The Sun.
London, England, 1828-10-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

The day of the far-famed Kent Meeting is
at length arrived. The question. for the assem-
bled inhabitants of that county is a simple one,
so far as relates to themselves. It is whether
they are to be honoured by their countrymen, as
enlightened members of a free and just com-
munity, or as the tools and bloodhounds of a
faction, which assumes the cloak of bigotry, to
conceal its innate selfishness, despotism, and
corruption. The question to be resolved, so far
as concerns the British empire generally, is, whe-
ther the Constitution of England shall be " a
partial evil," or " a universal good." It is
not true, whatever may be pretended, that eman-
cipation will be a benefit to our Catholic fellow-
subjects alone. If a profligate Government were
disposed to undermine the liberties of a brave
people, the whole world could not furnish an in-
strument so mischievously adapted to that un-
holy purpose, as would be found in a large por-
tion of the same people cut off from the
political rights and privileges which were en-
joyed by the majority of the nation. A
slave is ever the deadliest weapon wherewith a
freeman can he tortured or destroyed. If the Pro-
testants of England, by unjust persecution
of the Irish, convince that susceptible and
not unwarlike race that it is not an infatuated
Government, but an unfeeling people who op-
press them, the Government may, on some fa-
vourable occasion, barter British liberty for
Irish aid_ In any serious quarrel between the
Crown and the people of England, the Irish,
so long as they felt themselves repulsed from
the hearts of the British nation, would eagerly
wreak their vengeance on us, by lending their
succour to the schemes of the most arbitrary Go-
vernment. No man's liberty can he secure
against the outrages of despotism, or the plots
of corruption, when he has but few partners in
his privileges. The most dangerous course for
freedom, therefore, is 'to confine it ; 'the best
guarantee for that of every individual in the
kingdom, is, that all should have an interest in
maintaining it. When Ireland was scourged by a
local Parliament, and a provincial Government,
through which the Minister of this country ruled,
by setting one party in the island against the other,
Mr. Grattan saw _that division of interests
was the ruin of both.• He told his coun-
trymen that until their civil rights were
equalized, and their feuds composed, the
reign of Ministerial prodigality and of un-
constitutional influence never would be ended,
that for the people to be powerful against the
Court, they must be united amongst each other,
—that the cause of the Catholic was that of the
Protestant likewise. " Never," said that illus-
trious patriot, " never will the Irish Protestant
be free, until the Catholic ceases to be a slave,"
So we tell the freemen of England, and the free-
holders of Kent, who meet this morning, that
the sister nations never will be so strong against
the public enemy, abroad or at home, as when
they are bound by feelings of affection towards
each other. Beware, then, of listening to those
serpents, who, under pretence of guarding the
Church of England from a danger which has no
existence, would expose Church and State to a
common overthrow,—the fatal fruit of increased
political depravity, of conflicting factions, of ine-
vitable convulsions, of civil wars—all aggravated
by foreign vengeance. The proposition to be
made by the authors of the meeting will be the
signal, if passed, of revolutionary measures in
Ireland, to be applied to the dissolution of the
British Empire ; the first moment of which (and
it will not be a distant moment), a league with
certain foreign Powers, the standing enemies orthe
British name, can be organized. The best way of
defeating such a proposition, would be by a flat
rejection. If that should not meet the sense,
or accord with the previous understanding of the
friends of religious liberty and of the public
peace, we would earnestly pray them to take care
that the amendment shall be one to which all
the various classes of dissentients from the Cum-
berland-bloodhound-plot may be able to yield a
conscientious and unanimous concurrence.. Let
any subdivision or frittering away of the liberal
majority (for we trust it is the majority) be
avoided, as a death-blow to the cause. Let no
perverse or conceited eagerness to force this man
or that man's phrase upon the meeting, inter-
fere with the one grand object of unanimity in
the action of those who are agreed in principle.
Above all things, let the honestly scrupulous
with regard to dangers from the Catholic priest-
hood recollect, that when the numerical majority
of the English nation, as well as of the Irish,
were their adherents, the reformation and the
church of England were established on their
ruins—that the prominence which now seems to
appertain to them in Ireland, is given to them by
the laity, as a temporarary means of assisting that
laity in its effort for a redress of grievances exclu-
sively civil ; and that a power which has flowed
from no source but wrong, will be best subdued
byi est ice.— Times.

