The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-04 00:00:00

GAVAZZI'S FAREWELL LECIURE.

Gavazzi gave last night his farewell lecture,
selecting as the subject of his discourse "The Reli-
gious and Civil Progress of Italy." The attendance
was by no means numerous, and there was little or
no novelty in the lecture, all the points of which
had been stated in previous orations. He observed
that there was some progress in religious Italy,
starting from 1853, when there was theoretically a
beginning in the establishment of a small congre-
gation of evangelical Christians at Turin ; but the
real practical commencement of religious freedom
in Italy dated only from the entry of Garibaldi into
Naples, and now by the blessing of God they had
no less than 40 congregations of evangelical Chris-
tians, numbering not less than 2,000 communicants
and 20,000 regular attendants at religious worship.
st
Considering the formidable opposition of Roman-
ism, this
Pro-
testanised. In fact, he and others who were en-
gaged in the work of evangelising Italy, found it
it
necessary to make a declaration that Protestantuu notable progress.
wasogress. being But
was a mistake was great
it
to
suppose
and ta
thatob al
was not their object; and if it were supposed that
it was, such was the prejudice of the Italians that
they would altogether fail. What they sought to
do was to Christianise Italy, not to Protestantise
her ; and seeing that nine out of ten of the whole
Italian people did not believe in the Roman Catholic
Church, they had every encouragement to continue
preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity,
which the Italian people were quite willing to hear.
The nearer they approached to Rome the less they be-
lieved in Romanism, and there was an Italian proverb
that if you would found a people without faith you
must go to Rome, the seat of the Pope ; and that
proverb was infallible, and the reason was that the
Italians had seen too much of Rome, consequently
the Italian mind was the most promising for receiv-
ing the true Gospel, and the Italian mission was
destined to achieve the greatest success of any mis-
sion. Popery was losing children fast in Italy, but
as her belief was that her children must remain at
the same number to the end of the world, viz., at
about 120,000,000, she must make up the number
she was losing in Italy by gains elsewhere, and the
country where now she was endeavouring to gain
children more than anywhere else was Protestant
England; and while he thanked God for what He
VMS doing for Roman Catholic Italy, he prayed
God to protect Protestant England. The Roman
Catholics knew the value of attraction; they knew
how to do business, as witness the advertisements
of the musical attractions at St. George's Cathedral,
which drew unthinking Protestants to Roman Ca-
tholic churches, and enabled Romanists to boast of
the large congregations they could bring together
even in London. The great guarantee for the pro-
gress of religious liberty in Italy was the fact that
in
there had beep 100,000 copies of the Bible soldof
the
Bible by the colporteurs, for when the
Italy since 1860, and the free circulation
gospel circu-
latedli
berty was
freely the progress of religious
d Naples, told him
(Gavazzi) to go and preach
the gospel and destroy
the Antichrist. Still the preaching of the
certain. Much of the change was due to Gari-
baldi, who, when he entered
gospel was illegal in Italy ; and what he wanted
was
to see the Italian Parliament sitting in Rome,
and religious liberty made a part of the Italian con-
stitution, for without religious liberty there was
really no security for political liberty. In regard
to the civil progress of Italy, he described the rea-
sons why it became necessary for the Italian States

