The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-08 00:00:00

eblithilza '. Mt

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1848,

Another remarkable orator has advocated the
removal of the Jewish disabilities. It was becoming
that the eloquent Member for Dungarvan should plead
for the emancipation of a class of men disqualified
from participating in the labours of legislation
because of their constancy to the cause of a reviled
religion it was becoming that that voice which had
of old. sounded the clarion of freedom to the Catholics
should clamour for the liberation of the Israelites;
that the hand which had aided in breaking asunder
the chains of the children of Ireland should rend in
twain the manacles which still fettered the children
of the land of Palestine ; that the heart which beat
with such a profound and strengthening precision
when. struggling side by side with O'CONNELL in
1829, should respond to those principles of
beneficence uttered in 1848 by the lips of Russam,.
Last evening Mr. Sum', satisfied the expectations
excited by his genius and his liberality. His enthu-
siasm ;soared to an altitude as thrilling as it ever
reached in the days of his youth ; his declamation was
as unaffectedly impassioned as in the first bloom of
his intellect; and, above all, the loftiness of his motive
was more than ever conspicuous, for he no longer
cried out for his own liberation, and for the liberation
of his kith and his kindred, but for the restoration
to their civil rights of those who were aliens
in spirit—he adjured the legislators of Eng-
' land to evince a judicious generosity, not as
of yore, to those who mourned by the Liffey
and the Shannon, but to those outcasts of Jerusalem
who, like their forefathers, in the age of JERBMIAS,
still lamented over the dispersion of their race, and
wept on the ideal banks of the rivers of Babylon. It
wanted only a fanatical
,opposition, like that of the
Brunswickers, to arouse the Right Hon. the Master
of the Mint to the same majestic frensy, which
was his inspiration on Penenden Heath. Thanks,
however, to the progress of civilisation, and to the
predominating influences of Christianity, the mad-
ness of bigotry is becoming as unfrequent as the
leprosy and as rare as the plague. The
passion of compulsory proselytism is dwindling
into nothingness; the fury of theological intolerance
is becoming the prerogative cf the minority; and
there are fewer of those Chretiens enrages who were
wont to emulate the wearer of the coronet of WIN-
CRIMEA. It has thus happened that RICHARD LALOIL
SIIEIL could stand upon the floor of the House of
Commons, and supplicate without interruption for the
fracture of those bonds which still trammelled the

limbs of the descendants of ABRAHAM.
Among the many brilliant evidences of the in-
sufficiency of the Oath of Abjuration as a means
of securing a Christian character to the repre-
sentative Legislature of Great Britain, perhaps the
most brilliant is the one adduced yesterday evening
by the Member for Dungarvan. After observing
that preceding speakers had mentioned the name of
GIBBON, the historian, as a proof that the test was
not sufficiently powerful to exclude the most flagrant
promulgator of the doctrines of infidelity, Mr. SHEIL
remarked that a man still more illustrious might have
been cited to the same purpose. "Was not BOLING-
BROKE," said he—" was not BOLINGBROKE, the
fatally accomplished BOLINGBROKE, to whose
genius was offered tribute amounting to al-
most idolatrous veneration was not Bousoa-
13UOKE, who united to external accomplish-
ment, high intellectual endowments, and whose in-
tercourse in private life exercised a species of fasci-
nation on all who had the misfortune to approach
him—was not BOLINGBROKE, the infidel BOLING-
BROKE, a Member of this House ? Was he stopped
by the test which arrested the Jew ? Did he not, on
the contrary,tread,upon it and mount to the height of
power, and become a confidential adviser of the
SOVEREIGN ? Is it not preposterous that a man, by
whom revelation was rejected, who doubted the im-
mortality of the soul, who doubted a future state of
reward and punishment, who doubted eternity and
PROVIDENCE, who believed nothing, who feared nothing,
who hoped fur nothing, who laid no restraint upon
his depravity, who had no incentive to virtue beyond
such natural promptings as GOD may have given
him—is it not monstrous that such a fiend should
find his way into the House of Commons, and climb
to the pinnacle of power, and that you should slap
the door with indignation in the face of an honour-
able and conscientious man, who adheres to the
religion in which he was born and bred—of a man
who believes in the facts which constitute the founda-
tion of Christianity—who believes in the existence of
the noble part of our being—who believes in the
mercies of GOD, and who practises humanity to men
—who believes in the ten great injunctions on which
all morality is based, whose ear is never deaf to the
supplications of suffering, whose hand is open as day
to melting charity,' and whose life, perhaps, presented
a better exemplification of the precepts of the gospel
than many of those men for the sake of whose
Christian religion these dishonouring disabilities are
injuriously maintained ?" That is a magnificent
argument in proof of the futility of bolstering up
the religion of a state by an idle oath

