The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-10-04 00:00:00

SPORTING INTBLLIGNCII.

MANCHESTER, TUESDAY EVENING.
Since the return of the leading turf gentlemen from the
shores of the Mersey, we have had quite a dearth of busi•
ness ; so much so, that we cannot make any comment upon
the following limited transactions :

THE ILOSTYN STAKES.-(TUESDAY NEXT.)
6 to 4 against The Lord Mayor—take 2 to 1.
4 to 1, " bar one." offered at noon.
There was not one bet laid on this event this evening, nor
upon any other.

THE DERBY.
16 to 1 offered on the field.
100 to 5 against Brother to Euclid (t)
300 to 10 „ Fitzroy (t)
100 to 4 „ Launcelot (t)
1000 to 50 ~ Glenorchy (t)
500 to 15 ~ Perseus (t)
The field v. any twelve offered for a couple of hundreds in a
sterling quarter ; or 200 to 2 against naming the Derby,
Oaks, and St. Leger winners.

TH3 OAKS.
4 to 1 on the field.
WWWMAKET ST. LEGER.
3 to 1 against Flambeau (take 4).

Tna LIVERPOOL MZZTINGS.—The stewards elect are
Lord George Bentinck, Lord Sefton, and Sir R. Bulkeley,
Bart. ; not Lord Stanley, as stated in Bell's Life in London.

A TRUE PICTURE OF POPERY.

In the year 1825, the Rev. J. Wilcox, an English clew-
man, preached a visitation sermon, in which the following
pertinent remarks appear, with reference to the ferocity and
ambiguous spirit of Popery. Warmly interested in maintain-
ing and defending the protestant ascendancy, he was equally
opposed to Papal emancipation. Danger was pressing, and
he could not hold his peace, when he saw the enemy at the
very gates. Let our readers mark well what he says .
Where shall we look for cruelty so barbarous, so relent-
less in its execution, and so sanguinary in its vengeance, as
that which inthe 15th and 16th centuries impurpled Christen-
dom? Witness the carnage that deluged with Protestant
blood the peaceful vallies of the Waldenses! Testify the re-
morseless fury of the whore of Babylon, which converted the
fertile plains of Gaul into one vast scene of slaughter ! Nor
age, nor sex, nor rank escaped the massacre, till the demons
of destruction ceased their murders for lack of victims ! But
need we traverse foreign climes to prove the incursion of
grievous wolves among the flock ? Oh no ! not a town, nor
city, nor county in Britain, nor scarcely a village in this, but
contains the ashes of some who perished under papal cruelty.
Our brother's blood still crieth from the ground. Had the
stones of Ipswich or the fields of Suffolk powers of speech,
what tales of horror would not assail our ears I We are told
however, that the danger is past ; the wolf has ceased to de-
vour ; the serpent to sting ; the Romanist is no longer what
he was. And is credulity so infatuated, and shall delusion
thus blind our eyes ? That the snake is scotched, not killed,
that the beast is curbed, not changed, is the utmost I dare
believe. Of liberty civil and religious I profess myself the
advocate ; but it is the liberty which allows to others what it
claims itself; it is liberty not licentiousness. What more
can the members of the Church of Rome demand? what
more can a Protestant government safely bestow ? Not the
unrestricted rights of conscience, these they already have :
every one may worship under his own vine and fig tree, none
making him afraid. Power to rule as with a rod of iron, power
to oppress as it ever has done, when possessed, those who
have separated from their communion ; this is the object of
their pursuit ; give them everything, this excepted, and they
will be restless still; grant them only this, and the blood of
martyrs will flow again. How are the voice of history and
the evidence of experience now disregarded ! Reason is
cried down by clamour, and to be a consistent Protestant is
now stigmatised as intolerant bigotry. Pardon the warmth,
which cannot be suppressed ; the present is not a contest for
words, or forms, or trifles. Pro aria et foci*. AU that is
dear, as Christians, we are now required to abandon for ever.
And mark how the danger thickens. Some of the most
strenuous advocates for disseminating the light of revelation,
are become the supporters of that very body, which systema-
tically opposes its spread ; and the marvellous anomaly is
seen in this our day, of the professors of the Gospel of Christ
making common cause with men, who openly avow their be-
lief that all religions are alike. What are we to think, when
not only Protestant laity, but even ministers of our Protes-
tant Church are seen mingling their requests with the Roman-
ists themselves, that the safeguards of our establishment may
be removed, that the barriers erected by our forefathers at
the expense of vast sufferings and life-lood may be beaten
down—may he revolutionised. Who can reflect on these
portentous signs without remembering,

Quos Dens vult perdere, prius dementat.
To grant the Papists what they claim, and many claim for
them, as emancipation (a term which is clearly a misnomer,
which,nieans nothing else but admission to power and author-
ity,) seems irreconcileable with wisdom, either human or di-
vine. It is an essential principle of Popery, however disguised
by some, or lost sight of by others, to tolerate none who are
not of that Church; and the grant of power to them till this
principle be disavowed by bishops, &c. in the most full and
unequivocal language, is to liberate lions, because they have
been harmless when not at liberty : and the event, should
this emancipation be fully conceded, will be, that the power
thus obtained will be used in the persecution of those who
gave it, as soon as it has acquired the proper measure of con-
solidation. If the advocates for this measure in our land,
should they prove successful, do not themselves live to feel
this, their posterity, I can have no doubt, will know it by de-
plorable experience."
The prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter.