The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL.

SCHOOL FOR ROCKITES.
" As long as Popish spade and scythe
Shall dig and cut the Sassanagh's tithe,
And Popish purses pay the toils,
On heaven's road for Sassanagh's souls—
As long as millions shall kneel down,
And ask of thousands for their own,
While thousands proudly turn away,
And to the millions answer ' Nay'—
So long the merry reign shall be
Of Captain Rock and his family."

The Church Establishment in Ireland we look upon I
as the great National School for Rockites, and the
Writ of Rebellion is the " Reading made easy" of
the seminary. We take the following extract from a
Cork newspaper, the Southern Reporter. The dis-
trict alluded to is the neighbourhood of Youghal,
now the theatre of a vigorous tithe-war
" I am sorry to tell you that the poor people in the sur-
rounding districts are still still sleeping out of their houses.
This town has been placarded with notices, calling on the
parishioners of Kilmacdonough to pay tithes, or else Ex-
chequer writs will be served on them ; but the poor people
are on the watch. A number of police, accompanied by a
4 rebellion gentleman,' scoured the parish of Irnogeely yes-
terday ; but the sentinels were on their post, and not one

was arrested?'
The same state of affairs exists, we learn from the
Dublin journals, in many other parts of Ireland. In
the mountains of Wicklow the peasantry are " on the
run," as the phrase goes, before the parsons about
Baltinglass, a town whose name preserves the memory
of the old Pagan divinity of the country, whose altars
were perhaps_:mot more sanguinary than those of the
modern Reh•or Moloch, worshipped on the shrines of
a nominal Christianity. In Tipperary the people are
flying before the face of Dean Holmes and his Com-
missioners ; and it appears that Archdeacon Ryder,
too, has fallen vigorously to his old work, weary of
his long confinement in quarters, and unable longer to
abtain from battle. Ratheormaek is in a " state of
siege ;" we are promised a second performance of the
tragedy of Gurtroe ; the weight of an " undone .vi-
dow'''is not sufficient to paralyze the arm of a clerical
Overreach ; " wronged orphans' tears " glue not the
spiritual sword to its scabbard. This is the way to
make Rockites, and to ground them well in habits of
turbulence, and the principles of wild justice. The
" poor people" about Youghal are " sieving out of
their houses !" Mr. Hingston, head school-master in
the Academy of Riot in this district, is " abroad," and
so are his Catholic parishioners also. Pleasing no-
tions of Protestantism must these people entertain, as
they roam the bogs and, mountains in rainy midnights,
nausino. at intervals to catch upon the bleak winds the
u
well-known war-cry of their parson, and the clatter of
the armed Exchequer party at his heels ! Heartless must
they be, and insensible to spiritual beauty as iEsop's
coe-k to the lustre of jewels, if they can resist the ge-
nii:is of the Establishment, when it courts their affec-
tionsin such a panoply- of sweet charms. How each
circsumstance must contribute to endear the Church to
their feelings I 'The fatigue of being hunted—the in-
clement air of night upon the savage heaths—the
thought of their desolate wives and famished children
in their wretched huts in the valleys—the image, of
the reverend Nimrod before their eyes—his " feet
beautiful upon the mountains !”—had we the commis-
sion of Luther, this is just the situation, and just the
nmament, we should seize upon to cleaver a lecture or
homily upon the Thirty-nine Articles ! We could not
fail to win the souls of the most inveterate Papists at
so happy an instant for persuasion. The fact is that
one of the main causes of the snail-paced progress of
the Reformation is, that these delicate occasions for
making proselytes are not laid held of asi they ought
to be. The iron is not struck at the white heat ; the
wf:x is allowed to harden before the seal of the Esta-
blishment is applied. The roving missionaries who
are abroad in Connemara and the Isles of Achill ought
to see to this ; they might be the means of reclaiming
myriads who are now taking the broad downward road
of Popery, if they would only follow the Commissioner's
cf Rebellion through the country, and preach to
the peasantry '' on the run If "he that runs may
read, who knows but that he that runs may hear
likewise ? Certainly there is one missionary of the
Church which those that run may hear, namely, the
bullet—the only missionary of the Establishment in
Ireland whose lessons are addressed to the heart. The
