The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-23 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

EN' Zthrrpool ..)talfclarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 23, 1841

The Liverpool Journal, in its number of Saturday,
enters a protest against what it anticipates as the plan
of the Education Committee of the Council with re-
spect to the Corporation Schools ; but it is unable to
raise any new objection, or add any novel argument to

that series with which the public is well acquainted as
flowing from the theological school of Romanism. It

enters its protest, we presume, as the organ of the
Church of Rome in this quarter, and in a strain which
would lead us to surmise that the document was draWn
up by a gownsmar, of the sacred college ; but, we re-
peat, it leaves the question just where it found it. He
informs us of the Roman Catholic doctrine on the sub-
ject; we knew it already

He calls upon us to recog-
nise that doctrine; we affirm. that we are not bound to

do so to the extent he requires.
In a country which has a Church Establishment, a
dissenter from its worship has no right to ask that his
religion shall be taught, or that its principles shall be
favoured by the State. There is no one section of our
numerous forms of dissent which makes such a de-

mand, saving. and excepting that which of all others
has the least right to make it; namely, that—for we
class it under the head of dissent—that of the profess-

ors of Romanism

That the State has made some compliandes in this

respect—compliances that 'may seem to warrant the
demand of more—we admit; but these compliances
have never met with the general sanction of the na-

tion; they have been over and over again protested
against; they form a subject of earnest controversy at
this moment ; and, upon the whole, they constitute no
precedent nor authority which can compel us to carry
out the pfinciple or extend the rule to new cases. The
Maynooth grant has not yet been cancelled; but sure
we are of this, that the modest request made the other
day by the Roman Catholic bishops to Earl de Grey in
Dublin, that he would support their memorial to have
that grant doubled, or greatly increased in amount,
will not be complied with.
But the demand of the Roman Catholics in Liver-

pool, it will be said, is not to have their religion made
a subject of instruction in the municipal institutions of
the town, but simply that a well-known doctrine of
their church may be respected therein, and that the
Bible may not be opened as a class-book, or perused at
all, by the children of their communion. '_►'his is what
they ask; and upon this the question arises, have they
any right to make such a demand, or is there intole-
rance, bigotry, or anything politically inexpedient, or
improper, in refusing to comply with it ?
Roman Catholics must be quite aware of their posi-
tion as a dissenting body, and as one small in number
as compared with the great bulk of the population who
belong to the Established Church. Politically, there-
fore, they have no right to come forward, and say, you
must form your system of municipal or national in-
struction
so as to agree with our peculiar tenets; they
have, we shall say, no " right" to claim more than
perfect liberty of conscience, and an unfettered discre-
tion to resist, or not',-to such public schools as the
State, or its municipal institutions may provide, as they
please. If they appear to solicit anything of this sort,
they can only come as men who ask a favour--as men
who claim a peculiar indulgence ; and the force of their
application must depend altogether on the reasonable-
ness and justice of this request. "We pray," say
they, "to supersede the Bible, so far as our children
are concerned,—and for these two principal reasons :

first, because we hold that there is an infallible inter-
position of Scripture which is of as much importance
as the Scripture itself; and secondly, because we do
not esteem your version of the Bible to be a correct
one. This is the ground of our objection ; and we
pray you to give it consideration." Such is the sub-
stance of the long article which appeared in the Jour-
nal • but we are at a loss to see how the writer fortifies
his case by entering into these particulars. He is ad-
dressing himself, it should be remembered, to members

of the Established Church, and to Protestants gene-

rally, and to men therefore who reject the supposed

equality of any human authority with that of Holy

Writ as a most dangerous and blasphemous error, and
who have as good reason to be satisfied with regard to

the almost faultless perfection of our authorised version
of the Bible, as they have as to any other well autho-

rised and established fact whatever. Does our con_

temporary call then upon such men to stultify them_
selves,—to deny their faith,—and set their seal to the

fabulous pretences of Romanism ? Does he expect

them to say, we put aside the Bible, because Roman
Catholic priests seek to have their word regarded as

that of God, and claim a right to close its pages against

all who presume to question their audacious assump-
tion; and also, because these same infallible priests a 1•

lege that our Bible is an incorrect translation, notwith-
standing all the incontestible and overwhelming evi-
dence which we possess to the contrary ? Can any

affirm this monstrosity, or do an act which would even

rsinotely imply their asent to it ?

