The Sun.
London, England, 1845-06-03 00:00:00

ening ciiins

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Five.
The LORD CHANCELLOR announced that Mr. UDR's-
coLL had been dismissed from the commission of the
peace in Ireland.

The Duke of WELLINGTON moved the second reading
of the Maynooth Bill.
The Duke of CAMBRIDGE supported it as one of the
most conciliating measures that had ever been introduced
into the House.

The Earl of RODEN moved, as an amendment, the ap-
pointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the na-
ture of the instruction given at Maynooth.
A long debate ensued, in the course of which their Lord-
ships were addressed by the Bishop of LONDON, the Earl
of St. GERMANS, the Duke of MANCHESTER, Lord BEAU-
MONT, and the Bishop of CASHEL, and eventually the
debate was adjourned at one o'clock.
The House of Commons met at Four o'Clock.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, in answer to
Mr. P. M. STEWART, said it was the intention of the
Government to commit the Scottish Banking Bill pro
forma, for the purpose of making some trifling altera-
tions, and to take the discussion on a future day.
The adjourned debate on the Academical Institutions
(Ireland) Bill was then resumed by Mr. MILxEs, who
expressed his regret at the course pursued by the Roman
Catholic clergy of Ireland, and his approval of the Go-
vernment measure.

Lord J. RUSSELL al3O supported the measure,
although he believed it stood much in need of im-
provement ; but in the hope that it could be improved
in Committee, he should vote for the second reading.
The House was afterwards addressed by Mr. A.
HOPE, Mr. V. STEWART, Mr. HAMILTON, Captain B.
OSBORNE, Mr. GLADSTONE, Mr. WYSE, Mr. ACLAND,
Mr. MORE O'FERRALL, Sir It. PEEL, and Mr. M. J.
O'CONNELL. The House then divided when the motion
for the second reading was carried by a majority of 265.

So much has been said and written about the May-
nooth Bill, that we believe most readers are heartily tired
of the subject, but the new features which the question
assumed last evening by the appearance of two Bishops
in opposition to it, and the very grave effect produced in
Ireland by the hostility of certain Churchmen and
sectaries in this country, require a few observations.
One of the first fruits of that hostility was the enthusi-
astic, national, and, to not a few, alarming display exhi-
bited in Dublin on Saturday. On no one point is ame
tion so sensitive as on that of religion, because it is justly
held sacred, because it is the choice of the people, and is
a matter not between statesmen of different countries,
but between man and his CREATOR. Could it be expected,
therefore, that the Irish—a jealous and excitable people—
would remain apathetic amidst insults heaped upon their
faith, and their venerated priests and prelates, not only
by sectarians who differ from each other, but by
Churchmen, who recognise the Catholic Church
as their head, and are anxious to be again
joined with it in communion? This is a fact which
can admit of no dispute. Popery has already made
great inroads upon the English Protestant Church :
the Primate and a large proportion of the Bishops are
believed to be strongly infected with the errors of
PUSEY and NEWMAN, and the open and decided measures
adopted by the Bishops of LONDON and EXETER leave
no doubt whatever that they are cordial believers in
these errors ; yet Dr. BLOMFIELD last night denounced
the Catholic religion in the strongest terms, as if he
were a Protestant of the purest character. "He had
pledged himself," he said, " by solemn and awful words
to discountenance and drive away all strange and false
doctrines, and he could not consistently vote for the
maintenance of an institution, the express object of
which was to propagate error." Yet good Protestants
consider the Puseyite doctrines both " strange and
false." Mr. WARD and others denounce the Reforma-
tion as a great crime ; the Bishop of LONDON,
both in charges to his clergy, and the new formulas
which he recommends, gives every countenance to these
strange and false doctrines, yet now he holds himself up
as a mirror of ecclesiastical perfection, and loads the
Irish Catholic prelates with reproaches for their errors
and heresies. But another more important reason
seemed to sway the pious Bishop's mind. The measure
would lead to the establishment of two antagonistic
churches, and to thesendowment of all religious systems.
The plunder of the old Catholic Church he therefore
feared would be divided, and consequently his share
would be less; and how did this subtle and Jtsuitical
Churchman get over the difficulty about Canada ? In
that colony a religion full of errors and heresies was
established by Act of Parliament, with the consent of
the Episcopal bench, but that gives no offence to the
conscientious prelate; the division of the spoil in that
distant land cannot affect the English Church,
but nevertheless it establishes two antagonistic churches
or more, and therefore is liable to the more weighty ob-
jections for which a ban is pronounced against May-
nooth. Not a word is said against liberal grants to
Canada and Malta for the support of Popery, be-
cause, says this peace-maker, " they were conquered
countries," and Ireland is therefore to be treated worse
than a conquered country. If the object of this Right
Rev. Father in God were to drive the Irish nation to
madness, he could not use more forcible and more appro-
priate language. Does this agree with the injunctions
of that sacred volume to which, with uplifted eyes, he so
often appeals ? Can he insult and provoke the inhabi-
tants of the sister island and at the same time
sing with the Psalmist— " How good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity !"
We turn with delight from such religious bigotry to the
language used by the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, contrasting,
t-o, so nobly with that of his late brother, the Duke of
YORK, and to the just and humane sentiments expressed
by the Duke of WELLINGTON, who told the House, with
his usual frankness, that there was no religion in the
question, but a great Christian principle.

Another awful catastrophe, occurring between one and
two o'clock on Sunday morning last, has added a new
testimony to the scandalous neglect of all precautionary
protection against accidents by fire, which it seems to be
a point of honour with all the authorities of the metro-
polis, municipal as well as parochial, to maintain. The
scene of this calamity was in Fenchurch-street—one of
the most t:ensely-crowded districts of the City, where
the accumulation of houses is so excessive that one's only
wonder is how the thriftiness of City-ownership can so
long have tolerated the existence of many spacious and
even magnificent mansions, fitted for the accommodation
of a civic aristocracy which had not yet grown too
proud to live " within the walls," but which in these
altered times occupy, with their marble-floored halls, and
their oaken staircases, and their spacious landings, so