The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-20 00:00:00

THE PRIESS.

riot ma helli originated in the invidious expulsion
(as we think) of certain educational books
which had been in use for several years, and
had been approved of by the late Roman
Catholic Archbishop Murray. anti even by the
late Pope. These books had been originally
int►oduced tin• the reasons here stated

lint some of the cinumissioners suggested, and the
suggesti tttt was adopted by the rt•st, and sanctioned by
tiote►nitnent. that it would be possible lu introduce into
the united education such port• of mitered history wul
of l'itristian instruction as might invillVe MI Miller Of
cuntrtree►sy aunongChristians. 'omplete religious instruc-
tion. indeed, it Wits 101ditl. euulel not be imparted in com
to those of ditlerent persuasions. Hut it lA**ll sie,4fested
that, as there alt• Stink' points on which all Christians are
agreed, it would hi desirable that in these the children
should be instructed together, leaving it fuller ri.ligious in-
struction to be supplied to them separately, in conformity
with the will of their parents.

Lot it be observed that the reading of those
books Was not made compulsory :

We did not think it right to enforee on any patron of
SehOol the nuts of ally hook he might not approve. And
with' respect to these Scripture Lessons," and also to
book Sitered Poetry," and " 1.e5140101 on the Triad' or
christianity," we did not allow any child, whose parents
had a conseient it tits objection, to be compelled to attend the
reading of them.
" -

The next faet important to learn is whether
the extruded volume, " Lessons on the T►uth
of Christianity," contained matter calculated
to displease Roman Catholics? The history
of this little work is thus given by his Brace.
Here, however, the italics are our own :

For though drawn up by Protestants—Dr. Carlile, the
late Bishop Dickinson, and myself—it is, as far as regards
the present question, nut al all less lie mork of .Irchbishop
Murray thou ours. For he, us well as the rest of the corn-
mis.sionertt, deliberately recommended it. Ile perused it
with scrupulous care; and he sent over a copy to the lute
Pope, who had it read to him in Italian, and found it un-
exceptionable. The other edition of the I)o4lk—that not
published but merely sanctioned by the board—was nuns.
lated into Italian by a Roman Catholic priest at Florence,
timing the present l'ope's reign.
- -

Now, at this point we must interpose with
some narrative matter of our own. Dr.
Whately, on account of his station, is justified
in a certain amount of reticence, and he has
expressly stated (p. 4) that " he has no wishes
to bring charges against others." But we must
remind our readers of these filets—viz., that
the Roman Catholic Church, as L►rtl John
Russell stated on Mr. Moore's " Irish Church
Debath " in the present session, " has of late
"years aimed at political authority ;" that
Cardinal Wiseman s aggression had taken
place ; and that Lord John Russell had used the
most insulting expressions towards the Roman
Catholics. By a remarkable dispensation,
during the same period, a vast number of con
versions to scriptural religion had been taking
place in Irelund ; and when the fact of these
conversions was doubted by some, and dis-
puted by others, the testimony of the Arch-
bishop of Dublin placed the fact beyond con-
troversy. Such being the state of affairs, what
took place under the " National Board " ?
That question is thus answered by the arch-
bishop. whose " Address " we here resume :--

l'nfortunately, in some of the lately-established district
model-sehomols, without any meeting of the board, hum-
moiled specially to discuss mod decide so important
matter 11'411 the knowledge of many of the 4'1111l•
missioners,—mnue odicens of the board took upon them
ut the tint opening of these schools) to exeludoi altogether
some of the books published and recommended by the
Immurd. And to this moo& stly irregular i§roci.dune may lot:
traced, chiefly, if not entirely, the present deplorable state
of things.
As soon as I discovered—which WllB its the autumn of
lust year—what an unwarrantable step had been taken, I
applied to the board for the redress of so manifest and
gross a usurpation of our authority. ltut, unhappily, so
great an encouragement had been aflinded by the very
ocenrrence of the irregularity to the party secretly or
openly adverse to the existing system, lima, after so many
delays and excuses, there seemed to he a disposition in the
majority of the commissioners, instead of rectifying the
manifest wrong that had been done, rather to continn and
intit'y it, and to follow it up by still further eneroaehments
on the system. And a suspicion %%PS thus—mot 111111104
nigy—gcumited, that over and above any innovat• that
might lie introduced by the commiumoners themselves,
direct, other innovations also might, to un indefinite ex-
tent, be intromlueed withool any authority from them, and
might afterwards, instead of being checked, receive their

