The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-11-16 00:00:00

specified there that has not again and again been carried
into effect by the Church of Rome. (Hear, hear.)
In order to make out my case, I must now give a few
general statements. You have all heard of the Albigenses
and the Waldenses. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
You have no doubt heard how Mahommed gained vic-
tories by the fanaticism of his soldiers, created by his
making them believe that those who died in battle earned
an immediate passage to Heaven. The Pope also gave
indulgences to those who fell in Palestine ; and on the same
grounds he granted absolution to those who fell fighting
against the Waldenses. A large army was thus collected
together, and the Waldenses, driven to the last resource,
—for while it was death on the field of battle, it was worse
if they fell into the hands of Pope's mercenaries, in which
case the gibbet and the stake awaited them,—flew to the
mountains, and defended themselves in the best mode
they could. You may judge of the slaughter when Ber-
trand, the Papal legate, writing to the Pope, implored
him to put a stop to the struggle, as no less than 300,000
soldiers of the Papal army had fallen in the effort to exter-
minate the Waldenses. If such was the slaughter of the
troops on those blood-stained fields, what must have been
the amount of destruction upon men, women, and
helpless children. (Hear, hear, hear.) Then I do
not need to ask von whether you remember the
massacre of St. Bartholomew. Now, the unsuspect-
ing French Protestants were beguiled tothe capital, where,
under the darkness of midnight, the work of destruction
began, and how faithfully it was executed. (Cries of
" Shame.") One man afterwards boasted that he had
slain 400, and another that he had murdered 150.
(Sensation.) Nor was this an act performed unsolicited.
The. Church of Rome was identified with the massacre ;
for, when the news of the slaughter reached Rome, the
7'e Deem was sung, a grand procession was held at St.
13,ter's, and Pope Gregory had a medal struck in
commemoration of God's kindness for ridding France of
100,000 Protestants. (Great sensation). What does
Cardinal Wiseman say about this act of butchery ?
I should have thought the word " Bartholomew" would
freeze upon his lip ; but he comes to the capital of this
Protestant country, and states that it was, after all, a
question—the Protestants should kill the Papists, or the
Papists the Protestants. (Laughter.) I ask whether
the members ; whether the character; whether the
creed of the Protestants justifies this assertion ?
(Loud cries of "No.") Taken in connection with
the question, the principles of the Church of
Rome, and the whole proceeding was consistent with
its tenets and practices. Ar.d again, if we come to
England, our own land, we find the Spanish Armada,
with respect to which we are told that " no harm was
done." There was no thanks to the Pope for that.—
(Laughter.) There were one hundred and thirty ships
in that expedition, twelve of them being called after the
names of the Twelve Apostles. There were on board 100
priests and jesuits, with Cardinal Allen at their head. Be-
fore the expedition sailed, the Pope blessed the banners :
and when they returned, foiled by Him who holds the winds
in his grasp, Philip demanded of the Pope his share of the
expenditure incurred. His Holiness refused to advance
the money ; and Philip reproached him, telling him that
it was in consequence of his urgent requests that he
fitted out the expedition. This shows the true spirit of
the Papacy, in its antagonistic form against Protestan-
tism. (Hear, hear.) You have all no doubt read about
a certain thing which took place on the sth November—
(laughter)—called the gunpowder plot. (Renewed laugh-
ter.) You have no doubt heard Roman Catholics say
that they had nothing to do with that. But there was
a certain Jesuit named Garnett—(hear, hear)—who had
to do with it, and he was executed for it, and that Jesuit
is now worshipped as a saint, and his name is enrolled in
the calendar of that Church which appears to eschew the
deed of the sth of November. (Cheers.) Then we might
go across the Irish Channel ; and I might tell you of the
days of 1641, when 150,000 Protestants were massacred,
the priests exciting the people to the bloody deed, by
telling them that the Protestants were worse than dogs,
that they served the devil, and that, therefore, killing them
was a meritorious act. and a rare preventative against
heresy. (Loud and indignant cries of " Shame.") _ _

Time will not allow us to go into the history of the
Holy Inquisition. That tribunal, instituted for the ex-
press rurpose " of forcing heretics to return to the body
of the Catholic church, and punish the contumacious
with all canonical pains," officially sanctioned by Inno-
cent 111., Honorions IV., and other Popes, and the ar-
ranging of the details of which constituted the principal
business of the Council of Toulouse, and the decretals of
Gregory IX.,—that holy tribunal, which Paul IV., the
Vicar of the Saviour and the Prince of Peace, commended
to the Church with his dying breath, " as the best means
of destroying heresy, and the chief support of the Pa-
pacy." I shall not detain you with its mode of proce-
dure in the investigation of charges against accused per-
sons, nor with its sickening details. I shall only make
the statement which I feel satisfied will meet with a re-
sponse hi every breast, that the case of the Madiai, in all
its flagrancy, sinks into utter insignificance at the very
mention of the Holy Inquisition. (Hear, hear.)

