The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-08 00:00:00

TIM SUN. LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8, 1863.

Archbishop Cullen's Pastoral Address.

Yesterday a Pastoral, addressed to the clergy and
laity of the Diocese of Dublin, from his Grace the
Most Rev. Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin,
Primate of Ireland, &c., was read in the different
churches and chapels of the city. After having
alluded to the approaching festival of the Immacu-
late Conception, his Grace proceeds to say : _ .

" While Christians aro at all times reminded by their
numberless wants to have recourse for succour to the
help of Christians, we, dearly beloved brethren, are
urged by more than ordinary motives to cast ourselves
on her city and protection. For if, in the calamities
that often. afitot nations and peoples, are to be recog-
nised the scourges by which the Almighty in his
wrath chastises their sins, we have reason to apprehend
that our transgressions are calling out for vengeance, anct
that the rod of Divine anger, still lifted over us, is ready to
strike us again. Indeed, during many long years our poor
ccuatry has suffered severely from famine, pestilence, bad
seasons, and other visitations of heaven. To these are to
be added the evils occasioned by that false and anti-Chris-
tian political economy which would destroy those brings
that have been made to the image of God, and redeemed by
the blood of Christ, to make room for the brute beasts of
the field, and which, in order to provide for the manufac-
turing and material interests of another country, would rob
Ireland of the privilege of being an Island of Saints, in order
to make her the mother of herds and flocks. Our past afflic •
tions have bren great indeed, but are we not still menaced
by other evils, and especially by a continuation of misery and
distress, and the greater evils that arise from the machina-
tions of secret and illegal societies ?It may be that we are al-
lowed to suffer in order to show we are the true children of
God, or to make us more like unto our Divine Master, who
passed his life in poverty and sufferings ; it may be that at
present a merciful Father threatens as he did the Ninevites
of old, in order to arouse us to repentance, and that if we
turn from our evil ways he will avert from us the impend-
ing stroke ; but whatever may be the mysterious designs of
Providence, do not delay to be reconciled with heaven white
there is yet time. Do penance for your sins, correct your
evil ways, refrain from drunkenness and other degrading
vices, which, provoking the anger of heaven, render the
soul deserving of eternal perdition, and bring disease and
death upon the body. Filied wit's the spirit of faith,
well instructed in the efficacy of prayer, knowing that all
things are regulated by an all-wise Providence—that
famine, war, pestilence are instruments in the hands of
the Lord of Hosts, lift up your hearts in humble suppli-
cation to his throne, laying before him both your spiritual
and temporal necessities, and imploring of him to lend a
favourable ear to your supplications, With full submission
to his holy will, and entire conformity to the dispositions of
his Providence, whatever they may be, send up to him your
petitions through his Immaculate Mother to spare His
people, to stay the hand of His angel, lest the land be made
desolate, and every living soul destroyed. As, among all
virtues for which the Queen of Heaven was distinguished,
there was none so precious as that charity which ever pre-
served her in union with her Divine Spouse, so, beloved
brethren, there is no virtue in which we should so much
endeavour to imitate her, -or by the practice of which we
can be so agreeable to her, as that of charity, which is the
queen of virtnea. We should cultivate this virtue, ' not
in word nor tongue, but in work and truth.' We should
manifest it by the exercise of well-ordered, judi-
cious acts of almsgiving towards the poor, especially in
those days of misery and affliction. For,' says the Scrip-
ture, ' alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not
suffer the soul to go into darkness. Alms shall be a great
confidence before the Most High God to all them that give
it.'—(Tob. iv. 11.) But as the salvation of the immortal
souls that have been redeemed by the precious blood of
Jesus Christ is infinitely more important than the relief of
corporal wants,'we should make it a religious duty to assist
our brethren by advice, example, encouragement, instruc-
tion, and, if needful, by zealous remonstrance, to resist the
insidious attacks of those emissaries of Satan, who are con-
tinually lying in wait for the children of the poor, going
about seeking whom they may devour; discovering by a
species of perverse instinct where want and misery and
ignorance have made the greatest havoc, and there, lighting
like birds of prey, fastening on the poor remnants of huma-
nity, and carrying off to perdition whatever yet remained
to be destroyed.

