, all archbishops, bisho]is, and deans in England, Ireland, or Scotland, not belonging to the Church established by law, and as extending to deprive them perforce ot all tangible properly within these realms, held by them upon trust either for their personal supporter for charitable purposes. 10 In some cases wliich might be suggested it would task the ability of a practised lawyer so to dispose of property for spiritual or for charitable purposes as to satisfy even an impartial judge, but it would often be impossible to escape the mischievous ingenuity of a prejudiced tribunal. Some persons may suggest that, even should Catholic property become vested in the Crown, it is not probable that any unfair advantage would be taken of the forfeiture. But this is a condition of abject dcpendance upon the caprices of a Protestant Prime Minister not proper to be imposed upon the members of any religion which the State does not endow, and which the laws have hitherto almost ignored for any purposes save those of disqualification and penal enactments. If the novel, and forced, and false constructions which the preamble of the present bill now proposes to place on the Relief Act of 1829 can be regarded as any test of the extended con- structions which may hereafter be placed upon that bill in some years after it shall have become law, it would be hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs that might ensue. And Vvithout wishing to excite any groundless alarm at the present time, it is right to suggest that it may hereafter be found absolutely necessary to conduct the old Catholic hierarchy of Ireland upon a secret system — concealing for a time the true titles of their dignitaries, and transferring all tneir means of support and charitable funds into the funds of foreign States. Should that most unfortunate state of affairs ever arise, it will then become an easy matter for the Prime Minister of that day to decide whether a person having no ostensible title, but possessing a secret spiritual government over a concealed archdiocese of Dublin, and deriving all the means to support himself and his charities from French or American funds, will be more likely to be a loyal and devoted subject of the British Crown than is the present Catholic Archbishop of Dublin with his public title derived from his old Irish see, and supporting him- self and those charities which he administers out of properties within the United Kingdom. It would be easy to understand the sound policy of a law passed for the purpose of prohibiting any subjects of her Majesty from exercising even a spiritual government within her dominions under titles derived from foreign territories or towns; but it is diflicult to comprehend the wisdom of a measure calculated to compel the spiritual superiors of a numerous section of her people to govern their flocks under titles assumed from places outside her realms. There is, perhaps, but one satisfactory view that may be taken of the proposed bill. It is of so unjust a character, is so direct a violation of the religious liberties and the civil rights of one-third of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, and so fraught with consequences injurious to the best interests of the whole empire, that it will either never become law, or must speedily be repealed. The proposed legislation goes so far beyond the supposed occasion, and leads to such dis- astrous results, that it may be seriously doubted whether its proposers, when they presented it to Parliament, were fully conscious of its real effects. Judging from the speeches delivered by Lord .lohn Russell and Sir John Romilly, it would appear probable that neither of them had read the bill before it was introduced. It is sufficiently evident that they had not studied or understood its provisions. It may, therefore, be anticipated that when, in common with the public, they shall have had the opportunity to consider it more fully and in detail, they will either alter it in all material respects, or abandon it altogether, and substitute for it some parliamentary declaration equal in their opinion to the supposed occasion. This anticipation is grounded upon contrasting the introductory speeches with the bill as now introduced. In those speeches it was distinctly asserted that the bill should not go beyond the supposed occasion for it. Upon the opening of Parliament on the 4th February, 1851, Lord John Russell complained in very strong language of the recent constitution of a Catholic hierarchy in England, but added — " I shall not introduce measures which go beyond the occasion, or which will in any way trench on what 1 think due to the religious liberty of all classes of her Majesty's subjects." Sir John Romilly (Attorney-General), when speaking in support of the motion for permission to introduce the bill, deprecated as premature any discussion upon it in the absence of all knowledge of its provisions, and stated that — " He hoped the House would permit him to call attention to what was the offence which it was intended by this bill to meet. The offence consisted in the introduction of a bull in the course of last year by which certain persons were entitled by the Pope to assume certain territorial sees and dioceses defined by certain limits. That was the whole extent of the offence. The view he took, which was one he thought the House would agree in, was, that in meeting these consequences you should act on a very sound and safe maxim of politics, and that you ought not to introduce a remedy more extensive than was necessary to meet the evil complained of. He thought, therefore, if they introduced and jjassed a measure which should effectually prevent a person from iiolding these sees as being bislioi)s or archbishops of those pretended dioceses in England, that the real object which was