The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-10-09 00:00:00

d 111 b . IstO P Lib- he d t" n e ss, . its cl tobig . t y ill r o t P s t y olf or Pi , oti coo - , of sf f the / iCe° '), ' , 411 irt.4411. (Hear.) They see her crowding the benches of St. Stephen's (Hear.) They see her seated at the council table of our mo arch. (Hear.) And if such things as these are not sufficient to rouse their latent energies, I know not what is. (Hear.) Yes, sir, they are roused ; and from being cool, uninterested spectators of the operations of this society, they are becoming its most ardent and warmest supporters. They see that Po pery is making rapid strides. They see that although she can but at present prosecute,—(hear,)—yet they see also that if she gets but the power the unchanged and unchangeable principles of Popery will not only prosecute, but per secute teo. (Loud cheers.) But, sir, there surely is some ground for the rampant state of Popery ; and what is it ? I think it is not too much to charge a large proportion of it upon our own unfaithfulness—on our unfaithfulnss to our God, our unfaithfulness to our country, our unfaithfulness to ourselves, our unfaithfulness to those Protestant princi ples which have been in the past ages of our country, and which are still, the barometer of England's weal or England's WO. (Cheers.) If, then, we acknowledge such to be the fact, what is our duty as Christian men? What but to re trace our steps—to retrace every false step—as far as we can ? (Cheers.) If we have hitherto made grants to Popish colleges, let us refuse to grant them any more. (Cheers.) If we have made grants to anti-scriptural systems of education, let us refuse to grant them any more. (Cheers.) If we have consented to Popish legislation, which has been the curse of this country, then let us retrace our steps, and call for the en tire and unqualified repeal of what is commonly called the emancipation act. (Vehement and long-continued applause.) But after what I have stated, it would ill become me to go into further details. I know the meeting is anxious to hear the gentlemen to whom I have alluded. I will, therefore, conclude with only expressing this :earnest, this ardent hope, that while our clergy are labouring with ministerial faithfulness to oppose the spi ritual despotism of the Church of Rome, the laity will not be backw ar d t o s t an d i n t h e b reac h , and oppose her political aggrandisement. (Loud cheers.) DAVID HODGSON, Esq., seconded the resolution, which, he observed, considering the numerous and able speakers who were to follow him, he would do without remark. The Rev. R. J. ArGHEE then came forward and addressed the meeting nearly as follows :—Mr. Chairman,—Before I enter upon the subject of that resolution which I shall have the honour to move this day, I beg to advert to one or two facts which I trust will not be considered irrelevant to this anniversary of the Liverpool Protestant Association, but of importance to all Protestant Associations, and to the Pro testant cause in this empire. Upon the 29th of this month it will be five years since I had the honour of addressing my Protestant fellow subjects in this Amphitheatre. The Pro testants of England had felt most deeply that the promised blessings that were expected to flow from the concession of Political power to the papacy had all vanished from the view of England. The fears of most had been realized, the hopes of many had been disappointed. But when in the year 1835 it pleaied God to bring to light by his providence the secret standards and principles of the papal hierarchy, and to prove to demonstration by facts, that all the principles which had ever been charged against the Church of Rome were held by her archbishops, bishops, and priests. It will be recollected that the Protestants in many places, and in Liverpool more especially, felt themselves called upon to associate together to restrain the tyranny and the persecution of the Church of Rome. Upon that occasion this little trunk contained all the documents that were within the reach of the Protestant Church to prove the charges that had been brought against the Church of Rome. It contained alone the directories of the Roman Catholic priests, by which it was demonstrated that Dens' Theology was the standard of their instruction. Since that time it has pleased Providence to bring to light, at successive stages, more and more of the iniquities of the Church of Rome, and more and more documents by which those iniquities have been demonstrated. (Hear.) After your association had been formed, the bibles that had been circulated secretly among the poor Roman Catholics of Ire land, as the infallible standard of their church under the authority of their bishops, were brought to light. Then the eighth volume of Dens Theology, which had not been ex amined before, was found to contain not merely the princi ples of that theology but the laws of the Church of Rome set tiP under episcopal sanction, and thereby put into force and operation in the country, by which all the principles of Dens acquired the character of law, and all the laws that these men, the Roman Catholic bishops, had denied upon their oaths before the committees of parliament, were proved to be set up under the sanction of the very men who denied them. (Hear.) After this, in the year 1837, the secret sta tutes of the province of Leinster, by Dr. Murray and his co-provincial bishops, were brought to light, which, in con nection with their directories, established this tremendous fact —not only that, after his denial, Dens' Theology had been set up as the standard for the priests, but that that Theology had been set up as the standard in which the Ro man Catholic priests were to be drilled by their bishops for the purpose of diffusing those principles among the people, and directing the consciences of the unfortunate Roman Ca tholics of Ireland. (Cheers.) Still these facts and these documents were scoffed at because they were only in the Possession of an individual ; but I am thankful, through God's mercy, to be enabled to say this day, that now dupli cates, or rather triplicates, o f ever y essential document have been collected. This bookcase (pointing to one on the plat form) has been brought here by me for the purpose of shew ing it to this meeting this day, and of calling your attention to it, and especially the attention of my rev. brethren. Every essential document that ever has been brought forward against the Roman Catholic bishops and priests has been lodged, in bookcases exactly the same as this, one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the other in the University Library at Cambridge. (Cheers.) All the statements that have been made unon the subject of Popery—all the reports of all the meetings held from the year 1835 till the year 1837 — have been published by my rev. brother Dr. O'Sullivan and myself (cheers) in these two volumes (exhibiting them) ; these are laid with the books, and with the documents to which they refer, in the bookcases at Oxford and at Cam bridge. (Hear.) All the statements which we have made, a nd which have been charged upon us as falsehoods and ca lumnies agai ns t th e Ch urc h o f Rome, are now lodged be side her own authentic documents, not in our possession, but within the reach of all the learning of England. Therefore, Y " 7, brethren, you may stand up with confidence, and n oe se , a o i rn i. t e hes f e documents. ' Do o you . not refer to the evidence Your univ ersities your poor brethren from Ireland ; but go ye to rsities, and call upon the learning of Oxford and single Cambri dge Statem to e rfi rm if necessary, or refute if possible, one of Popery. that has been made by us upon the subject (Cheer s .) I shall merely state that there is not a ny important fact, or at least very few, in these documents which has not been embodied in our public statements, or in books which have been published and are within the reach of any person who chooses to obtain them. Here is a syllabus of these documents, numbered, and printed so that every person may have it. I have ordered some of them to be sent to Liverpool, and I have now the honour to present a copy to our venerable chairman. (Hear.) This, then, I trust, will not be considered an irrelevant statement at this anniversary of the Liverpool Protestant Association. I hope you will rather all feel that now you have solid facts, solid grounds, solid documentary proofs to proceed on, and that they will serve to stimulate you, under the blessing of God, to active energetic exertion in this cause in which you are engaged. (Hear.) I shall now proceed to read the resolution which I have the honour to move this day— " That it is demonstrated to this meeting that the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, since the concession of political power in the year 1829, have, in direct violation of the most solemn religious and moral obligations, set up those very laws which they had renounced on oath before both the com mittees of Lords and Commons, before the commissioners of education in Ireland, and by their own address and oath vo luntarily pledged to their priests and laity. That by these laws they have set up the temporal authority of the Pope within these realms, to coerce the Roman catholic laity to violate their allegiance to their lawful sovereign, to stimulate them to invade and subvert the Protestant government and the civil and religious rights and privileges of their Protestant fellow-subje c ts.'' This is the first part of the resolution ; the second is— " That it therefore appears to this meeting that it is the bounden duty of the Protestants of this empire to unite to gether firmly, to deliver themselves and their Roman Ca tholic fellow-subjects from this antichristian yoke." But I will pause at this part of the resolution ; I will defer the second part of it till I come to the documents by which it will be necessary to substantiate it. The first part of the resolution opens a most extensive field ; but I shall confine myself to a very narrow limit. The atrocious principles of the papacy, as recorded in the history of this nation, the seditions, the plots, the massacres, the martyrdoms that stained the pages of English history, had excited intense ap prehensions in the minds of the Protestants of this empire, in the prospect of conceding political power to the Roman Catholics. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, committees of both houses of parliament were appointed ; investigations and in quiries were made into certain principles which were alleged to be held by the Church of Rome. Previous to this Mr. Pitt, in the honest simplicity of an upright English protes tant, sent over to the foreign universities, to demand from them why then they held such and such principles. The re sult was such as might have been expected. The Roman Catholic universities were astonished that a man of Mr. Pitt's enlightened mind could possibly impute such senti ments as these to the Roman Catholics ; and the university that was most loud in her expressions of astonishment and wonder at Mr. Pitt, was the University of Louvaine, at which university, at that very time, Dens' Theology was the stan dard work, and at which Dens himself had been a professor, and at which he had written that Theology. (Hear, hear.) The bishops of the Church of Rome were examined before the committees of parliament. They were examined upon these subjects :—Whether the Roman Catholic church, in the event of the concession of political power, was inclined to invade the property of the Church of England, the lay and ecclesiastical property in Ireland, and to recover from Irish landlords the forfeited estates. Secondly, they were ex amined as to the dispensing power of the pope, whether the pope or the bishops had a right to dispense with oaths or crimes. They were next examined as to the temporal power of the pope, whether the pope exercised directly or indi rectly, or could he exercise temporal power within these realms. They were examined as to the existence of a certain bull, to the operation of a certain bull, whether it was in force, called Blain ccence domini—a bull of universal excommunication against all protestants, es pecially all Protestant authorities, setting up papal autho rity in whatever state it is published. They were examined also as to a certain canon, the third of the Fourth Lateran Council—a canon which had been enacted at that council in the year 1215, for the purpose of exterminating the Albigenses —a canon whose history was written at that time upon the fields of Europe in characters of blood—a canon of treachery and sedition, by which the pope has power to grant a dispen sation to all subjects from their allegiance to a protestant sovereign whenever it pleased him. They were examined, I say, as to the existence of these principles and laws and canons of their church. Now to detail the evidence upon these sub jects, it is not my intention to intrude upon this meeting. But there are two documents to which I shall refer. I shall merely mention that they denied every single principle and every single