The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-05 00:00:00

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would be likely to fiend forth as ernlable,gentle, tolerant, And
benignant, priesthood, for previous to this they came from
the continent, and in danger of being infected with conti-
nental principles which were not good,- What, I again ask,
has been the result ? . We know that the men who have issued
from that college have been the most factious, turbulent,
and disaffected, and greatest opponents to the church and
state, that Ireland has ever seen. (Cheers.) We were lately
told by one of those priests that there was not a priest in
Ireland who was not ready to put himself at the head of the
population in case certain measures of which they disapproved
passed the imperial legislature. (Hear.) Our next act was
the fatal act of 1829, the act commonly called the Roman
Catholic Emancipation Bill. When that act was passed, and
when in an evil hour his majesty was advised most reluctantly
to subscribe the royal sign manual to it, the wooden horse
was admitted within the walls of our Troy—that horse which
is now pouring forth its armed men, filled with fury and
determination in their hearts against everything that bears the
name of Protestant. (Hear.) And when, in addition to
these three national sins, the establishment of popery in
Canada, the endowment of popery at home, and the
passing of the " relief bill, we, further refer to the co-
lony. of Newfoundland. where the Roman Catholics
have a majority in the House of Assembly, and where
a large and valuable grant of land has been lately made to
them for the purpose of building a Roman Catholic Cathe-
dral and palaces for their bishops, enough is said to shew
that the popish party in their ambition of supremacy, are
endangering our most sacred institutions, and shaking the
pillars of the state ;.and when, in addition to these, we men-
tion the. National Board of Education in Ireland, we have
our national sins before us in most formidable array. (Hear,
hear!) I would advise every individual around me to make
himself acquainted with an admirable tract written by Dr.
Croly, in which he shows in a brief, powerful, and com-
prehensive way, how while protestantism waspthe policy of
England, she was triumphant at home and abroad, and that
whenever the slightest encouragement was given to popery,
she sunk and withered among the nations. (Hear.) I see
here the worthy secretary of the Liverpool Protestant Asso-
ciation,
and I know how happy he will be to furnish you
with copies of it. There you will see our good Protestant
Queen Elizabeth, during her reign, raising the dignity of the
English nation to the highest pitch abroad, enabled to repress
all seditions and treasons at home. and to cause her name to
be feared throughout the world; there you will see James
the First ascend the throne, and as his policy was Protestant,
the same results followed. When his son Charles the First
came to the throne, we do not see that he actually took into
his councils Roman Catholics—but at all events he married
the Popish Infanta of Spain, and what disastrous results fol-
lowed. Again ; with Cromwell ; his policy was Protestant, .
and in consequence of it he almost realised his splendid
boast, that he would make the name of Englishman as
much dreaded abroad as that of ancient Rome was. Charles
the Second was a concealed Roman Catholic, and it was in
his reign that God visited the capital with two of the most
fearful visitations with which any city was ever visited—the
plague and the great fire. We know the respective hiStories
of James the Second'atid of William the Third, of glorious,
pious, and immortal memory. (Loud cheers.) And when
you read the history or our country `'since this sketch, and
since 1829, you will see the dangers in the present day are
but the beginning of the troubles which I believe will never
pass away till we have repented of these national sins, till we
have ceased to endow the Church of Rome at home, and in
our colonies abroad ; till we have obtained the withdrawal of
of the grant to Maynooth, TILL WE HAVE REPEALED THE
ROMAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION BILL, and consigned
to its merited destruction, THE NATIONAL BOARD OF EDU-
CATION IN IRELAND. (Hear.) To conclude. I will relate
an anecdote of a great general of our country in illustration
of our own duty at the present crisis. When once pressed,
with a little band of men, by a formidable enemy, he was
counselled to retreat and retire lest discomfiture should be
the consequence, just as many faint-hearted persons tell us
to retire. " Sound to the charge," said he, " I will advance ;
cause.is good, my sword is good, and I have every con-
fidence in th bravery of my followers, and with the blessing
of God we will conquer." Then, added he, " with regard to
enemy, we will kill some, of some we will snake prison-
ers, and some will run away." It is precisely in this
spirit we would act ; this is the example we would follow ;
with Christian protestantism inscribed upon our banners, and
the sword of the spirit in our hands. which is the word of
God, some of our enemies we will kill—with kindness, of
some we will make prisoners—prisoners of hope, and if there
be any that run away from us, we will with all diligence
pursue them as they fly, and say—" turn ye, turn ye, why
will ye die?" The rev. gentleman then resumed his seat
amidst loud cheers.

