The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-12 00:00:00

stinacy in continually violaing the., law, and as the
parties doing; so have been acting under the sanctic,n,
or rather under the coercion of the railway' com-
panies, it is nec,ss-.try that the law should be fully
carried out, and I shall therefore inflict on the defen-
dant in this case the full penalty of 403., with the
costs of the summons.

SIR CULLING EARDLEY AND MR.

LUCAS, 2LP.
In the Tablet of Saturday there was a curious
correspondence between Sir Culling Eardley, Bart.,
and the Hon. Proprietor of that journal. As Sir
Culling's letter is short and Mr. Lucas's plsguy long,
we subunit the first for publication, and about an equal
quantity of the second :

" Geneva, 03t. 1, 1852.
" Sir,—l observe in the Tablet, the Team Herald, and
other Irish newspapers, that a movement has been begun
by Irish Roman Catholics, with the proposed object of
attaining religious equality.' In one of those papers
(the Tablet) I see it is argued that the first step to-
wards attaining the blessing of secure homes and safe
altars, must ba the destruction of everything in the
shape of privilege, precedence, monopoly, or unfair ad-
vantage on the via of the Established Church.

" Ia that movement your name is prominent.
" I need not suggest to you that for public men to
command respect they must act upon a principle. To
profess to desire religious freeJom in Ireland, and not to
the best of their ability to promote it elsewhere, would
be to be politically unprincipled.
"It is not my purpose to express any opinion about
your Irish movement, but I take the liberty of address-
ing you on the following subject.
" You are, no doubt, aware of the imprisonment of
Sig. and Signora Madiai in Tuscany for religious causes.
They are condemned severally to three years and a half
and four years-and-a-half confinement with hard labour,
for:having read the Scriptures, and worshipped God out
of the Church of Rome ; and for having induced or as-
sisted others to do the same.

" Upon such cruelty it is superfluous to comment.
The public prosecutor distinctly stated at the trial that
there was no political acousation whatever. The prose-
cution was avowedly for religion, the religion of the
Established Church of Tthcany; and the puuishment is
the grossest conceivable invasion of the most rudimen-
tary principles of religious liberty.
A deputation from various countries—the United
Kingdom, France, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany
—is about to wait upon the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in
order to solicit, in the name of religious freedom, the
liberation of the Madiai. I expect to na: et these gen
tlewen at Marseilles, and I take the liberty of asking
whether I may inform them that they have your per-
mission to state at Florence that you, whose name and
position are well known there, regard, with indignation,
the incarceration of the Madiai, in the supposed interests
of your faith, and that you wish success to the object of
the deputation.
" I reserve to myself the right of making a public use
of the correspondence as soon as it is completed; end I
request that it may not be considered as completed until
I have had time to acknowledge the honour of your reply.
" The gentleman who will wait upon you with this
letter will arrange with you for the reply to meet me at
Marseilles. "I am, Sit, your obedient servant,
" C. E. EARDLEY.

" Frederick Lucas, Esq., M.P."
The substance of the reply of Mr. Lucas is, that he
will not comply with the suggestion of his corre-
spondent. Why and wherefore you may discover from
the closing part of his elaborate epistle, i. e.:—
"If I were a member of a csustitutionel state, like
Belgium or like England, on whichever site the majority
happened to be, I would advocate the strictest impar-
tiality and equality of treatment for all. If I were an
absolute monarch under the like circumstances I would
practise the same rigid impartiality. But if I were an
inhabitant of a country like Ireland—governed, nomi-
nally by a representative government, in which the vast
' majority of the people profess one religion—in which a
miserable minority, besides robbing the majority of
their estates, have robbed them also of the religious en-
dowments accumulated by the piety of their ancestors
for centuries before—by the aid of those endowments
uphold themselves in a position of social and legal supe-
riority over the mass of the people—use these endow-
ments as an instrument of insult and a means and a mo-
tive for every kind of misgovernment, and the mainte-
nance of every species of abuse—in such a case, I care
not whether I belonged to the majority or the minority,
to the class of the oppressed or the class of the op-
pressors, to the Catholic or the Protestant—in any event
I should be earnest, with my whole soul, for cutting
oat of the flash of the state so foul a gangrene, and
establishing perfect religious equality among the people.
" This is the opinion I entertained before I became it
Catholic and ever since I came to the age of reason. I
uphold it now on the same principle on which I adopted
it then, but with a fuller knowledge, a deeper conviction,
a profounder hatred of the wrong, and a more resolute
determination to abate the nuisance. Show me a case
in which a Protestant majority is so treated by a usurp-
ing, plundering, and oppressive Catholic minority, and I
will be as forward in expressing my indignation at the
conduct of the Catholic oppressors, and my sympathy
with the Protestant oppressed.
" But when you dare to suggest to me a similarity be-
tween Tuscany and Ireland—between the Madiais and
the Catholics of this land—between your souping, swind-
ling, mammon-proselytism, the whole practical aim of
which is directed to root out the Christian faith, and to
plant infidelity in its stead—to disturb, destroy, disor-
ganise, break, and tear asunder an ancient and virtuous
society, by foreign influence and foreign gold; to make
men devils, or anything, if it were possible, that is worse,
rather than allow them to save their souls in the pure
way in which their fathers worshipped God; when you
dare to suggest to me, a parallel between se sistance to
the first beginnings of such revolutionary innovations,
and of such hostile invasions from without, and the
efforts of the Tory bigots her-, to maintain their plunder
and their ferocious gripe upon the throats of a famished
people, I turn from the suggestion with a contempt
which, assuredly. there is nothing, either in your letter
or in anything I know of your career, to modify or
diminish.
" I am, Sir Culling, your obedient servant,
"Tablet Office, Saturday, Oct. 9." "F. LUCAS.