law—they denied them upon their oaths in the most emphatic manner, so that it was utterly impossible that a protestant community or a protestant government could bring at the time any charge against them. (Cheers.) They must either have said, " these men are not to be believed upon their oaths—we cannot believe one syllable they utter," or they must have admitted that their oaths were true, that they did not hold these principles, and that they had not put these laws into force. But not content with their answers to the questions of the committees of parliament, these Roman Catholic bishops wrote an address to their own clergy and their own laity, which they published in the most solemn manner and with the most solemn professions, renouncing to the priests, and renouncing to the people, upon their oaths, the very doctrines they had renounced before the committees of parliament. I will read one or two of their answers, which they gave upon oath. They declare upon oath : " They detest, as unchristian and impious, the belief that it is lawful to murder or destroy any person or persons what ever, for, or under the pretence of their being heretics." They declare upon oath that : " They do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, bath or ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, Superiority or pre-eminence, directly orindirectly, within this realm." They here renounce upon oath the persecuting doctrines of Popery and the temporal power of the pope. Again, " They further solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare, that they make this declaration and every Part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of their oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental re servation whatever, and without any dispensation already granted by the pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, or any person whatever, and without thinking that they are or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this de claration, ur any part thereof, although the pope, or any per son or authority whatsoever, shall dispense with, or the same, or declare that it was null and void." In what language was it possible for men to renounce the dispensing power of the pope more strong than this? Then to the property of the church : " They also disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic establishment in its stead. And further, they swear that they will not exercise any privilege to which they are or may be entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant govern ment in Ireland." Again : " They declare that they will defend to the utmost of their power the settlement and arrangement of property in this country, as established by the laws now in being." These were the declarations and oath, mark, given by the Roman catholic hierarchy, not to the protestants, but in the most solemn manner given to their own priests and their own people who were under their episcopal jurisdiction. We shall now put this by fora moment and look to another decla ration. This was in the year 1826 before they obtained political power. Here, in the year after they obtained political power, in the year 1830, is an address of the Roman catholic arch bishops and bishops to the clergy and people of the catholic church in Ireland. Let me entreat your attention to this. I know and feel continually how tiresome it is to read docu ments such as these to meetings like the present. I can only promise that you shall he relieved from the trouble of listen ing, and amply repaid by my dear and rev. brother who is to follow me, therefore I entreat you to have the kindness to lend me your attention whilst I lay before you these docu ments, however tedious they may be in themselves : " Labour, therefore, in all things to promote the end which viz. the pacification and prosperity of Ireland. Let religious the legislature contemplated in passing this bill for your relief, discord cease; let party feuds and civil dissensions be no more heard of ; let rash, and unjust, and illegal oaths be not even named amongst you ; and if sowers of discord or sedition should attempt to trouble your repose, seek for a safeguard against them in the protection afforded by the law. Be sober, and watch, so that no one may have evil to say of you ; give way to anger rather than contend with an adversary, so that nothing on your part may be wanting to promote peace and good will among all classes of the Irish people. To our ve nerable brethren, the clergy of whatsoever degree, we propose with reference to what here follows, our own example : they will copy it into their lives, and adhere to it as a rule of con duct. We united our efforts with those of the laity in seeking to attain their just rights, and to attain them without a corn- promise of the freedom of our church. Success attended our united efforts, because reason, and justice, and religion, and the voice of mankind were upon our side." " We discharged a duty imposed upon us by a state of times which has passed, but a duty which we have gladly relinquished, in the fervent hope, that by us or our succes- sors it may riot be .resumed. These are the sentiments which the spirit of our calling inspires ; they are the sentitnents which never ceased to animate us, and which our clergy, always obedient to our voice, will cherish all with us, as the apostle commands—' all may say the same thing, and there may be no divisions amongst us.' " This is signed by all the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops of Ireland; Dr. Curtis, the then Roman Catholic primate, being at the head of one column, and Dr. Murray, the present Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, at the head of another. There is nothing in that address which every one will not approve of, and say it was an address which ought to have proceeded from those bishops under such circumstances. Now the question is, was this oath given by them before emancipation sincere, and was this address to their clergy and people the year after emancipa tion sincere ? (Hear, hear.) What are the facts ? This was in the year 1830. In the year 1831, four of those bishops—but no, here I must stop. Whilst they were giv ing their evidence, and for years before it, the secret stan dard in which the whole Roman Catholic hierarchy of Ire land were drilling their priests—the secret standard taught in every one of their colleges, was this book called Dens' Theology. The year after they gave these oaths they made this address, that is in the year 1831. Four of these bishops, Dr. Murray and two or three of his co-provincial bishops, entered into their synod. The first persons they placed upon the list of the excommunicated were heretics and apos tates. There is the book. They wanted, in their directo ries, Dens' Theology to be the conference book for their dioceses, and they added to that book this book of laws, in which every single law upon which they had been examined before the committees of parliament in 1826 was set up, and added to that theology, as the standard by which the priests were to guide the consciences of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. In so doing—and, observe this, for it is an impor tant point, and you will feel its importance in the last part of the resolution which I have to submit—when the Roman Catholic bishops authorise or sanction the publication of a papal law, that law is thereby put in force. This was the principle upon which they had denied throughout the exist ence of these laws in Ireland. When they were examined upon the Bulla Cceine Domini, Dr. Doyle swore it was not received in Ireland, and never would be. (Hear, hear.) He (Dr. Doyle) said it would leave nothing at rest in any country where it was received. Dr. M'Hale swore that it was not received in Ireland, and that its collision with the constituted authorities of the country rendered it impos sible it should ever be received in Ireland. This was the evidence of these two prelates ; we shall speak of it just now. Dr. M`Hale swore these bulls were never in force, unless they were received and published. Dr. Doyle swore the same thing. Mr. Slevin, the Professor of Canon Law, in the College of Maynooth, was examined upon a certain bull, the bull of Pope Penitent the 14th, for the confiscation of the property forfeited and taken possession of by the heretics. He swore that that bull was not in force in Ireland, because it was not published in Ireland, but that, when the bulls were received and published by the bishops, they were in force in that country. Now I will read you Dr. Murray's evidence before the House of Commons upon this subject. I-le is asked this question. " It has been stated in evidence before the committee, that Dr. Troy, in the year 1793, published a declaration or letter, in which he says, that Catholics are obliged to sub mit to the decisions and the decrees of the Pope on points of faith or morals, which are expressly or tacitly assented to, or not dissented from, by the majority of bishops representing and governing the church dispersed : what is to be under stood from this declaration ?" Here is Dr. Murray's answer —" that is the doctrine of every Catholic. The Pope, as the head of the church, has a right to address a doctrinal decree to the whole church. By this very act, he summons the pastors of the church to say whether or not that is conform able to the Catholic faith ; and whether they distinctly ex press their assent to it, or tacitly signify it by not dissenting from it ; it then becomes a declaration that such is the belief of the church at large, and as the church, whether dispersed at large, or assembled in its general councils, is infallible, its decisions are a rule of faith. to which every Catholic is bound to submit." Then you have the evidence of Dr. Murray, that where soever a decree is received, or allowed as received, and set by the Roman Catholic bishops, and not reclaimed against by the majority of the bishops, that there that law is in force, and of infallible obligation upon the conscience of every Roman Catholic. What was the fact ? In the year 1831, after they had issued this address to the priests and the people, they set up, by publication in this volume, the 'very law for the restitution of all forfeited property, which pre viously they had renounced on their oaths, which bull their, professor of canon laws declared was received or in force in Ireland, because it had not been published by the bishops, which would be in force wherever it was received. They published that bull for the restitution of all the for feited estates in Ireland. In that bull is stated that no agreement —no acts of settlement, made between an here tical King and Roman Catholic, is allowed by the Pope of Rome. They had before denied, you see, the dispensing power of the Pope ; they now published a law granting universal dispensation to every crime that could be com mitted by man. Let me read you a section of it. " We grant, therefore, to our major pcenitentiarius, for the time being, that he can and may be able to absolve and com mand to be absolved, all and each of every quality, dignity, and degree ; the ecclesiastical seculars and regulars of every order, congregation, society, and institute ; also all lay per sons of both sexes, as well present as absent, from all and every sort of faults, crimes, and excesses, however weighty and atrocious, as well public as private, whensoever and howsoever committed and perpetrated." This is a section from the law which they published in the year 1831. They denied the temporal power of the Pope. They declared, upon their oath, that he never had, or ought to have, any temporal power, directly or indirectly in these realms. What did they then do ? In the year 1831 they set up a decree, they set up a law, declaring that the whole Roman Catholic population should be subjected to the power of the Pope, and that, if any of them dared to disobey the orders of the Pope of Rome, they should be subjected to ex communication reserved to the Pope, the ecclesiastics should be degraded from orders and revenues. The notaries should be dismissed and declared infamous. Thereby bringing the whole ecclesiastical power of the Church of Rome to bear upon the temporal authority of the Pope. Let me entreat you to attend to this. You see the unfortunate position in which the poor Roman Catholics of Ireland are placed. I agree most cordially with my dear and Rev. brother in the chair, from the bottom of my heart, in all that he has said upon this subject. The more I see of the fruits of the papacy, so far from kindling hostility in my mind against my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, I call my God to witness that only the more does it fill my heart with deep regret and sorrow on their account, and I think there is no blessing to be expected from Protestant Associations, or Protestant liberality, in this or any other part of the empire, unless they are combined with honest, faithful, Christian efforts to deliver our Roman Catholic countrymen from the accursed yoke of popery. Now, listen to this law, which these people have set up for coercing the