The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-06-07 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

of little consequence whiCh way it goes ; the corporation
are now powerless.

The " tyrant majority" have again exerted their
sacrilegious strength, and the House of Commons once
more preSents itself to the public as a body whose feel-
ings are opposed to truth and justice. Our readers will
at once perceive that our allusion is to the recent dis-
cussion on the tithe question as it regards Ireland. We
should be offering too studied an insult to the reflecting
and clear-sighted portion of this mighty land were we to
tell them that sound, argument, unsophisticated reason,
Unbounded talent, a possession of large property, and an
unflinching love of-justice, characterized those who were
in the minority of Friday night. It is useless any longer
to attempt to conceal from the eyes of the public a fact,
of which we have already in some measure apprised
them, and of the sad reality of which we have been long
convinced—lßELAND MUST BE RE-CONQUER.
ED ! It is useless to attempt mild measures when the
patient is in a state of maddened and desperate fury.
Ireland has too long occupied the time, abused the sym-
pathy, trifled with the feelings, and wasted the money,
of the people of England. John Bull is a very good
tempered and easy sort of man, but there is a point
beyond which he cannot and will not go. He will sacri-
fice his personal vanity, forego his private gratifications,
submit to personal indignities, brook the scorn and con-
tumely of one whom he had hitherto considered as a
friend—he will do all this and much more ;—but he will
not consent to see the church of his fathers trampled
under foot; he will not look calmly on whilethe enemies
of his religion slight his most sacred predilections and
do violence to his most matured, and cherished feelings.
An Englishman is not in the habit of suddenly acting
upon hasty impulse—lie loves not to charge his fellow-
creature with insincerity ; and it is with reludance he
can be brought to believe that this empire is threatened
with danger from the increasing aggressions -of popery:
He recollects that it was the firm and determined spirit
of Britons which crushed the hideous monster of papal
formation—he recollects that England has long been the
mistress of the sea, and that her constitution in its three
estates has long been the admiration of the political
world—he cannot therefore readily bring himself to
imagine that the blood which animated his forefathers
has disappeared from the land, and that the spirit by
which they were actuated has died an ignominious death,
leaving no traces of its existence, and that its place is
now occupied by a love of change, hatred of truth; and
an apathy to all that is honourable, good,.and just. Still
these things will be so, unless Englishmen arouse them-
selves in time to a due sense of the impending dangers
which threaten the peace and happiness of this once great
and religious land. It is no idle dream which tells of the
inroads that popish disaffection is making upon the
time-honoured protestantistn of the empire. Sound
protestant zeal has given way to apathy, and indifference
to all religions has been replaced by a frenzied devotion
to the most superstitious and degraded form in' which it
has ever been attempted to set christianity before the
world. He speaks not in the language of fabulous
story, who warns the people of these realms to be on
their guard, and never to lose sight of the important
fact, that all the glories which ever dawned upon
Britain have lent their cheering and exciting influence,
when the sun of protestantism has been in noon-day
ascendancy, and that the only periods when the destinies
of Britain have appeared as though a cloud overhung
them have been times when the nation
,has forgot to
honour GOD, and by some public act has withdrawn
from Him the acknowledgements of their dependance on
his power which were so pre-eminently His due !
Reflections such as those which precede must eventu-
ally suggest themselves to the minds of every one anxi-
ous for the continued happiness of his country, on seeing
that late on Friday evening, or rather early on Saturday
morning last, the House of Commons, by a majority of
39, virtually declared that POPERY should be the domi-
nant religion in Ireland—that the holy influences of bible
christianity should be replaced by the degrading mum-
meries of Rotnish idolatry—that the advice of the clergy-
man should give way to the tyranny of the priest—the
sanctity of worship be displaced for the foppery and parade
of priestcraft—the holy interchange of christian feeling
he bartered for the gross impurities of the confessional—
in one word, that Ireland now, and England eventually,
should again lend their aid to form the choicest flower in
the Pope's triple crown.
The scheme of church robbery, under the name of the
appropriation clause, has again received the sanction of
the lower (in more senses than one) branch of the legis-
lature. A majority of the representative house have
again set their hands to a dad of sacrilege and affixed
their seals to a measure having for its object the legal
butchery of protestants and the unrestrained supremacy
of the papists. It mattered not that Lord STANLEY
placed the whole matter in a clear and lucid view—it was
of small importance that Lord JOHN RUSSELL shrunk
from the encounter, like a miserable dog conscious of
having committed a fault, and writhing under merited
punishment—" We have the votes was the senseless
and infatuated cry of the band of treason-mongers and
sedition-vendors—and, though an angel from heaven had
intervened to stay them from their impious intent, it
would all have been of no avail. Truth, reason, national
hopes and national fears, honourable predilections and
justice, were on the one side ; falsehood, sophistry, con-
tinental jesuitry, Romish fraud, a base and dirty pelf,
and iniquity, were on the other; but, as is often the case
in this world, the latter cause triumphed. They who
bowed the knee to Baal were more in number than those
who loved righteousness, and the followers of Alammon
were mightier and more powerful than the vindicators of
Gon's honour. We repeat it : an impious faction have
again done violence to our religion and desecrated the
faith of our ancestors. A band of perjured papists, led
on by a perjured Irish rebel, have once more stifled the
voice of the representatives of England. We use these
words advisedly. We congratulate the people of Eng-
land on the fact that a majority of their representatives--
a clear majority of English members—voted against-this
impious scheme of sacrilege ; and are we, the pro-
testant people of protestant England—are we, the fa-
voured people of the most important section of the em-
pire—are we to be bullied and trampled upon by a low
set of Irish adventurers and needy Scotch waiters on
Providence ? Out upon the thought ! These things
must not, can not, shall not be.

