The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-24 00:00:00

ANTI-3IAYN OOT II CONFERENCE.

(From the Scotsman.)
REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE PR D-
'FE:STANT DISSENTERS' ANTI-MAYNOOTH
CONFERENCE, held at Crosby-hall, Loudon, May
20th and 21st, 1845.
When this Conference was held, we were unable
to do more than give a few short scraps of the pro-
ceedings, as our columns were then crowded with
the discussions in the two Assemblies and in Par-
liament. We have since looked into the report,
which is published in a neat small volume of
eighty pages, price sixpence. We have read it
with great interest, and only regret that we can-
not tell our readers in this quarter where to find
it; for, strange to say, there neither are nor have
been any copies on sale in this town. The im-
portance and influential character of the meeting
may he inferred from the fact, that within a fortnight
after the circular was issued, about seven hundred
gentlemen obeyed the summons, many of them from
distant localities. This Conference must not be con-
founded with the contemporary assemblage in Exeter
where a small nu:nber of Dissenters united, in
our opinion very injudiciously, with a crowd of vio-
lent Churchmen, in raising the No Popery cry, the
primary political effect of which is to strengthen the
" monster church of Ireland." It is time to strike a
blew at the root. The cry should not be against
Popery, bw against the /I:tablishinent principle which
corrupted Popery, and corrupts every sect on whom
its blighting influence falls. The resolutions of the
Crosby flail meeting, as the prefatory notice states,
"were based upon sound and intelligible principles; and
whilst the religious ditii.,rences between Prwestant
Nonconformists and Roman Catholics were fully re-
cognised, and due importance attached to them by the
Conference, it will be dlficult to discover in the re-
port a single expression upon which a charge of in-
tolerance can be grounded." This is high praise, and
justly merited. 'Pile proceedings were generally con-
ducted in an excellent spirit. The only very violent
proposition submitted to the meeting (calling upon
Dissenting electors to withhold their votes at next
election from every member who had supported the
increased grant to Maynooth) was rejected, after an ani-
mated but temperate discussion. The sober argumenta-
tive cast of the speeches, and the liberal spirit which they
breathe, form a beautiful contrast to the noisy and
intolerant declamation of Exeter Hall. We cannot
describe the pleasure with which we read the follow-
ing short address by the gentleman who seconded
the first resolution. Our readers will see that it em-
bodies the precise opinions we have expressed respect-
ing the Maynooth Bill, and the project of endo fling
the Catholic clergy. We wish those who charge the
Dissenters with narrow-minded bigotry would pe-
ruse it :
The Rev. THOMAS TOLLER, of Kettering, in se-
conding the resolution, said—This question, con-
cerning the grant to Maynooth College, has been to
me one of the most trying questions on which I
have ever been called to take any practical steps.
Holding, as 1 do, in common with my brethren, the
utter inadmissibility of all State endowments of reli-
gion, I have yet felt that, if' ever it would be safe
and innocent to depart from a great and sacred prin-
ciple, it would be so with respect to the proposed
grant to the College of Maynooth. When I con-
sider the gross injustice which has been inflicted on
my Catholic fellow-subjects in Ireland, especially in
connexion with the existence of an opulent and domi-
neering religious establishment in that country, I
cannot hut feel that, if it were proper that there
should be an endowed Church in the world, we
ought not merely to grant them the paltry 29,0001.,
but to transfer the whole of the ecclesiastical pro-
perty of Ireland to their hands. And having done
this, we should hare rendered them but a very mode-
rate compensation for the many acts of misrule
and oppression under which th y have for ages
groaned. There is a further ground on which I
should have been glad, if possible, to grant them
this endowment. I am persuaded it would be the
most effectual means of depriving their system of
all its moral power. If the voluntary principle be
right, then the most effectual way of putting down
the force and vital influence of any religious system
on the mind of its adherents is to endow that sys-
tem. Another consideration that made me reluc-
tant to join in opposition to the endowment of May-
nootli was this. I have some scruples with respect
to political agitation, and the convention of large
numbers, with a view to promote any particular
object we may have before us. Certainly I never
could have joined with those meetings that were
convened in another place (Exeter Hall) a short
time ago. I hold in the utmost abhorrence that
arrogant spirit which would expect that the Legis-
lature should withhold its patronage from the
Roman Catholics, just because we tell them that
the Roman Catholics are in error. This appears
to me to imply the assumption of infallibility. When
we endeavor to prove a thing, we depend, for pro-
ducing Conviction, upon the force of argument ;
when we merely assert it in strong terms, without
attempting to prove it, we rely, for producing the