Roman Catholic laity of Ire land. In the bull De Pastoralibus it is said : " Laymen hindering the execution of the mandates, cita tions, and other provisions of the Court of Rome, are smit ten with excommunication, reserved to the Roman Pontiff, as are they also who afford aid, counsel, or favour to persons of this sort who binder it. But regulars and ecclesiastics incur ipso facto suspension, as well from the exercise of their orders as their offices, both which censures are reserved to the Roman Pontiff." _ Now, you will not understand the meaning of this perhaps. They hold in their church a system of what they call " re served cases." That is this. There are certain cases, as Dr. Murray states in his Provincial Statutes, of wei▪ ghty and atrocious crimes, which no priest is permitted to pardon, but sometimes the bishop and s metimes the Pope. If the case is " reserved" to the bishop, the poor Roman Catholic, who has been guilty of the offence, goes in vain to the priest for pardon. The priest says to him, " No ; I cannot forgive you; you must go to the bishop." The poor creature, thus driven from the face of his priest, is obliged to come, with the weight of his crimes upon his head, to the bishop, pray ing that he will have mercy upon him. Oh ! remember that the Roman Catholic, instead of having a glorious Bible thrown open to him, and the glorious free salvation of his Lord and Saviour proclaimed to him, thinks he must go, train• ed as he is in this horrid superstition, to the foot of his fellow worm, and there receive the pardon of his sins. (Hear, hear.) And remember, that in proportion to the poor man's belief in this horrid, antichristian system, in proportion to sinc eritythe of his devotion to his religion, in that proportion i s he under the fangs of his priest or his bishop ; for when his case is " reserved" to the bishop, he is obliged to go to the bishop for pardon. (Cheers.) But this bull goes fur ther. i He cannot get pardon from the bishop ; his case is " reserved" to the pope. And I remember that these poor men think if they die without priestly absolution they die in their sins and go to perdition, and therefore the terrors of hell are upon their conscience when they cannot obtain the pardon of their sins. (Hear, hear.) By this infamous bull those sins are " reserved ;" if a man dares to refuse to obey the mandates of the pope of Rome in Ireland and in Eng land too - -(hear, hear-for it is all a province of the pope his sin is " r eser ved."gland is the pope's own dioeese, do not forget that. (Hear and cheers.) He calls it so. He appoints here his vicars apostolic whom he may remove at pleasure. They are his vicars to execute his commands ; but those unfortunate men who dare to resist the commands of the pope, or the laws, mandates and citations of the court of Rome, they can get no pardon of their sins unless they go to Rome. (Cheers.) Just conceive this. We may smile at these things ; but just conceive the te rror th a t i s b roug ht t o the heart and conscience of a poor Roman Catholic by such a law as this. What are all your sanctions of British law for the feelings and conscience of man, compared to this infamous decretal, which the Roman Catholic bishops, in spite of their oaths have set up to govern the Roman Catholics of Ireland. (Cheers.) They set up the Bulla Caw Domini and the third canon of the Fourth Lateran Council to which I now call your attention. They set up laws in Ireland, the very existence of which had not been dreamt of by the comm itt ees of parliament, and of which you did not dream. They set up in Ireland the laws that regulate the i nqu i s i t i on , they set up laws for putting men to torture ; they have established these laws, and these laws at this moment are in Rave under ePigeopal sanction. (Dear, hear and cheers.) There is a very important book. lam not sure whether I may not have read this book or this extract before here, but if I have it is worthy to be read again. There was a Roman Catholic priest, Priest Morrissey, who was perse cuted because he did not choose to submit to the mandates of the Church of Rome. He says—" Let government grant the Catholic claims, and they will unsheath the inquisitorial sword, and unveil the rack and torture." This man, in the years 1821 and 1822, declared this. He unfolded the in quisitorial system of the Church of Rome in Ireland. Mark, this is a warning from one who lived and died in the Church of Rome—and he, who knew the system, declared that if the Catholic claims were granted, the inquisitorial sword would be unsheathed, and the rack and torture unveiled. ; ' (Hear.) They did unveil the rack and torture in the year after they revived Catholic emancipation, and they set up the laws of the Inquisition in Ireland. (Hear.( But he says more— " Now, as the inquisitorial laws are general and unqualified, so must the Roman Catholic emancipation be general and unqualified in the end, viz., the Pope must have the nomi nation and appointment of Roman Catholic monarchs to these realms. Ireland must be tributary to him again—the bishops and clergy must be reinstated in their glebes and church livings ; the forfeited estates must be restored to the right owners, and the established church must be Roman Catholic ! All the heretics in the land must be exterminated, and their properties confiscated, and the nation must be purged from heresy ; then, and only then, will Roman Ca tholics consider themselves fully and unconditionally eman cipated. This is what is understood by an unqualified Ca tholic emancipation." There is the testimony of a Catholic priest in 1822 ; and here are the laws set up by these men the year but one after wards, and received, for carrying into effect every single crime which he had predi c t e d i n th a t b oo k. (Cheers.) Now what is the present position of the church of Rome with re gard to these laws. Upon the 26th of May last there was a meeting of the Roman Catholic Institute held in London. Mr. O'Connell read on that occasion a letter from Dr. Mur ray, as follows : " Dublin, May 22, 1840. " Dear Sir,—l have been just now favoured with your let ter of the 20th instant, in which you inform me that the bigots of Exeter-hall have extensively disseminated a hand bill headed ' Awful Perjury of the Popish Bishops of Ire land,' that the Irish prelates are therein accused of establish ing in Ireland the Bulla Ccenve Domini, after publicly de claring to the empire, that the said bull was never set up nor authorized in Ireland, nor would it ever be published there ; and you beg of me to put you in possession of the true facts of the case. Not to answer to all this is vain, as far as regards the accusation,—there are no true facts whatever in the case. The whole is an impudent and unprincipled fabrication. No such bill has been published, or authorized by the bishops of Ireland, nor by any one of them. To give an appearance of plausibility to this atrocious libel, and impose on the credu lity of those who had not the means of ascertaining its false hood, the eighth volume of the Theology of Dens is pointed out as containing this obnoxious bull, and the third canon of the 4th council of Lateran. In both cases the assertion is utterly false. " As a further proof of the unscrupulous disregard of truth with which the story was concocted, one of the four Leinster bishops (Dr. Healy) who is accused by name of having trai torously employed this vehicle in 1832, to set up these docu ments as the canon law of Ireland, was not a bishop until six years later than that period. Is it not a pity that any portion of the thinking people of England would allow themselves to be made the dupes of such convicted impostors ? It is surely time that those who set themselves down to fabricate 'inge nious devices,' which are calculated to tear asunder the bonds of Christian charity, should be scouted out of the society of every lover of peace, of order, and of truth.—l have the honour to remain, dear sir, very faithfully yours, " DANIEL MURRAY .° Now in the year 1836, these bulls were brought out under very peculiar circumstances at Exeter Hall in London. I should not presume to allude to any thing connected with myself unless it was important to the developement of truth, nor, indeed, under those circumstances, if I had not been alluded to in the report of the committee. But a fear days before I had brought out, under the misrepresentation of a friend, wholly unintentional on his part, but still enough to deceive me, a fictitious bull, which I quoted, believing it to be a translation of a genuine document. The first moment that I ascertained the fact, I instantly stated what was the case, that the bull was fictitious ; but from that moment to the present I have been taunted with the appellation of " Forgery M`Ghee." My friends in the Albion and Mer cury, and several other papers in Liverpool, have honoured me with that appellation, I beg leave to state, if the whole world were to condemn a Christian man of one apparent crime, however great, it is his privilege, when he can lay his hands upon his conscience, and look up to his God, and ap peal to Him that he was not guilty of that offence—it is his privilege, if the world opened its mouth against him, to stand and smile unconcerned at its reproach. (Cheers.) But there was not a man in London, there was not an individual member of the class, there was not a Roman catholic in Lon don who knew the facts, that did not know, if I could be guilty of such baseness as intentionally to have produced a forged document, I could not have been such an utter fool as to produce it in such a place as that—to bring for ward a forged document in the face of between four and five thousand people, which could not have escaped detection one hour. The only thing I should have been asked on that occasion should have been, " Sir, you bring forward this as a translation of a bull ; where is the origi nal ?" It was utterly impossible that I could have been guilty of such a thing. I should have been, not a knave only, but an egregious idiot. Therefore, the very facts prove it was wholly impossible I could have produced the bull, knowing it was not forged, for it was not intended to be forged. It was not intended by the author to pass for a genu ine bull; and that Dr. Murray knows, and so do all Roman Catholics. I need not recur to the fact how the whole press of London and of England teemed with wrath and vitupera tion upon me as having been guilty of forgery. I beg to tell Roman Catholic writers on th subject, that if a Protestant man is conceived by the Protestant public to be guilty of forgery, or to be guilty of any dishonesty, he dare not stand upon a public platform, and look a Protestant audience in the face. (Cheers.) There is a guilty superstition which can cherish perjury, and cherish crimes, and they can permit them, and not lose their character amon g st those who ought to be ashamed of them. (Hear, hear.) It is not in the Pro testant Church such acts can be perpetrated. (Cheers.) Therefore, conscious of my integrity, through the mercy of God I was enabled not to bow before the storm. I knew that if I yielded or retreated a single inch, that all the evidence I could ever produce again, with respect to papal bulls, would be comparatively worthless—that I must stand my ground, and bring forward the real, ge nuine bulls of papal crime, which I happened to have at that time in my possession. (Cheers.) I immediately apologised to the committee of the Protestant Association—l appealed to them so strongly that they could not refuse my appeal, to appoint another public meeting in London ' • and though the town was nearly empty, yet, u p on th e secon d of August, these atrocious bulls from the eighth volume of Dens, for the resti tution of the forfeited estates, the Bulla Cana Domini, and the third canon of the Lateran Council, were brought for ward : what was the result ? The result was, that the press, which upon the 2d of August was teeming with rage and fury, upon the 3d of August, the day after the meeting, was dumb. There was not a man to be found that dared to impeach the solid documentary proofs of the tremendous facts respecting those bulls. (Cheers.) From that day to the present, Dr. Murray has been silent. (Cheers.) He did not dare to enter into the investigation of one single fact, or to meet one single document. He accused the smoking firebrands, as he is pleased to call my friend Dr. O'Sullivan and myself, of go ing about to kindle the torch of sedition, and so on, but he did not dare to meet us. (Hear, hear.) The papal bull, the fictitious bull, he was pleased to take under his most gracious protection. Up in the street, under the protection of the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland, until within the last few months I have read placards as I passed, " Forgery M` Ghee." But upon the 26th of last May, Dr. Murray wrote this letter to Mr. O'Connell, denying the fact. This is the first time he has appeared. There was a solid reason for it, which I shall tell you of just now, and which I trust will have some weight with h you. hB e e ut it is necessary y o u :Murray sho uldwas k m n e o t w. for This a lettercertainty appearedow ti in Dublin. ofl forget . upon d o aby which Mr. day, ovc o b o u a t e o l n . the s26t soonh o as f May a saw a it was s i . t as in read the i h n irm ar ss L p o e n- I addressed a letter to Dr. Murray. I called upon follows. Observe, he says it is false that the Bulla Ccence Domini and third Canon of the fourth Lateran Council were published. I said— " Now I take you upon both assertions. I assert that your statement is thoroughly false—and I assert, further, that you know it to be false—and now, sir, I call on the Roman Ca tholics of Ireland to mark you, and see if you are able to bring your statement to the test." Let me say, that in the use of language such as this, it ap agpeaairossttotimmeintodibveidrawatl o tle rag r a es in u s lt t a o n f yirriiatdaitveiddaoarlanglrty afepepleinagrss to me to be a solemn part of faithful Christian duty. (Hear.) I conceive it is a Christian minister's business, and his duty, faithfulno t t o call testimonyevil good a i o o r s t g 0 0 0 p d e n evil, fa s b e u h o t t d o a b n e d a r o a p e bold r m a nd e. (Cheers.) This I hold to be true Christian charity, this I hold to be duty to God and duty to man. (Hear.) I con- tinned— " I hereby publicly challenge and defy you to select any body of Roman Catholics you please, high or low, learned or unlearned, in the city of Dublin, from fifty to five hundred — and select any priest in your diocese, who will stand forward in your defence, and oppose, before those Roman Catholics, and an equal number of Protestants, the following resolutions, which I will undertake to propose and maintain, and put to the meeting." I then detailed the resolutions, and I will read one to you : " RESOLVED.