The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-08 00:00:00

prevent Cardinal Wiseman from assuming the title of arch-
bishop; and instead of applying himself to heal dissensions
in the Church, to which the opening line of " Caesar's Com-
mentaries" applied : E,rlesia Anglicana est omnis divisa
in partes tres," he had snubbed the bishops, swamped the
Ecclesiastical courts, blockaded the Church, and stormed
the Unitarians.—(Cheers and laughter.) Instead of viewing
any act of the Pope's in the light of an aggression, he had
rather viewed it as a God-send and an opportunity.
The Noble Lord's object was, by raising a cry of invasion from
without to crush dissension within. It would be prepos-
terous to suppose that he was merely " wallopping" his
own nigger, without caring who came in for a share of the
blows.—(A laugh.) A Prime Minister should not have
written in that style. But it was said that they were bound
to listen to the voice of the people, expressed as it had been.
He would, however, have them beware; how they did injus-
tice to others in protecting themselves. They were about to
sacrifice Ireland, with its wounded hearts and insulted feel-
ings, to agitati nin England. The reply of Ireland would be
a note of defiance. This Bill, if it became law, he warned
them, might be disobeyed, and would be disobeyed there,
and with impunity, for from one end of the country to the
other they would not get a verdict. The Noble Lord, hoe -
ever, intimated that it it were found not strong enough, he
was prepared to go further. But how much further would he
go? He warned them to avoid the agony of the past and
the misery which must result from this course in future. But
it was said that, if liberty was not tolerated in Rome, and a
Protestant establishmeht exist there, why should a Roman
Catholic hierarchy be permitted here? Why, simply, be-
cause England was the protectress of freedom and free insti-
tutions. He was proud that he was not a subject of a paltry
Italian priest, but a citizen of this free country, and he
claimed for himself and all those who agreed with .him in re-
ligious opinions, the toleration enjoyed by all other classes of
the community.
Mr. BRIGHT said the question under discussion was
considered by some as a very light one, while by others it
was held as of a very grave character. Among the latter
was the Noble Lord at the head of the Government, who had
showed more than his usual excitement in his speech. He
( Mr. Bright ) would not make any observations on that speech—
though it was open to grave animadversion—but would rather
refer to the Noble Lord's letter. That letter was obviously
written under feelings of excitement unbecoming in the
Prime Minister of a great country—with a degree of precipi-
tation which certainly did not raise the Noble Lord's cha-
racter as a statesman. Its inconsistency was its most trifling
feature. The Noble Lord was, in fact, at one time willing to
endow a religion in one part of the kingdom which he now
denounced as a thing dangerous to the supremacy of the
Crown and the integrity of the empire. The Noble Lord, in
that letter, had spoken of something he apprehended more
danger from than from the act of the Pope ; but the Noble
Lord had said nothing of that danger in the Queen's Speech,
and he had come down in hot haste the very first day
of the session—not to combat it, but to propose a
trifling measure. The Noble Lord bad appealed to the
bigotry of the country—(Hear, hear) - and he had met
with a ready response from many who were not
bigotted, bat who bad followed the banner which the Noble
Lord had raised. The end of the case, however, was still to
come. It was that paltry little measure which the Noble
Lord had brought forward to meet the great emergency
which he proclaimed. That was, in fact, only the first step
to it: and he (Mr. Bright) should not be at all surprised if
the Noble Lcrd, at no distant day, found himself in the pre-
dicament of the man in ancient fable—devoured by his own
bounds. It was, in fact, perfectly possible that the very
measure calculated to acquire the greatest amount of popu-
larity in the Government might end in the destruction of
that Government. He (Mr. Bright) took it for granted that
the case in question was a grave case from the number of
county and borough meetings that had taken place on the
subject ; and he should, therefore, strip it of all its external
trappings for the purpose of investigation. How stood the
fact ? Ireland at this moment was overrun with Catholicism,
and in England there was likewise a yielding to it—a falling
back. The question of conversion to Protestantism had,
however, been before the English people for centuries ;
and, therefore, the real point to be considered was,
how far the system that had been followed was calculated
to suppress Roman Catholicism, and make this country
that which the Noble Lord boasted it was—a Protestant
people and a Protestant empire. At this moment there
were more Catholics in Ireland than ever; 100 years ago

they were as five to one, now the proportion was greater.
