The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The election for Kerry has terminated in the return
of one of the O'Connells and of a gentleman of the
name of Mullins, a member of the family of that re-
spectable Nobleman, Lord Ventry, the condition of
whose tenants has been so well shown up in the late
work of Mr. Inglis. It is fair to state, however, that
Lord Ventry declared himself adverse to the preten-
sions of his relative. The Knight of Kerry is orr this
occasion defeated, a gentleman who, during a long
public life, has done more for his native county, and
more particularly for the rights and well-being of the
Catholic body, than all the O'Connells that ever bare
the name have attempted, much less accomplished, for
any portion of their countrymen. The spirit through
which this gross wrong, for such it is, has been per-
petrated against the Knight of Kerry, is marked by
the atrocious menaces of O'Connell, and the diabolical
curses of the priests, against all voters who would
not obey their will in supporting the repeal candi-
dates ; while the active and lawless mechanism by
which the end has been attained, must, if we are not
egregiously mistaken, command the earliest atten-
tion of the Legislature towards the provision of some
legal remedy. The O'Connell threat is already well
known throughout the country, viz., that each elector
who voted for the "Orange" Knight of Kerry—that
" Orangeman" who had dedicated his whole career to
the removal of the Catholic disabilities !—should

hive a Death's-head and cross-bones painted on his
door ; in other words, should be marked out to the
whole community as a criminal outlawed and doomed
to a violent death. Mr. Sheil's adoption, deliberately
and solemnly uttered, both of the sentiment which
inspired O'Connell, and of the murderous measures
which that reproach to the name of Christian enjoined
upon the Papist populace, against whatever electors
should be guilty of voting for candidates of their own
free choice, is sufficient to show that the policy of
assassination had been formally approved by the heads
of the Repeal party, and was to be systematically
acted on. Mr. Sheil asked "no mercy for those
" Catholics who should support" the Conservative
candidate for Clonmel, as O'Connell had already
consigned to destruction those who should support
the Knight of Kerry ! Then what has been the con-
duct of the priests, those self-called ministers of " re-
ligion ?" They have invariably turned the unlimited
powers derived from their spiritual ascendancy over
the ignorant mob, to the purposes of that same tem-
poral faction whose other avowed instrument was mur-
der. Now we have not long ago characterised this
species of interference by the Popish clergy, as pre-
cisely identified with that which in the darkest ages of
popular ignorance, and the most frightful of priestly
despotism, rendered the dominion of the Popish church
over the transactions and affairs of civil society intole-
rable to all Governments and every people ; and, be-
sides preparing the minds of men for the reformation
in some countries of Europe, brought about, in all
countries which had got beyond the very rudiments of
civilization, a sensible eurtailment of the privileges of
the clergy, and estrangement of nations from their in-
fluence. But Ireland is that country in Europe where
the mass of the people is most barbarous, and where
the Romish clergy are for that reason beyond all com-
_

parison most potent. They exercise over the passions of
the _multitude, for the promotion of any object which
is described to them as being adverse to the established
laws and institutions of the State, a propelling force
which no earthly law is capable of resisting. They
(the priests) have leagued themselves with O'Connell,
and with that band of incendiaries which would set up

