The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPIMS OF THIS DAY. •
TIMES.—We have now before us, in the appeal
of Dr. Wisemart, which appeared in Our columns yes-
terday, apalain the pamphlet of Mr. Bowyer, so fre-
quatisr referred to in the appeal, all that can be said,
ni at least all that it is deemed prudent to say, in de-
fence,sor rather in palliation, of the recent attack
upon the Established Church of England and the feel -
ings and principles of her people. The question thus
raised is well worthy of our most attentive considera-
tion. If we have pronounced an opinion against the
Pope and the Cardinal unheard, it has not been from 1
any wish to deny them fair play, but because they did
not condescend to give us any more tangible explana-
tion of their acts than was to be gathered from empty
gasconades and pompous manifestoes, the very sweep-
ings of ..lit.Stayulffriftiret fea."ThrereliriZauVe MI
Wiseman on his recovery of the use of the English
language. If the popular demonstrations with which
the arrival of the new Cardinal, who bas come with a
commission from Rome to govern half a dozen of the
dioceses of our Church, and some two of the kingdoms
of the Saxon Heptarchy, have not been all that was
agreeable in other respects, they have, at any rate,
as the Scotch say, brought him to his English.
We hear no more in "the Appeal" of the planetary
system either of Cullen or Copernicus ; suns, planets,
and comets dance no more in the mazes of metaphori-
cal confusion. England is suffered to remain where
she is, and is no longer forced, to the great discom-
fiture of the Continent, to revolve round the Eternal
City. The golden chain of St. Peter rings no longer
-in our ears. and the adjacent islands to the Doctor's
diocese, Thanet, Dogs, and all, do not once appear
above the horizon. Grateful for the relief from the
constant strain on our imaginative faculties, we can
only express a wish that it were consistent with the
rules of orthodoxy and infallibility that the Church
of Rollie, as she has one head, one faith, one code of
motility, one system of politics, would be pleased to
add to these multifarions unities the unity of language,
so that her advocates might be spared the necessity of
writing long arguments to prove that her public and
authorized documents mean exactly the reverse of
what they say. If Dr. Wiseman meant, as he and
Mr. B iwyer say he did, that he merely came amongst
us :is a Dissenting minister, the head of ti voluntary asso-
ciation, to manage the spiritual affairs of the Catholics
scattered up and down lang I
seiand—if it was never in-
tended to assume any rights save those which are
cheerfully conceded to a Wesleyan or a B tptist,why,
in the name of common sense, could he not have said
so ? And why is it only when the unmistakeable
response of the peop'e of England has shown him that
his inflated pretensions will tend but little to the glo-
o c Church has two longuages, an
rification or advancement of himself and his Church,
does he first inform us that counties do not mean
counties, but the Roma, Catholics residing in them
—that England is not restored to the Roan Catholic
Church, but that her scanty Romanist pcpulatiod has
received a new form of government? It is because
h
—the first couchel in the very,
terms of that more than mortal arrogance
and inso-
lence in which Hildebrand and. Innocent thundered
their decrees against trembling kings 05d prostrate
emperors, the second artful, humble,
and cajoling,
t esoterico maann d Catholicanex
teri
e R
seizing on every popular topic, enlisting is its behalf
every claptrap argument, and systematically employ-
ing reasoning, the validity of which the sophist him-
self would be the last to recognise. Bat let her speak
what language she will. tea spirit of that Church in un-
tellabged ; pliable and ductile without, she is stern and
unbenditig within. Within her pale is saleation,without
is heathen darkness. The Greek,ssh°diffsrsfrom her in
thinking that the procession of the spirit vea
a from
one person of the Trinity instead of two, is, according
to her, as far removed from salvation as the wor-
shipper of Vishnu or Siva. Claiming universal domi.-
• nion to be established, to the exclusion of all other
forms of faith, is an essential requisite of her ex-
istence. Toleration to others she has ever regarded
as a crime—toleration to herself, theoretically at least,
as an insult. The ommonly recognised distinction
between de facto and dejure is no distinction with her.
' Its her authorised documents whatever is not within
herself is treated as non-existent ; her language, her
' logic, are all founded on this principle. Whatever is
not her own sbe absolutely ignores. The Pope em-
ploys the same style in constituting an Archbishop of
Westminster as in appointing a prelate of some petty
town of Latium. The existence of the Crown, of
the prelates, of the mighty People of England he can-
not acknowledge ; all be sees is the land, a few
Roman Catholics scattered up and down it, and those
bishops among whom be divides it; the rest to him
is nothing. It was much to have tolerated such
a church as this: it was much to have
extended to the Roman Catholics that toleration
which, it was well known, if they were true to their
faith, nothing but their weakness could render mutual.
It was a fiery trial to the spirit of toleration when it
was proposed to be extended to those who greedily
caught at those immunities to the principle of which
they are eternally opposed. Happily, and justly, as
we think, the principle of toleration triumphed, and
intolerance itself was tolerated, after the example of
Him who makes his sun to rise and his rain to de-
scend as well on the just as the unjust. But the Ro-
man Catholics are no longer content with toleration.
and religious liberty,"
" True toleration
Bowyer, speaking by authority, " consist in more
than the absence of persecution and the possession
of equal civil rights. That something more the
Roman Catholic clergy do not ask from our gene-
rosity, but seiza as their right, and the person
whose fiat clothes them with these rights is a
foreign Prince, having no diplomatic relations with
this country. The momentous question is thus
fairly raised whether, the Roman Catholics being by
`their own confession free from persecution, and pc's-