The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

• 948 toleration of the Roman Catholic religion does not require us to permit the establishment of a territorial hierarchy by the Pope, much less the presence of a Cardinal, whose distinctive cha racter is not that of a minister of religion, but that of a political agent. He is a Privy Coun cillor of the Pope, and his Resident Minister Plenipotentiary sent hither to represent and per sonify, in the teeth of the lawful Sovereign of these realms, the alleged supremacy of the pre tended successor of St. Prriat and " Vicar of CIIHIST " over all the kingdoms and nations of the earth. It is all very well to jeer at his dis play of his scarlet hat and hose. But under these pranks there lurks a deep and treacherous design. Whether that design be likely to result in actual danger, is not the question. Irrespec tively of all consequences, it is inconsistent with the dignity of the British Crown, no less than with every principle of international law, that a foreign potentate should set up a representative of his authority within the dominions, and ad vance claims to supremacy and jurisdiction over the subjects, of our lawful Sovereign. It is on this point—a point, we cannot help thinking, insufficiently considered hitherto—that we take our stand, objecting, not only to the audacious " progress," but, since he has so forcibly re minded us of it, to the intruded presence alto gether, of " His Eminence the Cardinal Arch bishop of Westminster." RESULT OF MISSIONS TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS IN IRELAND. IF a traveller who had been intimately acquainted with Ireland fourteen or fifteen years ago, and who had seen and heard nothing of its condition in the intervening time, were to revisit that island in the year 1858, he would be amazed at the change which has taken place; and he would find that the general appearance of the country was altered, that industry and comfort had in great measure superseded the beggary and desti tution which seemed inseparable from the soil. Ile would find that the peasantry, naturally intel ligent and intellectually awake, were no longer content to submit without a murmur to the thraldom of the priesthood, but that their quick, keen intellects had been stirred up by a pressure from without, and that their warm Irish hearts had been touched by the good news to which they had dared to listen, and which they were ready to examine and receive. And he would find that the superstitions of the people, some of them native to the soil, and others im ported from Rome, had lost a great portion of their charm ; that fairy lore, so beautiful as a myth, seldom now-a-days exerted any baneful influence ; and that holy water, holy oil, holy scapulars, holy wells, holy shirts, holy coats, and the whole paraphernalia requisite for the histrionic display of Romanism, had lost, in large measure, the magic of their former power. But a more wonderful change, perhaps, than any other which our traveller would observe in the Irish people, or, at any rate, one more obvious and striking, is the quasi-Protestant spirit which has been infused into the minds even of the Roman Catholics themselves. By which me mean a spirit of independent inquiry—a wish to ex amine, to test the tenets of their Church. To speak of an inquiring and independent Roman Catholic seems very much like a contra diction in terms; but it is a contradiction which Romish priests have been compelled to acknow ledge, and against which Romish bishops have hurled their most vehement invectives. The face of Ireland has changed, and is rapidly changing every day, not only as regards the physical condition of its people, but also as regards their moral status and their spiritual enlighten ment. This change is palpable and cannot be gainsayed, though various opinions are held as to many of the causes which have combined to pro duce it. We cannot pretend to afford firm stepping stones over that Slough of Despond into which every one has fallen who has endeavoured to dis cover a full solution of the Irish difficulty. But instead of this we wish to call attention to one of the agencies by means of which the well-being of Ireland has been materially enhanced and many of those barriers removed which stood in the way of her moral and spiritual advancement. The agency to which we allude is the Society for Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics. The machinery which this Society has organized and set in action appears exceedingly well adapted for the purpose. Public meetings are held THE PRESS, OCTOBER 2, 1858. placards and handbills, widely and freely scattered, have informed the Roman Catholics that the errors of their Church would be exposed. Roman Catholics are invited to ex amine for themselves and to test every assertion by their own version of God's Word. An open challenge is given ; and if Dr. CULLEN, or Father RINOLFf, or Cardinal WISEMAN himself, would take up the gauntlet, such an issue would rejoice the hearts of the missionary. This open but friendly aggression is admirably adapted for special emergencies. For instance. A series of lectures is announced in Dublin by some well known Roman Catholic priest. At such times the Roman Catholics arc implored to search into the truth for themselves, and to see how far the missionary's statements are borne out by their own version of the Sacred Scriptures. They are told, too—and this is just one of the statements which carries conviction with it—that every Pro testant doctrine is to be found in the Douai ver sion of the Bible, but that, on the contrary, not one peculiar Romish doctrine can be found in ;t. The recent visit of Cardinal WisnmAN to Ballinasloe was the means of proving in a signi ficant manner how promptly and efficiently an open demonstration on the part of the Romish Church could be met at once by an equally open protest and exposure from the side of Protestantism, at the time when a prince of the Romish Church was inviting the temporal allegiance and claiming the spiritual submission of the people. Seven missionary clergymen, and a number of the most experienced of' the Society's lay agents, were sent to the scene of action to await the arrival of the Cardinal, and it was resolved, besides the judicious distribu tion of handbills, to hold two lectures every day throughout the week of demonstration, the sub jects chosen being such as were best adapted to excite a public interest. The effects of such a moral demonstration on the Roman Catholic mind cannot well be over-estimated. The lec ture-room was crowded, the interest intense. Here was a Protestant challenge on the one side met on the other side by silence. Naturally Irish Roman Catholics would ask themselves which course was the most honest and the most like that of men conscious