—by an oath from dm ; wording of which a
few conscientious men migh t revolt, and which might
be flippantly articulated by a brilliant " fiend" like
BOLINGI3EOXE, who would not shrink from adding to
the shame of infidelity tl-A infamy of deliberate per

jury.
Upon no one questic n' of innovation was the public
mind ever, perhaps, a' Lore U rianimous than it is for the
immediate removal o 4 ?the J.( swish disqualifications. It
thet •efore, that we behold the
is
prospect
peculiar regl
.
tof a leng th ened ; and repeatedly adjourned
discussion upon this Piz nple aot of 'reparation. Agreeable
as it unquestionably is to list,3n to rhetorical sen•
tences such a$ th use enuncir,ted b—
i
y Mr. SnEIL, we
cannot but deplore t he squandering of public time
upon a matter of such mar ifest rectitude. So much
has to be effected by Parldament during the session
of 1848, so many diffit ies are bristling up in its
pathway, so unpre cede at ?d are the involvements of
our mercantile end c )nial interest, so urgent
are the claims for a s ani .tart' improvement, and so
delicate are the relatF .ons of the different powers of
Europe at this junctul !e, th it it appears to us essential
for a more rapid moe le of legislation to be adopted.
Without being unnec :es.i:trily precipitate, the Com-
, mons might last evening have consented to the second
reading of the Jewis ii :Disabilities Bill—fur its ulti-
mate acceptation is ins v;