There could consequently be no question that the tendency
of the policy which had been pursued in that respect was to
make Catholicism take a still deeper root in Ireland. In
England it was said Catholicism was increasing, but he (Mr.
Bright) doubted it. He believed that few Englishmen who
were of any faith ever became Catholics; and though he ad-
mitted that there was a great increae of Catholics in Lan-
cashire and other manufacturing districts, still he considered
that it was not indigenous, but was imported from Ireland.
But though there were a great many conversions to Popery
in England, he would not deny they were all to be found
among the clergy of the Established Church. In regard to
the Irish Church, which was established to exterminate
Catholicism in Ireland, the most stringent laws had been
enacted from 1690 to 1780 for that purpose; and a relaxa-
tion of that frightful code had only taken place when Eng-
land was engaged in a dangerous war with America. From
1780 to 1829 a gradual process of relaxation had ensued;
but every little privilege gained by the Irish Catholics was
the result of incessant struggles opposed to a most deter-
mined resistance. From the 12th to the 16th century
England was engaged in conquering Ireland; from the 16th
to the 18th century she was engaged in converting her, and
from the 18th century to the present time there was a
gradual relaxation of the penal code.— (Cries of " Hear,
hear.") It was clear, therefore, that the policy which had
been pursued towards that country was not successful.
The Irish Church, now called the Irish branch of the English
Church, had for a long period had all the power of the State
in that country, and every advantage of wealth, patronage,
and ascendancy ; but still withal the Irish Catholics were not
extirpated, nor was their religion suppressed, although no act
of oppression had been committed in that country (and who
could reckon them ? ) which was not committed at the insti-
gation, or at least with the full concurrence of that institu-
tion. It was a common saying, that truth was indestructible;
but persecuted error was equally indestructible. This was

the Case in Ireland. If the Church of Ireland, as an ancient
fother of the Church said of the priests engaged in the con-
version of the Saxons, were only half as zealous in the dis-
pensation of kindness and generosity as they were in collect-
ing their dues—lint predicatores non predatores were his
words—the Saxons would have been long before converted.
It was the same with the Irish Catholics and the Irish
Church ; and it was capable of demonstration that the system
pursued by that Church was calculated to make the Irish not
only Catholics in faith, but patriots in politics. The result
was self-evident ; the Catholic system triumphed, and
Ireland was now Catholic. This was a just retribution.

How, he would ask, had their legislation acted in this
country with regard to the Roman Catholic religion ? There
were symptoms of return to its errors, but where did they
appear ? Were they amongst the people or amongst the
clergy ?—(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord at the head of
the Government had told them where they were.—(Hear
hear.) He did not mean to say that the clergy in this
country wished to acknowledge the Pope; but they adopted
some of the principles of' Popery. A clergyman whom he
happened to meet a short time ago had told him that the
great evil of the age was the Protestantism of this country.
—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) He had travelled lately also
with a couple of clergymen, and they had said to him, " We
do not hold the doctrine of the Queen's supremacy at all."—
(Hear, hear.) The Established Church had now been so
established for 300 years. It had been called the bulwark
of Protestantism, and that which was to defend us from
Popery. Now, he would ask, what were the means which
that Church had at its disposal? He tried to look at the
question with some impartiality. It had the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge. The Dissenters did not go to Ox-
ford at all, and made little use of Cambridge. It had two
dozen bishops in the House of Lords. The Noble Lord at
the head of the Government said he was opposed to ecclesi-
astical influence in temporal affairs.—(Hear.) Yet they
saw in the other House some twenty-four or twenty-six
bishops who always sat behind the Government.—(Laughter. )
No matter what side Noble Lords might change to, they
always sat there. There was an archbishop with 16,0001. a
year. When it was proposed to bring down that salary to
15,0001. he had heard the Noble Lord say, with a
coolness which was most refreshing, " I hope this
wiR be found satisfactory."—(Laughter.) The Noble
Lord, indeed, never proposed to increase the official salaries
of his own colleagues. There was a power alYout these bishops
and archbishops wherever they went, whether they stayed
at home or travelled. A bishop had been sent to Jerusalem.
