The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-04 00:00:00

Tina •--7AAV

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1851

We had last week the gratification to announce
exclusively that his Grace the Duke of NORFOLK had
renounced the errors of Popery ; this announcement
is amply confirmed by the following paragraph, which
appears in the Times of this morning
ARUNDEL' CASTLE, SEPT. 2.-0 o Sunday morning
his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, E.M., attended Divine
service at Arundel Church, when an excellent dis-
course was delivered by the Rev. G. H. Hart, chaplain
in ordinary to the Queen. The Duchess, Lady Adeliza
Howard, with Lord and Lady Ellesmere, &c., were also
of the party."
If we are rightly informed, the example of the Duke
of NORFOLK will, ere long, be followed by the great
bulk of the educated Roman Catholics of the United
Kingdom, who are thoroughly disgusted with the
absurd and outrageous pretensions to exercise
absolute authority over them, even to the ex-
tent of coercing their votes in Parliament, which
have been recently put forth by the ambitious
ultramontane hierarchy, and which are sought to
be enforced by the peasant priests, who have in too
many instances, been forced upon them as "spiritual
directors," with all the offensive and vulgar arrogance
which has been of late years the characteristic of their
order. The days of the gentlemanly priest have
passed away ; the highly educated, well-bred man,
who never forgot the gentleman in the priest, and
who exercised his duties as spiritual director
all the more effectively because he avoided any ap-
pearance of bullying arrogance and vulgarity,
has been compelled to give way to the
noisy, blustering, talebearing, spying, bullying, ill-
educated, and worse bred peasant priest, who seeks to
reduce every one to a state of abject slavery, and who
scoffs at learning and abhors good manners. The
educated portion of the Roman Catholics of England
have long since been disgusted at the conduct of
these men, and their disgust has been
intensified by the publication of the bull no-
minating the recent intruding hierarchy, and by the
arrogant tone of the far-famed Flaminian-gate epistle
of Cardinal WISEMAN. The publication of that bull
reduced them to the necessity of renouncing their alle-
giance to their QUEEN, as was admirably demonstrated
by Lord BEAUMONT, or of rejecting the bull itself;
and we rejoice to say that the effect of the publication
of that bull has been quite the contrary to that which
its authors hoped or expected. Few, very few, of the
educated Roman Catholics are inclined to follow
the example of the Earl of ARUNDEL and SUR-
REY, and to grovel in the dirt at the feet
of a proud priest, even although by so doing
he may secure his return as priests' delegate for an
Irish borough, few, very few, among the educated
Roman Catholics are ambitious of such a distinction
or degradation, and the bull published to pander to
the outrageous bigotry of the Puseyite converts has
had the effect of so disgusting the quiet and orderly,
and well disposed and respectable and respected mem-
bers of the Roman Catholic communion, that the day
is not far distant when they will repudiate in the
face of the world, as they have long isince repudiated
in private, those horrible and detestable tenets which
have been recently put forward so prominently by
the Univers and its English supporters among the
hierarchy, as the main points of the Roman Catholic
faith. We expect that ere many months have elapsed the
conversions from Roman Catholicism will exceed, even
in point of numbers, those to Roman Catholicism, of
which Cardinal Wiseeraer has recently made such
boast; whilst i❑ point of learning, weight, and dignity,
of every quality that adorns and dignifies men, the con-
verts from Romanism will be found to be infinitely
superior. Of whom, in point of fact, do the re-
cent perverts to Romanism consist ? First, of a
number of ambitious men, greedy after power, and
who having been ordained ministers in the Church of
England, and having failed to reduce their flocks to
absolute, implicit, and unreasoning obedience to their
commands, join the priesthood of a Church which
panders to their lust for power, by promising to
secure to them that, tyrannical authority over their
flocks which they so ardently desiderate. Had the
Puseyite perverts been refused ordination, not one
of them would have joined the Romish Church.
Setting these ambitious priests aside, the remainder
of the boasted conversions consists of ladies of six or
seven seasons' standing, who stand in need of excite-
ment ; and who, when blasee with Roman Catholicism,
will probably take to Mormonism, of lisping white
waistcoated dandies, who] go to mass because they
" think it is fashionable," of a few sentimental young
ladies, who think it advisable to speculate on the sus-
ceptibility of the white waistcoat wearers, and of some
half-dozen lawyers anxious for business, " who nose
from afar" the advent of rich Chancery suits in con-
nexion with the Roman Catholic charitable trusts.
The number and influence of these perverts have been,
as Cardinal WIsEMAN has discovered by this time,
marvellously overated, and the ultimate effect of his
injudicious proceeding of last year will be to dimi-
nish very considerably the number of the professing
members of his Church in England.