sought would be found, and that they needed not to legislate beyond the occasion." He added, that : — " He was well assured the bill had been framed with considerable care to meet that object. It would be for the House to consider with what success." From these i)assages it plainly ap[)ears that the whole extent of the su])poscd offence consisted in the introduction of a Papal bull, or letters apostolical, into England in the course of last year, entitling tiertain persons to assume territorial sees and dioceses ; in fact, substituting a regular Catholic hierarchy in England for the former vicars apostolic. It 11 appears also that a measure effectually preventing persons from holding those sees, as being; bishops or archbishops of those dioceses in Enirland, would fully attain the real object, and that any further or more extensive or more stringent legislation against the Catholic Church, or Church property in England, would go beyond the occasion ; and that any interference whatever with the Church government or property of Catholics in Ireland, or in Scotland, or of Episcopalian Protestants in Scotland, would be wholly inexcusable and uncalled for. The most superficial reference to the bill itself will at once show that even for England— as to which country alone the supposed offence is said to have arisen — the proposed legislation goes infinitely beyond the alleged occasion. Those practical effects enumerated above will suffice to exhibit some portions of the gross injustice which will be done towards all Catholics in each of the three kingdoms, and also towards the Episcopalian Protestants of Scotland, by depriving them of their Church govcrnment,|andof their property — or, in other words, of their religious liberty and civil rights. Were it the sole object of the Government to introduce a measure confined to the supposed occasion, it would not have been difficult to frame a bill which should render illegal the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in England, and thus raise fairly the simple question called by the name of " Papal aggression," which is said to arise upon the letters apostolical dated the 29th of September, and on the pastoral of Cardinal Wiseman, dated the 7th of October last. This is not the proper place to discuss cither the substance or the form of those documents, or whether any insult whatever was offered, or intended to have been offered, by them, it is sufficient to state that under no aspect can they form any sort of excuse for a legislative aggression upon the religious liberty, or the civil rights, of the Episcopalian Protestants of Scotland, or of the Catholics of Scotland, or of Ireland. Even had his Holiness the Pope, or his Eminence the Cardinal, used insulting, or improper, or inappropriate language in documents relating to the Catholics of England, that impropriety would form no just reason for visiting with aggressive legislation the Catholics of England, and still less the Catholics of Ireland, or of Scotland, or the Episcopalian Protestants of Scotland. Nor will it be any sort of justification for depriving the Roman Catholic people of any portion of their religious liberty or civil rights that the Protestant bishops of Scotland may possibly not complain that they and their flocks shall suffer for a time under a religious persecution, from which they may, perhaps, calculate upon a speedy exemption, and that its permanent character will eventually be confined to Catholics alone. But this bill, which in its terms is common to the three countries, will assuredly occasion evils in Catholic Ireland, one hundred-fold greater than even those which are likely to arise in Protestant England or in Presbyterian Scotland. It will endeavour to accomplish the abolition of that old Catholic hierarchy which has subsisted without interruption in the land of Ireland for a period exceeding 1,400 years, and ever since the first introduction of Christianity into the island. It will tend to revive religious animosities, and to again disturb the entire country. It will constitute a Californian capital for the political agitator, and will distract all Irishmen from that close attention which they had begun to give to their material interests, and which their country so imperatively requires at the present time. At what future period all these evils shall have their final end no living man can pretend to foresee. But all Irishmen, be they Protestant or be they Catholic, may rest most fully assured that the ultimate conclusion of the tragedy or of the farce will be that which may at the time be considered most beneficial or most agreeable to the people of England alone — whether that conclusion shall commence with a renewal of bitter persecutions against the Catholics of Ireland, or with an appropriation to public uses of all the temporalities of the Irish Protestant Church.— Your's, &c., VINCENT SCULLY. THE IRISH CATHOLIC PRELATES AND THE "PENAL LAWS." The following address of the Roman Catholic prelates to their beloved flocks upon the penal enactments with which the Catholics of England and Ireland are threatened appeared in the hierarchy, twenty-eight in number : — " Dearly beloved Brethren, — The approach of a season of trial and tribulation naturally calls forth the admonitions of a voice that has never been absent from you in the hour of suffering and sorrow. Though you are familiar with its accents, and confiding in its assurances, we feel that it will demand no ordinary exercise of the docility and obedience which you have always rendered to its instructions to receive, in the spirit of patience and conformity to the Divine will, the last and bitter ingredient which is now about to be poured into the cup of your afflictions. It is unnecessary to state that we allude to the penal enactment against the Catholics of the three kingdoms that occupies at present the attention of the Legislature. And yet, in reference to the persecution of which this measure is to be the instrument, as well as to the other sufferings destined for the Church, may we not address you in the language of the Prince of the Apostles to the early Christians — ' Dearly beloved, think not strange the burning heat that is to try you, as if some new thing happened to you ; but if you partake of the sufferings of Christ, rejoice that w^hcn his glory shall be revealed you may also be glad with exceeding joy.' (I Peter, iv.) The sufferings thus inflicted, he tells you, are necessary in order that ' the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise, and glory, and honour, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.' 