The Ch AIRMAI4 put the resolution, and declared it to have
been carried. _ _ _

Dr. ORPEN, in moving the next resolution, snid, that on
the great question which had brought the meeting together,
,lay men felt as much interest as the ministers of the church,
because they were convinced that popery was the worst spe-
cies of idolatry that bad ever existed in the world. (Hear.)
The Rev. HUGH M'NIELE on rising to second the resolu-
tion was received with great applause. He said—l have been
invited to second this resolution ; and in doing so, it may
be profitable to call the attention to what some of our enemies
may allege to be an inconsistency in the representations that
have already been made. (Hear.) You have heard the
Romish system denounced idolatrous, superstitious, arrogant.
blasphemous. Under some of these heads you have had
statement made calculated to make you think and feel that it
was morally impossible that such a system should pass current
amongst men, or should increase under any circumstances
among reasonable beings. Yet in the very same speech, you
heard it alleged that nothing but a Protestant establishment
by authority can prevent that system from spreading in every
country. How is this? If it he so vile, if it be so
abominable, if it' deserves all the epithets given to it in that •
speech, supported as they were by the arguments you have
beard, bow is it that it should require a Protestant establish-
ment by authority to prevent its increase among reasonable
beings ? Now, this is one of the ways in which our enemies
place the matter. They say if the Romanist system be so
vile as you think it, why oppose it; leave it alone, it cannot
succeed; on the contrary, if, as you admit, it has succeeded,
if it does,succeed, if as you say it has increased in England,
if its places' of worship from thirty have become more than
five hundred, and fifty, then it cannot be the vile thing that
you describe it. Here is one of the dilemmas in whicii they
think they entangle the advocates of Protestantism. I have
now given utterance to one of the favourite arguments of the
liberals. I like exceedingly to enter at once into our enemy's
strongholds, because I feel our case is so strong as to be able
to overturn them ; I never like begging any question, but I
like proving our point. (Hear, hear 7) lam asked, then,
by these gentlemen, " Why is it that a system so vile makes
such progress, and requires such efforts to resist it?" The
answer is brief : the proof of it may not be quite so brief,
but the answer is this—the world is fallen. The world is
fallen ! The application of the answer 'I will now spew as
briefly es I can. It requires, no cultivation to produce in the
natural soil of this world weeds of every description. Docks,
thistles, nettles, and other vegetable vilenesses flourish in
the soil of a fallen world if that soil be let alone ; but it
requires constant care and patient toil to produce good wheat
in that soil • it requires the constant use of the eradicating
hoe, the plough, or the spade to guard against the constant
• growth of tares, and to produce that salutary and nutritious
food of man. (Hear, hear,) The soil of the earth we tread
upon is in this respect an apt emblem of the character of
those who tread it. The human mind is a fallen soil, It
requires no cultivation to produce pride, malice, covetousness,
idolatry, blasphemy, envy, hatred, perjury., and all un-
charitableness; these are the docks, these are the nettles,
these the vegetable vilenesses ; leave man alone, and these
are the bad produce, the poisonous luxuriance of every com-
munity. (Cheers.) These are the very features you have
heard stamped upon the Popish system, these are the natural
produce of fallen man's heart. (Hear.) It requires no
cultivation to give increase to Popery. (Cheers.) Leave
man alone, and you will have it in abundance, just as if you
leave the natural soil alone, you will have weeds in abun-
dance. (Hear, hear.) But it requires constant care, vigilant
efforts, and unwearied toil to produce truth and holiness and
love—that is Scriptural Protestantism as my rev. friend has
expressed it. Scriptural Protestantism my friends, is the result
of pains-taking discipline, the result of prayer and preaching,
and all the legitimate means used by those to whom the Scriptu-
ral trust has been committed—private means by private men,
and public means by public men—and the result of ill
this, carefully followed out, and constantly exhibited, is
scriptural protestantism. (Cheers.) Here there is the rea-
son why a system, although verily as evil as my reverend
friend has described it, does, nevertheless, make progress in
this world unless checked, as he has shown it is in Holland,
in Germany, in Sweden, and thanks be to God in England.
