The Sun. — London, England, 1851-02-08 00:00:00

_- ._. pr e "said that he thought that not only ought we to prohibit L , 3e assumption of titles of existing sees, but we ought to Pro hibit the assumption of titles derived from the ie reat of any place in the United Kingdom. What Rif roeos.e, therefore, by the c l auses o f t hi s Bill agre es the la th at suggestion ; an d, per h aps, I may mention Jt when I inf orme d the Archbishop of Canterbury that it u n i n o t i ntended by the Government to institute a prosecu he said, " I did not expect the Government would do but what I d o expect is that some legislation should take „ L zee upon the subject." Sir, I think, therefore, that in deal thii way with respect to what I consider an insult to the i re ‘va of this country, an interference with the rights of the eseablished Church of this country, and an attack upon the i q r e l op e P e ; n deeenocres ( th n e ear s , tate we are pursuing a right and I;ear.) By another clause, to ae : i tch I have alluded, I think we shall have a ti t i e ri e tY that persons will not obtain possession, under these (I ef :ProPerty which has been given to other ohjects..— ti!--"r' " e ar.) I have now stated the effect of the Bill which , e,olsose to introduce ; the House will perceive it is ens .1Y different form the proposal of any new sete_in with regard to our proceedings between . • It See of Rome and this country.—( Hear, hear.) I think, ;eee.etever may be our ultimate legislation upon this great it aa t, we are not in a condition at present to frame any I u s :" e arrYing out that system. I think that much will to depend upon the spirit injwhich legislation is received, 4,,,1ue obedience which is paid to it by the directions which .10is t be given by him who has taken upon himself, no stp quite naturally and fairly, the responsibility of takgp tie re t e P t ing at Rome the opinions of the Roman Catholic In this country, and of inducing the Pope to under .;_a review of his recent measures, a review of jhei Powejitanewd own power (Hear, hear.) That individual It la b• power to remove a great part of the ob , iyon that has been felt to this assumption. If he will isu s , °°n fiele• himself to the title which the Pope ori era4re gave him.— (Cheers.) I should take it, if he ter ;.e Peace and stability of the Catholic communion, the th e e - erse he can take is to retrace his steps, and to renounce 441;4 l e which h e h as assumed in this country, and rat h er eit s e out that w hi c h I believe was his original i ntent i on — s eat a it at one time he assured me it was—namely, the in spiv $ I ,,ef residing at Rome, and taking upon himself • °th e leernish title.- (Cheers and laughter.) But,. hi Sir, to cohtt.. a r e e t e le u ti n s ei e l f s e s e h n o q u u ld es p t, revail, and if he should bee e of ambition, or of revenge, into the el 4oers t o i f l heme we may then, probably (though we can w pi el een..l), look for a long and arduous struggle.— °h: With respect to that struggle, the part which ktbt hear)ltake will be guided by that principle which has buts rto ae's guided my conduct on this subject. I am le fullest enjoyment of religious liberty—(Cheers)—_ sect ik % .alza entirely opposed to any interference on the part of ! -- ise l w as e t d ies eh evith the temporal supremacy of the realm.— ' I have seen in other bod ,* Znever I have seen in henever my own Church a dispositionies— to tbreitarineoeraplowers which I thought were inconsistent with the slowpremacy that belonged to the State, I have not 4 ,_te nun . in urging myself and inducing others to urge and prevailing objections to any such measure. ea a the Proposal was made in the course of last year to give h 134110 1 es of the English Church a power which I thought the e'ss give them control over the temporal well-being, and bet e s , Pr s e PeriY of the clergy, that proposal was rejected his ea langerous in principle, and successfully rejected rea emd „ e agues in the place in which it was pro fof - put, Sir, if that was the case with regard tt e t? . e n C e uts, who have expressed the utmost a a th h e to freedon-t; if that is the case with regard tee d il ni ur re ch °f s„. England, which is, I believe, of all Establish . e h fr the most tolerant, and the most consonant with rb s e t i " e esenn of our institutions • if that be the case, shall it more strongly as an Objection to the effort of the no se , i 1 of Rome to introduce the Pope's temporal . supre )t this country ?—(Cheers.) I cannot, Sir, forget . that eitt s e" e in ancient times but also in the most recent times, e bi • ss e" e have been put but on the part of Rome totally t t Merit and opposed t our notions both moral and religious. l wa s a estig of recent Pope who said that it was from the feu! er Indifferentism had sprungthe absurd, wild, and mad g re s ell that freeuom of conscience could be permitted . or rt vent all persons in the state.—(Hear.) It is quite as a sthat to there has been kept up in the Court of Rome atirdrultibition study such works as Guicciardini, De Thou, ono study and even among others I find that the Greek (La e°fll,4 ter Scapula is a book prohibited to be read.— eat gr''er.) When I see these things in these times, so tpp e „ ; ,! 1 : 1 averson to religious liberty, so determined . an clo ct ir , ou to books which contain, not any question of :rtim.eptitrt.lnation.bsut narratives which may be injurious to the of certain popes, I own that I feel a stil r dislike to the introduction of ultra-moutane religious tfi 'roans into this count •--s Hear.) But then, as I . stated 14 w utber ; rl , ght, there i r3 s . a total difference and distinction pray. een the faith of Roman Catholics, as it was practised have men in the time of our forefathers, and as it was Fret ag ed and b e li eved by the eminent men who lived in 4 41 t he 'nest distingu ished ornaments of the Church Derle7 e uar, and th a t ultra-monmane doctrine, as it was pro . sew . called by the Duke of Norfolk, which has been re broughl over to us from the Court of Rome. (Hear, ePin :) admitting, therefore, a total liberty of keen to Roman Catholics, I propose to this House now, the necessary shall do so on a future occasion, to resist thttint i ° ro duction of th ose d oc t r i nes .— (H ear , h ear .) I k now kid ta king this cou rse we are li a bl e t o b e m is re presented, ladatrhat having stood during a long contest exposed to poe t. the. Od ium, exposed to exclusion from power on behalf o le sss Privileges of Roman Catholics, it may now be said es sea are changing our opinions and altering our views ,: r eaPect to the Roman Catholics. But Ido not feel that hat Peet at all changed the opinion that the Roman Catho or Were entitled to be admitted to all the privileges of the My belief is, that those Acts of Tests and Ex ' •E 4e len which were passed in Charles H.'s time were only • h i e gi t.s t i,„,v judged, because there was a very just suspicion of •tb k•harles 11. and James 11., that if the Sovereign had 11 Power to employ Roman Catholics, not only would loyal ctlean catholics be employed, bat that loyal Protestants _A °111(1 be eascluded. Such were I think, the grounds . of t e then in force, and be it observed, that in the time the tbaroebeth, when you could trust the Sovereign o z n eal tn io • .4 0 ._ 'le, at you can do now, as being animated with e Pee or the Protestant Faith—(Loud cheers)—no such leorees la tive exclusion was neceseary , and I believe that our sp an Is at th e present moment augmented because loyal , sf „ Catholics a tt ac h e d to the Throne and Constitution country can hold office and can be admitted to seats it t s l ie Legislature.--(Hear, hear.) I feel that we are more powerful in entering this contest, having • that we made no exclusion on the grounds of religion, (1 7 that if we do make any exclusion now, it is only in i ses e nee of the law and authority of our Sovereign.—(Hear, th e e r ,;) I think that with these feelings we may say what_ ts arliament of old said, the Parliament of the Roman Ca - times times too. They refused to consent that " the Crown • England, which bath been so free at all times, that it 1:1•,,o been . in no earthly subjection,. but immediately subject seod, in all things touching to regality of the _same a, r , ° Wa, and to none other, should be submitted to the Pope, , -4 1 the laws and statutes of the realm by him defeated and neuellea at his will, in perpetual distraction of the sove eeNtltY of the King, our lord, his crown, and his regality, - en of an, which God forbid !"—(Cheers.) Sir, • th a mien rea -e rarlit, the Roman Catholic Parliament of that day'au declared "That they will stand with the same crown • esegality, in those cases specially, and in all other cases • shall be attempted against the said crown and regality Wea" points with all their power." So say I; let us, too, and against those attempts at all points, and with all our against cheers.) On the question being put, • Mr. ROEBUCK rose, but was for some moments inaudible twi n ceede g d to t o the noise of M em b ers l eav i ng t h e H ous e. He pro broad Say, the Noble Lord began by laying a foundation „ e nough for the la rge cap i tal of leg i s l at i on pro p os ed by 14° li ens Member for Buckingham. He not only went back to th e ,-. .e and had go ne distant a ges , b ut h ad searched Europe t h roug h, gone through the hist or y o f A us t r i a , o f Russia, of France,lf he cusandd of Holland for his Act, and, lastly, of England. descri gathered i ts purpose rightly from the Noble Lor d' s ptio n, the Bill to be introduced meant that bishops of tof he Roman Catholic faith should not call themselves bishops any place in the three kingdoms, or in any part inof her majesty's d • • °111°11°118•—[Lord J. Russell—No; only three kingdoms]—and that anyproperty left to them as such bishops should be forfeited the apposed, it a Roman Catholic were to callhimself tote Crown. Thus he Archbishop le V e N yestuninster he would be subject to the penalties ot the "‘er , but if he were to call himself Archbishop in Westneire . oatfe.r,the law would be inoperative. That was the whole sum N,,e e measure. With all the substructure laid down by the a „yeer! Lord he entirely concurred. There was no strong ssePren with respect to ecclesiastical power and ambition to 4sob ee wnl eh ti the Nobl e L ord had given utterance in which he (Mr e _ne . n 11 ek) did not Lord ht ague; but there w as one broad fallacy lei argument he had used. The Noble ragd h rough every all along appli ed himself to countries in which the Roman Catholic religion was established, but there was one s s i a e l !rY Where the R.oman Catholic religion stood in such a tene too to the State that the law did not lend its peculiar eoesL ail ti Y on assislance. It was, like ourselves, governed by a springing from which,ly feith and m 1 Z i d fh a ll the Puritan spirit distinguished us in 1640, did Yet that country looked on a Roman Catholic just as she liR• 0 ° , 11411 , EPiscopalian, or on the professor of any other re •dfilse-sse It Was not a country on which you could look with -oar lap ;it was a country o f 25 , 000,000 peop l e spea ki ng • arid ii w g ll age. It was n o t a f ra id o f the Pope—(A lau g h)— • lo au e i s e la ss omission on te art of the Nob Lord eeould he gro only case which bor h e any le similarity to our own. th an thing be more widely distinguished from . another • la n d s 'l • alece from England, or than Catholic Eng in A ust in Protestant England? The law of France, ree s —us tria, and of Prussia was right, for these ssseetes—that the Catholic religion established by law jaitipplated the power of the Pope and the Pope's ane bil ity as an essential element of their faith ; se ki eas to the quotations made by the Noble Lord from M. lest °, any one who had read Pascal or Arnaud must have ss , s _vin that in the struggle for Gallican liberty it was neces k3cf for them t o protest against the assumptions of the Pope, Ww, to r esist, because if t h ey h ad not so protested hi s acts t b d h ave become th e l aw o f t h e land. The reason f or ese c.., Precautions ceased when the country ceased to be ineeleol The Noble Lord had declared the Pope's proceed- Ostee b e e an insult to England, and an encroachment on the_ regatives of the Crown, and on the rights and liberties of th,liahraen. His Bill therefore had for its object to defend so!,_(Setieen's prerogative, to wipe away the insult, and to INientain the liberty and independence of the country. The wi n troit Lord complained that the Pope had not put himself ith with the Government of Great Britain and beethe Government of Ireland. If he (Mr. Roebuck) had ern Lo rd - Lieutenant, and a Catholic Bishop had applied to ZEt/ . for advice, he would have said that he looked on him pre asY in the same light as a Wesleyan priest, that he might do es, he liked, but that he, the Lord-Lieutenant, knew him not, 7euat be might be cardinal or archbishop, but he had no / l e er under the law, and was not recognized by it.