The subject of the Meeting to take place this I
day, on Penenden Heath, engages the atten-
tionthe public to the exclusion almost
every
Off o£
every other. There never, in our opinion, was
a question which presented so little difficulty as
that called the Catholic. Whether we view it '
in the light of expediency or of justice, we can
only arrive at one result. One-third of the in-
habitants of the United Kingdom are Roman
Catholics. They are determined never to cease
the agitation of the question till they are placed
on a level with the Protestants in point of civil
rights. We know, too, that Ireland, in which
the Protestant religion is established by L.,w,
while the Catholic is established in fact, will
never be tranquil till this question is settled to
the satisfaction of the Catholics. No result,
therefore, is obtained by any decision to refuse
concession, because the question will incessantly
present itself; the battle must be constantly re-
newed, till the Catholics succeed in their object.
The refusal is merely a procrastination. On the
other hand, were the claims of the Catholics
conceded, the question
is, of necessity, settled
for ever, because
have the effrontery to demand that the nation
should be thrown • into confusion by the subjec-
tion of the Catholics once more to their rule.
It is one thing to refu st.•% equality, and another to
depart from it. Equality in point of civil rights,
therefore, if once. gained, would settle the
question for ever. But then, say the opponents
of the Catholic claims, what security have we
that the Catholics, who hitherto have never
rested satisfied with what they have obtained,
will be satisfied now ? They have hitherto re-
mained unsatisfied, because, however much they
..
may have obtained, they have not obtaineda an
that they are entitled to. Protestants, Under a
Catholic Government, which should have
con.
ceded to them one right after an other,would, in like
manner, have remained unsatisfied so long as
one right was withheld from them. When jus-
tice is done them, it is time for us to complain
of their unreasonableness, should they demand

lmore than their rights. At present the Catho-
lics divide the Protestants, of whom all the libe-
ral and disinterested are in their favour. Should
the Catholics rest unsatisfied with justice, all
ProteStants would of course unite in opposing
them. A great deal of loose declamation is
uttered about the granting of political power to
the Catholics. They have political power ; and
they have as much as, with the aid of the liberal
Protestants, must obtain still more for them.
But surely, if they were to urge further claims
incompatible with the security of the Protestants,
they could be opposed by the latter with much
-more advantage, when their injustice would rouse
all Protestants to unite against them, than at
present, when a sense of justice enlists on their
side all the honourable and enlightened and dis-
interested of the Protestants. Say that -the Ca-
tholics were to return all the Representatives of
[rebind, and it were found that they abused their
power to the detriment of their Protestant fel-
low-subjects, au. indignant sense of this injustice
would unite the Protestants as one man to op-
pose them ; and if it should be necessary to fight
knee-deep in blood, success would surely he'
more likely to attend the efforts .of_ the Protes-
tants, united as one man, than the efforts at pre-
sent of a set of base knaves, enraged at being
obliged to open their monopoly of good things to
their Catholic Brethren, aided by the fools and
fanatics whom they can succeed in deluding. If
it ever should become necessary to resort 'to
harsh measures for our security, the justice of
our cause would strengthen us at horse, and 0b....
tain regard for us abroad. So much for expediency.
But why, in God's name, should there be any
civil distinctions between Protestants and Ca-
tholics ? Why should any man be debarred
from the enjoyment of constitutional rights on
account of his religion ? No man is answerable
to another for his belief; it is an affair between
himself and his Maker. The object of Govern-
ment is not to further this or that religion, but
to afford to every individual as much freedOm of
action as is consistent with the respect due to
others. The -affairs of another world are only
taken cognizance of by Government, in so far
as they influence indirectly the affairs of this.
A roan may have very ridiculous notions of the
Deity ; his creed may be very absurd, and yet
be a good subject. We are not called upon to
decide as to the goodness of the creed, but to
inquire whether there is any thing in it incom-
patible with the security of others. Of the five
hundred religious sects in England, some, no.
doubt, entertain more rational notions than
others ; but we know of no one, with the ex-
ception of the Quakers (who, were they nume-
rous in any country, might endanger the public
' safety), which entertains principles inconsistent
with the general welfare. We will own that we
dislike the hierarchy and discipline of the Ca-
tholic Church ; we prefer Protestantism, as being
more favourable to liberty and mental emancipa-
tion. But we are not called on now to choose
between the Catholic and Protestant religions,
but, one-third of the empire being Catholics, to
say whether there is any thing in the Catholic
religion which makes its professors bad subjects.
We boldly say, thatthere is nothing in Catholi-
cism of this noxious character. We have heard
no argument against the Catholic religion which
does not apply against other religions in this
country. In a lengthy address to the free-
holders of the county of Kent, widely circulated ,
in that county, we are gravely told, that