The ministerial journals now threaten a dissolution.
We trust they will not be slow to give us another appeal
to the electoral constituency of the three kingdoms. We,
the conservatives, the protestants of England, are pre-
pared. We are prepared to show that there is a sym-
pathy on our parts, with. the nobleness of feeling, and
high christian purpose—which so pre-eminently distin•
guish the character of the nobles of the land. The peers
of the realm have ere this stood in the, gap between this
country and anarchical fury—they have staid and ener-
vated the upraised arm of rebellious treason--and they
will not be wanting, if duty calls upon them; to do so
again. But will our sense of justice allow them to fight
the battle single-handed —shall we throw all the brunt
Of the battle and all the toil of the encounter upon those
high spirited men, and not with them share alike the
danger and the glory ? No, no; we must and will have
a House of Commons which will remind us of the palmy
days of British history—which will call to our mind
eloquence in the senate, uprightness and honesty in the
statesman, and a total absence of mere factious oppo-
sition. The peers of England—a noble and generous
body—must be practically informed of the fact, that the
people of England are with them, and view with anxious
solicitude the result of their courageous stand against the
ill-conditioned violence of designing men ; who are, by
artifice, fraud, and perjury, enabled to write M.P. after
their names.

The decision to which the House of Commons came
on Saturday morning was arrived at, at the close of a
debate which had been protracted through three succes-
sive evenings. To describe the" speechea of Lord STAN-
LEY and Sir R. PEEL as master-pieces of eloquence and
sound reasoning would be to Convey but a very meagre
and slight idea of their effect and character. Would that
Soilic artist had been in the tion4e. on Wednes'day even-
ing,: Wtrat picture of htimiliatitai deraluti'ort and

conscious weakness, associated with guilty acqUiescence
in acknowledged criminality, did the countenance of
Lord JOHN RussELL present on that occasion ! There he
stood on the floor of the House of Commons professedly
the servant of the King—in reality the slave of the
traducer of the women of England. There he stood a
picture of dismay and imbecility. Scarcely had the
house recovered from the electric shock of Lord STAN-
LEY'S brilliant vindication of protestautsm and his bold
unmasking of the hideous features of popery, when there
stood, in a state of utter helplessness and pitiful insigni-
ficance, the Secretary of State for tke Home Depart-
ment, the manikin midwife of the reform bill. Miserable
too was the figure cut by poor Pontius Pilate MORPETH;
and as to knowledge—gauge RICE, we wishnothing more
than that his Cambridge constituents shad seen him
writhing under the masterly and searching sarcasm of
Sir R. PEEL. But we must return on sonic fware oc-
casion to this subject. In the mean while our consola-
tion is, that the House of Commons are not yet the
government of England. This land is threatened with
many and great dangers, and our hope is, humanly
speaking, iu the HOUSE OF LORDS.