the phantom of a " domestic Government," we
knowing that the first definite fruit of such a Govern
ment would be the obliteration of every trace of British
power and of Protestant freedom in Ireland, and that
the whole property of the Established Church,
In addition to those spoils which are wrung from the
poor parishioners by the irregular rapacity of the
Romish priests, countenanced by prescriptive usage,
will at once be vested in their all-grasping hierarchy.
But it becomes a serious question, and one which we
suspect cannot much longer be evaded, how such an
evil as the indefatigable obtrusion of spiritual power
upon the rights and interests of civil life can be
met by any known process of legislation. It is not,
among sound thinkers, a novel proposition that
the Romish Church has ever proved herself a deadly
foe to liberty. She proceeds upon views and incul-
cates upon her worshippers a class of motives which
hawi frequently nothing in common with those of any
order of men in political society. She aims invariably
at founding zmon considerations exclusively connected
with another woil..ld, an empire in this world which no
human might can encounter. Human laws have no
sanctions compared with ti,s2se which the wily priest
can enforce upon the superstition; terrors of his con-
gregation. It follows, therefore, ti,wt the powers
which the State confers upon its nominal su:.;J ects, as
that for instance of voting for Members of Parliament,
are turned by means of a machinery, independent of the
State, to uses destructive of its authority and welfare.
But the principle which regulates and justifies the
distribution of political power among the subjects of a
State is one which assumes that those who enjoy such
power will, through a moral necessity, be governed in
its employment by motives of political, or at least
temporal interest ; such as are shared in some way or
other by bodies of men acting as citizens, and such as
have their root in civil polity, or in social action.
Those who act implicitly on the suggestions of men
whose country is their hierachy—whose patriotism is
subserviency to the worldly aggrandisement of their
Church—whose loyalty is eager obedience to a power
miltwed and uncontrolled by any responsibility known
to the British Constitution—such men are not safe de-
positaries of any right or privilege which enables them
to act directly upon our constitutional system. While
the Catholic Bill was yet unpassed, O'Connell and his
compeers fatigued us with their solemn denials that the
Romish priesthood ever could exert, or could ever
dream of exerting, any shadow of power over the po-
litical conduct of their brethren. He vowed daily
and hourly that their kingdom was not of this world ;
that they had nothing to do with things temporal at
all : that they confined themselves strictly, as was
their bounden duty, to the religious demeanour of their
flocks ; and that if the Pope was to issue a mandate to
Irish Catholics, directing them how to shape their
political duties, he, O'Connell, " would be the first
to laugh at such ridiculous pretensions !" What then
are we to think of the scrupulous conformity between
the promises by which Parliament was lured into the
extension of political rights to Catholics, and the man-
ner in which those promises have been fulfilled ? It
is perfectly true, that the elective franchise had been
vested in Catholics long enough before these fine
panegyrics were pronounced upon the priests. But
it is equally so, that before the bill of emancipation,
the desire to exercise the intenneddling influence which
then was disclaimed for them had no such pressing
motive. We have but opened this important question.
it is the Romish priests themselves, and the disloyal
as well as ungrateful miscreants into whose hands they
play their sinister ascendancy, that have supplied us
with et text for our observations. The sum of which
is, that as the law stands, irresistible power over the
actions of a large mass of British subjects has been
placed in the hands alien from, and hostile to, the con-
stituted authorities of the realm. There is still, no
doubt, a remedy in the constitutional resources of this
free Protestant state, and we trust there will be no
defect of skill or courage to apply it. In the mean
time we entreat our readers to remember what we pub-
lished yesterday in our Irish letter : we mean that far-
rago of atrocious villainy, entitled the " Patriot's
Curse," directed against the freedom of Irish election.
Was ever such indecency—was ever such brutality—
was ever such cruelty—was ever such blasphemous
profaneness—was ever such malignant and savage
profligacy before exhibited in the face of a civilized
world ? It is from the same foul source as the Death's-
head and bones, and turned against the Knight of
Kerry.—Times.
Great is the exultation of the Whig-Radical
Journals at the defeat of the Knight of Kerry, by the
priesthood and Repealers of the county
and K
cros erry, s
-bones
under
it he system of spiritual terror and skull
intimidation. The Evening organ of the late Ministry
is particularly loud in its notes of triumph on this
occasion. It tinkles its sounding brass to celebrate the
victory of the 46 Repaleocracyff of the Kerry raoun-

tains with as much spirit and vivacity as if it con-
sidered the politics of Brocket Hall and Derrynane
Abbey completely identified, and rested the last hopes
of the restoration of the Melbourne Cabinet upon the
success of the desperate faction that struggle inces-

santly in Ireland for the dismemberment of the empire.
We recollect when the Globe described the Irish
Orangemen as the real friends of British connection
—and they have not changed their political principles
since that time. What they were then they are now,

when the same Journal makes common eause with the

opponents of British connection, lauding O'Connell
and his " Repalers" as patriots and reformer; of the
true stamp, and vilifying all who oppose the priestly and

political incendiaries, who, in their hatred to the vet y
name of a Protestant Constitution, inflame to madness