We say then that

In consequence of the unexpected demand for copies of the
STANDARD containing the Rev. Hugh M'Neile's Lecture
on the life of Dr. Franklin, we have had an extra issue of
the paper, a few copies of which still remain on sale. We
believe this is the only correct report of the splendid
oration delivered by the reverend gentleman, as the
pamphlet is announced to contain merely the " original
notes ;" and. it is well known that the best specimens of
Mr. M'Neile's oratory are the extemporaneous effusions
by which he thrills his audience, and which are preserved
in the STANDARD of Friday.
The party who favoured us with an advertisement without a
cash remittance, from Dumfries, may be far north, but we
hail from Jahn o'Groat's house.
We will hand the communication signed " W. T." to Mr.
Brindley, who will make the best use of the facts adduced.
In the letter of " P. S. J." in the STANDARD of Friday last,
on the architecture of Great George-street Chapel, the
word printed " En style" should have been " Eustyle."
It is contrary to our practice to insert reviews of any pub-
lication unless the work be forwarded to us.
We shall make some further inquiries as to the communica-
tion from a Student in Trinity College, Dublin, and in the
meantime refer him to a letter in another column.

the Journal has not • mended the case of his party

entering into these grounds of their objection to t
reformed or reztored schools ; he makes it worse

puts it upon every Protestant to stand by his profe
sion, and require the unreserved use of the Bible as

necessary evidence that he does not in any degree,

in any particular, recede from it; be makes it app
that if they relax from their rule, it will be a prod
tion that Roman Catholic priests have some found

for what they allege.

The explanation Of our Conte

porary is therefore unfortunate; it is, in fact, conde:
natory. As well might Roman Catholics say, we d
believe and reject the Bible as a divine revelation,
even as a good book, and therefore we must beg of y
not to teach it to our children. Could the Educati
Committee, in that case, pay the least attention to th
remonstrance,? Could they agree to cast such d
honour on the word of God ? Impossible

it wo u

only tend to confirm them in their resolution, if the
had before pny doubt on the subject, to unfurl ti:
standard of divine truth in all their establishment:
and maintain it against all gainsayers.

The magnitude of the blessing which has been con
ferred upon the kingdom by the late change which ha
taken place in the administration, cannot be so easil;
estimated by a constant residence in. England, as h
one who sojourns in a part of the empire where th
complexion of everything that belongs to social hap
piness is deeply and immediately reflected by the cha
racter of the executive. It is an easy matter to goveri
those who are themselves willing to be governed. If
ordinary times, what more easy than to conduct tip
office of the Home Department with reference to till
mere preservation of peace and order within the con.
fines of Great Britain ? Englishmen are then their

is unfortunately the case, in a very great degree, with
Ireland; and hence we have been led to watch with so
much anxiety the effects, in that country, of the late

important transfer of power from Radical to Conserva-
tive keeping. The Whigs used to tell us, in their day,
of the marvellous influence of their government in
producing tranquillity; but their proofs were not by
any means satisfactory. The police returns showed a
positive and most serious augmentation of every species
of criminal offence; Tipperary was as fruitful as ever
in homicides ; and through

- Leinster, Ulster, Munster,
Captain Rock was still the boy to-
- snake the fun stir.

Nor was this all ; political agitation never was more
rife L—never so exacting. The agitators had only one
more demand to make, and they made it; they now
talked pretty freely of having the country all to them-
selves. Such was the state of Ireland under the
Whigs, whilst they were most complacently telling of
what great things they had effected. Facts, however,
are stubborn things; and not all the hardihood of
Whig assertion, nor all its powers of face, could get
over these. They had one answer for all attacks—the
same sponge to wipe out all reproaches—namely, that
if there were some evils under their popular, liberal,
fostering, and most parental regime, they were inevi-
table; but if there were such under their administra-
tion, what must he expected under the accession of a
party so fearfully obnoxious as the Tories ? It was awful
to contemplate, they said, what might happen in the
eventuation of anything so calamitous. Such was the re-
ply which was to silence all objections, whilst, to give it
the greater effect, the mighty " Daniel" played terma-
gant, and we may shortly, and yet emphatically say,
did his utmost to " keep out the Tories." • Well, the
Tories came in in spite of all this ; the argument ad
terrorem failed, and some little time has now elapsed
since the Tories have been in and the Whigs out; and

it is not altogether premature to " take stock," or t

refer to the books, arid see in what way our balances
stand. With reference to crime, we find two murders,
but one certainly which we are obliged to connect with
the Ribbon or RDckite system, and from the commis-
sion of which we are bound' to admit that that most
detestable conspiracy has not yet been broken up. The