— sf ee o e,ar, hear.) Had Cardinal Wiseman been so treated, Lotisul England have been less free? When the Noble th a t ' talked of the conduct of our ancestors, he would say when the Pope was indeed a power, and could Was Erigland and the Monarch on the throne tremble, it up neees sarY, and it was glorious, to see Parliament stand p._angainst his power; but now that he was supported by Fret eh bayonets, that he' was in such a state that England 08f Jgo far by negotiations to have that small army re ude, en ar d th ttnah l e au P g o h p; would be a vagabond on the face pectfully, -he did not use the word disre he meant merely a man wandering about the eLoNr.ld--it was to him surprising that the Noble Lord should at jlebought fit to introduce his Bill to meet a thing which itsinto.imteheof day ought to be met with ridicule and by in tells people , t h e —(Hear, hear.) Let them depend on Act would only rivet the yoke they reeked to remove, sectv.,w.ould tend to make men's minds more obedient to it. it ;M... "3 all very well to say that if a man pronounced an ex- I nn i cat i on or published a bull he should be punishable prim ly. but let them follow one step further. Suppose the t(1.4_,0 dwei excommunicated c o o o m t m o u i s n o i l c v a e t , e ,, d was kr. Loehtick) would accept punished by law, and quoted by the Noble Lord, as a what were von to do ? He a Catholl Priest was e the v illustration, ery a t s h e hough it Sardiniai was d e e u ri i Tt d ry,cf the source whence the power of the e Was it fr om the law ? N o w but it xiss from the power the priest had over the weak, miserable mind of the poor man, and over the minds of his family and friends who believed the priest had the power to consign them to damnation. You could not reach that power by Act of Parliament.—(llear, hear.) You might print book after book, you might pronounce anathema after anathema, but you could not relieve the poor man from this fear in his mind, and it was the power the priest had which gave him real power, and not the operation of the law. If they said they would make a law to prevent persons on their deathbeds leaving property to priests and bishops he would be the very first to assist them, but he would extend it to all alike. He should fear a Methodist preacher as much as Cardinal Wiiseman—he should fear the Bishop of London quite as much as Cardinal Wiseman.— (Laughter.) He would direct an Act against them by the general name of " priests," but he would not direct any against a Catholic bishop which he did not apply to a Me thodist preacher. Did the Noble Lord know what he was about ? Had there not been for the last half dozen years a constant acknowledgment of the Catholic bishops in Ireland by the names of their sees; and not only that, but had not the Charitable Bequests Act expressly appointed a commis sion partly composed of Catholic bishops, and had not a commission issued from the Sovereign naming those bishops by the titles of their sees?—(Cries of " No, no.") Had not bishops been named by persons in authority by the names of the sees in which they resided, and were they not recognized in Acts of Parliament by those names? Why, there was a very stringent Act, which rendered it necessary to record the name of every Catholic priest, and the name of the person from whom he derived his orders, and table after table had been filled up under it, naming the Catholic bishops by the names of their sees.—(Hear, hear.) His objection to this measure was, that it was a step backward in obedience to prejudice out of doors—that it was a retrograde step, made because of the feeling of Hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Noble Lord could not be alarmed at the power of the Pope in this country unless he was alarmed at the influence of the priesthood on account of their intelligence, industry, and continued application to the principles of religion. There was something in the circumstances of a Catholic priest coming into this country which exhibited Lim in an exalted position. He came into a kingdom where he had to meet great prejudice, among a people full of distrust and predisposition to suspect him; and there, though protected by the law, he made no converts but by the influence of his mind over the minds of others, and could derive no power but from his own industry. It was dangerous to meddle with such a power, and all he would say of the Noble Lord's law was that it derived its benefit from Rome and without having obtained its consent. He assured the Noble Lord that the Sicardi laws went much further than he seemed to suppose • that they trenched upon purely eccle siastical matters, suchl as the holidays of the Church, and the like. The censures of the Church were necessarily in curred by those Catholics who had taken part in the passing of these measures. When the unfortunate Minister Rosae was on his death-bed his confessor refused to give him absolution until he had made reparation for the injury he had done. The dying man did make a retractation privately, and he thereupon received the sacrament of absolution; but, having subsequently refused to allow his retractation to be published, the clergyman who attended him was obliged to refuse him the last sacrament of the Church, the viaticum. The Archbishop of Turin, however, in consideration of his having received absolution, allowed the Catholic rites of burial to be performed over his remains. That was the whole case. The Noble Lord was not more fortunate in his reference to France, whose wide-spread immorality and infidelity did not say much for thd tampering of the State with the Church. The Noble Lord also spoke of Austria, and expressed his regret at the restrictions which had been imposed upon the Church by the Wide' Emperor Joseph. Those restrictions had been found so injurious that the present Emperor, finding that the Catholic religion had been the real bond of order in the late convulsions and struggles which threatened the dissolution of his empire, had in gratitude liberated the Church from their operation. The Noble Lord had also referred to several instances in which the monarchs of this country had inter fered with the liberties of the Catholic Church ; but he begged to remind the Noble Lord that every case he had mentioned was the act of a despotic monarch, who cared very little either for the civil or religious liberties of their subjects, and invaded both whenever he could. The Noble Lord had taken the Catholic Archbishops of Armagh and Tuani severely to task because they had not expressed themselves in the same terms of gratitude to the British Legislature which had been used by other prelates of their Church immediately after the passing of the Emancipa tion Act. The truth was, however, that the policy which had been pursued towards Ireland since the passing of that Act had not been such as to command the gratitude either of the laity or the clergy of the Catholic Church. With respect to the supremacy of the Queen, he begged to say that the Catholics entirely acknowledged it in temporal matters. The Noble Lord spoke of the loyal Catholics, and the Ultra montane Catholics, and seemed to insinuate rather than openly declare that those Catholics who did not admit the supremacy of the Queen in ecclesiastical as well as temporal matters were not loyal. But he would ask the Noble Lord if the bishops of the Protestant Church were all agreed with respect to the Queen's supremacy? if he was not mistaken, he had seen within a few weeks past a protest from the Bishop of Exeter and another bishop against the terms in which her Majesty's supremacy was spoken of by the Arch bishop of Canterbury. Conside•ing that the bishops of the Protestant Church were divided upon it, and that the Dis senters utterly repudiated the idea of it, he (Mr. O'Connell) thought it rather too much that the Noble Lord should en deavour by a sidewind to stigmatise as disloyal those Roman Catholics who did not acknowledge the spiritual su premacy of the Queen. In February, 1844, the Noble Lord declared that it was " a foolish prohibition " to provide by statute that Roman Catholic bishops should not be allowed to style themselves by the name of the diocese over which they presided. He left the Ncble Lord to reconcile the words which he uttered on that occasion with the declaration he had made to-night; for he (Mr. J. O'Connell) confessed he was unable to reconcile them. Why did not the Noble Lord object to the document issued by Pope Gregory XVI., in 1840, it creasing the number of vicars-apostolic in England from four to eight? The same authority was claimed, and the same phraseology adopted, in that document as in the letters apostolical of Pope Pius which the Noble Lord had so loudly denounced to-night, and yet not a single remonstrance was uttered against it. He regretted that the Noble Lord should have disturbed the country for so little reason, for the poor, paltry, inefficient, and contemptible measure which he had introduced on this occasion was a proof that he himself considered the movement to have been uncalled for.— (Hear. ) Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND said, he could not be a party to a great deal of the cry which had resounded from one part of the country to another. He could not run a muck against the Roman Catholic Church. He could not refuse to acknowledge that it contained every truth most sacred to man, although be must, at the same time, admit that it had been so perverted that it might fairly be questioned whether or not more evil than good had resulted from it.—(Hear, hear.) He confessed he was very much astonished when he heard it asserted that the present case was not one of ag gression, because he would defy any gentleman to point out a single instance in history where a parallel case had occurred. He defied them to show any state in Europe where the Pope would have been allowed to do what he had done here. As other occasions might arise on which it would be easy for him to express the satisfaction which he felt at the present position of affairs, he should at that moment refrain from saying more on the subject of those sentiments which recent events were in some respects calculated to call forth. In the present situation of ecclesiastical affairs, after the decision pronounced by the Privy Council, by that selected person who might be considered to have spoken with the voice of the Queen ; after the decision that had been pronounced by the country at large; after the opinions given by a great majority of the House of Commons , and by a great majority of the House of Lords, he did rejoice that there was still one church left which had faith in sacraments, and one that would maintain its faith against all that mere politicians couldaccomplish. An Honourable Gentleman had told the House that there was a distinction between the Bishop of Rome and the Court of Rome; and another Member of that House declared that that was the first occasion on which he had heard of any such thing; but it was hardly to be sup posed that such distinctions were not known and perfectly well understood. It was also well understood, and a matter, too, of great practical importance, that the dogmata of Popery were received by those who belonged to the Church of Rome as of the highest authority in things invisible, but that in external and visible things the state alone was paramount. That these were the prevailing opi nions in Roman Catholic countries no one who had the least acquaintance with passing events could doubt. It was but recently that the Republic of France had put down in Lyons an association the object of which had been to obtain secular power for the ministers and agents of the Papacy, and these rights, and similar rights of the state, were not merely as serted and acknowledged in France alone, but in all other countries. In all nations there was an instinctive resistance its utter inefficiency.—(Cheers.) The Noble Lord had thought fit to warn him not to have faith in what was called philo sophy. If not, he wanted to know in what he was to have faith, for, in his sense of the term, to have faith in philosophy meant to have faith in the strength of truth. If he was not to believe in philosophy he had against the Roman Catholic priest no defence whatever.— (Hear, hear.) if the Noble Lord said there should be no Roman Catholic bishop he im pugned the freedom of the Roman Catholiee, and said they should not have the comforts of their religion ; but if he meant they should not be called bishops of any particuler place within the realm he (Mr. Roebuck) would not divide against it, because he considered the measure utterly un worthy of a moment's consideration; and looked upon the Noble - Lord as having, in vulgar phrase, " thrown out a tub to the whale." The description which the Noble Lord at first gave of what was necessary to be done somewhat staggered him, for he thought the Noble Lord was about to yield to the Hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to deal with the question in a way that would be satisfactory to them. No such thing. The Noble Lord simply yielded to the vanity of certain persons; and if the Roman Catholics would follow his advice they would say, " We do not care about calling eur archbishop the Arch bishop of Westminster—we will give him some other name; he will still derive his power from the Pope, and after your Bill passes be will have exactly the same diocese, ex actly the same power, and he will - deal with the property which you seek to protect just as he would have done had it never been proposed." Suppose that instead of calling him self Archbishop of . Westminster he were to call himself Arch. bishop in Westminster. Your Act of Parliament then would not touch him.— (Hear, hear.) But if the Act should be framed to meet that case, he might call himself bishop of any foreign district with power in Westminster (so we under stood the Honourable Member, but he spoke throughout in a very low tone, and was occasionally altogether inaudible). How would you get out of that? How, too, would you frame an indictment under the Act ? and if it were in Ire land how would you try it ?—( Hear, hear.) It was extra ordinary that the Noble Lord had carefully avoided giving any explanation of the machinery of the Bill. The Noble Lord said it was an offence for a Roman Catholic prelate to call himself Archbishop of Westminster, but he had not stated whether it was to be a misdemeanour or a felony—whe ther it was to be punished by imprisonment or fine, nor had he declared how he was to be tried. Was there ever such a meagre finale to such an overgrown commencement? - (Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord might as well have said at the outset that all he proposed to do was to prevent Roman Catholic prelates from using certain titles, and there an end. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam had called himself so for many years. Suppose he and his brother prelates were to say, " We have enjoyed our titles for a long time, and we will not surrender them at your bidding ; we will re sist and test your law and your machinery for enforcing it." Suppose the Archbishop of Main were to write a letter to the Lord-Lieutenant, signed by his title, and say that he did so on purpose in order to try the law. How would you deal with that case in a country where nine persons out of ten were Catholics?—(Hear, hear.) The Bill would, he feared, be productive of mischief, not advantage—it would cause excitement, not allay it. Carrying out his hypothe tical case, he would suppose that the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland took up the gauntlet which the Archbishop of Tuam threw down. An indictment would, he presumed, be sent before the grand jury, and then remitted to a special jury. Conceive the state of things in the Archbishop's diocese while the matter was pending.—( Hear, bear.) Remember you had to deal with an excitable, a strongly religious, and he would say a prejudiced people, over whom the Archbishop exercised a power which to us was un known. ( Hear, hear.) His influence was great over the minds of the people, not only of his own diocese, but of the whole of Ireland. Should the Government venture to imprison a person who was sacred in the eyes of the people of Ireland they would endanger the peace of the whole country.—(Hear.) And why was this hazerd to be run? Here was England, whose fleets could sweep the seas, de• daring herself insulted because one priest chooses to call another by a long name, and to tell him that he bad power and jurisdiction over certain counties in England. And the Noble Lord spoke of this proceeding as if it took away power and jurisdiction from somebody else. Was the Archbishop of Canterbury one bit the weaker because Archbishop Wiseman existed ? Bad his temporalities been touched ? Had his spiritual power in his diocese been diminished? Was he not still the Primate of the Church of England? Then, if the Archbishop of Westminster had not been hurt by the act of the Pope, had the Queen been hurt ? Was not Cardinal Wiseman, although he called himself Archbishop of Westminster, just as much the Queen's sub ject as before? Could he de anything now which he could not do before? and if he should do anything unlawful could he not be punished for it? There might be cause for dis satisfaction if the Catholic bishops were established here in connexion with the State, as they were in some of the colonies; but as long as the Roman Catholic system was a voluntary one we had no more cause to meddle with it than with a private club. If we allowed the Catholics to manage their own affairs as they pleased no danger would accrue. This reminded him of something he had heard about Lord Minto, which he would take the opportunity of repeating in the presence of a Cabinet Minister. He was informed that Lord Minto had received a letter from the Abbate Hamilton, a Scotchman, and a convert to the Roman Catholic religion, whom he knew at Rome, to this effect :—The Abbate Hamil ton said that Lord Minto, coming direct from an audience with the Pope, told him that he had seen a brief by which the hierarchy of the Roman Church was established in Eng land. Lord Minto said that the Pope had shown him the document, but he (Lord Minto) told him that he had no thing to do with it, because with the internal regulations of the Church of Rome the British Government had nothing to Ido.—(Hear, hear.) That was the language used by Lord Minto to Abbate Hamilton, who, since the outburst of puritanical spirit in this country, had written to Lord Minto to recal the remarkable circumstance to his recollection. To return to the question, he appealed to the justice of the House, and asked whether the whole conduct of the Noble Lord at the head of the Government had not tended to in duce a belief in the minds of the Catholics of this country, that what was about to be done would give no offence.— (Hear, hear.) It was useless for the Noble Lord to accuse him of misrepresenting him, and to refer to his past career, when he (Mr. Roebuck) pointed to his present acts. It was just as if a person convicted of picking a pocket should al lege that he had borne a good character for twenty years. In such a case the judge would say, " More shame for you ;" and so he said to the Noble Lord. When the Noble Lord turned tound upon him with his overwhelming sarcasm and said that he ought to have credit given him for good inten tions, he would remind the Noble Lord of the old proverb, which said that hell was paved with good intentions. A few years hence the Noble Lord would bitterly regret that he had yielded himself up heart and mind to the eentrol of an ignorant multitude, and prepared an Act of Parliament founded on feelings of bigotry. Mr. J. O'CONNELL said that he would not address a bitter word to the Noble Lord although he could not divest himself of a bitter feeling caused by the Noble Lord's ex citing the bigotry that had disgraced this country during the last few months. Although the Noble Lord had proved false to his name, he had on the present occasion done wisely, and even courageously, in preparing to undergo the ridicule which would be heaped on him for having brought forth this mouse out of a mountain rather than propose a severe penal enactment. Of the Noble Lord's Bill itself he would say very little. The Noble Lord, however, at the commencement of his speech spoke of the Primate of all Ireland, the Rev. Dr. Cullen, as an ecclesiastic who was utterly unacquainted with that country. Dr. Cullen was for many years the representative of the Irish bishops at Rome, and in that position he was necessarily acquainted with every detail of the Catholic Church in Ireland. At the period of Dr. Cullen's appointment the intrigues of the British Government had succeeded in introducing division into the ranks of the Irish Church, and this division was strongly manifested on the occasion of the election made by the parish priests of the diocese of Armagh. The Pope, to avoid giving a triumph to either party, appointed Dr. Cullen to the vacant see. The Noble Lord thought that Dr. Callen ought to have con sulted the Irish Government; but he (Mr. J. O'Connell) thought that he was under no obligation to take that course. The Government brought forward the scheme of the Irish colleges without consulting any of the Catholic prelates, and that was no inducement to Dr. Cullen to go out of his way to consult the Government. The Noble Lord had blamed the Synod of Thurles for having dared to express their opinion on the education question ; but the fact was, that: by their oath as bishops they were compelled to ex press their opinion on that subject, and they did no more than express their opinion. They sought no endowments for themselves, they nought no monopoly in the appoint ments to the colleges. All that they asked for was a gua rantee of the orthodoxy of the teachers in those colleges, so that they might be assured that no infidel doctrines would be taught to the Catholic youth under their care. The Noble Lord had also accused the Synod of Thurles of interfering with the question of occupancy of land in Ireland. They did no such thing. They merely deplored the ruth less acts which had been committed by Catholic as well as Protestants landlords, and expressed their deep sympathy with the people under the miseries to which they had been exposed ; and he maintained that they could not have done less in the discharge of their sacred duty. The Noble Lord had referred to various instances of Romish aggression, but he had not been fortunate in the instances he had taken. With regard to Sardinia he had misstated everything and had totally omitted to mention the bad faith of the Sar dinian Government towards the Court of Rome. In 1841 a treaty was solemnly entered into between the Sardinian Government and the Court of Rome abrogating certain im munities and privileges of the Catholic Church in Sardinia. In Is4B the Sardinian Government came forward with another proposition still further abrogating the immuni ties of the Church. The Court of Rome met it with a counter-proposition, and it was expected that some arrangement would soon be come to hPtween the two Courts, when suddenly the Sardinian Ambassador was withdrawn from Rome, ab a r n og d at t e h S d e tahredineianntire Government, immunities of the Church without any further consultation with to the domination of the priesthood—that system which en slaved the laity, and which of all oppression was the most oppressive. What did Cardinal Wiseman himself say in his edition of the" Exercises" of Loyola ? He said this :—That no Roman Catholic could dare to be without a spiritual director —a man to direct him in everything—in every thought, word, and action—in every single thing pertaining to him. If that were not the greatest possible slavery, no one could tell what slavery was. But that was not all. They were told that they ought not to be astonished at these pro ceedings, not to be in the least surprised at them, although it was in the same breath asserted that this measure of the Papacy was merely a sudden thought adopted by the Court of Rome, and although the Pope declared, from the first moment at which he assumed the far-famed chair of St. Peter, that the Court of Rome never gave up the assertion of their right to dispose of the crown of England.