the passions of an ignorant and superstitious multitude.
As a specimen, among many others, of the sort of
liberalised feeling which the full concession of the
" Catholic Claims" has produced among the Romish
Clergy of Ireland, take the form of imprecation which
has been circulated among the poor, benighted priest
ridden peasantry, for the purposes of the Kerry elec-
tion. The " curse of Ernulphus," as recited in the
life of " Tristram Shandy," supposed to be a bitter
sareastic fiction of the witty author of that whimsical
work against the damnation-dealing tyranny of the
Church of Rome, is mild and tolerant 'compared with
this Kerry curse. What a horrible formula of impre-
cation—posted, too, upon a building consecrated to the
worship of the God of Christians I And this blasting
and withering curse, as it was intended to be, was di-
rected against whom ? The Knight of Kerry, one
of the best landlords that a Roman Catholic peasantry
ever had, and a man who, like John David Latouche,
-vas ever the steady and unflinching advocate of Catho-
lic emancipation. But the Knight of Kerry has refused
to acknowledge the mob domination of Mr. O'Connell,
and therefore the skull and cross-bones crusade is di-
rected against him, and his name is posted on the Roman
Catholic chapel, encircled with curses that would well
become the lips of the foul and midnight hags of Mac-
beth, as one who " circumscribed the spirit of patriot-
ism within the wizard circle of the Protestant interest."
With such things before our eyes, how can it be said,
how can it he believed, that the spirit of Romish in-
tolerance is changed from what it was in the dark ages
of grovelling and persecuting superstition ? Is not
every act of liberality on the part of Protestants met
by new instances of bigotry and insolent assumption of
power ? We speak of the system in its political opera-
tion, having nothing to do with it in any other; and
surely, in its political operation, it is a system that
builds the fabric of its ambitious power on the utter
prostration of the intellect of mankind. What other
class that bear the name of Christians could be ad-
dressed in the terms of the Kerry anathema without
feeling horror and disgust for their ghostly tyrants ?
And this is" Reform I" If so, the spirit of evil must
be an accomplished Reformer.—Morning Herald.
We are happy to perceive that the Clergy of the
Church of England have begun to hold archdeaconry
meetings for the purpose of considering such questions
as are at the present moment of urgent and vital im-
portance to the interests of the Establishment. We
refer our readers to the account in another part of our
paper of a meeting of this nature recently held at
Barnstaple, over which the Rev. Archdeacon Barnes
presided, and at which resolutions and an address to
the eminent Bishop of the diocese (Exeter) were
passed, expressive of entire confidence in any measures
which, in co-operation with his Majesty's Govern-
ment, the Right Reverend the Bishops may think
fit to pursue for rendering the discipline of the
Church more effective, and for the equitable ad-
justment of all questions relating to its pro-
perty and the religious instruction of the people.
We have always entertained a confident belief
and have not been backward to express it, that among
all the various classes of society in this country there
is not one that feels so deep an interest in the pro-
motion of all safe and beneficial reforms in the dis-
cipline of the Church and the distribution of its re-
venues—not one that is really so anxious to see that
discipline and those endowments placed upon the foot-
ing which may render them most efficacious for the
sacred purposes which the institution of a national
Church has professedly in view—as the Clergy of the
Church of England. That they have been determined
not to coalesce in the work of Reform with politicians
who, under the name of Reform, seek the humiliation
or subversion of the Church, or are in visible and un-
disguised alliance with parties to whom no other
objects can rationally be assigned, ought neither to
excite surprise nor provoke censure, but is, on the
contrary, a proof of their integrity and prudence, a
strong symptom of their attachment to the sacred in-
stitution of which they are the legal and appointed
guardians, an abundant evidence of their earnest desire
for the removal of whatever real defects or abuses
deface its comeliness or impede its success. There
will, we are persuaded, be n• opposition on the part
great body of the clergy to any plan of Church
Reform- th- be devised by the present Ministers
unction with the heads of the
of the Crown in e 01..;
Church ; for the clergy no•e: feel that they can be
,
zealous Church Reformers without inet;:r.ing: the risk
of aiding the projects of the declared foes of the
Church and of religion. By this change, not in the
objects or the principles, but iri the position and the
feelings, of the clergy, the cause of Church Reform
has obtained an incalculable advantage, an advan-
tage which no other Administration than the pre-
sent would ever have had the power to bestow.
The sincere and rational friends of a reform of
the Church must be anxious to uphold and strengthen
the present Administration, if it were only from the
conviction that improvements which may be practicable
in their hands would be utterly impracticable in those
of their political rivals ; while those who use the
name of Church Reform merely as a party cry, or who
would so reform the Church as to degrade and enfee-
ble it, may be expected to manifest an hostility
to the existing Government, bitter and unrelenting in
proportion as its plans of real Reform seem likely to
prove safe, beneficial, and complete. The Whig-
Radical faction are greatly mortified at losing the van-
tage ground of office; and it cannot be said of them
that they bear their mortification with the best possible
grace. But when, in addition to the loss of office, one
of the most formidable and effective weapons of party
warfare is about to be struck for ever from their hands,
they naturally feel that the grievance is altogether in-
tolerable.—Morning Post.
A few mornings ago we had occasion to notice the
second, and oral, manifesto of the Premier, delivered
to the worthy electors of Tamworth. But it seems
that there were some " errors of the press" in the first
edition, which have made the Right Honourable Ba-
ronet publish a second edition, corrected and revised
(as that part of the press with which he is in most
intimate connexion is pleased to say) by himself. Of
course this amended edition may be regarded as official,
and in this respect a very curious document it is. Sir
Robert is to be the most candid and open of men.
" These are not times when public men can affect mi-
nisterial reserve, and fancy themselves exempted from
the duty of a frank communication with those whom
they represent." So says the Premier ; and the
words are certainly words of great promise ; and
we might perhaps, in our simplicity, suppose, if
we did not know our man, that all the Cabinet se-
crets are to be " told at Tamworth" by Sir Robert,
to the good people whom he represents there. But
no, there is a loop-hole : Sir Robert has been
returned to Parliament by the electors of Tamworth,
because he has the influence to make the electors re-
turn him, or any one whom he may appoint his no-
minee. But will any one believe that Sir Robert
Peel, the Prime Minister of the Crown—the inve-
terate and invariable Tory Minister, is the representa-
tive of the electors of Tamworth, or of any other por-
tion of the people of England ? It is impossible.
Sir Robert Peel was opposed to the people of Eng-
land—that is, he was an enemy to their best interests,
when he had no public office save that of Member for
Tamworth ; and is it possible to suppose that, now that he
is Premier, and became so in opposition to the wishes
of the people, and upon the dismissal of the only Mi-
nistry in which the people have had confidence, or
reason to have confidence, for many years—that he
can be the representative of the people ? It is im-
possible. Officially he is the representative of
the Administration—or, perhaps, we should rather