12 (1 Peter i., 7.) Nor is the exhortation of St. Paul on this subject, recalling, as it docs, the touching reminiscences of the past, less appropriate and applicable to you in the present emergency : — 'Call to mind the former days wherein, being illuminated, you endured a great fight of afflictions. Do not, therefore, lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. For patience is necessary for vou, that doing the will of God vou mav receive the promise.' (Hebrews X., 32, 36.) " We deem it better, dearly beloved brethren, thus early to prepare you for the magnitude of the trial with which our holy Church is menaced, both in England and Ireland, than to seek to conceal and palliate its real character. The object and tendency of the measure before Parlia- ment at present will be put in its true light by an eminent lawyer whom we have consulted on this matter, whose legal opinion we publish as an appendix to this address. For us, sufiice it to say that the measure we are treating of tends to annoy, disorganise, and crush the Catholic hierarchy ; to annul its acts of jurisdiction ; to fetter and impede, as much as possible, the exercise of that ministry by which the truths of revelation are proclaimed, and the mysteries and sacraments of religion imparted ; and grievously to injure, if not to destroy, those noble charitable institutions which are the glory and the blessing of the land, and which arc maintained, as they have been established, by the free offerings of the faithful. The blighting efiects of this penal law, if adopted, will be felt by the orphan that is now sheltered in the bosom of Catholic benevolence, and by the destitute sufferer on his death bed, whose pangs are so often soothed by the devoted daughter of charity, while they arc consoled by the Christian ministry that has called those institutions into existence — by the power of that kindling and creative word which it has been commissioned to preach. "Nor are the grounds on which this measure has been proposed more in accordance with truth than its objects are wiih justice and humanity. We need scarcely remind you, dearly beloved brethren, that what has given rise to the proposed enactment against us is the re- establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England. Our beloved father, the Pope, desirous to promote the spiritual welfare of his Catholic children in that kingdom — to give them increased means of spiritual instruction — to enable them to make greater progress in evc'-y virtue, and to atford more abiuulant opportunities of providing for the eternal salvation of their souls, determined to give them a ntmiber of pastors more proportionate to their wants, and therefore appointed an archbishop and several bishops with ordinary jurisdiction. As supreme pastor of the flock, appointed by Jesus Christ, in the person of St. Peter, to feed His lambs and sheep, both pastors and people, he liad a fully recognised divine right to do so — a right essential to his office, a right without which he could not maintain his authority over the universal Church of Christ. AVe need not tell you, dearly beloved brethren, that the Roman Pontiffs, from the earliest ages, and in the times of the most cruel persecutions, exercised this authority to its fullest extent, and that all the Churches of these kingdoms owe their establish- ment to its acts. The episcopal sees of Ireland can trace back their origin to St. Patrick, who was sent to this country by the Holy Pontiff St. Celestine, and it is our glory to be able to state that the chain of the apostolical succession has not been broken since that time in our portion of the Catholic Church. The principal Churclies of Emjland were founded by St. Augustine and his companions, sent by St. Gregory the Great to bring the glad tidings of salvation to a nation that was then sitting in darkness and the shades of death. It was in virtue of his primacy over all the Churches that the Pope exercised his right, and of that supremacy which juade one of the most ancient fathers, St. Irenaeus, assert — ' that every Cluuxh, and all the faithful, should have recourse to the Roman Church, on account of her greater principality ;' and induced St. Cyprian to consider ' the chair of Peter as the principal Church, from which the unity of the j)riesthood has arisen, and to which perfidy cannot have access.' — 59, ' ^'Id Petri cnthednim, ntquc ud cvclcsiam principem, tid qiiiim pn/idiii nun. posxit habere accesntyn.' " Rut while exercising a purely spiritual authority for spiritual pur])()ses — for the promotion of God's kingdom on eartii, for the more ready administration of the sacraments, for the sal- vation of souls — we can assure you, dearly beloved brethren, that the Pontiff made no aggression on any one's authority ; that he did not interfere, directly or indiiectly, with the administration of tlie temporal affairs of this kingdom ; that he did not in the remotest man- ner insult the Crown or diminish its ])rivileges ; and, we may add, that he did not in the