The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-05 00:00:00

ntwii7'k• in

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 5, 1845.

Fo- what are the It ish to be thankful ? For insults,
calumnies, and disamoiated hopes. There is an excep-
tion-26,0001. to the College of Maynooth. This, say
their enemies, ought to satisfy all their cravings and
make them the most grateful and obedient people in
existence. But even this grant is not to be made with-
out a display most offensive to the nation and disgrace.
ful to humanity. A Tory Government proposes a heal-
ing measure. Any other Government might have tried
the experiment, but the experiment would have failed. The
Tories were blamed, and we blamed them among others, for
their harsh proceedings towards the Irish nation—for
withholding their just rights—for treating them as
slaves—for calumniating their religion, and making
them aliens and outcasts in the first empire of civilised
Europe, which they had ennobled by their deeds. A
Tory Government has admitted the grievous error—it
wishes to make atonement, and begins with a grant
about one half in amount of what is given to the Pres-
byterians of the North. But the amount is nothing in
the question ; the principle is everything ; and in what
a miserable plight does principle appear. In the esti-
mates for the present year arc the following grants :—For
the Professors of Oxford and Cambridge—the richest
Universities in the world-2,0061. ; Universities in Scot-
land, 7,3801. ; University of London, 4,540/. ; Public
Education in Great Britain, 75,000/. ; British Museum,
100,277/. ; and other items of the same amount for ob-
jects of education to Catholics as well as Protestants,
but when a Tory Government proposes a grant, nct a
new grant, to Maynooth—simply an increase of 17,0001.
for the education of some 2,000 priests to administer the
consolation of religion to 7,000,000 of our fellow-sub-
jects—many Protestants who bad been petitioning the
same Tory Governent for years to obtain a boon for
themselves, in the shape of a remission of church-rates,
exclaim in the most violent language against the measure,
as if it were a crime of unspeakable enormity. The
Irish Catholics remember, though others forget, the
circumstance, that the Protestants of the north of
Ireland, who are as good Christians, and hate establish-
: ments as much as the Dissenters of Yorkshire and Lat.-
cashire, are silent as death on the subject. Their

principles cause no compunction of conscience
in this instance; they are thankful for what
they receive, and let principles look to themselves. The
Church of Scotland, which receives a bounty of 10,0001.
a year, is equally silent, and both these classes of reli-

gionists would consider it a grievous insult if they were

denounced by any body of Christians as less consistent,
less holy, and less alive to the great principles of the
Reformed faith, than the Wesleyans, and Anabaptists,
and Independents. These are facts, and cannot be dis-
puted. They cannot escape the notice of Irish Catholics;
and when they look to the ample provision made
for the Catholic:worship in every colony belonging to the
British empire, have they any grounds to be thankful
for such a miserable pittance as this Maynooth grant,
accompanied, as it is, with every possible insult from
numerous bodies of Englishmen ? They are calum-
niated in Parliament and out of Parliament. The very
Government journals, or journals that assume the name,
brand them with infamy. English liberal journals, that
once advocated their cause, have turned against them
when there is a chance of success; and only two London
papers adhere to their principles, and prefer honourable
conduct to every consideration. For what then are the
Catholics of Ireland to be thankful ? The proposed
grant which has caused such violent denunciations
against Popery, and.almost everything Irish, is the most
insignificant trifle imaginable when compared with
their just demands. The Protestant Establishment
of course cannot be touched. Were a mea-
sure brought forward for destroying that mon-
ster" grievance in a Catholic community, possibly the
Dissenters would be quiet; but would Sir ROBERT INGLIS
and his party, or the Church of England, show the same
forbearance? The present commotion convinces the Catho-
lics that they have no hopes from the great body of Eng-
lishmen, and that they must work out their own freedom.
This is the real ground of the dissatisfaction. On re-
ceiving the first intelligence of the favourable change
evinced in the minds of Sir ROBERT PEEL and Sir JainEs
GRAHAM they expressed unbounded gratitude, and anti-
cipated that this was only a beginning of justice, but the
vile attacks upon their religion, and the unconquerable
enmity displayed towards them by Englishmen, have
blasted their hopes, and almost driven them to de-
spair. They wish to see their beloved SOVEREIGN
among them, but they cannot repress their in
dignation, and will not welcome her in chains. They
have the spirit of freemen, and, if they acted otherwise,
they would not deserve the name. Neither Scotsmen
nor Englishmen would have submitted to such oppres-
sion as the Irish have suffered fur one year without
bloodshed, and the Irish have now submitted patiently
fur half a century, praying, and petitioning, and begging,
for their rights in vain. When a paltry offer is
made by their old enemies, their old friends
rebel against it, and, because they resent the in-
sult, they are called ungrateful, and denounced
as men that deserve no favour. Can we
blame them for cr)ing out for repeal? They show a
spirit which every impartial Englishman admires.
The universal shout raised for liberty iii America
found a response in this country which sealed
the independence of the vigorous young colony, and
Ireland may rest assured that, notwithstanding the
present lowerings in the political and religious horizon
Englishmen will yet be true to their character, and
side with the oppressed.

