The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1879-08-19 00:00:00

Corrtsponbma.

To tia Editor.

Sir,—The bottles of- -Hea—veser-ar—e-still discharging the,
COldenta upon our devoted country. Afteragreat disaster,
though relteeed by L ,rd ObelmsfonEs so c :as, rumours of
war nave not yet hold tneir tongue in Eautheni Africa, to
say nothing of Bar:nosh- The potato-rot, Is=outPanied with
epidemic,' on man and beast, is still Nitrating one of our
most staple harvest peospects. Distr.*. troui Trade
Unions; distress from Meknego in almost all our
departments ; distress from want of mutual coati lence
distress from bank failures distress from a tricultural
(altar..; and distress from large commercial and petty
trade failures is stalking through the land. la there not
cermet In my opines' There is, and that cause has ne.tber
been brought to the surface nor fairly Lined. The .'l4O
simply that we are bete tempted, es a 111LIon, and at a
nation we are yielding to the temptation—to depart from
the Proteetant faith ot our fatheri.
I admit the evils in our midst of which our social and
moral reformers so bitterly complain. No doubt God has
a controversy with us On the score of our gross intemper-
ance and uncletuaness. No doubt Clod is angry with us mo
account of our reckless eatraveganc, and the drabonetty
which loft. legitimate frui, But when you have emptied
all our public-houset, cleansed our brothels, and motored
confidence and temperance to the several cleans which
constitute our nation, you have not touched, far ler
amended, the real seat and tours* of our disorders. Not.
withstanding our vaunts to the contrary, the heart of
England Is not, I fear, soundly Protestant to the core. Wm
has been tempted to admit, if not the paramount, at least
the equal claims, of our Popish enemy to her consideration.
While she panties this course the hand of the Lard will
hardly be restrained from manifesting Hui indignation on
a guilty people.

I may be aaked—" Where is your proof?' My answer
i.—" Where ta it note First, to my nothing of our
cathedrals, look at our churches, those temples of 04
which were dedicated to the Protestant wurslitp of His
name, at the g•orious Refornialion, three hundred years
ago. There are scores and scores in our land in which the
most unblushing Popery, with a thin disguise of Angli-
canism, is openly preached and practised. There are
hundreds and hundreds in 'shirt the so-called Evangelical
clergyman has ahinduard late Protestant minbul —the
black gown—tor the surplice, in deference to the demands
of religious faahiou. Look at our clergy ! it hai beep
computed that some Pour Thousand of them ars wore or
leas cum mimed to the Ritualism ut our day, and some h .1:
of that number to the introduction of Itotoe's beastly,
confessional into our Proteemot Church, I. Kik at
our bishop. With some honourable exceptions
they are pleading either poverty or iacapacity
Se SXCU.IOI for not dealing with and stamping out the eviL
Some of them, it is more than suspected, are in under-
• =dcollusion with the promoters of the spiritual dase ise.
ame. the law of the land is coo tinselly broken
udder their very week and that with impunity. Our
Ecclesiastical judge seem equally impotent. The decisions
of one court to-day are reversal by them of another tt.
morrow. The Executive seems afraid to enforce the law,
end Parliament itself is being gradually led over the
precipice of indirect Popish endowment. The boasted
Protestantism of our laity has consented at last that the
spoils of the Prutestant Irish Church should be applied to
interest of aMliall eat ,1011 C Education in Ireland, and
the naval and gaol chaplaincies of our establishment at.
simpleinented by the paid services of lt ansn Catholic
pata, one of whom a few days ago ciliated an executed
murderess to he in state.

AU this and a good deal more Is the reeultant of
Roman Catholic Emancipation ; this is what cornea of the
unrebuked liberty taken with our Protestant Church and
Nation in MD, of chalking up "No Popery " and then
running away. This is what womb( Cardinal Wisemen's
and Cardinal IlLanning's missions to our country. This is
what COMM on epeaking of the Pep. as " 'Houneak-
and toasting his legatee at our dinners. Hoagland is
hung eollcated to abandon her roteetant position and the
rules of her Protestant Bible, at the demands and agiump-
lions of • foreign apostate. Nor is this ;stl I would to
God it were all, but the circumstances which attended
the interment of the lam Prince Imperial of France have,
In my view, put the eery topetons on the edifice of our
National departure from God.
Sympathy eim a young Prince who has fallen In
war and apparently este diem is one thing,-soympiathy
with the nation which mod to be proud of his illustrious
family is one thing,--aynapethy with his doubly harassed
mother is one thing; but forgetting the commands of the
God and Father of Our Lord hem Christ, to whom we
owe all our greatness as a nation bete, and all our hopes
of happiness hereafter, is quite another. Could not every-
thing kind, gentle, and tender have been conveyed to the
bleeding heui of the Empress Eugenie without the
blasphemous elevation of the idolatrous Popish llost even
at the burial of • Prince Imperial, being responded to by
the collies of Protestent British riflemen, and bowed
down to by Protestant British Princes! The truth alone
can bind up the broken-hearted. The truth as at is in
Jesus alone can minister ti a mind diseased. If ever the
truth should have been spoken it should have been spoken
on such an ofloasion so the funeral of this young Prince,
Instead of which the Popish error was suffered to usurp
He place. No greater love to the bereaved mother could
have been shown than to point her away from the false
gods of her religious education to the true God of all
grace aid true consolation, the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. But the opportunity was naiseed, and
wines than mowed. Pub ie the worat feature in Vole
miserable CA,O is that no retook°, no protost against such
conduct has Jammed (as far as I know) from the lips or polo
of any of our church dignitaries. A few Protestant
paper, such as the Rock and the Record (all honour to
them) have alone ventured to record their ilioapproval ;
the armors' Past has either been dumb or (ride the Morn-
ing Pori) meekly subeervient. But honourmi even •
Prince Imperial is dearly purchae-d at the expense of
Insulting God. Toe wafer-god, whether elevated in • sco-
celled Protestant or Roman Catholic Church. is an Idol.
"Thou shalt have none other gods but me" is not only the
first but the embodiment of the first four Commandnaents.
To trample on it is to deny our jvalous Gol on His most
sensitive point. This our nation is tempted to do Ivy
admitting Popish prrteusiona to tee MUM level with our
scriptoria' Protestantism. Hence our national calaniiLes
in Church and Stile. " For all this His anier is not
turned away, but Ilia hand is stretched out still."
Yours faithfully,
WILLIAM C. TEMPLE&
Burton Bradstock, Bridport, August Sits, 1879.