So here we have all the links of the evidence
befi►re us on a question upon which so much
has been written to so little purpose. For the
sake of perspicuity we resume the facts at
which we have arrived :—I. The archbishop
has not changed his opinion of the system, as
supported by him heretofore. 1. The eommiss•

sioners unanimously sanctioned the admission
of certain works in use for many years. 8.
Themc works were optionally, not compul-
sorily, read. 4. So far front containing matter
displeasing to the Roman Catholics. they had
been circulated with the approval of the late
Archbishop Murray. and the concurrence of
the late Pope. 5. Serious changes have been
introduced, as stated above by Dr. Whitely,
invalidating the original system as founded by
Lord I)erby.
The only question that remains upon that
statement, of facts is one of policy, viz.—whe-
ther it would have been judicious to have com•
promised twitters, and allowed the fulminations
of Doctor Cullen to take place without oppo-
sition. On this point the " Address " says :
I, however (besides that 1 knew that much tAore was
actually designed). perceived—as I think an man of
eolith tttt sense most—that them could no longer Is' any
security against any amount of tttt ovations ; that those who
had broken faith with the piddle could never enjoy or de-
serve any limber public eontitlence; and that 1 could not,
eonsistently with principles of honour, consent to be a
party to proceedings which an ttttt nted to an abandonment
of all fixed principles, and to a consequent subversion of
the existing system, and a nusapplicatiou of a podia-
mennuy grant.

_ .
And further we may cite from the " Appen-
dix " a passage which contains the whole pith
of his li we's views, am he has expressed them
in one of him " Memorandums "

I have no doubt that to make mach n coneession as
this would lead to objections being raised to *lint' of our
routing is and, if we were to alter or withdraw these
fresh objections would be slatted against others; stubs, on
till we had quite spoilt honks which have been MI Justly
valued wherever the English language is spoken, and su
widely circulated. And, alter all, we should probably
have fresh and fresh encronehmenta attempted, and
double complaints made, if we did not give way to them.
The mildness of the archbishop's nature,
and the consistency of his career, are good
securities that in withdrawing front the board
he has tinted neither " peevishly," nor front
passing caprice. We have read some ingenious
special pleading in which it has been eon•
tended that, though the exclusion of the books
could not be justified, still that the archbishop
should have recollected that he was in a coun-
try where " the factions are as much at war its
in the days of Strongbow and, by way of
appeasing bigotry, he Ought to have truckled
to it. We reply to such a ludicrous anode of
reasoning, that Br. Whately is an archbishop
of the " United Church of Urea Britain and
Ireland ;" that the " National Board " was
founded by parliamentary authority, Mill is
paid for, not by " Strougbowian fitetions," but
from the treasury of the British empire. Of the
anxiety in the archbishop not to give ofliqwu
to " the factions " in Ireland we could not
have it more decisive limo!' than in tt passage
from our firstiouned tract, in which, discuss-
ing the policy of the recent " missionary visi-
tation " of Ireland, he says :

lf, tier instance, some sock pia ti should be ouleepted as so
have heard of that of mewling birth fnan Eng.
land a hog of mia,hionarn s, chiaroamli Ham dissoit,rs
ititurnii‘Cd—appiiiiitral I I way say ordained, that is
wind it virtually punomlts tee) by a NCIfeOIIO4tiDIDCII 14/41OlVill•
Ineji Witilidtt any reference to the existing authierities
our Chureh—without any security tier their soundness of
doctrine, or their discretion, or their taispiunitanis• with the
language of a larFe portion of our pe.pulatbai—s iilisout any
priiression of being attached to our Cleitreh, or 1.11•11 Dot
111/Stilf• to it—and without any responsibility except tee the
body which thus appoints them—if such a ewhenie should
lee set oil foot, I mil eienvinced that any rimotenuitee giVl'll
to it by any of us would involve a danger I Is'sisie'ee others)
of favouring the charge brought against els, of intenial
union and indifference to our own Church.
The tbresight of which sentiments has been
illustrated by the recent proeectlings towards
those " missionaries " of the Evangelical So-
ciety.
Our space compels um here to dose our re-
marks. We have siteeeetled, we hope, in plowing
before our readers, as far as our limits would
allow. the groltitibt of the late secession front the
" National Board " Its Ilublin. on the present
occasion our sympathies go very tar with the
Archbishop of lhablin. To another oppor-
tunity we 'oust defer our critical remarks upon
his genera) writings, which are too remarkable,
both in their merits and their defects, to be
summarily criticised.

