The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-13 00:00:00

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equsi share if suffering on all the rest of the world ;0
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within their reach. • • 11, 17,j
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LIER .1 ALD,—The University of Oxford yesterday did
.1\
its hest to supply Ile great vacuum caused by the death e-e
of Wellington, That; seat was highly coveted, and much
spleen and envy has been expended in thecolumns of , "1/4?SktrX
the Morning Chronicle, and ether Tractarian journals,
that it should be filled by the E•Lrl of Derby. Any-
thing that man ceold do, they would have undertaken
to defeat the Premier. But the only thing that was
in their power was to start a candidate, and be de-
feated themselves. And that sort of enterprise they
could not persuade themselves to enter on. A
foolish maundering was set up at last about
an alleged ‘. precipitancy." The Vice-Chancellor
showed that there had been none. The former
precedents of vacancies occurring in the long vaca-
tion made it clear that it had been usual to fill up
the chair in the following month. Four weeks elapsed
hetween the death of the late Chancellor and the elec-
tion of the present ono. In what other post, in Church
or State, would this be called precipitate ? But, if the
truth must be toll, this compTainieg of the Tractarians
is the sheerest hypocrisy. They huvo exclaimed about
the indecent haste of Lord Derby's friends; but they
themselves were the first to commence ! They have
exclaimed against the insufficiency of Lord Derby's
pretensions; yet they themselves were anxious to Pro-
pose a candidate, whose qualifications they dared not,
on reflection, bring into comparison with Lord Derby's.
In every possible way they have been beaten ; but, in-
stead of subtnittiug with a good grace, they keep up a
snarling and sneering noise, 9p to the very end of the
chapter l A more discreciitable exhibition, on the
whole, we never yet saw made by any set of men what-
ever. _

e.
POST.—Among Englishmen of sufficient education to
read a newspaper, and of common sense enough to put
a plain meaning on simple facts, there has long been but
one opinioe as to the dishonest and distoyal course of
the Romish priesthood in their late, and still-continued,
attempts to increase their own power in this country_.
by bitter hostility to the Established Church, by defi-
auce or evasion of the law, and by strenuous opposition
to all progress in enlightened opinion and true know-
ledge. In Irelend especially, where Rome had the
strongest material at hand, and the readiest tools to work
with, the dullest power of eight, and the laziest habits
of inference, must have had forced on them both the ob-
jects and the intentions of that desperate and
unscrupulous body which is, unhappily, so largely
represented in the present Parliament. Tho asso-
ciation, the professions, the appeals and the threats of
the friends of religious equality, as it is interpreted by
Rome and understood in Ireland, were hardly
needed to show that the great Parliamentary effort of
the day was to be the robbery of the Established
Church, and that- no pains would be spared to organize
the burglary, and to secure efficient accomplices. The
speech of Mr. Bright at Belfast, which wo lately
noticed, is only one of the signs of the utter want of
conscience or decent consistency by which the two chief
enemies of our Church aro char,:eterised. If Mr. Bright,
and' those who think with him," know anything at all,
they know that the power of the Churclaot ltome
cannot be put forward one hair's breadth without
forcing backward, in a tenfold degree, all that the
Progress Party—the self-styled Liberals—pretend such
anxiety to advance. If they can see anything at all,
they must see that the mail/ tenance of priestly influence
involves the extinction of that free suffrage of the
people—that legitimate and open system of re-
presentation which they profess to long for
with such eagerness. Dr. need hardly fear
Mr. Grote. The cunningest perfection of the ballot-
box would be but a flimsy screen bet ween the votes of
the people and those keen eyes and bitter tongues which
watch and drive into the chosen path the harassed flock
of Papacy. All this, and more, the so-called liberal
enemies of the Church of England know right well.
