The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-06 00:00:00

'HE EARL OF

EARL OF

(Prom the Tablet)
the substance of the greater part of a
.ecently reached our hands under cir-
leave us at full liberty to give it to the
us from England, from a layman; it
igh many hands—has more than once
in the press—has already attained
•iety—and, though in form addressed
office to a nobleman in private life, it
An official dispatch, obviously written
tch, and liable, therefore, to the inci-
ts to which such documents are exposed.
11 not err very widely if, on guess, we
in the names of the noble correspon-
lem only in blank)—with the titles of
irewsbury. Lord Clarendon, we take
Lord Shrewsbury the recipient; but
whom every line of the letter was
,ntly the Pope and the Cardinals at

" Dublin, Dec. 2, 1850.
%rd,—l am sincerely obliged to you for
Gov. 12 and 15, and I know not whether
your accurate knowledge of all the
, or the eminent tact and judgment
'ed in the conferences with the Holy
;ordinals, of which you have had the
me so complete and so interesting a
te liberty of making some observations
. in those conferences, and I hope that
me to express them with all frankness,
Lot write about the ignorance, or some-
iich prevails in Rome regarding this
candidly declaring my judgment as to
ie deplorable consequences which must

Las shown the extent of the deceit which
,d upon him. All good men in Ireland,
d or politics, are agreed in reverencing
le beau ideal of a Christian pastor, and

p found his Holiness irritated against
,gree in considering Dr. 11.Ilale as an
gogue, who does nothing but afford an
example of all that a bishop ought not to do, and yet
when your Lordship blamed him, you were told that
you has a strange animosity against the Irish. This is
enough to prove that the state of things as to the Hier-
archy has been presented to the Pope in such a way as
to make him believe the very reverse of what is true.
So far as regards the colleges, the most complete, and
I must add the most deliberate, mistake has existed
from the first, and continues to exist at Rome. They
were founded with the purest motives by Sir Robert
Peel, in accordance with the united and expressed will of
the clergy and laity, and with a clear understanding
that they would be founded on the principle of mixed
education—the only system practicable in Ireland, and
which, after the experience of many years in the national
school, was seen to work with perfect security to the
faith and morals of the 500,000 children educated in them
by the bounty of the State. Objections were raised, and
new guarantees demanded by some of the bishops, and, in
every important point, Lord Heytesbury acceded to their
wishes. Other securities were demanded of me, and
were granted; and yet the opposition of Rome continues
to be as unqualified as it was at first; and although
these colleges guard the faith and morals of the students
in a manner not to be found in any other institutions in
Europe—and although they have been established a
whole year without any accusation of misconduct being
made to the authorities against any of the students
(in number about 400)—although they were very
attentive to their religious instructors, and had lived
chiefly with their parents and tutors, instead of
being exposed to temptations by living away from home,
and deprived of exact surveillance—the mad clamour of
infidelity still continues in Ireland, and comes back to
us re-echoed from Rome. I call it mad, because not one
syllable of proof has been brought forward to prove the
accusation, and when it was demanded, all our opponents
could say was, that there was not a due proportion of
Catholic professors. Now, no person was more annoyed
than I was at there not being a duo proportion of Ca-
tholic candidates for the chairs. But whose fault was it?
Was it any wonder, when long before the election the
fiercest denunciations were read every day in the writ-
ings of Dr. Arl'Hale, and in all that portion of the press
over which the priesthood exercise a despotic control?

" I feel indignant at the accusation of infidelity
brought against the professors generally, because, in the
first place, it is a base attack on a number of men, than
whom there are not to be found, I believe, any more
moral or worthy in any similar institutions in Europe,
and it is, at the same time, an unfounded accusation
against the Government that appointed tnem.
If it be said that all those who are not within the
pale of the Catholic Church are, ipto facto, unbelievers,
or that the English Government care little if the people
ere brought up in indifference to their religious duties,
how, not to mention higher motives, could tney be blind
to the political necessity that a nation should be educated
in the knowledge and tear of God? To one of these
odious absurdities must be ascribed the extraordinary
assertion which has just been made.