following narrative is also taken from the Southern
Reporter :
" Two men, John Hegarty and William Ronayne,
were brought in here and lodged in the Bridewell, under a
writ of rebellion, for tithes due to the Rev. Mr. Hingston.
These poor men are still confined here, and their situation
is most distressing. One of them is a married man, the
father of six children ; they have no gaol allowance, the
mayor, Captain Parker, having no power to grant it ; nor
will the agent who had them arrested, as I ani told, allow
a farthing for their support, nor has he any idea of forward-
ing them to a legal or proper place of confinement ; the
consequence is, tat their families are obliged to dispose
of their little effects to support them. I was myself a
witness to the bed clothes of Hegarty being pledged at one
of the pawn (jives here by his wife, to purchase the neces-
saries of life fin- hint. Add to this, the place they are con-
fined in is a wretched spot, where no human being
ought to be kept•one day ; and in order to give the people
an idea of what it is, I give you the following extract from
the report of the Inspectors General of Prisons laid before
Parliament, page 33."
Such is the Lord's Church How like the Church
of the Lord I What Christian feature has this insti-
tution ? 'What resemblance bears it to an edifice of
divine foundation? In which of its aspects does it
rewind us of those sweet and sublime descriptions of
the new Jerusalem which holy hypocrites in the pul-
pit scruple not to declare a type and figure of this tem-
ple of Mars and Mammon ? A Christian Church
would promote harmony : this Church is a living foun-
tain of strife and discord. A Christian Church would
alleviate misery : this Church aggravates ten thousand-
fold the poor man's sufferings and privations. A
Christian Church would diffuse knon'ledge and civili-
zation : this Church is a college of ignorance, and a
school of barbarism. A Christian Church would be
like its author, poor, meek, benevolent, and useful :
this Church has all the opposite points of character and
fortune. Represent the Church of Christ and the
Church of Ireland upon a globe, and you must place
thqii at the antipodes of one another, with the whole
code of divine morals and the whole body of evan7
gale doctrine between them. There -is no better_
similitude for this costly and cruel engine of op=
Fression than Panurge's strange ear-ring. We read
in the seventh chapter of the third book of the
deeds and sayings of the Great and Good Panta-
gruel, that when Panurge entered upon the govern-
ment of Dipsody, " he caused pierce his right ear,
after the Jewish fashion, and thereto clasped a bold
ring of a ferny-like kind of workmanship, in the col-
let whereof was set a black flea ; and the expense
thereof, being cast up, was found to amount quarterly
to the charge of an Hercanian tigress. At these vast
costs lie fretted much ; and afterwards, as tyrants used
to do, he nourished and fed her with the sweat and
blood of his subjects !" Here we have admirably sha-
dowed forth the wealth, the wantonness, and the inhu-
manity of the Establishment in Ireland. The black
flea, set in gold, and fed upon the sweat and blood of
• the people, images exactly a gorgeous priesthood de-
vouring the bread of the poor, and keeping a nation
sleepless and wretched. The extravagance of a flea
in an ear-ring is not a whit more preposterous than a
Protestant Church in a country without Protestants.
The flea and the Church could not possibly be placed
in a more grotesquely inappropriate situations. It is
also to be observed that the nimble, voracious, and
blood-thirsty insect which the ruler of Dipsody esta•
blished so magnificently, is peculiarly the troubler of
mankind during the season of slumber—thus in the
closest manner possible representing the system which
will not suffer the Irish peasants to sleep in their
houses, for fear of their Rectors and the Commissioners
of Rebellion. Rabelais says that Panurge, in thus
endowirtrgtfirT'Oirventor of his subjects with their sweat
andA4ls4irants used to do;" but Irish ty-
ranny Wis*ir 'aplijurtlier. Panurge did not make
a IVloloeb TilaVg flea, or declare jumping the
start fZ;lliarildf,l34l,-ay. He did not order his peo-
pl.Air fail.dqWn tiqd!,..ii.orship the disturber of their re-
prp;,:atia.:th4 sucker -of their vital juices.—Examiner.
14' r amos was returned for East Cumberland on ,
Fri-
day la any opposition. We have elsewhere
given
a iiirfeport of time proceedings at the election,
taken from the Carlisle Journal of Saturday. This