Bet they well know also that, without the Irish vote to
swell their numbers, they cannot show, on any one ques-
tion that can be raised, any but the weakest and most
meagre front in the new House of Commons. Therefore,
if the Member for Manchester is to be accepted as the
mouthpiece of the party for which he speaks, they aro
now driven, by their desperate condition, to confess their
readiness to sell, for the practical substantial price of a
few votes, all their fine-sounding professed principles of
progress in education. advance ment in constitutional
liberty, true freedom in religious opinion. Against all
these things, in Ireland, and wherever its foot is set, the
Papacy has sworn with its whole faith, and will contend
with its full strength. It is easy, and may not be un-
profitable, to take by this standard the measure of the
honesty of Liberal professions, and of the uprightness
of Radical practice. If any one be found hardy
enough to deny how completely the religious equality
of Romish priests and Irish members is in reality iden-
tified with religious tyranny, we would recommend to
his notice a singular correspondence which will be found
in another part of our paper, between Sir Culling Eard-
ley Eardley and Mr. Lucas, the member whom the
priesthood, assembled in council, commanded the people
of Meath to return as their representative. We do not
propose to discuss here the system and the laws of the
wretched Government under which the Madiais have
been cruelly sentenced ; neither shall we examine the
propriety and advantage of such remonstrances with Fo-
reign Powers, on their internal arrangements and judi-
cial practice, es are projected by the body on whose part
Sir Culling Eardley has very fairly and logically invited
the co-operation of Mr. Lucas, as the foreman and agent
of the friends of religious equality. The act from which
these poor people are suffering is that of the Church which
is supreme over Tuscan imbecility, and whose supre-
macy, wherever it may be established, involves the
same degree of bigotry and oppression. Where that
most imperious and tyrannical of institutions has suc-
ceeded in shaping the judicial power to its bad ends, we
see how it deals with religious equality. It treats the
open profession of tenets differing from its own with
the strong and effective argument of denunciation as a
crime against the State, and stops the free progress of
adverse opinions by the short way of the prison or the
galleys. With us it happens that this cannot be done.
But let it not be forgotten that, whatever the Romish
Church can do to punish and torture all who would
struggle out of its fetters, it does as firmly and unscru-
pulously in Ireland as in Italy. It cannot obtain
sentence of imprisonment by law against those whom
it hates, for hearing and preaching what they firmly
and conscientiously believe; but it can and does pro-
nounce its own heavy sentence against them, not only
fur religious but for political disobedience. By the
power which ignorance gives to the servants of
Rome, that Church can and dots condemn its victims in
Ireland to moral tortures as heavy as man can bear.
The worst dungeon that can be the lot of the Madiais is
often, we fear, surpassed in protracted misery and horror
by the atmosphere of persecution with which a poor
wretch is surrounded, whose rashness in thinking and
acting for himself may have drawn down on him the
wrath of a Romish priest, thundered from the altar of an
Irish chapel. This Church, which so sternly and fiercely
punishes all attempts at proselytising within the sphere of
its own dominion, is, be it remembered, the most uncom-
promising, the most unwearied, the boldest, as well as
the most insidious of encroaching foes wherever the
dominion is with of hers, and its object is to proselytise
for itself. In this kingdom, where Roman Catholicism
is, thank heaven, sn greatly in the minority, we know
and see daily how strenuously its ministers and emispa-
ries pursue the work which, where the Church has the
power, it visits with such cruel penalties—the extreme
of judicial persecution, where the Government and the
law are its slaves—the full weight of moral vengeance,
where a carefully
maintained ignorance perpetuates the
servitude, and ensures the obedience of a_ wretched
, people. It is by this priesthood that
the Member for
Meath, and those who act with. him, have been
aul returned ta o
tthey Parliament,
call
reli-
giousto
no-
minated. It is us the agents et a Church existing on
such practices that
theynd eret)ll for
haran"euqeu'ailintty. W
rigue9ecan recognise them in no ether Ca-
,pancoityiiafthey try to impose on us as Reformers, we shall
know that the pretence is as thin as the burglar's crape,
and shall be at no loss to say what lies under it. Let
them by all means combine with the Manchester school.
Let that body incur the last disgrace of uniting their
fervour for liberty of every kind with the friends and
: servants of the bitterest and most absolute tyranny that
ever enslaved men's minds. Let this happy combina-
tion raise the cry of religious equality, and attempt, in
concert, the robbery of our Church; and, unless com-
mon sense and common justice have died away in Eng-
land, we look to their bringing on themselves tho most
signal exposure and utter disgrace that have ever beenh
justly inflicted on a wicked and impudent shealbiTtioe
day has long been gone by for the successfulo a -rain Ireland,t
: of the rapacity and bigotry
I under the guise of oppressed anodf
the true objects and
I time is fast approaching suffering and the
whomwill equally ap-
t principles of the ManchesterwshFelool
oar. Bright
is
• parent with those of the allies
. anxious to secure.