The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-07-29 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARI7 PRESS.

There is an evil genius presiding over some men,
which fills their hearts with malignant purposes, yet de-
lights in frustrating their execution. The Irish agitator
is of the number of those spell-ridden unforttinates whom
the fiend that possesses them at once tempts and baffles.
He joined in the outcry of honester men, against what
they considered, but what he called, the anomalies and
abuses of the church of Ireland. Honest men regarded
the abuses of the church, its pluralities, inequalities, and
ill-administered patronage, moreover the extreme incon-
venience of the form in which subsistence was afforded
to the ministers, as real grounds on which those who
loved religion, revered the church, and clung to the es-
sence of a protestant establishment, were compelled by a
sense of duty to exert themselves for the removal of such
imperfections, that the church itself might thereby be
rendered more secure. Men who are not honest, who
despise religion, and hate the established church, have,
on the other hand, made use of the above-mentioned
vices or diseases of its condition as pretexts wherewith
to cover their designs against the existence of the church,
which in their account was the real grievance, and to for-
ward their machinations for its entire overthrow.
Mr. Daniel O'Connell is obe of these men, and the
foremost of their body. He commenced by swelling the
clamour for commutation of tithe, and a reform of church
abuses, disclaiming all hostile views and feelings against
the rights,l the property, or well-being of the protestant
establishment. But the hour he became conscious that
the spirit of reform had spread abroad, and that there was
a risk of the church being benefitted by the correction of
its irregularities,---from that moment .the inward devil
prompted him to betray the cloven foot, all mystery was
discarded, the cloak was flung aside, and the utter ex-
tinction of the church of Ireland burst from his lips and
pen in every instance as the genuine object of every pa-
triotic papist's desires, and the sole consummation by
which " justice" could be done, or peace vouchsafed to
Ireland. We have no scruple in declaring that the irre-
pressible frenzy with which this atrocious scheme has
been first divulged by O'Connell, and then insisted on
day after day, is regarded by us as the means, under
Providence, whereby the equilibrium of the English mind
has been restored upon this great question, and the im-
mediate salvation of the church of Ireland provided for.

This bad, and, in essentials, blunderindrnanceuvrer,
has addressed a third thing, which he calls a letter, to
which he prefixes the words, "Justice—justice to Ire-
land."

• The letter may be characterized in one short sentence,
viz., that from first to last it identifies "Justice to Ire-
land" with, not the reform of the protestant church, but
its abolition.

The letter is thrown into the shape of a personal con-
troversy with the Rev. Mr. Longfield, rector or vicar of
the parish wherein Mr. O'Connell has his dwelling—a
gentleman of whose history, character, and merits we are
absolutely ignorant, although we are too well acquainted
with those of the occupant of Derrynane to take as in
any wise approaching to truth the account of Mr. Long-
field which he would palm upon our credulity. Hard
words cost nothing to the Billingsgate beggarman, and,
when he has nothing else to beg, he always begs the
question. The church of Ireland is with him in this
case, as in every other, "an enormous nuisance"—then
to abate the nuisance it follows that we must get rid of
the church. He ascribes the whole expense of the mili
tart' establishment in Ireland to the fact of the protestant
church possessing that tithe and those glebes which were
instituted and set apart for Roman catholic worship and
for its ministers. We have already, and not long ago,
corrected this gross misrepresentation. The tittles,
glebes, &c., according to the agitator's own theory,
adopted and re-echoed by his mean whig vassals—those
tithes, we say, on his own showing, belong to the state.
They were therefore naturally enough set apart for popish
ministers, when popery was the religion of the state ;
but now, and for three centuries that protestantism has
been the religion of the state, pari ratione, tithe and
glebe have followed the establishment. Let us hear this
mountebank a little further. He makes it an outrageous
grievance, that he, a Romanist, should have to pay tithe
to the protestant clergyman, who never " did him any
good." (What good the priest has ever done him might
be made a question.) But the answer to all this knavish
nonsense is, that Mr. Daniel O'Connell must be either
landlord or tenant (he may indeed be, and we have heard
is, both.) If he be lord of the fee, he himself or his an-
cestor must have bought the land, subject to the preced-
ing claim of the clergy. If, he have it on lease only, he
pays the less rent, because of the concurrent right of the
church. He comes forth now, moreover, with a new pre-
tension, which we marvel that he has contrived to smother
so long. One of the conditions which he proposes in
this letter, as indispensable towards the grant of " justice 1
to Ireland," is actually that the glebes of the protestant
clergy shall be turned over to the popish priests, and
every protestant' minister is held up as a hateful tyrant
and oppressor, a proper victim of popular vengeance, who
dares to file a bill against Mr. Daniel O'Connell ; being
the only means which the said Daniel has left him for the
recovery of four years' arrear of tithe!
There is more truth and more common sense in one
page of our correspondent Eneas Macdonnell than in all
that,such a threadbare hypocrite as this could prepare for
publication in a twelvemonth.—Times.

Our parliamentary columns will show that the legisla-
ture was occupied last night upon topics of the most vital
interest.
In the House of Lords the Irish tithe bill was consi-
dered in committee. The principle had been already
sanctioned.

But the great struggle of the night was on the appropri-
ation clauses. Exhausted as this subject might be sup-
posed to have been, the masterly speech of Lord Lynd-
hurst placed it, if not in a new, in a stronger light than
ever. He tore to pieces the flimsy pretext of a surplus,
which he proved, by irrefragable arguments and the ir-
restible demonstration of figures, to be a mere chimera,
an imagination, existing only in the minds of those who
were heated with animosity against the church. It is
impossible, with so many demands upon our columns, to
attempt an epitome of this fine effort; but our parlia-
mentary report will give an idea of its eloquence and vi-
gour, and the result of the division will show that its
eloquence was not thrown away. It was in vain that,
Lord Melbourne threatened the house with the abandon-
ment of the bill if divested of the appropriation clau'ses,
adding, however, (by way of consolation, we suppose,)
that even if he should be deprived of his clauses, he would
take care not to be deprived of his place. As we stated
already, the threat was employed in vain. The clauses
were lost—the bill is probably lost; but the minister, as
he declared, will still occupy his situation. There was
something exceedingly characteristic in this declaration
of wbig tenacity. It was a consolation to the noble pre-
mier to think that, though he might lose his favourite
clauses, and be deprived of his favourite measure, he
would as soon think of jumping out of his skin as out of
office. But though this may be a consolation to the no-
ble premier himself, will it be so to the public ?—Morn-
ing Herald.

-It will be seen from our report of the proceedings in
the House of Commons, that the whigs and radicals have
contrived to patch up their differences for the present, in
the matter of the bills affecting the established church.
The differences were compromised thus :—Lord John
Russell consented to give up two of the hills, upon which
Mr. Hume and his followers consented to let the minis-
try live a little longer, by allowing to carry the one al-
ready in progress. How his lordship, or any member of
the administration, can talk of independence after this we
are at a loss to conceive, and shall be somewhat curious
to notice. The radicals made no secret of their power,
and, though they accepted of his lordship's submission,
we believe-he will alloW himself that they did so with a
very bad grace. However, us we stated before, they are
reconciled for the present.—Morning Herald.