The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-15 00:00:00

V'-r.
N a

' We cannot find space to insert Mr. GIBSON'S
speech at the Mayor of Ipswich's dinner, and must
content ourselves with expressing our satisfaction at
seeing that the Hon. Gentleman undauntedly keeps
the field. Every time he appears in public he
adds to his reputation, and will not fail to
secure himself the unbought support of some
i independent constituency. On this occasion, he
rontributed to expose the factious con-
duct of the Tories, and proved that his old party,
after professing an attachment to liberal education,
had cashiered him for voting for a system of Na-
tional Education which the Bishop of EXETER
has admitted to be founded on a just and moderate
principle. He happily ridiculed also the un-
easiness of certain Protestants, who, from
want of confidence in their own faith, are eternally
seeking to strengthen it by denouncing the
faith of other me.a. These lived, he said, in a
perpetual fear of Popery, as if the smallest breath
from the POPE would blow Protestantism into
shivers and into atoms- He believed that if we
• sliOwcd towards one another the spirit which clearly
pervades the whole Gospel, we should be more
successful in spreading the practical influence than
(we presume, for the close of the sentence was lost
in cheers) in maligning the Catholics. Mr. GIBSON
then passed on to the Canterbury orgies, and
pointed out Mr. BRADSHA W'S denunciation of
Catholics as " bigoted savages," as one of the
mischievous consequences of the Protestants' ter-
ror. They were led by it to protest against Chris-
tianity altogether ; and, in fact, their apprehensions
I threw teem into practical infidelity.
Mr. GiusoN was also very happy in exposing
the disloyal conduct of the Tories towards the
QUEEN, and their factious malignity, or stupid
ignorance, in confounding her conduct in carrying
the Catholic Emancipation Act into execution,
with that of JAMES THE SECOND'S, in appoint-
ing Catholics to office in spite of the law :-
1' The first charge \ against James (said Mr. Gibson) was
this—that be had dispensed with and suspended the laws
of the realm without the consent of Parliament.—( Cheer-
iiing.) Now, I ask you, has Queen Victoria done that ?
Has she, in permitting the Roman Catholics, in permitting
Dissenters,
in permitting men who differ from the Esta-
blisit."d Church to partake in civil rights—bas she, I ask
suspemied or dispensed with the laws of the realm 7 Has
she not raiher acted in the spirit of those laws, and .carrited?
out the printLiples which were intended hdei enhactmdemnis_
--( Cheers.) And I say, if she had olieytt
sion of a man to civil power because he was toot' at different
religion religion to that of the Established Church, she would have
been, in fact, suspending and deiispensng with the laws of
the realm without the consent
Parliament.—(Cheers.. )
And it is the
headvice which the Tories woald woald give her which
would put in a precisely
was placed.—(conticeonddition to that in
which James 11.
Mouarchrea
James the Second's time the law excluded arliplause.) In
aprmointeld many,
omen Catho-
lic,s from power and place. The
.andnclthese
and thus dispensed with the laws of the
days the law admits Roman Catholics to office
if she
ueen
Victoria would dispense with and suspend the law
refused to appoint them on account of their religion.
It seems, however, a common practice with
the
Tories and the parsons, they have been so long accus-
tou'ed to prescribe the laws, to conclude that what
they ti:ink right must be law ; and they make, with
one accerd, an attack upon her MAJESTY for not
suspending the laws and acting on what they think
ought to be ;,Iw. They are certainly kept some-
what in countenance by the Legislature, in 1829,
Ihaving stupidly failed to do its work completely.
As Mr. GREGO proved in his exuberant zeal at the
Manchester meeting, it left in the Rubric and the
Homilies, which have the force of law, so many
unchristian, fierce, and savage denunciations
of the Roman Catholic faith, that the Protes-
tant zealots are almost justified in believing that
:the law still regards the Catholics as irre- 1
~ .
.._.