The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-24 00:00:00

will return a verdict eo de se. liafil.`Ail was
; not any particular ecclesiastical dy, but the
priests of all denominations, who mistook Weir vo-
cation when they mingled ;n the strife of 'palit.i.c4.
\ilf ever Minister deserved gratitude at the ban .ds
/of a people, it is Lord Aberdeen from the Iris
He and his small band stood alone in resisting th e
storm, the hurricane of bigotry, which accom-
panied the progress of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
Neither the vista of office nor the blasts of popular
fury could frighten or lure him from his sedate. and
consistent course. He encountered the suspicions
of the Protestant Dissenters—he braved, the fana-
tical jealousy of the State Church:--to do "justice ,
to Ireland"—and now from Ireland and Oxford
alone come opposition to his Government. Priests
again—what would they be at ? Their complaints
were incessant of Saxon dbmination and Saxon as-
cendancy. They denounced the partiality which.
excluded Irishmen from the sweets of office. Juster
sentiments have inspired our rulers. The Premier,,, -
resolved to obliterate the memory of that unhappy
Lyndhurst folly which denounced Irishmen as .
" aliens in language, in blood, and in religion,"
calls to his councils the very men whom the Irish
people the most trusted, and who were ablest-to
serve their country. No sooner has he afforded
them the opportunity of office to use their power
in behalf of their country, and given guarantees of
the.impartiality of his adthinistration by opening a
career of public usefulness to the very men in whose
integrity and ability their countrymen manifested
their greatest confidence, than the Catholic -clergy
step forward to denounce him and them—the for-
mer as the corrupter of the patriotism of their
friends, and the latter as the bribed tools of Go-
vernment, bought up to help Ministers to enslave
the remnant of the tribes who yet prefer potato...,
land to Illinois or the diggings. Dogs in the man-
ger, they will neither let Saxons govern them nor
permit the rule of their. own Celtic leaders. Like
the lawyers in the Scripture, they will "neither go
in themselves nor let others enter." Their friens
discover that, when they seek to give the priests
influence by calling them influential, they have
but raised a devil, who will not be laid until he has
received an equivalent of mischief for his services
to those who seek his aid. The " Pope's brass band"
discover that they are " hoist with their own
petard." They fall back on the support of the
clergy, and the price of their alliance is obsequious
subserviency to their dictate. They catch a
Tartar, who wiffneither come with' them nor let
them go. In every election committee'there is an
inner inquisition of parish priests who dictate the
nomination and oversee the results. These gentry
look upon members of Parliament but as puppets
of the Pope and panders of the monkhood. If
they can get but the Irish hundred members under
their thumb, they think they may rule England
from the Vatican, and supersede Temple-bar by
the Flaminian gate. Fortunately there are two
parties to be consulted in this bargain. The lead-
ing spirits among the Catholic laity cannot regard
this tyranny with sincere favour. They secretly
wince under it. They resist it as openly as they
dare. Even the Irish taste for vociferation and
exaggerated bombast sickens at the inflated rhodo-
montade and the vehement malignity of the priest-
hood. Their coercion and intimidation at the re-
cent elections have alarmed the reflective, and ,
disgusted all. There is little real sympathy in
Ireland with ultramontane doctrines. The people
do not believe the clergy to be more than men.
They every day see their coarseness, their violence,
their reckless disregard of truthfulness, their un-
scrupulous use of means, to compass their ends.
The intelligent and independent among them be-
come gradually alienated from a Church that tole-
rates, and even advocates such a system. If they
do not become professed Protestants, they at least
divest themselves of the faith and sympathies of
Romanism. We have often appealed to the convic-
tions of our Irish neighbours. We intreat them now
to assert their independence. A case has been made
out against the interference of the clergy in politics.
We earnestly advise the laity to exclude them from
their councils, and to remand and remit them to
their sacerdotal duties. " Render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's." Parsons have nothing to
do with political platforms or hustings addresses.
The people are quite competent to manage their
own affairs. It is absurd toprate about a "Religious
Equality Association," if Father Murphy is to be
at the bead of it ; and Father Donohue is to have
it in his power to threaten with ex-communication
every minority that differs from him. Ireland has
no right to justice, if she be not just to herself ; she
is not fit to be trusted either with freedom or
power, if she sells the one to the Church, and hands
over the other to the clergy. Her Saxon fellow-
subjects have a right to say to her—" Before we
recognise the equality of your 105 members with
ours, we must know what use you make of them—
whether they are their own masters—whether,
when they vote in our divisions, their votes are
their own or yours, and not the Pope's or John_
Team's. You must learn to keep your parish priests
in their proper places. We have emancipated your
religion, but not to let it loose upon our liberties ;
we desire to give you equal rights, but not to ena-
ble your Church to acquire an ascendancy. We,
say that no church has any concern with the secu-
lar affairs of man • and we will as little tolerate the
dictations of IVl‘lale as of Bloomfield. Irishmen!
cast your fetters from you—be free men—not the
the slaves of priests—shake your conscience loose
from the chains of sacerdotal usurpation, and stand,
shoulder to shoulder with us in achieving new con-
quests for the people. Tell these blustering pul-
piteers that you can distinguish betwixt ecclesiasti-
cal authority and the overbearing insolence of
clerical officiousness, and that once for all you are
determined to manage your own affairs your own
way."