—(" No, no !" from a few Members.) Had they forgottenlthe bull In ccenet !—had they forgotten the evidence given before a Committee of that House by the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops? Over and over again it had been stated, and not disproved, that the Court of Rome claimed to exercise that authority.— (Cries of " No, no I") If gentlemen went on with these denials, he should be obliged to quote, and that he did not like to do, for quotations wearied the House. Every pne well knew that that power was claimed—that the establishment of the claim was most earnestly desired —and, when they were considering about the best modes of resisting this aggressive power, it would be well for them to remember its strength, and the extent to which it had formerly been used. The last rebellion raised by the priests of the Church of Rome was O'Neal's rebel lion, and, from that time forward, they were kept down by the penal laws, and, unfortunately, those laws having been continued, occasioned continual irritation among the great body of the people; it rendered the quiet government of Ireland a matter impossible; and by the aid of that irrita tion Dr. Cantwell was enabled to persuade too large a num ber of the people of Ireland that there existed in this coun try, and in that House, and in the House of Peers, a direct conspiracy to starve the people of Ireland and to alienate the estates of the Irish, with a view to their passing into the hands of the Saxons. Now, Bishop Cantwell, giving the people of this country credit for not intending all the evil which the measures of Parliament were calculated to pro duce, imputing to them no small amount of ignorance and John Bull simplicity, still succeeded in persuading a large proportion of the 7,000100 of poor deluded Irish that, on the part of the English Government, there existed a settled determination to starve them ; and Dr. M‘Hale told them that the poor-law had been enacted with that purpose. Now he would ask, had any of the Irish Members of that House the courage to go back to Ireland and contradict Dr. APHale ? Not one. The people of Ireland being Roman Catholics, received everything that their priest told them as if his voice were the voice of God.—(" No, no.") He trusted it would not be necessary for him to quote his authorities on in support of that position a truth which he believed was too generally known to be denied. Did they not every one of them know that the Roman Catholic regarded the voice of his spiritual superior as the voice of God ? and, if recent evi dence of such a truth were required, he might refer them to what had taken place with respect to the Queen's Colleges in Ireland when Lord Clarendon unfortunately consulted the Roman Catholic bishops about those educational institutions. Then the tidings went to Rome that the English Protestant Government could no longer rule the Roman Catholic popu lation in Ireland; and then it was that Dr. Cullen was sent to Ireland. If they doubted this statement he might refer them to pages 96 and 109lof Lord Shrewsbury's pamphlet, who broadly stated that there existed at the Court of Rome an anti-English party, of which the Irish ecclesiastics formed a part, and by them Dr. Cullen was sent over to Ireland as a spy. Mr. J. O'CONNELL rose to order. He conceived it to be disorderly to charge in that House any absent person with high treason. Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND resumed. Dr. Cullen came to Ireland, having long been at Rome an active member of the anti-English party there. Dr. Cullen was there at the time when he must have heard that Smith O'Brien went to France for the purpose of inducing the authorities of the French Re public to assist the Irish in throwing off the authority of England ; then it was that the anti-British party thought they could insult England with impunity; they thought that then was the time when the Protestant power might be put down ; then it was that Cardinal Wiseman said to the Lieutenant-General of the Jesuits that if they gave him (Dr. Wiseman) the necessary powers he would speedily establish a Jesuits' college in London. It was for purposes like those that the anti-British party sent Dr. Cullen to Ireland, and put him over the heads of all whom the Irish Roman Ca tholic bishops had recommended for the primacy to the Pope. —(Heer, bear.) He had observed that in the discussion of this question it had been argued that the proceedings of the Court of Rome were fraught with much mischief, and likely to produce hereafter much evil; but that was nothing, or very little, to us, and that we need give oerselves no trouble about the matter.—(Hear.) But he confessed himself considerably at a loss to discover how any one could argue so and at the same time recollect the proceedings in Ireland which the Roman Catholic priest hood adopted in the maintenance of their own power. It was impossible that they could have forgotten the case of the Irish Poor-law Union chaplain whom the Commissioners had dismissed, and the manner in which Dr. M'Hale called them to account for presuming to interfere with any priest under his jurisdiction. Such proceedings would always be the necessary and unavoidable consequences of conceding to the Church of Rome the powers now claimed.—( Hear, bear.) They talked of perfect toleration; but where did perfect to leration exist? There was certainly no Roman Catholic country in which it could be found. Whatever freedom the Roman Catholics enjoyed in the United Kingdom they owed to the soil of England; to that they owed civil and religions liberty. When Bonaparte had the Pope in his possession he demanded from the head of the Roman Catholic Church that all religions should, in France, be placed on a par; but the Pope peremptorily refused that, and declared such a measure to be impossible, that such a recognition of ali religions was wholly rejected by the canons and councils of his Church, that it would be inconsistent with the tranquillitY of life, the well-being of pociety, and could not f4il to be attended with THE SUN, LONDON, SATUritDA'Sr i the most lamentable consequences. Such was the toloration of the Church of Rome. Hon. Members of that House had often expressed themselves most anxious for education, but he for one was opposed to the education which was sanctioned by the Roman Catholic clergy ; but he was favourable to sound education, as the only means of encouraging the poor wretches of lay Roman Catholics who were enslaved by the clergy of that persuasion. There was unfortunately a wide distinction between the education given at the schools of the Roman Catholic priests and that given at other places of education. So long as, and to whatever extent, they pos sessed authority, nothing in the way of education would be communicated, except that which was calculated to enslave the spirits and the mind of the laity. The object of every other sect was to give, by means of education, the greatest possible amount of information ; to let in as much light as possible; but the reverse of that was the aim of the Roman Catholic priesthood. The declaration of that body now was, that the Queen's Colleges in Ireland were to have no students, and Cardinal Wiseman claimed ecclesiastical rule in England ; yet, in the face of that, Hon. Members were placing him on the same footing as a Dissenting minister. Did any Dissenting minister speak of disposing of the crown of England, or say that people would be damned if they did not rest "on the rock?'' In this system, the bishop was the slave of the cardinal, the priest of the bishop, and the people of the priest. Further, he would ask was the House prepared to sanction the extension of the monastic system in England, of the conventual system, of those secret prisons in which young females were confined? But they were all considered essential to the development of the teligion of Rome. Englishmen must remember that the Pope never altered, never abandoned any of his pretensions; and would they tamely submit to the proceedings of those scoundrel, who went about the country stealing away their children under the pretence of their having taken vows? Even in Bavaria, which was a Roman Catholic country, no one was allowed to take vows for more than three years. Again he would ask, would they allow the monastic institutions to be multiplied in this country till they attained such a height as that their inhabitants would, as clergy, claim immunity from civil obligation, and until, as in the time of Bede, there would not be men enough for the service and defence of thecountry ? Another object of this measure of the Pope's was to take away all trust funds from the English courts of law, and to place them under the sole management of Archbishop Wise man. That was the real gist of the question.—(Hear.) The money was the thing —( Hear.) It mattered very little whether they called Dr. Wiseman Archbishop of Westminster or Archbishop of England ; but to take the property of Roman Catholics out of the hands of our courts and get it into their own—that was an object worth attaining. The Catholics could do nothing themselves. They must receive the sacra • ment every Easter; they must do penance for every word they might utter against the appropriation by the clergy of these trust funds. He saw a Right Hon. Gentleman ( Mr. Baines) who was about to introduce a measure fer the pro tection of poor girls in workhouses; but he could assure the Government that the poor girls in convents in this country required protection quite as much.—(Hear -) A few years ago a remonstrance was signed by 13 archbishops and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, complaining of the persecution they endured from the English Government. Their ground of complaint was, that by the statute of most main the Government would not allow a poor. Papist, at the last hour of his existence, to give some of his land for the sal vation of his soul. But did the House see the petition of the Roman Catholic priests against the bishops, in which the former complained that the bishops "got the death-beds," and that they (the priests) got nothing from that source ? - (Hear, hear.) The assertion that the Papal bull was no attack upon the Queen's supremacy could only arise from real ignorance as te the nature and extent of the Queen's su premacy. If they went back to the earliest times they tbund that the Queen was held to be, in the coronation ser vice of Edmund the Confessor, which was very much like that now in use, persona duplex. She was Vicarius Christi, which declared her spiritual, and not her temporal supremacy. The Sovereign of this country was persona mixta—a priest upon his throne. She was prayed for in the Liturgy at the head of ecclesiastical persons, and not of civil governors. She received tithes as au ecclesiastical person, and was anointed with oil, which was a symbotot spiritual, and not of temporal government. Thus every assertion of spiritual authority in this country was an attack upon the Queen's supremacy.— ( Hear, hear.) He doubted whether we should not be obliged to have a great many more Acts of Parliament to make this question fit in with the present framework of society. He doubted whether the Government could beat back the Papal aggression by anything of the kind now proposed. The priests, he feared, would slip through their fingers, and carry their measures in spite of them. But if the Government found that the view of the Queen's supremacy which he had just asserted, and which was now the law of the land, was no longer tenable, then let them have the manliness to repeal it; but don't let it be expunged from the statute-book at the dictate of this insolent prelate.