slightest degree intrench on the authority, the revenues, or the territorial possessions of other religious institutions. If an outcry has been rai.'ied against his Holiness, it is not on account of any usurpation or aggression on his part ; it must have arisen from a misapprehension of the natme of liis acts, or it must be allowed that it is directed to impede the (xercise of that divine and indefeasible jiu'isdiction which all Catholics are bound to acknowledge in the .successor of St. Peter, and the acts of which they must admit uidess they \\i»\\ to inctir the guilt of schism. " As one of the efl'ects of the ])('ii;il nu'asure now pending over us Avonld he to separate the fiiilhful from the su])reme head of the Church, so also anotlier consecpience would be to sever the priesthood from the ))eoi)le. Do not allow yourselves to be persuaded that this would not be a serious injury to rcligicui. AVonld not the ilock be necessarily scattered if ti\e j)astors were smitten } If the branches of the vine were torn from the parent trtnik, would they not necessarily wither.' If separated Iroui its head, would not the mystical body immedi.dely laiigui.'-h and decay.'' 'J'hcrc. may be oilier religious cstablishmenls which recpiire no such luiity between the pastors and their Hocks — which, stripjxd of a sacrifice and almost of sacraments, and giving unbounded liberty to the interi)ielalioii of doctrine, demand little more than a no- 13 n»in:il exorcise of tlie ministerial fdnrlions ; liiit in tlie Catlmiir (Mmrcli tlie nrtion of llie liriestiiood is llie vivifying lirinciple uliicli {,'ives life and enerf.'y to the entire body — that fol- lows ttui faithful from the cradle to the ). Do not allow ' the boar out of the wood to lay it waste, nor the wild beast to devour if (Psalms, 79). Inspire those that would excite the spirit of bigotry and intolerance against us with better counsels, and do not j)ermit them to incur your indignation. ' Give us help from trouble, for vain is the salvation of man' (I'salms, i\U). " But whilst we exhort you to have recourse to Heaven in your afflictions, we are not to be understood as if we condemned the peaceful exertion of those legal and constitutional rights for the redress of political wrongs and injuries which are the birthright of every British subject. It is not, however, necessary to make any suggestion on tiiis matter to you, as we perceive that you have already commenced to petition Parliament, and to take other legal steps to resist the encroachment on the liberties of the Church with which we are threatened. Instructed by you, those who represent you in Parliament will not only assert the independence and freedom of yonr religion both in England and Ireland (for the interests of the Catholic body are the same in both countries), but they will insist that Catholics shnll be put and maintained on a footing of perfect etpiality with all the other subjects of the Crown, and that every remnant of persecution shall be oliliterated. We ask for nothing but what is conceded to others, and we cannot be content with less than the full and free right to practise our religion in con- formity to its doctrines and discipline. Nor can we doubt that while defending yonr rights a? Catholics, you will be promoting the interests of the empire at large ; for it cannot be in ac- cordance with justice or Immanitv to deprive so many millions of faithful subjects, guilty of no ortence, of their lawful rights ; nor can it contribute to the stability and welfare of the country to excite discord and bad feeling among those whose interests should be common; nor can it ever tend to encourage jjublic morality to enact laws which it must be the conscien- tious duty of inillions to evade. "But while exerting yourselves to impede an unjust measure, recollect that the man who outrages the peace of society and violates the law not only offends against the moral code, but grievously injures the cause that he supports, and strengthens the hands of his enemies. Based upon the eternal principles of truth and eciuity, the cause with which you are identified cannot fail to succeed, when advocated l)y means which are consonant to its justice and holiness, and such, dearly beloved brethren, are the only means which we feel convinced you are disposed to employ. "Whatever temporary tribulation the Church may have to endure — whatever combats to sustain — her ultimate success and triumph are placed beyond the possibility of doubt. We can appeal to the experience of 18 centuries. The povv'ers of earth, the wisdom of Greece and Rome, error, heresy, schism, infidelity, have been successively leagued against her ; like her Divine Master, she has been placed as a sign to be contradicted ; but, while all human institutions have fallen away around her, and disappeared, she has always continued her beneficent career, ever triumphant over the assaults of her enemies, ever fresh in the vigour of youth, ever unchanged. How vividly has the Royal prophet predicted her destiny in her great type of the elder covenant ! — ' Often have they fought against me from my youth, let Israel now say. Often have they fought against me from my youth, but they could not prevail over me' (Ps. 128.). And every day bears testimony to the truth of the fire-touched lips that said of her — ' No weapon that is forged against her shall prosper, and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. The children of them that afflict thee shall come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel.' — Isaiah Ix. 14. " Fortified by these glorious predictions, and still more by the most consoling promises of our l")ivine Redeemer, that 'the gates of hell shall never prevail against His Church,' and that ' He will be with her all days, even to the consummation of the world,' we exhort you with the apostle, dearly beloved, to bear your trials with patience and resignation, and ' not to lose your confidence, which hath a great reward.' ' Wherefore lift up the heads which hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight steps with your feet, that no one halting may go out of the way, but rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God.' ' But may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament, fit you in all goodness, that you may do His will, doing in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever, Amen.' (Hebrews, x., 12, 13.) 