It was once a proverb of approved truth that "ex-
amples teach where precepts fail." This proverb has
outlived its reputation among us. Every day furnishes
fresh and signal evidences of the fruitless influence of
examples—in all their elements of the most impressive
character—to read any lesson of wisdom to the preju-
dices of bigotry. But the case briefly put by Mr.
RUTHERFORD, on Thursday night, in his wise, tempe-
rate, and philosophical speech, on moving for leave to
bring in a " Bill to regulate the admission to lay or
secular chairs in the Universities of Scotland," deve-
lopes this perverse insensibility to experience in a way
that one should fain hope must prove irresistible from
its truthfulness. It is really wonderful to note the
timidity of modern statesmen about putting themselves
at the head of, and thereby guiding and controlling,
great movements of public opinion, instead of vainly
attempting to erect dams against them, constructed with
the crumbling masonry of obsolete prejudices; or apa-
thetically looking on, inactive spectators of the for-
midable current which sets right in upon their imaginary
seat of refuge, and, if not diverted by timely and active
exertions to divert its course into some new channel,
must sweep them in its headlong impulse to destruction.
The very Ministers who in their own persons have so
often encountered this peril, and have seen their less for-
tunate predecessors in office actually overwhelmed
through their want of alacrity in meeting it, seem
already to have forgotten both the magnitude of the
hazard and the miracle of their former escapes from it.
'('hey deferred the repeal of the 'rest and Corporation
Acts till the just indignation of the Msenting body
all denominations throughout the United Kingdom con-
vulsed the Established Church to its very foundations; and
they postponed the relief of the Roman Catholic disa•
bilities until that delay of justice had almost produced a
severance of the empire. In the same manner they
seem inclined to treat the general feeling of Scotland
upon that system of subscription tests which it has bee❑
actually attempted to enforce against one of the pro-
foundest professors of natural philosophy whom our age
has produced, to the extent of expelling him from
the chair he fills in that capacity. To the de-
mands of such a feeling, so reasonable, so just,
in itself, there can be little doubt but that ultimately
the present Government, strong though it be, must suc-
cumb. The mischief is that they will probably refuse
to comply with it, until compliance will have lost not
only the grace, but the preonce of favour; and the most
serious mischiefs of disunion and decay shall have, in

consequence, overtaken those time-honoured and admi-
rable institutions, the universities of Scotland.
Mr. RUTHERFCRD showed that, by the Acts of 1619
and 1707, it was declared that no parties should be
capable of filling any office in the universities of Scot-
land, without having first taken the oath of allegiance,
subscribed the " Declaration or Confession of Faith,"
and signed a formula submitting themselves to the dis-
cipline of the Presbytery. The Right Hon. and Learned
Gentleman bad good reason to say that these Acts had
never been enforced in all the universities, nor, in their
universal bearing, at any one of them. Let us pause,
for a moment, to reflect how irreparable a loss the
world of science and discovery would have sustained had
the revelations and researches of such minds as HUTTON'S
and DALTON'S depended on their implicit acceptance
of formalised dogmas as old as the " Solemn League
and Covenant." As inconsistency in practice is always
the concomitant of an attempt to establish the uniformity
of arbitrary rules, the requirements of these Acts have
followed that law of moral compensation. In some of
the Universities of Scotland they are enforced only as to
the Professors ; in others only to the office-bearers.
Could there be devised a more logical proof of their
combined impropriety and inefficiency, than this fact?
In what respect can the air of Edinburgh modify the
necessity which exists in the Marischal College at Aber-
deen for an office-bearer to sign the formula and sub-
scribe that declaration? If it be necessary for a Pro-
fessor at Glasgow to submit himself to the discipline of
the Presbytery, and attest, by his subscription, a Decla-
ration of Faith, how comes that obligation to cease when
you are within 11 ach of the breeze that blows off the
Frith of Forth? Or, take the converse of these liabili-

ties ;—place Edinburgh in the room of Aberdeen, or
Glasgow in that of Edinburgh—is the discrepancy one
whit the less ridiculous? But here is the fatal fact:
the absurdity is not only recognised, but consecrated by
the usage; and not only is the usage consecrated, but it
is exacted under penalties no less severe than the lia-