—That notwithstanding Dr. Murray's denial of this canon in his evidence, and his assertion, in this present letter, that it is utterly false that this canon is contained in this eighth volume, added by his authority to the theology of Dens, it is clear to this meeting that this canon is cited in this volume, and not only cited, but cited as of unquestionable authority, the law for bishops to purge heretics out of their diocesses, and to inflict on them canoni cal penalties, which, it appears from their standard theology, are, confiscation of property, exile, imprisonment, and death." Of this letter, and of this offer, Dr. Murray took no notice ; therefore, upon the 24th August, I wrote to him, and the letter upon the Bulla Ccenia Domini, proving that whilst he denied this bull was authorised by any Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, it was not only authorised, but set up as the standard, whereby the law of " reserved cases" to the Pope of Rome ; that the bull of Unigenitus, which he had himself sworn to to be in force in Ireland, and others forming the principles of the Church of Rome, were set up, and had been set up from the year 1808 by himself and the other bishops of Ireland : by Dr. Doyle, and Dr. M`Hale, who swore it was not received in the country, but it had been previously in this book, (6th vol. of Dens,) and taught to the Roman Catholic priests from that day. There is my letter. I refer him to the pages of the books. I defied him to refute me, and Dr. Murray has not ventured to answer this letter. On the sth October, that is last Monday, having been unwell in the interval, I wrote to him on the point of his denial—the Third Canon of the Fourth Lateran Council. I will just read to you the quotations from this book of that canon : The duty you have laid down for yourself and your brethren is the extermination of heretics out of your dioceses. The law which you cite to enforce this duty of your religion is the 3d canon of the 4th Lateran Council, as laid down by the infallible authority of your Pope, speaking ex cathedra, in his diocesan synod. I shall quote the very words of your episcopal obligation, literally translated ; and then I shall quote the law by which you enforce it. Ist. The episcopal duty of Dr. Murray and his brother bishops in Ireland, as laid down in his avowed and authorised code of laws, which he informs us is in much repute in his church. —Dens, vol. 8, p. 82. TITLE " H.,EItETICA. " " The bishop is bound, even in places where the office of the holy inquisition is in force, sedulously to take care that he may purge the diocese entrusted to him from heretics ; and if he shall find any, he ought to punish him with the canonical pun ishments ; ' these are as your standard informs us, " excom munication, confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and death." You graciously add, to do you justice, that when we are brought before your tribunal, and renounce ourerrors, you can give us absolution, and reconcile us to the church. Thanks —melius id sane. The law cited by Dr. Murray the enforcement of this the episcopal duty of himself and his brother bishops, ex tracted from the Diocesan Synod of Pope Benedict XIV. —Lib. 7, cap. 32, n. 3, t. 2, p. 329, Nov. edit. The first part of this citation I need not here transcribe, for the sake of brevity. It is found at length in my book on t he e laws of the Papacy, first edition, pp. 97-99 ; second edi ion,—now in the press—pp. 137-139. It is only necessary to §tate, that there it first quoted a letter of Itodorut to Pope Lucius, pressing on bishops the duty of punishing heretics ; then as this is considered doubtful, there is a citation de clared to be indubitable, from the Council of Rheims to the same effect. Then you proceed as follows : Now here is the reference from that book. Observe that he declares it is an odious fabrication that, the third canon of the fourth Luteran council. It is quite necessary to observe that it is not necessary for me to cite the law ; it is sufficient only to refer to it here. And that we may not waste our time in illustrating a subject which is undoubted amongst all, it will be abundantly sufficient to allege one sanction of Innocent 111 in the Fourth General Council of Lateran, . AD• 1215, in tne 3d c anon o f which De Hwreticis,' the bishops are ordered every year, either by themselves, or by their archdeacons, to go round their own dioceses, and sedulously to investigate if any one infected with heretical contagion lies concealed in it. But it is decreed in the same place, that those who are slothful and negligent in expurging the diocese committed to them, from this heretical plague, as being guilty of a weighty crime, be deposed from their office as unworthy the pastoral ministry." Here is the standard for the Roman Catholic priests—in which they are taught—ordering that the bishops shall go round their dioceses every year, to search for heretical contagion, and if they find it, they are to put the law in force. Shall we be told now, by the press that we come over to England to spread calumny and falsehood ? When gentlemen stand up in the House of Commons, are my reverend brother and myself to be told that we are paid for going about to circulate calumnies and falsehoods of the papacy ? (Cheers.) Give me leave to ask whither we are to go ? What are we to do with these popish bishops ? We call upon them to meet the cause, to meet the facts, to bring their own directories, to come with their own priest, and to stand in the midst of their own dioceses before the Roman Catholics of Ireland. (Cheers.) But they dare not meet the cause (vehemently.) If we commit an error, as was well remarked in your report, if we fall into a mis take, out comes the whole body of the popish priests, and they placard it throughout the whole town. There was not a wall in all the streets of Dublin, on which I was not placarded as a forger ; but the moment we came to bring their own laws before the world, the moment we had evidence of the principles of their own church, the moment we brought their laws to the test, they shrunk back with the consciousness of inward guilt; and they dare not open their lips upon the subject. (Hear. hear.) I should be glad to know what the Liverpool press, whose interest it is to advocate the cause of the popery will make of this (Hear, hear.) I have, I will say, not without some degree of pride, condescended to attempt to vindicate my character from the charge of forgery ; but give me leave to ask you why the popish bishops placard the charge against me of forging a bull which, if true, could not implicate them ? (Hear.) The bull was only re presented as coming fpom the Pope. But their own bulls, upon which their own character and their own truth depends, the very existence of these proves all the crimes that ever have been charged against the Papacy. What is the reason why they dare not open their lips upon the subject, when they are summoned to do so before their own people? (Hear.) Will you pretend to say that these bulls are innocuous ? You cannot deny that the Popish bishops set them up, because they cannot deny it themselves. (Hear.) What was the conduct of these men upon the bulls A themselves ? When it was their interest to deny the bulls, and to make it appear that they hated them, what was their evidence ? Here is Dr. Doyle 's evidence. He is asked— " Was not the same bull, namely the Bulls Creme, declar ed to be in force in the year 1793 ?—Answer.—Not only that, but it may, for ought I know, have been declared during the last year to have been in force ; but their declaring it to be so in force, does not make it to be in force with us : we have never received it, and surely never will." " Is the Bull Ccenie Domini now in force ? " There are portions of that Bull that were in force from the time of Christ ; but the Bull as a Bull, is not in force, nor ever was in force in Ireland, and has been rejected from nearly all the Italian countries of Europe ; if that were in force there is scarcely any thing would be at rest amongst the catholic states of Europe, and they have been as solemn and as earnest in protesting against it as we have been at any period in England or Ireland." There is his testimony to the bull that it would leave nothing at rest if published in Roman catholic countries ; but whilst he was denying it, it was printed in his own secret standard. and it has been set up over and over again as of force and application in the eighth volutr e of Dens' Theology. Dr. WHale—here is his evidence--is asked " Is there anything to prevent this Bull of 1741, being now received in Ireland, or at any future time, supposing it has not been received here already ? " There is the collision that would be supposed to result from the reception of that Bull with the established autho thorities of the country. This is an unsurmountable objec tion." Dr. Doyle swears it will not allow rest even in Roman Ca tholic countries ; Dr. M`Hale says it will cause a collision with the public authorities, and will you pretend to say it is quite innocuous—that although it is published there is no harm in it ? Again, what other evidence is there about that third canon of the fourth council of Lateran? Hear other evidence upon this canon with which I charge Dr. Murray and the popish bishops with having set up in Ireland. Here is Dr. Doyle's statement respecting the nature of this atro cious canon. It is extracted from his letter to Lord Liver pool, written in the year 1826, and which letter is placed along with other documents among the books in the univer sities. " Such a law in the present age would be immoral, unjust, impossible. It would be opposed to the natural dispositions of the people of this empire. Ii would be contrary to all the laws, usages, and customs of our country. It would not be suited to the times and circumstances in which we live. In place of being necessary or useful, it would upturn the very foundations of society, and instead of benefitting the entire community, it would drench our streets and our fields in blood." There is the testimony which this man gives of that law which, when they have got power, they set up in Ireland as the law for exterminating heretics out of their dioceses. Hear.) But these laws are a dead letter. I shall not enter into any de tail upon this subject, but 1 will call your attention to some particular facts. You are no doubt aware that there exists in Ireland, and not in Ireland alone, but in England—aye, and in Liverpool too—(hear, hear)—a society called the Ribbon Society. (Hear.) Let me call your at tention to two important facts. Here we, totally ignorant of the circumstances of the working of this scei , tv, prove, from certain documents, that the Roman Catholic hierarchy instruct their priests to drill the people in a system of cer tain atrocious papal laws :—one, for instance, is unqualified submission to the authority of the Pope ; another the resti tution of all the forfeited estates in Ireland; and another the extermination of the Protestants of Ireland.' (Cheers.) . We prove that this system is inculcated by the bishops into the priests, for them to train the people in it . A committee was held in the House of Lords. A number of independent gentlemen of all classes—some public officers, some magis trates, some stipendiary magistrates—came and proved a certain fact. What was it? Why, that there existed