Since this article has been in type we have
read the further explanations offered by Arch-
bishop Whately, in a letter addressed to the
Irish Viceroy. This letter evinces, as we con-
ceive, en extreme tensibility to the charge of

- 878

having foregone high duties upon light grounds
or from personal resentments, and contains a
triumphant vindication from that charge. His
Grace defines the powers and rights of the
commissioners as laid down, not by legal
phraseology, but as a moral obligation. They
had to administer a system with nominally
" full control over the books to be used." This
meant that no book should be introduced
without their sanction ; but it did not mean
that the list of admirable works once formally
adopted should be changed and retrenched at
the pleasure of any meeting of the board.
Such a conclusion was never contemplated by
any of the Ministers who supported the sys-
tem ; of the Parliaments who voted supplies
for it; or of the patrons who established schools
under it. When such were their duties and
powers, the recent act of the board assumes a
very serious complexion :

It is plain ,that to depart from the system in this
point, and to introduce an innovation never contemplated
by any one when the grants were moved for and voted,
would le to divert the public money from the purpose for
which it was granted. And it is also a gross injustice to-
wards the many hundred patrons of schools who were in-
vited and induced to place them under the board, on the
strength of an implied promise fully understood by all par-
ties, and acted on for twenty-one years, but which it is now
proposed to violate.
-•- -

Viewing their proceeding in this strong light,
it was a mere logical consequence for the arch-
bishop to determine upon immediate resigna-
tion. If he had waited even for the final de-
termination of the Government, he felt that he
would be " placed in a false position " and held
responsible " for proceedings which he be-
lieved to be utterly unjustifiable."

Las Alforjas. By George John Cayley. Lon-
don : Bentley. _ _

IT depends upon the inclination of the reader
whether ho will highly enjoy or lightly dispa-
rage the contents of these saddle-bags. If his
appetite is for statistics and general informa-
tion ho will find " Las Alfoijas " unpretend-
ingly empty. If, on the other hand, he is wil-
ling to be amused with a piquant narrative of
iiersonal vicissitudes he will esteem Mr. Cayley
one of the best companions in the world. No
one can tell a good story with a gayer son-
cluslance and at the same time with less flip-
pancy. No modern traveller that we call to
mind on the instant has a better skill in con-
veying to you, without apparent artifice or ela-
boration, a vivid impression of the men and
things ho encounters. Though the book verges
upon the novel or romance, we accept its ex
aggerations, and oven its professed flaws, with
little difficulty, RO natural do they appear to us.
We have a prudent remembnence of Mr. Cay-
ley's revolver, and therefore we are reluctant
to come to too abrupt a conclusion as to some
of the more serious narratives he intersperses.
We can say, however, that his Spanish ramble
is, in more senses than one, congruous to the
scenery of "Don Quixote " and " Gil Bias ;"
and further, that it serves as a liveliest supple
,rent to the lively and superlative handbook of
our friend Ford.
The pleasantry of the book is happily asso-
ciated with a certain fair lady for whom it pro-
fesses to have been composed, in the form of
letters to England. An accepted lover in de-
licate health, Mr. Cayley goes out to winter at
Seville, and thence proceeds, accompanied by
a friend who joined him there, to ride about
on ponies, in native costume, among the lions
of the Peninsula, as an itinerant portrait-
painter. This mode of travelling was natu-
rally adapted to supply the companions with a
,see mi of adventures which Mr. Cayley's aspi-
rations, as we have already hinted, eke out,
with delitoriptions of what did not but what
ought ,to brae liefallen them. It is his habit
to trap the unsuspecting reader with a variety
of circumstantial details which he afterwards
explodes by a sob,erer statement of what actu-
ally did occur ; and much of the charm of the
book arises frxnn the uncertainty whether or
not you are being unceremoniously trotted
auto one of these rail de sari from w:hich you
will have to return to the highway of literal tact.
Here is a story of this dubious character, which,
%while it is exciting, may serve for illustration.
It occurs shortly after the travellers had left

_
Passing, in discussion, the dark•green golden-dotted
orange-groves and spiry cypresses which encircle the city,