Conservative ministry cannot by any means pretend to
have subdued this hydra ; but in this respect, if they
have gained nothing, neither have they lost. The
Whigs did not subdue it during a long ten years of
office, with every opportunity of tracing his lair, and
destroying the monster in his den ; nay, never was he
more rampant, or more the terror of an awe-struck
world, than just during the mild sway of Lord Nor-
manby, and the other favourites of her Majesty's chief
agitator in those parts. On the score of tranquillity
generally, however, it appears that Ireland is not less,
if she is not a great deal more at rest, under her new
than she was under her late government. The healthy
tone of feeling which has been cotmnunicated to the
friends of good order since the new authorities entered

upon their functions, is pregnant evidence on this
head ; it is the strongest token of an improvement; it
is a great improvement in itself. But the grand tri-
umph of the Conservative minister consists in this.
that his official career, short as it is, furnishes a living
contradiction to all the empty boastings, threatenings,

prophecies, and lies, so long and so profusely poured
out by his opponents. The spell is broken—the charm
is dissolved—even the name of " Daniel O'Connell"

cannot now raise an insurrection. The masses endure

the new authorities with the most surprising patience;
some of old llan's " joints" have already begun to
play the courtier ; there have been several remarkable
defections from his principles ; the spirit of the Vicar
of Bray has confessedly taken possession of a number
of his ecclesiastical corps, and foul scurrility has ceased
to flow even from his own tongue with its wonted ala-
crity. The Conservatives reign, and yet the threat-
ened storm does not rise.

Last week the new government obtained a signal
attestation to the truth of what we represent, at Earl
de Grey's first levee, which was, it is said, the most
numerously and respectably attended of any ever held
in Ireland before or subsequently to the 20th August,
1821, when his late Majesty George the Fourth held a
royal levee in Dublin. On this occasion the arch
demagogue seems to have been ridden by his evil
genius ; and the opportunity which he looked to as
that which should greatly gratify his own vanity, and
exalt him in the eyes of his deluded followers, proved
to be the source of his most distressful mortification.
He had to endure the painful spectacle of her Majes-
ty's Conservative representative being honoured in
the most signal manner by the homage of all the most
distinguished and esteemed persons in the country,
and to feel in his own person the ludicrous contrast
which he exhibited, notwithstanding his official robes,
when, as if it was manifest to all, he was making an

attempt to ascertain what figure he, as represeutative
of the disaffected, should make in comparison with the
viceroy himself. This failure afforded the utmost
merriment to all his foes. So unnerved was he by the
expression which he observed on every countenance,
that lie completely forgot his part as courtier—attempt-
ed to enter the presence chamber with his hat on—
committed a positive breach of etiquette by having his
sword-bearer to precede him—and after meeting with
a frigid, nay, freezing reception, went off the stage
with awkward exit, amid the jeers and titters of all
beholders.

Alas' for the great three-tailed bashaw, so long the
terror of all Whigs, and the hard task-master of their
obsequious cabinet ! 'Behold him dressed up in a Lord
Mayor's suit, only to make his downfall the more con-

spicuous ! Ay, wrap him up in a scarlet cloak, (his
church is partial to the colour,) and put a cocked hat

on his head; yea, put a gold chain round him, and
adorn him with pins, buckles, and other ornaments;
and then let him

"Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,
To see the old woman—.
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,--"
And then—we may as well finish it--
" We'll have plenty of music wherever she goes."
Do all this, we say, yet you cannot make a " silk purse
of a sow's ear ;" the interior, the essential rottenness

will remain; and it wants but a puff of air to strip the

own peace-preservers. They are satisfied with their
institutions; they have no desire to change them; and
the great bulk of the people would be little affected by
a change of ministers of any ordidary character. But

all this is different in a country or in a part of the
kingdom where the internal disposition to peaceable
government is wanting; where discontent prevails;
and where, so far from an approval of the existing or-
der of things, there is a constant and very general de-
sire for its subversion. Here everything depends on
the hand that rules; all ranks of the people are in-
stantly and most sensibly affected by the character of
the living authority; and their very pulse moves in
unison with his. It will be readily conceded that such