" Great complaints have been made to your Lordship
about Mr. Freeborn, and you have been asked how you
can have confidence in the British Government when
they allowed such a man at Rome. Ido nut pretend to
know much of this matter, but I am certain that some cf
the things alleged against him in your letter are exagge-
rated, and he all such cases ono should hear the other
side. Mr. Freeborn has, I believe, proved clearly that
in giving passports to certain persons, and sending them
quickly away, he promoted the cause of order and
the eatety of the city. But I may be permitted to ask,
on the other hand, what we ought to think of the Go-
vernment of the Pope, who, in violation of the rules for
the nomination of bishops, sent hero a man like Dr.
Cullen, whose only object has been to destroy the col.
leges established by the Legislature and maintained by
the State, and to extinguish the national schools, in
which half a million of the poorest classes are educated,
without an attempt to provide for the deficiency of
estahlishmeuts of these two kinds, and thus leave the
middle and poorest class in brutal ignorance, without
troubling himself about the cote equences that would fol-
low? Dr. Cullen, moreover, published a synodical ad-
dress, in which he did not stop at condemning the col-
leges, but sought to set class against class, and to repre-
sent every poor man as a martyr, and every rich man
as a tyrant. There is more rank communism in that
address than could bo chemically distilled from M. de
Vericour's whole book. It cannot be alleged that all
this opposition arises from religious zeal, because at
this moment Dr. M`flale and others would induce the
students to leave the colleges, where their faith and
morals are protected, and to go to Trinity College, in
Dublin, a place eminently Protestant, where there are
no guarantees for faith, and where there is every
temptation to apostacy. Mr. Lucas, editor of the Tablet
—one of the most virulent and most offensive newspapers
in Europe—is in constant communication with Dr. Cul-
len, and is, moreover, the chief instigator, as his paper
is the organ of the Tenant-League, the object of which is
to abolish the rights of property, and to shako to its very
foundation everything on which society depends. He is
ably assisted in this work of regeneration by the priests,
who, with this end in view, have fraternised with the
Presbyterian clergy. But not a word of counsel or
reprimand has been uttered by the Primate; on the con-
trary, his journal applauds, and the editor acts in the
League with Mr. Duffy, of the Nation, who would have
been at this hour a deported felon it one of the jury
had not perjured himself. It is very true that
the Pope ordered the clergy not to meddle in politics;
this he did in 1847, in the same rescript in which he
condemned" the colleges. The second part was re-
csived with reverence, as hostile to the Government,
and the first was obeyed by the clergy ruching headlong
into the revolutionary movement of '4B, when nothing
saved them except their belief in the impartiality of the
Government—in which they were quite right, because
if the *legal evidence of their guilt had been as strong as
its moral certainty, several of them would have now been
along with their friends in exile in Van Diemen's Land.
" Not a word of reprimand came from the Pope to
Ireland against these unchristian and unclerical proceel-
ings—not a sign of disapproval of the disobedience of
his orders—not an attempt was made by the Primate
(although invested with special powers to have the com-
mands of the Pope executed) to keep the clergy within
the sphere of their duties. And now let me ask of you,
my dear Lord, what could I, or rather what could any
unprejudiced spectator of passing events think, or what
could one infe.r as to the consequences of all the things
which I have mentioned, and others which I need not
add? What could one think, except that spiritual u
diction was not the object they had in view, but rather
political hostility—that between Catholics and
sot ebse-
tants goodwill should not exist—that confusiehue u
winhich to
promoted a tout prix, and that for arms w
assault England, Rome uses Ireland as an
hin
set
sx
Ih
have
vt
ei
ne
arsenal? Certainly, a state of things sac
part
peccadilloes
fi s
smviu cc
eh.
cmoourseuthanarg land h
aecnot
,mapne
de sa_t i have in the
givesio n
naf o
er the
e
right to ask what confidence could Eng
Papal Government?
"I believe that a great part of the fatal evils which
have arisen, and of which the and will not be seen in our
lifetime, might have been hindered it we
one hadmen had a promore
-
representative in Rome; and no lats
than I do that the ssent of so many Catholic Peers on so
eramitted Lord Eglinton to obtain the in-
sveitratiloan qo h
uf
esilsic'np
obnoxious clause in the Bill. My own desire
would have been to abandon the Bill altogether when it
was necessary to take it with a provision insulting
to the Pope as a sovereign prince, and which he could
not, and ought not to have endured. But if we had
had a discreet Minister accredited to his Holiness, who
would have told him the real truth about England, he
would never have thought of reconstructing the hier-
archy in the way he has done. If he had thought
only of the interests and wants of the Catholic Church
—if the bishops had been appointed without ostenta-
tion—if there had been assigned to them districts with-
out territorial titles, without a demarcation of the coun-
try, or assumption of the powers of government—no one
would have had a right to complain; and I am certain
that no remonstrance would have been heard; but the
Pope's bull and the cardinal's pastoral presented them-
-1 selves soddenly to the Astonished tatim iu tuna which