" All other communities of Christians are esta-
blished, like the Church of England, on principles
of toleration. The assertion► of their own rights in
fact necessarily involves a recognition of ours. It
is true that Dissenters as well as Catholics have, till
very lately, been subject to political restrictions by
means of tests applied to their religious scruples.--
But these scruples were the test itself, and not the
object sought to be discovered. That object, as in
the case of the Catholics, was their allegiance. At
the time these tests were imposed on them, Dissen-
ters were not contented and quiet communities, se-
ceding from their national Church on the ground of
conscientious conviction on particular points of her
doctrine or discipline ; they were considered as ini-
mical and dangerous rivals to our Church; and, con-
sequently, unfit to take their share in the Adminis-
tration of the State, with which that Church is in-
dissolubly blended. Their political condition has
been lately altered. But this alteration Can only
consist-with the principles of our Constitution, on
the presumption that Dissenters are no longer en-
vious rivals, but tolerant seceders from the Church
of England.
" Catholics then
,are excluded by our laws from
cit'il trusts, not on account of their faith, but- be-
cause that faith necessarily cramps and fetters their
allegiance to the State. They do not acknowledge
the rights of her Church, nor the title of her King
to its supremacy. They are members of nu ex-
clusive church, which asserts itself to be the only
trae communion of Christ's worshippers. All
Christian communities, which have been established
without the pale of the Church of Rome, are con-
demned by it as heresies—as impious, profane, sacri-
legious usurpations of the one indivisible and only
true church.

" Papists, therefore, I repeat, do not, arid never
can admit the rights of the Church of England, nor
the King's Prerogative as its head. They are in
conscience bound to consider the one as founded- on
the crime of schism, and the other as a wicked
usurpation."
The writer of this was evidently not aware that
the Presbyterians, who are established in the
northern part of the island equally with the Ca-
tholics, refuse to acknowledge the King's supre-
macy in matters of religion. Their principle is,
that " Christ is King and Head of the Church."
The ground set up by this advocate of exclusion
of Catholics on liberal principles is, that all who
will not subscribe to the position that " the
Kthglom of Christ is of this world," and that
the Head of the State is not merely entitled to
govern in the affairs of this world, but to regu-
late all that relates to the affairs of the next, are
bad citizens. The Test and Corporation Acts
are evidently regretted.; and the Dissenters
would be placed by him on the footing of Ca-
tholics, were it not that they are " no longer
dangerous rivals to the church." All Churches
are exclusive ; the Church of Rome is exclusive ;
the Church of England is exclusive ; the Church
of Scotland is exclusive. Intolerance is of the
all of them ; t
the increasing libe-
gicmi rality them of tl
Churches there areat
'ofmodern times. has almost every where
reasisiet;ictc)i.
ie power to
persecute.
but in Ei
the same
those •
time liberal members who condemn persecution.
injustice
ee
illiberality of
Our secuyity against persecution is the conviction
wield
of its impolicy and
political power, and u any po-
litical Church. The Catholics can only
.perse-
cute by the consent of the Protestant majority ;
and if they were so disposed, iit s not very likely
that they would be seconded
by Protestants.--...
The idea is a pure chimera. There is nothing,
we repeat, to justify the exclusion of Catholics
from any office in the State.—Morning
chronicle.