He did not travel like an ordinary mortal, but went in a
steam-frigate called the Devastation—(Laughter)—and per-
haps within a stone's throw of that place where the Apostles
lived, in the house of one Simon, a tanner, he landed under
a salute of twenty-one guns.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.)
When the Bishop of Madras, too, arrived in harbour, they
were told he was honoured with a salute in proportion to his
rank. That Church, then, had much at its disposal. It had
the Parliament at its back. There was a league offensive
and defensive between the Noble Lord and the bishops.
They said, "Let us alone and we will let you alone.
(Hear, hear.) And Parliament was to pass laws now for
that institution with less freedom of disscussion than it
had ever formerly exercised. It had the magistracy, the
police, and a vast body of parochial clergy, at its dis-
posal also. He did not wish to bring any charge against
the ministers of the Established Church, for there were
many among them of the most estimable character, and
had they not been so the institution would not have
lasted so long, nor have so much enjoyed the affections
of the people.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") Still the
Established Church was one of ascendancy and domination.
It had from one to two millions of income. It had its reve-
nue of millions, and no Parliamentary plummet could ever
sound the chest of its wealth, for the returns sought for by
that House were never faithfully answered. It had Govern-
ment at its back, and 15,000 educated men throughout the
country, and was, therefore, the bulwark of Protestantism.
It was to save the country from Popery ; and yet, accord-
ing to the statement of the Prime Minister, it was infected
with Popery itself.—(Hear, hear.) If in any other depart-
ment of the State the machinery had been found so inade-
quate to its objects, would it not be at once abolished? The
Church had been chiefly fixed as it was now by Queen
Elizabeth, who hated the Pope of Rome, because she had re-
solved to be Pope herself at home.—(Laughter.) He con-
fessed he attributed chiefly to her that what had been called
the Reformed Church of England was not thoroughly re-
formed, and that it was not more useful is the country
than it had been.—(Hear, hear.) Persecutions had com-
menced under it in the reign of Charles I. It had cost that
monarch his head; for prelacy had been so heavy when
united with the Crown, that the Crown had sunk under it.
In Charles ll.'s time the Dissenters had been persecuted,
and many members also of the sect to which he (Mr. Bright)
belonged, both male and female, had been imprisoned and
punished for religion's sake. All that had gone on up to the
time of the Toleration Act. But what was the state of the
Church now? Its revenues were enormous; he believed
nobody knew what they were. That Established Church
bad been during all that period the steady and consistent
opponent of every legislative reform proposed in this country.
The Church was a political Church, as its articles showed;
and so long as it remained so it had worked in a man-
ner tolerably harmonious. The danger was now that zeal
had found its way into its ranks, and every honest man
within her was working for her overthrow. What was its
condition? He acknowledged that he felt for it himself.
(Hear, hear, and Oh,toh.) He did feel a sympathy for the
Wesleyan body. With respect to the Church of England
itself, its clergy were split into three or four different sects,
all of whom bated one another as violently as if of different
creeds; and at the present moment there was not a man in
that House could say that the Church of England would last
for one month together as a united Church IN ere it not for
the vast possessions which the Parliament of this country
had placed at its disposal.—(Hear, hear.)
T
of an establishment must come on in the couhresep.rolfncitiipalet
discussion. Ireland repudiated that•principle, so did Scot-
land, and so also did Wales; and even in England
.aanvery
large and growing proportion of the people repudiated
es-
tablishment and the Queen's ecclesiastical supre.macy.—
(Hear, hear.) What the Noble Lord was proposing to do
on that occasion was a mere sham.—(llear, hear, and
laughter.) It would be a sort of pretence. to. bolster up the
Church ascendancy so long maintained in this country. The
sentiments of the Noble Lord about religious liberty were
YerY attractive, but they were allacie" There wag aA