bility to forfeiture and expulsion, in case of refusal to
comply with such exaction. We learn from Mr.
RUTHERFORD that in the University of Edinburgh,
which has certainly produced the most distinguished
men, this notable law has long been in abeyance, and
never enforced at all against any lay professor. His
object, ricrefore, was to do away, by his Bill, with the
necessity, fur th© future, of any lay professor's signing
either the Confession of Faith, or the formula of suh-

mission to the Presbytery, not touching merely the
theological chairs, but applying this provision and pro-
tection to those only devoted to literature and science.
Whilst he felt it might be very necessary that those
youths who were being brought up to the Established
Church should be instructed in divinity, according to the
doctrine and rule of that Church, by teachers who were
bound by that rule and doctrine, he did not see the ne-
cessity for a similar restriction as to those other teachers
who had nothing to do with divinity. It is honour-
able to the Scottish professors that a large majority of
them at all the Universities had expressed their con-
current wish that the requirements in question should
be done away with. If it be not, as Mr. RUTIIER-
FORD argued, carried, the Universities must break
up as fearfully as the Church is breaking. Exclusive
tests will work over again their old results in the
destruction of the tyranny and folly which exact them;
the tyranny and the folly which, a year ago, were not
ashamed to do their utmost to oust Sir DAVID BREWSTER
from St. Andrews, "as if (as it was well said) he had
not distinguished the college ten times as much as the
college could have distinguished him." We close with
the most pithy anecdote we have met with for some time,
for the digestion of your unyielding, uncompromising,
unreasoning advocates of the exclusive beauty and bene-
ficence of Church Establishments, and who denounce as
timidity and folly all concessions to—all conciliation of
Dissent. The Episcopalian sections of the Scottish
people comprise, professedly, the wealthiest landowners
and proprietors in Scotland. Some years ago they were
eager to establish an Episcopalian College, but up to
this time have not been able, with all their exertions, to
collect more than 18,000 L in all that time for such a pur-
pose. What have those done who have separated from
the Established Church ? They were anxious to found
a College for their body. They asked, were there not
enough among them who could subscribe 1,0001. each ?
In less than three weeks 22,000 L were subscribed by
twenty-two individuals, who were principals in this sepa-
ration. We add no comment on the fact.

Madrid journals of the 27th ult. have been received.
On that day a grand levee was held at the Palace, which
was numerously attended. The concordat, it is said.
will be signed on the 27th at Rome, and on the same day
M. CASTILLO will officially present to the PoPE his cre-
dentials as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See.
Thus the relations between Spain and the Court of Rome
may be considered as entirely re-established. •
The QUEEN was expected to leave Madrid for Barce-
lona about the 12th instant.

The Three per Cents were done on the Madrid Bourse
on the 26th ult. at 35i, at sixty days; the Five per Cents.
at 25i, at sixty days ; and the Debt without interest,
at 8i at sixty days.