—(Hear, hear.) Mr. E. B. ROCHE said that whilst the last speech was being delivered he had almost fancied himself listening to one of the minor canons in Exeter Hall. It was quite clear, what ever were the peculiar religious opinions of the Hon. Gentle man, that he did not hesitate to " rush in where angels feared to tread." —(oh, oh.) The Hon. Member then proceeded to notice the speech of Lord John Russell, which he said was entirely unsuited to the measure he proposed to introduce, and was a sort of homage to the vile spirit of religious discord and sectarian bigotry. The Noble Lord's Bill, however, fell very far short of what might have been anticipated from that speech; and he (Mr. Roche) was glad of it. Still he found fault, and very great fault with the measure, even as it stood, and contended that the Act of Elizabeth, cap. 2, sec. 3, was sufficient to meet any aggression such as that which had been stigmatised by the Noble Lord; and that though the penalty was repealed by an Act of her present Majesty's reign, the offence was retained, and the act of Cardinal Wiseman could be punished as a mis demeanour at common law. The Bill of the Noble Lord was therefore quite unnecessary. But the Noble. Lord con descended to propose its extension not only to England, where there had been a cases belli, but to Ireland, where there was no necessity whatever for any measure of the kind. Beyond that it was a retrograde movement, because it was an attempt altogether to ignore the existence of the Roman Catholic Church throughot the empire, although that Church bad been virtually•recognized by this House and by successive Governments, not only in the colonies, bnt in Ire land itself.— (Hear, hear.) What was the fact with regard to the manner in which they had treated the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, not merely by Acts of Parliament, but by the conduct of the executive? They had recognized the titles and dignity of their hierarchy in the Bequests Act, and a local Act- the Dublin Cemeteries Act. One of the sections of the latter empowered his Grace Dr. Murray, as Archbishop of the diocese of Dublin, and his successors in that see, to appoint a chaplain for the cemetery to which the Act re ferred, and to revoke the appointment in case he should see sufficient reason for so doing. That was a direct recognition of the spiritual jurisdiction of Archbishop Murray over the diocese of Dublin, and pro Canto, a recognition of the supre macy of the Pope. Let them look to the conduct of the execu tive in Ireland also. He might, in proof, revert to what had been mentioned the other night by the Hon. and Learned Member for Sheffield in reference to the Queen's visit to Ireland. On that occasion, for the Lord Chamberlain's office in Dublin, a list of the personages was issued who should have the entrée to the Court. In that document the Roman Catholic Primate and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin were mentioned immediately after the Protestant Primate and the Protestant Archbishop, and took precedence of the Protestant Bishop, and also of the Duke of Leinster and her Majesty's Ministers. Any exten sion, then of the . proposed measure to Ireland, thereby ignoring the authority of the Catholic Church in that king dom, was a retrograde movement on the score of civil and religions liberty. The Bill was, in fact, a direct censure upon Lord Clarendon and the executive in Ireland for their conduct on that occasion. The Noble Lord talked of pro secution. If anybody were to be prosecuted, it was the Irish executive; not that he recommended the prosecu tion of Lord Clarendon for giving their proper titles to the R o man Catholic Bishops in Ir e l an d, an d thus acknowledg ing the position of the prelates who had been elected to that high rank by the united voice of the Catholic people of Ireland. They were entering upon a wrong course in going, as they were by this Bill, to re-enact the penal laws—they were wrong in abandoning their own Lord-Lieutenant, and in abandoning their own pledges and principles. If they passed the proposed measure they would want an Act of indemnity for Lord Clarendon. The Noble Lord had shown no cause for extending the measure to Ireland; he had made out a strong case for England, but with that he (Mr. Roche) had nothing to do. He cared. he cared little whether he ac leietptlteedfotrhe Cardinalinvitation Wiseman o f the Noble Lord to go and reside in Rome or not; but with respect to Ireland they were committing a bad act in extending the proposed measure to that country, for which course no cause had been shown. act of prudence en the part of paused before he rushed into a t l h t e wo would Noble have ijord beento have bu t p an con troversy like this, which was likely to degenerate into a reli gious dispute and scramble. He (Mr. Roche) wished it were in his power to change the feelings of indignation on the part of the Irish Peoples which the measure would provoke, and divert their attention to the industrial re bnlwetr ; but as he feared he could Lord th a t h e was entering upon ould shortly find it very agree ogat e bo n itc:n e r uth a ore t s i diverge.eon from n warnedomf w t h ht e c r eth N c wh o oa s u e not yet too late to withdraw the measure—or at least to strike out of it all reference to Ireland. Mr. MOORE said that the Noble Lord at the head of the Government had delivered a speech on Catholic history, which would have done honour to him had he filled the chair in one of the Queen's colleges in Ireland. The Noble vices, he e e Lord had undertaken to prove that there was a spirit in Popery, the full development of which was dangerous to the Government and to the community, and that it there fore became the duty of the State to interfere and prevent of despotic Governments in ancient and modern times, and referred to the conduct had d ndamental principles of free-will. The Noble Lord, however, had omitted the case of America, though it was the only one that was at all analo iitn. T substance establish le d t h a t h t e v m gous to our own. America was a free country, and the Pope might send as many cardinals there as he pleased ; but if they disobeyed him they would be punished, and if they attempted to put their hands into other people's pockets they would be restrained. The Noble Lord had referred also to the acts of Catholic prelates in the middle ages, with a view to show that the Catholics of those days would have resisted the attempts of the Pope to nominate bishops. In those days, however, the bishops were not only spiritual prelates, but they were also tem p o ral potentates, having con siderable jurisdiction under the law of inheritance, and those of marriage and bequests. The Bishop of Durham, w as not only Bishop, for instance, but Prince Palatine of the County, and the laws were administered under him and in his name. It was absurd to compare the case of those prelatic princes, with poor Catholic priests, who received nothing from the State d but slight and obstruction. That was, indeed, the very t o antry of bigotry. But he com plained that the Noble rd and his party did not come into court with clean hands. They had done nothing for these people, and would let nothing be done for them. That dog in the manger sort of policy would not do. They must choose between alliance and non - intervention. The Queen was one of the greatest Catholic potentates in Christendom. Let the country acknowledge her to be so, and there would then be little difficulty with Romanists, but whilst she was bound to protest against the religion of a third of her subjects, the reason for such a course must be a contradiction in terms, and the course itself an intolerable persecution. The people of England, they were told, felt that there had been a great demonstration on the question, and that their will had been definitively expressed. But was that so? Why as to the unanimity of the movement, it was, at best, a war of opinions between two-thirds of the community and the other third. They had been told of a terrible storm but had met with nothing but a Scotch mist—a drenching drizzle of scurrility and cant, from which oppression might be deemed relief and persecution shelter.—( Hear, hear.) And with regard to any decision of a popular character upon this question, he could only say that if the confessional were esteemed by them of more importance than taxation, the infinitesimal progress of Puseyism than the giant strides of crime, or Popery than pauperism, then he thought it high time that the House should assume its noblest functions and its highest responsibility —that of asserting against the wild voice of a three months' agitation the steady, conscientious, and consistent development of public opinion during more than half a century. The Noble Lord's notorious letter to the Bishop of Durham Watt aimed ut something more than to EVENING, FEBRUARY 8, 1851. ascendant Church in this country which repudiated dissent as well as Catholicism. With respect to the Dissenters in the north of England, no matter what part might have been taken by some of them here, he could say, that with scarcely an exception they held aloof from the uproar made on that question.—(Hear, hear,) The Hon. Member then proceeded to read some extracts from the life of a Dissenting minister, the Rev. Dr. Fletcher, late of Stepney, written by his son, to show that the Established Church had no tole ration for the Dissenters. The extracts mentioned that the Doctor had sent two sermons which he had preached, one being on the birthday of the Prince of Wales, for the inspection of her Majesty ; but they had been returned by the Earl of Delawarr, who had said they could not be laid before the Queen, having been delivered to a Dissenting con gregation, and not having the sanction of the Established Church. A gentleman, who was a namesake of the Noble Lord, but he hoped no relative of his, came annually to strip of its furniture a place of worship at which he (Mr. Bright) attended, for the support of that Established Church —and that, too, in the midst of a city where there had been so much outcry of late about Papal usurpation and religious domination.—(Hear.) The Hon. Member for Sheffield bad alluded to the United States. lie would take an illustration from that country. There the Roman Catholic religion was chiefly professed by emigrants; and he had been told that one rarely heard of a native American ever becoming a Roman Catholic. Even the descendants of the emigrants, after u generation, had passed into the ranks of Protestantism. There was a difference, too, in the practice of the Roman Catholic religion in that country. To show that Protestantism was increasing in America, the Hon. Member read some extracts from a New York paper, in which there was an ac count of two Roman Catholic priests who had a chapel, which they were about to change to a different sort of worship. They had lighted candles, put up curtains in the window, and one of them, having stated their reasons for changing, concluded by extinguishing th'b candles, with drawing the curtain, and saying that it was thus they put out the artificial light which bad hitherto guided them, and would let in in its stead the glorious light of day. Such was the progress Catholicity was making in America. But there would be no secession from the Church of Rome as long as it was a persecuted Church. The system they adopted made it impossible that they could either convert themselves or let anybody else do so. Lord Burleigh, who did not admire the Dissenters, had said that the Puritans were so squeamish in their morals, and so scrupulous in their catechising and preaching, they ivere the best means of preventing the growth of Popery. Until they got rid of their system the Catholic religion would more or less spread over all the counties in Ireland, and make further progress in this country. The Bill of the Noble Lord would be perfectly inefficacious for the objects for which it was professedly intended.—(Hear, hear.) if the Noble Lord was the great agitator in .this country, be should have brought in some real substantial grievance. It was because he (Mr. Bright) was against all legislation which he believed to be useless, because he believed the Noble Lord's measure was only fitted to meet the preju dices of some persons out of doors, and not to meet auv real evil, that he (Mr. Bright) could not give his consent to the present or to any future stage of the Bill.—(Hear.) Mr. DISRAELI rose and said,— Sir, I wish to recall the attention of the House for a moment from that controversial rhetoric—(Hear, hear)—of which, I fear, the policy of her Majesty's Government affords the house a considerable prospect of a continuance for the rest of the session—l want to explain the reason why I shall give my vote for the in troduction of this measure. I shall do so because I think it is a matter of interest that the community in general should see what is the result of that remarkable agitation which has been fostered by the Government, and which has led, I hesitate not to say, to a national de monstration which, perhaps, has never been equalled. I cannot but think that, to-morrow, when the contents of this Bill shall become known to the country, there will be experienced a feeling of great disappointment— (Hear, hear)—and a great mortification.