The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-02-28 00:00:00

IF the " Bill to Repeal the present Oaths, and
to substitute a single Oath in their room," which
has been introduced into the House of Commons
by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, were considered simply
with reference to the previous efforts of its pro-
moter in the same direction, no language could
condemn too forcibly the pertinacity which would
force on a Legislature, nominally Christian, men
who believe Christianity to be an imposture. This
point has, however, been so often argued, that it
would be needless to go over the same ground
again, inasmuch as the Upper House of Parliament
has over and over declared, by increasing majo-
rities, that it will not admit to the privilege of
law-givers those who will not swear allegiance
" upon the true faith of a Christian." When,
however, it is considered that the sole object of
the Minister's pertinacity is gamily to enable Mr.
ROTHSCHILD to take his seat in Parliament for the
city of London, the enormity of which Lord JOHN
RussELL is guilty is the more glaring. It is now
some years since this paragon of self-sufficiency
was returned for the 'city of London, and it was
believed that his colleague, Mr. ROTHSCHILD, paid
'the very heavy expenses incurred, upon the under-
standing that the Minister should obtain an alter-
ation of the law, so that the hitherto excluded Jew
should be enabled to take his seat. Session after
session Lord JouN RUSSELL attempted to fulfil his
part of the bargain, but without success. He
could not influence the House of Lords, nor could
he persuade•any, but those who esteemed Chris-
tianity as 6f no value, that it was proper or expe-
dient to destroy the safeguard provided in the
Oath of Abjuration for the preservation of the
nominal Christian character of the Legislature.
It may be remarked that this was not a question
in which -the English Jews as a body took any
interest. It was •their pride that they owned no
country 'but 'their long-desired Jerusalem, pre-
serving their-nationality in their isolation; and it
is only to -gratify the personal ambition of Mr.
ROTHSCHILD that this vexed question has been
allowed year after year to disturb the public mind
with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause.
Repeated failures appear to have had no erect
in diverting Lord joirY RUSSELL from his unholy
design, but,' unsuccessful in his direct attempt, he
is now endeavouring to accomplish the same
objett.by a measure fraught with infinitely more
danger -to the constitnEon, and so mischievous in
its tendency, as to render it doubtful whether
even-the House of Cormons will endorse the 'bill
by voting for its second reading. No longer con-
fining' the alteration to the Jew, who has no faith
as a Christian, the bill proposes to abolish the oath
taken by the Romanist members, and thereby
to destroy the guarantee afforded by the clause in
the oath by which the Romanist swears, " Ldo
hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure auy
intention to subvert the -present Church establiih-
ment.as settled by law within this realm. And -I
do solemnly swear that never will exercise any
privilege-4o which I am, or may become, entitled
to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or
Protestant government •in the United Kingdom.
And .I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess,
testify, and declare, that .I.do make this declara-
tion, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordi-
nary sense of the words of this oath, without any
evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation what-
soever." This apparently iliain declaration has
not been fou:ed sufficient to restrain many of the
Irish Brigade, who compensate, for their utter
-want of gentlemanly feelings ,ty their zeal to the
;bidding of the Romish priests who sent them to
parliament, ; but,what must be the effect, when the
restraint is taken off, and every Romanist member
has full liberty, with the assistance of English
Radicals, who °wet allegiance to no religion, to
assail the Church and the liberties of Protestants in
every way which Jesuitical cunning can devise,
and malevolence execute ? This is.= innovation
far morelleadltinits consequences ,than even the
notorious ltomish aggression, whic.h.aroused the
keenest tfeelings of insulted Protestantism, and
shook the .I<ingdom to :its centre, though the agi-
tation failed of its intended effect. That, however,
was ,a blow :from without, which it was the duty of
our rulers to ,have resisted; while this is an insidi-
ous and treacherous attack from within, by those
who should be defenders of -the citadel. We have
before asserted,and every event has proved the truth
of the assertion, that, under the miserable plea of
civil and religious liberty, which is a cry that may
be made to suit any purpose, Lord JOHN Russzrz.
;has ever been the %Merest enemy of the Protes-
tant faith. He has fostered and encouraged every
aggressive step on the part of Rome, and, if any
lingering doubt can remain as to his traitorous
perfidy, the bill he has now proposed should open
the -eyes of his misguided adherents to the danger
of the precipice to which he is leading them.
The bill he has now proposed would, if the legis-
lature dared to pass it into a law, break down
the last barrier left by Protestant care in 1829 for
the preservation of the national religion, hold out
a premium to the Romish priests to swell their
majority in the House of' Commons, and leave no
check to the most unscrupulous assaults upon that
Church, which the QUEEN in her Coronation oath
and the Ministers in their oaths of office have
sworn to defend to the utmost of their power. It
is a wretched mockery of solemn obligations, a
blasphemous profanity, to impose any form of Oath
whatever, or deem it binding upon the conscience
of a legislator, when Ministers of State can be so
oblivious of their oaths as to propose such a Bill
for the sanction of Parliament, with the prospec-
tive necessity of having to advise HER MAJESTY
to commit the deliberate perjury of .giving it the
Royal Assent, though such assent could only be
obtained through the same Jesuitical craft which
advised King CHARLES I. that he had a public
conscience as well as a private conscience, in order
to induce him to consent to the murder of the Earl
of STRAFFORD. We cannot believe that either
House of Parliament will do such violence to their
own consciences as to give their sanction to a mea-
sure which stands out prominent in its infamy ;
and it is not unlikely that even its promoter, with
all his hardihood, is already appalled at his QWII