14 MR. SERJEANT SHEE'S SPEECH AT THE MEETING AT THE FREEMASONS' TAVERN, MARCH 8, 1851, Mr. Serjeant Siiee, on moving^ the resolution— "That our obedience and reverence to his Holmess the Pojic and to our bishops ;ire purely spiritual, and in no wise interfere w itli uiu- allegiance and duty to our Sovereign ; and that whilst we yield to none in the sincerest loyalty to our Sovei-ei^ni, we claim as an undoubted right the free exercise of our religion, including therein the free appointment of our ministers, and the regular constitu- tion of our Chm-ch according to its laws and customs," said: The resolution consisted of two propositions, the iirst of which \\as so familiar to every one who had the advantage of a Catholic education, that he deemed it uimecessary to trespass on their attention by any argument to urge its adoption ; and lie was the less inclined to do so, knowing that other gcuilemen luid resolutions to propose, because he found in the journals of that morn- ing, which by the next day ivould be circulated in every part of the United Kingdom, a plain and distinct expla- nation of the allegiance they owed to then- Sovereign, and of its yjerfect consistency with the spiritual obedience which they paid to the Head of the Church. In the second part of the resolution, they were called upon to assert theii" right to the Iree exercise of their religion, including therein the free appointment of its ministers, and the regular constitution of their Church, according to its laws and customs. This second part brought him at once to the main busineKS \vhieh had caused them to assemble there to-day; but before he advertetl particu- larly to the bill against which they were met to protest, he might be permitted to I'emmd them that the last time they met in that hall, they asseniLiled to express their gratitude to an illustrious statesman, who, despising tlie violence of interested clamour, and regardless of all considerations but his duty to his Sovereign and her people, hadjust proposed to Parliament a large addition to the State endowment of the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth. It might be said of that distinguished statesman, as had been said by a great orator of antiquity, in reference to the deatli of a statesman of his own time, " Fuit hoc acerbum patri:c, grave bonis omnibus ;" but to no class of his fellow-subjects was the misfortune which deprived his country of his services so truly mom-nful and so calamitous as it vvcis to them. Sir Robert Peel had been chosen, at his entrance into political life, more than forty years ago, to be the champion of the Protestant Established Church of these re.dms, aud during that long parliamentary career, he had proved himself ou all occasions tlie watchful guardian other rights and iute- resfs; but he had learned also the impossibility of maintaining the system of the pigmy Ministers upon whom the mantle of the great Pitt unfortunately fell, and the necessity of admitting the I'eligion of 10,UUU,000 of the Queen's loyal subjects in England and Ireland mtliiii the pale of the conservative ijohcy of the State. He well remembered on that occasion being called upon by the noble lord who was then in the chair to address the meet- ing, expressing the satisfaction which he felt in bemg a party to paying a tribute of gratitude to the honesty and courage of Sir Robert Peel ; but he could not help also tlecliu'ing his opinion tliat tneir tlianks Wci'e due to one who, m good and bad times, tlu-ough good and evil i-eport, had proved himself their stedfast friend, and that they ougtit not to separate without tendering their than liS also to Lord John Russell, and to the g^reat party then in opposition, of whicii lie was the acluiowiedged leader. That meeting agreed with him in opinion; butlittle did thev thinli that in a fe\\- short years from that time the noble lord would stoop to unloose his reputation, aud spend liis rich opinion by reviving tlie calumnies against their creeil \vhich liad disgraced the reign of the Per- civais and the Eldons, or that he would seek to expiate the services he had iiertbrmed in the cause of civil and reUgious liberty by appearing as a mourner at their tombs. However, so it had hai^pened. Had it not been for "the opportune arrival of the faithful representatives of the Irish people to their rescue, there would have attached to the name of Russell the -.gnomiuy of having been the autlior oi a new law, to be called, no doubt. Lord John Russell's Act, for the religious persecution of the Catliolies of England and Ireland, and the contisea- tion of their property. Thanks to the assistance they had received, they had been saved the infliction of the bill proposed by Lord John Russell aud the Attorney General to the House of Commons. It had been cut down from a bill for the (*ntiscation of Romim Catholic charities to a bill for the degradation and humiliation of then- archbishops and bisiiops, as far as an Act of Paiiianiciit could eliect it. The e.vcuse put fonvard lor legis- lation respecting Catholic charities, that it was necessary, tbrsootii, to protect theiii from their own bisiiops, was now seen by the whole empire to have been nothing but a false pretence ; but because Lord John Russell liail written