CHARLES MATHEWS AND THE PRESS.
(From the Morning Post.)
Mr. Charles Mathews, in several letters, distin-
guished more by what is called smartness than by
truth or by good taste, has brought two serious
accusations against the London newspapers gene-
rally. We should not have troubled our readers.
with our personal vindication from either of them,
or have publicly noticed the subject, had we not
feared that our silence might be construed into
acquiesence in slanders directed against a very de-
serving body of men. As it was, we felt that it
was a duty both to the gentleman in question—to
the public—and to our own position, to call on Mr.
Charles Mathews either to substantiate or to retract
his assertions.
The first charge was that the privilege of admis-
sion given by theatrical managers, for the purpose
of report and criticism, had ben fraudulently ap-
plied to that of pecuniary profit, to the great loss
and damage of Mr. C. Mathews. To this we con-
sidered simple denial of any such doings on our
part, and entire renunciation of Mr. Mathews'
tickets of admission, a sufficient reply. But this
accusation was followed by a public declaration from
the same source, that " many of the critics are the
style of men to be cajoled into saying what they
don't think, by a nightly order."
We could not suppose that a gentleman and a
man of honour had made such a sweeping charge
of falsehood and dishonesty as this without some
distinct ground in what he at least believed to be
fact. We therefore called on him, in justice to
ourselves and to those gentlemen to whom we and
other journals entrust a difficult and responsible
duty, to name the many guilty persons. Mr.
Mathews answered that he had the authority of
the Spectator for what he had said. We showed
that his reply was insufficient and incorrect, and.
pressed him further. The very singular result we
subjoin, leaving our readers to judge whether such
" skim ble-skamble stuff" as the inapplicable and
inconsequent apologue of the pastrycook and the
boys is a sufficient justification of libel, or whether,
if Mr. Charles Mathews had possessed a single fact
to support his assertion, he would not have pro-
duced it rather than have confessed his weakness
by such ridiculous evasions :

" TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.
" Lyceum, Jan. 22, 1853.
" Sir,—Some time ago, a nice respectable little boy
was in the habit of stationing himself near the door of
a pastry-cook's shop in one of our London thorough-
fares, and so recommended himself by his civility in di-
recting customers to the shop, that the pastrycook got
into the way of giving him a few cakes daily for his
attention.
" Several other equally respectable little boys soon
applied for and received cakes in the same way for the
same kind service, till by degrees all the little boys in
London, respectable and otherwise, claimed as a right
the same advantage, and openly declared their determi-
nation not only to eat the cakes but to abuse the giver
to all his customers.
"At length, finding that so many cakes were de-
voured by these little boys that the public was actually
obliged to go without, he declared his intention of giving
them no more—the good little boys thus, as usual,
suffering for the fault of the naughty ones.
"Next morning all the windows of his shop were
broken, and on the beadle of the parish remarking that
perhaps the naughty little boys who ham; lost their
pri
vilege had done this mischief, the pastrycook, thinking
that the beal.le ought to be a good judge of the misdeeds
the
fntaruugthh of thatlittlety public boys,erfuepuleietdiouthaaryt
.heerehmaadrk.no doubt of
" On this, one of the most respectable of the little
boys started up in an indignant manner and insisted on
the pastrycook giving the name of any little boy whom
he thought could be base enough to throw stones and
run away, for so paltry a reason as that of being deprived
of a pennyworth of infamously bad cakes. The poor
pastrycook was puzzled, The anonymous little boys
had all vanished, and he could only repeat, on the
authority of the beadle, that although he did not know
their names, he thought that many of them were likely
to have done so.
"In like manner do I, sir, say to you, give me a list
of all the anonymous critics in London, and r may per-