a society in Ireland, bound together by an oath. (Hear.) They gave the terms of that oath ; and what are those terms ? To throw off the authority of the British Sovereign ; to recover the forfeited estates ; to exterminate the Protestants. It is proved by one set of witnesses, that a body of . men are sworn upon a certain day to perpetrate certain Fumes ; and it is proved by another series of independent testimony, that these crimes are inculcated upon them by the men that ought to teach them, not crime b u t v irtue, not the path of perdition, but the way to everlasting truth. (Hear.) Let me read to you one brief extract : " This association appears by the evidence (this is the statement of a judge in a court of justice) to be affiliated with numerous other societies of the same character, not only in Ireland, but in different parts of Great Britain. Now mark. I am reading from the statement of a judge, from the evidence brought before him in a court of justice." " It appears to be exclusive in its character, being con fined to persons of one religious creed. It appears that it holds its meetings in secret conclave, and that money is ob tained by its heads or leaders, as contributions from its members. There are o ther characteristics of this associa tion appearing from the evidence. It manifests no definite intention or object of attainment, but at the same time it ap pears to possess org an i sa ti on ca pable of being made instru mental for any purpose requiring combined movement and unity of action. Again, harmless though it may apparently be, in the absence of any manifestation of ascertained aim or object, it is formidabl e in its adaptation to any purpose, however criminal, w hi c h, th roug h design or accident, its leaders might be prompted to undertake. Who is the judge that pronounces that sentence from the public tribunal, upon evidence adduced before him? (Hear.) He is a Roman Catholic judge him—it is Mr. Justice Ball. (Hear, hear.) Now let us ask what there is to be done when in such a state of things ? Are these laws to be set up within the realms of the British Sovereign, for the utter subversion of all the institutions of the land, to use the words of a Ro man Catholic bishop himself—to overturn the very founda tions of society, and drench our:fields and streets in blood ? (Hear, hear.) Is this a state of things to be submitted to ? (" No.") I heard you applaud with great vehemence the proposal of my friend who proposed the first resolution, for repealing the emancipation bill. (Hear.) Before I enter upon this subject, I think it will be admitted that I have prov ed the first part of the resolution. I think I have demon strated, as far as documentary evidence can go, that the popish bishops, in di rec t v i o l a ti on o f their oaths, ha ve se t up these laws in Ireland. (Cheers.) At this point, the rev. and eloquent gentleman entered upon the consideration of the second part of the resolution, and spoke upon it for nearly an hour. We regret th a t th e excess i ve length of our rep or t has so circumscribed our time and space, that we are com pelled to postpone this conclusion till our next number. Mr. M`Ghec sat down amidst general cheers. He spoke for up wards of two hours and a quarter. The Rev. HuGn STOWELL, in rising to second the resolu tion, said, I come no there, Mr. Chairman and fellow-protes tants and fellow-Christians, to offer any apology. I have no apology to make. I am a man more sinned against than sin ning. (Cheers.) My conscience in the sight of God acquits me of having said one word that was false, or one word that savoured of calumny or unkindness to any living man, in the case that has brought my name so painfully, but I trust use fully, before the eyes of the British public. (Cheers.) It may be allowed me, sir, without the charge of egotism, to advert somewhat largely, and indeed, to confine my remarks to the case in which I was so deeply interested, and I think I may without vanity say , — because it was no t a persona l b ut a public, not an individual but a prote s t an t matter, —i n wh i ch this great protestant nation was so deeply interested, at a re cent assize in this town. (Hear.) Were it merely any little measure of reputation that may belong to me, as an humble and unworthy minister of the gospel of Christ, that was stabbed and invaded, much as that reputation must be dear to me as a man, and more as a Christian man, and most as a Christian minister, I would pass it by, an d comm i t my cause , as I have done, to him that judgeth rightly, and who can bring forth my righteousness as the light, and my just dealing as the noon-day. (Cheers.) But when I remember that the attempt, as has been again and a ga i n remarked this morning, is not simply to aim a blow at me, an unworthy individual, but at the fidelity and truthfulness of protestant statement and advocacy in general, I cannot b ut f eel, that to pass b y the case without remark and without vindication would be to pass by truth, without endeavouring to dispel any little mist that through me might seem to ho ver around her b eauteous features, and without seeking. to m a k e h er b eam f ort h aga i n in the sunshine of her own integrity and principle. (Applause.) Let it be allowed me, then to observe, my friends, that the occasion on which the event took place was a perfectly justi fiable one. I was occupying the position which my friend Dr. Tattershall now occupies, at a great public meeting to peti tion the once protestant government—though now the muti lated protestant government of this country, to with draw the an nual grant of p rotestant money for t h e support of a seminary to indoctrinate popish priests in the dark theology of Dens and the black councils of the middle ages. Surely, then, as a Christian minister, as the clergy man of a Protestant church, I was perfectly in my place, oc cupying a post in perfect keeping with my character and principles. Surely I was acting hi obedience to my ordina tion vows, by which I am pledged and sworn t o be ready t o drive away all false doctrines and opinions, not only from England, but also from Ireland. (Hear.) It is not the united churches, but the united chur c h o f E ng l an d an d Ire land. (Hear and cheers.) We are fighting the battle of the church of Ireland. Our reverend brethren from across the water—and we owe them a deep debt of gratitude—they feel .what we only hear of the church of Rome, and they strive to awaken us before her fangs make us feel too—(hear)—they are fighting the battle of the church of England. Theirs is the post of honour, because the post of danger. I will not call it the forlorn hope. Protestant hope is never forlorn. (Great cheering.) I was therefo re , I repeat, perfectly i n my place on the occasion when the circumstance took _place which has brought me into such painful notoriety. I was also, I believe, perfectly in my place in bringing forward the document which formed the subject of the proceedings a pi n g me. That document was not a far-fetched tale, de signed to illustrate some point irrelevant to the proceedings of the evening. It was adduced for the simple purpose of showing that the system against which the meeting was called to petition, inculcated opinions, and produced practices ut terly unfit for this great Protestant Christian nation to coun tenance and support in any degree. (Hear.) I was there fore, I conceive, perfectly authorised in bringing forward a document which went to fasten and prove this charge, I say not on any individual priest, but to fa s t en it on the Romish system at large. (Hear.) I was equally borne out in the evidence on which I went in adducing that document. The document was not in the first instance addressed to myself. I had heard and inquired about it once and again before the meeting took place. It was put into my hands by two individuals on whose veracity and candour I had every reliance. I examined and cross-examined them, to ascertain whether or no the persons vouching for the ge nuineness of the document, and the authenticity of the facts, were willing to stand up and swear to every particular it con tained. I was assured that they were perfectly prepared. I read over the document. I saw nothing in it unfit for pub lication. It appeared to me deeply interesting, and some thing which concerned Protestants in general, and most of all the great community of Manchester, to be made ac quainted with. The circumstances it detailed, involved, to my mind, no charge that any man could fairly complain of, because it was no charge against the man, but against the system, not the party but the principles of the church of which he was a minister. (Cheers.) I may say, indeed, with perfect truth, and without extenuation, that it never occurred to my mind for a moment that I had given utter ance to anything whatever that could be tortured into disre spect or disparagement to the individual. (Hear.) And let it be remarked, and those who are familiar with the details of tha case need not be told, that this document did not mention the name of any individual priest. The inferential method by which it was deduced, was entirely unauthorised. It might be made out, but the man O'Hare did not name the priest who had imposed the penance. He simply said, his priest. I nowhere and never charged any individual priest. I expressed my belief that some priest had done it, and I hold that belief to the present moment. (Cheers.) But while I hold this full conviction of my right to say this, I defy any person acqusinted with the whole developement of the trial to prove that I said who was the individual priests that had done it. (Hear.) But, sir, I am charged with a great want of discretion and discernment in giving utterance to any name. I hate anonymous assassins of other men's reputations. (Cheers.) I never was, and, by the grace of God, I never will be, an assassin of this class. (Hear.) I never wrote an anonymous letter in my life. I conceive it to be dishonourable. I would put my name to what I write, and I would give the name of any man against whom I brought an accusation. (Applause.) We leave stealthiness and such crooked policy to that church which is the mother and mistress of it. Church of England Protes tants do not, and God forbid they ever should, make use of such dark and assassin-like methods. (Cheers.) After all, it has been, and will be, said, you could not, and ought not, to believe so strange, and monstrous, and incredible a story, as that any priest should enjoin any man to go and do so de grading an action in the light of day, though, be it observed, it was in the twilight, and at night, and not in the broad day, that he was performing his penance. It was not i n t en d e d t o be generally known. But can you, it is said, believe that they could do such a thing? I appeal simply to the autho rity of the church and the practices of the church. If I can prove that it is in obedience to that authority, and in strict accordance with that practice, I think I shall satisfactorily prove that I was neither over credulous nor indiscreet in be lieving a Popish priest capable of making a poor mau crawl on his hands and knees, and do a degrading penance. I turn, then, to their own authorised canons, the canons of the coun cil of Trent, and there I find that they speak to this effect:— [Mr. Stowell then quoted chapter the 3rd of the session on penance, investing the priest with power to impose punish ment for sin, and enjoining him, at the peril of his own soul, to take care that the punishment was proportionable to the crime, as, otherwise, he would become a partaker in °thar mens transgressions.] I conceive, (said Mr. Stowell, in continuation,) that there is ample authority and instruction to the priests of the Romish church, not only to require con fession, and to enjoine prayer, and almsgiving and fasting, but whatever other penal and physical inflection he may in his discretion see fit to enforce ; and that the Roman Catholic priests do see fit in their discretion to enforce such penances as that which O'Hare was performing is so notorious, that how any man could stand up in the face of a British jury, and in the midst of a British court of judicature, and deny that it is done in Ireland, and wherever Popery dares to do it, this is only one other demonstration among the teeming multitude that encompass us on every side, that Popery has a conscience that fears nothing, and a brow of brass that shrinks not from shame and infamy if she can acomplish her purpose. (Loud cheers.) Need I remind you that you have had it amply brought before you by the press, and that in one instance by an individual who had been himself a priest, and knew the dark secrets of the priesthood, that such in flictions are things of every-day occurrence in Ireland. Who has not heard of Lough Dery, and the stations in its neighbourhood. (Hear, hear.) Even Mr. Inglis, a Liberal, gives ample details of the dreadful scenes of this kind which are to be witnessed in all parts of the country. (Cheers.) Mr. Noel, not one (though I love him sincerely) apt to judge too harshly of popery, gives us abundant evidence to the same effect, and