" Dearly-beloved brethren, if we are anxious to repel the
assaults of our enemies, let us pat on the armour of light,
and protect ourselves with the breast-plate of faith. It is
our duty to cultivate this important virtue, without which it
is impossible to please God ; it is ourduty to preserve it from
all dangers. The best means for effecting all this is to give
a good Catholic education to the rising generations, so that
all may know the practices of their religion, and may be
able to give an account of the faith that is in them. The
poor are to avoid proselytising schools; the rich to shun anti-
Catholic colleges and universities, in which the prevailing
Protestant spirit is most hostile to the doctrines and prac-
tices of the Catholic Church Above all, we are to shun
the contagion of bad and irreligious books, which corrupt
the heart and pervert the intellect, and to avoid
all the seductions of bad company, the ruin of so many
souls. In all things it behoves us, dearly beloved
brethren, to be on the watch against the enemies of
God and of the poor, whose unceasing hostility against the
true church shrinks from no device, however unworthy and
degrading, to undermine the Catholic faith, and to effect the
ruin of immortal soulr. As their doings belong to that
class of works which cannot bear the light, the more fully
they are made known to the public the less harm they will
be able to effect. Continual examples of the bigotry and
intolerance with which the warfare of darkness is carried
on present themselves to us. Only a few days ago such a
case occurred in the Adelaide Hospital. A poor Catholic,
by name Kinsella, had been received therein, and being
anxious to make his peace with God before he would
expose himself to a dangerous operation, he asked to be
allowed to see a priest and to receive the last rites of
religion. This just demand was denied by the managers
of the hospital. It was then found necessary to carry
the poor sick man outside the threshold of that institution
into the public street, where, exposed to the cold blasts of a
wintry night, he would have been obliged to remain whilst
the rites of religion were administered, had he net been re-
ceived into a neighbouring house by the charity of its owner.
How can the men who thus insult the religion and feelings
of two hundred millions of Catholics pretend to be animated
with charity, which is the mark of the true disciple of Jesus
Christ ?

"An instance of the spirit of falsehood with which the
enemies of our religion are filled may also be alleged.
Some time ago a poor boy, by name Edward Murphy, apos-
tatised from the faith. A circular was published soon after
for the purpose of raising money to send him to school, and
to prepare him to become a parson. In this circular, to give
importance to the boy, it was stated--Ist. That he was the
nephew of a priest ; 2dly. That he was the ward of a priest,
idly. That he had been brought repeatedly to the Catholic
archbishop and to priests to be reprimanded for his apes-
tacy ; and 4thly. That he had suffered with great firmness,
cruel persecutions in consequence of his change of religion.
All these assertions were glaringly false, yet the circular
containing them was signed by an •archdeacon of the Pro-
testant establishment, by two parsons, and two proselytising
ladies. It is in this way, dearly beloved brethren, our re-
ligion is assailed. The arms employed against us are false-
hood, calumny, misrepresentation, penal laws, and violence.
But we should not complain when we recollect that our
Divine Redeemer was assailed in the same way by the Scribes
and Pharisees, and that our forefathers in the faith were
subjected to similar persecutions ; and why should we ex-
pect to be spared by error and infidelity, when they do not
hesitate:to vent their rage against the Mother of God, the
purest and most exalted of all creatures ? Yes, the habitual
revilers of our holy church, strangers to the spirit of Chris-
tianity, without any fixed principle to guide thew, divided
into a thousand factions in their religious opinions, who are
only united in misrepresenting and hating Catholic doctrine
—who pretend to propagate the Gospel of the God of cha-
rity, by calumniating and insulting the members of that
church which has existed in all ages, and embraces in its
bosom the inhabitants of every clime ; these unhappy men
make it a favourite employment to villify and assail with
the most opprobrious epithets the veneration which we ex-
hibit towards the blessed Mother of God, while with the
celestial messenger we salute her as "blessed among women,"
and contribute to the fulfilment of her own prophecy, that all
b y
Be
it
oars,llhat is liberal
t
generations should call her blessed. Happily the conduct of
a
those agents of proselytism and their wicked proceedings are
caonnddeemnlnigedhtneontedonliya byCatholie s, but
Protestantism.
dearly
beloved brethren, to make some reparation to tho outraged
dignity of the Virgin, by proclaiming loudly y her pri-
vileges, uplifting our voices in her praise, testifying
our unbounded confidence in her clemency, and in her power
with her Son, ornamenting the churches and altars erected
under her invocation, but, above all, by copying into our
lives her surpassing virtues—her purity, her sanctity, her
in
meekness, her patience, her obedience, her resignation;
the time of suffering, her faith and fervent love. It is thus
that we shall most effectually put to shame and confusion,
if anything can do so, the enemies of her name, the tra-
ducers of the Church of Christ. It is thus that you will
walk worthy of God, in all things Pleasing, fruitful in
every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God (Col.
i. 10)."

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PEDESTRIANISII.—Yesterday afternoon, at three
o'clock, a running match took Place at Bow between
William Lang and James Sanderson, for the Four Mile
Champion Cup and a stake of £5O. Lang appeared on the
ground with a bandage round his right leg, the limb having
been in a bad state for some time in consequence of exces-
sive pedestrian practice. Sanderson took the lead from the
commencement, and on entering the second mile Lang was
30 yards behind. He therefore retired from the contest,
and Sanderson was declared the four-mile champion and the
winner of the stake. There was much confusion at the end
of the race, and Lang received a severe blow in the eye
from a person present, who was summarily ca§tigated for
the outrage,