We shall now take a very brief view of THE PRESENT
TIMES. We may be told, probably. that the periods we
have just been considering were the dark ages of the
Church. The following quotation from a speech delivered
by the Rev. Mr. Noble, of this town, in the Music-hall,
on the 17th March last, will best inform the Protestant
public in what light Romanists are taught to regard these
dark times. Speaking of these very periods, he thus ex-
presses himself, " called, perhaps miscalled, the middle
ages, certainly not the dark ages of the Church."
The Church of Rome cannot change, and she has
not changed. Look to Portugal, and learn her spirit
from Dr. Kelley and Madena. Look to Spain, and you
will see by the late concordat with the Pope, that that
kingdom, for the present at least, is, as it were, hermeti-
cally sealed against the Bible and liberty of conscience.
Look to Italy, and Count Giuciardini, the Madiai, and
multitudes of others, will be the reply. Look to Ireland,
poor, unhappy, priest-ridden Irelan I, the land of my birth,
and, with all its faults, of my warmest affections. Thank
God, a great work isgoing on there. (Cheers.) Conversions
are taking place, not by units, but in numbers, as a meeting
in another place on this evening will, doubtless, prove;
but it will also prove that the persecuting spirit of Popery
is not yet dead. True, we hear much of " soup and meal
converts," and many Protestants appear as if they believed
it. All I can say is, they know little of what the poor
converts must encounter, who encourage such a calumny.
Job says, "All that a man hath will he give for his life;"
but if he had lived in the present day, and believed the
reports which Romanists give of Irish conversions, he
might have said with much more force, •' All that a man
bath, friends, freedom, social intercourse, yea his very life
itself, and 'after death his immortal soul, will he give, for
soup and meal." (Laughter.)
Have you ever heard a priest's curse ? if not, go to
Ireland and you will hear it from many an altar, north,
south, east, and west. Have you ever seen a perfect pic-
ture of misery ? Go and see the object of that curse; his
oldest, and nearest, and best beloved friends, will
neither speak to him, nor eat, nor work with him,
and if they meet him in a market or fair, they
fly from him. as they would from the very devil
incarnate. These are not flights of fancy, but hard
facts—not in the burning sands of Africa, but in the
glens of Antrim—not under the ignorance of the fifteenth
century, but in the light and intelligence of the nine-
teenth—not told on a missionary platform, but sworn to
in the Court of Assize, in the year 1846, by credible wit-
nesses, before a respectable jury, who gave a verdict
against a priest of the Church of Rome for seventy pounds
damages and costs, thus proving that in the United King-
dom and in the present times there is such a thing as a
priest's curse, and there is found a priest to utter it, and a
people to receive it, and a man who in his temporal cir-
cumstances has been utterly ruined by it. (Hear, hear.)
I might go on further, but I forbear. Enough and
more than enough has been said to es'ablish my third pro-
position, namely, that as an act of cruelty the case of the
Madiai is in complete accordance with the uniform prac-
tices of the Church of Rome, whenever and wherever she
had the power honestly to work out her principles. (Ap-
plause.)
I shall not venture to make any application of these
facts, but perhaps the following extract from a letter
signed " Catholicus," which appeared in a local print of
the second of this month, may not be out of place :
" We have divine authority for the fact that the tree may be
known by its fruits. Of what nature, then, is the no-popery
tree, so zealously cultivated by a section of the clergy of the
Established Church, and of dissenting ministers of almost every
class? Such being its fruits, to me it seems beyond question
that the roots of that tree must be in hell—that its proprietor
is the devil—and that to those who are so indefatigable in its
culture, from 31`Neile—,,vehement applause, accompanied
with the Kentish fire, which was again and again renewed)—
downwards, or upwards, just as people niay think fit to adjust
the scale, the devil may well sr.y, patting them on the back
the while, • Well done, you good and faithful servants.' "
You will probably be anxious to hear what replies the
Church of Rome gives to tF.ese arguments and statements.
They may be divided into four classes : first, those who
assert that the times have changed, and that the Church
has necessarily changed with them, arid that we are not
now in the fourteenth century when darkness everywhere
prevailed ; and 'why refuse to the Church of Rome the
advance in intelligence which is given to everything else ?
We reply, her own acknowledged doctrine of infallibility,
and, consequently, of immutability, supplies the answer.
Any change would be an abandonment of her very fun-
damental article, the pivot on which the whole system
turns, and with which Popery must cease to exist. She
cannot change : other things may be reformed and re-
modelled, but that which is infallible as God himself, if it
change at all, can only change for the worse. She is,
therefore, in the word of God, destined to be destroyed
utterly and for ever.
Secondly, they may meet us with a denial that she
teaches what we aver; this is not only a frequent reply
but in accordance with her policy in other things; the
clergy tell her so, and she must believe them. They tell
her that flour and water by the simple repetition of a few
Latin words are transformed into the body and blood, the
soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and against
the continual testimony of all hersenses she believes them.
Now,uponthesame principle, when they tell her that t h e
is not the, and a n d is not and, against universal observa-
tion and the common acknowledgrnentof all, she is bound to
submit. Wecan onlygive what thechurch teaches according
to thetestimony of oursensesand the universal rendering of
language. We take the quotations from their own works,
we pledge ourselves not only to their substantial accuracy.
but in most instances to their Weral correctness as quota-
tions from those councils and authorities which in other
matters Romanists proclaim as infallible and unchangeable.
But then the priests instruct them to deny their truth,
and in opposition to our senses we must submit to the voice
of the church.
Their third reply is, that Protestants have persecuted as
well as they, and thus, with their usual tact, seek to turn
away the war from their own camp. Now we admit that
in some instances they have, and in such cases Protestants
have ever been the first to confess it and condemn it.
But is persecution, therefore, to be identified with Pro-
testantism ? As well rnieht you confound christianity

with treachery and covetousness, because there was _.
Judas among the twelve apostles. I have stated that
Popery requires its tretnbers to render absolute obedience
in all things to the church, and therefore the mass of those
whom she regards as martyrs were condemned and ex-
ecuted as traitors t 3 their own country in the service of
the Pope and the church. For examnle. Garnet. the

worshipped as a saint In the Romish calendar
they take the same view of the subject as we have
Will they venture to assert that the gen'us of Pro
tism is persecution ? Do we not at other times
them tell us the very reverse—it must be suppressed be-