a letter to tJie Bishop of Durham, which it was very desirable tor the noble lord should not end in mere smoke, and because the Archbishop of Canterbury had said that he did expect some legislation, aud because the Bishop of London was of opinion that no ecclesiastical titles ought to lie assumed by anybody or permitted to anybody except the Protestant bishops, of wliom he was one, the Queen's Catholic subjects were to be vexed and harassed by new penal laws against their bisiiops and cleigy, and the faith which was solemnly pledged to thein in the year iS2'J by the Crown and by Parhameiit, was to be deliberately and shamelessly broken. "He was one of those wiio concurred in the opinion expressed a sjiort time ago by Sir lidward Sugdeu at a county meeting, that aliliough not so in st'ictness of language, in all fair and honourable understanding, the act of their emancipation must be considered as a compact between tlie Queen's Catholic subjects and the State. He ' did not agi'ce with the notion of that ^■ery learned person, that because it iileased Parliament in that act to require from the Catholic members an oatli by which they pledged themselves not to uijureor ^veakeii the Protestant religion, tlierefore thej' ami their co-religionists were not, by all fair and honourable means, to Tiromote the progress of their own ; but he did agree that they ought to observe with cheerfulness and with fidelitv all the conditions which were imposed upon them at the time of their emancipation. He agreed that they ought to be exceedingly careful to give no just cause of comiilaiiit or of reproach to those who, in reliance ujion those conditions, mitigated or gave up the hostility which tliey had one time entertained to their claims. He thought that after having been now for more than tuenty-two years emancipated, it was due to then- Pro- testant tellovv-c(juiitrynien to say that, until the other day, they, the CathoUcs of England, did enjoy, without let or hindrance, the full nuasure of the concessions tliey obtained in iW^U. He was happy to express that opinion, because having been engaged during the whole of tlial time in the pursuit of an arduous and lionour- aole profession, he had never known the religion which he professed to be, by any class of iiis fellow-citiisens and couiitryuieii in Enghmd, made to him a matter of unpleasantness, or ihe cause of any description oi injusti(a-. lie thought that until the other day, they had had fair play hi England— he said in England mind —from their Protestant lellow countrymen. He tlierelore for one, and he believed everyone who heard him agreed with him, if lie had thought ti.at tiiere was anything in the late Papal letters or iii the avho dih'erediii religiun from themselves, belore very long they might diaiiee tn have none of llieni left, and that it was their duty, therefore, (in the first attemijt niade by ))ersoiisin high place to revive the old prejudices against Catholics, in order to curtail the privileges they had won after a long constitutional struggle, to oppose to that attempt a vigorous and determined resistance. The Ecclesiastie;d Tides .Bill was certainly now a very dillereiit sort of Ijill fiom that \vhieh was iiitioduccd with so uiucli liourish, three weeks ago, by her Majesty's' Attornev-Ceneral. He must do his honourable and learned iVieiul the Atlurney-Ueneral thejustice to say that it did liot appear, when he introduced the bill, or rather, wluii he stated what he supposed to be the eoiileiitij of it, that he had ever read a \\ord of it. And indeed, knowing what the most eminent judges of the eijuity courts hi England and Ireland, and in Ireland particularly, judges the most opposed to CaUiolic principles and the CathoUc fuitli. had deiided in relation to Catholic charitable trusts, he could not (ronceive that it tlw honourable and learned geiilUnian had ri'ad the bill willi his liet upon the ste]isthat were to lead liiin to one ofthe highest seats oljustiee in the enii)ire,lie ever would have liirn a \iarty to its introduction. In its present state, instead of being called a bill for the preventing the assumiition ot ceitain ecclesiastical titles, its truo description would be a bill to endeavour to ilegrade ami humble Ihe Arehbishoi) of Weslniinsler and ins suilragaii bishops, and also the Ai'lihishop id'Tuam. W hen tluy came to e\aiiiiiii' its provisions, they tbund that the eilect of it would lie to insult the Cardinal ot Wistminster and the Anhbisliop of Tuam, and nothing more. KpcaUuig there as a layman, and repieseutiiig as he believed the opinions of the CaUiolic laity 15 of Kuglnml in (Imt pnrticular, lie said tliat tliis Viill was not the Icfs to be rosisted bocaUKo it ««♦: II penal bill, artVctinjr diiictly only a few individuals of their body, but tliat inasmuch as the persons whom thty had chosen to attack were the persons hi whom was represented und person itied tli** '• Catholic HeliKion in that realm, they would be unworthy of the privileges which they enjoyed— unworthy ofl- '' the name of EnKlishmen— mivvorthy u( bein^ the subjects of the (iueen who reij^ned over tliem, if they did not continue to oppose tins bill as man fully and us resolutely as they had done hitherto. Like all measiu'es havin(,'fiir theirobject the perpetration (if nijusticc, thi; preamble of this bill set forth a falsehood. Jt begun by reciting a section "of the lOih Lieorge IV. c. V, sec. '.'4, wliich was commonly known under the name of the Eniaucipatiou Act, and which section, in order to >,Tatify, and cunciliate, and in some decree comfort the archbishops ana bisliops of tlie I'riitistantChurchof these lealms, imposed, as a condition upon their emancipation and that of their Irish Catholic fellow-subjects, that their bishops should not assume the titles which were by law secured to the Protestant