The Sun.
London, England, 1849-11-14 00:00:00

(('43t)) Viting AUL

LONDON. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1849,

" Aide toi et Dieu t'aidera." The continual fulfi -
ment and the frequent recollection of this important
maxim is at once a duty and a consolation. An anti-
dote alike to idleness and despair, it enjoins upon us
all the necessity of labour, and promises for that
labour a meet reward. This maxim is now especially
suggested to our notice by the approaching solemnity
of to-morrow. To-morrow the whole nation are
about to do collectively what almost every member of
it has already done individually—to return thanks to
PROVIDENCE for the abatement of the pestilence.
:Many persons, we are aware, regard the ceremony as
an idle form, and others again look upon it
as the only thing needful. Both extremes
are, in our opinion, erroneous. The Thanks-
giving will, in most cases, be anything but heartless,
Will not the father, whose household has.been passed
over by the destroying angel—will not the mother,
who can yet press all her little ones to her bosom—
will not those happy few, who mourn no vacant place
in the circle of friendship ;—will not these offer
something more than a verbal thanksgiving ? Nay,
even those who have wept over the victims of
cholera, even they who can best appreciate its
terrible power, will rejoice that at length
the plague is stayed—if some have been taken,
many have been left. Let us be grateful then.
But, in order to prove our gratitude to be sincere,
and cur prayers not a hollow mockery, let us be zealous
in doing our part, and in using the means with which
PnovlDEr ca has blessed us. Such is our practice in
other cases. The most worldly will pray at the
couch of a suffering friend, but the most pious will
not refuse to employ the aid of medicine. The hus-
bandman trusts to the sun and shower to ripen his
crops, yet he is careful to prepare the ground and to
sow the seed. While we have lips to utter praises
andr prayers let us remember we have hands to work.
therefore let no one who to-morrow will kneel be-
tween the porch and the altar, aggi offer up his thanks-
givings, return home satisfied, and think he has per •
formed all his duty. On the contrary, he will only have
incurred a heavier responsibility. Whatever the
cholera may 7/ot have been, one thing it certainly was
—a lesson. As death, the death of their own first-
born chiidrer, was alone able to wrest from the
Egyptians compliance with the jest demands of
has required a fearful warning to
the oppressed, so it
mike the cry of the suffering find a hearing amid the
din and the turmoil of business and revelry, which
drowns all other sounds in this rich and rejoicing
car ital. Tea not us, Christians, be more obdurate
than the Egyptians of old. The lesson has been a
severe one—let us show that we have profited by it.

It is a duty incumbent on every one—every one
is called upon to do his best, and of course
that best will differ materially in different circum-
stances. More especially are these remarks appro-
priate to those who are even yet making money from
the sources of corruption. Many of them (we do
not wish to speak invidiously) are, perhaps, respectable,

church-going people, yet what profanation it will
be if those hands which are ordinarily busied in
sowing the seeds of death and gathering the profits of
corruption, are to-morrow held up in gratitude to
Heaven for arresting an evil they are doing their best
to propagate ! Again, what mockery, what
horrible hypocrisy it will seem if the grateful
anthems be chaunted in those churches whose
graveyards have done and are yet doing
such fatal service to the pestilence ! Yes, let us be
thaokful to Heaven, but in GOD'S name let us be in
earnest. If sickness and sorrow and pestilence and
death be evils—evils worthy of being mentioned in
our addresses to OMNIPOTENCE, then they are surely
worthy of human thought and human care. If the
matter be sufficiently important that the churches
should be opened for a special service in consequence,
then assuredly it is worth while that the grave-
yards should be closed. The Government have
ordered a day to be kept as a festival ; it re-
mains to be seen whether they will be
equally ready to enforce anti• cholera reforms—
whether, for instance (one example outof a hundred),
they will take off the iniquitous window-tax, which
excludes light and air from the noisome cellar. We
might fill up many columns, and yet leave the
enumeration incomplete. The subject has, however,
been so often reiterated of late that recapitulation is
almost needless. We trust sincerely that the holiday
of to-morrow will impress upon every thinking brain
and feeling heart the imperative duty imposed upon
them, namely, that while they thank GOD for His
mercy, they must (more than ever) be mindful of
their own duty. Among the various texts of the
many sermons that will be preached to-morrow,
there will be few more appropriate to the,occasion
than the maxim above-mentioned—" Help yourself,
and then Heaven will help you." And
few among the chaunts composed for the occasion
will be so well-timed as the American poet's always
apposite " Balm of life."

" Trust no future, howe'er pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead,
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead."

The able and caustic rebuff of Lord LONDONDERRY,
in reply to the Orange circular, issued by the village
conclave, held at Dundram, has, it would seem, ren-
dered very irate that little nest of insignificant bigots.
They are very indignant that a nobleman, of his
Lordship's political tendencies, should not join in ex-
pressions of condolence with the dismissed Orange-
men, and should refuse the sanction of his high name
to a manifesto condemnatory of the Irish Govern-
ment, for acts which have won the approval of every
reasonable and honest man in the British empire.