says, that thousands of persons are to be seen crawling on their hands and knees, streaking the rocks with their blood. (Hear, hear.) A clergyman high in the Church of England, who, on turning from Judaism, halted at the half-way house of popery—if I should not rather call popery the half-way house between Christianity and Paganism--offered to come forward and swear, that at Rome, by the order of cardinals, and under the eye of the pope, he has performed a similar penance to that of O'Hare, by crawl ing on his hands and knees. (Hear and cheers.) We find that their saints that are most admired, and held up as pat terns in modern times, whose miracles they blazon and whose names they canonize, are distinguished for similar penances. Nor are these only cases of far and by-gone days. If time permitted, I might read extracts from a book lately published by Mr. Wiseman, giving an account of the saints canonized in 1839, some for the most terrific self-inflicted penances. And if saints were canonized for such deeds as these, was O'Hare to be considered a degraded man in the eyes of popery because lie crawled on his hands and knees to save his soul? (Hear, hear.) We denounce, abhor, loathe, and execrate the system, and from our hearts we compassionate, pity, and weep over these poor dupes and votaries of super stition. (Cheers.) But it has been circulated, as you are aware, that O'Hare is an idiot, and, therefore, that for me to bring forward his case argued very little sense, and very little forbearance towards popery. What are the real facts of the case ? They are these. I had not the most distant idea that O'Hare had lost his senses till long after 1 read the document. (Hear.) I was not aware of it when I was first written to on the subject. Bat what, after all, are the facts of the crse ? Up to the time of his doing the penance, O'Hare had discovered no indications of insanity whatever. (Cheers.) We have further the testimony of those witnesses who ought to have been called, and if God spares us, I hope yet shall be called—(much applause) —we have their testi mony, not only that O'Hare gave the answers precisely as they are put down, but they believed him to be a sane man at the time he gave them • and that if they h a d th oug ht him insane they would have taken him into custody at once. But let any dispassionate and unprejudiced man look at the do cument, at the questions and answers, and mark how coher ent, how consistent, how straightforward, how unhesitating, how unembarrassed, they are, and if they do not appear more like the answers of a sane man than those of a lunatic—of a man in his sober senses, though under the dark and grinding spell of a terrible superstition. (Cheers.) It is true that shortly afterwards, that very morning, he appeared to become insane. Is it to be wondered at? We have a poor creature suffering under his penance, crawling four hours a day, two at night and two in the morning, in this cruel way, fevered in mind and emaciated in body, interrupted in his penance on the performance of which he believed his everlasting rest ing to depend, dragged from it to the workhouse, and thus impressed with the idea that his soul would be eternally lost,—l say, it was enough to make a mind already strung up to the next point to bursting, fly off into downright mad ness. (Hear.) But who drove him to madness? (" The man that gave him the work to do.") Since his confinement in Lancaster Asylum, he has maintained, as the physician has assured me, an obstinate, unbroken silence. Nothing can induce him to breathe a syllable, so that it is impossible to know whesher he is now insane or not, whether he is a knave or a madman. (Hear.) I draw no inference. I give you the simple state of the case. I gave what I conceived to be of deep moment to all. I never asserted that any indivi dual priest had made the man submit to the penance. I never mentioned any name on that occasion. I simply gave the statement as it stood. And what was my object in so doing? My object was to stand between the oppressor and the oppressed. (Applause.) To do justice to the poor, and to avert from them the iron sceptre of those who make the iron enter into their very souls. (Hear.) Is a man to be lauded and applauded as Mr. O'Connell was, because he conies, with beautiful consistency, to defend the cause of de based, enslaved, enchained Africans, and is he to be cen sured, and denounced, and driven out of society, because he stands up for the degraded, enslaved, enchained laity of the Romish Church ? (Cheers.) Because he would burst from their souls fetters ten thousand times more debasing and de grading than those that e ver b oun d a sa bl e arm ? (Cheers.) Are we to avert the lash from lacerating the back of the poor slave, and not to denounce the secret spell that the lacera tion of the hands and knees of the poor dupe of popery ? A man has come forward to prove that he has three times done this penance, and once under the eye of the priest, and every time at his bidding, and did it so cruelly that for three weeks he was unable to do a stroke of work, as he expressed it. Was it not a deed of justice and common humanity for an Englishman to stand between such oppression and the op pressed, much more the deed of a minister of mercy, a mi nister of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanseth from all sin, and which has not left any room for such self-inflicted tortures to fill up the measure of his infi nite atonement for ever made ? (Applause.) Was it not right for him to lift up his voice against such practices? (Hear.) If the Protestant clergy did not lift up their voices against it, the Protestant community would shortly have bitterly to lament it. We know that these things are done in Ireland. The boast of Rome is that she is one. 'What is done in Ireland is virtually done in England, virtually done wherever popery exists. It a man be a rascal at Rome, or in Ireland, he is a rascal in England too. If popery be a rascal, a usurpress, a tyrant at Rome or in Ireland, she is a rascal, a usurpress, a tyrant in Old England. (Great applasise.) If the Romanists begin now to put these penances down in Ire land, thank God for it. Any little suffering I may have gone through in consequence of any degree of suspense or anxiety respecting the trial—though God has kept my mind in peace —and after it was decided, my concern was not about the verdict, I cared little for it, but about the not bringing for ward a mass of evidence that would have carried at once the moral verdict of all England. (Cheers.) But under this discouragement I opened my Bible, that blessed well-spring of comfort and joy, and my eye met, as if it had stood out in letters of light, the words " Fear not, Paul ; thou shall be brought before Caesar." (Cheers.) I have no fear, my Christian friends, but th a t goo d i s resulting, and will result, from these events. Though to our short-sighted eyes they may seem to be unfortunate, nothing is unfortunate in the glorious plans and purposes of God. To the children of God all things work together for good. If it has humbled me, it has done me good : if it has stabbed popery, it has done my country and my church a service. (Cheers.) It has done the Roman Catholics good too. There was a poor plain working-man, one of my stated communicants, who laboured in a coal yard belonging to Lord Francis Egerton, where many papists are around him. The pending cause was often discussed. He went on the Monday morning after the trial, expecting a yell of triumph. But they all said, We are sorry that Stowell had has lost it. He stands between us and them that would wrong us." (Much ap plause.) One Irishman said, "lam a poor man, but poor as I am, I would rather have given 10s. than that the priest should have gained it." I dare not mention the names of these people, for it would expose them to persecution by their poor bigotted neighbours. But several have given their half-crowns towards defraying the expenses of the trial, believing that I had been standing up for the oppressed against the oppressor. (Cheers.) But this is an unimportant, result, 'compared with the moral result on many of their minds. Only last night two intelligent and comfortably circumstanced Roman Catholics were with me, and the exclamation of one of them was, " If the priests deny these things, where is their truth or their veracity ? (Hear, hear, hear.) Aud I wish you could have seen, my friends, With what delight he clasped in his hands a Bible which I gave him, and said, " I have never had one, but I have thought many a hundred times whether it was right to keep it from the poor man's house and hands." (Cheers.) I cannot regret the issue of the trial ; and I believe I am correct in stating that a letter appeared in the Times, re marking that the effect of the priests being put into the Protestant confession-box, and the screw of cross-examina tion applied to them, forcing them to make confession,—the effect of reading this upon the Roman Catholics, was, that they said, "If this be the case, we will never do 'penance again." (Laughter and applause.) The less Popery has to do with such prosecutions the better for her own interests. (Hear.) Depend upon it she is upon the horns of a dangerous and delicate dilemma. On the one hand, she wants to keep the bandag e on the eyes of the poor luke warm P ro t es t ant , and on th other, not to loose it from the eyes of the poor benighted Roman Catholics. Thus what she denies in Eng land, she maintains in Ireland : but it is difficult to keep her denials from going over there ; She knows that the Irish are far too shrewd a people not to see that which is true inEngland is true in Ireland. " Have they not taught us that the church is Catholic, and therefore one ; that it is infallible, and therefore cannot lie or deceive ? We begin to suspect that their infallibility is only infallible falsehood beneath." (Cheers.) There is one point more connected with the recent circumstances, to which I shall take the liberty to ad vert. It is this. I have been charged with somewhat of resentment and unkindly feeling, in wishing to keep alive the controversy, and obtain a new trial. I will just ask, were those who brought forward the trial so studious of pub lic peace in the first instance ? (Hear.) I invited an inves tigation of the facts. I offered to give my authority if asked by. the. Roman Catholics. I did this quietly, and in an ami cable spirit. Did they avail themselves of this candid and Christian offer. No : I received at on ce an attorney ' s letter. (Hear.) An attorney's letter, every prudent man knows, can only be answered by an attorney. If they had wished to avoid a persecution, of which they now profess such a hor ror, wny did not the individual who thought himself aggriev ed write to me? Whv did he not wait upon me, or depute some person to do so? Did their conduct evince a charitable desire to have the matter quietly explained, or an eagerness to avail themselves of a happy slip to give another blow to a Protestant clergyman? (Applause.) They stabbed Mr. M`Neile thus. They stabbed Mr. M`Ghee thus, though I believe it has only surrounded his head with a brighter crown of simplicity and godly sincerity. (Cheers.) Our honesty causes us to make mistakes : their dishonesty is the reason why they make so few. (Hear.) We should have no chance with them were it not that our cause is the cause of God. The more sincere and upright we are, the more we are ashamed of anything dark, winding, or savouring of calum ny : the more sincere they are, the more they will practice falsehood and deceit, to set forward the cause of their church. (Hear, hear.) They told, as I could prove if there were time, that an oath to the disadvantage of their church is no better than perjury. A man does a holy and good deed, entitling him to be canonized, if he swears falsely in order to crush a Protestant advocate. (Cheers.) Have we not heard of the penitentiarius, mentioned by Mr. M`Ghee, receiving power to absolve from any and every crime, in any part of the Romish dominions, and either by letter or deputa tion? What hold can we have on the members of such a system as this ? (Hear.) An oath to them is but as the withes that bound Samson, which were snapped asunder like a thread of tow. (Cheers.) Why, infidelity is better than popery. Any system is better than that which makes that an instrument of evil which God intended to be an instrument of mercy and love to a lost world. (Applause.) I speak, Mr. Chairman, calmly and dispassionately, because I believe that no principle in the fallen nature of man is so powerful as depraved religiousness. It is the master principle of the heart of man. Before he fell it was religiousness. He aspired after, and loved, and delighted in God. When man fell he did not lose this principle of his nature any more than any other. But this, with every other, became distorted, de praved, and corrupted, but still most powerful and mighty. It is impotent for good, like every other, but potent for evil, till transformed, and renewed, sanctified by the spirit of God, It works mightily, but only for mischief. The Church of Rome