The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-18 00:00:00

T E

the cause of right, at the risk of possible war. Pro-
bably the most proper course for England to pursue, by
way ,f effective public protest against the French out-
rage in breach of the law of nations, would he, just
simply to exercise her undoubted right of refusing to
acknowledge or have relations with any government,
Papal or otherwise, imposed by such unworthy' means.
The conjoint assent of the Catholic powers cannot
i purge away the wrong. What have we to do with
Catholic powers setting at defis.nce the law of nations?
England, it may be said, has many Catholic subjects.
True, and they should be protected by their mother
country in the full enjoyment of all their religious rights
and liberts, at home or abroad. But if it- be held as a
part of the Roman Catholic religion, that the Pope may
play the political tyrant over his temporal subjects, and
that he must be supported in this by foreign arms, then
that is the only sort of religion that the country and
the ministers of Queen Victoria should not tolerate,
fxcept, at least, as mere opinion. It must not be acted
?Tan with the assent of England, cr without its indignant
protest, and, if necessary, be resisted it must, even unto
blood.

" But though we altogether deny the right of France,
or any other power, or combination of powers, to inter-
fere in the present case, by foie° of arms, on mere Ca•
tholic grounds, we admit the plaietibility of the plea that
Austria would have ftniicipated France in the work of
re-storing the Pope. We think that this probability
would have justified, on the part of France, decisive pro-
tests—at the risk even of warlike redress, if they were
disregarded—against any such course by Austria. Well,
but Austria, it may be said, would have dared to do a
deed unholy, for a holy purpose ; and then we should
have had an European war. Is that any reason why
Rome should be beleaguered and bombarded, end the
law of nations insolently set at nought? Much better
would it have been for the character of France, if the
French army had ejected the Austrian from a wrongful
occupation of the Eternal City, leaving the brave Roman
people to choose, as the French themselves had just
done, their owa government. Aye, but what then
becomes of his Holiness? There's the rub.' Thus do
we come round and round again to the same point: the
Catholic powtrs intendi to assert, as a principle, their
immunity of exemption from the obligations of inter-
national law in matters affecting what is called Catho
licity. We wish to bring this out into bold relief. We
are no fanatics against Popery as a religion, though we
are ardent Protestants. We speak, then, politically,
when we say, that if Popery will again rear up its proud
head and its triple crown high above the nations of
Europe, and will net be content to consider itself as a
religion and a creed, claiming, as in that character it
has a right to do, toleration and protection throughout
the civilized world; if it will claim, most offensively, not
only to the Protestants of Europe, but to all the true
lovers of liberty in every nation, unlimited license of
wrong; then let Protestantism, aye, political, and, if ne-
cessary, even armed Protestantism, awake from its slum-
bers,:and put on all its strength. Let the tongue of every
freeman call for vengeance on the enemy of universal
man. Let the detestable reign of priestism for ever cease,
and the proud, seven-billed city, with all that it contains
—if otherwise the world cannot be intellectually free—
become a smoking ruin and au eternal desolation."
The Eclectic, which always has been considered as
the organ of a powerful religious party, is not without
wholesome food for its theological readers; " Hagen-
bach's History of Doctrines," and the articles on
the " Punishment of Death " and on " Baptismal
Regeneration" will be attentively perused in the study
of many a reverend divine, while the reviews of
Power's "New Zealand" and Bulwer Lytton's "King
Arthur," and the paper on the " Fine Arts in the
colonies," will meet with equal attention in the
drawing-room.

RAPHAEL'S PROPHETIC MESSENGER

FOR 1850.

The Astral Science, so long disfigured by a mass
of superstitious absurdities, owes its resuscitation,