We have already ht td occasion to allude to the
manner in which the I 'emonstrances of two of the
most distinguished laym en connected withthe Roman
Catholic Church have la 'en, received by Dr. M'HALE,
and the indignation the t was poured forth against
them, for daring to t ate rfere in any degree in a
matter in which the disc spline of the clergy was
concerned. The respe etfr ilr almost supplicatory tone
of the Earl of ArtuaspEs. and SURREY, the motives
by which alone he soul 3 have been influenced in
directing the attentioet of the Archbishop to the con-
duct that had been ienpr le, whether justly or un-
justly, to some of the inf eric.r clergy of his diocese,
and imploring him to rem ove the reproach from their
common religion, was not , sufficient to protect that
amiable young nobleman f rom censure and admonition
for meddling with that which did not in any wise
concern him. If Dr. 31‘.1 Leen at least preserved the
appearance and language of courtesy when adducing
the " precepts of wisdom t o which the ancient fathers
of the Church, and especir dly the great St. GREGORY,
gave expression to," in ju Itification of the practices,
or at least the right of genunciation, his admirers
and followers used plainer • ,and more unequivocal lan-
guage of reproof for the i utpertinence of which they
considered Lord ARUNDEL . to have been guilty. The
clear and manly expostulat inns of the Earl of SHREWS-
BURY were received with s till greater acrimony. The
vigour and energy of his elepeal were looked upon as
rank rebellion against the authority of the Church,
and he was reviled in n a sparing terms for having
forced the Irish episcopate ! ;to notice the charges that
had obtained such genera I. currency. His devotion
to the Church, the liberal; .t with wf ich he expended
his princely income in f re rks of piety and charity,
was lost sight of, and he Ix came the target at which
every shaft was launched. It was as if it had been
supposed that good sei vice was rendered to the
Church by heaping rep; x.stches on one of its most
distinguished and estimal e members.
A missive has, bowel ter, at length been received
that must be treated • with greater reverence and
respect, to which °be(' lance must be rendered, if
JOHN of Tuam is not pr spared to cast off the spiritual
supremacy of the see a Rome the moment his
opinions are questioned by the occupant of the Chair
of St. Peter. The Papal 2 escript, a copy of which was
contained in The Sun-. cf last evening, must be
responded to. The e x:planations thereby required
must be sqeedily ret urned, and that which was
denied to Lord ARUN.DEL and Lord Sunewsnuay
must be conceded to tl se Sovereign roamer. Pius
IX. has already attai ne d a foremost rank amongst
the regenerators of ma ,n:kind. lie is the first of living
reformers, and happily, on the present occasion, he
has not restricted bin itself to the amelioration of his
native land, but has ext ended his views to unhappy
and afflicted Ireland.
The Papal rescript is perfectly plain and distinct
in its demands and itestructiens. It alludes to the
reporte which have for• some time been circulated in
the public newspapers a concerning the political party
strife in which some ecclesiastics have allowed them-
selves to be carried a way, and the desecration made
of some of the Irish churches, for the purpose of aid-
ing and promoting secaslar concerns," and the reports
of the murders said t be so frequent, "and by rea-
son of which the ck rgy have been stigmatised, and
some of them charged; with imprudence and as giv-
ing indirect provocatiom from the pulpit, or at least
extenuating the guilt of these murders," which re-
ports, it states, " must surely awaken the solicitude of
the Sacred Congregution." Nothing can be more
dignified or unequivocally condemnatory of the
practice than the following:---" The Sacred
Congregation cannot bring itself to believe
that such reports, so extensively noised abroad, can
be true ; nor can it be believed that ecclesiastics have
forgotten that the church of GOD should be the
house of prayer—not of secular concerns, or the
meeting place of politicians. Neither can the Sacred
Congregation believe that ecclesiastics have ceased to
recollect that they are the ministers of peace,
dispensers of the mysteries of GOD—men who should
not involve themselves in worldly concerns—in a
word, men who should avoid blood and vengeance.
Nevertheless, this Sacred Congregation deems it its
duty to require satisfactory and speedy information
concerning all these matters, that it may know what
importance it should attach to the above-mentioned
damnatory reports." It now remains to be
seen what answer will be forwarded to this
demand, what explanation will be afforded. We
presume that Dr. M'HALE will again set up " the
practice of the ancient fathers, who denounced the
cruelties and persecutions of pagans and heretics
against their flocks, without thinking that they were
guilty of any inroad on the rights of others," nor
will he contend for the rights claimed by the Catholic
pastor, "of denouncing aggressions on the rights of
justice and humanity belonging to his flock from any
quarter," although he cannot subject the violator of
justice or humanity, not belonging to the Catholic
iChurch, to its rigorous " penances and satisfactions."
The language of the rescript is too decisive for such a
defence. Will he then deny that such things have
taken place, and in obedience to the will of the Poet-
TUT, "admonish the clergy that seeking the things
which are of JESUS CHRIST, they sedulously apply
themselves to watch over the spiritual interests of the
people, and in no wise mix themselves up with
porldly affairs, in order that their ministry may not
. brought into disrepute, and those who are against
may not have wherewith to charge them." If
s be the course pursued, all that we could duke
be obtained. If the accusations that have been
iiteferred are false, an authentic denial will be
given, and it cannot afterwards be alleged that
the Roman Catholic Church sanctions doctrines which
may be carried to so dangerous an extent, or that it
permits attacks from the altar on persons not within
its fold for acts wholly unconnected with its doc-
trines or discipline.
The rescript will, we trust, have the effect of
removing the undue prejudice, the absurd jealousies,
that have been entertained, and which have hitherto
prevented those diplomatic relations with the Court of
Rome, which it is so desirable to have opened and
carried on without delay. By a happy coincidence it
was received and published in our columns on the
very day when a Bill for that purpose was intro-
duced and received its first reading in the House of
Lords. A more cogent argument in favour of the
measure, and in answer to the objections of its oppo-
nents, could not be advanced than that which may
be found in the rescript to which we have adverted.

By the Levant mail we have received intelligence
from Constantinople, Smyrna, and Athens.
The Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs officially
announced to the members of the Corps Diplomatique
on the 14th ult., the termination of the differences
between the Sublime Porte and the Court of Athens.
The Moniteur Grec says that on the night of
the 10th ult. an English officer and some
sailors of 11. M. S. Spitfire were arrested at
Patras, for attempting to land on the beach
after dark, and were conduoted before the authorities,
who ordered their release. The officer'gave his nan
as Mr. BREEN, midshipman. An investigation into
the circumstances was instituted the next day by the