—(Renewed cries of " Hear, hear.") Let us remember for a moment what this Bill is intended to combat. It is to combat an aggression. Let the House remember the origin of that now familiar term—that familiar but fearful term. Was the expression of the Minister selected by himself, and offered to the coun try as a reason for that appeal, both to the passions and the reason of the nation, which he in his wisdom felt it his duty to make ? This, then, is the weapon by which the First Minister of the Crown, after three months of unexampled agitation in the country—after three months of consultation with his colleagues—this is the weapon which• he has pre pared for defending the Church and State from that great aggression which he has so vehemently denounced. I con fess I do not think that the weapon is equal to the office for which it is intended. I think that many persons will be of opinion that it is a somewhat small result after the antece dents that had so attracted public notice. Was it for this that the Lord Chancellor of England trampled on the cardinal's hat—(Loud cries of " Hear, hear")—amidst the patriotic acclamation of the metropolitan muni cipality ? Was it for this that the First Minister, with more reserve, delicately intimated to the assembled guests that there had been occasions when perhaps greater danger was at hand —se, for instance, at that period when the shadow of the Armada darkened the seas of England ?—(Hear.) Was it for this that all the counties sad corporations of England met? Was it for this that all our learned and religious so- cieties assembled, at a period the most inconvenient, in order, as they thought, to respond to the appeal of their Sovereign, and to lose no time in assuring her Majesty of their deter mination to guard her authority and her supremacy? Was it for this that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge— that the great city of London itself—went in solemn proces sion, in order to offer at the foot of the Throne the assurance of their devotion? Was it for this that the electric tele- graph conveyed her Majesty's response to these addresses, that not an instant might be lost in re-assuring the courage of the inhabitants of the metropolis?—(hear, and a laugh.) And what are these remedies? Some Roman Catholic priests are to be prevented from taking tit'es which they had already been prevented, to a very considerablo extent, from taking by the existing law ; the only difference being that now they are to be prevented from taking a territorial title which had not been assumed by a prelate of the National Church ; while it seems that to that provision there is to be attached a penalty. But a penalty to what amount? One of 40s. perhaps. That is not yet stated. A penalty of that amount would, in my opinion, be worthy of the occasion.— (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) Is this all? Is a piece of petty persecution all that we can devise on a solemn political ex igency of this vast importance? At the best a great politi cal exigency is met by a remedy purely technical. Not a single principle is asserted—not a single principle is indicated and, in my opinion, no substantial evil will be remedied. —(Hear, hear.) But mark the address by which this in significant project is introduced. I grant you that between the project and the proem the difference is most significant. If the Noble Lord had been about to introduce a proposition for the revival of the penal laws—(Hear, hear) the pro portions of his speech could not have been more colossal. (Hear, and laughter.) Sir, I well remember when the let ter of the Noble Lord first appeared, in consequence of the appeal which was made to me by my constituents, I recom mended them to pause before they acted, and thoroughly to understand the question which was at issue. I told them it was not sufficient to record their loyalty to the Crown, and hurry on to some hasty, and, probably, some crude act of legislation, but that this was a wide, a comprehensive ques tion, and that it was impossible to legislate for England on the subject without at the same time legislating for Ireland. —(Hear.) But mark the speech of the Minister to-night. It is 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. —(Hear.) I find the Noble Lord taking as the basis of his legislation the Synod of Thurles, and not the visit of Dr. Wiseman to England. But after having treated the question of the Synod of Thurles in a spirit, I am bound to admit, worthy of the subject, what does the Noble Lord do? He introduces a Bill which bears no reference whatever to the Synod of Thurles—(Hear, hear)—or any synodal action in any of the kingdoms of her Majesty. Why these are incon sistencies which, after three months of inconsistencies, I confess excite my astonishment. I did expect that the Government, atter their frequent Councils, and the oppor tunities which they possessed of becoming acquainted with the state of public feeling on the subject, would at least have brought in a measure consistent with the exposition of the First Minister. Aad now, Sir, what is the excuse, if I may use the term, or what is the reason given by the Noble Lord to-night for this strange contrast between his introductory statement and remedial proposal? It is, forsooth, that he begins to believe that the business is an insignificant one. How does the Noble Lord now describe the Papal aggression?—the Papal aggression that for three months, through the instrumentality of the Noble Lord, has excited the passions of the whole people. The Pope's letter is described to-night as a "blunder of the sudden." It is now the opinion of the Noble Lord that, after all, the con duct of the Pope has been nothing more than a " blunder of the sudden"—a somewhat strange phrase ; and, perhaps, there may be some persons who may think letters of other distinguished personages were but " blunders of the sudden." —(Hear, hear, and laughter.) But, Sir, I cannot admit that the conduct of the Pope has been precipitate or not duly ma tured and considered. I form my opinion on the subject from circumstances of public notoriety, and from the gra dual occurrences of incidents and events, which, I think, might have well justified his Holiness in the course which he adopted. When I recollect what has oc curred in Ireland and in the colonies with respect to Roman Catholic bishops—when I recollect that the Viceroy of Ireland, the representative of our Sovereign, has been in indirect communication with the Pope him self—(Hear hear)—that he has expressed his veneration, his high veneration, for the character of his Holiness—that he has consulted him and deferred to his judgment—l cannot agree to the allegation of the Noble Lord, that the con duct of the Pope, right or wrong, was a sudden act, or was a course of behaviour or policy adopted without due reason and due encouragement (Hear, hear, hear.) But besides all that occurred in Ireland and in the colonies with respect to the introduction of Roman Catholic prelates ; besides the letter of Lord Clarendon—a:letter which has never yet been vindicated—in which the Noble Lord expressed for the Pope a feeling of veneration, and deferred to his judgment—l cannot forget that, not very long ago, the First Minister of the Crown expressed himself in the manner I shall proceed to quote on the subject of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill. The passage is one to which I referred the other night from memory, but which, strange to say, nume rous as have been the quotations from the speeches of the Noble Lord, has never yet been quoted during these debates. According to our authoritative record thus spoke Lord John Russell in the month of July, 1845:" He believed they might repeal those disallowing clauses which prevented a Roman Catholic bishop assuming a title held by a hishoP °I the Established Chureh."—(Hear, hear.) The Noble Loeardr saw no objection whatever a few years ago, ya Coming uN n s c oe e bl : u oou o i n m s tr ir eosntasrnibcdy bl i B a 4 h s o , p t to f a Roman the CatholicEst ablished bishop Church.a as assuming g h a a d title abrt.,iedh objectiont r . then to Cardinal Wiseman'e to ilr : '. e is coukt not co styling himself Archbishop of Canterb on) The Noble Lord proceeded as followsetitall—huee: of this duly on a sub' ceive any good grounds forsethdeian tion."-- . (Hear, hear.) Now,t does e Lord suppose and duly knows of ;seeiiaiuteelnytfurpnirsshoendagtoe_thwehVeantictahne?r—e d i noted of _ nown suchth a t the opinions s in o t f e s r o es e t m aes i r n e en not —that such opinions expressed man are not t d when_ the Pope e was aware that these such iie a a r pwreerseentthaeti°vPeinoif°onusr7Sovereign was himself indirectly commu nicating with him in a tone of deferential homage—when he might read in the records of the Irish Court that his arch b bishops th sto e c o thek highest precedence—(Year)—l ask the House is it just, is it f a i r , i s t h e N o bl e L ord autho risedonduct of the Pope was " a blunder o Sir, I do not e n t er into the question whether mhit 0 upona thicommunicationsß subject. f ishP to e s state s n u d d b d en that ? But afdwill e ors say, that to mu).:3 Lordhhave was ahis made heard details to-night which prove that some communica tion was made; and certainly I am very much surprised that an envoy on a mission so confidential, after having been appnsect by the candour of his Holiness that there was something which touched England nearly, should never have had the curiosity to ask what it was—(Loud cries of " Hear, hear") —that he should never have had the curiosity to say " Pray, what is it?"—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) In his next mission I have no doubt that Lord Minto will profit by his past experience; and I must say, that of all the public men employed in public missions, Lord Minto has rue the most ;mailable couroo.—(lioar, heir, and prevent Cardinal Wiseman from assuming the title of arch bishop; and instead of applying himself to heal dissensions in the Church, to which the opening line of " Caesar's Com mentaries" applied : E , rlesia Anglicana est omnis divisa in partes tres," he had snubbed the bishops, swamped the Ecclesiastical courts, blockaded the Church, and stormed the Unitarians.—(Cheers and laughter.) Instead of viewing any act of the Pope's in the light of an aggression, he had rather viewed it as a God-send and an opportunity. The Noble Lord's object was, by raising a cry of invasion from without to crush dissension within. It would be prepos terous to suppose that he was merely " wallopping" his own nigger, without caring who came in for a share of the blows.