has laid hold of this principle of the depraved religious ness of man, and it furnishes her with a purchase on the souls of those whom she holds in bondage, to wield them, as b y a lever, at her will. (L ou d cr i es of! " hear," "hea r ." I t is the secret of all the mighty power and despotism of Rome. And allow me to assure you that we ourselves should be just as much the dupes of the priesthood, and the slaves of their superstitions, as our poor brethren in Ireland, if we had been brought up as they have been. They, from early childhood, have the depraved religiousness of their nature brought not into obedience to the truth as it is in Jesus, but into captivity to the power of the priest. (Haar.) The whole system is not to exalt the Saviour, but to exalt the priesthood, by means of the corrupted religiousness of our nature. And we, I say, might at this moment have been the slaves of this diabolical system. May God enable us ever to keep in mind the distinction between hating the system and hating the individual—between attacking the men and attacking the doctrines. (Hear, hear.) I would it were duly regarded by every honest and right-hearted man in England. They would then join our ranks, and wish us God speed. It is said that we are severe, bitter, vehe ment. Is there not a cause ? (Cheers.) Consider what is in peril. Would you quarrel with a man whose house was on fire, because he rushed through the flames, and seized the sleeping family, and awoke them with terror and dismay, starting and affrighting them with his vehemence ? No : you would say there was a cause. You would admire his vehemence, and love him for his zeal. And when we see our fellow-creatures in danger of the fire of hell, are we to be found fault with, because, in our vehemence and zeal, we sometimes take our fellow-sinners by the shoulders, and seek to wake them from the sleep of perdition? (Cheers.) If our Protestant countrymen feared more, we should fear less. (Hear, hear.) If they were awake, we should be less anxious ourselves to be awake. It is the torpor and the slumber of the protestant community that we have worst to dread. I sin sick of mere party conservatism ; I am sick of mere political partisanship ; I am sick of every party except the party of Christ. (Cheers.) I respect the talents of Sir Robert Peel ; but I have not forgotten his abandon ment of his protestant ground ; and Sir Robert Peel never can and never ought to recover the full confidence of this nation, till he has risen out of the mire of expediency, and planted his foot anew on the rock of scriptural truth. (Loud applause.) We are not politicians, sir. This is not a poli tical society, except in its indirect bearinz. Many of our reverend brethren say they cannot go with us because we are so political. But I see many of their names in our con servative societies, many of them speaking at our conserva tive dinners, at our meetings, or on our hustings. Ido not judge them. Let them not judge me. Neither I, nor Mr. M`Ghee, nor Mr. M`Neile, ever joined a conservative so ciety, or came on the hustings, or appeared at a conservative dinner. Are we to be denounced as firebrands, as political agitators ? Sir, we have something higher than politics. (Cheers.) We have the gospel. (Loud cheers.) We are not-politically religious, we are religiously political. (Hear.) We do not put polities for or before religion, but we put religion in politics,,-and in government, and in parliament, and in everything, and we say there is no good where Chris tianity and the gospel are not. (Hear and cheers.) • I would give little for mere party conservatism. It wants the root. The love of Christ is not in it. It cherishes the church for the sake of the state, instead of the state for the sake of the church. If we want to protest and defend our protestant constitution, to restore its beautiful proportions, to replace those pillars that have fallen down, the monarchy and the Lord Chancellorship alone remaining, once the me morials of protestant fidelity, but now of protestant folly and perfidy,—if we want to repair and protect our protestant go vernment, it is because we reverence the truth as it is in Jesus, of which we believe that constitution to be the bul wark in these realms. (Hear.) I would call upon you, therefore, to beware of a mere political spirit in this holy warfare. Let us not secularize our high enterprise. Let us remember that we are to do all to the glory of God, that we are not to know fear or favour, partiality or prejudice ; to call no man lord or master, that one is our master, even Christ, one our watchword, the unmutilated, uncontaminated Word of God ; one our high object, to banish popery and error from the face of this fair world, till they become king doms of our Lord and of his Christ. (Cheers.) We do not hold naked protestantism, but catholic truth against every error. We will subordinate everything to this. lam no politician ; but I tell you what I hope to do, if I am spared to see ano ther election, and God grant it may come soon, if it is to further His cause ; I will take the liberty of writing to our county members, and the candidate for Salford, a humble letter, not to ask them to pledge themselves on the corn-laws, or on corporation bills, or on anything merely temporal : but to declare their belief, that they ought to pursue invariably a line of policy tending to depress and remove popery, and tending to exalt and maintain, uncompromised and undefiled, the Protestant faith as established at the glorious Reforma tion, and the glorious Revolution, when William came over of blessed memory. (Tumultuous applause.) A man may style himself whig, radical, or tory, for much that I care; but if he only act on this high principle, and take the Word of God for his guide, he cannot go far wrong. We are not for names, but things ; not for party, but principles ; not for men, but measures. (Hear, and cheers.) We want, in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, senators as true to the church of England as the popish senators are to the church of Rome—men who will view every question, not simply in reference to its bearing upon the commerce or the civil institutions of the country, but upon the moral and Christian character of the nation. (Much applause.) Men who will fear God, and do what is right, though all hell and earth stood against them ; who will plant their backs against the Bible, and say, " We dare the universe to move us from the ground we have taken up." (Loud cheers.) And, sir, Ido not despair. I believe that popery is recovering, and will for a time recover power, not so much by di rect force as by policy and fraud ; not from her own intrinsic potency, as from the impotency, the dissen sion, the blindness, the - apathy of Protestantism. She may league with infidelity, and prevail for a time : but I be lieve that God is marshalling the Protestant soldiers for the conflict, in which, though they may be cast down they will notbe destroyed; " Who is on,the Lord's side, who ?" will shortly be the cry, no t " D o you b elong to Conservatism, or Radicalism, or T ory i sm ?" b ut " Do you belong to Christ or Antichrist, to Protestantism or Popery, the Word of God or the lying fictions that man has palmed upon it ?" (Cheers.) Yes, and the soone r th e s t rugg l e comes the better : the more speedily it will be settled, the more safe, the more fraught with good to man and glory to God. (Hear and cheers.) They may prove our principles, and ask ourselves if we be ready, not merely to be prosecuted, not merely to be tor tured, but, if needs be, to die for the truth. (Applause.) Who shall stand in that day ? The humblest man. The man that most distrusts himself, and most confides in his Saviour and his God—the man that says, " I dare do any thing but offend God, and dare face a frowning world if my Father's smiling countenance beams bright upon my soul. Give me the still small voice of his approval, and I care not for the tornado of the world ; but if that whisper reproach, in vain were the applauses of an assembled universe." (Cheers.) I go along with my rev. friend Mr. M`Ghee, to a very great extent, in his test, I cannot commit myself wholly till I have read his argument on paper. I can much better un derstand and weigh an argument in that form. I think, however, that he has quite carried his point, and I agree with him that we must never rest till we have made Old England a Protestant land again. (Loud cheers.) Our blessed master has told us, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. England was once united, and she never can prosper till she is united again. (Hear, hear.) Why is Ireland shaken to her centre, and England beginning to rock beneath the storm ? Because we have a ki ng d om di vided against itself. (Hear.) Therefore lam quite willing to second the resolution. Mr. M`Ghee has told us, that Po pery does not want equality, but ascendancy. She does not take our hands as brothers, but she takes our consciences as slaves to drag us at her chariot wheels. (Hear.) They say they are never to rest till they have exti r p a t e d heretics. We take up the word : we will never rest till we have extirpated, not heretics, but heresy, not from England, but from the world • and if we die before it is d one, thank God we shall have died doing what we could. (Long -continued applause.) The resolution having been put to the meeting, and passed in due form, the chairman announced that the usual collec tion would then be made, after which they would proceed with the remainder of the business. The collectors having gone round, The Rev. Hu WNEILE rose to move the next resolu tion. He spoke as follows :—Mr. Chairman,—Another great Amphitheatrical display of bigotry, intolerance, and all un charitableness. (Laughter.) Alas, sir, for esteemed con temporaries, who are exceedingly mortified at our increased influence among the people. They cannot conceal it. They have got about the doors of the Amphitheatre distributing hand-bills to-day. (Hear.) Here is an address to English men and Protestants. It has been brought in since we have been assembled, and begins, " How long will you run after these blind guides ? For blind they are ; whether wilfully or not is a question we leave to their own conscien ces." A very plausible w ay o f b eg i nn i ng . A great many will read it, and think we are very uncharitable, and that the Catholic who writes this is a very pious, quiet sort of _a man. (A. laugh.) " If," h e goes o n, " you are proud of the nam e o f Englishmen, show yourselves worthy of that name, b y g i v i ng fair play, an d h ear i n g what the Catholi cs have to say in their defence." Asking for fair play ! Surely Dr. Murray did not send this to Mr. 111‘Gbee 1 (Loud laughter and cheers.) " Hear both sides," they say. Why, we tell you both sides ourselves : for we take their books, and let the very best men speak for them, and then we speak after they have done. pool who could speak so There is not a Popish priest in Liver f-cl‘ *-4 t; ' y y • jtk, •••• - • X-- well of Popery as Peter Dens. Mr. M`Ghee lets you hear both sides. (Loud cheers.) He makes Dens speak, and the Council of Trent speak, and Cardinal Cajetan speak, and Ma'donates speak, and Van Espen speak ; and he speaks himself in reply: and yet here comes a shuffling fellow to the door, and says, " Hear both sides." (Laughter and applause.) I have said enough about this. (A laugh.) I said, alas for our contemporaries, who are much mortified at our increased influence among the people. One of their last puny efforts to depreciate us in the estimation of their readers, is the assertion that we give our speeches ready written to the reporter for the Standard or the Mail. I protest I wish I had time to write mine. They would in that case be much better than they are, in some respects, and worse in others. But I speak and preach too often to be able even to attempt to write it all down. I would not, however, affront my respectable auditors by coming before them without any preparation, and perhaps one reason why the Standard reports our speeches so as to excite the envy of those gentlemen, is, that they are clearly and orderly de livered. This they will call some more of my impudence—(a laugh)—but I have yet to learn that there is any real humility in refraining from speaking the truth. I cannot wonder at those gentlemen supposing that the admirable reporter for the Standard gets our speeches ready written. Judging of our proceedings, very naturally but very erroneously, by their own, and knowing that neither their speakers nor their re porters can do, without elaborate and special preparation, what we are doing day after day,—giving clever and verbatim reports,—they are of necessity driven to ascribe to us either pre-eminence in talent or pre-eminence in industry : and willing rather to be outdone in drudgery than in genius, they allege that we are laborious over much. (Hear.) I would take this opportunity of saying to our mercantile friends, that if they wish their advertisements to be sent far and wide on the wings of our reports, they will give their advertisements to the Standard. Descending, however, from