F.rormeli
gtai,ems7lenalehust?lity," in the Irish
The advocates of
and special sense of the phrase, have encountered an
awkward opponent on the very threshold of the commit-
to
being forget,
devout t h ese
upholders
f a,
commit-
tee-room. The other day, ourdreaders are not likely
exclusively to itself, conscientious
creed a which simple
c-omn salva-
tionifiunde:d
and justifies the extirpation of
religious differences by fetters and fagots, recorded a
series of extraordinary resolutions,
ttot,hyet' oeffr
at;i that ,
spi-
ritual freedom was the genuine folhri h
that theseveral denominations of Christians puppossessedee.
respectively their own proper claims to consideration, and
that the first step towards securing the blessing of se-
cure homes and safe altars must be the destruction of
everything in the shape of privilege precedence, mono-
poly, or unfair advantage on the part of the
Established Church." This notification met the eye
of Sir Culling Eardley, and acted on the free-
smiled baronet as a proclamation by Lord Hardinge
for disbanding the entire army might be expected
to act on Mr. Bright. For years had Sir Culling
been labouring in the work of religious equality and
evangelical freedom all over the world, and for years
had ho and his coadjutors regarded the Romish esta-
blishment as the incarnate terror of poor God-fearing
souls. But here were not only Papists, but Irish Pa-
pists ; and not only Irish Papists, but Irish and Popish
" archbishops" and " bishops" assembling together to
put on record doctrines of religious liberty which might
pass good muster at a convention of the Protestant Al-
liance. Into what emotions Sir Culling was thrown on
the spot must be left to imagination to conceive. Per-
haps he did as Colonel Sibthorp was represented by a
facetious contemporary to have dine in the lobby of the
House of Commons when the Crystal Palace was fi-
nally condemned ; but, at any rate, he then and there
applied the discovery to prompt and practical use. A
poor man and woman in Tuscany of the name of Madiai
have been just sentenced to four years' confinement
with hard labour for having read the Scriptures and
worshipped God out of the Church of Rome. 'There
was no suspicion, charge, or implication of moral
or political criminality attaching to the case. The
public prosecutor frankly declared at the trial that
there was no such accusation whatever, and that
the prosecution was wholly and avowedly for
the religion of the established Church of Tuscany. Sir
Culling, in concert with many other benevolent persons
of this andlother countries, was then compassing the ris-
cue of these unhappy prisoners, and in furtherance if
this charitable object a deputation was proceeding to
solicit their pardon from the Tuscan Court. Now, if
:tin;
the Irish confederates, being of this very Ttlieetl
and known indeed throughout Europe es out- Romani
the Romans themselves in all the genuine characteristics
of Popery. would but concur in suggestively recommend.
ing to their brethren at Florence scene- of those maxims
which they were proclaiming 80 Clamorously at home,
what a catch it would be for the deputation! So thought
Sir ro
Mr Culling,
Frederick
Lucas,
,t 1 r
activeessed
himself
and a public, exp litter of th causes
promoter Pouf° It ion e,: rt.
iqu
lßiteyfemrroivougmteoutt;he' declaration of the confederates touching
" secure houses," " sate altars," end the method of " at-
taining such blessings" by the destruction of ecclesiasti-
cal monopolies, Sir Culling ventured to introdueo the
question of the Mediais. Nothing certainly could have
more forcibly illustrated the principles on which
Mr. 'Lucas and his colleagues were now taking
their stand. The case seemed made for the very pur •
pose. How terribly an " established church" might
interfere with " secure homes and safe altars" was
shown to some effect in a sentence or four years' impri-
sonment:for reading the Bible without that church's
permission, and spiritual " privilege, prece fence, mono-
poly, and advantage" were most assuredly exemplified
to the life in decrees which visited the very smallest
dissent with the penalties of a common folon. So, after
quoting the resolutions of the " equality" committee,
and alluding to the purposes of the deputation then tin
its road, Sir Culling " took the liberty ot asking" Mr.
Lucas whether he, " whose name and position were well
known at Florence," would permit the deputation to
state that he " regarded the incarceration of the
Madiais" with the " indignation" professed and recorded
against all privilege, monopoly, or advantage ot au
established church.' and whether he would contribute
his public " wishes" to the " success" of the mission?
Well spoken, Sir Culling! You have not always o,r-
ried English opinions with you, but you have got them
now. And what did Mr. Lucas say? Why, he first lock
Sir Culling roundly to task for presuming to expect an
answer to so impertinent an application, and he then, with
truly Irish consistency, wrote an answer filling three
whole columns of a newspaper. As far as this repri-
uaand condescends to reasons, it proceeds on the differ-