(Cheers.) If the reformers of the sixteenth century had let
England alone, if they had taken the advice now 'given to
us by our liberal friends who say, " for mercy's sake do not
agitate this question among the people, be quiet, leave the
thing alone, leave England alone, for we are doing very well ;
leave protestantisin to itself, it will increase, for it is the
truth, leave the reformation to itself, and do not agitate this
matter"—how, I say, if the reformers of the sixteenth cen-
tury bad left England to itself, she would have remained
overgrown by the weeds, the poisonous weeds of the middle
ages. (Cheers.) If the reformers of the second and third
centuries liad left the Roman empire to itself, it would not
have been weiged down under the polytheism of paganism.
(Hear, hear.) If the reformers of the first century, and the
great reformer, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, had left
Judaism to itself, it would have remained infected with the
traditions of men, arid the pharasaical performances which
made void the commandments of God. (Hear, hear, hear.)
If the ancient Prophets had let their nation alone, it would
have followed the worship of Baal, and polluted the land
with idols. If Moses had left his brethren atones they would
have been content with their slavery—with the meats and
onions and flesh-pots of Egypt—and have been content to
spend their lives to the death in bondage. (Hear, hear.)
Nay, if Almighty God had left the world alone, even after
the solemn warning of the deluge, it would have turned into
a second and a worse hell, where all the fierce mental pas-
sions of malignant demonism would have been added to the
carnal vileness of unrestrained brutality. (Cheers.) But
God in mercy protested against the downward career of our
species, and calling to himself a man from Mesopotamia
made him and his family witnesses against the flow of cor-
ruption of the human species, getting up a standard for truth
in the world. (Hear.) Moses protested and rescued his
brethren from the slavery of Egypt ; the priests protested
and caused the images of Baal to be broken down in the land,
from Dan to Beersheba, and our Saviour and the apostles,
protested and put to shaani the pharisees. The first re-
formers in the infant chureh of Christ protested, they stood
to their protest-whitst ralt to the lionsiti the.Romart Amphi-
theatre, and the blood of these martyrs proved the seed of
Christ's church. (Loud applause.) Our reformers of the
sixteenth century protested, and from the embers of the
fires that consumed their perishing bodies there arose
a moral, an imperishable flame, which has kindled and burnt
in England ever since, in the light of which the British con-
stitution, with the Bible freely circulated, and all the holy
and blessed consequences in public, private, and domestic
life, all the endearments connected with a national establish-
ment, all the softness and sweetness of retiring love which
glows like so many gentle and benignant flowers—all these
fill the land with fragrance, and have sent up sweet incense
to God—all, I say, have been warmed by the flame that
burst from the expiring martyrs. (Cheers.) The flame that
was lighted under the walls of Oxford, the martyrs declared
never would be put out, and it never has. (Loud cheers.)
Thanks be to God we are witnesses this night that it has
not, and that it cannot be put out. (Renewed cheers.) But
there has been mischief done, although the light has not been
put out. (Hear, hear.) I agree with Daniel O'Connel (hisses)
in these words, ." lam a repealer." (Laughter.) He says,
" Hurrah for old Ireland, 1 am a repealer ;" so say I ; and
there will never be real justice for Ireland till .she has our
repeal, (Cheers. What is it? lam a repealer, sir; and I
believe that the worst enemies of the Irish population have
bad their powers enlarged, and their machinations increased,
by the operation of the emancipation bill, falsely so called,
in such a way as that they are rivetting the fetters of
mental and bodily slavery upon that population; and what-
ever name they may give it, under whatever specious form they
may present it to win the good opinion of the unsuspecting'
English, it is a fact that the bondage of Romanism is made
more intolerable since the passing of that act ; the difficulty
of the people to get the Holy Scriptures, the bars against
hearing the gospel, the almost impossibility of hearing and
reading the glad tidings of salvation in their own houses,
which might have been done before that measure, and now it
cannot be done, and the only way to restrain the resisting
power, the only way to put the people in a safe condition for
the liberty in which we can have free course to preach the
gospel in that country, without risk to the people themselves
as well as to the preacher. is again to put Romanism where
she must always be, unless she is at the top—if she is not to
be dominant she must be coerced. The Romish system will
not bear parallelism. Parallels suppose equality ; Romanism
rejects equality. Romanism claims supremacy ; parallelism
is impossible. If the system could be really parallel with
British enjoyments, if thoitOadsh system admitted of British