of being supported by the truth. But there is another point of great interest elicited from these proceedings at Ballin asloe—namely, the feelings with which they were regarded by the Roman Catholics themselves. They have awakened a spirit in the people which has not been unheeded by Rome. Controversy and inquiry have been strenuously demanded. Dr. CULLEN, it will be observed, has felt him self compelled to join in this warfare; and the publication last year of a new edition of the Douai Bible with the sanction of 1)r. CULLEN and his brother prelates has proved a greater boon to the country than any which could have been looked for by the most sanguine of its supporters. Thousands of copies of this Bible have been sold, and many Roman Catholics have likewise pro cured our own version in order to compare the volumes. And this is one evidence of the Protestant spirit which has been infused through the island. Among the most important agencies employed by the Society are their schools. At the beginning of this year, sixty-six school masters and sixty-five schoolmistresses were employed by the Society. These masters and mistresses have been previously trained, most of them at the Society's own training establishment, and this training is sustained by the periodical visits of the missionary secretary, who inspects every school, examines every agent, and gives them counsel and encouragement in their work. Through the aid of these schools, more than 5,000 children are being educated in the prin ciples of the Established Church, and as useful members of society. Over and above the scrip tural knowledge imparted, the errors of Romanism are faithfully explained by such suitable argu ments instilled as can be easily apprehended by children. On minds thus early and scripturally trained, Romanist"' can scarcely take a permanent hold. Besides these organized schools, upwards of 200 Irish teachers are employed, who read the Scriptures to the peasantry in their own lan guage, and at the same time assist them in committing texts to memory. As offshoots of the mission, and still under the head of schools, we may mention the Connemara Orphans Nursery, a noble institution, which, since its first opening in 1849, has rescued up wards of 300 children from bodily destitution, as _ well as from mental and spiritual darkness. This Nursery is not supported by t h e funds of the Society, but it was set on foot through the same agency, and is generally assisted by those who are at the same time the most liberal friends to the Irish Church Missions. manner h th o r f ou th g e h Irishtth e e It would be difficult, perhaps, by t h e a id of sta tisticsmoral le improvementtlovhpi crho prove . has i b n il ee th sa n e ti e co sfae e n ee d t t i o ed t r io y n labours of this Society. And the reason is obvious; for during the last fe w y ears so ma agencies have been at work for th e social amelio ration of Ireland, and so much good has been effected, that no one can point out the peculiar benefits which have followed f rom any oneof them. Thus much, however, is clear —and it is a fact which can be attested on any portion of the ground covered by the missions—that wher ever free scope has been given to missionary labours there the spirit of earnest • • inquiry has been aroused, the authority of the priests has been diminished, discussion has been freely entered upon, instruction has been sought a ft er with avidity, and, even where no higher results can be pointed out, an amount of intellectual freedom . has been gained which is totally ali en t o the diffusion of Romanism in the country. M uc h of this is of course subsidiary to the main obje c t which the Society has in view, and yet these are n o light benefits, and must not be lost sight o f in estimating the value of the missions. Still more difficult is it to prove by statistics how far the Protestant faith has been infused into the minds of the people. There are a thousand evidences of this, and we have already mentioned some of them, but they are not such as can be displayed in any tabular statements. Yet there are some data of the most satisfactory kind, which prove that Protestantism has made rapid strides in the districts where the mission force has been displayed. Connemara, the " Wild West," as it used to be called, no longer deserves the appellation. In 1846, the Protestant church of Clifden, the chief town in the district, contained, we are informed, an average con gregation of seventy-five persons. At the same time, there was no other Protestant place of worship within many miles, and the traveller might have journeyed from Oughterard to Clifden, and from Clifden to Westport, a dis tance or more than seventy miles, without seeing any other Protestant church than that at Clifden. The Rev. 11. D'Aucv, who is the Rector of Clifden, and also a missionary of the Society for Irish Church Missions, states that his congrega tion now averages about 100 persons; while in the same district of West Galway, twenty congrega tions have been gathered, where before there were only two churches. So large has been the increase of Protestants within a tew years from the commencement of the missions, that in 1853 the Bishop of TuAlt made an appeal for fends, and by this means eleven new churches were erected. Another appeal, put forth by the Prelate at the close of last year, for contributions towards a Church Endowment Fund for West Galway . , expressly states that these churches are the fruit of the Society's labours; and it may be mentioned in passing, that the object of this appeal was deemed of such importance by the Lord Primate Archbishop of ARMAGH, that he at once con tributed 5001. to the fund. Another well-known prelate, the Lord Bish o p of OSSORY, has borne testimony in the most ! striking manner to the "extraordinary suc cess which has resulted from the operations of the Society ; and in speaking of Kilkenny, where the Society has a mission station, he states hi s belief that so far as personal liberty is established there, and mob-law discomfited, " the community, Pro " testant and Roman Catholic, owes these great " blessings, mainly, if not wholly, to the resolute "assertion of their constitutional rights by the "agents, lay and clerical, of the Irish Church " Missions Society." We have said enough to show the value and efficiency of this Society. It only remains to add that while its organization has b ee n made thoroughly efficient, the want of sufficient funds not only prevents the Committee from breaking up new ground, but has also compelled them to withdraw from some important stations and to reduce their missionary staff. They are m akin g now an earnest appeal to the public, and we trust that those who value the blessings of Protes tantism will come forward and assist the Society at this crisis.