The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-20 00:00:00

FATHER GAVAZZI'S LECTURE.

Yesterday Father Gavazzi continued his course of
lectures on the abuses of the Church of Rome, at
Willis's Rooms.

The Reverend Father commenced by referring to
•he renewed accusations which had been cast upon
him in the British House of Commons by Mr.
Moore, that he was an apostate whose charges
against the Church which he had abandoned ema-
nated only from rancour and disappointed ambition,
and were unworthy of credit. Those who make
such an accusation against him could not understand
the true force of the word " apostate," and that
they could only have charged him with apostacy
through malice or ignorance, for he denied that he
had ever abandoned the principles of Catholicity,
or transferred his name or his faith to any
Church dissenting from the Church of Rome.
Neither bad he ever eonnected himself with any sect
or party, political or religious ; but where he had been
mixed up in political movements, it was solely from a
sincere love of his country, to free her from the oppres-
sion under which she groaned. It bad been said that
he was a Mazzian. It was true that he had known
Mazzini in Rome, he respecten him as an individual,
and he believed him to be an honest man, and a
sincere patriot ; but if the name of Maszini sigaified
a party, and not a principle, then he renounced all
connexion with him. lie was an Italian, not a
Mazzinian, and he refused to labour for the re-
generation of his country for the s ,ke of any sect
or party, but merely for the love of principle, and
the love of liberty.--(Applause.) He belonged
neither to the Carbonari nor to Young Italy, but to
his country alone. He believed the regeneration of
Italy was possible, and not a chimera—he believed
the people of Italy were entitled to the blessings
of liberty and the possession of a free Govern-
ment ; but what he wished to see was a Govern-
ment firm, tranquil, and well ordered, based on
religion and order, not on incredulity and anarchy.
He trusted that, before he had concluded, he should
convince Mr. Moore, and the English Parliament and
people, that he was neither an apostate nor a sectary,
but that his solo desire was to make known the abuses
by the Church to which he belonged was corrupted,
in order that they might be removed. Fanaticism
or bigotry alone could deny the existence of
those abuses, and his object was to show what
were their nature and effects, and the mode
in which they might be remedied without in-
juring the true fabric of the Church. It was far
from his intention to touch the sacred principles of
the Church, or those institutions which were coeval
with its thundation by the Divine Head of
Christianity. Ile dealt only with its abuses, which
were the work of men, and had grown up in the
progress of time thicker and thicker around it,
until they utterly buried 'and concealed the great
basis of truth on which it rested. He did not
attack the Church, but the abuses of the Church, and
it was for this that he had been stigmatised as blas-
phemous and apostate by those who owed wealth
and rank, and splendour to those abuses, and would
perpetuate
them by any and every means.
(Applause.) In the early days of the Christian
Church, when she was exposed
to persecution in
every shape, and had to be administered in secrecy
and silence, abuses were unknown ; but no
sooner was the protection of the State cast around
her, and her bishops and priests permitted to wear
their authority in open day, than abuses crept in on
every side. The fathers and doctors of the early