prelates. Now it \va8 plain to cveryho titles Wiis not in the least degree inconsLstent with what was intended to be enacted at that time. His Grace was reported to have explained in distinct terms the object of the ii-ltli section, and that, although in bis opinion it contained no real jirotection for tlu^ Established Church, it had been inserted in order to conciUate some persons opposed to tho measure. Lord John Russell, in a speech made to the House of Commons, a few years ago, said he did not think it was of any use to iirohibit, as was done by the L'ttli section, the assuini)tioii by Catholic prelates of the titles of the ancient sees occupied by Pnjti staiit prelates. The iireanible of the bill was, therefore, to all intents and purposes, false. A great many persons, however, had endeavoured to show that, on the ground of the eiiactments of certain ancient statutes, the Cardinal of Westminster hail incurred some legal criminality, and might be pvo.secuted on an indictment fiauied on those statutes. It had been recently declared in the Houseof Commons by the noble lord at the head of her Majesty's Government, by Sir James Graham, and by the law olticers of the Crown, that those statutes had become obsolete, and though not actually repealed, were virtually annulled. The acts in question were passed in the reign of Elizabeth. The object of them w;is to establish the spiritual supremacy of the Crown of England in these realms, in opposition to the spiritual supremacy, up to that time recognised, of the Pope of Home. In vas a compromise of the old ilispute. ' It was as well known then to Riirke, and Pitt, aiul Sixitt, in 17.11 and 17!U, as in iS:;u to Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham, that Popish archbishops and bishops could not be w ithout bulls from tlie See of Rome autho- rising their consecration. With this knowledge, the Legislatiu'c, by the L'lst and l.'".'nd George III. in Ireland, and by the ISth George III., c. tiU, and the olst George 111., c. o-', m England, formally and distinctly recog- nised the existence of Popish arehbLshops and bishops and the exercise liy them of episcopal functions. The alterations which the law of the two countiies has undergone upon this point are curious and iiisliuctive. In Ireland, by an Act passed by the Irisli Parliament shortly after tlie Revolution, I'tli William HI., I'.'l, it was enacted that all Popish archbishoiis ana bishops should be transported out of the realm, and that those who returned should be deeineil guilty of high treason, and sutfcr accordingly. That the prelates thus smumarily dealt with w ere bishops know n to have been appohitcd and cousecratca by the Pope's authority is plain, bj' the description '■ Popish" applied to tlieiii in the Act. It appears also from returns registered at the CouucU-oftice in Hulilni, under an act passed ill the second year of Queen. Anne '•i'or registeiiug tlie Popish clergy," that they were then commonly known and designated by tlie titUs of the ancient sees, as Dr. Oliver Pumkett, Primate and Popish Archbishop of Aiinngli ; Dr. Domhiick Rurke, Popish Bishop of Elphin ; Dr. Mark ForsLol, Popish Bishop of KiUlare. The Act of W illiam HI. remained in force in Ireland from ll>;iS tiU the :ilst and i';.'iid George HI. \vas passed in 17>S1, ^^llen, after itJU yeiu's' experience, the Government of that day found that it was impossible to extirpate, no matter however gicat the penalties, the aii'libishops and bishops of k; In4;lnii. They miirht take hi'! ward for it, i(^ woulil be founil as impoi<;ililp to oppiv-ss them now. Tlio Aot of George III. toulc awav the peiiiilties which attached to the fact of li^iic^ a ['ojii^h ardihislinp or hislioj) on coii- fUtion that they should not call themselves so , i>rovided they took an oath by which they abjureil the temporal supremacy of the Pope ; "provided also (sec. ><) that uo benefits in that a'ct contained should extend, or be '•construed to extend, to any Popish ecclesiastics wlio should othciate in any church or chapel with a steeple or "bells, or at any funeral in any churchyard, or v.'ho should exercise the rites and ceremonies of the Popi;.h " relijdon, or should wear the habits of their order, save Avithin their usual jilaces of worsliip, or in a private '•pl:i.ce; or who should use a\:y symbol or mark of ecclesiastical dignity or aulliority. or take any ecclesiiistlcal ''rank or title whatsoever." Tliis remained the law of Ir.,-land until the pas^in.i; of the Catholic Emancipation Act, and in humhle thankfulness for their lives the i)relates of the Church of Ireland availed themselves of its indulgence. Tliey then commenced the practice which they hat since invariably followed, for they were faithful observers of the conditions of the compacts into which tliey entered, signinj; tlieir Christian and surnames, with no addition tint the cross, and relying upon their flocks for the recujjnition of the spiritual jm-isdietion which the Pope's bull had conferred upon them. lUit thouf^h this ^vas their status in the eye of the law, the position accorded to them by their fellow-countrymen, Protestant and Catholic, and by the Govern- ment in its intercourse with them, was far ditferent. To deal with men of eminent piety and learuin.;-. Doctors of Divinity, and Visitors of Royal Colleges liv Act of ParliannMit, whose rank audi order as arch- l)ishops and bishops was recognised throughout tlie Christian world, who, during their frequent flight and exile from their own country, had been received with honour within the sanctuaries of half the catlieell what they were about; yet the petition, thus signed, was received. In England, the penalt'es passed against Catholic bishops soon after the revolution were less severe than in Ireland, and ])robably for this reason, that the Acts of Elizabeth were deemed summary