PRICE..... -..4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

to annex themselves to Piedmont. It was impos-
sible for them to go back to Austrian, or Bourbon,
or Papal despotism, nor could they go back to the
republics of the middle ages, consequently there
was no alternative but to make one constitutional
Italy by means of the union with Piedmont ; but
not with the intention of making the 20,000,000 of
Italians Piedmontese, but rather to make the
3,000,000 of Piedmontese Italians. This was the
object the Italians had in view when, by universal
suffrage, they almost unanimously declared them-
selves against a republic and in favour of the an-
nexation. The Emperor of France, who claimed
to be the patron of Italy, having failed in his desire
to establish a federal Italy, was trying all he could
to create divisions amongst the Italians themselves.
Napoleon claimed gratitude for what he had done;
but the gratitude was due not to the Emperor but
to the French army, which liberated Italy so far as
it was liberated, but complained loudly and bitterly
of their own Emperor that he would not permit
them to complete the work of liberation. The Im-
perial " idea" for which the war was said to have
been undertaken the lecturer ridiculed with happy
effect, pointing out the substantial advantages the
Emperor had obtained in exchange for the idea,
which, though put forward with so much ostenta-
tion at first, became so modestly retiring aftex Villa-
franca. He did not desire to see war in Italy, least
of all war with aFrench army] but when Italy had, as
he hoped ere long she would have, 400,000 soldiers
under arms, no nation would be likely to go to war
with her upon her own soil, or to resist her right
to go to Rome. What Italy wanted was a man to
lead her, and that man she had in Garibaldi, who
had not been disgraced by his recent failure, but
those who were disgraced were the wretched mini-
stry of menials to the French Emperor, who be-
trayed Garibaldi and wounded him at Aspromonte.
He denied that Garibaldi was defeated at Aspro-
monte, for he did not fight; he was wounded, but
not defeated ; and he repudiated altogether the
term rebel as applied to Garibaldi, which he said
was a libel emanating from that man who at Bou-
logne was himself a rebel. Garibaldi had done for
Victor Emmanuel and for Italy more than Cavour,
Rattazzi, Cialdini, and all the rest of them; and it
was only Garibaldi now who could lead Victor
Emmanuel into Rome, and this he said on the
authority of Pius IX. himself. They must go to
Rome, for Rome was an Italian, not a Roman
Catholic question, as they were now trying to make
it in France. The course of events he wished to
promote was to force an excommunication against
Father Passaglia and his ten thousand priests, this
would raise up an opposition which could not but
be successful against the Pope's spiritual power,
which must be speedily followed by an opposition
to his temporal power, and then the reign of the
Pope as a temporal Prince would be over, and the
gospel would be free in Rome itself.
The lecture was repeatedly and loudly cheered
during the delivery of the oration.

ANOTHER BOILER EXPLOSION-SEVEN
MEN BILLED AND FIFTEEN INJURED.

About seven o'clock yesterday morning a dread-
ful explosion of a boiler took place at the premises
of Messrs. Beatson and Co., the Midland Iron-
works, Masbro', by which seven lives have been sa-
crificed, and ethers put in jeopardy, and a great
amount of property injured. In the works a great
number of men are employed in puddling and roll-
ing, and the other laborious operations which are
carried on in the works, and it was in this part that
the fearful calamity took place. Seveal boilers of
various dimensions were fixed in the-mill to furnish
the power necessary to work the large number of
rolls that were in use. One of these boilers, nearly
the largest in the place, was embedded midway
between two smaller ones, at about 80 yards from
the entrance gate. A few minutes after seven yes-
terday morning there were about 150 men and boys
employed in the shed. The work was proceeding
as usual, when a tremendous report was heard, the
large boiler launched itself forwurd into the mill,
and in an instant's time the whole place was in
ruins. The two large tubes of the boiler were pro-
jected with immense force to the rear of the
pre-
mises, being accompanied in their flight by showers
of red-hot bricks from the bed of the boiler, slates,
and sheets of iron from the roof of the shed, and
other portions of the debris, which covered the
whole space around. Before the tremendous missile
everything went down like reeds. The roar of the
explosion was terrible, but it was quickly succeeded
by still more appalling sounds—the shrieks and
screams of the unfortunate persons who were buried
beneath the ruins. The survivors set immediately
to work, and having taken steps to obviate
any danger from the other boilers, they com-
menced to extricate the wounded and the dead.
Of the latter there were found five, most of
whom had been killed instantaneously by the rush
of the boiler or the ponderous fragments which
it displaced. Their bodies were removed to the
Butchers' Arms, an adjacent public-house. Two
others of the sufferers of the name of Cawthorne
and John Ellis, who were removed in an insensible
condition, died shortly afterwards. The injured
men number about 15, and most of them are suffer-
ing from wounds of a very dreadful nature, caused
by the scalding water and steam, or the fragments
of the ruins which had fallen so thickly. Nine of
them were sent at once to the Masbro' station, and
taken by train to Sheffield, where they were re-
moved to the General Infirmary.