We are not surprised that the terms of dignified
rebuke in which his Lordship's admirable letter is
couched should be deeply and keenly felt. The con-
clusiveness of his reasoning, the sound principles of
loyalty and Christian feeling which he enunciates,
must be very distasteful to men who could indulge in
triumphant rejoicings at the recollection of the
murderous scenes of Dolly's Brae—men who have
preyed themselves more remorseless than the un-
civilized and vengeful savage. The wild un-
taught Indian will gloat over the bloody
trophies won from the invaders of his woods and wilds;
he wields his tomahawk and scalping-knife against
the pale-faced usurper of his hunting grounds, who
speaks not his language nor worships his gods. But
the Ulster Orangeman will shoot down the innocent
child, the feeble old woman, and the poor being that
even the ferocious savage would have spared. The
idiot (!) meets no mercy at his hands. To keep alive
the recollection of an unjust and effete Ascendancy,
he would shed the blood of his fellow-man—the
inhabitant of the same island—the worshipper of the
same GOD—the believer in the same redemption:
How humiliating to our common humanity to reflect
upon • such atrocities! The merciless red-skin is
outsavaged in ferocity by these vile factienists, yet
it is to sympathise with wretches who glory in deeds
like these, that the generous and sober thinking
people of England are appealed to. But we glory to say
the only response that appeal has received is one of
deep and universal execration.
In all the sympathetic meetings which have been
held by the Irish Orangemen—in all the addresses
and resolutions which they have issued, has there
been one word of sorrow or remorse for the innocent
blood that was shed? Oh, no I These revolting
horrors have evoked a song of triumph from every
bigot in that wretched land. Io Triumphe ! has
been sung by every insane fanatic, from ItPILwAINE,
of Belfast, to the notorious TRESRAM GREGG, of
Dublin.

There is a chivalrous disposition in generous
minds to sympathise with the unfortunate, and we
can conceive in how painful a position many of the
high-minded gentlemen of Ireland have been placed
towards Lord RODEN by the indiscretion of that
nobleman's Orange sympathisers. Many of the
most respected and respectable amongst the gentry,
nobility, and clergy of Ireland, who appreciate the
amiable private qualities of that nobleman, and
whose approval would, we believe, be more valued by
him than " a whole theatre" of the furious fanatics with
whom he has the misfortune to have formed so unholy
an alliance, have been coerced to give public expres-
sion to their condemnation of the part taken by
his Lordship in the unfortunate scenes at
Castlewellan— scenes, which these wretched bigots who
countenanced them should, if they were affected
by the ordinary feelings of humanity, endeavour
to bide for ever in the darkness of undisturbed obli-
vion, scenes which none possessed of the smallest
sensibility can think on without pain, and which the
absurd and wicked agitation of the " sympathisers" is
every day exhibiting in more hideous colours. " Quern
Deus vult perdere, ille prius dementat." The folly
of these Orangemen will, we feel assured, soon bring
their wicked career to a close. The spirit of malig-
nant intolerance manifested in their addresses and
resolutions is arraying against them all the worth and
respectability, the talent and virtue of the land. Even
in the county of Down, the present head-quarters of
discord and bigotry, the factionists have been able to
secure the sanction or sympathy of but a very incon-
siderable section of the landed proprietors and gentry ;
indeed, with the exception of Lord Dowasnraz and
a few others, who possessed some property and in-
daence, all the other sympathisers are the mere
dregs of the Orange Lodges. They have to be
sure KeowN, the Orange High-Sheriff, and by what
legerdemain he wriggled himself into this high office
we cannot well conceive. It is one of the strongest
evidences of the unhealthy social condition of Ireland
to see men like this, of small fortune and less influ-
ence, chosen to fill places of trust and honour. He
is, howevever, an Orangeman—the brother-in law of
the Grand Master, WILLIAM BEaus, and the protege
of the Deputy Grand Master of Ireland ; perhaps
these qualifications had some influence in his appoint-
ment. But even Sheriff KEOWN, with all his vapouring,
nad not the courage to call a public meeting in the
county town. hew gladly, how exultingly, would
he have &Le this, if he were not well aware that
the sense of the country would be against him. No,
he knew he dare not do this, and, therefore, con-
tented himself by inviting a few fools and bigots
to a hole-and corner meeting in a paltry vil-
lage. The furious resolutions and addresses con-
coated on the occasion have been circulated through
the country, and have received well-merited rebukes
from many of the talented and Christian noblemen
and gentlemen to whom they were addressed.
Sheriff KEOWN appears particularly furious against
Lord LONDONDERRY for his crushing reply to the
Dundruna Circulars—a reply which is creditable to
that nobleman's understanding, and does honour to
his loyalty and patriotism. KEOWN has stepped forth
on the occasion as a candidate for literary fame. The
mantle of INTieataes Biiias appears to have fallen upon
him ; indeed he seems likely to outdo that meek
gentleman in silly petulance and unreasoning bigotry.
Lie attacks Lord LONDONDERRY in terms of vulgar
personality, which that gallant nobleman can well
afford to despise. KEowN's logic is as absurd
as his presumption ; he says, "I do not believe but
you are seeking Whig favours, because you refused to
attend a county meeting against the rate in aid."
liecwe thinks his Lordship politically dishonest be-
cause he will not narrow his patriotism to the Black
North. He says—

" You call the declaration that a premeditated insult
has been attempted on the Protestant interest in Ireland,
under the authority of our Protestant Queen, mischie:
vous and wicked. I regard it as true and necessary."
Can anything Le conceived more monstrously ab-
squireen
tuella than this--a paltry
surd and presump