effect we desire, upon the xveight of our personal or
collective authority. But how can we expect our
rulers to take for granted, on our bare dictum, that
we are certainly right and the Catholics wrong, unles
we suppose they will concede to us a claim to infalli-
bility ? If we are infallible, our assertion s.:fficient
proof that the opinions we disapprove are false ; but if
we are just as liable to be mistaken:is those whose opi-
nions we condemn, an impartial judge will, of course,
before he receives our dictum, compare the numbers and
other qualifications of the two parties. And, supposing
this rule to be followed, what appearance would the
evangelical bodies of England and elsewhere make,
in contrast to the vast body of the Roman Catholic
community ! I hold that all evangelical bodies, en-
dowed and unendowed, throughout the world, are
a small company, compared with the whole Catholic
church ; and, therefore, if mere authority is consi-
dered, the scale must decidedly preponderate in
favour of the presumption that truth is with the Ca-
tholics, and error with their opponents. So that,
I repeat it, unless we assume that we are infallible,
we cannot reasonably expect the Government to
withhold from Catholics any patronage which it is
fit to extend to religion at all, merely because we,
forsooth, pronounce their opinions erroneous. The
foregoing considerations would have led me, if a
great principle had not been at stake, to have sup-
ported rather than have opposed the endowment of
Maynooth. But high and sacred principles must
never be abandoned. No considerations of conve-
nience or expediency—no prospect of good or fear of
evil—can ever justify, or render consistent with an
enlarged prudence, a departure from them on any
occasion. Seeing, therefore, that such a principle
is involved in the question before us, I feel myself
compelled to resist a measure which assumes the right
of civil governments to apply public money to the en-
do wmentor religion. The resolution which has been put
into my hands by the committee exactly meets my
views on this subject. I apprehend that, in coming
forward with such a resolution, I shall purge myself
from the imputation of holding any sympathy with
those who oppose the grant simply on religious
grounds. It appears to me that the only intelligible
and solid principle on which we can go forth in oppo-
sition to the Maynooth grant is the Voluntary princi-
ple itself. This is the only ground that will stand
firm under us. We must go against all endowments
of religion, in every form, as offensive to God and
unjust to man. Were we to be silent with respect to
the endowment bestowed on the Episcopal Church in
England, and the Presbyterian Church in Scotland,
and to complain only of that now proposed for May-
nooth, it would be like expressing alarm at the ap-
pearance of a pimple on a man's face, when you know
there is a cancer which has been for years preying
on his vitals."
That our readers may be in a condition to appre•
date the speech, we subjoin the resolution in support
of which it was delivered:—
" That this Conference view with serious appre-
hension and unqualified disapproval, the Bill feu the
permanent endowment of Maynooth College, recently,
submitted to Parliament by her Majesty's Govern-
ment, and now proposed for a third reading in the
House of Commons; that, differing widely, as they
are well known to do, in religious faith and worship
from those of their fellow-subjects whom this measure
is professedly framed to conciliate, and attaching to
such difference the highest importance, they feel it
the more incumbent upon them to declare that they
would not on this account withhold from others a
single advantage which they should justly claim or
accept for themselves at the hands of the Impe-
rial Legislature ; that looking to the circumstances
which obviously suggested the Bill, and to the
avowed opinion of many of its warmest supporters,
they are compelled to regard it as a cautious but de-
liberate approach towards the establishment of the
Roman Catholic Church in Ireland ; that, in their
judgment, the alliance of the civil power with any
form or forms of religion, and, as the fruit of that
alliance, the support by compulsory enactments of
religious teachers of any denomination, are dan-
gerous to the liberty of the subject, subversive of the
of
rights of conscience, prejudicial to the cause
Christianity, and offensive to God; that, under nderthis
conviction, they record their solemn protest against
the Protestant church establishments already exist-
ing in these realms, as well as against every grant
Of public money for ecclesiastical purposes ; and that
seeing in the Maynooth Endowment Bill a further
extension of a principle, every embodiment of which
they hold to be detrimental to the best interests of
the empire, they pledge themselves to make every
legitimate effort to prevent its being passed into 8
law,

It is reported that Captain Sir Thomas Hastings
(lou thS3O),
wills now Captain of the Excellent, gunnery skip at Ports.
m,Mr. Bonham as Storekeeper-General of the
Ordnance Department. Sir Thomas is a distinguished war-officer;
his services have been much in requisition by the departraents in
all matters connected with the Ordnance since he has been at the
head of gunnery instruction on board the Excellent.