The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-31 00:00:00

THE S U

During a now somewhat considerable period the
Common Council of the city of London have permitted
these Polish balls to be held in the Guildhall of
the metropolis, in this manner enabling the Associa-
tion to evade the expenses of rental, and at the
same time reflecting the highest honour upon
the liberality of the metropolitan municipality. We
have observed with satisfaction, consequently, that
the permission has in this manner been granted to the
committee notwithstanding the invidious endeavours
of a certain class of individuals to depreciate the
character of the entertainment. Every circumstance,
indeed, appears to yield promise highly satisfactory to
the members of the Polish Association—promise
which we most earnestly trust may be realised in
abundance on the approaching 14th of November.

The position lately assumed by the Papal Court is
eminently deserving of the attention, not merely of
the Protestant people of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, but also of those moderate
and well-disposed members of the Roman Catholic
Church, whose undeviating good conduct and exem-
plary patience, while suffering for a long series of
years under an iniquitous and intolerable penal code,
eminently merited and gained the heartfelt sympathy
of all right-minded men. Day by day the ancient pre-
judices that had occasioned so much mischief to the best
interests of the empire, that divided society into two
classes— the oppressors and the oppressed—wore away,
until at length the chief vestiges of intolerance—would
we could say the last—were erased from the national
statute-book, and our Roman Catholic brethren were
placed, as they ought to be, on a footing of perfect
equality with their fellow-subjects, every species of
civil and religious disability was removed, and a man
was no longer debarred from serving his country
because he worshipped his CREATOR in the manner
which in his soul and conscience he believed to be
most fitting.
But although Catholic Emancipation was calculated
to bring to a termination those unhappy differences
and disputes that had so long arrayed Irishman against
Irishman, something more was required to restore
peace to that unhappy land. " The snake was
scotched, not killed." The remembrance of former
feuds still survived and rankled in the bosoms
of the quondam belligerents. A broad line of
demarcation existed between the professors of
different creeds and those who worshipped the
same CREATOR, and trusted to the saving mercies of
the same REDEEMER, still kept aloof and apart, re-
garding each other with mutual distrust and suspi-
cion. This untoward state of affairs, so injurious, we
might say fatal, to the welfare and prosperity of their
common country, so likely to produce

" Civil dissension, with its viprous tooth,
That gnaws the boweli of the commonweal,"

could only be ameliorated by the diTersion of those
mists which, accumulating during successive ages,
obscured the vision of both parties. It was necessary
that they should be brought together in early youth,
and made well acquainted with each other, that
they might no longer lend an easy cre•
dence to the wicked fictions or no less cul-
pable exaggerations of designing men, who for
their own vile purposes would divide the nation into
hostile parties, that they themselves, like the " scum
in a whirlpool," might be flung to the surface, and
enabled to sell for filthy lucre the interests of those
weak-minded and credulous persons who permitted
themselves to be made the tools of the unscrupulous
agitators. This could only be achieved by education
—education, not separate and exclusive, but mixed and
general, the rising generation of all creeds assembling
round the same rostrum, and receiving sound instruc-
tion from the same master, without having obnoxious
tenets forced upon.their attention, in direct opposition
to the wishes and reasonable desires of their parents
and,the pastors and ministers of the faith in which
they were born, and which they were brought up to
reverence and venerate.
It was under such circumstances that the system
of national education, in Ireland, one of the most be-
neficial and admirable measures of the present, or of
any preceding age, was called into existence. It was
a wise and statesmanlike effort to assuage the irri-
tation, and soothe the angry passions of the
Irish people. But, unfortunately, it was not
received with the cordial unanimity which it so emi-
nently deserved. It was rejected by a majority of
those who should have been the first to hail the
golden opportunity afforded of general instruction.
Much misconception existed as to its aims, and un-
fortunately there were those who would not be con-
vinced of its real objects. The clergymen of the
Established Church in Ireland, as a body, refused to
avail themselves of the advantages offered by the
State for the instruction of the people. Be-
, cause proselytism and propagandism were dis-
couraged, they declared that the system was op-
posed to religion, and because they were not allowed
to inculcate their own doctrines and tenets on the
ductile minds of youth, they raised the cry of "God-
less and unscriptural education," denounced the
entire system, and refused to co-operate in any degree
with the Government. Never was a more grave or
serious mistake committed by any body of men.
They surrendered all share in the education of the
rising generation, and relinquished the position which
they might have occupied to the Roman Catholic
clergy. A few of the more enlightened, tolerant, and
liberal pastors alone gave in their adhesion, and esta-
blished schools on the national foundation in their
respective parishes, and they had their reward in the
great amelioration that many of them lived to witness
in the condition of their flocks.
As a body, the Roman Catholic clergymen acted
a wiser and more reasonable part. They appre-
ciated the boon offered by the Government, and
gladly and gratefully accepted the tendered aid.
They knew that it was not " a Godless education"—
that all that was required was that merely secular in-
struction should be afforded during certain
portions
of the day, when all the pupils were assembled toge-
ther, and that other hours were devoted to religious
instruction, when those whose parents did not object
might and would be instructed in the principles and
duties of their respective creeds. In practice it was
found to work admirably ; the priests had
no cause to regret the laudable course
they pursued, while more than half a million of
children of both sexes received a sound practical
education, which prepared them to enter upon "the
battle of life."

There were, it is true, a few ecclesiastical fire-
brands, a few intolerant bigots, to be found in the
Roman Catholic, as well as in the Protestant Church--
men whose vocation was to sow strife and animosity
among their respective flocks. They had "a Roland
for an Oliver." If we could boast " a HARRY of
Exeter," they could exult in " a JOHN of Tuam ;" if we
had " a PHILLPOTTS," they had.likewise " a 'WHALE."
tle to choose between the i
There veto; P.-rhaps, but lit

they receive, so to speak, full value for their money
in the brilliant reunion which each winter renders
the otherwise gibomy saloons of Guildhall animated
with the votaries of Terpsichore. Yet this latter cir-
cumstance is the very one which has not unfrequently
been vilified as the most deserving of reprobation in
the whole enterprize. As if the harmless enjoy-
ment of the annual frequenters of the enter-
tainment militated in any one respect against
the excellence of the charity itself, or tended in any
one way to diminish its beneficial influence over its
recipients. When men and women are assembled
together after a bloody saturnalia like that of the
Reign of Terror, the beaux of the ball-room wearing
miniature guillotines in their buttonholes, and the
ladies placing them in their bosoms as appropriate
brooches—when in this manner the survivors of that
tremendous epoch endeavoured to gather funds for the
relief of the widows and orphans of such as had fallen
under the merciless rule of the Triumvirs—when in
this way the youths and maidens still left in Pori:
danced amidst the ashes and blood of that devastated
capital—the mind naturally recoils from a mode cf
alleviating suffering so frivolous and wild,hearted as to
be absolutely repulsive. But when years have passed
since the final partition of Poland—when at a remote
period, and in a distant country, an entertainment of
a most harmless character is contrived with a view to
relieve the privations of a body of ill-starred refu-
gees—it must be confessed that we can see only strong
reasons for approval and admiration. Hence, there-
fore, it is, that we are even solicitous to witness the
fortunate completion of a labour oflove and kindness so
generously and propitiously commenced—a labour only
pecuniarily profitable to a class of persons otherwise
helpless and unassisted.