There is an old story that tells of a farmer who on
his death-bed informed his anxious sons that there
was a large treasure concealed in his fields. His chil-
dren in vain implored him to give a more precise di-
rection to the spot where they should find the golden
deposit. No closer indication could be obtained from
the dying man, and his life ebbed away while mat-
ters still remained in uncertainty. The fields were
all dug up after his death, but the treasure
could not be discovered. The search was at
last abandoned in despair, when the gold-seek.
ers found that wealth flowed in from an un-
expected quarter—that there was indeed a
treasure concealed in the fields, albeit of a different
description from that which they had anticipated.
The turning up of the soil had stimulated its fertility
to the utmost degree ; the produce was more than
quadrupled, and the happy husbandmen found their
granaries loaded with cereal wealth, as if a cornucopia
had been shed over their lands.

The moral is one of universal application, although,
perhaps,
it has never been more appropriately illus-
trated than at the present time. It tells that in
seeking wealth in one way we may haply fall upon
it in another and totally different direction. At
this moment we have the most extraordinary accounts
from Australia of the quantity of gold embedded in
the soil in the neighbourhood of Bathurst. It is
said, in fact, that the entire soil from the mountain
ranges to an indefinite extent in the interior is an
immense gold field, rivalling the richest " diggins"
of California as to the quantity of the precious metal
that may be obtained by even the simplest and
coarsest instruments. Persons of all classes
were hurrying to the spot to take advantage
of the discovery, and it is said that their
most sanguine anticipations were more than
realised. One young gentleman had brought home a
lump of pure gold, weighing no less than eleven
ounces, while an old man had been even more fortu-
nate, having arrived with several pieces, weighing in
the whole from two to three pounds.

Under such circumstances it appears more than
probable that many strangers will flock to the spot,
for gold is a bait that has never failed to attract the
human race, even from the most ancient times,
when the Lysian monarch suffered the penalties of
his reckless cupidity, to the present time. The auri
sacra fames still exists without abatement or dimi-

nution, and we may, without claiming any extra-
ordinary powers of vaticination, venture to predict
that it will prevail, until the bullionist theories be
displaced by a wiser and more philosophical system..
But, happily, in Australia the gold-seekers will
avoid the sufferings and viccissitudes that have
awaited their brethren in all preceding ages and
climes. The districts in which the coveted prize had
been discovered on all previous occasions were barren
and unproductive. It would, appear as if PLUTUS
had suffered no meaner rival near his throne, that
CERES especially had been banished to a considerable
distance. The sterility of the soil, the inclemency of the
climate, the barbarity of the neighbouring population,
acted as the most serious impediments to extensive ope-
rations.

In these respects California was incomparably
superior to any of the mining localities that had pre-
viously been resorted to ; but even there the draw-
backs and disadvantages were of the most formidable
character. The necessaries, to say nothing of the
ordinary comforts of life, could not be obtained
except at the most exorbitant prices; and the gold-
seeker literally " set his life on the cast," for if he
failed in the pursuit ho could not obtain
the means of supporting existence, unless by,
totally abandoning his self-respect, and con-
senting to discharge the most degrading and ser-
vile offices; and even if his success exceeded his most
sanguine anticipations, he should still submit to pri-
vations of no ordinary character, or sacrifice by far
the larger portion of his gains for the most common
luxuries or even comforts. We have all heard of a
dollar a glass being readily, nay eagerly, given for
brandy, and the quotations of other articles
being even still more surprising, we have felt
astonishment at the magnitude of the profits that al-
lowed the labourers to participate in such expensive,
we might say extravagant indulgences. But the
very facts showed that there was a darker side of the
picture, and we might indeed shudder at the melan-
choly fate of the unsuccessful digger, who had se-
lected an unfavourable spot for his operations, or who,
in the spirit of enterprise, had pushed far beyond
his fellows, and too late discovered that in the wil-
derness all his gold could not procure him a morsel
of bread or a single drop of water.

But all these matters will be different in Aus-
tralia. There the miners will go to a land abounding
in all the necessaries of life, where they may ob-
tain anything to satisfy the desires of reasonable men
in the utmost profusion, and at the most moderate
charges. Even if the intelligence that has been re-
ceived from the mining localities were altogether fa-
bulous, none would have cause to complain at being
induced to seek the modern "Land of Promise,"
where every man able and willing to work would be
sure of obtaining remunerative employment, enabling
him to enjoy an abundance that does not fall to the
lot of persons moving in a far superior station in the
mother country. There may be the chance of a
prize, but there is no possibility of a blank. Should
the washing or mining prove abortive, there is yet
something to fall back upon ; and like the
sons of the farmer, alluded to in the com-
mencement of this article, wealth will flow into
the speculators, although in another mode from that
which they had looked forward to. If, then, the
stories are well founded—if Australia is indeed a
rival to California, it is certain that its capabilities
will be developed to the uttermost; while, even should
it prove a failure in that respect, and prove no better
than the " Lageuian Mines," celebrated by Mooia,
the influx of searchers who must seek other sources of
employment will prove of incalculable advantage to
the colony, the mother country, and to the parties
themselves.