The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-21 00:00:00

FATHER GAVAZZI'S LECTURE.

On Wednesday 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 had be ever connected 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 had been said that
he was a Mazzinian. It was true that he had known
Mazzini in Rome, he respected him as an individual,
and he believed him to be an honest man, and a
sincere patriot ; but if the name of Mazzini signified
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 sake 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 aectary,
but that his sole desire was to make known the abuses
by which the Church to which he belonged was cor-
rupted, in order that they might be removed. Fana-
ticism 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 foundation by the Divine Head of
Christianity. He 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 rack, 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
Church, and the canons of the councils down to the
Council of Trent, and since then the universal voice
lof public opinion, all pointed to the existence
of abuse of the most marked and dangerous cha-
racter. The dogmas of the Church, its hierarchy
and its liturgy, were all tainted with the evil, which
every succeeding age strengthened and confirmed.
Most, if not all of them, were owing
to the blending of the spiritual nature of the Christian
Church with the temporal quality of earthly sove-
reignty. The luxury and ostentation, the pomp and
show of the Court of Rome, had influenced the
Church of Rome until, in fact, they became one, the
spiritual being rendered grosser, and the temporal
more odious by the connexion. What had been the
effect of their corruption of the Church from its
primitive purity and simplicity ? In the first place,
it had rendered material and superstitious the
pure and ethereal religion of Christ, which, being
heavenly and spiritual, was made to be the universal
religion of the world, binding all mein in one general
tie of brotherhood. The result is that dissent
and schism are created, man is set against man,
and
people against people, and all the nations of
the earth are presented in uniting in one fraternal
embrace
Jesuits rule
Rome may
that the cardinals and princes of the
gratify their live in toilless splendour, and
England s
the whole body cf the Catholic Church to
ambitious longings for power. What had
caused the great northern schism, when Ger-
many and
of Rome? Nothincrehvered themselves from the see
illinuiththe infamous abuses which
in
iChurchd of the sixteenth
characterise the
h profligacyvei
century—the trafficing uelgences and dispen-
sations, the shameless vices of t
pr which head andruler
of the Church, and the universal
emveemntbeedresvoe
fn
theth e
per-
vade every class of the clergy. What
chance of a reunion of those divided
thNeVhy, the existence
e Churchabuses
as Christ
a:
bigotry of the Papal system of
preant day, the
grasping avarice and ambition of Jesuitism, the nar-
oofnethcosoemsinelofl-isara
row-mindedness and

government, and the encouragement of such rank
impostures as the so-called miracle of Rimini, rival-
ling the superstition of the darkest ages. He now
came to the remedy. Where were they to look for
the power which should be able to grapple with the
evil ? Unfortunately, as proved by the fruitless issue
of the Council of Trent, called expressly for the pur-
pose of reforming the Church, they must acknow-
ledge that the Court of Rome was the greatest ob-
stacle to its own reformation. They were determined
to adhere to all their old abuses, and, as experience had
shown, to foster new ones. From the people alone
could the power of effecting such a reform originate.
They must join in one universal demand that these
abuses should be cleared away, and that the Church
should be restored to its pristine purity and simpli-
city. For this object every people should unite as
brothers, in order to obtain such a reform of the Church
as should restore to it its original character, as the
type of the universal religion which Christianity was
intended to be.
The reverend father concluded with a fervent
prayer that all religious differences might be healed,
and that every sect might unite in one common creed,
as they acknowledged one common Head and
Founder.

MR. JOHN O'CONNELL AND THE REPRE-
SENTATION OF LIMERICK.
Mr. John O'Connell has addressed the following
letter to the electors of Limerick :
" London, March 10, 1851.
" Fellow Countrymen,—l have this moment re-
ceived, through your respected mayor, a resolution of
your corporation calling on me to resign my seat.
" I have also received by the same post a copy of
the Limerick Reporter and Tipperary Vindicator, in
which I find the majority who carried the resolution
analysed as consisting of eight Conservatives and ten
Young Irelanders, two of the latter being profession-
ally engaged for Mr. Russell, the gentleman who has
so long and so frequently intimated his intention of
seeking your suffrages in the event of my retirement,
or of a general election.
" I remember that in 1847 the Conservatives and
the Young Irelanders made a similar alliance to en-
deavour to defeat your choice of a representative, and
that their united efforts ended in registering no more
than 37 votes against 400, which you recorded for
me—a number which you could have increased had
there been any necessity.
" What is your will now? You have only to
speak it, and it shall be obeyed. Does this second
alliance of Conservatives and Young Irelanders, with
the additional element of professional men who are to
get employment in case of a new election—does it
represent your wishes ? If so, its call on me shall,
as I have said, be obeyed; but I owe it to you to
ask the assurance from your own lips.
" You know me to be a long time anxious to re-
tire. I hold my seat now, and have held it for the
last sixteen months, merely in obedience to you and
to convenience you ; and when you declare yourselves
ready to accept it, and to go to a new election, I will
instantly resign, and give you the opportunity.
" I respectfully beg to point your attention to my
explanatory letter to the corporation, and to the
general letter I have addressed to the Repealers of
Ireland. They both appear in the Limerick Reporter
and Tipperary Vindicator that I received this morning,
and they contain the fullest, the latest, and the most
decided statement of my opinions, convictions, and
intentions.
"I conclude by saying, that although I did not
originally seek your representation, you having, in
fact, compelled me to take it and to give up my kind
friends in Kilkenny ; and although I have been so
long asking of you to allow me to retire from Par-
liament, yet I have ever duly and fully appreciated
the high honour and great kindness you have done
me ; and whether you now decide on going to a new
election or not, you shall ever command my warmest
and most fervent gratitude.
" Respectfully and devotedly yours,
" JOHN O'CONNELL."