The Paris papers are chiefly occupied with the cere-
monies observed on the occasion of the Kisio'sfite, and
the debate in the Chamber of Deputies on the Jesuits.
The PoPE's Nuncio, in the name of the Diplomatic
Body, presented an address to his Majesty, in which
he said :—" Your constant efforts, with those of other
Sovereigns for the maintenance of order and peace, will
continue to merit the benediction of Heaven." To
which the KING replied :—" I receive with lively sa-
tisfaction the congratulations you bring to me in the
name of the Diplomatic Body. I rejoice with you
that my constant efforts, so happily in accordance
with those of the other Sovereigns, have contributed
to maintain the peace of the world. GOD will con-
tinue to bless them, and I have the fullest
confidence that we are destined to a long enjoyment of
this great good, which is so previous for all na-
tions. lam affected by those wishes, the expression of
which I love to receive through you, and I thank you
for the sentiments you testify for the prosperity of
France and the happiness of my family." To the
address of the Archbishop of PARIS, in his name and
that of the clergy, he made the following reply :
" 11,Iy first desire is, as you know, that religion should be
surrounded with all the veneration that is due to it. This
is it at once the duty of kings and the interest of mankind.
I take pleasure in acknowledging how greatly the wisdom of
the clergy of Paris has oftentimes seconded ine in this great
task. Brought up under its eyes, lam happy in testifying
to it the remembrance of this, which I preserv-e, and to thank
it for the sentiments and good wishes which you in its name
have expressed for my family and for myself."
On Friday M. TntEas made a speech in the Chamber
of Deputies relative to the Jesuits and the affairs of the
Church, which lasted for two hours, and was listened to
with deep attention by a full House and a most crowded
audience. At the conclusion he called upon the
Cabinet to execute the laws, and dissolve a religious
congregation. which was the sole cause of the divisions
that had lately manifested themselves in the Catholic
community. The Minister of Public Worship
admitted that the laws of the kingdom authorised
the dissolution of all congregations existing without the
sanction of the Government, but though the Govern-
ment had such a power, the :present was not a fit case
for its application. " The Jesuits had acted imprudently;
but it could not be seriously pretended that public tran-
quillity would be perilled unless the order was dispersed.
The clergy, he regretted, had imprudent friends in the
Chamber, who wished it to believe that any step taken
against the Jesuits would be the commencement of,
measures against the Church in general ; but it
might be certain that the State would ever
consider its protection a sacred duty." M. DUPIN
maintained that the law, until repealed, ought to be
carried into effect. " The POPE: himself had not hesitated
to declare the order a dangerous body. The Govern-
ment knew its duty, but it could not fulfil it without the
aid of the Chamber ; religion was honoured in France,
but only religion as represented by her bishops and
curt a, and the cutting off from it such eccentrities as
the Jesuits, would go far to strengthen its cause."
The Chamber then rose, and, at the sitting on Satur-
day, the discussion was resumed by M. BERRYER, who
contended that such laws did not exist ; " but," conti •
nued the speaker, " what I wish to demonstrate is the
incredible extent to which such a principle might be
carried—what I claim is she plenitude of the right of
the Catholic Church—what I ask is whether our Govern-
ment be strong, enlightened, and honest enough to en•
lure the liberty that exists in England and in the United
States? And since I have just named England, remember
what has just passed in that country. In England there
is an established religion, and the Prime Minister of
England has just demanded and obtained a grant for
the maintenance and extension of a religion differing
from that predominating religion. 'This is liberty in its
plentitude.—(Clamour and interruptions.) The question
of the Catholic congregations is eminently connected by
the Catholics with the liberty of conscience, and to the
free exercise of their worship. With them a cloistered
life is a pass to perfection. To suppress it is to attack
their liberty. But let us not talk of dogmas." The
Attorney-General rose to reply, and was left speaking.
The following summary of the opinion of the press on
this subject appears in Galignanrs Messenger :
" The Dibats gives credit to M. Thiers for the moderation
that he displayed, and says it will not suspect him of having
brought forward this subject with a view to annoy the Go-
vernment. The ' clear and explicit ' declarations of the
Minister of Justice in reply to M. Thiers, must, says the

Debats, be regarded as satisfactory on this question. 'lf
the Ministry would wish to retract, it cannot. That the ex-
istence of the Jesuits in France is illegatis a point which no
longer admits of doubt.' The Globe says it agrees with M.
Thiers in thinking that the Jesuits are dangerons to public
tranquillity, but not on the same grounds as lie has taken.
The Jesuits are dangerous, says the Globe, because the people
dislike theni, and, therefore, are estranged from the
.clergy. The Constitutionnel gives a glowing account of the
speech of the ex-President of the Council and of the effect
that it produced. Of the speech of the Minister of Justice, it
observes that it is difficult to understand what he really
means, but he seemed to promise that a negotiation for the
shutting up of the Jesuit establishments in France should be
entered upon with the Pope, and that whatever should be the
issue of that negotiation the French Government would not
the less adopt the measure in question. The Courrier
Francais said the speech of M. Thiers displayed a seriousness
and moderation which were in good taste. It was one of the
most remarkable .4)2eches, says the Courrier, that M.
Thiers ever pronounced; as to the Minister of Justice, never
did he make a more wretched effort to produce effect.'
The National repeats its arguments against the Je-
-1 suits as a political body, and as forming the corps d'elite
of the army of counter revolutionists, of which it has so fre-
quently spoken, and expresses the highest admiration of the
way in which the attack was made upon them by M. 'Thiers,
who, it says, constantly commanded the silence, and capti-
vated the attention of the Chamber. The Quotidienne and
the France believe, or wish to make the public believe, that
the speech of M. Thiers was a failure. The Quotidienn',
after alluding to the sensation which the announcement of
this attack upon the Jesuits had produced, and the exces-
sively crowded state of every part of the Chamber of Depu-
ties to which the public are admitted, says—' A drama was
expected, but M. Thiers with his little face and croaking
voice disenchanted the brilliant crowd.' "

The French Funds on Saturday were more firm.
The Three per Cents. closed at 85f. 75c. ; the Five per
Cents. at 120 f. 60c. ; Orleans Shares, 1,200 f. ; Rouen,

1,075 f. ; Havre, 860 f. ; Avignon, 1,005 f. ; Basle, 272 f.
50c. ; Belgian Two-and-a-Half per Cents., 62f. ; Spa-
nish Actives, 401 ; ditto, Three per Cents., 42 ; ditto,