The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-26 00:00:00

v. as a poor country, but aid the people want taxation, or

law, or imprisonment to support their hierarchy ? No. They
supported four Archbishops, twenty-three Bishops, one
thousand Deans and dignitaries, three thousand vicars end
curates in all the necessary comforts of life. • This they did,
though the law gave them no power of imprisonment,
and they had no 13ainses in gaol for not supporting them.
—( Cheers.) The example given by Ireland ought to be
followed by England. He begged of them not to disdain
the country; they might not have lauded it, but it bad
stood by them in their moments of difficulty.--( Hear.)
There was a sentiment attributed to Prince Albert, which
he trusted had been uttered by him. It was, that an Eng-
lishman could do that which any other man on the face of
the earth had done. Now, he said to them to mark him—
he said to the Protestant Dissenters of England that they
had no Church-rates in Ireland ; and he, an humble indi-
vidual as he was, had taken part in their abolition. He said
to them, that which others were able to do they wore able
to do. Let them, then, have a long pull, a strong pull,
and a pull altogether. Let Englishmen have the advantage
which Ireland had—let them take off all taxes and payments
towards the wealthy Established Church to which they
conscientiously objected—let them tell members of the
Established Church to manage their own funds more thrif-
tily, so as to enable them to pay their Church-rates them-
selves.—( Hoar.) He was so strong an advocate for the vo-
luntary principle, that if the wealth of the Church were to be
divided amongst Dissenters, nothing would induce him to
consent that the Church to which he belonged should be en-
dowed with any porLion of wealth by the State. Rather
would he see the renewal of the penal code than the cccle•
siastical revenues handed over to his Church. The way to
make pastors indifferent was to make them rich. It was
creating bad workmen to pay them too highly. When
they made a clergyman too rich, they made him love the
mammon of this world, and this caused him to forget his
duty to his God. The period of society was come when
the great principle ought to be adopted, that religion was
too sound a thing to be mixed up with the paltry politics
of this world. They saw what effect the connection had

now. They saw clergymen engaged in the strife of
politics. In his opinion, the only time when a clergyman
was justified in becoming a politician was, when persecu-
tion came home to his flock. But what did they see in
this country ?—(Hear, hear.) He would pronounce no
calumny against them, for he knew there were many ex-
cellent men amongst them ; but then, how many clerey-
men did they see in the enjoyment of the State revenues
and in the pos3ession of wealth and every luxury, busily
engaged in attending Conservative dinners, and calling.;
for their songs of a " jolly full bottle"—( Laughter)
, . . . . . .