enough. They made it high treason for any Roman Catholic priest to remain in England, and of course they were aware that numbei's sulfered under that law. The milder act, 11 and 1".' William III., made Popish ai-chbishops and bishops liable to perpetual imprisonment, and that law continued until the 18th George III., c. CM, and 31st George III., c. 3'^. which permitted Englisii Catholic bishops to exercise their episcopal functions "upon conditions ;" the conditions being copied word for word from tlie Irish Act, except the one prohibiting tlie assumption of ecclesiastical rank or titles, which >vas struck out. And so the law remained uutil the Catholic Relief Act of 1S2!I, whioli prohibited no titles bat those secured by law to tiie prelates of the Established Church. The enacting part of the mutilated bill was a mere fraud upon the credulity of the public. It could not be carried into effect consistently "ith the provisions of anotlier statute which the Government had no intention to repeal, and which a lioard of Commissioners appointed by the Crown were bound to execute. Sir George Grey informed the House of Commons that he liuil .i-scertained that the bill as it originally stood would interfere with the ixlministration of charitable bequests t(j Catholic priests , as it was impossible to ascertain who was the priest for whose benefits the beq^uest was intended, without looking at the certificate of his ordination or collation. He said he had seen one ot these instruments, and that it was in Latin, and signed liy Dr. Murray as Archbishop of Dublin, and he believed would not be valid without that signature. The ditficul'ty of ascertaining who are the successors of deceased Arelihishops and Ui.shops without looking at the Papal Bulls and noticing the titles therein set forth seemed not to ha\e occun-ed to liim. But it was much the more serious of the two. A few years ago an Act called the Charitable JJequestsAct (7 and S Victoria c. 07) was introduced by the Governineiit and pas-ed the LegLslature. It appointed a Board of Commissioners, 10 of whom were nominated by the Crown, 5 Protestants and ,') Catholics, who >vitli three judges of the Ii'isli Courts of Equity wei'e to be trustees of any property which might be bequeathed or conve\'ed to them in trust for any Catholic archbishop or bishop exercising pastoral suptrintendence in any district and his successors. It would be found impo.ssible to c^irry that act into operation consistently ^vith the enacting clause of this bill. The Conniiissioners can't know wlio the successor of a Catholic bishop is without looking at the Papal Bull by which he is appointed, and in which he is described as bishop ot his province or see. To save the consciences of the Protestant Cominissioners who have taken the oath of supremacy, it is, indeed, provided that the duty of actually kioking on and fingering the PapalMJull shall be performed by the Catholic Commissioners, but tlie Protestant Cominissioners are on their repi>rt bound " to put it in ure." Dr. Paul Cullen, who was consecr.ated by Cardinal Fransoiii in the Pole's chapel, had no possible mode of proving that he is entitled to the benefit of the trust property vested in the Commissioners in trust for the late Archbishop CroUy and Iiis successors— but by submitting the bull in which he is called Archbishop of Armagh to be thus examined, reported on, ami "put inure." Strange .and irreconcileable with the statutes of Richard the 2nd and of Elizabeth as it may appear to the students of tliit ancient learning, the Protestant Primate of Ireland, and tlie Protestant Primate of all Ireland, must, as Commissioners, should anj- property be bequeathed to them in trust for the new Bishop of Ro.es, " put in ure" the bull conferring upon him that title. Complaints had been made of Dr. M'Hale for assuming the title of Archbishop of Tuani. But the Protestant pro\ ince of Tuam was abolished by the :1 and 4 VVilliam IV, c. ;!7; and it was no more illegal for him to call himself Archbishop of Tuam than for the .Vrchbisliop of Canterbury to call himself .Vrchbishop of Canterbury. This right was not .acknowledged by law, but he was not the less the metropolitan of two millions of British subjects; and as all the other Roman Catholic Prelates hail invariably signed their christian and surnames with a cross after them, there could he no object in extnnliiig this abortion of a hill to Ireland but his mortiticatioii. They should resist any such measure. He believel Englishmeii likeil men to staiul up manfully to assert their riglrs. and that they did not detest an open enemy so much as the sneaking cre;ituro who stole frf>m the opposite camp to a.ssist tlnni in injustice. Let every one of the men who must erelong meet the people on the.hustings understand that he would not get one Catholic vote if he supported that penal bill. He would not advise thi'in lo offer a fretful and ill-natured opposition to nie:isures for tne general beneht of the country ;but when they found an unjust Governinent reeling on its seat, and tottering to its f;Ul. unable Ui last for a ose by a rescript or letter from the See of Rome, iiad whereas." Al.so to move the following Clause:— " This Act shall not extend or apply to the assumption or use by any Bishop of the Protestant Epi.scopa! Cliurcli in Scotland e.vercising episcopal functions within some ilistiiet (ir place in .Scotland i>f any name, .style, or title in respect of such district or place, but nothiuir herein contained .shall be taken to ^ive any ri^ht to any such bishop to assume or use any name, style, or tiuo which he is not now by law eatitled to uasaine or use." The second and third clauses of the Bill, !vs printed in Scries XXIIl., pp. 1-5, IG, are withdi'awn by the Goveriiiiienl. I'lNIS. 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