their usually abusive epithets, conveying accusations which they themselves know to be unfounded, one of them has lately attempted to argue in answer to a part of one of my speeches, made in this place on Monday week. They are afraid to trust their read ers with the whole speech given fairly, lest inconvenient conviction might be the consequence, but mutilating it ad libitum they proceed to answer their selected extracts. (A laugh.) A few comments on this attempt will lead me into the same line of address which I adopted on the occasion referred to—a line which, in truth, I prefer on all oc casions, because it distinguishes, as the facts of the case demand, betwee n th e Roman Catholic laity and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and because it presents us i n our proper aspect, as advocates and defenders of our poor Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen against the oppressions and privations under which they are made to stiffer by their ecclesiastical taskmasters. It is a course, moreover, in accordance with the resolution which I have been re quested by the committee to present to the meeting. It is this—" That the present condition of our poor Roman catholic fellow-countrymen is such as should en gage the best sympathies and elicit the most strenuous efforts of this great Christian community, for their spiritual instruction and deliverance from the bondage of their fellow men, into the glorious liberty of the gospel of the grace of God." This resolution calls our attention to the present condition of our poor Roman catholic fellow-countrymen. It is a condition, as you have heard already, more than once, of complicated hardship, both spiritual and temporal. Nov, I want to put a few features of this case in a simple and plain way before this assembly, and before the country. And I will tell you why. Mr. M`Ghee has made out a statement for statesmen. He has made out a case for all the statesmen of England. (Hear.) But the statesmen won't hear. (A laugh.) And the statesmen won't act upon this case, although they cannot turn it. Our enemies and their enemies have beguiled them into a compromise of principle, by which some of them are still beguiled, and from which others, who are beginning to see their mistake, have not the moral courage to withdraw. (Hear.) Well: how shall we get them to hear ? How shall we get them to pay attention to such a case as has been made out to-day ? The power of England has migrated from the great aristocracy of the country, down to the class of people who now fill this room ; and the way to get them to attend to this case is for you to take it up. You, the people of England —you, and such as you, who have the elective franchise, who have substantially the political power of the realm—if you take it up, and make them feel that it is a popular cause, then the very same thing that made them go back from Protestantism will make them return to Protestantism. (Hear, and cheers.) Ido not give them credit in this for much stedfastness of principle. I take them as I find them : they went before popular opinion in one direction, and if the wind changes we shall have them going before popular opinion in another direction. (Cheers.) Therefore, however they may despise our efforts, we are set ting ourselves at the very helm of the state by making Pro testantism popular. They begin to see it. They begin to feel the effect upon the mass of the people of our popular addresses. This is the secret of their hostility to us. This is the reason why they would wish Mr. M`Ghee, and Dr. O'Sullivan, and Mr. Stowell, and your humble servant, at New South Wales, if they dared to send us there. (Cheers.) Well ; this is a good reason for making our statements popu lar. It is a reason in answer to the sneers they throw out, and which have often been directed to me,—" Why do you spend your strength in talking to such a set of people ? Why not try to influence the great ones of the land, the noble lords whom you have occasionally access to ?" My answer is, that the courtesies and etiquette of society do not allow plain speaking before noble lords. (A laugh.) Such a measured tone is necessary there, that there is no power in it. I ex pect power to come up there by and by. I say, let me alone till I get the operatives energized with real protestant prin ciple. (Cheers.) Let Mr. Stowell alone for it in Manches ter. (Cheers.) In one point of view, indeed, I wish you not to let him alone. Do not let him alone with regard to the expenses of the late trial. (Hear.) I will be very happy to act as his purse-bearer pro tempore, and to take anything for this cause that you may choose to entrust to my care. (Hear.) Well : in this course of making our statements popular, sir, I was showing on Monday week, in this place, the privations under which our Roman Catholic fellow countrymen are made to labour by the tyranny of their priest hood ; and the first I mentioned was, that they are deprived of that high and sanctifying privilege of Chri s ti an it y , t h e cup in the Lord's supper. I showed that the scripture plainly commands that the laity as well as the clergy shall receive the cup in that holy sacrament—that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the institution of it, said, " Drink ye all of this,"—., and that, if this be gainsaid, on the ground that when he spoke, only the ministers of the church were present, the answer is, that the apostle Paul, addressing the whole church of Corinth, manifestly including the laity, whose abuses he reproves in the same context, says, "As oft as ye eat of that bread, and drink of that cup, ye do show the Lord's death until he come." It is impossible to get rid of this scriptural testimony to the fact, that the laity in the primitive church not only did eat of that bread, but also did drink of that cup. (Hear.) When we refer farther—which we do by courtesy, for the Scripture is enough for us—to the records of anti quity, we find them as entirely against the Romish practice as the language of the Bible is. We find on this point the council of Constance self-condemned by the language pre facing her own decrees. The council of Constance contains this passage in one of her decrees :—" Licet Christus, &c.— Although Christ, after his supper, instituted and administered this venerable sacrament under both kinds ; although in the primitive church this sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds—non obstante ; yet all this notwithstand ing, this custom, for the avoiding of scandals (to which the primitive church was as obnoxious as the present is), was, upon just reason brought in, that laics should receive only under one kind." The council of Constance was held in the year 1414. It recites, as a matter of fact, Christ commanded the receiving of the sacrament in both kinds : it admits as a matter of fact, that the primitive church did receive it in both kinds ; yet it decrees, for a just reason, that the laity shall receive only in one kind. The just reason, however, is nowhere given. (Hear.) I advanced this on the occasion referred to, and I find it thus treated in one of the publica tions of this town :—" The reverend gentleman said, he took his stand as the advocate of millions of his poor fellow countrymen, who had been deprived of their rights. The first of these rights which he named was that of ' receiving the cup in the supper of the Lord,' and of this, he contended at great length, the millions had been deprived ' by th e tyranny of an anti-Christian priestho o d. He forgets that, according to his own charitable notions, both bread and cup, as taken and received by Roman Catholics, are ' damnable and idolatrous ;' but consistency is not one of his virtues.' This is the whole of the comment ! What immediately fol lows is on another subject. Here is a grave writer, an enlightener of the minds of the liberal party in Liverpool, a controversialist for the faith ! He does not deny that Christ instituted the sacrament in both kinds; he does not deny that the primitive church received it in both kinds ; he does not deny that the Council of Constance is self-condemned by its own decrees ; he cannot deny any of those decrees : what, then, does he do ? He falls back on my principles ! (Hear.) It is very conve nient for him to take my principles when they suit him ; and because on another ground we charge the Church of Rome with corrupting the sacraments, he says it is inconsistent to censure them for riot giving what they have corrupted. Be cause they have corrupted it, we are not to find fault with them for mutilating it also. (Hear.) The worse they have made it, the less the people should have. It is as if the scribe had said, "Why, Mr. M'Neile, do you not hold it idolatry to take it at all ? Should you not, therefore, be glad that they have only one half an idolatry instead of a whole one ?" (Cheers, and laughter.) This is the whole of the at tempt to turn this statement, made by the chief and feather of the Liberals of Liverpool ! (Hear.) The succeeding point he introduces thus : ' The next breach of right which he denounced was the saying of prayers i n Latin." ' Yes, I said that our poor Roman Catholic fellow -countrymen are deprived by their priesthood of the blessed privilege of the worship of God in their own language. There is, at the very least, a humanizing power connected with worship, with an assembled crowd of worshippers. I have seen the effect of it. I have stood and looked at a multitude of our poor Pro testant fellow-countrymen assembled in a place of worship. I have seen men who knew but little how to read, and had little time to cultivate that knowledge, but who enjoyed the repetitio n o f t h e words that had ' become familiar with their ears—l have seen their lips moving in unison with the responses and sometimes with the prayers of our own church service ; and I cannot but believe, that whether th ere was real, vital religion connected with the exercise or not, there was at least a softening power, a humanizing influence, a friendly, kindly intercourse carried on amongst the assembled multitude, while all were using with intelligence the same language in their addresses to their God. (Hear, hear.) Now, of even this the poor Roman Catholic is deprived. The worship of his God is carried on in a language he does not understand. The prayers are read in Latin. And how many of our poor Roman catholic fellow -countrymen in England or Ireland understand Latin ? (Hear.) They are placed in the position of barbarians, with respect to the minister. They cannot intelligently say " Amen" to his giving of thanks. This, as regards God, is profane working, and as it regards man, it is the fostering of superstition, the bare opus operatum, to be rested in as a meritorious performance, and has not even the redeeming quality in the process, of a humanizing influence over the worshippers, such as is felt in the use of a language they understand. I say it is a great hardship. I kn ow not h ow you are disposed to feel it, but I trust the meeting will enter , into the hardship of it, and that every one of us, as we enjoy the blessed service of our God in the language in which we were born, will feel for our neighbours, who, if they go to their place of worship, are compelled to listen to Latin prayers, Latin gospels, Latin epi s tl es, and Latin masses. They know not a word the priest says, except in his address Ito them from what he calls his altar. His sermon, indeed, is not in Latin always ; but his prayers are. Now here is what our scribe says in this respect :—" The next breach of right which he denounced was the saying of prayers in Latin, and this he put as if all the prayers and services of the Roman catholics were said in that language." And services. Look at the dishonesty. I never said all the services, if services be understood to include the sermon. I did say the prayers, and he knew it ; and if he is in the habit of attending a mass house, he never heard an English prayer. But he goes on:— " It would not have suited him to state that every Roman catholic attending at mass, has, or may have, a missal con taining every word said by the officiating priest,—the English on one side of the page and the Latin on the other." He has .a book which contains the English on the one side, which he knows, and the Latin on the other side, which he does not know. It contains every word the priest says. Very true, but it is the Latin words that he says, not one of which the man knows. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Independently of this, it applies only to those persons who know how to read, and it has no manner of reference to the tens of thou sands of my poor fellow-countrymen, who do not know a single letter. (Cheers.) But more than this, the plea put forward by the Papal Church for the use of Latin, is that it is the only perfect, infallible, immutable language ; and yet it seems they can have it fully expressed in English. (Ap plause.) Every word in English as well as in Latin I If this be true, it contains an acknowledgement that the use of Latin is wholly unnecessary. (Hear.) I do day, therefore, that