This is the day on which the o' Men of
Kent," both Emancipists and Anti-catholics,
are to put forth their strength on Penenden
Heath, when the question of toleration, or no

' toleration, will be put to the vote, and when the
ultra Tories, by carrying a few resolutions,. hope
to spread the flame of intolerance through every
city and county in England, and to say to the
King, to the Parliament, and to the Country—
" hitherto shall ye come and no further"—when
numbers will be opposed to argument and rea-
son, and it will be seen whether a selfish
and intolerant faction is to rule the country,
or those whom it has invested with legitimate
authority for managing its affairs. Never, on
any similar occasion, was so much interest ex-
cited, or so much anxiety manifested by all
parties, respecting the result. The eyes of the
whole country are upon it, and there is no
question that with many, though we hope not
with all, the decision of the Meeting will have
considerable influence. Were the question to
be discussed at the Meeting, a question between
the eligibility of preferring_ the Roman Ca.
thous religion, and the Protestant faith of
our venerable establishment, there would scarcely
be a dissentient voice at the Meeting. Every
hand would be held up against the former,
and every voice uplifted in favour of the latter
The Church, Whose advocates, whenever they
have had uncontrouled dominion, have done their
utmost to keep down the spirit of freedom—to
check inquiry, and perpetuate the reign of dark-
ness 'and bigotry, would be scouted and scorned ;
and the venerable establishment, whose origin is
connected with the proudest recollections of
Englishmen, and whose growth is coeval with
their rights, receive the unanimous support of
every one- present. The only question to be dis-
cussed in such a case would be freedom and in-
telligence, or oppression and ignorance ; for,
however we may advocate the cause of the Ca-
tholics, we have no wish to conceal for a moment
that the Catholia religion has been the greatest
enemy of human improvement, and the best
friend to despotism that the world ever
saw. But the question this day is not a
question of religion--it is a question of policy
and expediency—and of policy and expediency
only—whether in fact it is better to drain the
country of its resources by maintaining a heavy
load of taxation in order to keep down the
people of Ireland, or to attempt to find out
means whereby the country may be relieved from
the burthen of maintaining a large standing army
in Ireland, and its unfortunate people, instead of
being enemies to our repose, be converted into
powerfid and willing auxiliaries. This is the
real question at issue between the parties who
are this day to try their strength on Penenden
Heath ; and if the one were not blinded by bi-
gotry, and an enemy to all improvement and in-
novation, _it would not bear a moment's hear-
ing. But the question, though thus plain and
simple, will be obscured by religious fanati-
cism. It will be attempted to make the people
believe that the admission of some eighty or
100 Irish gentlemen into the Houses of Lords
and Commons will entail with it the subversion
of the Constitution in Church and State—that
the only question to he decided is a choice of
religions, and that those who hold up their
hands for Catholic emancipation are themselves
Catholics at heart. We question much, how-
ever, whether the plot will succeed. The people
begin to be aware, not only of the real merits of
the question, but of the grounds of the extraor-
dinary zeal displayed by some parties in a mat-
ter which cannot affect them but in a very re-
mote degree ; and we think they will not be de-
luded to the injury of the country. Be the
result, however, what it may, our readers may
rest assured that sue shall furnish them with the
earliest, the fullest, and the best account.—
Morning Advertiser.