—(A laugh.) A Prime Minister should not have written in that style. But it was said that they were bound to listen to the voice of the people, expressed as it had been. He would, however, have them beware; how they did injus tice to others in protecting themselves. They were about to sacrifice Ireland, with its wounded hearts and insulted feel ings, to agitati nin England. The reply of Ireland would be a note of defiance. This Bill, if it became law, he warned them, might be disobeyed, and would be disobeyed there, and with impunity, for from one end of the country to the other they would not get a verdict. The Noble Lord, hoe - ever, intimated that it it were found not strong enough, he was prepared to go further. But how much further would he go? He warned them to avoid the agony of the past and the misery which must result from this course in future. But it was said that, if liberty was not tolerated in Rome, and a Protestant establishmeht exist there, why should a Roman Catholic hierarchy be permitted here? Why, simply, be cause England was the protectress of freedom and free insti tutions. He was proud that he was not a subject of a paltry Italian priest, but a citizen of this free country, and he claimed for himself and all those who agreed with . him in re ligious opinions, the toleration enjoyed by all other classes of the community. Mr. BRIGHT said the question under discussion was considered by some as a very light one, while by others it was held as of a very grave character. Among the latter was the Noble Lord at the head of the Government, who had showed more than his usual excitement in his speech. He ( Mr. Bright ) would not make any observations on that speech— though it was open to grave animadversion—but would rather refer to the Noble Lord's letter. That letter was obviously written under feelings of excitement unbecoming in the Prime Minister of a great country—with a degree of precipi tation which certainly did not raise the Noble Lord's cha racter as a statesman. Its inconsistency was its most trifling feature. The Noble Lord was, in fact, at one time willing to endow a religion in one part of the kingdom which he now denounced as a thing dangerous to the supremacy of the Crown and the integrity of the empire. The Noble Lord, in that letter, had spoken of something he apprehended more danger from than from the act of the Pope ; but the Noble Lord had said nothing of that danger in the Queen's Speech, and he had come down in hot haste the very first day of the session—not to combat it, but to propose a trifling measure. The Noble Lord bad appealed to the bigotry of the country—(Hear, hear) - and he had met with a ready response from many who were not bigotted, bat who bad followed the banner which the Noble Lord had raised. The end of the case, however, was still to come. It was that paltry little measure which the Noble Lord had brought forward to meet the great emergency which he proclaimed. That was, in fact, only the first step to it: and he (Mr. Bright) should not be at all surprised if the Noble Lcrd, at no distant day, found himself in the pre dicament of the man in ancient fable—devoured by his own bounds. It was, in fact, perfectly possible that the very measure calculated to acquire the greatest amount of popu larity in the Government might end in the destruction of that Government. He (Mr. Bright) took it for granted that the case in question was a grave case from the number of county and borough meetings that had taken place on the subject ; and he should, therefore, strip it of all its external trappings for the purpose of investigation. How stood the fact ? Ireland at this moment was overrun with Catholicism, and in England there was likewise a yielding to it—a falling back. The question of conversion to Protestantism had, however, been before the English people for centuries ; and, therefore, the real point to be considered was, how far the system that had been followed was calculated to suppress Roman Catholicism, and make this country that which the Noble Lord boasted it was—a Protestant people and a Protestant empire. At this moment there were more Catholics in Ireland than ever; 100 years ago they were as five to one, now the proportion was greater. There could consequently be no question that the tendency of the policy which had been pursued in that respect was to make Catholicism take a still deeper root in Ireland. In England it was said Catholicism was increasing, but he (Mr. Bright) doubted it. He believed that few Englishmen who were of any faith ever became Catholics; and though he ad mitted that there was a great increae of Catholics in Lan cashire and other manufacturing districts, still he considered that it was not indigenous, but was imported from Ireland. But though there were a great many conversions to Popery in England, he would not deny they were all to be found among the clergy of the Established Church. In regard to the Irish Church, which was established to exterminate Catholicism in Ireland, the most stringent laws had been enacted from 1690 to 1780 for that purpose; and a relaxa tion of that frightful code had only taken place when Eng land was engaged in a dangerous war with America. From 1780 to 1829 a gradual process of relaxation had ensued; but every little privilege gained by the Irish Catholics was the result of incessant struggles opposed to a most deter mined resistance. From the 12th to the 16th century England was engaged in conquering Ireland; from the 16th to the 18th century she was engaged in converting her, and from the 18th century to the present time there was a gradual relaxation of the penal code.— (Cries of " Hear, hear.") It was clear, therefore, that the policy which had been pursued towards that country was not successful. The Irish Church, now called the Irish branch of the English Church, had for a long period had all the power of the State in that country, and every advantage of wealth, patronage, and ascendancy ; but still withal the Irish Catholics were not extirpated, nor was their religion suppressed, although no act of oppression had been committed in that country (and who could reckon them ? ) which was not committed at the insti gation, or at least with the full concurrence of that institu tion. It was a common saying, that truth was indestructible; but persecuted error was equally indestructible. This was the Case in Ireland. If the Church of Ireland, as an ancient fother of the Church said of the priests engaged in the con version of the Saxons, were only half as zealous in the dis pensation of kindness and generosity as they were in collect ing their dues—lint predicatores non predatores were his words—the Saxons would have been long before converted. It was the same with the Irish Catholics and the Irish Church ; and it was capable of demonstration that the system pursued by that Church was calculated to make the Irish not only Catholics in faith, but patriots in politics. The result was self-evident ; the Catholic system triumphed, and Ireland was now Catholic. This was a just retribution. How, he would ask, had their legislation acted in this country with regard to the Roman Catholic religion ? There were symptoms of return to its errors, but where did they appear ? Were they amongst the people or amongst the clergy ?—(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord at the head of the Government had told them where they were.—(Hear hear.) He did not mean to say that the clergy in this country wished to acknowledge the Pope; but they adopted some of the principles of' Popery. A clergyman whom he happened to meet a short time ago had told him that the great evil of the age was the Protestantism of this country. —(Hear, hear, and laughter.) He had travelled lately also with a couple of clergymen, and they had said to him, " We do not hold the doctrine of the Queen's supremacy at all."— (Hear, hear.) The Established Church had now been so established for 300 years. It had been called the bulwark of Protestantism, and that which was to defend us from Popery. Now, he would ask, what were the means which that Church had at its disposal? He tried to look at the question with some impartiality. It had the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The Dissenters did not go to Ox ford at all, and made little use of Cambridge. It had two dozen bishops in the House of Lords. The Noble Lord at the head of the Government said he was opposed to ecclesi astical influence in temporal affairs.—(Hear.) Yet they saw in the other House some twenty-four or twenty-six bishops who always sat behind the Government.—(Laughter. ) No matter what side Noble Lords might change to, they always sat there. There was an archbishop with 16,0001. a year. When it was proposed to bring down that salary to 15,0001. he had heard the Noble Lord say, with a coolness which was most refreshing, " I hope this wiR be found satisfactory."—(Laughter.) The Noble Lord, indeed, never proposed to increase the official salaries of his own colleagues. There was a power alYout these bishops and archbishops wherever they went, whether they stayed at home or travelled. A bishop had been sent to Jerusalem. He did not travel like an ordinary mortal, but went in a steam-frigate called the Devastation—(Laughter)—and per haps within a stone's throw of that place where the Apostles lived, in the house of one Simon, a tanner, he landed under a salute of twenty-one guns.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) When the Bishop of Madras, too, arrived in harbour, they were told he was honoured with a salute in proportion to his rank. That Church, then, had much at its disposal. It had the Parliament at its back. There was a league offensive and defensive between the Noble Lord and the bishops. They said, "Let us alone and we will let you alone. (Hear, hear.) And Parliament was to pass laws now for that institution with less freedom of disscussion than it had ever formerly exercised. It had the magistracy, the police, and a vast body of parochial clergy, at its dis posal also. He did not wish to bring any charge against the ministers of the Established Church, for there were many among them of the most estimable character, and had they not been so the institution would not have lasted so long, nor have so much enjoyed the affections of the people.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") Still the Established Church was one of ascendancy and domination. It had from one to two millions of income. It had its reve nue of millions, and no Parliamentary plummet could ever sound the chest of its wealth, for the returns sought for by that House were never faithfully answered. It had Govern ment at its back, and 15,000 educated men throughout the country, and was, therefore, the bulwark of Protestantism. It was to save the country from Popery ; and yet, accord ing to the statement of the Prime Minister, it was infected with Popery itself.—(Hear, hear.) If in any other depart ment of the State the machinery had been found so inade quate to its objects, would it not be at once abolished? The Church had been chiefly fixed as it was now by Queen Elizabeth, who hated the Pope of Rome, because she had re solved to be Pope herself at home.—(Laughter.) He con fessed he attributed chiefly to her that what had been called the Reformed Church of England was not thoroughly re formed, and that it was not more useful is the country than it had been.—(Hear, hear.) Persecutions had com menced under it in the reign of Charles I. It had cost that monarch his head; for prelacy had been so heavy when united with the Crown, that the Crown had sunk under it. In Charles ll.'s time the Dissenters had been persecuted, and many members also of the sect to which he (Mr. Bright) belonged, both male and female, had been imprisoned and punished for religion's sake. All that had gone on up to the time of the Toleration Act. But what was the state of the Church now? Its revenues were enormous; he believed nobody knew what they were. That Established Church bad been during all that period the steady and consistent opponent of every legislative reform proposed in this country. The Church was a political Church, as its articles showed; and so long as it remained so it had worked in a man ner tolerably harmonious. The danger was now that zeal had found its way into its ranks, and every honest man within her was working for her overthrow. What was its condition? He acknowledged that he felt for it himself. (Hear, hear, and Oh,toh.) He did feel a sympathy for the Wesleyan body. With respect to the Church of England itself, its clergy were split into three or four different sects, all of whom bated one another as violently as if of different creeds; and at the present moment there was not a man in that House could say that the Church of England would last for one month together as a united Church IN ere it not for the vast possessions which the Parliament of this country had placed at its disposal.—(Hear, hear.) T of an establishment must come on in the couhresep.rolfncitiipalet discussion. Ireland repudiated that•principle, so did Scot land, and so also did Wales; and even in England . a an very large and growing proportion of the peopl e repudiated es tablishment and the Queen's ecclesiastical supre.macy.— (Hear, hear.) What the Noble Lord was proposing to do on that occasion was a mere sham.—(llear, hear, and laughter.) It would be a sort of pretence . to . bolster up the Church ascendancy so long maintained in this country. Th e sentiments of the Noble Lord about religious liberty were YerY a tt ra ctive, but they were allacie" There wag aA laughter.) There are financial reformers present who may draw on, among other things, the diplomatic allot sances granted by this country. Now, I confess, that so far as I can form an opinion from the ape rations of a distinguished amateur, I have been led - to the conclusion that in the case of missions, whether open or secret .