The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-27 00:00:00

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in those countries iu w • . her soprani ,is ablishedy.
'What it is in Spain, . Portugal, it/49.isifi be Eng-
land, if it were eq ,".iy in the ascene here. Give the
Nomish Church her own way, and More twelve months
Id elapsed, there would not be a Protestant place of
Tship within the boundaries of the United Kingdom.
~ cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of our
statesmen, that Popery is not to be conciliated. The
more the attempt is made, the more audacious
it will become. If the Romish Church is to
controlled, or kept in check, it must be by
means of coercion. All history bears its attestation to
this truth; and our recent experience comes forward
to confirm the language of history. So long as Popery
was kept in due subjection, it assumed all the mild-like
virtues of the lamb; but since we placed it on a footing
in every respect of equality with ourselves, it has been
gradually becoming more and more arrogant and fierce,
until we see it now broadly and undisguisedly exhibiting
all the qualities of the wolf. It scarcely cares to conceal
that its great object is to destroy Protestantism,—includ-
ing, in the phrase, the substitution of a Stuart dynasty
for the House of Brunswick—a Popish Sovereign for the
Protestant Queen who now sways the sceptre in these
realms. Since Lord John Russell, whose letter to the
Bishop of Durham, inveighing in such unmeasured
terms against the Pope and Popery, induced the country
to believe that he would prove the unflinching champion
of Protestantism,—sinco he has deserted the standard
which he planted with his own hand, and has ingloriously
deserted from the Protestant camp,—nothing remains for
the people but to take the matter into their own hands,
and to see that the claims of their religion shall be pro-
perly vindicted, and the assumptions of Rome be met
with that spirit and energy which are indispensable to
their repression. There is yet time for the public to
make its voice heard—yet time for such an expression of
national feeling as shall convince Dr. Wiseman. and the
fifty cr sixty repre=entatives of the Pope in the House
of Commons, that Popery is not yet in the ascendant,
but that, on the contrary, it must shrink back into its
shell. If it has boldly, of late, put out its horns, it must
now be made fain to draw them in again. It las pro-
voked the contest with the Protestantism of the country,
and it must take the consequences. It will have itself to
blame for whatever may result from the conflict now
going on. It has proclaimed hostilities against the Pro-
testant religion and the Protestant institutions cf the
country. Protestantism, though not seeking the battle,
will not shrink from it. It. has already marshalled its
noble army. It has taken up its place in the field of
conflict. It is at this moment confronting its Popish foe.
Since hostilities must be, says Protestantism, let the war
be a deadly and a final one. Either or the belligerents
must be annihilated, as well as vanquished. We have
net a doubt as to which it is to be.

IRELAND.
THE DECREES OE THE SYNOD.

DUBLIN, WEDNESDAY.—Dr. API-lair, it would ap-
pear, is determined to carry matters with a high hand,
and is resolved, so far as lies i❑ his power, that the de-
crees of the fathers of Thuries shall not prove a nullity
or become a dead letter on the ecclesiastical statute. book.
In the course of last week it transpired, through more
than one communication, that in a certain national
school in the diocese of Tuam, which was attended up to
a very recent period by 90 poor Roman Catholic chil-
dren, the number of pupils had on Sunday week sud-
denly dwindled down to just one-third. Inquiries, to
account for so remarkable a defalcation, were instantly
set on foot, and it was ascertained from some of the pa-
rents that orders from head-quarters had been promul-
gated from the chapels on the tiunday previous,
threatening all sorts of pains and penalties on the
bodies and souls of such fathers and mo-
thers as would not withdraw their offspring
from all schools in connexion with the National
Board, those institutions, as well as the Government
Colleges, having been solemnly declared to be " dan-
gerous to the faith and morals" of the rising generation
of Romanists. Meanwhile, the children thus shut out
from the benefits of instruction are wandering about the
hedges and roadsides, an occupation they are at full
liberty to follow until, perhaps, the erection, endowment,
and chartering of Primate Cullen's new " Catholic Uni-
versity" shall open the prospect of a system of education
based on the enlightened principles enunciated by the
decrees of the Synod of Thurles. A later communica-
tion from the west announces that the ranks of the
pupilshave been since diminished by additional deser-
tions to the amount of 28, and, as no school at which
the number of scholars is less than 30 is entitled to
the Government grant for the payment of the
teacher, Dr. M'Hale will probably soon have
the satisfaction of sealing the doors of one of
the obnoxious schools. We have been informed, and it
is but right to mention the circumstance, that the
great primary objection of " his Grace" to the national
system. is directed in an especial manner to all schools
of which the patrons happen to be members of the Pro-
testant Church. Wherever Roman Catholics happen to
occupy this position, the case is in a degree different.
Although far from getting any encouragement, they
are not as yet positively denounced as moral pestilence,.