_ - -
—joining in pslrtical toasts applauding persecuting
sentiments, and then retiring to their homes to become the
ardent canvassers, and the intimidators of voters.—( Hear,
hear.) How, he asked, could Englkhmen consent to these
things—how submit to see clergymen so conduct them-
selves, instead of leading their flecks to " pleasant waters,"
and then, as in Ireland, the gratitude of their flocks would
suffice for all their wants. He was glad of this meeting,
he was delighted at the opportunity it afforded to him by
Mr. Baines for discussing this question. They had heard
it particularly well discussed by the opening speech of that
night, which was one that smacked well of independence
—( Hear, hear)—and if there were some things too bitter
and too sarcastic in it, let them blame themselves who
had put Mr. Baines into prison.—(Cheers.) Could not,
he asked, the persons who laid on this rate go about
amongst themselves, and say, " Hero is a conscientious
man—here is a just man in all the relations of life
—a respected neighbour—a man incapable of feigning,
and is it right to imprison this men because he thinks it
his duty to his God not to contribute to error."—( Cheers.)
And let hint now ask, could there be liberty of con-
science if a man were forced to pay for the sweport
of a religion that he believed to be erroneous 1—( ileer,
hear.) This was the case of every man who did not be-
long to the Establishment. It would be the case of those
very men who now persecuted if an Act of Parliament
were to change the religion from that which was now pro-
fessed by the members of the Church.—( Hear.) tic did
not say that Christians were not bound to the susteutation
voluntarily of the church of others. Let it be voluntary,
and he said they ought to contribute. He said that vvlreo
men differed in their worship from his own, he ought to
afford them the means of k!eping them from the incle-
mency of the season ; he ought to afford to them that as-
sistance, and then say to them, " Commune with your
God as you please."—(Cheers.) He did not quote him-
self; but he might say, with his humble means, a Pro-
testant Dissenter had never applied to him for the means to
cover his church with a roof that he had ever refused his
mite, or ever would.—(Cheers.) Bat such a case did
not apply to the plunder collected by the State to be handed
over to the Church. He trusted they would pardon his zeal
in denouncing such a system. What rancour did it not
produce amongst fellow Christians? What hatred did it
not stir up between man and man ? What animosities did
it not engender amongst those who professed to worship
the God of love and of charity?—(Cheers.) Every foul
and unchristian feeling was gathered together by thie vio-
lation of the first principles of Christianity.—( Hear, hear )
All, all arose from the contemptible squabble about pro-
perty. It was a Church-rate that was sought, it was
money, money, money, that the quarrel was for._
(Cheers. ) He remembered reading somewhere in Irelend
of a gentleman who was complaining of the rancour and
animosity which was shown with respect to the collection
of money for the Church, and he accounted for it by a
ditty which ran some way in this mariner :
" A little eld woman and 1 fell out,
And what do you think it was all about?
She had money, and I had none,
And that was the way the quarrel begun."
—( Laughter.) Where there was no money the Church
had no quarrel. In Germ my it often happened that dif.
ferent forms of religious worship were carried on in the
same Church. But, then, in Germany there was no
question about money. In America the Dissenters lived
in harmony with the members of the Anglican Church ;
hut the latter there could demand no rates from them.
It was money that made the quarrel—it was the 2/. ss.
to be extorted from Baines—(Cheers)—it was the
source of these satanic persecutions—it was what made
religion disregarded by scoffers and infidels.—( Hear,
hear, hear.) Let it not, however, be supposed, when
he spoke of the voluntary principle that he preached at all
the doctrine of indifferentism, God forbid! for his thorough
conviction was that nothing was of such awful importance
as the right and true religion. There wes nothing on this
side of the grave that he thought a man should be so anxi-
ous, so sincere, and so cautious in adopting, as the proper
form of religion ; but the liberty that he claimed for him-
self for worshipping the God who would judge hint, he
equally asserted for other Christians. They were the er-
rants of another toaster, and he would not dare to judge
them.—( Hear, hear.) He heard that these who had
formed the Church-rate had obtained a private Act of Par-
liament, by which they might overrule the decision of a
vestry. They must have thought themselves exceedingly
dextrous. It might be fancied their saying, that they had
the Dissenters now, and that if they refused the rate there
wag the mandamus to the Queen's Bench ; and as they
were going to their prayers it might be supposed how they
chuckled over the seizure of Mr. Baines.—( Cheers.)
And yet it would in them have been more prudent
and more wise to have acted otherwise, toey
would have acted more rationally if they bad
been more moderate. It would have been better for
them to have done so, than to have aroused the epirit
that now animated the people of Leicester. Teat
! spirit, he trusted, would spread from the Land's-end to
the most northern point of Scotland. And he could say
to them, that the moment they raised the shout here,
though his countrymen were no longer engereerl in the fray,
they should have the friendly assistan e of Ireland.—
( Cheers.) He made no vain boast. Th• should be
aided by petitions ; petition should come to them after
petition. They had long heard the cry of " justice for
Ireland"—they ought now, too, to cry out " justice for
England"—( Cheers.) Why, he asked. ought not they to
get rid of Church-rates in England ? They had rid them-
selves of Church-rates in Ireland, and were not English-
men as god as Irishmen any day ?—(Cheers end
laughter.) And yet, if he were not guilty of vanity :bat
amounted almnst to puerility, lie would say that, in one
respect, Englishmen bad not shown themselves as goo.] as
Irishmen. Henry the Eighth had burned at the same stake
Catholics and Protestants—no, he was wrong in that re-
spect, he had allotted the Catholics and Protestants a
stake each. Edward the Sixth had sent to the same
stake those wile had differed from his Ministers and in.
structors. Mary had burned Protestants. Elizabeth had
a long reign of revenge upon the Catholics; but this also
oughr to he remembered, that by her no less than three
Unitarians were burned at the same fire in London.
[low little did they know of what was the conduct
of Ireland during that period. Why should he not tell it
to them? Why ought they not to be attached as much as
possible to each other by their national virrues ; and why
should there not be a generous struggle to see which had
acted most humanely, most Christian-like, most ready to
exhibit charity in every relati m of life—to worship Ged
in the true spirit of Christians—with forbearance towsrds
one another.—( Hear.) Let it not be supposed that he
meant to say that there was a more charitable or a more
benevolent country than England. If he did, its multi-
tudinous charities would give the lie direct to the assertion.
But this he bad to say of Ireland ; three times since the
Reformation bad the Catholics been in power there, and
they had never persecuted their fellow Christians. lie
had the documents. to prove this. It came from a Pro-
testant historian ; and it was thus he described the reign
of Queen Mary, in Ireland. He says : " The restoration
of the old religion was effected without violence. No
persecution of the Protestants was attempted, and several
of the English. who fled from the furious zeal of
Mary's inquisitors, found a safe retreat amongst the
Catholics of Ireland."—( Hear ) When, he said, they
recollected how much the English press was then engaged
in exciting the hateful spirit of bigotry in England against
the Roman Catholics, he asked them if it was not
fair in him thus to bring forward Protestant testimony
in favour of his countrymen ?—( Cheer s. ) The wrier
next observed, " it is bur justice to this maligned body to
add. that on the three occasions of their obtaining the upper
hand they never injured a single person in life or limb
for professing a religion different from their own."—
' ( Hear.) Anybody who chose would find the passage he
quoted in " Taylor's History of the Civil Wars in Ireland."
It was in the second volume, page 169. At the period
to which tine historian referred, the trade of Ireland eon.
tcred in Bristol, and the Corporation of Dublin, being Ca-
tholic, opened seventy-four houses for their Bristol cor.
respondents, fed them, clothed them, took care of them,
and at the end of that period sent them home in safety.—
(Hear.) He had been oft,* tau' ted by others, who said
that he was more liberal than Catholics generally
were, or than their religion permitted them to be. His
answer was, he could not afford to be more liberal than his
religion allowed. As a Cetholie he claimed religious
liberty for all, and was ready to extend it to all. The
man who persecuted others for their religious opinione,
proved his own insincerity. lie showed that he was
opPczed to his own belief, when he took up the musket
or resorted to the penalties of the law to uphold