- wh et her for war or peace, or evian for religion, it would be better to employ the ser vices of a professional diplomatist. In my opinion the course which her Majesty's Government are now taking is not merely one very unsatisfactory as regards the present, but extremely perilous for the future. I think it a great evil, after all that has occurred, to baulk the feelings of a nation ; but I regard that as a minor evil, competed with the prospect which is held out to us by the Noble Lord this evening of ulterior measures-(Hear, bear) -and of future intentions. Th e N o bl e L or d seeme d to me to have chalked out for himself an illimitable career, which to commence with petty prosecutions-(Hear, hear) -and perhaps terminate with national disasters, while it can never ac complish a solution worthy of a gre a t s t a t esma n . and a great public emergency. What is the prospect before us? Suppose there is another Papal aggression, and by the en cooragement which the Roman Catholic prelates have re ceived, 1 think we may count on the probable cecurrenee of such an event-(hear , hear, and a laugh)-there is, then, to be another measure adapted to the new insult on the supremacy of the Sovereign. We are then to have passions still more embittered, prejudices still more excited, rancour, hatred, fear, and the odium thcologicum, prevalent among all classes, A new measure would probably produce another aggression, another " blunder of the sudden ;" and these " blunders of the sudden " may be perpetually recurring year after year, to be m e t by some law " ot 'the sudden.' We shall then have Whigs governing England by a continual " Popish plot," which is never to be brought to a bead. Sir, in my opinion the existence of a Roman Catholic hierarchy, in a Protestant country, not recognized ; by the law, is a great political evil-(hear, hear.) To reconcile the recognition of such a hierarchy by the law with a sacred and complete respect for the civil and religious liberties of Roman Catholics is a political problem very difficult to solve. But although it is difficult to solve, its solution is not, in my opinion, impossible; and that not by concordat with foreign princes, but by the internal and essential power of the Eng lish Parliament.- (Hear, bear.) Ido not say that that is a political difficulty which any conscientious statesman would have courted-I do not mean to say that it is a subject which a man would have gt ne out of his way to bring under pub lic notice; but I say this, that when a statesman has taken the course which the Noble Lord has taken, he is bound to attempt to solve that political problem--he is bound to introduce a measure equal to the occasion, and not to meet a great political emergency which he himself has fostered, if not created-(Cheers)-by a technical remedy unworthy of the dignity of Parliament, and of the occasion which it pretends to cope with.-(Hear.) That is the view which I take of the conduct of the Government. 1 will not oppose the introduction of this Biil. I think its introduction is the severest condemnation of their conduct for the last three months.-(Hear, hear.) But if the House should pass this Bill, let them remember that thereby they will have done nothing. They will still be unable in any way to cope with an exigency which they are bound to meet; and all they will have done will be, that they will have gained tune-too brief to count in the history of a nation- only to have to encounter the same difficulties very shortly again, aggravated by our inefficiency and the spirit with which we first recognized our danger, and the craven manner in which we afterwards shrank from meeting a difficulty we ourselves had created.-(Cheers.) Mr. M. J. O'CONNELL was anxious not to give a silent vote on this occasion. The question had now assumed an aspect somewhat different from that which they were led by the organs of Government during the recess to expect it would assume. They had been led to believe that Ireland would not be included in the Bill, but now they found Ire land was to be included; and for himself, he must say he was not sorry for it, because he thought they ought to share with their Catholic brethren of England any restrictions imposed on them. More over, the Queen had supremacy over the Estab lished Church of Ireland, as well as over the Church of England, and any violation of it in Ireland was as much au offence as a violation of it in England. He denied that those Catholics who approved of the recent proceedings of Dr. Wiseman were to be considered as disloyal. There wise no parallel between the late proceedings and the case sute posed by the Noble Lord, of a person landing in England in setting up the flag of a pretender. The Noble Lord had referred to the 24th section of the Act of 1829, which prohibited the assumption of the titles of Eng lish sees. One would almost suppose, from the constant reference which had been made to that Act, that it had been found efficacious, whereas 22 years had elapsed since it was passed and it was regarded as a dead letter-a laugh ing-stock and not the terror of those it intended to restrain. As for the proposed Bill, it would only create annoyance and irritation. lie believed it would be a failure for good, but not for mischief. The Noble Lord had alluded to the Irish colleges. He would assure the Noble Lord if they were in any danger it was from the proceedings of the Noble Lord himself. He knew a great many men in and about Cork who, up to November, had held very moderate opinions on the subject of the colleges, but who, since the unfortunate manifesto of the Noble Lord, had begun to change their minds on the subject. Sir R. INGLIS bad to ask the indulgence of the House for a few seconds, as he could not allow the speech of the lion. Member for Manchester to pass without remark. That speech was nothing more nor less than a most elaborate attack on the Church of England.-( Hear, hear.) In his usual ad captandum style the Hon. Member had referred to the proceedings of a clergyman of the name of Grill with respect to the meeting-house to which the Hon. Member belonged. The Hon. Member did not state whether the clergyman bodily entered the meeting-house, or whether the furniture was seized by ordinary process of law. if wrongfully seized the process of law might be reversed. But in point of fact it was well known to the Hon. Member that the seizure was merely the mode by which the lawful dues withheld by the body to which the flon. Member be longed were secured.-(llear.) With regard to the other case brought forward by the Honourable Member, he had never heard of it bgfore. Ile did not know under what cir cumstances the application was made, or what were Lord Delawares functions. The usual custom was to forward to the Secretary of State whatever was intended tor presentation to her Majesty. The Honourable Member alluded to what he called the bigotry of the Church on this question. It was to the honour of the Dissenters of England that the two first petitions presented on the subject of this Bill were presented by the lion. Mem ber for Wolverhampton from the Dissenting congregations. -(Hear.) With respect to what the Hon. Member had said as to the emoluments, he called them the salaries of the bishops. He had stated over and over again that there were no such things as salaries bestowed by the Minister on bishops or dignitaries of the Church. The whole that Par liament had done in that respect had been to lessen the amount of the hereditary property of the sees. When the Hon. Member talked of the salary of the Archbishop of Can terbnty being 15,0001., and asked if the Noble Lord was not satisfied with that, be had to tell the Hon. Member that it was only so much left out of that which was really due to the Archbishop.-(Hear, hear.) With regard to the Hill in question, he should not now discuss it. But after the mention which had been made on both sides of the letter of time Noble Lord, he should not be doing his duty if he did not thank the Noble Lord for that let ter, for which not only the Protestantism of this country, but the Protestantism of Europe, was much in debted, and also for the speech of the Noble Lord that night. (Hear, hear.) He wished he could thank the Noble Lord equally for the Bill lie had brought forward. He felt there was too much truth in what had been stated by the Hon . Member for Bucks, that the Bill fell short of the require ments of the case, but lie should perha pa be doing injustice if he altogether decided against a measure not yet before them.- (Hear, hear.) On the present occasion he was un willing to allow the speech of the Hon. Member for Man cheater to pees unnoticed. If a stranger had entered the House when the Hon. Member was speaking, he would have fancied that the Hon. Member was making a. motion for the abolition of the United Church of England and Ire. land.-(Hear, hear.) Mr. REYNOLDS moved the adjournment of the debate. The SPEAKER was putting the question, when. Lord J. RUSSELL said if it was the wish of any Hon. Members to address the House oa this stage of the Bill, he should not oppose the adjournment of the debate. Mr. REYNOLDS knew several Hon. Members who were anxious to speak on the question. Mr. BIOOR E wished to know if the Noble Lord would state the details of the Bill before the adjournment. Lord J. RUSSELL could not well state the details of a measure not yet before the House. The debate was then adjourned. Mr. HAWES obtained leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Passengers Act. The Bill was brought in and ordered to be read a second time on Monday next. The House then adjourned at a quarter past Twelve. o'clock. SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. LINCOLN SPRING MEETING.—FaIDAY. Handicap Sweepstakes of se. soya, Subs each, ) 3 ft, and 26 added. One mil(6 . Mr. Robinson's Post-tempore, Bst 71b (Bumby) 1 Mr. Harrison's Swift, 7st 11b (Sabin 2 Mr. W. Neale's Calculator, sst 21b Mr. J. Osbome's Oxford Blue, ist 51b... ..... --(Osborne 4 Mr. Cunningham's Psyche, 7st 21b (Charlton 5 Betting-5 to 4 agst Psyche, and 2to 1 apt Post-tempore. Won by half a neck; the same between second and third. The Hurdle Stakes, of 5 sous. each. Two miles, ov er fi v e hurdles. (14 Subs.) Mr. Cunningham's Quadruped, lOst 31b ..viallsed over. _ The Selling Steeplechase Stakes, of 5 boys each, ft, and 20 added. (5 Subs.) Mr. J. Oliver's Fugleman, list 7lb ........... .... .(Owner 1 Mr. Hunter's Barkby, 71b (( Green 2 Mr. R. Walker's Dandy Jon, list 71b (Walker 3 Who Cares, list (Taylor), and Cleaver, list (G. Arran), also started.—Won by a neck- CHESTER CUP. letter received from Mr. Topham, clerk of It appears by a. a.v that John of Berwick was scratched the course, 012 without the knowledge of the owner; this increases the acceptances to B_3._ ARK ASHDOWN P COURSING MEETING. THIRD DAY, The Ashdown Stakes - Second Ties. Merry Lass bt Noon of Night. Whiff Manifesto bt Leoline Third Ti W I bt Maggie Lauder Jezabel bt Merry Lass. The Craven Stakes—Third Ties. Egypt bt Southgrove I Factotum bt Racer Martinet ran a bye. The Lamboum Stakes. Mr. Holmes's Tartar bt Mr. Jenner's Jealousy. Mr. James's Jetty Treffz bt Mr. Parkinson's Sample. [ADVERTISEMENT:j—A respected Member of the Society of Friends cured of a Cough and Asthma b /lolls way's Ointment and Pills. Extract of a letter from Air. Ben jamin Mackie to Professor Holloway, dated Creenagh, near Loughall, Sept. 11, 1848:—" Respected Friend,--I feel it only an act of justice to thyself to state that I have personally experienced the benefit of thy excellent pills and ointment in the cure of an inveterate cough and asthma, which witted me so severely for three years that I frequently was obliged to walk about in my room all night, afraid of suffocat i on if I . went to bed. I then tried thy invaluab le medicines, wh ich, lam pleased to say have perfectly cured me."—Sold by all medicine vendprs throughout 'the civilised world, and at Professor Hol loway's Establishment, 244, Strand, Louden. LOSS OF THE BRIG LAUREL, OF GLA SGOW WITH , ALL ON BOARD.—GLASGOW, EH. 6. —The vess e l w ith w hi c h the Thistle steamer cam e into collision in the Firth of Clyde on Tuesday night, turns out to be the Laurel, of Glasgow, from Demerara, inward bound, with a cargo of sugar and molasses. This has been ascertained from part of the stern, the master's desk, and . a portion of the cargo having floated as hore at Pladda. It is believed there were at least sixteen hands on board belonging to the vessel, and one passenger, all of whom have no doubt perished. The Laurel was up wards of 300 tons burthen, and was the property of Messrs. J. and J, Campbell, of thi s c it y . Both hull and cargo are insured by . the underwriters here. 1,.., '.'. ‘.. ,